News flash: Facebook’s contractors are people

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott's out again this week in some godforsaken country, but my former co-host and friend Lauren Goode has suddenly been able to get in the building despite all the security I put into place to keep her out.

She's now a senior writer at Wired, and she's stepping in again.

I'm happy happy to have you back, sort of.

Who's Scott?

Who is this?

What's his name again?

You are so happy to have me back.

You know what?

You looked at your calendar.

You had a calendar reminder that was set for, oh, it's been about six months since I've abused Lauren in the podcast studio.

Let me invite her back, and it'll be fun for one of us.

Yes, it'll be fun for one of us.

No, I'm really happy to be back.

Scott is easy to insult, too.

Who's his name again?

Scott Galloway.

Okay.

What does he do?

He's you.

He's not Lauren Good, is what he's not Lauren Good.

You guys had a cool podcast name.

It was Too Embarrassed.

You You had a hashtag TooEmbarrassed.

And now you have literally adopted a word that is the epitome of Silicon Valley

satire.

Yeah.

Pivot.

That's right.

It's also a friends episode.

All right.

You know what?

I'm happy to have you.

What you hear my policy on, everyone?

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

That's true.

That's what I say to everybody.

When you mean it.

Goodbye.

See you later.

Anyway, but Lauren, I am actually happy to have you here.

And I should say I also do know who Scott is.

I enjoy his tweets.

Skewering Amazon.

Yes, he skewers him.

All right, before we start, just so you know, the reason I sound like Brenda Vaccaro, who none of you have ever heard of, is because I have a really bad cold that I have acquired from traveling too much.

So we're going to discuss a lot of things.

You know how this works, the big story breakdown to start.

We start every week by talking about some of the biggest stories of the week.

So let's get started

for the big news.

I'm going to start with my colleague Casey Newton, who is also my tenant, but he wrote an, I didn't know over there, he was ferreting away on a fantastic story.

I was shocked by it.

I was like, he showed it to me.

I'm like, this is good.

He goes, really, Gara?

And I'm like, oh, sorry.

I mean, of course it's good.

You're not snooping on his Wi-Fi network.

No, I wasn't.

Well, he's on my Wi-Fi network.

Let me just, my Eero network.

He's investigating, and Amazon is snooping on all of us, investigating Facebook contractors that came out this week.

They had to screen, screen out content that violates Facebook's ethics code.

I think it says a lot about Facebook and the toxic garbage that ends up on the internet, the human consequence of these things.

Here he is talking about it on the podcast VergeCast this week.

There's literally literally a poster at Facebook headquarters that says contractors are people too.

And I think that that's the thing that makes the point that you are saying is Facebook is reminding itself that its contractors are also human beings.

There is something so dark about that to me, because obviously like the person who created that poster did so with good intentions.

And I bet that whoever made that poster

probably has thought more about the humanity of these contractors than maybe some other people at the company.

But certainly the idea that you need a reminder, it is a great concern.

Like there was a great story in the Wall Street Journal a week or two ago about how many big companies now rely on outsourced labor and how it's just a seemingly never-ending, growing part of the U.S.

economy, right?

So like a lot of companies rely on that labor.

But I think we have to start asking ourselves about the kinds of jobs that we are asking this outsourced labor to do.

And then what are the unintended consequences of having it be contracted?

And like this story is essentially just like a litany of like some of the bad things that can happen when you let these things get out of your direct sight.

So Lauren.

Yes.

What do you think of that story?

I thought Casey did an excellent job with that story.

Yeah.

I read it as soon as it came up.

I read it as soon as it went up.

I thought it was just really well done.

And so Adrian Chen from Wired did this story a few years ago.

And in fact, Casey cites that story in his report.

Other people have reported on this too.

So it's not necessarily a new news story,

although Casey did a good job of it.

I think what this underscores for me is that this kind of treatment of contractors is still going on.

Right, getting worse.

It's getting worse because as the economy becomes more of sort of a gig economy and people are picking up part-time work or contract work, they are effectively just losing protections.

And this is one of these things where, I mean, this is, it's happening at a place like Facebook, which is supposed to be a mature company.

And, you know, you hear all about these like Silicon Valley perks that go on at Silicon Valley companies.

And these people are locked in rooms, locked in rooms, but they are closely monitored in rooms.

This happens to be in Arizona.

Colors around their necks, do you know that?

I mean, they're right.

They're treated differently, but also what they're dealing with, what they're actually working on is very

traumatizing content.

And in a lot of cases, they're not getting the support they need.

Another thing that really stood out to me about Casey's story is that we effectively got the North Korea tour.

They put up the motivational posters the day before

and

they paraded him in front of a group of contractors who said, everything's great here.

And sure, sometimes it's tough.

But then they actually, someone referenced Malala and said, well, when she went through something traumatizing, she won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Oh, dear.

And you're like, really?

Is this all really relative?

I mean, it just.

Yeah, it was kind of disagreeing.

What do you think?

I thought it was a great story.

