Will the rising tide of ride sharing Lyft all boats?

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 Cacchinelli 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.

AI agents are getting pretty impressive.

You might not even realize you're listening to one right now.

We work 24-7 to resolve customer inquiries.

No hold music, no canned answers, no frustration.

Visit sierra.ai to learn more.

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

I hate to ask you a favor, as you might imagine.

Trust your instincts and judgment on that.

Exactly.

You're going to want something in advance.

But we're doing a survey for my other podcast, Rico Decode, which is amazing, to find out what people like about the show and what they want to see us do more of in the future and what they don't like.

I know what they don't like, my children tell me.

I interrupt too much.

So I would like your help on this.

Yeah, they say that a lot, but you keep it moving.

So how can we help?

How can they, what do you want from, what do you want from them and me?

I want you to tell all our adoring fans that if they listen to Ricode Decode, they should go to recodecode.net slash pod survey.

So let's hear you do it.

Okay, so if you listen to Rico Decode, please help us out and make Kara and Rico Decode less bad.

And go to recode.net slash pod survey.

Okay, is that the best you can do, seriously?

I thought that was pretty damn good.

Put that in the survey.

All right.

Feedback, other.

Scott is awesome.

All right.

Thank you, Scott.

You're welcome.

Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher, and Scott, according to Twitter, we're internet's mom and dad.

What do you have any thoughts?

Say hello to the people.

Hello.

And most importantly, it was a porn star who said that, which gives us so much cred.

I have not thought this hard and long about a response to a Twitter post.

This is awesome.

Okay.

Well, so glad we're your, we're your really bad mom and dad.

We'd be such badly raised children.

I think, are you a permissive parent, Scott?

What kind of parent are you?

You know,

I'm a softy at home.

Fortunately,

the mother of their children is German.

So our household is run like a panzer tank division, but I'm basically the idiot on the couch who they just kind of roll over.

Oh, okay.

I'm very strict.

What a shocker.

But I am the cool mom.

Cool.

I am the cool mom.

I am.

There's no such thing as cool mom.

I'm the cool mom.

I'm the actual cool mom.

I really am.

I just went on a college tour with my kids.

And

what's the stretch goal in the college that he's doing?

Oh, he really likes Tulane.

We went to Yukon to see it.

We went to Fordham.

He went to Colorado with his other mom, not as cool mom.

The other one, who is 13, is going along for the ride, which is kind of fascinating.

He's just going straight to MIT and becoming a billionaire.

That's the plan for him.

MIT.

You know, I did it all wrong.

I got into UCLA and then I tried out for the crew team.

Just

Photoshop his face on a picture of me rowing crew and we'll get him in.

All it takes is a half a million dollars.

Whatever.

We're not paying anything.

We're not paying extra.

So that's the way it's going to go.

Anyway, big stories this week.

Anyway, I had a very nice college tour.

It was very lovely.

So let's break it down.

Obviously, Lyft going public.

Big stories.

And you know the founders, so give me a sense

of their culture.

What do you think of this?

Are you happy for them?

What do you think?

You know, I still have issues with the economics of this whole Schmegeggy thing, but I think these people are lovely.

I have to say, I mean,

if there's an anti-Uber, it's Lyft, right?

They've always been lovely.

They've operated pretty, not grow, grow, grow.

You know, United's, they're aggressive, but not very aggressive.

They've stuck to the United States, grow slowly, thinking about things.

I think, you know, they're the, they're the softer side of Sears, that kind of thing.

And, you know, it was really interesting, many years ago, I think it was John Zimmer.

We were at a party.

We had a dinner thing that I was doing with a bunch of founders.

And he came over to us and started talking about how 80% of the cars aren't being used because there's five seats and only one driver and what a waste it is and climate change and everything else.

And he was so lovely and he walked away.

And Dick Costa, who's the former Twitter CEO at the time, said, Travis is going to eat him alive.

You know what I mean?

Like he was so lovely.

And so I think it's sort of their headquarters, it's always soft and they were pink.

There's a lot of pink and soft, squishy things.

And at Uber, it was like the James Bond headquarters where the sharks had, you know, you open the stairs and you fell down into the shark tank.

It was just such a difference in personality.

So I'm glad they're going public for them.

Yeah, if you read the perspectives, it feels like a bad millennial show.

There's so many words of green movement.

And car funkers are full of shit.

Ride hailing is not good for the environment.

Well, so far, it's

not that.

