CEO’s are out (literally), France's "digital service tax” is in, and 'innovator privilege’

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Scott, we're back for the second time this week, and you didn't play a ridiculous song.

I'm so happy and relieved, frankly.

That's right.

That's right.

And so you were just talking about,

and I, because I think people want to know the real Kara Swisher, your son was in Japan, and what is he asking you to do?

Or wait, is this the one we're not shareing?

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm not sharing.

I shared and shared it with you, but now you're bringing it up.

He's just

going to tell you, all I'm going to say is: any girl that gets my son as a boyfriend is the luckiest girl in the world.

Until she meets his mother.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, that's going to be.

I'm going to make the mother-in-law.

That's going to be

such a

result.

I'm sure you'll be really.

I just realized that.

I couldn't get to be a mother-in-law.

Talk about the Thunderdome.

My son and someone else enter one leave and it's called my son.

Oh, my God.

That's going to be ugly.

It's going to be ugly.

It's going to be so good.

Oh my gosh.

You know what?

Then he'll get a hearty girl.

That's right.

She can keep up.

That's exactly right.

Listen, Scott.

There's a movie being made about WeWork, and no one has called us.

Have you gotten a phone call about that yet?

Well, it's clear that my agent is fielding multiple offers and just doesn't want to get me excited.

I am so a lock for Rebecca Newman.

First off, I'm an asshole.

And my sense is she's

she's like a world-class asshole.

So I just, I was born to play that role.

You don't have a Adam Newman with a wig?

I have gray legs.

I have a, I am totally drawn towards this hippie poochy kind of wardrobe.

I have, I mean, look at me in a wig.

Boom, over.

I'm the guy.

I'm literally, I'm the guy from Queen.

I'm the guy that played Ray Charles.

I was born to play Rebecca Newman.

Wow.

Okay.

I didn't, I did not see that one coming.

All right.

Okay.

Rebecca Newman.

I think we just have a cameo.

We sort of run around the buildings and yell up at the buildings at them.

And every now and then they cut to us.

What do you think?

I think I'm going to write them.

I'm going to start a campaign.

That's what I'm going to do.

Like my FedEx campaign last week.

I'm going to start a campaign.

It's why aren't Scott and Kara in the We Work movie?

All right.

I'm going to do it.

I need you to retweet everything I do.

But speaking of which,

speaking of movies, the ongoing movie that is Google is taking a turn this week with a

Larry and Sergei, the twins, the boys, are leaving Alphabet, their titles at Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

Google's current CEO, Sunir Pichai, saying we think there's a better way to run the company.

They acted like they were proud parents, and now they're giving everything up.

But the fact of the matter is, they still have dual stock, and they control the company absolutely and completely.

So, what do you think this means?

I mean, everyone's sort of heralded like the end of an era.

They haven't been there forever.

I wrote a column about this today.

They just haven't been there at the company very much and have not had as much effect.

But what do you think about this change?

If it is.

I think it's another example of the perversion of our economy at the hands of this gross idolatry of innovators.

And that is it's literally as if someone from the PR department found a press release that was two years old.

These guys haven't been CEOs for 24 months.

What the hell has Larry Page done in the last 24 months?

Where are his family?

He's been doing a hovercraft.

There's a hovercraft going on against the camera.

Okay.

If a woman was out to lunch for what is arguably the most influential company in the world for the last 24 months, there'd be all sorts of scrutiny, but not young white male innovators.

Oh, they're Larry and Sergei, right?

The fact, if they didn't have controlling shares, some activists would show up and say, here's an idea.

Do your fucking job.

Like, show up.

There's a lot going on here.

And instead, they're like, oh, because

there's a big, big difference.

And the reality is, CEO has now become kind of this fungible title.

Hey, I got a nose ring.

I think I'll be CEO twice.

Hey, I have controlling shares.

I think I'll be a CEO of Facebook, despite the fact I am causing incredible damage to the world because I have super voting shares.

So here's the bottom line.

When you have authority, when you have control, also with that comes responsibility.

And Senator Warren summarized it perfectly.

Whether or not

they're giving up the CEO moniker,

if Google continues to create the type of damage it's creating and we continue to see governments decide we are sick of this bullshit and start to actually come after these companies and hold their feet to the fire and

hold them liable, then guess what, Sergey and Larry?

Regardless of whether or not you're giving a key to the executive washing to someone else, you are responsible for what happens at this company because you are in control.

