The Oscars' rebrand, Uber’s ‘yoga babble’ earnings call, and Friend of Pivot Andrew Ross Sorkin calls Instagram the 'Super App'

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

This is Kara Swisher.

And this is Scott Galloway.

Scott, did you watch the Oscars?

You know, I didn't.

Well, I sort of did.

I watched, I've turned into one of these millennials.

I watched the four-minute recaps, and then I like it.

I watched the six-minute recap.

But I heard that they actually hit a low point where it took them 19 minutes to do three awards.

So I did.

I didn't watch it at all.

I watch it in pieces, too.

I did have a really nice moment, though.

I was flying last sun.

I fly on Sunday nights.

And I watched, I downloaded the movie Parasite onto my phone.

I can't download it onto my computer because Apple has a Monopoly, but it's made it really easy on my phone, such that I'll buy more high-margin products.

But anyways, it's a totally different talk show.

And I finished that show, and I thought that

ultimate white guy flick, 1917, was going to win.

Motion pictures have come under warranted criticism that it's essentially, you know, it's always about white redemption.

And the British and the Americans beating the Germans, I think, is somehow the ultimate white on white redemption.

Yes, indeed.

And it's also telling the same story in a new way.

Like,

let's talk about the amazing story of Judy Garland.

Jesus Christ.

If there was CeeDee Romsto,

I would buy that film just to take it home and erase it.

But anyways,

and then I watched Parasite, and that movie ended, and

I thought that movie deserves best picture.

So I got off the plane.

Me too.

I got off the plane, and I got the CNN alert.

I'll tell you the motion picture academy or whatever they call themselves.

Yeah.

Huge brand move last night.

I thought so too.

Listen, I watched it the night before, of all things.

I hadn't watched it.

And it seems scary, like get out.

And I didn't really, I liked get out, but I didn't like the feeling I had after it.

And so I watched it.

We watched it the night before.

And I got to tell you, blown away by that movie.

Blown away.

And then when it won, it was great.

And the guy who was, I'm going to mispronounce his name, but he gave a speech in Korean, gave such a classy speech.

Everyone else, I was like, literally, if you possibly are going to win an Academy Award, you should have a speech prepared, you idiots.

Everyone had like kind of colladish speeches, essentially,

including Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellwinger.

I just wasn't impressed by their speeches.

But he had a beautiful, funny speech, and he actually paid tribute to all the white guy directors, just so you know.

Like, hey, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino sitting there who he beat.

And so

that's a hell of a move.

And you're right, it was a brand move.

Talk about the brand move part of it, because I was like, this is the first international film to win Best Picture in, I think, 92 years.

It also won Best International Film.

It won Best Screenplay.

Talk about the brand play, because I agree.

I thought, well, finally, they're moving into the future, essentially.

This was just,

I mean,

I want to say it was cooked, but they couldn't have been any smarter in terms of

when you think about a brand, you think about, you go through, I always ask the kids, when I say the kids, the students, to go through and do an audit of find two or three people that are close to them and ask to say, okay, what are my strengths?

Give me two or three strengths.

I made two or three weaknesses.

And then the first thing you need to do is assess whether any of those weaknesses are getting in the way of your life.

You're too emotional or you struggle with anger, you struggle with substances, or you're painfully shy.

You know, what are the things getting in the way of your professional advancement?

And

they're never going to be assets for you, but the key is to dial them down or create some sort of behavior modification such that you can get back to C-level, and they don't get in the way of things.

And the motion picture or the academy

of motion picture and sciences, or whatever it's called, it had really gotten to a point where they had become a vehicle for white people giving other white people awards.

And there's huge economic implications because the movie that wins Best Picture gets another $30 to $150 million.

And it was as if they had almost gotten to the point where there was nothing they could do about it because it goes back to this notion that loyalty is a function of intimacy and contact.

And all of these people have contact with each other and they relate to their own stories.

They relate to, I mean, I didn't even see the movie The Green Mile or whatever it was called, The Green, the Without.

But I saw it.

I knew it was.

I'm like, let me get it.

I didn't either.

I won't watch it.

They typecast a black guy as a genius and being of incredible moral character.

They create an unattainable bar for any black person.

And then it's some Joey Bagadonits white guy that it's politically correct to show him as an asshole.

And then by the end of the movie, he finds reasons to overcome his innate racism.

I mean, you just know that's what the movie is, and that's how Hollywood sees themselves.

It's always about white redemption.

It's always about dudes.

And it gotten to a point where they were in such an echo chamber they couldn't bust out.

And this was...

And the other thing about movies, it's storytelling, that someone at the Academy Awards said that it just really struck me is that their real objective, the way they make themselves bigger than themselves, is they're arguably the most effective tool in the history of mankind to create more empathy.

