Google doesn't make iPhones, and other things Congress learned this week
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Hi, everyone.
This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway.
Hey, Scott, how you doing?
You're in New New York?
I'm in San Francisco, finally.
I can't believe it.
Here I am sitting here in San Francisco.
It's a beautiful day.
Is it?
It is not that here.
It is cloudy and cold and trying, it's sort of threatening to snow, but yeah, it's not that nice here.
Yeah, so there's so much going on this week.
I don't know where to start.
I mean, besides what's going on with Trump and all the different Michael Cohen things and the National Enquirer.
Actually, I'm going to ask you, National Enquirer, what happens to them as a media company like now that they've admitted that they do the bidding of people, which we all knew they did, essentially.
I'd love to get your take on that.
I don't think anybody cares.
I don't think people who buy the National Enquirer buy it for integrity.
Right, that's a fair point.
So, what happens to that business when he's sort of dropped a dime on the president, David Pecker, who was at Hachette and he was a lot of other places in a weird way?
In a weird way, I think the awareness helps them.
I mean, I didn't even know the National Enquirer was still around, so the awareness and them being part of the political conversation or the national discourse in a funky way probably creates awareness and helps sales.
I don't think it means anything but positive for them.
Really?
Wow.
So nothing is the National Court.
I don't know.
You drop a dime on the president.
Like you lie and then you say, oh, wait, we lied.
Everyone's dropping a dime, though.
I mean,
what does everyone have in common that knows the president?
They're soon to wear an anklet or go to prison.
Right.
And not only that, the worst thing that ever happened to Donald Trump was to be elected president.
Yeah, yeah.
He had it going good for a while.
We'll see what happens.
You do not want to be friends with this guy.
I think anybody who is friends with our president right now and made the mistake of getting involved in his campaign is not sleeping well.
This is just getting, I mean, it is, we keep saying it, it is Mueller time.
Here it comes.
Yeah.
Do you really just say that?
You love that.
You love that.
I love it so much.
You know, I was at another event with Ezra Klein this week.
And once again, a dozen people came up to me and said, I love Scott Galloway.
What is he really like?
It was really fascinating.
You're like a little star person here in Silicon Valley.
I'm literally sitting here smiling.
I can't help that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was really weird.
I'm like, oh, he's an idiot.
You know what I mean?
Like, there we go.
Let me set the record straight.
So I had my first kind of famous moment because of you.
I got invited to this, and I'm trying to keep it anonymous.
I got invited, and then we'll get back to what we're supposed to be doing here.
But I got invited to this big, fancy lunch hosted by a tech, big tech CEO.
And
they
announced, I can't even say what they announced, but the best moment was it was all these old media people.
And at one point, this very iconic TV journalist, their phone went off, and
couldn't figure out how to turn off their iPhone.
Oh, no.
And I thought that just captures the gestalt of what's happening in media.
Anyway, sorry about that.
So, yeah, anyway, well, I'm going to be in New York next week for a fancy media dinner.
So, we're going to be together.
We're going to be together in New York City in person.
I like the way you say that.
I'm feeling close.
You know what?
I'm so happy to finally see you starting to invest in this relationship, Gara.
Yeah, okay.
It'll be like 20 minutes.
Anyway,
we're going to start with Google.
We're just going to be in the studio there.
We're going to be in the studio there, and then we're not leaving until we're good and done.
That's all.
Listen, Google is refusing to give up their search engine in China and other highlights in the judiciary hearing.
So what did you think?
Did you watch Sundar Pichai?
I watch the highlights.
I occasionally turn on C-SPAN to try and impress myself that I have C-SPAN.
But I thought it was a big nothing burger.
Let me just say, we were due to swinners and losers in this this program.
I thought he was a big winner.
I thought he came off looking very earnest and statesmanlike, but he went in with a big advantage, and that is he hadn't burned through 12,
I'm sorry, and we need to do better.
So he's still got, and he's got the ultimate heat shield in the Zuck and Sheryl Sandberg.
And I think he comes across as disciplined, likable, earnest.
There were some moments.
He was very evasive on the dragonfly thing.
That was the only thing I thought he could have pressed harder.
But what was on display here were that 4% of our elected officials have a background in technology or engineering, and then the other 96 clearly showed up.
Yeah, exactly.
So there were a lot of blunders in the hearing.
