Trump lies about Apple, HBOMax fumbles its brand, Juul gets sued

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

And Kara, this is very exciting.

Kara has gone Hollywood.

That's right.

Kara made her TV appearance, and you guessed it.

She was the baby Yoda on the Mandalorian.

No, no, no.

no.

No, it's my

third appearance on the TV show Silicon Valley.

And again, once again, I suspect I probably should win the Emmy for it, but I was again on stage for Silicon Valley, the TV show.

Do you have a clip?

I think we do.

Go ahead.

I'm now using Patach as a means to communicate friendship.

Hey, um, is that Kara Swisher?

What are you guys doing in there?

We are uplifting each other while we plan our annual women in tech empowerment panel.

Kara's moderating.

Oh my god, is that Susan?

Susan Wajiski Wajiski from YouTube?

Don't point.

It's unseemly.

That is, you know what?

So I got to be honest.

I have

most of the time, most of the time you tell me about the stuff you do, I have serious Jomo.

Do you know what Jomo is?

No, God.

Joy of

missing out.

Most of the shit you do, I think, oh my God, I feel so much better about my life that I don't have to do that shit.

This was Sirius FOMO, though.

This was very cool.

They gave you a, I mean, you had, you were actually in the show.

You had, you had to do it.

There's another scene later where I'm actually interviewing her about

her company.

It was all about sex positive feminism.

It was really funny.

They were making fun of me.

What the fuck is that?

Sex positive feminism.

Well,

it's an app for women.

Is there anything of sex negativism?

What is that?

No, no, but it was funny.

You'll see.

It's very funny.

It's adorable.

It's really well done.

It was nice.

And what?

I am on another episode.

I'm sorry to tell you.

I'm not going to tell you.

Another episode?

So

in terms of expectations, around those of us who've never been on an HBO show, did it meet, not meet, exceed your expectations?

It was fantastic.

I love Alex Berg and Mike Judge, and I like the whole team there.

And also, the food is great, let me just say.

And I had a trailer.

I had a really nice trailer.

Eric Anderson went with me, and we hung in the trailer with all the other celebrities.

It was fun.

It was really fun.

And who's the nicest?

Give me the most.

I want some page six gossip here.

Who is the least like their character and the most like their character based on your limited impressions?

Well, Susan Cryer, who plays Lori Bream, is not like that.

She's just delightful and witty and funny.

And she does a perfect job channeling.

Either it's Marissa Mayer

mixed with Mark Zuckerberg, mixed with all of them.

And I think she's really, they're all great.

I've interviewed, I've actually, every year that they've had a premiere, I've done an interview with the cast, a lot of the cast.

And so I think they're all wonderful.

The particular one is the guy who I can't blank on his name.

He plays the assistant, Jared.

He's amazing.

He's very good.

He's amazing as a person.

And in person, he's so funny.

But they're all great.

He was in Vee.

Together, the best written show on TV.

He was in Veeep.

He played the boyfriend of, he's been in a bunch of stuff.

In any case, they're all great.

I think they're all great.

I don't think there's anyone on it.

I don't think that I've met that hasn't been great.

Every one of them.

Listen, this episode was actually written by Daisy Gardner.

It was actually an all-female directing cast.

Everything else was great there, who told Eric America that she listens to Rico Decode to inspire her scripts.

So shout out to you, Daisy.

Thanks for writing this hilarious episode.

Maybe you'll get on a show someday.

You want to be on the Mandalorian, Mandalorian, but like don't even say that.

Don't even say that.

We might get you on a mandalorian.

I have to say.

There you go again.

Promise me stuff.

You're literally, you're like a 60-year-old man trying to like seduce like some 30-year-old impressionable person with all these false promises.

I just don't buy it.

I just don't buy it.

Yes.

Anyway, let's get down to business.

There's so much news happening.

So much news.

Now, all my colleagues at Recode were at Code Media in LA this week.

Ton of information from Tig Notaro to John Stanky of ATT took this stage.

And there was one particular interview with Carolyn Everson.

She's the vice president of global marketing solutions, whatever that is at Facebook.

And

she told them that the government should regulate ads and not companies.

And she said that Facebook was probably not going to do anything from their stance and then walked it back.

12 minutes later in another interview.

But let's play this tape.

We really believe that Washington, D.C.

needs to put regulation.

As a citizen, and I'm sure you want this too, probably everybody in this audience, we'd like to know that the ads we see from our political candidates are truthful.

That's really important for democracy.

You want the government arbitrating what's truthful and not.

We think there should be regulation.

We do not think Facebook should be choosing what is true or not.

All right.

So in the interim of that, Google, following in Twitter's steps, decided to put in some more less targeting, no targeting,

and will take out really egregiously false ads.

Not sort of blovicating ads, but anyway, so Google's now moving in what you call, what do you call it, Mr.

Galloway, Professor Galloway?

I don't know.

I'm drawing a blank.

What have I said?

White hats.

Oh, they're starching their hat white, yeah.

But they've kind of, like you said, they've starched it kind of an off-white here.

It's not the full starch.

It's not Twitter.

It's not a band.

That's right.

But still, you know, the best thing that happened to Google was Facebook providing cloud cover, because all of a sudden

they're no longer the bad kid.

I mean, it's literally Facebook's kind of

most wanted number one kind of

in that statement,

which you said, well,

I'm sure people here would like to see truthful ads, but want the government to regulate it.

