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That's O-D-O-O.com. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway, and Cara, the big news.
No, no, no, you're not gonna take my thunder. There's no thunder taking me. Hold on, hold on. The sexiest podcaster alive.
That's right, and we sit on the sexiest podcaster alive. Listen, stop, you're stealing my thunder, you narcissist. Listen, cue the music, Rebecca. We got a champ on top.
Yes, we are the champions, my friend. I like the cheers. Scott, we've got an exciting announcement, Rebecca, stop playing that awful music. Listen, Pivot won an award.
We won Thought Leadership Podcast of the Year, which is very funny because we really do need to have some thoughts. Thought Leadership? I am, okay, let me just say, I am so sick of not being objectified. I have, my husband and everyone else I know gave me a peloton, and I now have a girlish figure.
I'm sick of being appreciated from my brain. I'm sick of- This is just like the Miss Congeniality Award. I mean, thought leadership. What does that even mean?
Thought leadership? Have they met us? Literally, have they met us? We're very thoughtful people.
Thoughtless. That's literally like the least sexy award ever invented. But the sexy award was won by me, Cara Swisher, for Rico Dico, Ad Week Tech Podcast of the Year, and overall podcast of the year. I beat Michael Barbero.
I kicked Joe Rogan's ass. I mean, really. Seriously. It's clear that Vox owns the company and owns it out a week.
I read that and I'm a swallow my tongue. I'm like podcasting a year. I'm an important and smart. Did you see?
I'm smart. I am just a really fantastic person. You're like Helen Reddy at the 1978 Grammys. You're just cleaning up everything.
I am woman. You're a number two big two. Rico Tico. That's really impressive.
All the white guys who yammer way like you win. All the time it is time for a lady to win the thing. I'm sorry. Now you cleaned up.
Congratulations. You are. I think you're officially the godmother of podcasting. Seriously.
I believe I am. And by the way, guess what our next stop is? Pulitzer. They just announced an audio category for future awards.
You're here now. You're like Harvey Weinstein out there trying to get yourself a Pulitzer. So I just have a quick question. I'm getting a Pulitzer.
And then you're going to bow down to me. Like I do twice a week. Yes. You know what?
I'm just curious. When did you start podcasting? What got you into it? Five.
Five. I just suddenly realized these earphones and everything else. I think with the AirPods, it was five years ago or more. I just was sort of like listening to someone.
I thought this is going to be great because you're in people's ears. These ear things are getting so much, these devices are getting so much better. I was starting to listen to them. And so I grabbed an intern.
I literally was running the Rico site or doing a lot of writing and everything. And I just got tired of the texting and I thought, I'm going to do this. And because I was going to take the code conference 365 days a year, it was just on a whim and Jim Bank off, let me do it. And because nobody knows whatever I'm doing.
And that was that. That was the beginning. Thank you. That's my origin story.
Wow. That's it. That's it. I just wanted to do it.
Yeah. And it's a medium that's now, I think it's going to be over a billion dollars. It's the only ad supported medium. You know, it was the first podcast I ever listened to?
What? The podcast of you interviewing me on Rico. Oh, yeah. That's right.
And you know what I thought was, you know what? I'm an artist as well. One word reaction. I'm like, man, this medium will never work.
What is this show? Love that episode. And that's where you predicted the Amazon and the whole food thing. Yeah, that started it all.
That's, that built all this. This is why I'm in the panic room right now. Listen to me. Look, they're going to, they're going to, NPR has been doing a lot of people doing amazing terms.
But we have just stepped in and grind all the time. In any case. You listen to it. I'm just going, what are we supposed to listen to?
Other than herself. What do you listen to? I listen to a lot of history podcasts. I like a historical history.
Like what? Oh, all of them, all of them. I listen to whatever's around. You know, Terry Grows.
I listen to a lot of interview stuff, but I do like the historical ones. And I also listen to a historical audio of books on tape, but right now I'm listening to a podcast about the making of the Brooklyn Bridge and it's riveting John Robling has just started smiling. I wonder what I thought leaders of the year. Can you start on the Kardashians?