Let's take some, there were some seriously good bloopers here.
Let's take a listen.
I have a seven-year-old granddaughter who picked up her phone before the election, and she's playing a little game, kind of game a kid would play, and up on there pops a picture of her grandfather.
And I'm not going to say into the record what kind of language was used around that picture of her grandfather, but I would ask you, how does that show up on a seven-year-old's iPhone who is playing a kids' game?
Congressman, the iPhone is made by a different company, and so, you know, I mean,
it might have been an Android.
It is just it was a hand-me-down of some kind.
I am happy to follow up and understand the specifics.
There may be an application which was being used which had a notification, but I am happy to understand it better and clarify clarify it for you.
Okay.
Thank you for your testimony and yield back the balance of my time.
So that was a good one.
That was, I think it was Representative King, who was already an idiot, and he proved himself even more so by not identifying the correct phone of the company he was talking to.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Ulanda Lakes Butter has pulled their campaign money from.
Yes.
I'm having her on the podcast, the new CEO.
Oh, really?
That's really interesting.
What did you think of the hearings?
I thought he didn't do great.
I thought he should have gone to the first one, and he really talks being of a heat shield.
He he would have been behind Dorsey and Sandberg.
But you know what?
So I thought he just should have gone.
That's in the story.
Because?
Because
they knew about the hack of Google Plus and hadn't disclosed it yet.
Ah, yes.
So had they not?
Somebody,
a lawyer said to Sunder, said, if you go to this and
somebody up there says, are you aware of a hack?
And you say no, you either have to disclose it on live television or you've perjured yourself.
Yeah.
I think he didn't want to talk about Dragonfly.
That's what I think.
And then he ended up doing it.
I I agree it was a nothing burger, but it was, he didn't come off well.
I didn't think he came off well.
I didn't, I didn't think he did a great job.
I didn't think he did a bad job.
I just think he didn't do any job.
And he just, you know, these hearings are kind of pointless at this point.
I agree.
They don't really, they're not really holding their feet to the fire, you know.
And I think what's going to come of it is what Warner and the others do as they move into January, as they move to January.
All right.
Next thing.
Apple is building a billion-dollar campus in Texas that would nearly double the size of the company's current 6,000 employee workforce in the area.
They've already been a big
force in Texas Texas for many, many years.
And it's putting workers all over the place.
But they did it quietly.
They're sort of the anti-Amazon version of this.
What do you think of this?
Yeah, but they're doing it quietly loudly, right?
This is
Apple is really.
They do.
They're the PR genius of 2018.
They say, okay, privacy is a big issue.
People are angry.
Let's run with this privacy thing and send Tim on an Indignance tour and talk about
it.
He was well.
He was good indignant.
He He was like,
and he's earned it.
And now the new one is, oh, guess what we're doing?
We're opening a new office and we're not going to gamify it.
We're not asking for anything.
He literally, Apple has done a great job of finding the soft tissue in Facebook and Amazon and really squeezing on it.
It's smart.
Brilliant.
Facebook has 600 PR executives out of their 24,000 people.
They have been schooled and had been taken back behind the gym and had their asses kicked by the people on communications at Apple.
Yeah, that's Steve Dowling.
That's Steve Dowling.
Let me call him out.
That's Steve.
It's a guy named Steve.
Well done, Steve.
And also, Tim.
Steve Dowling.
But I mean, they also, I think they handle the Bloomberg thing around the chip.
They've been aggressive and non-aggressive at the same time.
It's a very interesting strategy in terms of how they respond.
Sort of like adults might, for example, that's a good idea.
A passive-aggressive corporation.
No, but it's like adults.
They're kind of adults.
It's like, oh, we're doing this.
We're doing that.
It's an interesting thing.
I mean, obviously, everything has to focus on what they make and what they're going going to put out and the products they make.
But they are doing a really beautiful, they're sort of avoiding the bad, bad tech lash, essentially, I think.
That's a big, that is, I think one of the bigger themes that won't be reported on about 2018 was that Apple, at the beginning of the year, was grouped into this term big tech, and they have consciously uncoupled from the rest of big tech.
And people are no longer talking about them being bad.
They've starched their hat white.
It was really the PR move.
They did a great job.
Unfortunately, they don't have the recurring revenue streams of some of these other companies.
They're no longer the most valuable company in the world.