And that is you have an opportunity through great storytelling and visuals to go somewhere and be somewhere else and

be someone else and really understand what it's like to walk in their shoes.

And I'll tell you,

I love the fact that

it was actually the best movie, by the way, FYI.

Income inequality, the way it didn't make rich,

it made rich people a bit cartoonish, but it didn't make them evil.

It didn't make them like the bad guys.

Well, except for one point.

At one point with the flood, you're like, oh, God, geez.

Yeah, that was rough.

But I'm saying

they were kind of fatuous is what they were.

Not evil, but just like out.

They were in their bubble of comfort.

And that house was perfect in that regard.

And that was all on a soundstage, which is amazing.

What I thought was really interesting about this movie was the visuals, which you don't even realize, of movement from upstairs to downstairs and then further downstairs.

And the poor people.

Oh, that's a great observation.

the poor people fighting against each other you know what i mean like that that you punch down you don't punch up to get out of the downstairs

right exactly and it just keeps going down and one of the things that besides that being so brilliant in that regard and i think get out had that element too to it um was that it was it was global when they won i i can't believe i thought this exactly when they won which was like oh, a global film world, like final.

You know what I mean?

This is a global movie.

And while the others are quite, and I think all movies are global in a different way, but this was a truly global movie.

Parasites.

Parasites.

Parasites.

See it.

We give it two thumbs up.

We're going to move to a different topic.

Speaking of income inequality, the jobs report, it was better than expected.

225,000 jobs in January.

The unemployment rate ticked up slightly, but a lot of jobs were up, hospitality and construction.

Manufacturing were down because of trade disputes in Boeing, warehousing and transportation jobs were up.

But still, still, the rate of how much people make still didn't rise.

It still remains this economy where there are lots of jobs, and at the same time, wages are not going up in any significant way.

So any thoughts about this?

It was a good jobs report, but I still think underneath it is this theme that Bernie Sanders and others are talking about, which is wage growth is lackluster.

Yeah, it demonstrates the rot in our society, and that is you can find a job, but you can't make a living.

And

I forget if it's Indonesia or Malaysia, there's almost full of employment.

Unfortunately, it's driving rich people around or

cleaning their clothes.

So

we have work.

We have lots of work.

We're always studing to the wrong test here.

We look at the unemployment rate as if it's some sign of prosperity.

You're absolutely right.

It's wage growth.

It's the life you lead given that you're working all the time.

It's the life you lead given that you don't get to spend as much time with your family.

It's the life you lead when you have to make the trade-off of not being around your kid as much as you should be when you're you know in those formative years and the life you lead in america when you decide to work has gotten substantially less nice there our quality of life has gone down for everyone but the top 10 whose quality of life has outpaced any reasonable metric and we come up with a bunch of you know we talk about unemployment first off the unemployment number and the jobs number will be revised 12 times in the next 12 months this is like a starting point they'll announce in a month oh we're revising it etc and then the thing we don't talk about is the the mother of all butts here is give me a trillion-dollar credit card, Kara, and I'll give you some sort of illusion of prosperity that's much greater than this.

With low unemployment and with a trillion dollars in deficit spending,

it should be champagne and cocaine for anybody who gets up at 9 a.m.

I mean, it's just nuts.

And so the nuts,

the idea that this is in any way

somewhat of a positive indicator, I just think.

And then

I always always see monopoly power and everything.

Look at the sectors that are growing, healthcare and education.

And healthcare and education are probably the least concentrated businesses in the United States.

And then the industry is shedding jobs, manufacturing,

and retail.

And who makes more stuff and makes more money as a monopoly?

These guys, right?

With my, where I watched Parasite last night.

And then, oh, and who's the biggest?

What about, let's talk about retail, where almost every one and two dollars of market capitalization now goes to one player who's, by the way going to the going to the Oscars yes has he not talked to the dog the key to happiness the algorithm for happiness is to be rich and anonymous Bezos needs to be he is not good when he's off his chain he's not good he likes dressing up and going he likes wearing he went to I'm sure he went to all the parties and stuff like that yeah yeah well that's for him but anyways he was there his head count rose the head count there rose uh a lot quite a bit in the second largest employer in the nation now right so what does that mean what does that mean from a tech point of view I mean these are are these good jobs?

These don't seem to be good jobs, or they'll say they are good jobs, but many people do not believe them to be good jobs.

Well, they are hiring both.

They are hiring at headquarters, which are fantastic jobs.

I do think that Amazon, I think it is hard to when you are stacking up all the positives and all the negatives, and I spend way too much time talking about the negatives, but on an employment standpoint, they are fantastic.

