"It's not a meritocracy, it's a mirror-tocracy"

Support for the show comes from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Sacks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

Follow us here, and you can invest in some new arrivals that you'll want to wear again and again, like a relaxed product blazer and Gucci loafers, which can take you from work to the weekend.

Shopping from Saks feels totally customized, from the in-store stylist to a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you things that fit your style and taste.

They'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in, or when that Brunello Caccinelli sweater you've been eyeing is back in stock.

So, if you're like me and you need shopping to be personalized and easy, head to Saks Fifth Avenue for the Best Fall Arrivals and Style inspiration.

If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI

and wondering how long you have to wait,

maybe you need to do more than wait.

Any business can use AI.

IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business.

Let's create Small to Business, IBM.

Hey, Scott, before we start the show, I want your help with something.

Let me guess.

It's the survey thing again.

By the way, the digital world, you don't need to survey anything as you can measure everything.

Don't they have tech people here at Vox?

Oh, my goodness, that's right.

It's the last week of our survey for Recode Decode, and we really want to hear from anyone who listens to this show.

We really want your feedback.

Fill out the survey, win a trip to Knott's Berry Farm.

Yeah, no, Scott, they fill out a survey and tell us what they think of it so we can make changes.

Do you really want feedback?

I don't want feedback.

No, I do not, but I do.

I do.

Others do here, and it's that's so fine.

I honestly know.

I don't care what anybody thinks, but that's okay.

Anyway, you can do it on Twitter, but seriously, if you listen to Ricode Decode, please go to recode.net/slash pod survey.

Will you please do that, Scott?

Yeah, I'm in.

Okay, leave me alone.

Enough already.

I want to make sure they heard the URL.

That's recode.net/slash pod survey.

Go.

Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And this is Aunt Becky.

You love that.

You love that.

I don't like it.

She was in court this week with Felicity Hoffman and others.

Yeah.

So, by the way, that's the beginning of the revolution.

Income inequality.

You start shaming rich people.

It's a little ridiculous.

You're shameless.

How do you shame shameless people?

Give me a break.

I know enough already.

They'll come out alone.

Enough already.

They don't care.

They don't care.

What's next, Bob Sagett?

Come on, leave him alone.

Leave him alone.

He's a dirty bird, I understand.

That's what I understand.

Well, yeah, that's called being a man in Hollywood.

No, but he's a protector.

You didn't think, you know, whatever his name is.

Have you seen Neverland?

I'm totally.

No, my kids saw it the other night.

I fell asleep and my kids watched it and then were traumatized for the next two days.

Well, having not seen it, you've seen it.

Because guess what?

The guy with a glittery glove who hung out with monkeys and Ferris wheels and had a little kid sleeping in his room, he molested them.

Spoiler alert.

I know.

My kids were

particularly disturbed by how

it's really disturbing.

Yeah, I didn't

seen the second.

Yeah, that's what everybody says.

And then they moved back to Game of Thrones for the week, which just premiered the new season.

Last night, and I wasn't invited.

And I know all these people at HBO, and I wasn't invited.

Anyway, anyway, let's get the big story.

Speaking of dismembering people,

Facebook, again, once again.

What have you heard?

Any news here at the end of the day?

Every day, it's like they

kept it on a hard drive and gave it to the Russians, like all the information about everybody.

There was several hack stories and everything else.

And then, of course, Mark Zuckerberg wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post asking to be regulated.

Please regulate me.

Except on his terms, obviously.

So that was kind of odd and strange.

And it was very presumptuous that he should sort of start to talk about this.

And of course, the way I read it was that he wanted to have them clean up his mess and help us paint his fence so i i noted on cnbc we don't want to paint billionaires fences for them yeah the tom so

yeah it's just weird i don't know there's a there's so there's a lot he's in europe too he's in europe so the the facebook so facebook is the digital donald trump and that is any one of these things would be disqualifying for most people but because every two or three days you hear something outrageous you become numb to it yeah so it's like oh okay he said something ridiculously racist oh wait he is a racist oh wait he also

attacks people.

He also is pushed over an old lady.

You just keep hearing all these things.