And I think he was just, you know, the continued chronicling of how these people act a certain way versus what they say is really critical, I think, in terms of Silicon Valley.

They still haven't gotten the message that maybe they suck.

And I think the continued messaging around them sucking is important.

Even if all of them suck and not everybody is, I mean, there's a lot of backlash to it, as you know.

I mean, like I get a cara, we're not so bad.

I'm like, I didn't say you're all so bad, but I want to aim at you so you understand what you're doing wrong.

And you just think about it and stop.

And they don't.

They just don't want to.

They want to feel like they're victimized.

There's such an extreme dichotomy.

On the one hand, you've got bean bags and massages and dry cleaning and egg freezing and things like that.

And then on the other hand, you're treating your

contractors really poorly.

Yeah.

And that's the side of the Silicon Valley giants that they don't watch.

And that's how they make money.

It's like Dobbies.

Remember, you know, the Harry Potter reference, do you know that yet?

Dobby.

Who are you?

Dobby, sir.

Dobby, the house elf.

Not to be rude or anything, but this isn't a great time for me to have a house elf in my bedroom.

Nope.

You don't watch Harry Potter?

I mean, I've seen it.

Oh, my God.

Fine.

Whatever.

Bring on the abuse.

All right.

All right.

I just, I'm Dobby.

You should know Dobby.

Dobby is the little elf with the sock.

Anyway, was that your nickname?

No, I'm not Dobby at all.

I'm Harry Potter in this story.

In any case,

another one, Elon Musk getting in trouble with the SEC.

Again, it's this sort of carelessness,

this just generalized carelessness that you don't have to follow the rules.

What do you think about that one?

Elon Musk.

Musk.

Man, this guy must love Twitter.

He must love Twitter.

You saw Jack Dorsey said he's his favorite name.

He did say that.

I mean, because one of his earlier tweets already lost him the chairmanship of his company.

After this most recent one, which he claims, by the way, he meant to say something different.

He meant to say that this tweet was referring to an annualized production rate of cars and not overall deliveries.

And the SEC is holding him in contempt for something that they believe was, you know, material information that he should not be putting on Twitter.

There's a lot of back and forth about, well, he already said that in an earnings report, so it doesn't really matter and all that stuff.

That said, there was still a sell-off of Tesla upon news of this happening.

And so when he's tweeting, it is sort of in direct conflict with what he is trying to accomplish with this company.

So why do they hush up any of them?

I think it's performative.

I think, so first of all, I do believe Twitter in a lot of ways provides a way for people to connect with an audience and have a direct connection with an audience and with even a customer base that they don't necessarily get otherwise.

And I could see that being really valuable.

It's the same for us in media.

A lot of times I feel like I get feedback from readers and tips and helpful information that I'm just not getting because they're not going to our website and leaving a comment.

And I find that really helpful.

But there's no doubt that there's also a very performative, ego-feeding element of Twitter that a lot of us, and I will say us, like it's not just about Elon Musk, like can't seem to let go of.

Yeah.

Why is that?

I don't know.

It's more.

Because it's addictive, Lauren.

They designed it that way.

I mean, why are you still on Twitter?

Because I love it.

What if every time, what if not every time, but every so often, like every couple of months you tweeted and it was really to the detriment of recode.

But then the majority of the time you were having a good old time on Twitter.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, you keep doing it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I like it.

I find it amusing.

I find a lot of the memes amusing.

Some of the people are very funny.

I like the funnier parts of it, the less funny parts of it.

But, you know, we'll talk about some of the loses of this week because a lot of them were on Twitter.

A lot of them were really big messes that were made by people.

All right.

What other news do you think is important this week, Lauren Good?

Do you think that Elon should keep tweeting?

I don't want to stop him from doing something, but he probably should control himself if he's a CEO of a a big company because shareholders depend on him and so do the employees.

And it's not doing him well.

Like you just said, it doesn't help.

He just,

all the good he's trying to do, he negates by doing it.

Yes, probably.

How is he ever going to find a girlfriend?

He has one.

Who's his girlfriend now?

Grimes, I think.

Oh, right.

Grimes.

Grimes.

Yeah.

That's right.

I have no idea.

This is

information.

I don't know.

I thought onebody was saying he needed a girlfriend.

Most billionaires are able to find girlfriends.

That's my, that's my.

That's very

experience.

I feel like that is.

Spot on.

spot on.

So what other news do you think is important this week?

This week, well, there was Mobile World Congress happening in Spain.

But you're not there.

I am not there.

I covered it via HoloLens.

No, I'm just kidding.

I really didn't.

But, you know, we're like, we're getting there in a lot of ways where you can just be

put on a headset and cover things remotely.

Yeah.

So this is a big annual mobile conference that happens in.

Barcelona.

It involves all of the big handset makers except for Apple, usually.

Apple shows up at Apple.

And Apple and Google does its own hardware event now as well.

And the wireless carriers and now increasingly AR and VR companies are there too, people who make those headsets.