I want to flip back to Google, though.
The dragonfly thing, I think the question that's really a tough question that's impossible for Sunda to answer, and I'm curious what you think is, okay, you're trying to figure out, I got 100 people trying to figure out a way to do gymnastics and launch a search engine that will allow the government to engage in massive censorship, but at the same time, you're principled and have real recalcitrance around helping our armed services in the field of AI.
And it seems like that is a very, in my opinion, a very good and valid question.
What is your view on Google's stance around this stuff, working with the government?
Working with the Chinese government, you mean.
Well, trying to work with the Chinese government by virtue of dragonfly, but at the same time saying they're not going to work with the U.S.
government or expressing recalcitrance to their employees or caution or concern about getting involved in AI with our armed services.
Aaron Powell, well, you know, it's interesting because they're getting a lot of pressure.
And I think their particular employee group at Google, and you know, I had them on the Recode Decode podcast,
are very firm.
This is a very firm group of people.
And so he's going to have to deal with that reaction.
I think they're going to get the same reaction about China, too.
I mean, it just, at one point, either they give
the inmates the keys to the asylum or they don't.
And for years, Google has done that.
Like, really,
the inmates run it quite a bit more than other companies.
And the question is, will Kasuna Pichai continue this?
Which I think he's grown up in in also.
And so I don't know.
I don't know if they'll do that.
That
the Chinese
Chinese search engine.
I just don't know.
I don't know if they'll do it.
It'll be an interesting question.
And if they do it, they have to do it, I think, quite transparently and out, you know, kind of out there.
And I think it'll be, they have a much different employee base than, say, Facebook does.
Facebook's, as I said, employee base is much more docile.
So we'll see what happens.
But I do think that they can't, they have to be relatively transparent in everything they do and
try really hard to listen to their employees because
it's a talent game right now for all these companies.
So Anda 19, is Google in China or not?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I appreciate you saying that.
I don't know.
Every morning, every tech CEO wakes up and looks in the mirror and says one of two things.
Hello, Madam or Mr.
President.
I think they all think they should be a leader of the free world.
And they are all contemplating a run for president.
And two.
I think they all want to get out.
I think they want to get out.
That's what I think.
They're trying to figure out what's going on.
Three, you guys are bigger than the caution.
Really?
I think it's a little fallow period we're in.
And then, two, they say, hello, CEO of world's most valuable firm in the world.
And it's difficult to be the world's most valuable firm in the world without having a big business in China.
And the reason why Apple is the most valuable firm in the world is
they have a big president.
I mean, look, we didn't even touch on what's going on with Meng.
And, you know, we did that last week, but what's going on with China right now, which China seems to be being calm about all the various and sundry tariff wars and the arrests and things like that.
But they've just started arresting Canadians now.
I guess they're arresting Canadians as a tit-for-tat kind of thing, which I thought they might do.
And so it'll be, you know, that relationship's going to be the most interesting part of how China deals with the West, Western companies, especially.
And then how the Western companies impact this
administration.
But this administration looks like it's over to the right doing some weird circus that has nothing to do with anything else, else, like all this Michael Cohen stuff.
And so that's going to occupy the Trump administration for the next year.
But you touched on something that is really a big deal, and that was the arrest of the CFO, the Huawei CFO, in Canada.
And then if you look at kind of it's a different complexion, but a similar story.
And I think it's prosecutorial overreach, the jailing of Goan in Japan.
And so far, we don't even know what the charges are, as far as I can tell, and he hasn't accessed those lawyers.
So geopolitics entering into the field or being weaponized by
local authorities,
we're in weird territory right now.
Let me ask you this.
Would you go to mainland China right now?
No.
It's just,
if you're Tim Cook, do you go to mainland China?
No, well,
no, they're not going to arrest Tim Cook.
Okay, the CFO?
The CFO of Apple?
Yeah, I don't know.
And Huawei is kind of the actual.
They're not going to say they're worried about it.
Yeah, they're going to not say they're worried about it, but I suspect they are worried
on Air China or South China, China, Eastern Earth.
But they got to be there.
They got a lot of business.
They got a lot of business there, so it's a really hard thing.
Big business.
And then lastly, which I think will probably do it in the winners and losers, but
you could also just ignore ugly geopolitical events like Jack Dorsey of Twitter did and put a multi-part tweet about meditation and not
read my Anmar.