Yeah, I'm sure they do.

Anyone will believe whatever they need to if it makes them a billionaire.

No, they believe it.

They do.

I've got to tell you.

They do.

They come from it very different.

They started it more as a,

it was not started the way Uber was.

Uber was, we want to get limos and make up ladies.

And these guys are like, we want to save the environment.

You know who built Lyft?

Who?

Travis Kalanik.

Yeah, that's right.

That's true.

That's fair.

Lyft got so much wind at their back, so much press.

Everyone started saying, well, is there another?

It was kind of a Star Wars.

There is another.

It's called Lyft.

And I think a lot of investors,

a lot of writers started getting Lyft a chance.

And they're just, you got to give them their due.

They went from kind of, oh, they're going to die, as Mr.

Costello thought, to, by some estimates, 39% share.

Yeah.

You know, Ben Horowitz is the backer of that company.

He was very aggressively involved in running it.

Although the two founders are great.

They're great.

I always enjoy talking to them.

I have to say, they're pleasant.

They're sort of like the Pinterest CEO.

Lovely.

Ben.

Lovely.

Yeah, Ben seems very soft.

Quiet.

Doesn't even want to be CEO in some ways.

That's why it's two classes shares because he doesn't want to be CEO until he dies, until they rip it from his cold deadhead.

No, I think he just wants control.

They all want control.

So anyway, so I'm glad I went public.

The finances, I mean, really, come on, the numbers are

challenging because that's the key here.

And that is $2.2 billion in revenue and $900 million in EBITDA.

Oh, no, wait, $900 million in negative EBITDA, which means, Kara, if you take a $12 lift ride, it's costing them 20 bucks.

So it would be economically irresponsible for your kids not to take Lyft to Madison when they move.

I mean,

it is literally, you are, this is ride-hailing as a whole, and this is such a weird dynamic, ride-hailing as a whole is a transfer of wealth from drivers who are not subject to minimum wage or worker conditions or health insurance laws, and from their investors to riders.

It is literally an amazing deal for riders.

But here's the thing.

How long is that going to go on?

Well, that's the correct question.

And thank you.

If you look at, if you read their perspectives, they keep using the word, and the media

has been co-opted here.

They keep using the word network effects.

And there are no network effects in riot-haling.

Network effects

is when every user that's added creates some sort of incremental product value.

Everyone's on Facebook.

Software.

Yeah, everyone's on Facebook, so great.

It's more valuable.

Every person that gets on Instagram, it's more valuable.

There's scale for Lyft and Uber, but I fail to see what the network effect is.

And you have a company doing 2.2 billion, losing 900 million.

And by the way, this thing's going to go public at a value of somewhere between 20 and 30 billion.

I think it's going to come out tomorrow at triple digits because

nobody has a chance to buy internet companies because everyone's smart and doesn't want to go public these days.

But this company, I just have a difficult time understanding how negative 45% EBITDA margins gets to profitability vis-a-vis scale when you're only

$50 billion.

Maybe it gets bought.

Well, there's only one buyer.

But who's the other buyer here?

Well, I think one of the issues I always thought is like, look, soft banks invested in all of these, right?

I think they're in Lyft, right?

There's just one.

There's There's one company that does this.

Then they can start to jack the prices and et cetera, and cost efficiencies, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, you'd have to take the prices up substantially.

And even if you take the prices up 30 or 40 percent,

and let's assume it's inelastic, and say they get to call it 10 billion and they manage EBITDA margins of a billion and their growth slows to 20%, that company is maybe worth 10 to 15 billion.

So I just, you know, I go back to this old school fuddy-duddy dad pants bottoms-up valuation of a company, and I have trouble understanding how this company's going to be able to do that.

They all try to sort of do themselves on the Amazon.

Oh, Amazon didn't till then.

You know what I mean?

Like that kind of thing.

And even Amazon, like once they start to lose AWS business, they got some chill.

I mean, Prime is not priced at the price it really is, right?

Come on.

Like, none of this stuff is priced at the price.

You're getting great deals.

And even when it goes up a small amount, I got to say, the other day in Uber was more than I thought it should be because I'm so used to almost nothing.

Yeah, it's getting expensive.

But I was like,

I'm not taking that.

I walked.

I took the Metro.

Like it was really, it was like, that's a lot of money.

It wasn't that much, but it was like enough where I was like, I could take a cab for that.

I don't really like taking cabs.

Like, you know, I only do it now for ultimate convenience.