And yeah, it's kind of like the time of year aside from Apple, Google, Samsung launches when

everything's really exciting and frothy around the mobile phone.

There's a phone market.

There's a lot of

folding phones.

We're going to talk about that and the wins and fails.

Should we do the wins?

No, we will in a minute.

No, but so mobile, mobile changes.

What other news do you think is important?

What other news this week?

Michael Cohen.

Well, we'll get to him.

I mean, what else is there?

There is.

It's true.

It was an astonishing array of testimony and there's all things around it.

YouTube content moderation.

Yeah.

I'm going to introduce Susan Wojski tomorrow.

It will be already have happened by the time this appears or is just about to happen.

What do you think about that?

What shall I ask her?

You know, Ina Freed.

Explain content.

Okay, content moderation.

Okay.

Sounds really freaking boring.

Yeah.

But content moderation is something that impacts what you see or what you don't want to see, rather, on social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else.

And basically,

it's how people, how these platforms are monitoring their content.

So, if there's something that's harmful, abusive, dangerous, or in some cases, just false or misleading, the company has a responsibility to take care of that in some way or another.

Most of the big tech companies are using a combination of humans and algorithmic tools to try to moderate this content.

YouTube has an interesting problem because,

well, one of the more recent things that's come up is how pedophiles are using using the platform either to sort of code to one another or link to one another or bury code in videos or connect with one another via comments and things like that.

And it's become very insidious, right?

And what happens is like young kids end up clicking on this video, they think it's innocent, they don't think anything's going on, they end up down this wormhole of pedophilia, which is

like a really terrible thing.

And so YouTube has to figure out how to counter that.

One of the more recent news reports I saw is that they actually disabled comments on some children's videos.

You know, what's unfortunate about this is a lot of times it seems like the companies don't take action until advertisers pull out.

Like, that's what gets their attention.

You know, oh, Disney is no longer advertising.

So, like, we should probably pay attention now.

But YouTube also has a problem because, in some ways, the same algorithms that are promoting the content that you do want to see, that know who you are, Carris Wisher, what you want to watch, what's going to be interesting to you, and what's actually maybe entertaining or fun to you, the same kind of algorithms are going to end up potentially bubbling up the bad content.

Absolutely.

And they need to stick it out of a way.

Why do you think they don't want to do anything about it?

Well, I mean, there's like a really cynical, simple answer, which is the more views that any platform gets.

It's like what I say this about Twitter all the time.

More people argue on Twitter, the better it is for Jack Dorsey.

So why would he take somebody off who, even if that person's completely vitriolic, if they're causing arguments and causing a lot of conversation?

And so YouTube, that's like a version of that conversation.

It all comes down to how much they're making in advertising.

But I do think some of them have very real challenges.

Like Like,

it's hard to say, well, we're just going to slap some algorithms against this and fix it.

Does it build something they can't handle?

Do you think it's just too big?

I think it's they didn't think about it in advance and they didn't put in, and now it's a flood that is just an endless flood that is impossible to manage.

I don't know.

They should shut it down sometimes, I feel like.

Have you asked Suzimajitsky about this?

I'm going to tomorrow because

I'll tell you why.

Yeah, here's why.

My son,

he's listening to Ben Shapiro.

Then he goes to this, and he gets like seven clicks later, he's in neo-Nazi land.

It was like astonishing to look at his, how it went.

So it went from someone who was clearly on the right to very extreme.

Yes, very quickly.

And I was like, no, I didn't like the first one, but you know, he's a kid.

He can listen to me.

He's 13.

He's going to be 14.

I'm not going to bar him from some parents might.

I didn't.

But then it was very too quick for him to get to really stuff that was not stuff I would want him to use.

And then you have to have an argument about what you can listen to and what you don't.

Like then I'm involved in an argument with a very smart 14-year-old about the right to listen to stuff, which I'm not, you know, he's a pretty good arguer too.

So it's really kind of, it was an astonishing, it's an astonishing experience to watch your children get pulled into this.

And then worry about what kind of information he's giving away.

Like TikTok just got like slammed for that.

They just, I don't think,

I don't want to let them off the hook by saying they don't know what they're doing, but they...

don't know what they're doing.

And they're, you know, ultimately, that's willfully malevolent in a lot of ways.

Who do you think is ultimately responsible i was thinking about this a lot this morning because this morning i was just seeing i think it was a wall street journal article and i'll admit i didn't read the whole thing yet but about how more people are getting hit by cars pedestrians now and it because smartphones right are and we you've talked about this in the podcast before you used to say all the time i go up to people and i shout at them when they're on their phone yeah i do carrot swisher saving the world every day i do not walk around the streets you probably save so many pedestrians

i do not walk around people would think i do but i don't but in that case who's to blame is it the humans or is it the technology?

I think the technology is built to be so addictive that you can't help yourself.

I think, yes, it's like sugar.

It's like cigarettes.

It's addictive.

So you're sort of responsible, but some of it you can't resist.

Both.

But definitely the companies.