I would argue, on the whole, they are a very strong employer.

I mean, there are a lot of stories that criticism they have fallen under.

A third of their warehouse workers in Arizona were on food stamps and stuff like that, and that they take advantage of government subsidies.

But that's nothing that Walmart or a bunch of other people have been doing.

They put in place minimum wage, recognizing they have more capital and they can drive Target and Walmart out of business if they start raising wages.

And

the jobs at headquarters are fantastic jobs.

They're great careers for people.

It's an intense culture, but I think that's good for young people right out of school.

But the jobs number, or they're now the

second largest employer, and it's hard to believe that we are, again, at record low on them.

It's 3.5%.

It ticked up to 3.6.

The most encouraging thing in the number was that it ticked up.

Unemployment ticked up despite the fact we added a lot of jobs, which says that people are being drawn back into the workforce.

Right.

And our labor participation rate is going up, which I think is a good thing because I think work is

making people happier.

That's right.

That's 100%.

The two things that really drive your happiness is how you feel about your work and how you feel about your personality.

Let me just get back to our previous discussion, parasite.

That was all about work and not enough work.

And how do you find work and the things you do to work?

Correct?

That's right.

Okay, let's talk about Uber's earning call this week.

Scott, I knew you had some things to say about it.

Okay.

Uber is now in full yoga babble.

And I've started this thing called the Yoga Babble Index, where I do a word cloud and then look at ridiculous words.

Let me just read you something from the Uber.

Everyone was excited.

Their growth was up.

They're only losing a billion dollars.

And the stock moved

up 10% in what has become a total kabuki dance called a public company earnings call, which are staged staged Broadway productions where they pre-pick the analysts

to ask softball questions.

This is verbatim from the call.

We're making proactive changes to achieve significant cost leverage for both rides and EATs through a focused operating playbook, including improved machine learning algos and further automation and targeting of our incentive and online marketing spend, stronger tracking and focus for our offline marketing campaigns, the reduction of defect rates and improved self-service tools to improve customer satisfaction.

What does any of that mean?

What does any of that mean?

They're like the Rudy Giuliani of the information age.

Let's just overwhelm them with ridiculous words this way, X way, and then line up some softball.

Well, those have always, I've always made fun of those earnings calls because the analysts are just terrible.

I used to do a live vlog of Yahoo earnings, and I'd always make fun of the earnest.

And by the way, this is courtesy of my buddy Richard Kramer, who's a genius at a rut.

Nothing fresh in that analysts

do softball questioning these things.

But he did say, if you want to cut to it, he expects the company to be profitable.

What do you think about that projection?

By this time, next year, he expects the company to be profitable.

Well, it will be profitable based on

made-up metrics.

They'll come up with their own metrics.

They'll say, yes, we were profitable if you look at everything but our costs.

Right now, they're already reporting something called segment-adjusted EBITDA, which is what I would refer to as fraud splinning.

It's basically, let's take out the costs and then invent our own profit number.

On a gap basis, on a gap basis,

I will drive an Uber for a day, which isn't a big deal.

I've always thought about doing that.

It'd be kind of interesting.

I'll make a bet, not that Dara Costa saw he wants to make a bet with me.

On a GAP basis, there's no way this company is profitable.

All right, so I'm going to ask you one final question.

This time next year,

it's been the first year as a public company.

Dara obviously took over a very tough business.

This time next year,

where will it be?

So

this is who we should have on the show, and that is we should have Mark Mahaney, who's the best internet analyst.

My bias against Uber clouds my thinking here because Mark Mahaney, you know, there's certain people when they speak, you immediately question your viewpoint.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld's one for me, Mark Mahaney's one for me.

You're a little bit that way, not much, a little bit.

But Mark Mahaney, he likes this company.

He's got a long call on it, and he is very good.

So we should bring him on.

But

speaking of calls and predictions, let's revisit.

We're not good at revisiting.

What did I say about Casper?

What did the dog say about his dog bed?

Yes.

You said it would take longer after the lockups were off.

You didn't say within days.

Well, hold on.

You said not within days.

Priced at 17 to 19.

They repriced it at 12 so that they could have a pop.

It opened at 1071 today.

It's already got, it's already crashing.

And we said our prediction was it would be single digits by March 1.

It's going to be single digits probably the end of the day.

All right.

All right.

This thing is is literally, it's the blue apron of 2020.

Good, good prediction.

But what do you think of it?

Do you think Uber gets to profitability?

No, I think you're correct.

I'm on your side, not Mark Mahanes.

I think it's a troubled business.

I think it's, unless prices go up.

Prices have to go up.

And then it's a growth problem.

So

then I think if prices go up, sure, why not?

You know, it's a good problem.