And until you cede that control, be clear, this is all on you guys.

Yeah, I think that's a good question.

I am absolutely.

There's a shot.

I sent a shot over the hovercraft bow.

I'll read it actually exactly.

Congrats on the move, Larry Page.

Quick reminder, we still do expect you to testify before Congress, and changing your title while staying on the board and retaining effective control of it will not exempt you from accountability.

Elizabeth Warren is a badass.

She is.

She's very.

I just have to say, I was like, that is a perfect tweet.

It was interesting.

You know, he hasn't been involved, and there's been a lot going on internally, including employee unrest.

There was a whole spate of sexual harassment issues that were never addressed at that company internally under his leadership.

I knew him very well for a long time.

I covered them from their very early days.

And he definitely has

gone into sort of hermit mode.

It's been the most unusual thing.

He was always an odd in that way, just very quiet.

But he exercised a lot of control and was quite, he's a tough guy, like internally.

He's very tough on his employees.

But what was interesting is the removal of himself and everyone being okay with it.

It really is kind of,

I don't even understand it as they're going through all these very difficult issues.

That Sundar, who I do like, I have also known for a very long time, do think he's more in the Satchinadella school of, you know, I'm going to clean this place up kind of stuff.

Very likable.

He's very likable.

And he's,

it'll be interesting to see, but he doesn't still have full power.

You know what I mean?

He just doesn't have full power.

That's exactly the correct point.

As someone who's been the founder and largest shareholder and has been the CEO working for other people, CEO is an illusory sugar high.

The bottom line is it's who controls the company.

Right.

Because if you don't, if you're not a CEO founder and you don't have the majority of the shares, you are temporarily in that CEO role.

And it's great.

You get to give the opening speech at the holiday dinner.

But at the end of the day, the person that makes the decision is the one with the most shares and the one with the controlling shares.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yep, that's true.

But the thing is, I think they're going to use it as cover to get rid of some of these other things.

I said they had the search business, YouTube, and some very, you know, less impressive stuff that's going on there.

So there's a lot of stuff like X, Fiber, Verily, Sidewalk Labs, Calico, all kinds of things.

Kara was cleaning a lot of that up, right?

Yeah.

Now I'm talking about a gangster.

My sense is she's a very talented person.

She's going to move up, up.

She's already up.

She's already running the alphabet part of it, but she, I think she's going to be a big player.

Susan Wojski is still a big player there.

It'll be interesting to see.

Sundar likes his group around him, and I think it'll give them the cover to just clean you know sort of neaten it up and i wouldn't be surprised if they got rid of the alphabet thing like you know what i mean it was just a way for larry not to talk to people essentially so uh so i don't know it'll be interesting to see what he does and what he's allowed to do and how much interest these two have because they have again they have you know sergey rides his 20-wheeled bicycle around silicon valley uh there's the there's all kinds he has a meat plant-based meat thing they've got

it's they're a weird pair and yeah i got to tell you from the very beginning we'll move on from this um They were never that interested in two things, money or like the search business.

It was funny.

They liked everything.

They had so many interests around pollution, around all kinds of things from the start.

And so they sort of lost their interest relatively early in the game.

As I said, look, they should do what any good billionaire does these days, and that is try to get to Mars, buy a football team, and start taking dick pics.

I mean, these guys should start cash.

Wait, wait, our penis joking.

And also buy an that's all you get.

I've got a lot of people who are going to apartment in New York, the city you supposedly aren't coming to, because there's, God forbid, unions here.

Was that unfair?

No, I don't think.

The dick pic part, yes, it was.

Anyway, in any case.

Amateur photography.

Because I think everybody does those

at any

financial status.

Anyway, I'm not going to go into it.

We're not going to talk about penises.

I'm missing out.

That's all you get for this show.

Listen to me.

We're going to try.

I don't know how I'm going to make this transition, but Kamala Harris leaving the race.

Someone who talks a lot about tech, who tried in one of the debates to say, you know, the Twitter, get Donald Trump off Twitter.

It didn't get much traction.

Out.

I think

resume, from a resume point of view, she should have really been.

She's so appealing and, you know, what a great record.

Did not do very well.

Yeah, she had the second best tweet of the week when Donald Trump snarkily said, oh, we'll miss you.

Oh, my gosh, talk about the best clapback.

She said, don't worry, I'll see you at your trial.

Oh, my God.