So what do they have to do then?

What has to happen?

I don't know.

It's not great to start with.

Lots of things.

There's tons and tons of little things because it's by nature addictive.

But there's all kinds of things they can do that they don't want to do because they want to make it a pleasurable sugar-high experience.

And one of the worrying things to tie it back to Casey's story that we started with is Casey mentioned how some of the moderators in his story, the Facebook mod, the contractors, Facebook moderators, how some of them started to believe conspiracy theories after seeing terrible content for such a long period of time.

So, if you're thinking, this is

a working adult, what is it doing to 14-year-olds?

I agree with this.

I can tell you what it's doing.

I believe consumer theories.

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

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

And Lauren is going to make predictions.

Lauren, are you ready for a prediction?

I predict.

Kara's going to ask me that.

Don't abuse me.

Not at all.

Anyway, we'll be back soon.

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Okay, we're here with Lauren Goode, my old partner in crime, who has left me, and I had to find a new one named Scott Galloway.

Who's, I don't know, where is Scott, Eric?

Who is this Scott?

Who is this guy?

Clearly, you must like him.

You don't even know where he is.

I don't know where he is.

He's in Dubai.

I think he's in some awful country that abuses its citizens.

Anyway,

we do wins and fails now, Lauren.

Wins and fails and pivot.

We call out the people who are making fools of themselves and talking about people doing good in the world.

We try to be fair.

Pivot.

Pivot, exactly.

They can do pivots and stuff like that.

What is your,

what are the many fails this week are your fails?

And then I would like to know your wins.

Oh, we have a whole list here.

We do here, but I want to know how to.

You don't have to pick these.

We just brought these up.

The first one is obviously Matt, however the hell you pronounce his name, Gates.

Gates, I think.

Oh, yeah, the Republican, Republican congressman from the colours.

I call him that asshole.

He threatened Cohen on Twitter.

Yeah, I just call him that asshole, but go ahead.

Well, I tweet that you like that all the time.

I know that.

I don't get in trouble for it.

So, so go ahead.

Oh, the whole thing.

I mean, the whole Cohen thing was just.

did you watch it yesterday?

I did.

I watched it piecemeal because really, I had to be somewhat productive.

Although you watch it, that's the best way to watch it.

It was highly interesting.

Yeah.

Bits and pieces.

Yeah, I guess, you know,

Republican Matt Gates tweeted this beforehand, threatening Cohen and

about an affair.

Right, right.

Saying, and saying he's threatening.

He says what the threat is and then says, you better be careful.

It's like, wait, you just

let us know what the threat was.

You're supposed to say, oh, something's coming out.

Secret.

It was just like, you're an idiot and a bully and a mobster.

Bad one, like on a bad episode of The Sopranos.

But did you think that was a fail?

I did, certainly.

A fail.

I would have kicked him off with Twitter.

That was a fail.

I was jacked.

That's really all I have to say about it.

Okay, all right.

What did you think about the Michael Cohen testimony?

Well, I'd like to know what you thought of it, but I will say I thought he was compelling.

I thought it was interesting.

I thought I was surprised the Republicans didn't try to defend Trump more, but how could you, given what Michael Cohen was saying?

I think

I'm trying to impute him that he's a liar only serves to hurt Trump because he's employed him for 10 years.

So if he's such a liar, what was he doing as the head of the deputy chairman of the RNC only a few years ago?

So I thought he came off well.

I thought

some of the stuff that he was alleging is disturbing, as usual, and sort of bears out a lot of the reporting that's been going on for years now by major institutions.

And

I say when is all these media companies, New York Times, Washington Post, BuzzFeed, all these others who have been reporting on this stuff and doing a great job.

And then I thought that

most of them, most of the people were a little bit,

most of the Congress people were very

trying to make grandstanding a little bit on both sides, I think, except for Alexandria Casio, who I thought did a great job.

She was the total win of the week.

Again, she's proven that she's not just really good on Twitter, but she's substantive.

And she did a substantive, non-showy, it was showy, but not showy.

It was really fascinating.

She's really quite the politician and got real information out of him that was critical around taxes, which is where the rubber hits the road.

So I thought she was great.

Someone on Twitter asked her if she had gone to law school, and she replied that, no, she hadn't gone to law school because she couldn't afford it, but she's learning a job.

And of course, it immediately got 277,000 likes or something absurd like that.

I don't know.

She's just so

dynamic.

She's a bar.

It helped her know people.

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

It was

work to the bartender.

Which I think is good.

It's very appealing from a working class.

I think you're right in that there was a lot of grandstanding.

You knew immediately which way some of the questions were going to go based on whether someone was effectively Republican or Democrat.

And I think, I forget actually who it was that asked now.

I think someone brought up a great point to Cohen, which is, well, if Donald Trump was so terrible, then why did you work for him for 10 years?

Which I think is an excellent question.

I mean, that's why I left you after just 10 years.

But I think

I never made you pay off a porn star.

Let's be clear.

No, just

be clear.