And because it's one after the other Wells Fargo did, you know, the whole loan dog scandal, their big mistake was not being, you know,

more

felony, you know, not doing more and more bad stuff repeatedly.

Because what happens is you become numb to it.

And that's what's literally happening.

Well, I don't think everyone can get away with it.

But you're right.

It's it is an astonishing every week there's something different.

You're like, what did they do again?

Didn't they do that already?

And yeah, you know, I agree.

And this, this, now he's appearing, like, he's doing an interview with George Stephanopoulos and stuff like that.

And whatever.

He talks a lot.

He gets out there a lot and says almost nothing because

these are not challenging interviews, let's just say.

And

so they do.

They keep talking or they post op-eds or something like that.

So they're active too.

So it's not like they've hiding, which I think is really interesting.

600 PR and communications people.

They do.

They do.

I've visited all of them.

And there might be 700 by now.

And by the way, that op-ed, it was brilliant.

It was really well written.

Well, let me be clear when I mean brilliant.

The strategy that has created a quarter of a trillion dollars in shareholder value, or at least preserved it, is very simple, delay and obfuscation.

If they were more honest, we would start calling Mark Zuckerberg delay and Sheryl Sandberg obfuscation.

They resent that.

They resent that characterization.

Well, I resent genocide of my kids being addicted to your bullshit.

So anyways,

you have Zuckerberg, all right, new privacy and security controls are coming.

That was eight years ago.

And then when people started getting angry, they employed the ultimate nuclear weapon of mass distraction, this incredibly attractive, incredibly compelling, incredible personal story weapon called Sheryl Sandberg that said, hey, look over here, everybody.

And for about 24 to 36 months, if you went after Facebook or Sheryl Sandberg, you were sort of implicitly going after all women.

So no one wanted to say anything bad about Facebook because their public figure.

Okay,

100%.

You go after Facebook, you're going after Sheryl Sandberg, you're going after the entire overdue conversation about gender imbalance in the workplace.

People got fed up with that.

Now they move to, okay, we're building this nation-state security screening apparatus.

Remember how last year, a year ago, they're talking about they're hiring tens of thousands of people to screen their content?

Have you noticed we haven't heard anything about that recently?

Because clearly, you had exactly the right term.

You said, okay, this has gotten away from them.

This whole thing has gotten away from them.

So So that's not working.

So what's their next excuse?

I know.

Let's throw up our arms and say, you know what?

We need to be regulated.

You guys need to regulate us.

Meanwhile, meanwhile, and this is a tactic and it's brilliant, the incumbent who sits on

a half a trillion dollars in market cap can shape regulation to create a barrier of entry and benefit the incumbent.

This is what, this is my new concept I'll be writing about soon.

Apex Predators.

That's what they do.

They increased.

That's an awesome term.

Thank you.

That's my new Instagram handle.

Actually, I'm starting a boy band called Apex Predators.

Well, they are.

They're like,

whatever's going to,

he recognizes there's a threat here.

And so that's when he acknowledges fear, like when he, when he wants to, like, you know, he puts his head down a little bit, like the Hanahead of thing.

And I think that's a good idea.

But again, it's more distraction.

Yes, I would agree.

I think it'll be interesting to see

what regulation happens.

And I do think there is regulation happens, especially among the Democrats.

But it's an interesting time for them.

Like if they can, if they can, you're right, that Donald Trump, they they can just be noisy long enough, people will forget the last 50 things that they did that violated privacy.

But having like, there was one story this week about them having a lot of information on a text file on an Amazon server.

You know, it's just like, what are you doing?

Like, why aren't you careful with this data?

Like, what?

That's just your job.

It reflects the Gestalt, because the Gestalt at Facebook is this hacker mentality, incredible creativity, incredible engineering talent around the development of these incredible targeting tools.

They do have some outstanding things about their culture.

They also have a culture of, you know, do just don't care.

If it has privacy, just don't worry about it.

If there's anything around security or controls, it's an open platform.

We're a platform, we're not a media company.

And you see all these things happening everywhere.

And it's pretty clear that no one ever gets compensated.

As a matter of fact, they probably get punished if they say, hey, you know, there's 40 million accounts on this public AWS server that people get access.