Thank you very much.

As you would say, Anne Scene.

She's really good.

When Donald Trump Jr.

said something about a joke of hers, she goes, you wouldn't know of a joke if you'd been raised by one, which I know.

She's good on the Twitter.

She's good on the Twitter.

She's very clever.

But it's really, I think we're headed towards, I wonder if this is another example of this.

Capitalism is the best system except for all the rest, as Winston Churchill said, or the least, it's the worst except for all the rest.

But I wonder if capitalism in the U.S.

has sort of hit this hunger games-like tipping point where we

okay, so you go to Harry Potter World.

You can pay $125 and you wait in line for three hours to go on the new motorcycle ride.

You pay $180,000, you get to wait for 10 minutes with FastPass.

You pay $5,000.

You and four friends get to not only cut the line, but go in through the employee-only

entrance.

And I mean, we are segmenting the world such that billionaires or people, not even billionaires, but very wealthy people just have such a dramatically better life that it's becoming, quite frankly, just all about the Benjamins.

And successful capitalism has to involve some level of redistribution, some level of empathy.

And I worry if the presidential race on the Democratic side is turning into that, because there is a scenario here, Kara, where with the 10 remaining candidates, they all beat the shit out of each other and spend themselves into oblivion through Iowa and New Hampshire.

And then the billionaires Steyer and Bloomberg show up on Super Tuesday, and the other 10 guys are bankrupt.

And they basically own it.

They

could potentially be aware of it.

I watched Madam President because I want Ti Leone to be president of the United States.

And that's my world I'm living in right now.

And I saw.

six ads during that for uh steyer and bloomberg i was sort of like what like there were at least three for steyer and two for bloomberg it was like it was a lot and i was sort of like they were good ads by the way but and beautifully done well Well put done.

Except for Tom Starter's weird belt that I kept fixating on.

But

it was really fat.

I was like, wow, this is a lot.

It was interesting.

Hadn't it been a lot of fun?

Well, Connie ads, it's organizers.

They're going to have feet on the street.

They're going to have hundreds, if not thousands, of people

signing people up.

If money, if we end up with two billionaires, as like two of like the four or five last men or women standing, it's going to be, you know, again, it's going to be another example of we have shifted towards this total Hunger Games.

Well, speaking of Kamala Harris, I see Madam Vice President all over her.

She's

obviously a significant

clear.

Her, Stacey Abrams.

There's several really interesting choices.

You know, whatever happens to Pete Buttigieg, he's also, if he either wins it or, or, or, which seems unlikely to me, but

he's another one.

You know, all of them have Corey Booker does.

They all have vice presidential potential and significant vice president.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well,

it's also, just before we move on, in addition to it, I mean, raising some uncomfortable issues.

So the one uncomfortable issue that all of this is raising is that, you know,

you can, it appears, buy viability as president just with money.

All right.

That's uncomfortable.

And then the second thing that's uncomfortable is we're about to winnow from 10 candidates that looked fairly diverse to four who all have one thing in common.

They're all white.

We're about to go to Warren.

We're about to go to Sanders.

We're about to go to Biden and we're about to go to Boutige.

And the two very qualified black candidates, Booker and Senator Harris, are probably out.

And again, it kind of goes to this notion that as much as we like to believe the country is progressing, and it has around certain issues, it kind of always coming back to the money and the white.

And it's

people are terrified of not being Donald Trump, so they're thinking of centrist white person.

I think that's right.

I think that's right.

I mean, that's really where it is.

And so it's an interesting time.

It's definitely, and definitely the spending is going to go crazy on Facebook, not just on every platform, including TV platforms.

It'll have a real impact on that.

And then, of course, Trump has a fortune, you know, and it, and then the question of what Facebook is going to do around micro-targeting, if anything.

Yeah, money does talk here in this situation.

Although, let's be clear, let me go historical on you.

Heddy Roosevelt was rich.

Franklin Roosevelt was rich.

Andrew Jackson was rich of their day.

George Washington was, I think, the richest richest person, one of the richest people in the colonies.

So it's not like this is a new fresh take on stuff.

There's not that.

A peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter, who, by the way, all thoughts to him right now because he's struggling

with his health.

Very few poor people get to be president.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: They've got all Doris Kearns-Goodwin on us.

That was a gangster move.

Thank you.

George Washington was like super rich.

He was like rich as rich.

He was like one of the richest.

That's a fair point.