And I would bet the majority of the people in the office said, Well, no, actually, media companies probably, if they can screen out blatantly false content, we'd probably be down with that too.

So

they're in sort of a corner because what they're saying is inconsistent, it makes no sense, and they're kind of isolated and alone and basically trying to

it's difficult.

It's difficult to, you know, it's difficult to put lipstick on this pig because it just makes no sense with their stated policy.

And you've predicted that they're not going to ban them, but they're going to alter it or they're going to alter it, which is what I thought Google was going to do, which is what they do, because now I'm the prediction queen here.

But what's interesting is that

you are just the queen.

What's interesting about Google is, look, they've got YouTube, which is more like a TV business, right?

It's more akin to a TV business than anything else.

And then they've got search, which you've got to search on things to get them.

So they're not in the micro-targeting business the way Facebook is.

That said, Google compared to Twitter is a big player here.

And the question is, how much pressure it's going to put on Facebook to do something else besides nothing?

And what's interesting is that then the Trump people tweeted lobbying Facebook against changing the way it's targeting because the Trump campaign loves it.

And so Brad Parcell is probably sweating

in his Levi's about this situation.

But it's going to be really problematic because they're being buffeted by the Trump campaign on on one hand and by what Google and Twitter have done on the other.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, it's

the weird thing, though, is that we are in sort of a little bit of our bubble and we read the media every day and we say, okay, there's a lot of pressure on Facebook.

But it's difficult to bring pressure to bear on a monopoly because there's very little downside.

And if you look at some of the things that Facebook's done and then what's happened to them, if you look at their stock price, if you look at the fact that the CEO and the COO still have their job, I mean, they're really at the end of the day,

we think there's pressure on them, but none of this pressure has been resulted in anything tangibly bad happening to the company.

There's been some fines like parking.

What's that?

I think they're going to change.

I think they're going to do something different.

I think they're keeping their options open.

What Facebook has to do is there's got to be 26 disasters and then they move.

And I think that's really what it is.

But I don't think they like being in this position.

That said, Mark was at dinner with Trump, as there just was revealed, because they don't keep logs in the White House anymore, that Mark had dinner with Peter Thiel and Trump when he was here that time he gave his idiotic free speech speech.

And so he's, you know, they're trying to play it both ways, you know, in that regard.

Yeah, it's

it's in the tech executives, Tim Cook got a lot of grief, and I know that I don't know how you feel about Tim Cook's role in it, but these corporate leaders,

but they're sort of in an impossible position because if they in any way if what Tim Cook, in my opinion, has done, it's been incredible, is his ability to somehow thread the needle between Xi and Trump and not offend people and figure out a way to still remain, in my view,

a principled person who

appears to want to do the right thing and does the right thing and still maintain anything resembling a productive working relationship with the president.

And when you're the most valuable company in the world, you're a U.S.-based company,

you want to maintain

a good relationship with the administration.

I thought the media was kind of unfairly harsh on Tim Cook.

You feel like he should have behaved differently.

No, not this one.

Go ahead.

Look, look,

this is what I tweeted.

Trump tweeted out today.

I opened a major Apple manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high-paying jobs back to America.

Today, Nancy Pelosi closed Congress because she doesn't care about American workers.

This is a lie.

This is a major lie.

There's no opening of a major Apple manufacturing plant in Texas.

This is what's happening.

They toured a plant that's been in operation making Macs since 2013.

They toured that plant.

It's not even an Apple company, by the way.

It's a company called Flex.

It used to be called Flextronics.

So they didn't open anything.

Apple is working on expanding its campus in Austin to a larger campus.

Yes, they are.

It will have no manufacturing, and

obviously there's going to be more jobs there, but it's not even close to this tweet.

And then the Trump campaign turned it into a campaign ad with a lie, and Tim said nothing.

This is just, look, when he gets called Tim Apple, I get it.

And this is what I wrote.

This is completely false.

I get that Tim Cook did not correct the Tim Apple thing, pointing out someone being addled is awkward, but this is different.

It's a plant run by a company called Flex.

It's been manufacturing since 2013.

If Apple will not say so, I will.

This is a lie, and I don't know what deal he's getting in response, but it's pretty much of a shocker to a lot of people to do this.

I get the idea of having dinner with him.

I get having to be nice to him, but to be part and parcel to a lie that becomes a lying campaign that I guess you then run on Facebook is gross.

It's just

what he wants is exemption from tariffs

that are going to take his stock price tangibly down.

But look, the good news is that Carolyn Everson believes that Apple shouldn't be responsible for checking its own lies.

It should be the government regulating them.

That was a joke, Kara.

That was good humor.

Anyways.

In any case, it's a mess.

I just think there's a point where you kiss up to people, and then there's a point where you don't kiss up to people.

I think people who use Apple, I was surprised at this level of lying.

And

silence is annoying enough, but allowing this kind of lie lie to go on under the corporate name is just,

I'm surprised, I have to say.

But if they ran the ad on Facebook, then it's the government, it's Trump that should be regulating the lies of his own making.

I know.

It's a mess.

It's a mess.

But the whole point is that we've gotten used to these lies.

Like, lies are okay.

And

arguing.

And I've got all these imbeciles on Twitter going, they're investing a billion dollars.