So speaking about work, I wanted to do a behind-the-scenes talking out-of-school segment called Scott and Vox.

Oh, okay.

Oh, no.

This is going to make everyone very uncomfortable.

All right, we've got a few minutes.

We We have a guest coming up.

So let us know.

Okay.

Okay.

So it's clear you and I, it's clear Pivot are now the tallest midget and we are literally the star of NBC Must See Thursday Vox or whatever it is we do here.

Right.

It's like everyone is calling me and being really nice to me and I'm having dinner tomorrow night with the CEO.

I understand that.

Yeah.

And Bankov, who seems like the nicest man in the world.

And Marty Moe, who's also like the second nicest man in the world.

And like, what can we do for you?

What can we do for you?

So it's obvious you're the Michael Jordan here and I'm the scotty pippin they're like okay make sure scotty's happy every once in a while just check in with scotty who is scotty pippin

oh my god really you don't know scotty pippin is no i oh he's he was like the number two he was one of the most amazing basketball players in the in history except he had the he had the misfortune of playing on the chicago bulls when michael jordan was playing so you know it's kind of michael jordan and the seven dwarves right so no one remembers no one remembers scotty anyways i'm scotty pippin so last week and by the way people what are we getting to here where are we going with this situation bring it home all right bring it home.

Land it.

Land it.

Now, you got angry at me with the Sheryl Sandberg thing.

Yeah.

You sent me a text message at 11:30 p.m.

and you were very angry.

You called it deeply uncool, and it really hurt my feelings because I'm this terrible combination of offensive yet insensitive, which is just the worst place, the worst type of person in the world.

I offend others, yet I find reason relationships.

Mission accomplished.

Go ahead.

So you got me really upset, and it got me thinking: outside of the house, I'm an extrovert and I offend like there's no tomorrow, and I'm very aggressive and very, very much pursue conflict.

When I'm at home, I like harmony.

And in my home, my son has just finished the fifth grade, which I describe in academic terms as shit gets real.

They decide to start giving kids C's and D's.

And my wife loses her shit and goes after my 12-year-old.

This is unacceptable.

No more electronics.

You're not playing basketball.

And the dog leaves the room.

It gets so uncomfortable and ugly.

And I want to leave the room.

I want to go into the fetal position.

I do not like it.

Where are we landing this particular plane?

Where are we going here?

So he goes into his room.

He goes into his room.

And my role is to go in there and make a plan with them.

And then with my boys, I adjust their back, I rub their ears, and I do geography questions and quizzes to relax them.

They go to sleep.

The next morning, they wake up.

Everything's fine.

The scar tissue heals over.

The muscle that's damaged grows back stronger.

And then when they're 19 and they get their heart broken or get their first F, they're not going to freak out.

So on the whole, it's a good thing.

But it is really painful for me.

And it was really painful for me when you sent that message.

So Bankoff keeps saying, What can I do for you?

So I have figured it out.

When you send me mean text messages at 11.30 that upset me, I want Bankoff to come over, crack my back, rub my ears, and ask me what the capital of Iceland is.

Oh my God, really?

I'm not going to send you any more texts.

Good God.

Good.

It's Reykjavik, Kara.

It's Reykjavik.

All right.

You know what, Scott?

I will not send you mean texts anymore at 11.30, but it wasn't mean at all, but whatever.

It hurt my feelings.

At 11.30 at night.

Oh, my God.

I'm always up on the text, Scott.

You understand.

You're always up on that text.

I promise.

I didn't tweet at you.

Did I?

Did I?

No, I did not.

Did not.

No, thanks.

Yeah, that'd be good.

Let's take our arguments to Twitter.

I'm going to only send you nice things from now on

on text.

How about that?

Because it's so offensive.

But during the workday,

let me just tell you,

it is gloves off.

Workday, you are going to get mean text.

That's it.

That's it.

All right.

Yes, but we're going to take a, I'm sorry, I made you upset, I guess, I suppose.

Anyway, Scott, we're going to take a quick break.

When we get back,

speaking of lovely people who are going to massage your ears, friend of Pivot, Andrew Ross Sorkin, is here, and we're going to talk about a bunch of things around the stock market, about Instagram, everything else when we get back.

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Okay, we're back and we have Friends of Pivot live and we brought our friend Andrew Ross Sorkin here.

He's on the line.

He's obviously the New York Times columnist and squawk box host.

And we're going to talk about a couple things.

He's also, you know, I don't know if you know this, Andrew, but Scott has a man crush on you.

Scott, take it.

Oh, he knows it.

We had dinner.

I got it.

We had dinner.

It's mutual, the man crush.

Come on.

That's right.

It's real.

That's right.