I happen to like his presentation.

But query me this.

What do you think of this idea?

And then I know you want to move on.

Yes, I think.

What if tomorrow, or on a Slow News Day, Biden announced something and got on stage and used and basically hand in hand with Senator Kamala Harrison announced her as her VEEP?

Do you think it's game over?

I don't know.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

One of those conversations are so many people

are calling her and saying, hey, hey,

would you like to be my Veep?

She is right now.

She's an excellent VP, you know, because that's the sort of attack dog, kind of, remember the Bob Dole kind of character.

She'd be excellent at that.

Stop talking about my record.

Then Uncle Joe will be, well, except they do have the crime record that's not great.

So that's, that's one of the, together they're sort of like, no, no, I was talking about Bob Dole.

Oh, Bob Dole.

His whole damn thing.

Stop talking about my record.

He was super charmless as a candidate, as I recall.

Anyway, we're going to go.

He's a war hero.

He is.

Listen, he still was a charmless candidate.

Anyway, we are are going to take a quick break now, and then we're going to get back.

And we have a friend of Pivot from France.

We're calling in from France.

We'll be back after this.

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Welcome back to Pivot.

Now let's hear from a friend from across the Atlantic Ocean.

So NATO leadership met in London this week and prior to the meeting the French president Emmanuel Macron announced he would be taxing U.S.

tech companies.

This is something that's been going on for a while.

France approved a 3% digital services tax aimed at making major U.S.-based tech companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon contribute to the economies of the world where they exist, make profits, and have offices.

And our producer, Rebecca Sinanis, reached out to French lawyer Dan Scheffett, who specializes in human rights and tech.

He was one of the lawyers that brought lawsuits against Google in France last year.

They talked via Skype from his home in Paris about what this tax means for Europeans.

Let's go to the tape.

So it started at the European level with this two-phased approach, the 3%,

and then afterwards the digital presence tax.

So absolutely, it will be a European proposal.

Boris Johnson is all for it, with or without Brexit.

The only countries right now that seem to have a problem with it, and I don't know whether it's still a problem, were the Scandinavian countries and Germany.

Now, Germany had a problem, I say had a problem because I don't know whether it's still the case with the new German president of the European Commission.

But the problem used to be that Germany was afraid of retaliation from the Trump administration on the exports of German motor cars or the automobile industry in Germany.

So they were afraid of retaliation.

So you may say that out of the 28 countries, maybe Germany and maybe two more countries were reluctant to impose this tax.

But I think that now we're all in the same...

boat, we all have the same interest.

Okay, who she was talking about, he was talking about the Boris Johnson is going to jump on the Tampa bandwagon.

Trump troller-in-chief, Justin Trudeau, has talked about it in Canada.

And of course, Trump is threatening for the French to tax cheese and champagne exports in France, 100 percent tariffs.

You know, the tech companies are going crazy because

they don't want to pay taxes.

They never want to pay taxes.

So, Scott, what do you think?

Trump has now, because of the incompetence around the trade war with China, the notion that he can open a two-front war against European nations is just a loser.

And the Scandinavians and the Europeans and the the French and the British realize that he can't go to war with everyone around trade, especially on the eve of an election.

So they're kind of holding the cards.

This also represents governments filling a vacuum

where because the laws and because of regulation and because of the idolatry of innovators and because of tax avoidance and because of the massive spending on

legal resources and lobbying, these firms engage in wild tax avoidance.

The U.S.

Treasury is going to write Amazon a check this year.

Can you believe that?

Yep, that's a good thing.

They're getting money.

They're getting money from Treasury.

And basically what European nations and France have said is said, okay, we give up.

Your tax lawyers are smarter than our tax administrators.

You always seem to figure out a way to break even or lose money, despite the fact that you're the second, third, and fourth most valuable companies in the world.

So we're going to do what Brazil has done for a long time.

And any company over a certain value is going to be taxed on its top line.

It makes sense.

People are fed up.

People are fed up with the amount of prosperity.

You know, these companies are the most incredible vessels in the history of mankind.

They essentially do a couple things.

They transfer wealth from the rest of the world to America, and then they transfer the wealth from the middle of the country to the coasts.

And people have had enough, and they realize they can't navigate the tax policy as deftly as these companies, so they're stepping in with legislation.

It's going to start happening everywhere, and they're being given cloud cover to do this by Trump, who is the most disliked person in the world right now.