It's just like, no, we don't really want to hear about that.

You know, meanwhile, here in Washington, it's Joe, Uncle Creepy

and whatever.

Who's Uncle Creepy?

Orange and Origins, Joe Biden.

You know, it's funny being here.

I'm going to delve into these waters.

You think Uncle Joe's creepy?

You think Uncle Creep?

No, it's what they're calling him Uncle Creepy.

I didn't, I don't know.

It's stupid.

I've seen him do it.

I've seen him do it.

And you think it's uncomfortable and creepy?

I think women just haven't said stop it.

And now they're saying stop it.

Like, it is uncomfortable and creepy when people do that.

I've had it happen to me dozens of times.

And you just have to be like, oh, God, you fucking asshole.

Like, you just, you literally, like, it happens all the time.

It's like, and now people are like, wait a minute, why am I putting up with this?

So the other story, obviously, is in this genre is YouTube, which a great story by Mark Bergen, who used to work for Recode many moons ago, not many moons ago, recently.

And he wrote a story about, he had covered Google for us.

And now this is a story about YouTube that he's done for Bloomberg.

And

it was interesting about how there was a number of, it was very scoopy because Mark's that way, but it was all about stuff they've done to have plausible deniability in the company over their free-for-all platform and how they were looking into things that would increase virality.

And in increasing virality, it would increase toxicity.

And how they wanted to look away and not see the filth that goes over their system.

It was really interesting.

They probably see it a different way.

I know they see it a different way.

But it really is the idea of trying not to see what you're making.

making.

You know, like you're making cigarettes and it's killing people.

Oh, they're not killing.

You know, that kind of thing.

Like, it's, it's that kind of mentality.

But there's a, this is part of a broader trend, and I think it's a dangerous one that needs to be revisited along the lines of antitrust and breaking these guys up is that non-competes, non-solicitations, forced arbitration, you know, this gestalt of don't put it in email.

We never want to actually have any evidence that we've actually acknowledged the problem because then we have to deny that we knew there was a problem or acknowledge acknowledge we knew there was a problem.

And all of these things accrete power to the incumbents and the biggest players because you should be able to leave and start your own firm.

You should be able to, you know, the non-quote unquote, the non-solicit, informal non-solicit that Jobs had with Eric Schmidt at Google, they said all that does is suppress wages.

And I think all these things need to be looked at because the key to our economy is that smart, talented young people leave big firms and start new firms.

And if something bad happens to them at work, whether it's Uncle Creepy or if it's intimidation or if it's reporting on a topic that's sensitive, they don't get stuffed into arbitration where it's not public.

And so all of these things need to be visited because at the end of the day, all they are is weapons of mass entrenchment across very powerful corporations.

Yeah, I agree.

One of the things that was interesting, I did a live podcast thing this week in Washington about AI, and one of the people was from the AI Now Institute, who also works at Google, Meredith Whitaker, and she was talking about the idea of employees stepping up.

You know, she was one of the leaders of the Google walkout, and she was talking about the idea of people stepping up and saying things and not and being whistleblowers within these companies.

And that's why the story at YouTube was interesting, is they didn't want people to look into the dirty parts.

Like they didn't want them to, one person internally had created a tool that showed how popular alt-right sites were that veered into white nationalism and they didn't want to know.

Like that, they didn't want to know what was actually going on.

And, you know, that there's, is there gambling going on in this place kind of idea and so she was talking about the idea that these that she has a lot of faith in employees of some of these companies coming forward and this is the case in this story coming forward and saying you know there's all kinds of stuff they're doing that they say one thing publicly or create these panels or content moderation uh you know super bodies to help us figure it out and it's a lot of it's PR versus what they what they really are doing.

100%.

Interesting.

All right.

When we get back, we're going to have a new thing called Friend of Pivot.

We're going to take a quick break now, and we'll be back to our show.

Adobe Acrobat Studio, so brand new.

Show me all the things PDFs can do.

Do your work with ease and speed.

PDF spaces is all you need.

Do hours of research in an instant.

With key insights from an AI assistant.

Pick a template with a click.