Now I've shifted to other things, including the things that Lyft owns, which are the scooters and stuff like that, which don't cost anything practically.

You and your scooters.

You're seriously.

Everyone has an addiction.

You don't drink or smoke is my understanding.

You're addicted to scooters and ridiculous things that make you feel like it's a lot.

You know what I also think of getting one of those circular things you ride, you know that looks like a unicycle circular thing you ride you know a unicycle but electric oh my god you're on a unicycle I'm thinking that's like a prophylactic no one will ever think of electric bike too

electric bike so that it gets a little hot that's awful so wait back to Amazon as an analog what did Amazon figure out though Amazon uses oh that they you know that they made all this money they were spending spending spending and they weren't making any money and everyone until they get to scale and then they will win and that was the argument and so they're trying to do that here and you have to think of the way to do it's got to be one company company, really.

That's it.

And then

the prices have to go up.

And then you only have one choice.

Like, it's all owned by SoftBank or the Saudi Arabia.

But that's not how Amazon got there.

Amazon got there by taking cheap capital and starting adjacent businesses specifically.

AWS and Amazon Media Group that are incredibly profitable.

Right.

And yet the marketplace continues to value them on their share of e-commerce consumers.

So these things have got to sell.

Neither Lyft nor Uber has been able to develop those ancillary profitable businesses.

Yeah, well, Uber, no, no, Uber Eats is getting kind of interesting.

Is it profitable?

Yeah, well, I think so.

I think I, from what I understand, it's it's an interesting business.

It's certainly one that you have to start to go.

But then you can see price cuts everywhere, like if other people are doing it.

It's just, you know, you don't think that like Google's in it, Amazon would be their competitor in that, I suspect.

Yeah, I don't, the Lyft IPO,

there's no network effect.

There's going to be this artificial demand tomorrow morning.

So can we skip right to predictions?

No, not yet.

Not yet.

Okay, never mind.

No, okay.

So next, Facebook's banning white nationalists.

I feel shamed.

I feel ashamed.

Facebook's saying it's banning white nationalists.

What a shock.

Wow.

Okay.

That's big of them.

Wow.

Thanks.

You think that the, but I read from the notes.

Are you thinking?

Too much, too little, too late.

But you think it might have a domino effect into YouTube?

I don't know.

I'll ask Susan what just she's coming to code.

I'll ask her.

I don't know.

I just like, I just like, literally, I would argue with them about Alex Jones, and then they finally, you're going to ban them.

No, I'm not.

No, we're not.

No, we're not.

Yes, they did.

And then the same thing with white now.

You're going to ban these people.

You're going to knock them off.

No, we're not.

No, we're not.

It's This is bad for your business.

No, we're not.

No, we're not.

Now we're doing it.

It's just whatever.

Good.

I'm glad.

Now they need to move on to other things that are hate speech and stuff like that.

But then you get sort of tagged with the anti-First Amendment thing, but this is just so clearly

toxic.

I've never understood the First Amendment argument.

The First Amendment is for the public square.

It's not for private companies.

I know.

That's because people can play.

You ever go to someone?

I have my...

You know,

I used to have comments on the site, the recode site, and we got rid of them because I was sick of dealing with all the direct that came through, and I didn't have the staff.

And it just wasn't, it didn't, it wasn't additive to my business, and it wasn't additive.

It took time, and it was just icky.

It wasn't helpful.

It wasn't good.

If it was good, I would have left it up.

And I kept getting these emails from this one guy.

He's like, it's my right to free speech.

And I was like, no, it's not.

Not on my platform.

It's not.

Go get your own friggin' platform.

But I like, I get comments.

It's that idea of people aren't educated to understanding that.

I get comments on my YouTube channel saying where they warn if I continue to do X, they're no longer going to view my video.

And I'm like, oh my God, take my eyes, but don't stop watching my videos.

And they're like, who the fuck cares?

I know, it's interesting.

It's an interesting thing.

I don't know what they're going to do.

For the good of their businesses, they should have a

clean stuff going on there.

And white nationalists hate speeches.

That's out of vogue.

That whole white nationalism thing is out of vogue.

I don't know why it's even a debate.

I get the larger college freshman dorm room debate about it, but I don't get the business end of it.

It doesn't make any sense to be hosting that stuff.

But if they, you know, whatever, whatever.

It's their business.

Who cares?

It's their trip around the globe, as they say.

All right, Apple, another nothing burger.