I know.

He sees everything in such a binary way.

I think, look, these people do business.

They actually had that money parked in Europe they were trying to bring home.

They've been getting a lot of gimme by the Trump administration, the tech industry, as much as you pretend they haven't been, they're opposed to them.

They're doing very well.

And this is just a typical thing.

It's sort of payback for all, like not saying so much anymore.

And this, you know, it's interesting.

There was an issue in Germany a long time ago of the idea of trying to compete via regulation.

And I think there was some in Germany, it was happening with the publishers.

The German publishers were fighting against Google and others.

And in some cases, that is a good point.

They haven't made any good internet companies there.

Why?

Who knows?

You know what I mean?

Like, a lot of people think it's the regulatory environment.

But the fact of the matter is, they do business in these countries.

They should pay taxes, proper taxes in this country.

And so that'll be interesting.

And what's fascinating about it is that Speaker Pelosi is pushing to strip out sweeping legal protections, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, for online content in the U.S.-MCA trade pack in what would be a big blow to tech firms.

They're trying to impose Section 230, which is immunity protection, across the globe.

Like other countries don't have to put up with our laws, our particular laws.

This is the law that gives Internet companies a lot of lack of liability in a lot of things.

And so she is opposing that.

It was a story in the Wall Street Journal.

And oddly enough,

they're trying to put it in

these agreements with other countries.

And other countries should not be imposed by us, our laws like this.

They don't have to do it.

But what was incredible, so she's pushing to strip out sweeping legal protections

in these trade, for online content.

And it's a big blow to tech firms.

But oddly enough, Ted Cruz just tweeted something I rarely say.

I agree with Nancy Pelosi.

Congress should not be passing special protection statutory giveaways for big tech.

And then, of course, he has to add, we should protect free speech and stand up to Silicon Valley's blatant political censorship.

He's on his own little island on that.

But the fact of the matter is,

it's something that both sides agree with and that

I don't know.

We'll see where the Trump administration comes down on this.

But it's interesting the protections they're getting from him.

This is actually really important.

It's the boring stuff that's typically really, really important.

And this isn't getting the oxygen it deserves because

we wouldn't have drinkable water in this country if it wasn't for the EPA and also lawsuits.

And that is, if your company pours mercury

into the river and kids start getting sick, you are in a world of hurt because lawyers will pop up out of nowhere and come after you and put

your company out of business.

And while there's a lot of inefficiency there, it's expensive, there's abuses of that system, it largely works and it creates a better world for us.

But the problem is, we have one sector and one small group of companies that can pour megatons of mercury into our rivers on every level, and that's big tech.

Because for some reason, we've decided to give them total immunity from legal scrutiny around the massive damage they create every day.

And the one thing, the one thing that would probably solve the most problems other than breaking them up, you know,

I know I'm a broken record here, would be the removal of 230.

Because the moment they become subject to the same scrutiny and the same liability for the damage they do as other firms, you're going to see an entirely different approach.

And all of a sudden, the geniuses are going to figure out how to stop not radicalizing people on YouTube.

They're going to figure out how to not depress teens.

They're going to figure this shit out.

But right now, there's no incentive because there's no downside.

This is really important.

Interestingly,

people say, you know, we get a lot of people, oh, you like regulation.

I'm like, I like a little regulation when there's none.

And it's funny.

It's funny

the idea, you know, the two ideas they're pushing forward is regulation will hurt us, and then we need to be big to fight the Chinese.

And so it's really, it's really interesting, the talking points that Tech is using.

This is taking regulation away.

This is cutting regulation.

Let's do away with that onerous regulation called Section 230.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: No, they're not going to do away with it, Scott.

You can't do it away completely.

It's a very different medium.

I don't, and I, that, that I would not go so far as adjust it in ways that think about it for the times we have now.

And I would like some intelligent people to discuss it.

And in fact, I did an entire podcast on

the altruists.

No, no, no.

No, no.

I had like experts, like legal people, like talk about what it means.

But I do think that, you know, this combination of regulation, antitrust, state's attorney generals, Europe, taxes is going to be, you know, it's time to like, and then eventually get rid of the dual stock structures after a certain amount of years.

They might actually start to grow up and

do their duty or whatever.

They should, just they just behave like everybody else gets to behave.

Anyway, wins and fails.

Scott, what do you have for this week?

So my win is,

and

my win is Senator Kamala Harris.