Trump is right.

I'm like, no, he's not.

And by the way, if you want to give credit, give it to Rick Perry or whoever was governor of Texas at the time and Obama because it was 2013.

It's just ⁇ and by the way, politicians don't matter in these decisions these companies make.

If they need to manufacture in China, they will.

If they need to do it here for some political reason, they'll do it.

It has nothing to do with these politicians.

Most of this stuff has nothing to do with politicians.

I agree, except for AOC and State Center GNRS that

saved New York taxpayers $3 billion by telling the wealthiest man in the world to put his hand back in his pocket.

I think actually

they did have an impact.

And also, also you talk a little bit about code media.

Code media.

It was a lot there.

A lot happened.

Then John Stanky, the CEO of Warner Media, he says HBO Max wants to be the next cable bundle, not the next Netflix.

Let's listen to his tape.

Would fully expect that the platform at some point in time is a platform that we allow others to bring content into.

I don't think from my point of view, we're ever going to have a lock or a monopoly on creativity.

And

I think there's been a number of articles actually written the last couple of weeks about the frustration and the fragmentation of the bundle and what's going to happen.

We're basically unbundling to rebundle.

At some point, there will be platforms that re-aggregate and rebundle.

And we'd like the platform ultimately to be a place where reaggregation occurs.

And that doesn't just mean our content.

Scott, your Rundle idea is catching on with John Stanky, who has a very deep voice, by the way, CEO of Water Media.

The Rundle, Scott, what do you think?

There's too many things out there?

What do you think?

Well, I actually think this will be the brand disaster move of 2020.

And I think what Mr.

Stanky...

Explain yourself.

Well, okay, so

HBO

has 23% of their shows are rated higher than 7.5 on IMDb versus just 6% for Amazon Prime or 10% for Netflix.

If you look at the amount of Emmys

that HBO has won, it went 34 last year, which is more than Netflix and Amazon almost combined.

And what you have here here is an incredible culture that has created the equivalent of a luxury brand.

And I mean, some more data here.

So if you were to take the monthly fee of these bundles and then divide it by

the billions of dollars they're spending on original content, basically

What HBO has been able to do is nothing short of remarkable, and that is that for basically

for $7.50, HBO gives you $1 billion worth of original content.

And despite spending more, you have to charge you more.

In other words, it's the worst value.

Versus Apple TV, you only have to spend 80 cents a month as a consumer to get a billion dollars in original content.

With Netflix, you have to spend 90 cents, Prime Video, $1.30.

HBO charges you $7.50.

Despite this, HBO continues to produce the best content.

So HBO is the equivalent of a Birkenbag.

And what Stanky's deciding to do by trying to go more mass and layer in all this kind of mediocre content from Warner is he said, I know we're Birken.

We're a luxury brand.

We have the best, highest margin

company or creative machine in the world.

We have artisans in the form of content creators, and we're going to turn it into fucking coach and then Walmart.

This is literally.

Who other brand has done that?

Can you recall a brand that's gone too?

That's a great.

There's a bunch of brands that have done that, gone too cheap, right?

Well,

Tiffany.

Tiffany has a lot of different things.

There's a lot.

I mean, Cartier, when they started putting their names on Lincoln Town cars, but then they got it back and have made an incredible brand.

It's much easier to go downhill, but then there's no going back.

And the bottom line is they can't compete with the deep pockets of Netflix or Apple TV.

So this is literally John Stankey taking a Birken bag down to a Coach bag, down to a Brooklyn Messenger bag.

It's just the worst strategy.

in the world.

They can't compete with the deep pockets of Netflix and Apple TV Plus.

They only have about 200 original shows or 200 shows on their platform versus 2,000 on Netflix and Amazon.

So they can't go toe-to-toe with these guys.

They had to stay.

And they shouldn't.

And they shouldn't.

And Disney shouldn't.

100%.

And don't you, when you hear a show is from HBO, don't you naturally assume in the back of your mind it's probably going to be better and you're more willing to trial it?

Except now, it was interesting.

I was on an airplane yesterday.

And, you know, Fleabag is from, what, Amazon?

I forget, I don't even know.

Fleabag's from Amazon.

Mazel is from Amazon, which I watch.

I'm trying to think of the things I watch.

Homeland is from Showtime.

I don't think of HBO as the only place for great stuff, although there's great stuff on it, right?

Let me just be clear: there's tons of great stuff on there.

But others have started to make great stuff,

HBO-worthy stuff.

So I don't know if

they have the market on that anymore.

And with Richard Plepler go on.

They don't have any choice.

They have to have fewer programs, but better programs, and they have to maintain the only asset they have.

They can't go toe-to-toe in terms of capital and armaments and spending against these deeper pocketed players.

The only strategy they have is

to maintain 100% succession.

Think about, oh my God, Soprano, six feet under, the best show that nobody ever watched, The Wire,

Hank on Larry Sanders.

This company has the secret sauce of being able to produce amazing content on a fraction of the budget.

They're a luxury brand, and they've decided, oh no, we're not going to be a luxury brand.

We're going to be Walmart and Target.

And by the way, that market is covered like crazy with cheap tackle.

So the worst brand decision of 2020 was the decision for ATT to basically trash their positioning as a luxury brand in the content arena and move into the mass market.

It is not going to work.

It's going to result in one of the largest corporate writings.