Apple announced this new TV streaming service.

This is really interesting because the TV about this.

The TV, as far as I can tell, it's just sort of, we're rebranding Apple TV.

And I initially thought, okay, they're trying to compete with Netflix, but I think what they're doing and the opportunity is they want to compete with Comcast and just make your TV viewing more organized and more sane.

But they got huge pushback in the media.

Everyone said this was a half-baked idea, totally

not indicative of Apple's production values in terms of they came out with something and really couldn't explain it, couldn't talk about the pricing, the value add.

They just had a bunch of famous friends that all like to wear Apple logos, you know, Oprah, Steve Jobs.

Oprah.

Oprah was there.

Steven Spielberg, which I thought was pretty interesting.

The stuff that got overshadowed by it was, one, I think the Apple News,

the kind of evolution of texture, is actually a pretty pretty cool product.

Yep.

And a great value.

And I think that's interesting.

And hopefully they're more publisher-friendly.

They probably won't be.

And then the most interesting thing for the ecosystem is the Apple card.

And that is Apple had to work with and convince a bunch of banks to work with them to get Apple Pay.

Now they've turned around and they're competing against them.

A terrible brand or marketing move was to offer discounts instead of special value ads.

Apple is a luxury brand, and they should have said, okay, if you you have the Apple card, you can come to exclusive events or get product offerings.

Like SoFi does.

So-Fi's bigger.

Yeah, I just don't think Steve Jobs would have ever said, yeah, discounted 1%, 2% cash back.

That's like carrying a Discover card and paying for dinner, which means you're just not having sex with it.

Although those cards, those Cap 1 cards are very popular with the young people.

They love them.

They love all those things.

This is what Apple is.

Apple is for the global elite and people who want to signal that they're going to be part of the global elite.

We're not looking for 1% to 2% of our business.

I'd like to just have discounts.

Honestly, I'd have discounts on their goods.

Like, give me like...

Do you have a Discover card?

That's what Discover is.

No.

That's right.

You wouldn't be covered with a Discover card because you're Kara Swisher and you ride scooters and ramps.

Okay.

I wouldn't know if I'd have an Apple card.

You know, I have my cards.

I'll tell you why.

JetBlue, I have one because I get miles and I like to do mint.

And so I save them up and do mint when I, when I'm doing it, paying it for myself.

And then I have airline cards because I get, that's what I do.

You know what card I have?

What?

Oh, God, I'm not sure.

I'm scared to say this.

I have an Amex black card.

You know I have it?

You know why I get charged $3,500?

I pay $3,500 a year for a card that's basically a platinum card spray-painted black.

What?

So one is an entrepreneur.

I always take, when I take kids that I'm recruiting to lunch, I pay, and it says, I'm real.

My firm's for real.

It's great for recruiting.

Kids are there.

And

when I was single, paying with a black card basically said, if you procreate with me, your kids are more likely to survive.

Hold on.

I don't want you to stop talking.

You need to pay with an Amex Centurion card.

You're saying to a potential mate that if you procreate with me, your kids are more likely to survive than if you have sex with someone who pays with a Discover card.

You're saying

your kids will survive because I have a black.

In any case, I don't think I'm going to be able to do that.

I will bring home the Will-Debeast.

If I don't have more stuff,

the dead will-de-beast.

Listen to me.

I had to listen to Yubal Harari with my 13-year-old for hours on this college tour.

Let me just tell you, wheat is not a good thing.

Anyway,

most underreported story, EU Parliament passing length tax.

Explain for the people.

Well, that's a pretty big deal because I don't, do you remember seven or eight years ago, a consortium of traditional media companies tried to pass an act

such that the platforms would have to license all this traditional content?

And there was big pushback.

These are innovators.

And I was actually

on Bloomberg TV and saying, if someone played a song in the Louvre, would you charge them for it?

I was very much against it.

I actually think this is, again, another sign of an immunity kicking in because if we on Vox started playing Calvin Harris So Close To You, which is an awesome song, but if we paid more than 10%

of

the total property, we would be subject to some sort of rights use and have to pay them.

And for some reason, we've decided that these platforms aren't subject to any type of

IP obligations.

What's been their whole game, right?

And what have you had, Kara?

You've had just this.

this multi-trillion dollar transfer of wealth from the IP creators to the platforms.

It's a Tom Sawyer painting white fence thing.

Or painting their fences.

Oh my God.

What happened?