Of course I did.
Oh my God, they're fantastic.
What would happen if after 45 minutes of sitting, you felt pain and you decided to just sit through the pain.
This goes to my thesis, and I'm about to alienate probably a third of our audience.
Yeah.
I did a lot of yoga when I first got to New York because I was bored, but yeah, it was stressed.
So I did a ton of yoga.
And the yoga community, if someone is really into yoga and really into meditation at the point where they start talking about the seven fingers of yoga and being a giving person, you can guarantee that person is like a bad tipper.
I find these people are so full of shit.
It's incredible.
It's the same thing as, by the way,
now I'm going to alienate another third of our audience.
Okay, all right.
Okay.
Bad team, yogis.
Go ahead.
Yeah, anyone who buys yoga pants is an asshole.
Anyway, so essentially,
animals.
I have a t-shirt that's.
People who are really into animal rights and host dinners on animals and all that.
I'm telling you, Carol.
Carol, hold on, hold on.
They don't love animals.
They hate people.
I found out my neighbor is one of these big animal rights persons, and I'm like,
trust me, he'll hate his neighbors.
And what do you know?
The guy's an asshole.
Oh my God, we're having all these disputes with him.
I'm like, send them away.
This has nothing to do with it.
The guy clearly doesn't want to get along with people.
Anyone in the yoga, anyone like ridiculously into animal rights?
We're talking about Jackson.
And we're going to talk about what do you think that he did that.
I think, on one hand, it's nice that someone sits and contemplates for a vacation rather than goes to like Vegas and blows a wad
at the crab station.
Vegas is awesome.
Go to Vegas.
But it was really kind of tone-deaf that he did not mention Myanmar.
I thought he was in Myanmar and didn't mention a situation.
I'm a billionaire.
I'm the CEO of two companies, so I can take 10 days off and deny myself of the material things that most people can't afford.
And then, and you know what?
The key is to a silent retreat?
Keeping it to yourself.
That's the whole point of a silent retreat.
You can't keep it to yourself.
You don't write about it.
And then the comments, there are so many funny people on Twitter.
I know.
The comments were like great.
It was we just wanted an edit button.
You know, I mean, it's just, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was great.
Anyway, he's definitely and then
Fred Wilson defended me.
It was interesting.
Yep, yep, I know.
Loser.
I know.
Total loser of the week.
I know.
Yoga pants, baby.
You know it.
I'm sending you my fuck yoga t-shirt.
I'm going to wear it next week.
Anyway, when we get back, we're going to talk, we're from our sponsor.
We're going to talk.
We'll talk a little bit about the losers.
When we get back, we're going to talk about the wins and fails for the week.
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We're back with Scott Galloway.
He is having has just alienated an enormous segment of people I live next to in San Francisco, but via his yoga attacks.
But let's talk about wins and fails this week.
My win for this week is Times Person of the Year, Maria Ressa.
She's a Filipina journalist who I interviewed a few weeks ago on Recode Decode.
Let's take a listen.
When your rights are being taken away from you, we want to alert you to that.
That's what our journalism is showing.
We showed them in the using data, we showed them that they were being manipulated.
And yet it took another year before people really understood what that meant.
I think this is, all right, let me pull back.
The cool thing about all of this is that we're going to, we're redefining and redesigning the world.
I just don't want to be the person that gets jailed because we're trying to redefine what journalism is like in my country.
But that's extremely exciting.
And I think that, you know, with leaders like Trump, like Duterte, appealing to the worst of human nature, and then the social media platforms allowing that, allowing exponential lies to be used against truth tellers to the the point that we have no facts to begin any discussion with.
So, this interview was amazing.
I actually asked her not to go back to the Philippines, and of course, she was arrested when she got back.
DeJarte,
he is just out to get her.
She's doing all these, she's part of a group called Rappler, and they're doing some astonishing journalism there and pointing out the extrajudicial killings and all kinds of things.
And I was really, she deserves so much of the credit for
not allowing
these lies and the use of social media.
We talked a lot about that and abuse and just standing up to it.
And I think she is just the win of
the year, really, in lots of ways, and journalists like her.
And so I was really pleased that she was put on the cover of Time magazine.
I'm not so pleased she was arrested in the Philippines for they've ginned up some ridiculous series of accusations against her.