That's a good prediction.

I think you're 100% right on that.

And I think other people are moving into the luxury space and they're taking their eye off the ball.

But you know, AT ⁇ T is a mass brand and they don't know how to own something.

People want to see Kara Swisher on Silicon Valley.

They don't want to see the dog on a bunch of like Big Bang theory on HBO.

They want the high-end stuff.

Anyways, I'm

okay, Scott.

we're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back after this with friends of Pivot.

We got listener mail.

We got predictions.

We got wins and losses.

We've got a lot to go.

We'll be back in a minute.

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Welcome back to Pivot.

All right, Scott, we're going to hear from a friend.

We have Friend of Pivot.

That's a new thing.

Fop.

Fop.

Fop.

Okay, Fop.

She's Ariel Duhaim Ross, the host of Fox's podcast Reset, where she covers stories for people who want to hear what's behind new tech developments and policies.

So go to tape.

This week on Reset, we're doing an episode on sharenting, which is basically what happens when parents share information about their kids online.

So while I was working on this episode, one of the things that I learned was that even when parents announce the birth of their child online, they tend to give the specific date.

And that can actually be a problem because that makes it more likely that your kid's identity will be stolen.

I know both of you like to talk about your kids on the show and on social media.

And, Kara, you just had a baby.

Congrats on that, by the way.

So, I'm curious, especially going into the holiday season and when parents are posting lots of pictures of their kids online, how do you decide what to share on the internet about your children?

Thanks, guys.

It's a really thoughtful question.

Yeah, you go first.

Am I in trouble?

I got in trouble this week with my 14-year-old because I sharent it.

I'm a sharent.

There's no way around it.

I'm terrible.

And do they?

And they get upset, they don't like it.

Well, the older one doesn't care.

Is he about to get upset with what you're about to say?

Well, no, yeah, the older one doesn't care.

He doesn't seem to care.

It seems fine when he doesn't care.

But the other one, it was furious at me because I shared a picture of him holding his new sister.

He doesn't mind, it was fascinating.

He doesn't mind me necessarily sharing, but now I have to check with him if the pictures are good, which he's, it's totally fair.

And secondly, he wanted me to tag him, but not always.

And so I realize I have taken it.

I am a shared and I'm doing the same thing.

I don't know.

I don't, it's a good debate to have and it's a really important topic because

I just, I don't have anything to stand on.

What do you think, Scott?

No, you know what?

I have what I'll call no like moral clarity around this issue, and that is initially I turned my Instagram account private and I don't accept new users because I have pictures of my kids.

And it just feels private, and it feels like that should be one area of your life that is just that, is private, and you keep it sort of precious and special and unique.

But I also write a lot about my children in my blog post, No Mercy, No Malice, but I try to refer to them in the generic, of my oldest and my youngest.

I did publish a picture of my youngest, and then afterwards I thought I probably shouldn't be publishing pictures of them until they're age of consent.

And I talk about them on this podcast a lot, but sometimes I think, is that performative?

Am I trying to be more likable by showing these incredibly,

you know, we all think our kids are special and wonderful and they are.

And I wonder, am I doing that to

make a point or because I want to be more likable?

So my kind of move right now is I've decided I'm going to be performative and pimp my dogs.

I'm going to

not try and talk less about my kids and talk more about them.

Those dogs give consent.

I'm not going to be able to do that.

Oh my God.

Such joy.

Zoe the beach law.

And now we have the Puerto Rican rescue hound gangster.

And he's doing very well.

He's doing very well.

You and George Conway with your dogs.

What's the hell?

That's right.

It's a really interesting topic.

You should listen to this show.

But I think it's something you have to think about a lot.

Again, my son, Louie, I've talked about their names, has been on the podcast, and he's very volatile and likes to do it.

And the other one, I'm not going to say his name because he doesn't want me to.

And or maybe he does.

I don't know.

Things change every day.

But it's a really, it's a big issue and people should listen to this topic because it's a big issue.

Between being called a Sharent

Screen Ager, that's the other name my kid has for me, and

an okay boomer, it's been a great time at home.

Anyway,

let's take a listener question now about another topic sort of related to kids.

It's a topic that I think about a lot.

Jewel gets sued.

Go ahead.

This week's pivot listener mail comes from Owen Libby.

He's from Manhattan, New York.

He's wondering, is Altria's investment in Juul the worst corporate investment of all time?

A little background.

California and New York formally sued Jewel earlier this week for allegedly targeting teens toward flavored nicotine with their marketing.

So he's wondering, because you both have kids, whether you have any vaping testimony yourself, whether you have any thoughts on this area in general.

Thanks, Owen.

Oh, I have thoughts.

What do you have to do?

I think they're just the worst.

The worst.

The worst.

If you have teens, I don't think your kids are a little younger.

It's just completely targeted toward them.

It's as bad as old cigarette marketing.

I own so many jewels.

Like, I've taken them from

my oldest kid, and I just think it's awful.

I think the way they're doing this, I think it's dangerous.

I think some of these, you know, I think probably

the dangers are probably slightly overhyped by the media, but nonetheless, it's just like smoking as far as I'm concerned.

And I think the marketing is what really drives me crazy.

The flavor,

it's so aimed at young people.

And I do think it's the worst investment from Altria.