He got everybody to paint the fence.

You're using literary references.

I told you I don't read books.

All right.

Anyways.

They're taking our stuff and then charging us back for it.

That's right.

I think this is a good thing.

And I think that the notion that there's so much people immediately push back on it and say, well, every other medium has to pay for other people's IP.

Why do we just naturally?

It's an ongoing struggle.

You're on Rupert Murdoch's side on this one, Jesse.

Yeah,

I think i am you're suddenly on uncle satan's side it'll be really it'll be really uh really interesting you know that's my name for him uncle satan i think it's perfect that guy's the brightest blue flame thinker thinker in media okay he is super super smart well now it's all done that deal's done well you know what you know what you know something when he and jeffrey buucas the other brightest blue flame thinker in the world sell time warner and sell fox yeah when they get out that means ad-supported media has jumped the shark that's what i thought it's time if uncle satan's getting out we all should get out no those guys are smart

yeah jeff pugas is a nice guy he is a nice guy wonderful guy uh anyway great hair all right

great hair once again objectifying media moguls what about rupert murdoch's hair why didn't you you know what it's fine to objectify as long as you if you're a white heterosexual male which i'm guilty of which means everything i say is wrong and i'm guilty when i walk in the door anyways if you objectify men it's okay

okay that's my strategy i noticed you didn't say anything about rupert murdoch's hair yeah rupert okay all right We're going to take a quick break now.

When we get back, we're going to talk wins and fails and predictions.

Support for this show comes from IBM.

Is your AI built on everyone or is it built to work with your business data?

IBM helps you integrate and govern unstructured data wherever it lives so your business can have more accurate AI instead of just more of it.

Get your data ready for AI at iBM.com.

That's That's iBM.com.

The AI Built for Business, IBM.

Support for Pivot comes from groons.

If you've ever done a deep internet dive trying to discover different nutrition solutions, you've likely had the thought, surely there's a way to improve my skin, gut health, immunity, brain fog without offending my taste buds.

Well, there is.

It's called groons.

Groons are a convenient, comprehensive formula packed into a daily snack pack of gummies.

It's not a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic.

It's all of those things and then some for a fraction of the price.

In a Groons daily snack pack, you get more than 20 vitamins and minerals, 6 grams of prebiotic fiber, plus more than 60 ingredients.

They include nutrient-dense and whole foods, all of which will help you out in different ways.

For example, Groons has six times the gut health ingredients compared to the leading greens powders.

It contains biotin and niacinamide, which helps with thicker hair, nails, and and skin health.

They also contain mushrooms, which can help with brain function.

And of course, you're probably familiar with vitamin C and how great it's for your immune system.

On top of all, groons are vegan and free of dairy nuts and gluten.

Get up to 52% off when you go to groons.co and use the code PIVOT.

That's G-R-U-N-S dot C-O using the code PIVOT for 52%

off.

All right, we're back with Scott Galloway.

Where are you now, right, Scott?

Where are you physically?

I'm in New York.

You are back in the middle of the year.

My only question is, Kara, has anyone heard from spring?

What is going on here?

I'm freezing.

I'm so over winter.

I'm spending a lot of time in the East Coast, and I'm so over winter.

I don't even understand how you people deal with it all the time.

It's done.

I'm done.

It's cold here today in Washington, D.C.

Anyway, it's wins and fails.

There's a lot this week.

There's a lot of good ones.

AOC has literally mastered the clapback.

Did you see her talk when she, when they went after her, that the Green Deal was too expensive?

And she said, she just is so good.

She said,

we're going to pay for this one way or the other, folks.

Do you want to pay for it as a reaction or proactively?

And then someone else, some other poor Republican got up there and said that this is elitist telling people they have to retrofit their homes when most people can't afford it.

And she said, tell the kid in the Bronx who has asthma that this is elitist.

I mean, she's just literally mastered the clapback.

Did you see that whole thing?

She was was too emotional?

Oh, my God.

That's what they're talking about.

Unemotional.

She's a rock.

She's a rock.

I have to say that was.

Do you know what I felt like?

I felt like it was like a movie.

I was like, she's in the movie, and the star is making the big speech at the end before they win everything.

She's a rock.

So she's, I think, by the way, I think her policies

are

way too left.

And I think some of them are way off kilter.

But gosh, what an inspiration.

A lot of her stuff people support, by the way, FYI.

They just make her.

They paint her as that, a socialist.

Yeah.