His wife is lovely.

Yes.

And Andrew's actually quite much, as is yours.

We had a ball together.

Yeah.

Andrew's actually a neurotic mess, which I didn't know.

That's what I figured out.

He's actually, it's all affront.

It is so affront.

Here's what I want to know.

Why wasn't I invited to this dinner?

Finally, we're going to do it.

Finally, we know.

Next week,

you and me.

That's right.

That's right.

Fair point.

All right, listen to me.

Listen to me.

We're going to talk things.

And now that you've had your moment together, and I'm so glad I brought you together.

We're going to talk Instagram.

Scott, a few weeks ago, you said that Facebook would become the next trillion-dollar company off the back of Instagram e-commerce.

Andrew, we want to talk a little bit about these dollar companies.

And since then, Instagram has made some other big moves, including the start of a prototype program that will allow IGTV creators to monetize content by showing ads in their videos.

So how big is this for Instagram and e-commerce as a platform?

And generally, are you expecting big things out of this model in Instagram?

Are you expecting a bust?

So I know you want us to disagree, but I actually, I don't even disagree, but the only thing I disagree about is I actually think it's going to be bigger than that.

I think that long term, Instagram has the opportunity to become the ultimate super app

insofar as it not just being a straight e-commerce play where people are, you know, seeing a pair of jeans or a dress or whatever and buying that.

I think it's going to launch media.

You just talked about the media component, but I think it could very well be that you launch Netflix shows off of it.

You launch Hulu shows off of it.

I think...

podcasts may get launched off of it.

I could even see financial products getting launched off of it.

I kind of think it's one of those places where we may end up living our lives for better or worse and

basically doing everything in it.

I think we're very close to that actually.

Super app.

I love this idea.

Scott, that's actually like one of your

chill.

It's a chilling thought because I hadn't thought of this before, but Mark Zuckerberg is not afraid to make, I think there's a chill that's come out, and I'm curious what Andrew thinks here.

I think there's a chill or a pall that's been cast over the big four, and they're not as acquisitive or as aggressive as they might be because they're worried about raising red flags for the DOJ or the media.

But I don't think Mark Zuckerberg cares.

I think he's a honey badger.

I think Mark Zuckerberg just don't give a shit.

And I could see him.

I hadn't even thought about the whole movie or media angle.

I wonder if Instagram could acquire a Spotify.

Andrew, have you thought about who they might acquire to get some momentum around kind of a Netflix-like internet?

Well, so I think there's two opportunities here.

One is for them to acquire other businesses, like a Spotify, or

get into the music space get into all of these different spaces the other thing they could very well do though is just create effectively such a great interface that it doesn't matter who it is that it's all sort of integrated in that they effectively create partnerships they decide that you know that um you know lyft is their favorite or that uber is their favorite or that netflix is their favorite over hulu or whatever it is and then you see us all i mean us as consumers sort of living inside this app and jumping around i mean look you're seeing, you're already seeing, we just talked about jeans and dresses.

What about food?

I mean, one of the great things on Instagram is beautiful images of food.

I think you'll start buying all the food through that.

Maybe then you go off to restaurants.

I mean, I think the opportunity for how, you know,

you could be getting a reservation on an open table through Instagram.

So their ads are getting so predictive, it feels like at some point they could just start telling you, okay, trust us, click here.

Yeah, my son has bought a bunch of stuff off of there, and it's interesting that he doesn't buy it other places.

So in terms of getting into areas they haven't gotten into, like competing with Amazon, what happens to the Facebook app then?

That's always known as the big blue app, and that's what sort of has, they've always said this is what spurs everything is the big blue app.

But it's becoming less relevant or this replaces it or what?

I think it replaces it.

I'm not, look, but maybe I'm not a core Facebook user anymore.

I'm on it.

I check it out.

I go over there.

I, for better or worse, I don't know if you guys do this.

When I post the Instagram picture, I also post to Facebook.

I kind of feel like I'm cheating by doing it that way.

But

that's, I don't know, generation, maybe it's a generational thing.

And by the way, it may very well be that one generation lives on Facebook Core and one generation lives off of Instagram.

What company, so I'm curious, I'm sorry to interrupt, Carol.

What company, you're obviously bullish on Facebook and Instagram.

What company that you talk about a lot or we talk a lot about on CNBC?

What company are you most skeptical on right now?

Which of the the big guys that we talk about are you least bullish on?

That's a good question.

Of the fangs?

Of anyone.

Just name a company.

You think these guys are going to struggle?

I think Snap's going to struggle, but I don't think that's the hardest.

I don't think that's so unconventional, right?

Because of Instagram, because Instagram's so dominant.

Because of Instagram,

because Instagram killed them with...