Now your Prezo looks super slick.

Close that deal, yeah, you won.

Do that, doing that, did that, done.

Now you can do that, do that with Acrobat.

Now you can do that, do that with the all-new Acrobat.

It's time to do your best work with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio.

Support for Pivot comes from LinkedIn.

From talking about sports, discussing the latest movies, everyone is looking for a real connection to the people around them.

But it's not just person to person, it's the same connection that's needed in business.

And it can be the hardest part about B2B marketing, finding the right people, making the right connections.

But instead of spending hours and hours scavenging social media feeds, you can just tap LinkedIn ads to reach the right professionals.

According to LinkedIn, they have grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, making it stand apart from other ad buys.

You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority skills, and company revenue, giving you all the professionals you need to reach in one place.

So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience and start targeting the right professionals only on LinkedIn ads.

LinkedIn will even give you a hundred dollar credit on your next campaign so you can try it for yourself.

Just go to linkedin.com/slash pivot pod.

That's linkedin.com/slash pivot pod.

Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads.

All right, I'm here with Scott Galloway, who is in New York City.

I'm in the District of Columbia.

We're going to have a new segment there.

We want to test something out new this week and talk to some friends of Pivot about some new ideas.

As you know, Scott and I practically live on Twitter.

This week it was filled with tributes to Nipsey Hussell.

He was a rapper and entrepreneur who was killed earlier this week.

A lot of the tributes are about how he was using his money to invest in tech and STEM education in low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

So we called up Afro-Tech editor-in-chief John Ketchum to talk about the larger trend of how young black entrepreneurs are investing in tech.

So Nipsey Hussell was a staunch advocate for STEM and entrepreneurship and its impact on his community.

He founded Vector 90, which is a STEM program and co-working space in the Los Angeles area.

He was very, very vocal about the impact that technology and entrepreneurship could have in his community, both economically and in terms of education.

Over the past couple of years, we've seen a big trend of these young black celebrities, young black people with money, really seeing tech and entrepreneurship as a way that we can quite frankly catch up.

So there are a lot of other entertainers, musicians, and athletes who are involved in the tech and entrepreneurship space

and

using those things as an engine to drive change in their communities.

So, for example, Serena Williams, she just became an investor in the Bumble Fund, which specifically targets female entrepreneurs of color.

Another example of this is Steph and Aisha Curry.

Their foundation just launched a scholarship that goes to a young girl in the Bay Area who is going into STEM education for college.

And another instance of this is Rich Dennis, the CEO of Sundial Brands.

He's working on a project to turn Madam C.J.

Walker's house into a hub for women of color entrepreneurs.

This is a bigger trend.

A lot of young black folks with money are seeing the benefits that come from these two areas, and they're trying to make sure that

everybody gets a piece.

I think Nipsey was committed to showing the world that the people in his community were geniuses.

Yeah, this is something that I followed for a long time.

Oddly enough,

one of the early investors, a lot of it was MC Hammer, was around a lot early in the internet age, was around.

He was friends with Ron Conway, who's a big investor.

But it's a chance the rapper was doing it.

Maverick and LeBron James,

all kinds of, a chameleonaire is in the Lyft IPO, for example.

There's been an interesting trend this way.

It's nothing very big, though.

It is celebrities like Serena Williams or Steph Curry and his wife.

You know, there's they're focusing money there.

And there's been, but it's still been up and down, which is, you know, the real power still remains within a small group of largely white people in Silicon Valley.

So it's, it is interesting when you start to, you know,

I just did an interview with

the

Wyatt Combinator.

You know, they're trying to move money in different ways or trying to

get money into other talent that are not doing the same thing.

And it's a very difficult and slow-moving thing, largely because they pattern match with the people they're comfortable with.

And I'm not sure how that's going to change, but it's really, really important that people start thinking this way because I'll finish with this.

One of the things Gene Case, who just wrote a recent book, said is that it's not a question of talent, it's a question of opportunity every time.

And it's not talent because there's talent everywhere.

100%.

So there's a lot here.

And

when you're someone in the other notes, I didn't like this story.

And that was the first time I heard the gentleman from Afrotech speaking.