So, two other wins, and then I'll ask you yours.

All right, go ahead.

I think actually Uber's acquisition of Kareem was a pretty good move.

That's a good idea.

Their valuation of the private market, $120 billion.

Explain.

Explain.

Well, they went after the largest, they've acquired the largest ride-hailing company in the Middle East, something called Kareem.

And it's actually a pretty cool company.

It is.

One, they call their drivers captains because they wanted to create this image that the drivers are actually in control and it's not a bad job.

Two, they let people pay in cash because a lot of people don't have credit cards.

And Uber is is smart because Uber is smart enough to recognize that the value of their stock in the private market is inflated, so they're going out and making acquisitions.

And I think that's a good move because the only thing these guys have, going back to our previous conversation, is scale.

And the other gangster acquisition this week was Spotify buying a company.

I might mangle this.

What's it called?

Parquet, a podcasting company.

Another one.

They're going to heavy into podcasts.

But this makes a ton of sense, Kara, and this kind of hits you and me because effectively, if you look at Spotify, the problem is, and again, we should all listen to Spotify 24 hours a day because they got to have something else.

That's exactly right.

It could have gone into video.

You know, when we was thinking of buying them at one point or looking at them, one of the executives there said, look, we got to get them fast into video, and that's going to cost me a fortune.

You know what I mean?

Like, they've got to move out of music because you can't make money in music.

100%.

So when you listen, again, you should have Spotify on all the time because for every dollar you're spending on Spotify, they're spending $1.30 on artist royalties.

Because Michael Bolton is used to the good old days, and there's basically three or four labels that control everything.

They have cartel power and pricing power.

So they got to get in another business.

And what's a great business with huge profit margins, said the guy speaking into a micro podcast.

So when are they going to back up the truck for us?

That's right.

I'm ready.

I'm ready.

I'm ready.

Bring it.

I know him pretty well.

He's a nice guy.

Bring it.

Another nice guy.

So Parquet, is it called Parquet who they acquired?

Anyways, they acquired another podcast.

They also bought Gimlet, obviously.

Yep.

So

interesting.

Interesting times.

All right.

Mine is the EU hitting Google with a third antitrust fine.

I think Margaret Bestig, I just did an interview at South by Southwest.

It's just at least she's moving forward.

Whether you like what they're doing or not, they're like talking about the issue, and it'll eventually come here with the FTC and some other

things once the U.S.

regulators start to get in the business.

But I think that was a pretty big deal.

I think it was good.

I know you don't like fines, but at least they're like discussing these issues.

How big was the fine?

It was like a billion and some.

I forget, it was a lot.

It was another big deal.

So like 11 minutes of cash flow?

Yes, I know that.

But the issue is at least someone's paying attention.

Yeah, but here's the bottom line is that as long as your business practice gross margins are greater than the risk times the fine.

I know.

You pay the fine.

Like Steve Jobs used to pay parking tickets because he didn't care.

Or Barry Diller does that.

He parks everywhere in New York and doesn't care because it costs him more to like not park where he's parking.

If that makes sense.

That's a great story.

Do you have more of those?

They all do it.

Do you have other parking patterns of famous people?

You know, I hate to say it, but I did it the other day.

I was like, this is is going to cost me 40 bucks to park.

Cost me 40.

Who cares?

That's how you roll.

And I may or may not get a ticket, and I didn't get a ticket, so it was fine.

It was like a ticket.

Do you have tickets for unicycles?

You want a unicycle?

No, because I'll carry it in with you.

It's an awkward vision.

It's not a unicycle.

It's an electric, whatever you call it.

I saw them in the streets of New York this week, and I was entranced by them.

And I thought, I'm going to have one.

I've seen them around Silicon Valley, but I saw them at work in New York, and I thought, yes, this is me.

Yeah.

I roll in a Gran Torino that gets eight miles per gallon.

Oh, my God.

You know, I wrote about getting rid of my car.

It's hugely popular.

Did you read my column at all?

It was enormously popular in the New York Times.

Well, of course it was.

Well, of course it was.

Just saying.

What was the column about?

About you giving up cars?

Giving up cars.

No, car ownership.

Not cars.

Car ownership.

Car ownership.

Okay.

It was good.

I got all these mad people in the Midwest.

Ah, if you lived in the farm.

I'm like, I'd never live on the farm in.

like some small place and keep your car people there.

I wasn't telling them not to have it.

I said most people in cities where most people are going to to live are not going to own cars.