Hold on.

There was how many years?

I did work for like seven years.

So maybe, you know, so someone could question me.

Why not just seven months if she was that way?

But anyway,

I mean, I mean, yeah, Cohen himself has a really spotty track record.

People like that kind of stuff.

They like being close to the like the hot.

I can see why he would stay there.

He's like this guy from, it's exciting.

Yeah.

And he's and he, and has he, as he said multiple times, he is going to prison, effectively saying, I have nothing more to lose.

So

let's put it all out there.

Now, I guess the big question is

whether there's any real fallout from this.

Well, it looks like we have subpoenaed the children of Trump from it.

And the secretary, the woman who does scheduling for all kinds of people.

Another magnificent day on Twitter is

exactly.

And so that should be interesting.

I mean, you know, my whole thing is how many really like, someone, I thought the best tweet of the whole thing was, now I know this entire thing is,

it's like an episode of The Godfather, Godfather, except everybody is Fredo.

It's Fredo.

I love that.

I thought that was really funny.

That's why I love Twitter.

That's why I stay there.

I thought it was really compelling.

I thought it was really compelling.

I thought reporters did a great job of it.

I don't think they overdid it.

Right.

Another win of the week is that Jacob Wall got Reichmann conspiracy theorist, who everybody knows has been abusing Twitter, finally got kicked off.

Kicked off.

Finally.

Gone.

But he's been doing it forever and been bragging about it.

Goodbye.

What the heck?

I would love to know what shadow accounts he immediately created after that just to lurk and see how people were reacting.

Exactly.

I thought that was a win, but I thought it was a late win.

I would have done it a long time ago.

Of course, they don't ever want to do that.

So I thought that was a win.

Another one for you?

Microsoft released the new Hollow Lens headset.

All right.

Explain that to me.

No, I know, Kara, that you're not excited.

You like products.

You're not super excited to run out and get a new Hollow Lens headset.

I'm sure I'll have one sometimes.

Which is good.

No,

it's not for consumers, so your kids might not even get it.

All right.

So Microsoft has this mixed reality headset.

Started working on it several years ago.

There was a first version.

They just released released a second version at Mobile World Congress.

I went to Microsoft last week.

I got the hands-on.

Do you call it a hands-on or a heads-on?

A heads-on.

Did the deep dive, talk to the people who were making it.

And I will say that from a mixed reality headset perspective, as nerdy as it sounds, they made some pretty significant technological

assignments.

It's designed better.

It's lighter.

It's more comfortable.

The optics, they're using this new patented image technology.

It's really nerdy stuff.

I won't get into it.

You know, of course, like ever since Sachin Adela took over at the helm of Microsoft, they have to to talk about the edge and the cloud and Azure.

And, like, I mean, it's just completely

brainwashed.

Microsoft employees, it's totally a part of their vernacular now.

They say it all the time.

So, this thing connects to Azure and all that.

That said,

it's a pretty, it's a pretty advanced mixed reality headset.

I guess if there was a fail, you could say that Microsoft employees are not particularly happy about HoloLens.

Or not HoloLens necessarily, but Microsoft's military contract with,

well, with the government, with the military for HoloLens.

So

it was reported, I believe, last November that Microsoft had a contract with the military for HoloLens.

It was, I mean, it's hundreds of millions of dollars worth.

And the military is using this for training purposes.

And I mean, this is sort of

we've entered an era of digital warfare, officially.

And so it's interesting seeing the different tech companies take different tacks with this.

Google, of course, encountered its own resistance from employees around Project Dragonfly.

But Jeff Bezos of Amazon has come out and just said explicitly, like, I'm paraphrasing, but you want the military using the best tech.

And if you don't want the U.S.

Department of Defense or the military using the best tech, like,

would you want them using shitty tech?

Like, I do think about this a lot.

It is kind of a conundrum.

But there are employees who feel very strongly that they have signed on to build a product for a specific need.

And that need didn't necessarily include workers.

That's what they should do.

Separate companies.

Yeah.

And then if you want to work for the military company, work for the military.

It's just separate.

Just pull them out.

And then you can make your choices.

Like, I feel like working for the cigarette company.

I'm going to do it.

Like, whatever.

That's interesting.

That solves it.

And you can, everybody can, like,

it makes its money or it doesn't.

And then that's that.

Microsoft has encountered this before, too, with ICE.

Yeah.

Yeah.

With ICE, they're going to do it.

Salesforce, every company is going to encounter this, and they do want the business.

If you want the business, create a separate company that is unaffiliated with the company and that you make your products aren't being made or brought over there.

Now, you can't prevent the military from buying some of the products.

You can't prevent the military from using Google or from using cell phones or from using.

That is just impossible if you go down that route.

Oh, and I mean, they have representatives who show up at CES every year and they're walking the floor and they're scouring for new tech.

That's what they're doing.

But, you know, I saw Ash Carter this week, who's the former defense secretary, who has some really very sophisticated thoughts on this.