And it is, after hearing him talk,

it is a nice story.

It's an inspiring story.

The first thing that strikes me is,

you know, you go into a low-income neighborhood and role models in who the kids are going to aspire to be.

If they aspire to be athletes or entertainers, there's about a 98%, 99% unemployment.

rate in those industries.

Whereas if you can create role models around investing in tech or tech entrepreneurs, there's about a 99% employment rate in those industries.

And I think that anything that helps lower-income and middle-class kids aspire to be

tech entrepreneurs is probably a pretty good thing.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

And then what you're talking about, aggregating the same people.

My gosh, did you see that New York Times article with the infographic around who benefited from the windfall of the Lyft IPO?

Oh, no, I didn't.

Tell me about it.

Oh, Jesus Christ, it's powerful.

It's literally the same fucking dude.

Yep, it is.

It's like the same, oh, who made a billion dollars?

The guy at Greycroft, who made a billion dollars off of Salesforce and Adobe and Amazon.

Oh, what do you know?

It's Jeff Bezos.

Oh, what do you know?

It's this white guy at Sequoia.

I mean, it's literally the same dudes.

Yeah, they are over and over and over.

You know my saying, don't you?

It's not a meritocracy, it's a meritocracy.

But you have, so as an asset class, as an asset class, venture capital has returned zero.

It's been totally flat.

It's been a terrible asset class because it's not only a small number of firms that are accreting all the wealth, it's a small number of people at a small small number of firms who get all the deal flow, are included in every deal.

Everybody wants Mark Andreessen on the board.

Everyone wants A16 or Andreessen Horowitz, or everybody wants Sequoia.

And as a result, they get more deal flow.

They can raise so much money.

It's the same white guy, it's the same endowment from Yale that are accreting all of the revenues, who, by the way, doesn't expand their enrollment.

They just triple their applications so academics like me can be drunk on exclusivity.

And the wheel spins, Kara.

The wheel spins.

The wheel spins.

That is true.

The wheel spins.

I did an interesting podcast with Arlene Hamilton and Wendy Davis at South by Southwest.

And there was a story later about Arlen not being able to get the capital she is.

She's an African-American woman who's been trying, doing a VC, who's a VC.

And the difficulties she faces are quantum.

I mean, and there's all kinds of like who's good, who's not good, who's not good.

But she gets a harder time than others who are either equal or lesser than her.

It's really an interesting thing.

And so it's very hard.

The idea of collecting capital and

having it available and doing it as a matter of course and seeing talent where it isn't, there is, I think, a real, if someone could really crack this idea of finding talent in places that it's, that everybody isn't fishing in the same fishing hole, would be a really, to me, it's one of those things that could, and not just here, globally too.

It's a really, people have tried it, but it's always done in not the biggest way.

It just seems like we're leaving behind, we're leaving a lot of of talented people.

Anyway, wins and fails.

Okay.

So

let's talk about.

So a couple wins, a couple politicians.

Mayor Pete.

Yeah, love him.

Wow.

Ask him to code.

I've asked him to code.

Mayor Pete, come to code.

Wow, he's a cat.

My sons love Mayor Pete.

My sons were going on about Mayor Pete last night.

Just seeing it in town hall, super impressive.

And let's talk a little bit about Mayor Pete.

Despite his youth, he has more executive elective experience than the president.

He has more military, more well, elected leadership, executive, hands-on elected leadership experience in the vice president.

By the way, he had the ultimate, the ultimate

one-liner basically summing up Mike Pence.

And that is, he said, and I'm going to try and be careful,

do this justice, he said,

did Mike Pence stop believing in scripture when he began believing in Donald Trump?

And I'm like, boom, that just perfectly summarizes

his book is amazing.

That's a hypocrisy that is Mike Pence who believes Jesus is coming coming back.

And well, Mr.

Vice President, if Jesus does, in fact, as you believe, come back,

he's going to find your office and throw up on you.

Yeah, that's probably Jesus is going to be coming back.

This guy, so Mayor Pete, and the other guy who I think is a big winner this week, and then I'm just a huge fan of, is Colorado junior senator Michael Bennett.