And I think those people walked out with a whole bunch of, they're sort of like the WeWork people, just walked out after perpetrating what is essentially a really dangerous product.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I have, again, no moral clarity here, full disclosure, I'm an investor in the space.

Tobacco had a strangle-like hold on my household, took my mother's life.

And I think that the fast, and I'm not making in any way a health claim here.

This is just a pure thesis or opinion in my view, but if we were to give an e-cigarette to every smoker over the age of 25 and reduce the number of tobacco smokers 10% a year, I think we would save more lives or we could save 5 to 7 million lives.

And at the same time, the outrage over the youth problem, I think it's justified.

I think your concerns are justified.

The question around whether or not it was the biggest kind of corporate blunder from just a purely financial standpoint, it's not even close.

Altria invested $13 billion for a one-third stake, valuing the company at about $40 billion.

It rose to $50 billion.

Let's say that's been cut in half, or even say they've lost $6 to $10 billion.

Time Warner bought AOL for about $163 billion.

And then, you know, fast forward 15 years later, AOL and Yahoo got sold for $5 billion.

Google bought Motorola for, I think, $12 or $13 billion and then sold it, I think, for $2 or $3 billion to Lenovo.

Daimler bought Chrysler for $38 billion and ended up selling it back to private equity after a failed integration for $7 to $10.

So this doesn't even make the top 10.

There have been a lot more disastrous acquisitions that have been written down by much more.

That's true.

Fair point.

But it's still not a good one.

And secondly, let me just say, look, look, the Center for Disease Control

has reported over 2,000 lung injury cases and 43 deaths linked to vaping.

More than 120 of those people were kids, were minors.

Altria is a tobacco company, and so they are just trying to keep

their nicotine addicts with them.

And I just, as a parent, I just, when I see this marketing, it's like massive, and the coolness factor and everything else, it's just, you know, they could, if older people want to ruin their lives by smoking and you, that's what you do, just so you know,

you're sucking on a death stick.

You don't point them at kids who are so at such a point in their lives where, you know, they think they're cool doing them.

And when celebrities, it's like the old, it's like the old cigarette days.

And I'm sorry, even if they're even slightly healthier, it's just, I just, I just think they acted incredibly badly

on every aspect of them and then tried to put themselves off.

Another company that pretended they were a tech company.

They're not a tech company, they're a smoking company.

So sorry.

Agreed.

Thank you.

Anyway, we'll move on from that on that note.

We need to take one more quick break and we'll be back with wins and fails and predictions.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Okay, we're back.

Let's talk about wins and fails.

Come on, Scott.

What are your wins and fails this week?

So my win is,

who is my win?

My win is Ambassador Jovanovich.

Ah, nice.

And I just thought this was,

you know, this last week, what the media has been reporting on, that the impact of this was a series of drumbeats that have, in fact, continued to link the president with the criminality

that is, you know, the president.

But what I found especially encouraging or rewarding about Ambassador Jovanovich's testimony is that I think it restores, I don't want to say restores a lot of faith, but I've always felt that we give people in uniform or people in the government who are in what I'd call kind of macho jobs the credit they deserve.

But we have a tendency to mock or be somewhat cynical about the people in government who aren't, you know, don't carry an M16 or aren't working as spies, right?

And the reality is we have an incredible army of people who decide to spend their life working for something bigger than themselves to advance our interests overseas and domestically.

And Ambassador Yovanovich, I thought, was on full display in terms of how impressive many of these people are and how fortunate we have.

So this is the daughter of parents who fled Nazi Germany and then the Russians figured out a way to get to Princeton.

Then she studied at the Pushkin Institute.

Then she received an MS from the National Defense University's National War College.

She rose to become the ambassador of Kyrgyzstan and then Armenia.

And then while in Armenia,

she was given an award.

She went to huge lengths and was hugely successful convincing the Armenian government to release protesters from

prison.

She was given the Secretary's Diplomacy and Human Rights Award, a department award honoring ambassadors who demonstrate extraordinary commitment to defending human rights.

She's been

given all sorts of awards.

I mean,

this is just an incredibly impressive person who had so many options, who didn't go to work for Goldman, didn't go to work for MySpace or a tech company, and decided to serve her country.

And then to have, you know, soon-to-be cellmate to Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani, show up and basically, you know, disparage her.

It just really, it not only It not only highlighted how corrupt this administration is, but I thought in a very positive way,

it demonstrated just how incredibly impressive

this army of people overseas are.

Yeah, they were fantastic.

So she's, anyways, Ambassador Yovani.

My friend was at the jazz club in D.C.

called Blues Alley, and she did a tape of people giving her a standing ovation.

She's a jazz fan.

And she was there, and when she walked in, everyone gave her a standing ovation.

I think people really want to feel proud of their country.

And the attacks on her are reprehensible by the Trump administration.

They're reprehensible.

And they're backfiring.

They're just backfiring.

You listen to these people, and they just, the truth has a nice ring to it, and it's just ringing so loud.

Everything they say sounds so true.

And by the way, Ambassador Sondland clearly, his lawyer, you know what happened there?

His lawyer clearly sat him down and said, I just have one question for you.

Do you want to go to jail?

And if the answer is no, get your shit straight and tell the truth.

Because everybody that's gotten up there thinking that in some perverted source of patriotism and loyalty to the president ends lies, misleads.

It's like Lady Justice kind of, we thought she might have left the building.