I mean, you...

you've got to allow these companies to, not these companies, these employees to voice these problems and then figure out what to do because there's got to be

more humanity into it and thinking about it.

And you shouldn't, if you don't want to make drones that kill people, you shouldn't have to make drones that kill people just because you work for

Google or Microsoft or whatever.

I don't know.

It's very difficult.

It's a difficult question.

I don't think Apple does make stuff for the military, do they?

Not that we're aware of.

Not that we're aware of.

Let's get on that story.

I think they know.

They tend to fight the government with encryption and things like that, which is interesting.

All right.

Another fail.

Any other fails this week that you have?

Any other wins?

$2,600 smartphones.

Oh, what?

how about yeah so I mentioned mobile world console you said a folding phone like there are folding phones so I would actually say that folding phones are a win and I'm gonna tell you why one because the smartphone market is really boring right now where we've all got the same

angular glass slabs

the innovation is incremental at this point some people would say it's a mature it's a mature market at this point bring me a new toy sales have slowed folding phones we've seen as concepts for years but now a couple of companies actually three companies, maybe if Motorola rumors are true, are going to be shipping consumer-ready folding phones this year.

They're so

folding.

Is that like my flip phone?

It literally means no, it's not like your flip phone, which has a hinge.

I mean, there is a hinge, but it means the display, like that shiny display that you're looking at right now because you never pay attention to me.

You could just

fold it at the display point, and there might be like a folded, like you could take this, and it would actually be larger.

It'd probably be closer to a seven-inch tablet size, so a big thing.

And then there would be a hinge here, and you would actually fold it backwards, and then you would use it like a, so they do it different ways.

Samsung's folds in, Huawei's folds out, and then we don't know if Motorola's thing, which may or may not.

So what's the idea of folding?

The idea is that you would carry both a tablet and a phone.

Some of them are, yeah.

Some of them, you know what they look like to me?

You like fat, those fat devices.

You're always carrying the things on your wrist.

You're always wearing.

You're like, look at this.

I'm not wearing wrist stuff anymore.

I know.

What's going on?

It's gone.

I don't know.

I just like it.

You've got a hair tie on.

I got a hair tie.

Wow.

Huh.

Interesting.

So, but why not?

Why aren't you wearing it?

You tend to like those things and think they're okay.

I never do.

I don't know.

They're not too fat.

I don't want to say that.

Wait, the phones are the wearables.

The wearables are fat.

You like fat phones.

The phones are like, you know, when you walk into maybe like a not nice hotel and they've pushed two twin beds together to make a queen.

Yeah.

And you can kind of see the seam in between the two.

And if you lift up the blanket, you're like, that's two beds pushed together.

Yeah.

It's kind of like that with these phones.

If you look really closely, you're like, it's two phones smushed together.

But what's interesting in the innovation side is the display.

They're using

two phones smushed together.

Smushed.

Smooshed.

It's a very eloquent review of these things.

But so you can't fold glass, right?

You can't fold like gorilla glass or something like that.

So, so these companies are using a polymer.

And I don't know, it's like we've seen constantly.

I like the idea.

I like the idea.

Why?

Because I don't agree with you as someone who travels a lot and commutes a lot.

I like the idea of

having the same device, one device, and folding it open and then saying, okay, now I have something that's a Kindle size or something that's a tablet size.

If I need to stick it up, you can't just have two devices, Lauren?

I mean, just pull one.

I carry around a lot of stuff.

I know that.

But two devices?

This is a first-world problem.

So many gadgets.

Good God.

You say it.

Yeah, so many gadgets.

Anyone have an extra charger?

I have seven gadgets.

Yes.

I need to charge.

I don't know.

I don't see it.

But the fail is that they're really expensive.

Yeah.

$2,600.

Jesus.

$2,200, $2,000.

Chasing crack dollars, I like to say.

That is a lot of money.

You're going to get you.

You are super going to get one.

I'm not getting one folding thing.

Next time you write me back on the show, you're going to have a folding phone.

No, I'm still recovering

from a lot of things, but I still like my AirPods.

Everything littler.

I want it littler.

I don't want it bigger.

I want it to be tiny, and then it comes in front of me in a way, like on the desk, that there's no device there.

Like no device, folding or non-folding.

Are you still using your AirPods?

I love my AirPods.

How many pairs have you gone through now?

Seven.

Ten.

Okay, 50.

That's bad.

That was a Michael Cohen reference because he's like, how many times did you threaten people?

I don't recall.

Was it 50?

No, was it 50?

Bigger.

Right.

Was it 100?

More.

Was it 200?

More.

Was it 500?

Yeah, 500.

How many times did you consult by phone?

I don't recall.

Approximately, how many times did you consult by phone?

I don't recall.

How many times did you take a meeting?

Six.

Okay, cool.

Got it.

Exactly.

So, but I have lost a lot of AirPods, but I love them.

I love them.

I would say several thousand dollars worth of AirPods if you want to do the Garrison.

I'm going to do one more win, which is the Serena Williams

Dream Crazy.