I love Michael Bennett.

You know that.

He's fantastic.

He announced he's battling prostate cancer and has decided that he's likely going to enter the presidential race.

And as I think happens, and one of the reasons I love or I embrace atheism is I think a finite nature of your own mortality makes you more deliberate and more grateful and makes you less fearful.

And I think this guy said, you know what, I have something to say I can contribute.

And he's basically saying to, you know, he's basically saying to cancer, you know, I can beat this.

And we have such a wonderful science, the warm hand of science now.

More people survive cancer than die of it.

And I'm sure the Republicans will go after them.

And I'd like to remind them that a 71-year-old obese man is going to die a lot sooner than a 54-year-old man who's healthy, who's struggling with prostate cancer.

So, Mayor Pete and Scottish.

Thank you, Dr.

Scott.

That's right.

Let me just say, I have spent some time with Michael Bennett.

He actually happens to be the brother of James Bennett, who runs the New York Times opinion section, who's sort of a boss a little bit where I write there.

He is so brainy.

I had such a delightful discussion with him.

He's like, he's super brainy.

I think it's really interesting.

These are two very brainy guys.

That's right.

White guys, nonetheless, but still super brainy, super not scared of their brains, not scared of talking about smart things.

They're really good people.

Anyways, wins.

Who are your wins?

Do you have a win?

I'm sorry.

Yes, I did an interview with Rose Marcario.

She's the CEO of Patagonia, and I loved it.

She used to be in finance, and then she's now running Patagonia, which is a hugely successful clothing manufacturer and really cool stuff, also.

And they do a lot of moral stances on things.

And so they're refusing to sell their power vest to some

high-up tech and finance organizations, which I love.

Patagonia thing?

Yes, and she was great.

She calls people out.

And they're doing really well.

It's a really interesting way you're talking about this idea of being woke.

They've been woke forever.

And they stick with it no matter what.

They sue the president, they sue this, they do this.

Anyway, this one, this is an audio clip from the interview I did with her a year ago

in Portland, Oregon.

You know, business needs to stand up.

They can't be quiet.

You know, this is what makes me mad about the tech companies right now.

Right.

All right.

We'll talk about that because that's where I come from.

Yeah.

So explain your weenie concept.

Yeah, so, you know, look, these guys, what's Zuckerberg worth?

60 billion?

What's Larry Page worth?

100 billion?

I don't know.

Like, we're talking about billions of dollars.

Yeah.

They create, you know, they've made so much money off this platform.

I don't know.

I have family

in the military that fight for this country.

And it's our democracy that's at stake.

And we got attacked.

And we got attacked on their platforms.

And they haven't done anything about it.

They won't step up and explain the problem.

They won't come out in plain English and say what they're doing about it.

And it's pathetic.

That's why I say they're weenies.

I love her.

She was saying this long, this is where I sort of got my, when I started writing about this a lot was she impacted me because she was like, she just said it plain.

And she's this amazing, just, and by the way, Patagonia is doing great as a business, too.

So you don't have to like choose one or the other.

And that's why I really like her and the whole company.

Yeah, I liked her.

I like the emotional voice.

So Patagonia, I love this.

So I want to switch this back to my favorite topic, me.

When in the early 2000s, I was advising.

How good you look in Patagonia.

There you go.

And

you'd bring in all the analysts to hear your idea.

And they were all wearing Patagonia fleece vests or

Patagonia vests.

And they all, it's so hilarious in finance.

They all have like a tattoo or a nipple ring or they wear leather things around the wrist because they basically want to say, I'm hip.

At night, I have friends in fashion, and I don't want you to think I'm lame because I can't find a more interesting way to make a living.

So they all have these like quirky things, and they literally all wore Patagonia.

And I think that different sort of PG-13

derivatives of bigotry are taking hold.

And a few of them, first off, in tech ageism, but also I think there's an emerging feel or emerging ism of coolism.

And that is, for example, the Soho House here in New York have basically kicked out all members who were in finance.

And Patagonia, a little bit here, is saying, if you're in finance, we don't want to do corporate wear for you.

And I do think it's sort of a little bit of an ism.