I mean, I think Instagram

killed the story.

What about Pinterest and Instagram?

Do you think Pinterest is the same thing?

Same game.

Yeah, I'm in the same place.

Look, I like Ben.

I want all these guys to succeed.

Can they ever have the same kind of success that Facebook can with what Instagram's created at this point?

I think it's going to be very, very challenging.

Again, though, to me, parts of Pinterest end up, I imagine, will show up inside some version of Instagram.

So what about news?

Because you were talking about, because Facebook's always struggled with a couple of things.

Commerce, because Amazon is in there.

And media, because Amazon is in there also.

Apple's in there.

Google's gotten into media.

And so Facebook hasn't really been in the media space as much.

And then obviously

news itself, when I think of it.

They haven't nailed news.

So is this a way to do it?

And we're all trying to figure out how to do it.

I can't fathom for the life of me why they can't figure out some kind of Twitter-like copycat thing that lives inside Instagram on some kind of other tab.

I'm just shocked that they haven't done it.

Because I actually think if there was a Twitter-like functionality inside Instagram, we'd all be living in there.

100%.

I can't figure it out either.

When you say living in there, explain that for the people.

That you do.

When I say living in there, I think I'd open my Instagram account in the morning and I wouldn't leave.

I think I would just be rock.

I'd just be locked in there.

I think I'd be flipping around between the news feed if they had it

and they could productize it right.

And I'd be living inside the sort of traditional feed of images.

I am like you guys.

I hit the ads.

I think those ads, I don't know how they do it.

You know, those images, I look at them, I say, oh, I want that.

And I click on it.

And I can see that much more contextually in the long term so that they're actually productizing my own image.

I see.

So what about Twitter?

What happens to Twitter in this?

Because that was something Twitter was going to do in terms of getting you to do things or watch things or move you to things.

And that was.

Well, you tell me, do we think that long-term Twitter can do what

if you think

one of them has to ape the other, right?

But I think that for better or worse, Twitter,

look, I live on Twitter.

I love Twitter, but I think it's all of us talking to each other.

It's this whole journalistic crowd and I don't know what, and political and some others.

I don't know if that audience is ever the same size as Insta.

So the real question is, why can't Insta try to ape Twitter?

I think it's much harder for Twitter to ape Insta.

Does Twitter get bought?

I mean,

Scott, explain your theory of people taking over Twitter this year.

Yeah, so I don't even, I think Twitter,

so I had a long position in Twitter.

I actually sold last Thursday

after it popped.

But I think Twitter has gotten to the point at a $30 billion market cap, and that's after a 30% run-up.

So it was $24 billion, that the opportunity, there aren't that many of these things.

There's like three or maybe five kind of quote-unquote social media platforms.

You haven't had one start since 2011.

I think a Salesforce or a Disney or someone goes, the opportunity to have influence among journalists, actors, politicians.

I mean, they do reach a very influential crowd is worth $30 billion.

I think there's a I've always I've always thought that, but then you look at what Bob Iger said when he looked at it.

He said, I don't want to get in, I don't want to get in the mess of all of this kind of stuff.

What about a sales?

They've looked at it.

I mean, Benioff looked at LinkedIn.

Yeah, but he looked at Twitter.

Right.

And I think he looked at Twitter as well.

But he was looking more because he wanted the content for the AI and everything else.

I mean, I don't know.

The other thing is, does Macon Delrahim and does President Trump, or frankly, it doesn't matter who's in who's in office,

can any of the big guys buy Twitter?

Right, right.

Right.

That's the question.

Or is it just off the table?

Well, you know, interesting, I think a lot of hedge fund people have been talking about it and sort of getting in there.

And I've gotten a lot of calls from hedge fund people about Twitter.

What do I think?

Do they think it could be bought?

You know, it's interesting just lately, and maybe that's something that just happens every, you know, it's like a blue moon kind of thing.

But it's always sort of thought of that way, but it's never thought of that they can actually productize these things you're talking about themselves.

No one ever, people think more that Snapchat keeps innovating its way out of trouble, but they don't think the same of Twitter.

Yeah, I don't know what Twitter could do.

It's a very good question.

But then, and I mean, look, Google looked at it.

Does it, does it change the landscape for Google?

If you somehow merged up Twitter and YouTube,

does that advance your cause?

I don't know.

But Instagram is where you think the thing is at, is going to be where it's at and always.

To me, that's where it's at because that's where I find my focus.

That's where I see kids are all focused.

Older people, I mean, it seems like across the board, they are just

running the table.

Listen to me.

We're almost done, but I want you need to kick us off with win and a fail.

Do you have an early win this week or something from last year?

I have one more question.

Can I interrupt?