I thought she ran, I think most people are saying it was a disappointing campaign, but the reality is she probably

if you thought about at the beginning of the race, you know, everyone running for president, who will be president, she probably has as good a chance of being president right now as anyone on that stage.

It's just in 2024 or 28 based on her performance in 2019.

And that is, she came across as strong.

She came across as thoughtful.

I think she learned a lot.

It sounds like her campaign, quite frankly, was a bit of a shit show.

She wasn't able to carve out distinct positions that distinct from anybody else.

But she seems like a very smart person.

She comes across as a real leader.

She has an outstanding background.

I think she kind of exudes strength.

So if you were to say, all right,

what one Democrat is going to be president?

I think a decent bet is Senator Harris, just not in 2020.

She's going to be everybody's V pick, which immediately means there's like a 60% chance that you'll be president at some point.

So look, I think she's run a good campaign.

I think actually getting out early, everyone was second guessing that it was because of all the dysfunctional campaign.

It might have been leaving the stage early might have been the gangster move here.

It was, actually.

I thought that too.

I thought the same thing.

I'm like, she didn't hang around and become really pathetic.

You know what I mean?

She's like, I'm going.

I'll see myself out.

I'll see my, you know, it was classy.

I thought it was a classy departure.

I thought her video was good.

I think she does have issues.

There was a great piece in the Times about her issues

people knowing who she is.

I think that was one of the things.

And I think some of the crime stuff really did chase her around, especially in the primary part of the Democratic election, her tough on crime.

Helps her in the general, though.

True, true.

Enforcing laws.

As you know, as you say.

Anyway, anyway, so what is your fail?

What is your fail this week?

Well, my fail is what I'll call this.

You know, everyone talks about why privilege.

I think this innovator privilege is out of control as evidenced by

Elon Musk.

Elon Musk's testimony in court where he's being sued for defamation

by the cave diver.

I think his name is Jesse Unrover.

Basically, this cave diver took part in rescuing the students and their coach.

And Musk had this idea for a submarine.

And the cave diver said that this is a publicity stunt.

And to be fair, he said he should stick his submarine where it hurts.

And then Musk started saying to his, whatever, 20-odd million followers,

calling him pedo-guy, and then doubled down on it.

and said, okay, well, it's interesting that he hasn't denied this.

And so when a guy with 20-plus

million followers starts accusing someone of being a pedophile, accusing someone of being a pedophile, regardless of how errant, regardless of how negligent the accusation of it is, it's a kind of accusation that a little of it sticks.

You never really recover for it.

So he sued him.

And what's come out in court is that Mr.

Musk, despite the fact that he's incredibly impressive, despite the fact that he's incredibly wealthy, despite the fact that he has an incredibly big brain, he's an incredibly small person.

And that is after this broke out and this individual decided to defend himself, you know what he did?

He spent $52,000 to hire a private investigator to try and go find out if this guy, in fact, had any dirt in his past.

I mean, that's just not.

That's the move.

That's the rich people move.

That's not a necessarily move.

That's such a small move, though.

Come on.

Every rich person.

Come on,

a diver living in Thailand, he defends himself, and you hire private investigators to go to your business.

Do they do that all the time?

Scott, wake up.

Well, then they're all small people, Carol.

That's total bullshit.

Yes, indeed.

That's an awful lot of people.

But I agree.

I agree.

It's not a great, It's not.

It's a real issue.

And who you say, okay, you say Billy.

You did a lot of honor.

I did apologizing in some way.

You know what I mean?

I thought, why not apologize, like profusely money to something?

Where's the board?

Who the hell can call this guy and go, boss, stop being such an idiot and a small person.

Go on Twitter and we will approve the suite and say, I want to apologize.

I was wrong.

Let's move on.

I hope you accept my apology.

Boom, a little bit of a bunch of people.

And like give an enormous amount of money to protection of whatever that person wants to do.

That kind of thing.

Like, do something, like, say, this was my bad.

Yeah, it's really hard for them to say, you know, so sorry.

I mean, I have, like, speaking of the Larry Page thing, I'm like, I would like it.

I'm sorry for what went on at Google.

Like, you know what I mean?

A lot of the sexual harassment stuff.

Like, where was that?

Like, where was that possibly?

And it's not like that everyone has to say, I'm sorry and put on the hair shirt and do a Cersei walking naked across the thing.

But it's really, it is kind of amazing.