By the way, if you want to, I'm convinced that corporate wear branded apparel is saving thousands of marriages across the United States.

Because if you're at a conference and you see Bob and you want to kiss Bob and you start going over and Bob's wearing Oracle Cloud Stack t-shirt, you're like, that's it.

I'm not having anything to do with Bob.

So, literally, corporate wear has saved millions of marriages around the United States.

For Patagonia, that's a form of bigotry.

I mean, it's the whole, like, we're not, basically, this whole thing started.

They're backtracking, but they're basically saying we're not going to put, we're not going to put vests on people in finance.

All right, last one, which you think is a fail, but I think it is not a fail.

I think it's a win.

My son loved it.

Elon Musk dropped a rap about Harambe on SoundCloud this week, and my kids loved it, although some people did not.

My kids loved it.

So this is one of our predictions.

I think this is, we said this is South by Southwest.

I think this is the year that Tesla literally comes undone.

Yeah, they had some trouble this week.

So let's go to predictions.

So this is, you were right.

They had some trouble.

They had a lot of trouble this week.

Yeah, but I think sometimes it's darkest before it's pitch black.

I think Tesla is really about to come undone.

Because

going back to your conversation around talent, you know, the team of the best players wins, and every player is leaving Tesla.

And despite the fact we think he's one of our new Jesus Christs, the agency, or excuse me, greatness is accomplished in the agency of others, and all the others are leaving Tesla.

And that's a very negative, forward-looking indicator.

Other big fail, Karen, I know you love the guy.

I still think he has done more to move this forward.

And I had this argument with the Ford CTO this week in a podcast.

It doesn't mean Tesla can't fail.

Tucker built a great auto company.

Whereas the Tucker.

Tucker.

It's much more important than that.

I'm just going to say that.

Okay, I get it.

I give credit here.

They can say all they want is they were going to get into it.

None of them were until they Tesla was turned.

Interestingly, I hit a Tesla this week in my car.

Good for you.

That's why I'm getting rid of cars.

I was thinking they're going to have a hard time getting it fixed.

You know what?

You got a free fast.

I think your insurance company shouldn't raise your rates if you hit a Tesla.

Just a little dent.

But I did.

It was like, oh my God, it's a Tesla.

I can't believe it.

Anyway, prediction, Scott.

I predict I'm not going to hit any more Teslas.

I'm not driving anymore, but go ahead.

Okay, so look, I think the whole ride-hailing space, the combined market capitalization, and this is kind of a fail, the combined market capitalization of Uber and Lyft as of today, the private and public market capitalization, is greater than American, Delta, Ford, Embraer, which makes awesome planes, by the way, Mattson Shipping, Royal Caribbean, and add-in, I don't know, add-in like jet blue.

That is not sustainable.

And by the way, and I know you like these guys, I don't know them, but the Lyft website and the IPO said great things can happen when something great, when great people do great things.

I'm like, yeah, fuck you.

This is what has happened with the Lyft IPO, all right?

Those guys collect a billion dollars.

You know what the drivers are getting?

I know.

I agree.

Okay, hold on, let me, because I'll tell you, I've done the research.

I actually read the damn prospectus, unlike anyone who was stupid enough to buy that stock.

You have, if you've read, if you've done a thousand rides, I'm sorry, 10,000 rides, you get $1,000.

So you put those guys, guys, put those COs who are new billionaires in the back of a car, and every time they do a ride, have them throw a dime at the driver because that is what they're doing.

And they claim, oh, but wait, ride-hailing gives flexibility to the driver.

Well, let me tell you something, boss, as someone who's hired hundreds of people, and I'm really being indignant and virtue signaling right now.

Giving employees flexibility doesn't exonerate you from providing health care insurance or minimum wage protection.

Ride-hailing care is literally the tobacco of the gig economy.

We figured out a way to sequester the 4,100 mostly white, mostly college-educated people with their mostly white, mostly college-educated investors, so they can split $24 billion,

the value of Chrysler, while the 1.4 million mostly non-white, mostly non-college-educated people get flexibility and $8.50 an hour, and the founder's throwing a dime at their head.

Fuck you, Lynn.