Yes.

Yes.

I love her.

Yes.

That ad is great.

It's great because women don't get to cry.

And then the cover of Rolling Stone had all the ladies of Congress on it again.

It was Ocasio.

It was Pelosi, the others,

and the squad.

It was just, then they were looking great.

And they just, it was, I just loved it.

Yes.

And that Serena Williams, please watch this video.

She, it's, it's a Nike video, even though you're getting sold sneakers.

It's all the, you know, women crying, and they're not allowed to do this, and you're thought of as crazy, or you're too big.

And she, you know, she gets a lot of attacks because she's big, or she had a baby and then came back.

And it's all about, it's sort of playing off of the job thing, like think different kind of thing, but it was, it was dream crazy.

So if they want to call you crazy,

fine.

Show them what crazy can do.

It was all about expressing emotion.

Right.

And I think the unspoken part of that commercial is that men express those same things.

They throw rackets and chairs and they yell at refs and the whole thing and suffer minimal consequences.

And when women do it, you know, I mean, as a former athlete, I can tell you I've got at least a few technicals saying things like, you've got to be kidding me.

You know, and that's like the kind of thing that this is in my younger years.

It comes as no surprise.

Go ahead.

Oh, you would have wanted me on your team, but sure.

Yes.

I didn't do many sports.

I did some.

So it was great.

It was a really great thing to talk to you about that.

And in that vein, you know, next week at South by Southwest, you are not going?

You are not going.

I'm not going.

I'm going.

I'm interviewing a lot of ladies there.

And one of them is Amy Klobucher, who I have to deal with the comb issue, which I don't want to do.

I don't want to talk about the comb.

Well, it's not just the comb issue.

I know it's about bad bosses.

Of all people, Brett Stevens wrote an excellent article in the New York Times this week about that.

It's bad bosses.

It's being a bad boss and saying sorry for being a bad boss.

So it's, I'm not relishing.

I would like to talk about actual policy, but I do have to, I have to walk through the valley of comb before I get there.

How would you put that?

In water bottles.

Oh, whatever.

Like, what should I do?

What should I, how should I do that?

How should you ask her about that?

Yes.

You know, I'm going to say, listen, the comb thing, that is fucked up, Amy.

Like, what's the deal?

Like, stop it.

Like, why did you eat with a comb?

That is fucked up.

I'm just going to say that is fucked up.

Is it funny that she ate with a comb or that she then demanded that her staffers clean?

The whole incident, the eating with a comb, the whole thing.

She could have eaten with her fingers.

Could have eaten with your hands.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Could have done it.

The whole thing was just like, I'm going to just flat out say this is just icky.

And then the throwing, it's not cool.

It's not cool, lady.

And then I'm going to say, look.

It is a little sexist too because I know a lot of men.

I had a guy who used to try to make, I had to make toast for him, and he'd line us up by height, John McLaughlin, and then we would have to get dustballs.

And so like, look at that.

Yeah, you talked about this guy.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I had that article.

So, yeah.

And so I'm aware of bad bosses, like crazy, like that kind of stuff, that level.

There's tough bosses and bad bosses.

There's two different things, or people who are doing crazy things.

So, I want to talk about that because I don't think that's sexist.

I think it's, I think, but I do think men get a pass on that kind of behavior.

Like, Bill Clinton had his purple rage.

Uh, you know, they all get passed.

Jennifer Pombieri wrote a very good story about that, who worked for Clinton and is very close to Amy Klobuchar.

Um, so I think there's that part of it.

There is o-sexism, it just still doesn't matter.

Shitty boss, shitty behavior like that should be chastised.

I also don't think it should only be viewed through the lens of gender.

Yeah.

Because even comparing to Bill Clinton maybe isn't so much relevant anymore because that was more than 20 years ago.

Right.

You know, this is his heyday as a politician.

So

I think it's also, yeah, you have to consider the state of the workplace now and what is considered appropriate and how he's evolved as professionals and also how, you know, the public image of the politics.

I never.

I mean, God, no.

Like, what would

no?

Like, have I ever thrown a ten?

No.

I'm like, no, I didn't even throw a pencil at Neil I Patel.

Like, I mean,

he deserves a pencil or two thrown in his direction, thrown adjacent to him.

No, and like, you've never thrown anything, haven't you?

I don't, I don't recall it yelling.

I don't, maybe I have, but I don't recall it.

There was one incident of a red pen that I shall not go into, but Lisa Dickey can tell you that story.

I was very under stress when I was writing my book, and Lisa was helping me write my book, Lisa Dickey, and I, she got me the wrong wrong red pen and tai jinx ensued.

I was like, what is this red pen?

I think I was just overwrought and then I apologized, but it just was the wrong red pen.

I can't explain it.

I have no, I feel badly.

But you to this day, it's 25 years later or whatever.

And I'm still like, I can't believe I did that.

I mean, I can tell you in the workplace.

No, but I remember, but I remember, like, I remember when you remember when people around you have that freak out.