So that is my win, Scott, and a very nice, good person.
person who doesn't who makes me feel better about this world.
Can I take the other side of this?
Well, no.
Don't be anti-Maria Russell.
I'll have to say that.
No,
let me be clear.
I think anything that extends a news cycle around
her or Khashoggi, I think is a good thing.
But should journalists be giving other journalists awards?
Yes.
Okay.
This case, yes.
This case, yes.
Because this is an unusual case.
I agree with you.
I don't go to those journalism things, and you will never find me at them, and I hate them.
But
I don't like the OSCE, like all of those awards for awards of awards thing.
I don't like them so much.
But in this case, the attacks on the press press across the globe, including here in this country, demand that we make this an important thing.
And I it's you shouldn't like over index on how great we are, but she happens to be great.
And so is, you know, and the dismemberment of a journalist should be noted.
100%.
100%.
And the people at the Capitol Gazette and stuff like that.
So in this case, yes, I would say, because of the continual attacks on the press, especially by President Trump.
And what about basic
grammar?
Should at some point they change it to Times Movement or Theme of the Year?
I mean, when are they going to actually limit it to a person?
I mean, it's
computer of the year.
It's always these movements.
Go back and pick a person.
Thing of the year.
Oh, person.
Yeah.
Well, who would you be your person of the year then?
Well, I made a prediction, and I got it wrong.
I think that's why I'm angry about this.
Which was it?
I forgot.
I thought it was going to be Lieutenant First Class
Robert Mueller.
I thought he was going to be Times Person of the Year.
Interesting.
And actually, I think he is.
Yeah, that's right.
Okay, I'll extend it a year.
Maybe next year.
By the way, it's still going.
Time Magazine.
Yeah.
You know, I really want Time Magazine for Christmas.
Said no one ever.
I mean, literally, time.
Time has become, I think Benioff, I listened to him speak the other way, the other day, last year.
He's the real deal.
He is.
That's why I shouldn't go.
I shouldn't meet people because I like him, and I'm probably never going to see anything dang around Salesforce.
I get the sense he's very genuine.
He's fun.
He's fun.
He's a fun guy.
Yeah, but he also, he seems, I mean, he seems generally concerned and wants to
help stuff out and is willing to sacrifice a lot for it.
But time, it's going to be just so interesting to see if they're able to do anything.
I think you can do anything with anything.
I think you're wrong.
I think you can take anybody.
Can you do a Dr.
Seuss movie?
We can do anything with anything.
Anyway, what's your favorite story?
You know what my favorite statement is?
Sometimes it's darkest before it's pitch black.
Okay, all right.
The dark is afraid of me.
I can go toe-to-toe with you on these things.
All right, so fail, fail, fail.
We got time constraints here, Scott.
We want to keep it tight for the people.
Fail.
God, God, I mean, my fail is Dorsey.
I just thought, I just thought that was ridiculous.
I love those tweets.
I just thought they were, I don't know, it just makes me happy thinking about what an asshole this guy is.
And
then, all right, I was going to say Verizon regrets.
Oh, wait, wait, that's better.
I'm sorry.
And I called somebody.
All right, I want you to comment upon it.
They took a write down.
They decided all this mishigaz that went on about buying and selling and buying and selling of AOL, Yahoo.
Everything is just, oh, sorry, you know, swipe left or whatever the way you're supposed to swipe.
Well, Well, that's it.
So that's interesting, right?
Verizon, the new CEO, is a handset guy.
And I'm Han,
that I thought they were going to spin it again.
I think,
so you're probably going to see a Yahoo AOL spin.
They're probably going to just spin it out.
The whole content of distribution, by the way, you know what the next write down to come?
It's going to be ATT's right down to Time Warner.
I think Jeffrey Buchas is one of the smartest people to ever be in the media business.
And the reason he sold it, he sold it at the top.
They overpaid for it, and they're going to endure a riot.
I mean, it's as great a content as it is.
They just, ATT overpaid for it.
This whole notion of this strategy of we want to be number three.
Sorry, number three is Amazon.
There's Google, there's Facebook, and now Amazon Media Group, which, by the way, in three years is going to be the third largest media company in the world, which
no one was expecting or saw coming.
But Verizon, AOL, BOM, AOL, Time Warner.
Did you see what the AOL, the new head of content for AOL, said about ATT?
I'm sorry, what did you say?