Oh, my God.

This was the most fantastic Scream Fest.

No, I haven't eaten.

I haven't eaten.

Where's my Chipotle?

That's clear.

Too much?

No, it's fine.

It's fine.

It's fine.

It's fine.

It's good.

You like those guys, right?

No, I think their finances are insane.

Like, come on.

Anyone can read, do math.

I can add and subtract.

I think they're going to get bought.

I'll get bought by someone.

Have you sold the fiesta?

What?

Have you sold the fiesta?

I haven't been back to San Francisco.

I have my neighbor selling it for me.

My neighbor is a car guy.

He's going to sell it for me.

Bob.

Nice.

Nice.

Bob, sell the car.

Yes.

And then I'm going to give away the money because I just to something like a climate.

Oh, by the way, our prediction.

So we had, okay, prediction.

So last week we predicted.

Now I feel bad that I was so profane around Lyft.

I don't hate them that much.

Okay.

They're very nice guys.

You could have a lot of people.

And then I get depressed.

Maybe

you could have been mad at the Uber guys, but

we'll see.

I'm just mad at Ridehailing.

I think it's a giant income inequality vehicle.

But anyways, sorry.

So we predicted that Lyft would come out at $100.

We were wrong.

It came out at $90.

And our prediction is within six months that it gets cut in half at least.

And then other prediction, and this is the most underreported story of the last week.

Did you notice what Amazon is doing?

Did you notice the new skills that Amazon has released?

No, tell me.

Healthcare.

Six new skills in healthcare, including basic healthcare information on kids.

They are now, Amazon is now HIPAA compliant.

Oh, really?

So prediction, Amazon stock up 50% on the back of the Jedi mind trick they're about to perform on the most inefficient, most disruptible industry in the world right now, and that is the $3.5 trillion healthcare industry.

Because when Amazon, all of a sudden,

when you show up and you have an Amazon show and it says, hey, and 80% of wealthy households

have an Amazon Alexica device, and it says, would you like to hear more about it?

Would you like to lower your health care costs by 50%?

And Amazon says, hey, we've identified you.

They're going to sell us everything.

100%.

But all they need to do is threaten, just threaten to sell you health care.

And the incredibly inefficient insurance industry, where 45% of costs are around administrative costs, not the actual delivery of health care, is about to get taken to the woodshed, Kara.

I would agree with you on this.

So predictions,

Tesla way down, and Amazon way up on the backs of healthcare.

Big health.

It's coming.

Anyway, Scott, as usual, we will talk next week.

There's so much.

I have a lot going on next week here in D.C.

I have many famous politicians to see.

Who's rubbing your feet?

No one's rubbing my feet.

I'm just going to be, I have a lot.

I've got an event in New York where Oprah is going on right after me, which I'm very excited about.

And I'm interviewing some people about Facebook's platform and the difficulties of it.

Some really amazing people, as you'll see, I cannot see.

And then I am going to be going to a very big political event where I will be interviewing a very big politician.

Wow.

If that didn't sound so incredibly boring, I'd ask you who.

It's going to be Snancy Pelosi.

Anyway, anyway, you managed to get out of this week without getting fired.

It's great.

Good for you.

Well done.

Well played, Scott.

There's hopes for next week.

Anyway, Rebecca Sinanez produces this show.

Nishad Kirwa is the executive producer.

Thanks also to Eric Johnson.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media.

We'll be back next week with more of a breakdown of all things tech and business.

If you like what you heard, please subscribe, rate, and review Pivot on Apple Podcasts.

Like me more, Scott Less.

That's fine.

If you have to do that, please do.

All right.

Easy.

Easy.

Thanks.

This month on Explain It to Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well: collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It To Me, presented by Pureleaf.

Support for the show comes from Mercury.

What What if banking did more?

Because to you, it's more than an invoice.

It's your hard work becoming revenue.

It's more than a wire.

It's payroll for your team.

It's more than a deposit.

It's landing your fundraise.

The truth is, banking can do more.

Mercury brings all the ways you use money into a single product that feels extraordinary to use.

Visit mercury.com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to do more for their business.

Mercury, banking that does more.