Go ahead.

So

to me, business television seems like it's dying.

It seems like someone in an oxygen tank, it's buying or selling Amazon that wants to see one of your millions of women in a short-sleeved dress, although I think you'd be much more interesting in a short-sleeved dress.

Where does business television go?

I think it's dying.

And by the way, I love CNBC.

I watch you.

I think it's dying.

What needs to happen here?

What business television question mark your turn?

The ratings would go up if I wore a short-sleeve dress, that's for sure.

You know,

I'm your milky arms.

Come on, move on.

I'm not actually, I'm not going to agree with

the business news argument there because I'll tell you what, there's this crazy community of people who are die hard.

No, they're dying.

They're not die hard.

They're dying.

Let him finish.

Scott, you can, look.

No, no, look.

You can make that argument.

I think that if you look at what CNBC is doing, for example, on air and then on digital,

I think that there's a core.

Look, to me, great content is always about having a core audience.

And I think there genuinely is a genuinely core audience.

If you go and talk to the CEOs of not just the Fortune 500, but even the guys in the Valley and elsewhere, they may not be watching it all live, but they're watching the clips.

They want to be on it.

They want to talk to the audience of investors.

It's part of this ecosystem.

I can't tell you when I'm doing Squawk in the morning, how many phone calls I get or emails during the show live from people on the West Coast, big name CEOs, you know, who say, Sorkin, I can't believe you just said that, or what's going on with this?

Well, they're anti-watching

fanboys, correct?

That's the difference.

No, it is.

It is.

It is sort of the business top.

I mean, when you think about business news in that format, everybody,

it is in the backdrop.

It's playing everywhere.

The question to me is a little bit more like ESPN, which is long term,

from a cable perspective, will people, you know, are you going to have to create like an ESPN Plus like service?

Do people then pay for that?

How much do they pay for that?

If you believe carriage fees are going to come down long term, how does that all work itself out?

That to me is a real sort of

question.

uh but i think that there still is this core group that i think loves it and will pay a lot for it on i am with it'll be on instagram i'm with andy on this one okay andy win and fail win and fail he's right what's your win and fail

innovated scott

a win and fail and this is my own personal win and fail right yes whatever you want or is this just a win and fail for the week what are we talking about here give me the win and fail what hit you when we said win and fail i think personal is more interesting i don't think people know the real andrew rosor oh my god i don't think they know the real win and fail andrew don't listen to him.

Well, okay.

So the

win, so I did an interview with Marcelo Clora this morning.

Cloray, I should say.

The first real TV interview he's done since all the crazy commotion.

And he said something so I thought it was a win because

I thought he opened up about the relationship with Adam Newman and said that they actually don't talk that much anymore, even though I think that's not what Adam Newman would like him to have said.

Because I think that Adam Newman desperately wants to still be part of the story.

Can I just point out that Marcello was at the scene of the crime the whole time?

So he wasn't.

So it's sort of like Bill Gurley trashing Travis Kalanik.

You know, now we are so much better, but they were there the end.

100%.

But I actually thought he was humble about it.

I mean, in terms of saying, look, we totally screwed this up and we made a mistake.

I watched that.

That was a good idea.

Would you invest in WeWork at 8 billion?

I'm sorry, I interrupted.

Would you invest in WeWork at an 8 billion valuation?

It's tough.

It's tough.

They have, by the way, close to 15 billion in with debt.

So that's what I said to him.

I said, how do do you get money how do you make how you become money good yeah uh he thinks that they're gonna get there can they it's gonna be i think it's gonna be a rough road uh big loss for me was you know this squawk show which i love doing makes you go to sleep so early so i didn't get to watch the oscars last night that's a that's a fail oh we hate to hear that parasite that was a fail you're welcome watch parasite have you seen parasite no that never fail i'm just failing all morning fail go watch right now it's about income equality yeah go watch it i know it anyway andrew thank you so much.

This was totally insightful.

You made a lot of good content.

Let me say in a very short time.

Sort of.

Sort of.

Only sort of.

Sort of.

Insightful-ish.

Uh-uh.

Ish.

A little bit.

Super ashy.

It was the interview.

It was the interview.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Say, Andrew.

Okay, Scott.

He's brilliant.

I'm sorry.

You're going to have to go now.

It's my turn for wins.

I get to follow Andrew Robinson.

Yes, go ahead.

Thanks for that.

Go ahead.

Thanks for that.

Okay.

So

my win is the motion picture or whatever we're calling the academy.

I thought that they pulled off one of the great brand moves.

I think they've kind of turned the corner, if you will.

I thought that Parasite was just such a unique opportunity and they seized it.

So my fail is the continued shit show, ass clown management of the Democratic National Committee.