Like,

I like that image.

I don't know.

Shame.

I don't want to see any internet mogul naked.

Shame.

Anyway, listen, I'm going to Mike.

I want to ask you because I don't know whether it's a win or fail that Jay-Z joined Spotify, you know, that trying to do this title thing.

I would like to know whether it's a win or a fail.

Can you please explain it to me?

I don't know, 50, but the strange thing is, and it's sort of a fail.

This 50 sounds young to me now.

But wade, I want to go back.

You're good at keeping things going, but have you ever had a billionaire hire investigators to dig up dirt on you?

Because I have.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I don't know.

When I was running activist campaigns and

I tried to kick the entire board off of a company I started called Red Envelope,

basically the billionaire who ran the board hired, they hired investigators to come after me.

And this is what the firm Kroll, which I hope the earth opens up and swallows all of those motherfuckers.

But anyways, they basically started calling old colleagues and old girlfriends of mine and saying, I were calling about Scott Galloway.

Are there any comments you'd like to make?

And none of them responded.

So this clearly wasn't a genuine effort to dig up dirt.

It was just a genuine effort to intimidate me.

Yes.

Yeah.

And we're talking about control of a corporation and the fact that people immediately resort to that.

And it's like you wake up every morning and you know how you feel?

You feel like, you know when if you've ever been pulled over on the side of the road, the first moment when you look in the rearview mirror and you see those sirens going, that feeling of, that feeling of real fear.

Really?

When you find out, at least with me, when you find out really well-resourced people have hired private investigators to pour over every aspect of your life for 40 years,

you wake up like there's sirens going off everywhere.

And it's at some point it's like,

this is about business.

I'm actually doing an investigation.

I'm clean.

I survived it.

And so my credit's good.

Everyone feels pretty good about it.

I have not had Kara Swishers.

All my girlfriends said the same thing.

He's boring.

I broke up with him, but you know, that's it.

All right, whatever.

In any case, I'm so sorry detectives are all over your life.

I will not negate to Jay-Z now.

I want your thoughts on this.

Like, Title didn't work.

And this is a major star here, a major music guy.

I love Spotify.

Do you have Spotify?

What music service is?

I love Spotify.

I love Spotify.

But my kids, I told you, moved to Apple Music.

They like Apple Music.

They just moved.

Monopoly power.

Monopoly abuse.

That's what that is.

Well, no, it wasn't.

No, they just like it.

My son likes it.

One of them uses Spotify.

One of them uses Apple Music.

I use Spotify because I like Spotify.

I like, and I like Spotify.

I'm used to it.

I love Spotify.

I listen to us on Spotify.

But they're doing really well.

But

Jay-Z couldn't do a music streaming platform.

Title.

Well, well there's no way how do you how do you okay platform is Latin for you need billions of dollars to create a mass technology networking effects and Jay-Z

is got a billion but he doesn't have billions it's I can't who's gonna who could do this I mean the Beatles couldn't do this or Madonna couldn't do it I mean the nood could do this I don't you know these companies spend billions of dollars on R D and distribution and they have amazing brands they have amazing technologists so every once in a while an artist gets angry and says I don't want to pay all these these people getting between me and the consumer.

And there's been a few times they've tried to do this, and it never works.

The music industry, and the problem with, or one of the many problems with this monopoly era we're living in is

these mega-monopolies cast shadow over all the duopolies in industry right now.

There's been incredible concentration across almost every industry, including the music industry, which is essentially controlled by a few labels.

And so, yeah, I don't think

this surprises nobody in my view.

Yeah, I would agree.

My fayall, of course, is Bill Barr, Barr, once again, every week.

You know,

even the Inspector General doesn't agree with him about the Russia,

his cockamame-me scheme to somehow push back this Russia,

these conspiracy theories around Ukraine and stuff like that.

And then his own hand-picked prosecutor is not going to support him on finding that

the FBI

acted badly in a certain way.

And it's really interesting.

He continues to be probably the most dangerous member of this administration, I think, in terms of what he's doing to the Justice Department.

I have a lot of friends who work there, and

they're really good lawyers, and they want to do the right thing.

And I think he's my fail.

He's my fail of the year, I think, in many ways.

Thank you.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, prediction.

Prediction, Scott Galloway.

Oh, I already made my prediction, Kara.

I think the odds on favor right now for the Democratic ticket and the vice president role is Senator Kamala Harris.

All right.