She was just grabbing coffee, and she is back with a vengeance, and it is working.

These people, when they now stand in front of Congress, are like, okay, best I tell the truth because people are going to prison.

And it's good to see.

It's good to see that our system is working.

And people, when they get in front of these committees, are now saying, okay,

the best advice you can get is to tell the truth.

And he revised his testimony, I think, twice.

But it feels like the system, I don't see it.

I see.

It's just like, it's like, it feels like we're in an ongoing episode of Star Wars.

Like, oh, God, the Empire.

They They never.

Did you say that like it's a bad thing?

No, because

in the last episode, there's like seven people from the resistance left.

It's like, ah, Jesus.

Like, God, these people, they keep on coming.

Like, honestly, I just, just from like, even just doing this tweet about Apple, you were like, oh,

you're, you wanted Hillary Puzzle.

I'm like, no, I don't want the president to lie and use Apple as an ad.

Like, thank you.

Just like, I'm sorry you have so little, like, you have so few abilities not to think lying is okay.

I just,

I agree with you.

I think it was very heartening to listen to that and to listen to all these people.

And, you know,

Lieutenant Colonel Vinman, I thought, was great.

Weirdly, he looks, my dad was also in the military, and he looks a little like my dad.

And my dad died when I was young.

And so I was like, so proud of the idea of like, he wasn't having any of it.

You know what I mean?

Like, he's, you know, he's an immigrant.

He came from the former Soviet Union.

Just, I thought he was great too.

I know we revere military more than other things, but I thought he was exactly what was right about the military.

Who's your win?

Honor.

My win.

I'm going to go to someone who's not like

Ms.

Ambassador,

the ambassador.

Kylie Jenner's cosmetics company being bought by Cody for $600 million.

Oh my gosh.

They also own makeup brands, CoverGirl, Max Factor.

I think,

you know, this was really interesting.

The question is, what's going to happen to it?

But Cody's shares rose 2.6% this week.

These independent beauty brands, like not just from Kylie Jenner, but from Rihanna with Fenty, which apparently is very good because people really make up people always tell me it's really fantastic.

I think it's really interesting, and I do think it shows that, look, this is real money.

This is real money, the Kardashians, as much as people make fun of them.

Kylie Jenner is obviously daughter of Chris Jenner, part of the Kardashian Empire.

I think it's really interesting that these brands are just being created like this, and I thought that was fascinating.

I'm curious what you think.

You can bash the Kardashians all you want if you feel like, but I thought it put some

lipstick on this, whatever.

So, No, I think I agree with you.

I think the Kardashian women or daughters are impressive people, and I think it's easy to be cynical about them, but they've built great businesses.

And look, this was a kind of, it's doing $200 million in revenues.

It was actually purchased 51% of the company for $600 million, valuing the company at $1.2 billion.

And it's really, to a certain extent, it's a victory for social media because the primary asset here wasn't a proprietary skincare line or even a great brand, but her ability to sell $200 million of cosmetics through primarily the Ulta channel using her 100 and I think 60 million followers on Instagram or Twitter.

So this notion, what do these independent, you have a few trends, one in the beauty space, which is a wonderful space that is high margin, great for e-commerce, and it's one of the few spaces that hasn't been disrupted by technology or Amazon because brand's important and there's a certain kind of,

similar to HBO, there's a culture of creativity at places like Estee Lauder and L'Oreal that continues to.

These are the big ones.

P ⁇ G, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, the big things.

And then you have Clarence, and then PNG looks like the smart company because they sold all their cosmetics line to Cody.

And quite frankly, it looks like Cody overpaid for it.

Cody's stock was down dramatically.

It's come back.

But Cody's largely kind of a fragrance and a licensing company of these celebrity-driven fragrances.

But anyways, what this shows is the power of these longtail brands.

has incredible power across beauty, hair, hair, cosmetics, and skin.

And when you have a $200 million company largely built on the back of social media and then distribution through Ulta, valuation of $1.2 billion, I mean, it's just, it's kind of impressive all around and plays on a lot of trends.

But I think the big winner here is it shows just how important Instagram is in terms of building a high-margin aspirational product.

If Condonast had been reinvented or reimagined for a digital age, remember how powerful the Condonast

media company was with Vogue and, you know,

it would look something like Instagram.

So Instagram, my thesis is that in 24 months, and this is another indication, Instagram will be worth more than the core platform of Facebook.

Agreed.

That's like a prediction.

We'll get to that in a minute.

But I agree.

I agree.

I think this is a big win.

And I think people like to make, but I got a lot of pushback when I said this was fascinating because they love to just keep talking about Kim Kardashian and sex tape years to come.

But look, these people have created a lot of stuff, whether you think the messages about girls are wrong or not.

They've done a lot of things that are really interesting.

You know, and a lot of these celebrities are using these social media publics for really interesting stuff.

And I think this is one of them in terms of Kylie Jenner.

And, you know, someone like The Rock, who I have just been tweeting with back and forth, with him trying to get.

I saw that.

The Rock's all over you.

The Rock is all over.

I love the rock.

What did he call you?

He's like, you're

a bundle.

From you.

Did you see that?

A rundle, a rock bundle, yeah.

I said I'd buy a rock bundle last week.

By the way, Dwayne Rock, I'd love someone compared Dwayne The Rock Johnson to George Clooney.