And a guy named Rajif Misra, the guy running the Vision Fund, deserves to be fired more than anyone in the world right now.

I love that.

I was thinking about Gina Rometi, you know, when the chairman sits down and says we're, a Ramedi says we're, we're making, we're going in a different direction as the lead directory sits her down.

I wonder if she said, well, you know what?

The dog walking app is on its way.

I mean, that guy gets to keep his job.

Yeah.

The head of Vision Fund gets to keep his job.

Anyways, that person deserves to be fired more than anyone in the world, with the exception of, is his name, Tom Perez, the head of the DNC.

And I don't know if you saw, I don't know if you saw Jim Carvell's rant this weekend.

That guy is a fucking genius.

He's a political party.

It's about political power.

It's about power.

And our moral imperative.

This is a Southerner.

Our moral imperative.

Do you know that?

It's not to bring fucking Bernie.

Why is Bernie Sanders on the debate?

This is what Tom Perez or whoever actually has a pair who shows up after Tom Perez is justifiably escorted from whatever building the DNC occupies right now.

We should have debates that say, okay, are you a Democrat?

And do you have any...

Why the hell is Andrew Yang on the debate stage?

I like him.

He's got great ideas.

So do the guys.

So do the writers at the Colbert Report.

Should they run for president?

You have better ideas and are much more qualified than Andrew Yang.

Lovely guy.

You know who doesn't want him to be president?

Anyone that worked with him.

Why is Tom Styer, a guy that made a billion and a half dollars pulling coal out of the ground has all of a sudden decided he's an echo warrior and can buy his way onto the stage?

And then people conflate him with Bloomberg.

Bloomberg was governor of the seventh largest state in the union called Manhattan.

He absolutely deserves to be in the race.

There are only three people that have any business being on that stage right now who everyone finally is going to realize: okay, I've dated and I've flirted with some bad boys or some idiots or the nice guy.

There are only three people that matter right now, only three that have any chance of our moral imperative of kicking the weirdo out of the office.

First is Bloomberg, second is Mayor Pete, who barely gets on the stage as the mayor of a town where he got 8,900 votes.

And then the third and the person with the most momentum is Senator Klobucher.

If they want to sponsor a British Labor Party debate, more power to you, Bernie.

Go to that.

He doesn't even say he's a Democrat.

He's a fucking social media.

So you want people

to want Tom Perez and the guy from SoftBank fired.

Okay.

I want the DNC to figure out their job is to get Trump out of office.

All right.

The DNC and SoftBank, Scott.

I'm going to have to take you down now.

Really?

Something happened.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I'm going to have to write you an 11.30 text tonight about this.

What did I do?

What did I do?

No, I'm teasing you.

i'm teasing what's it i'm so glad that power it's gonna be at 11 30 it could be 11 33

it could be 11 33 i don't know when i'm gonna send it but it's gonna i'm very sensitive yet offensive

it's coming it's coming you don't it's gonna be a car we're gonna make a movie well let me ask you this i'm serious though don't you do you really think this should show politically correct why do we have a democratic socialist on stage

why do we have a self-identified socialist running for the democratic united states of america that's why.

And that's the way it goes.

There's a lot of people.

You're about to get Bernie Brode.

The president's going to be Donald Trump.

I'm worried you're about to get Bernie Brode on Twitter, et cetera.

Oh, the only people meaner than them are the crypto and the Tesla weirdos.

The Bernie people are very aggressive.

Well, everybody is on that thing.

Anyway.

What is Kara Swisher doing this week?

This week, all kinds of things.

I was supposed to go to California, but now I'm not.

I am working on lots of things.

I have lots of podcasts.

I've got all kinds of interesting things.

And I will be here in D.C.

just doing things.

Amanda's going back to work for the first time after maternity leave, which I think parents in this country should have a year off, but they don't.

How long did she have off?

Just three months.

And you're going to send me some reinforcing and subtle but nice text messages.

11.30 tonight.

You just wait by that phone.

Seriously.

Yes.

And then

we're going to make a movie called Text, and it'll be all about this relationship.

I think it's been done.

All right.

I think it's been done, and I don't think we're that interesting.

But anyways, that makes you compelling viewer.

All right.

I will send you a love.

At 11.30 tonight, I will send you a loving massage of a text, okay?

How about that?

A head scratching of a text.

All right.

Thank you so much for everyone.

Scott, would you please read the credits as we go?

Rebecca Sonanis is our producer.

Erica Anderson is our executive producer.

Special thanks to Drew Burroughs and Rebecca Castro.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts.

Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

And thank you to Andrew Ross Thorkin again for coming on the show.

Andy, we love you.

If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media.

We'll be back late this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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