Okay.

That's a good one.

You just asked me, innovators.

What was it?

Innovators?

Innovator privilege.

Privilege.

Really good idea.

I think

that's going to be more and more in the scenes.

All right.

So Kamala Harris is your prediction.

She's going to be vice president.

I say, I'm going to go against you.

I'm going to say Stacey Abrams.

How about that?

Really?

Yes.

Yeah, she's super impressive.

Yep.

Super impressive.

Yep, Stacey.

All right.

And by the way,

did you see who's come up?

And I think this might have been one of the reasons she got out was the new morning consult poll has Bloomberg at 5%.

Oh, you're a guy.

I'm so excited when you serve in this administration.

What will you be?

What will be your job in the Bloomberg administration?

And then we're going to close.

What's your job?

Secretary of Chipotle.

That's right.

A burrito bowl in everyone's cabinet.

God, what is with you and Chipotle?

Are they like your sponsor?

Like, do you eat any other burrito?

Well, look, I've toned down to four or five times a week.

Chipotle is so wonderful, Kara.

Just surrender to the burrito bowl.

Okay.

It's just a chain.

I don't understand your obsession with Chipotle.

That's fantastic.

It is fantastic.

Well, listen, I actually

was in Boston, and there's a chain there, and I'm blanking on the chick.

Here it is.

Here we go.

It's called Chilacates.

Best, best chain I've ever had.

Echo amano.

Those Toros is right up there.

Echo amano con amor.

Maybe.

You could not have sounded more white saying that.

Say that again.

That was really hilarious.

Sounds so bad at language.

You sound like a Democratic presidential candidate mangling the Spanish language.

What are you doing this weekend, Kara?

What are you doing?

I am doing nothing because I am by myself this weekend with my older kids.

And so I'm going to sleep.

That's what I'm going to do, Scott.

And then, oh, by the way, oh, next week I have to interview Megan Rapino again.

Oh, good for you.

Yeah.

I have a whole bunch of stuff.

You know who you should interview?

What would be a great interview for you?

You should interview Barry Diller and get his plans.

I have interviewed him.

I will.

That's

why now.

Isn't he taking over ISC or XPD again?

He's stepping in and kind of.

That's a good idea.

I should talk to Barry.

I will call him.

I will call Barry Diller.

I will do.

And I'm going to interview, hopefully, the cast of the L-word.

It's back.

Erica Anderson saw it last night and said it was really good.

So Jennifer Beals and Eileen Chaikin and

Kate Annie.

Giving an endorsement for the L-word.

Is it on Showtime again?

It's about to start on Showtime.

They are

back in it?

Yes, she is.

She's great.

She's great.

I was texting her last night, and she's very excited.

She was on this morning

on Good Morning America.

She's the best.

She really is one of the most lovely people.

Did I ever tell you my Jennifer Beals story?

I brought her to CES once.

She came to CES, but long story-wise, she was there.

But

she's a real techie.

And so she went out onto the floor

of CES, which is Consumer Electronics Show.

And

she wasn't recognized there.

It was incredible.

She's an icon with lots of people.

Because there are just so many hot women rolling around CES.

Yeah, but it was amazing.

And

so

I told the people we were going around with that she was an executive for eBay, and she did a great job being an executive for eBay.

Kara Swisher and Jennifer Beals rolling at CES.

Yeah, that was great.

That inspires so many mixed emotions.

I hopefully that will be a hope.

That's going to be a lot of switches.

I literally have their head in their hands, hoping I don't say anything totally bad.

You know, I'm waiting for you to say something bad because it's going to be a good podcast.

I'm excited to talk to them.

That's an iconic show.

She seems nice.

I'm being looksist, but she just looks like a nice person.

Is she a nice person?

Amazing person.

She's an amazing person.

Anyway, so I'm going to do that.

I have a lot of stuff.

I got a lot of stuff going on, Scott.

I got a lot of stuff going on.

I'm going to do a lot of things.

Well, Scott, we have to go, but we're going to be back.

How can I miss you if you won't go away?

We have a new show on Tuesday.

There's a lot of stuff going on in tech this week.

There's all kinds of stories dropping, I think, all over the place.

So we'll have plenty to talk about in tech and in media, but it's time for us to go.

It is.

Enjoy the weekend with your sons, Kara.

Thank you.

I will have a great time.

Tell us what you think by tweeting us at hashtag Pivot Podcast.

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