I think I'm correct.

I'm about to buy another car.

Where are you?

Why?

Where?

Where do you drive?

Dan, well, I take my kids to school.

I'm buying the newest, biggest BMW ever made.

And it says to the world, I am macho.

I am German.

Have sex with me.

He's so interesting.

What?

It's just.

In his BMW, his BMW, the size of a Winnebago.

At least all your incentives.

BMW has a new X7.

It's a three-row thing.

So you can.

No, thank you.

You know, when you're riding your kids.

I'm selling my Ford Fiesta turbo.

It's going, and that's going to be the end of it.

I'm not going to have another car.

My kids can take public transit.

Thank you.

So should we talk about a loser or predictions?

Okay, loser.

Do one loser and then we got to go predictions.

Loser.

So, and I know that we like to think we're doing this real time, but we do this the day before.

So it's Thursday afternoon, whenever.

Tomorrow morning, lift prices.

Okay.

So the double entendre here or double prediction.

Lyft pops to $100,

supposedly coming out at $71.

And then within a year, it's a broken IPO.

This whole category is a you're snapchatting it you're saying snapchat that's exactly the right

analogy exactly the right analogy you're gonna have uber uh raise more capital it's gonna be a price war they haven't there's no network effects they haven't been able to find as far as i can tell another more profitable industry they're trying to

get bought so a hundred bucks triple digit and this is you know this is going to age really well or really poorly because this thing comes out tomorrow yeah so i think it it it supposedly is pricing at 71 first trade is triple digits and then within 12 months, this is a bribe.

You would have it and then get rid of it, right?

Get the hell out of the dodge.

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

That's a good, that's a good one.

We'll be able to tell.

We'll be able to tell rather quickly.

Prediction, that's your prediction.

And also

your fail.

Okay.

Do you have any more predictions?

Well, I think that's pretty good.

And

what I would say tomorrow is that if that's not right, my tagline is.

Judge me.

Or no, wait, no, no, wait.

I'm sorry.

Love me.

Don't judge me.

Because I'm going on a limb limb here.

This thing's pricing tomorrow morning.

Okay.

So 25% gain on first trade and then tears for the next 12 months.

And then we have to watch for the other IPOs.

I said I want to do.

And Saint, what about your predictions for Uber and Airbnb and Pinterest?

Well,

the one we should, I think we should kind of go deeper as we've sort of did with Lyft every time they're about to come out.

But the one that is going to be the gangster IPO of 19 if it happens and the one company that has network effects and will be one of the most valuable companies.

Airbnb.

100%.

Airbnb.

Agreed.

Great guy runs that company, too.

Oh, really?

Yeah, he's lovely.

Do you have a prediction, Kara?

I think Airbnb, I was going to say, Airbnb, I think, is going to be the big IPO.

And I think it'll be interesting.

They definitely face some massive problems around in the markets, you know, in terms of people passing laws against what they're doing.

And they definitely have to sort it out because people are really unhappy.

There was another story in the New York Times about stuff in Miami and facing issues all over the place, especially in certain neighborhoods.

There was a neighborhood near Miami in Florida.

You know, and these issues are really, they need to sort them out.

Now, thankfully, this is a group of people who are trying to sort them out, but some of them are intractable.

They're fighting with hotels.

I think unions will be an issue.

I think they've got to really start to cooperate with cleaning people.

Like, maybe they do some deal.

They've got to come up with creative solutions because they'll be hitting lots of roadblocks across the country from lots of different things, not just citizens who don't like Airbnbs in their neighbor, popular neighborhoods,

unions,

hotels, there's all, you know, politicians, the whole thing.

I think they've got to, it's a tough business to handle.

But they're good in that they're not, and then they've got to find other businesses.

They've tried experiences and it's sort of growing.

They're well done.

They've got some other things like, could they do planes?

That's a business that's really speaking of all these terrible tragedies now.

But look at this.

Wow just went out of business.

So

just all of a sudden,

could they get in other adjacent businesses and what would they be and what would that look like?

I think that's an interesting thing.

But I think that they've changed the way people travel for sure.

And what do you think is going to happen with Uber this year?

I don't know.

They'll go public and we'll look at their numbers and go, are you kidding me?

And then they'll get all the money.

They'll get all the money.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean,

this is a trend that isn't going to go away, right?

And so how do you make it, how do you make it so that it's affordable and at the same time, not losing tons and tons of money?

Yeah.