The new head, the guy, this guy, Stamkey, came out and said that we need to scale Netflix, which to me is like walking into the Louvre and say, hey, we need to scale this.
I mean, it's just the thing that's wonderful about HBO.
Imagine Fletfler.
What do you think Pleppler did?
Do you think Plepper went into his office and like threw things?
This is Richard Plepper, who runs HBO, who's fantastic.
He's a fantastic personality and media executive.
So
I don't know about you.
I'm actually supposed to have lunch with him, which is more name-dropping, but
when can I come?
I lost the capacity.
I literally,
from the age of 34 to like 48, I lost the capacity to cry, which is probably more information than you wanted.
But the only time I started crying again was under the influence of media, specifically HBO.
I think that organization has just captured this unbelievable ability to attract and retain the best talent and create some of the most moving content.
I think TV is our golden age, and HBO is the ground zero for that.
And for AT ⁇ T, for some Yahoo to come in, by the way, John Samkey is a bruin, so he can't be all bad.
Stanky.
But for him to
come in to HBO and say, we need to figure out a way to scale this, it's literally criminal.
They do such an unbelievable job.
HBO should be the bait or the target to buy an AT ⁇ T contract, but
HBO for me has just been an incredibly important organization that creates a lot of-liberty is going to stay.
That's what I'm saying.
So my winner, I'm sorry, my winner is HBO.
HBO.
All right.
Okay.
And the loser is Verizon writing these down.
What happens to these companies?
Do they just go?
They just go, right?
Investment bank is fun and what?
Investment bank is fun.
And they bring back some they bring back the most underrated Google executive, Tim Armstrong.
Oh, well, he already created this mess.
No, he's the one that saved AOL and then got it sold at a high price.
I think he did a great job.
No, he did, and then he did the Yahoo thing.
He shouldn't have done the Yahoo thing.
AOL, and he turned chicken shit and turned it into chicken salad.
AOL was sort of AOL.
And then he left.
And then he left.
He sold it off to a bigger sucker.
That's really what you're saying.
Which is what you're supposed to do as a CEO.
Great for shareholders.
All right.
Is he going to take it back?
Anyways, I think this is a lot of people.
He shouldn't have done the Yahoo Reach.
He shouldn't have done the Yahoo Reach.
That was the reach.
Oh, come on.
Yahoo's made so much bigger mistakes than that.
Worst acquisition of tech the last 10 years.
What is it, Kira?
Jeopardy.
Business tech.
Worst acquisition of the last 10 years.
It involves Yahoo.
There's so many.
Okay, Yahoo buying what?
I don't know.
Tumblr.
Tell me.
Tumblr.
Oh, yeah.
In the same quarter that Instagram was purchased for the same amount.
Okay, Instagram for a billion, Tumblr for 1.1.
She wrote that story.
Kara Swisher did.
Yes, she did.
And by the way,
Tumblr has just announced they're getting rid of all porn, which makes Tumblr totally irrelevant.
Yeah.
Totally irrelevant.
Jessica, why would anyone go to Tumblr?
Howell, who used to work at Google, wrote a great piece on that this week.
Why she did.
She wrote why.
Yes, exactly.
Anyways, I don't know.
I think they're gone, gone, gone.
They're gone.
All right, predictions, Scott.
Predictions.
I need a prediction from you.
Well, I already made it.
I think the next big write-down is going to be in 12 months.
ATT is going to write down Time Warner.
As everyone realizes, this handset and content peanut butter and chocolate combination was just a big thud.
And then one.
I think they can spin it back off.
They spin them out again.
Really?
These are great companies.
And then they spin them back in.
And then there's a handset culture.
And so then they're just like small media companies, essentially.
There's a series of small media companies.
I don't think they'll be broken up like that.
I think Time Warner is an incredible.
I mean, there's some incredible assets.
HBO could trade at an unbelievable valuation on its own, I think.
It'd probably be acquired again by somebody.
But I don't know what it'll look like.
but I think they're, I still think, so let me be clear from a consumer level, I love Yahoo.
Yahoo Finance is still my homepage.
I still use it.
It's like bragging you haven't discovered it.
There's value there.
There's value there, Scott.
That's what you're saying.
Yeah, I do.
I think there's value, and I think they have some pretty good people.
I think they did a good job.