First off, The Rock graduated from college.

The Rock has been in all these incredible movies.

Basically, we're comparing him to George Clooney about how much more impressive he is than Clooney.

The Rock is very impressive.

I love The Rock.

If I could get The Rock on podcast or at Code, literally, it would be a dream.

Someone was like, who's my, you know, by the way, years ago when I was talking to Facebook and who was a real up-and-comer on social media, they said two names, The Kardashians and The Rock.

And that was, they said he is just something else on social media.

And so I think he's, I can't believe he responded to me.

I literally screamed when I saw that.

And I just watched Hobbs and Shaw, which I loved, of course.

And

I was really thrilled.

And he was great about it.

He wants to have a drink.

You may come with me to that because I don't drink.

Again, more hollow promises.

If I get drinks at the rock, you are coming.

And literally, you cannot embarrass yourself with me and the rock.

Do you understand?

Because I am deeply drawn.

This takes me to the ugly place of my dad constantly holding out that rabbit coat.

He was going to get my mom that never came.

I'm just saying.

It just, we never got the rabbit coat.

I am deeply.

We got a two-bedroom apartment in Encino and mediocre child support.

That's where you take me with these hollow promises.

The Rock.

The Rock, Rock.

Listen, The Rock.

Listen, Dwayne.

I love you.

You need to come to code or whatever.

I will do a podcast with you anywhere, any place, anytime.

It'll be so much fun.

We will laugh and laugh and laugh, and then we'll have tequila.

Can you ask The Rock to put us both on a workout program and let's just see what happens?

No, let's not even try to bother.

Okay, your fail very quickly.

We got to go because you got to get your prediction.

I like that.

I like that.

Oh, my fail is easy.

My fail is just the brand strategy blunder, and that will result in what is the erosion.

I've had companies that have been acquired and what you realize is the culture is just so important.

And one of the great cultures in all of corporate America and media is the culture at HBO.

And you have just an incredibly poor judgment right now that is going to erode the culture that has produced some of the most, for me, some of the most moving content in history.

And it's not only the wrong thing to do,

just in terms of destroying art, it's the stupid thing to do.

They can't be Walmart.

So my fail is just poor decision-making at HBO going to HBO Max.

No one wants Big Bang Theory to junk up the wire six feet under girls.

Richard Klepler is probably just joking.

Well, did you hear?

Supposedly Apple is eyeing him.

Yes, they are.

100%.

The deep pockets of Apple, the original content there.

He's eyeing him.

He's going to do a deal with them.

It makes sense.

You think?

I mean, that's going to be a formidable.

We're talking, we definitely want to know that guy because that's our invite to the Emmys because that guy is going to be accepting.

I know that guy really well.

Well, of course you do.

Plepler was the PR guy for time for HBO for years before he became the head of it.

And he was in my book.

He was in my, I know Plepper.

I love that Plepler guy.

He's a fantastic, amazing guy.

Yeah, but him, him on top of a limitless capital and the Apple brand, watch out.

I love the Plepler guy.

Watch out.

He's very funny.

He's a funny guy.

You know Plepler, don't you?

I got an email from him asking if we could have lunch, and similar to you.

Follow promises, another rabbit coat.

He likes to go, I forget which restaurant he goes.

You got to go to lunch.

I'm going to book you up with a Plepler.

I will do that.

Here we go again.

More promises.

Jesus, you can't help yourself.

I'm just telling you, Plepler is great.

You and Plepper would get along well.

He loves to meet interesting people, and you're an interesting.

He has dinner parties.

And also me.

And also me.

Yeah.

No, but he likes to have interesting people dinner parties in New York.

You know, those things where you're sort of on display like a zebra.

You'd be perfect.

You'd be perfect for that.

My God.

You're like a zebra.

Thanks for that.

Okay.

All right.

We're going to get to predictions.

My fail, obviously, is Tim Cook and Trump this week.

And I don't blame Trump because he lies like he breathes, but Tim Cook should know better.

Thank you.

Okay, your prediction, and then we got to go.

My prediction.

So a name you're going to hear more about

in 2020, and it's going to about to become a player in the ecosystem between the intersection of tech and the streaming wars, which I'm just fascinated right now, is Roku.

Oh.

And Roku now, I believe, has a 38% share of devices for streaming

ahead of Amazon, whose Firestick I think has about a 30% share.

And when you look at one of the keys,

one of the missing links to Netflix and to Disney Plus is they don't control their distribution.

So their ability to go toe-to-toe with Amazon and Apple streaming offerings that control their own distribution will be their ability to either acquire distribution or build it or the other way, and Roku offers that, or the other way, because Roku's stock has skyrocketed and now has sports, I think, about a $15 or $16 billion market cap, you could see a Roku, you could see a man dog bites dog, and you could see Roku go out and start to acquire content.

Maybe even a CBS that I think sports about a $13 billion market cap right now.

But a bigger name that we're not talking a lot about now in 2020 and a new player in the space, if you will, is Roku.

Roku, okay, that's interesting.

You're pulling them out of nowhere.

God, not Netflix or anything like that?

Well, they either get acquired, they could get acquired by Netflix or potentially Disney that need distribution, or they, if their stock keeps going up, will use their currency to go acquire a content company.

But Roku is going to be in the news either as a seminal acquirer or acquisition.