Right.

Like, I remember one person I worked with at an old job who was doing a lot of heads down work, like picture audio video editing, where you have your headphones on all the time and you really have to focus on what you're doing in a noisy part of the newsroom.

And like one day just kind of lost his shit.

But like, it was forgivable.

It wasn't, he was like throwing things as normal.

I think that's, plus, in this day and age with internet and video, you can't, you just can't do it.

I mean, you can imagine if that comb incident had been caught on a video.

We all game over for her as a president.

Okay.

Like that she'd carry around the comb video the whole time.

Think about that.

Yeah.

You know?

My advice to you is not just to look at it fairly and squarely through the lens of gender, but also the era in which we are currently living.

The Valley of Come.

Okay.

I do want to talk about this.

I want to hear this.

She has a lot of stuff to talk about, tech policy and regulation of tech.

She's very small.

She does.

She's tough on tech.

She is tough.

So I want to talk about that.

I want to get to that.

I'm going to move through the valley of comb, go past the water bottle, central, and whatever else she's done, and then move on to that.

All right.

Last thing before we go, prediction time.

In this segment, we talk about what we think is coming in the pipeline.

We've talked about subscription bundling, which Scott is calling the rundle.

Sometimes we get into things wrong, but we often get them right.

I was right about Amazon pulling out of New York.

You have a prediction this week?

I have a prediction, somewhat of a hope.

Okay.

Maybe not so much of a hope.

My prediction is that the big tech platforms are going to start to embrace their roles as content moderators.

Meaning that they are going to, on the upside, you have companies like Twitter that I think will actually start kicking more vitriolic, hateful, terrible, abusive people off its platform.

That's my hope anyway.

Okay, I think you could not be more wrong, but go ahead and talk about

this.

I just had the ridiculous cat rodeo with Jack Dorsey and he still didn't take responsibility and the thing.

And then decided Elon Musk was the best tweeter around.

So

Elon Musk is doing things that is harmful to Tesla on Twitter.

Right.

But he does some cool tweets.

All I'm saying is he didn't show a lot of like, I'd like to know where his health of the conversation thing is.

That's what I'd like to know.

Like, where is it?

I don't see any health of the conversation.

I mean, I judiciously use Twitter, but because I curate it well, but I think you're wrong.

Why do you think they're going to do it legitimately?

What's going to happen?

Well, I think the Jacob Wool thing was the first step.

All right.

I think that there's probably going to be a lot of attention paid to the reaction and the fallout from that.

They should not care.

Fuck it.

No, they shouldn't.

They should not care, but that's the thing.

Maybe we are getting to the point where Twitter won't care because these companies are, yes, they're publicly traded companies, but they're in the private sector.

They can make the rules on their own platforms.

They can decide what kind of content they want on there.

This is not a matter of free speech.

It's not government censorship.

It is a matter of what these private companies decide works or does not work for their platform.

But on the downside of curation,

now this is like very meta media here, but there have been reports that Apple is going to be launching a curated new subscription service next month.

And so that is going to be, and that they're offering deals deals with publishers that are not necessarily favorable to some of the publishers.

And so I think

that's going to be

potentially

a downside of a big tech company coming in and saying, here's this curated

content.

Someone, I had Sam Altman on stage.

He's like, do you want Mark Zuckerberg deciding on everything?

And I'm like, you know what?

I want someone to decide on it.

I don't care how they do it.

They have a outside.

They're thinking of an outside council at Facebook, all kinds of stuff.

They have to curate it.

They just can't have this platform with an editorial platform without editorial controls.

They just can't do it.

It's a purge every friggin day of the week.

Yeah.

And I also tend to believe that these creations of bodies outside of the platform, it's exactly what the gaming industry did years ago when the gaming industry was coming under a lot of fire for violent content.

They created, like, there was this outside body that was launched saying, like, well, we're going to moderate the content and

we're going to make judgment on that.

And like, ultimately, I mean, I think video games are still pretty violent.

And

we've all kind of assimilated, right?

So,

yeah, I don't know.

So, anyway, I think there's going to be, my prediction is that in the short term, there's going to be more of an embrace of curated content from the big tech platforms.

You're completely wrong.

Okay.

Let's see.

Just crap.

All right.

Kidding.

You might be right.

I just think they don't care.

I think they still don't, they still push back.

They just don't want to take responsibility.

They want all the benefits and very few of the responsibilities.

I just don't get a sense that they've gotten it and they're hoping it'll all go away.

That's my feeling.

It's not going to.

I like your hopes and dreams.

You just crushed them.

What's your prediction i predict you will be wrong anyway time to get out of here and thank you so much for coming to pivot lauren i'll be back next week and so will scott anyway rebecca senanas produces the show nishad kirwa is the executive producer thanks as always to eric johnson and thank you again to lauren good thanks again for listening to pivot from vox media we'll be back next week with more of a breakdown in all things tech and business if you like what you've heard please subscribe on apple podcasts or wherever you're listening

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