And I think it's stuck in this ridiculous strategy of trying to figure out a way to differentiate handsets.
It never made any sense to me.
Doesn't make any sense to you.
They spend a lot of money with these guys.
What do the handset people do?
Do then the internet people become the ones that do this buying it seems to me the internet makes more sense internet people buying these companies
so what's your prediction what what would happen play this out i've got i've you know
you know it gets bought these content companies get bought by internet companies yeah they're
gonna have trouble yeah but they're gonna have trouble buying stuff because of antitrust i think i think yes that's right they can't buy stuff you're right i think they're all scared we've got to have the next big innovation that's what we need that's my theme for this year last year was tech responsibility and what uh yim yams these people were that that not taking responsibility.
You already have the next big innovation, Kara.
It's already here.
Neither.
What?
What is it?
Well, there's good news and bad news.
It's already here.
The problem is it's owned by Amazon.
The next big innovation in technology is voice.
Well, that's what you think.
I'm just wondering what it is.
It could be voice.
It could be a lot of things.
What is it?
Oh, wait, another loser.
Can we have another loser of the week?
I just thought.
Yeah, go ahead.
The announcement that Cheddar is going to be the first business television to be live streamed virtually on the Magic Leap headset.
Talk about shavings and shit on a shit salad.
Seriously.
Seriously.
Cheddar is now on magically virtual reality.
Okay.
So I can see a reheated story, CNBC about millennials with a dunkin' donuts cup in virtual reality.
I mean, what are these people doing, Kara?
What are these people doing?
It makes me want to go to Chipotle.
Mike is gone.
Mike is gone now, right?
Oh, God.
Ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
Scott, honestly.
You're coming to New York, Kara.
I got to think about it.
I'm coming to New York.
Next week, I will bring the bagels.
I will be there.
We're going to have a great time in New York.
What are we doing?
Where are we going?
What are we going to do?
I'm going to take you to one of my two favorite restaurants.
I'm going to either take you to Cafe Select in the village, or we're going to go to this hip-hop millennial place called Las Gina, or maybe Charlie Parker's, which is more kind of your vibe because it's fabulous and people recognize them.
Oh, Kara, you're the greatest.
Oh, my God.
Not in New York.
We will go.
We will have a social time.
I'll bring a date.
It'll be great.
It'll be fantastic.
Oh, my God.
You're bringing a date?
I have a date.
Are you dating someone young and hot?
Is that why you've been in such a good mood?
You're glowing.
You're glowing.
You know what?
You're dating someone young and hot.
I'm not talking.
Oh,
I'm dating a very nice young woman.
Congratulations.
I'm not a young woman.
Thank you.
It's lovely.
Very smart.
Smart.
Like, smart and interesting.
Like, well, let's focus on that, like,
their value as a person.
It's like Nancy Pelosi's coat.
It's like Nancy Pelosi's coat.
Like, everyone's focusing on her coat and her glasses and not the fact that she's a badass.
I thought she was awesome in that meeting with you.
That's what I'm saying.
But everyone focuses on her coat.
It's like focusing on hot women.
It's like, that's not what you focus on.
She focused on the fact that she's the third in line to run this country.
And she handed Trump his head in the meeting as a person, not as a woman in a coat.
I'm just saying.
No, I agree.
No, there was a man in that room.
She was wearing a dress.
Yeah, yeah.
You are just a little bit more.
Slipped that
he had a hand and
seen.
And seen.
All feminists, please, please, definitely email me and I will hit him on the internet.
Especially the ones who do yoga are really into their dogs.
Yes.
Okay, goodbye.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Rebecca Sinanes produces this show, Nishat.
Kirwa is Vox's executive producer of audio.
Thanks also to Eric Johnson, who I forgot to invite to our holiday part of us.
Sorry, Eric.
It's funny you find that that funny.
Was he at home watching it play out on Instagram and now he's contemplating?
No, I kept like, where are you?
Send us back to big tech.
No, anyway, thanks for listening to Pivot from Fox Media.
Join us next week for more breakdown, all things tech and business.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.
I was watching Wreck-It Ralph 2 and I got out of the movie and Kara texted.
I saw a text from Kara.
Where are you?
Why were you at Wreck-It Ralph 2?
I don't even want to go into that.
Anyway, thank you, everyone.
Bye, Scott.
I'll see you next week.
Thanks, everybody.
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