I can't wait to see their numbers, right?

Are they out?

No, they're not out yet, right?

They're not out.

I don't think, yeah, I don't think it would die.

You've seen parts of them.

They're not good.

They're not like, wow, what an amazing thing.

Like, it's just, it's tough.

And I think, but at the same time, they've changed the way we think of things.

I just, you know, people use them.

People like the service, but do they like it because it's cheap or they like it because it's convenient?

I think both.

And do you think, I know I'm backtracking here, do you think six months in Apple, Apple's new TV announcement, do you think we look back on it as a thud or does it start to become meaningful?

I don't know.

I just, I don't know.

I don't know how much commitment they have to this.

You know what I mean?

Like, I just feel like they have a commitment to devices.

And so they've got to find new ways, just like everybody else.

You've got to find, you can't just settle on your laurels, you know, and even though they have amazing laurels, I think that's the issue.

And I think how committed are they to content and how much expertise they have?

Content's tough.

And by the way, look, Netflix has been super innovative and interesting.

At the same time, they'll run into the wall, right?

They've got a million shows.

They cut a bunch that people got mad about one day at a time and stuff like that.

So

the line in the reeds there is Disney.

Everyone's kind of waiting to see what Disney does.

They're the only ones with the assets to really

expertise, but they don't have good distribution expertise.

So it's hard.

Gravity hits us all, Scott.

That's the way it goes.

Oh my gosh, it's hitting me like a ton of bricks.

Have you seen that?

I'm trying to think about my one-wheel

device.

I probably should rethink the one-wheel device because gravity does get us all eventually.

You know what I mean?

Oh, it's happening.

There you go.

That's deep.

That's my deep thought.

You know, speaking of which, I interviewed this week, and then we'll get to go

founder of WeCroak, my favorite app, my death quotes app.

What's it called?

WeCroak.

It gives you five death quotes a day.

I love,

I love.

99 cents.

They've sold 100,000 of them.

It's not a big business, but it's really easy.

So give us an example.

He doesn't link to anything.

He doesn't link to any social media.

He doesn't sell anything.

He's just selling death quotes.

That's it.

I love them.

Here, I'll read you one.

I'll read you one of my death quotes that I just, I save them all the time, and then I read them to my children who hate me for it.

I have a few about aging.

I'm fascinated aging.

I'm 54, but naked.

I look 53 and 78.

Okay, okay.

We're still on that.

Okay.

All right.

Mary Oliver quote.

Tell me what everything's coming together since the scrodom lift, Kara.

It's all coming together.

Tell me, oh, I just don't do that.

Tell me what it is you plan to do.

Listen to this quote.

Listen to this quote.

Try to have some depth, Scott.

Tell me what you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.

We already know what you're going to do with that.

And then my favorite quote.

Inspirational.

Fuck.

That's thank you.

I know.

Listen to this.

That's Mary Oliver.

She's a famous poet.

She just had.

This is my favorite quote.

Dorothy Salisbury Davis.

Don't sell your soul to buy peanuts for the monkeys.

Don't sell your soul to buy peanuts.

Mine are better.

I hate my life less and less every day.

Boom.

That's worth a buck 29.

Don't sell your soul to buy peanuts for the monkeys.

There you go.

99 cents.

I spent my life arguing how I mattered until it didn't matter.

Boom.

Mez

All right, that's the kind of thing I get every day, five times a day.

I'm just saying.

That's nice.

That's nice.

There's a bunch.

Yeah, there's a ton of

great stuff on aging.

We croak.

99 cents.

Best 99 cents I ever spent.

Nice.

Anyway, life is hard.

According to Catherine Hepburn, life is hard.

After all, it kills you.

Done.

There you go.

Thank you.

Scott, next week, we'll have plenty to talk about.

Yeah.

I'm so glad we managed not to talk about Donald Trump this episode.

Yeah, good.

Whatever.

Good stuff.

Whatever.

Anyway, Rebecca Sinanez produces this show.

Nishat Kirwa is 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.

Goodbye from the father and mother of the internet.

Support for this show comes from OnePassword.

If you're an IT or security pro, managing devices, identities, and applications can feel overwhelming and risky.

Trellica by OnePassword helps conquer SaaS sprawl and shadow IT by discovering every app your team uses, managed or not.

Take the first step to better security for your team.

Learn more at onepassword.com slash podcast offer.

That's onepassword.com slash podcast offer.

All lowercase.

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.