I think that's really smart.

I never even thought about Roku, but you're right.

Well, I heard Richard's listening, so I'm trying to impress you.

I like that.

I like that a lot.

I like that concept a lot.

It's interesting, Netflix, I still think, despite the fact that Disney's done a great job with this thing and HBO Max is coming,

is coming, I still think Netflix got a lot of kick left in it in terms of its programming.

I watched, if you can believe it, Let It Snow, which is their

Christmas movie.

It's trying to sort of be book smart, but not as quite as smart.

And I thought I can see why they're doing really well.

It was really well done, even though it was ridiculous and and empty for a ron-com, but

it was sort of a mix between book, smart, and love, actually.

So I still think they're very canny as programmers.

And so it'll take a lot for others to keep up with how good they are.

Well, you know who winners are just based on that as content creators, as evidenced by just an anecdotal or a small data point.

Netflix is expanding their creative community and their

producers and their content hub in Madrid, Spain from 13,000 people to 25,000 people.

So think about Netflix is going to have

25,000 people in Madrid producing European content.

And it gives you a sense of really, it's a wonderful time for kids coming out of college right now.

If they can be any part of the ecosystem that manages to figure out a way to produce creative, differentiated content, that is a really good wrap right now.

The cost of producing a show in the last 12 months, according to Netflix, has gone up 30 to 40 percent, which indicates that everyone from the gaffers to the caterers to the people moving your trailer around are making a lot more money.

So, this is a growth part of the economy.

Get to content, get to content.

You're right.

And speaking of content, I'm going to have a prediction.

Star Wars, the rise of Skywalker is going to be a huge hit, and Cats is not, even though it's weird looking.

Well, you're really going out on a lunar.

Listen to me.

You and I are going to go see both in a double.

There we go again.

There we go again.

Try on this rabbit coat.

It's coming.

Yes, it's coming.

You and I are going to go see Katz and sing along.

You're literally taking me back to

Sears.

My dad pulls out his Diner's Club card.

We're going to go see cats together.

We're going to hold hands.

It's going to be great.

Yeah.

That's what you call Jomo.

Joy of missing out.

Joy of missing out.

Taylor Swift.

Wendy Leschold gave me this.

Oh, my God.

We didn't even talk about Taylor Swift kicking Scott or Chad or whatever.

And Scooter Braun in the place where it hurts.

Taylor Swift.

Nice.

Taylor.

What do you got going on this week, Kara?

What's the big cat up there?

I've got a lot of interviews.

I've got a lot of interviews.

I'm going up to Boston for Thanksgiving.

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

My sister and her family, who I will not be posting on social media or Instagram, will be coming down.

My dad's third wife, my wonderful stepmother, was the first person to ever spoil me.

She's Linda, the first person.

She, like, first person to spoil me, buy me things.

She used to send me cookies.

And you always love for the rest of your life the first person who spoiled you.

I didn't have grandparents, but I had my dad's third wife.

Thought she couldn't have children.

He's on number four, but we think this one's going to stick here.

That is a heartwarming family.

Isn't that nice?

My dad's third wife.

She's coming.

She's wonderful.

What are you thankful for?

What are you thankful for?

I'm thankful we live in a country that attracts some of the best and brightest that continue to want to serve for us silently and quietly and confidently.

I'm thankful for ambassadors, the Secret Service, the DMV, and the University of California.

I'm thankful for all the wonderful people who've made this incredible experiment

as robust as it is.

Oh, Scott, that's so good.

And your father's third wife.

And my dad's third wife.

Listen to me.

I'm thankful for you, Scott Galloway.

What are you thankful for?

I'm thankful for you because you make me look good.

Go on.

Go on.

You make me look good.

Someone the other day goes, you know, Scott's really offensive.

And I'm like, uh-huh.

Well, no shit.

And they go, well, do you think that's okay?

I'm like, I love it.

It's fantastic.

It's my favorite part because I can kick him in the teeth.

And then he says something really smart.

That's how it works.

And then he says something else.

But I am thankful for you, and I'd be more thankful if the next time we meet you were dressed in drag.

That's what I'd be thankful for.

I'm in.

All right.

We're going to go see cats, and you're going to dress like a kid.

Rebecca Newman.

I'm dressing as Rebecca.

All right.

Anyway, Scott, we got to go now.

We'll be back next week.

We do have to go.

We have some more things.

Before we go, I want a big thank you, actually, to all the amazing listener questions and feedback on Twitter in our inbox.

Thank you all.

And thank you for the people who listened to to Pivot.

We love our fans.

We have great fans.

We do.

We've gotten great notes from Mexico, from everywhere around the world who want us to come there, and we are going to go everywhere as long as you buy our drinks.

That's how it works for us.

Hottest city in the world, Mexico City, hottest city in the world, right?

We're going to figure it out.

We're going to formula one.

Erica is on it.

She's going to figure it out.

They're all going to, and Rebecca, they're going to figure it out for us.

Anyway, please keep your questions, requests, suggestions coming into our inbox.

Keep telling Scott he's the best on Twitter.

We can be reached at pivot at voxmedia.com.

Also, tweet at us using hashtag pivot podcast.

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanez.

Gautham Srikashin engineered this episode.

Eric Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

Thanks also to Rebecca Castro and Drew Burroughs.

Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

And if you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from Voxmedia.

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

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