Geez, that's rough. Anyways, congratulations. That's wonderful. Thank you.
Listen, it would be interesting to see, you know, if Spotify starts going after prestige journalism wars just the way an apple starts putting more money in this because the way, you know, Netflix going for Oscars and Golden Globes and things like that. It's just, it's an interesting, like they just did it with the Irishman and marriage story, which is interesting. We'll talk about that later. The stories.
I want to start with a letter you wrote to Twitter's board of directors. I didn't even talk about too much. You got a lot of attention for it. You wrote a very, you started this on the podcast last week, but then you wrote a very detailed open letter on your blog, No Mercy, No Malice, maybe a little Malice.
You actively asked when we'd court a son, you know, I know very well when he used to work at Google, who's the executive chairman of Twitter, to remove Jack Dorsey in a no confidence vote. And you actually sort of slapped around him. And just to be clear, you disclosed that you are a Twitter shareholder in the letter. Talk about this because it got a lot of attention.
What did it get a lot of attention? Well, look, we talked about this off, Mike, and I'm not entirely sure how to approach it because I want to give the company a chance to respond before piling on. You're not going to respond to you, but okay. You never know.
Actually, I know. But anyways, look, the letter speaks to itself. I think Twitter needs to start commanding the space it occupies. I think if you were to look at any company that has the equivalent reach or influence, it's a company trading at 20 to 40 X the valuation.
I think there's no company in the world who's opportunity relative to its performance is this out of whack. At the same time, you know, I do want to kind of move on because I don't want, I don't want us to be accused of using this platform to pimp my financial interests. I get that. I get that.
But you brought up some very good things. I think more to the point besides the stock, let's move away from the stock, is these issues around the CEO not being present, which we talked about last week. It's detail. I'm wanting to go to Africa and different things and you hold it on the idea that it's two jobs, which I think has always been an issue, and that it's never been more important than ever.
Like you talked about being in the Mueller report. There are a lot of areas. It's a really smart, whether it's got a really smart analysis of the situation and that whether it's doing well enough is another aspect to it. But one of the things is whether it's running the company, whether it's making products well, whether it's the departure of a lot of executives, it's never been more in the news and yet the management still continues to be.
But now, even though Dorsey has done some great things like getting rid of political address, I think removes a pain point off his plate, which he has many. The primary people have asked me what would you do that's different? And I think that generally speaking, activists, investors, or frustrated operators that come up with a bunch of recommendations and then if they get on the board, what's happened to me when I got on boards of companies is I generally find out that I'm not as smart as I thought and they're not as dumb as I'd hoped. So I didn't make a lot of tactical recommendations, but I just think it's kind of basic IQ test of corporate governance that a company that's in the midst of an election year that has potentially been weaponized to huge effect on behalf of bad actors, a company that has the kind of reach and influence and hasn't been able to monetize it.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it deserves a full-time CEO. And the issue is I think it's like a regular tree trunk, many people feel I think I think that you got it or someone like that should probably be. Well, I know I had it to be fair. I do think Jack Dorsey is a full-time CEO.
Unfortunately, it's a full-time CEO of Square, whereas 85% of as well. But anyway, I've been trapped here. I'm going down a rabbit hole. We'll see what management says.
I appreciate you bringing it up. But let's get to other news. No, no, no, no. What's interesting about this is it reminds me of Chris Saka did a letter like this many years ago, if you remember.
He was saying how I'd run Twitter. And he's a big investor in it. You're allowed to comment on it. As long as you disclose.
And what was interesting is he got a lot of kudos. You're getting killed by the VCs. You made a stupid Twitter error that's being piled on that. The circling of the wagons on this is fascinating to me by a lot of Silicon Valley people in terms of they can do no wrong.
And that's a really interesting issue. I think. Yeah, first off, I want to apologize. I got him flat.
I apologize. I'm wrong. But I got him flat. I put out a tweet early in the morning describing the Peloton ad.
And I use the exact same language and I should have just retweeted his tweet or given him a hat tip and immediately the same people whose we work investment I've queered or have come after Twitter began calling me a plagiarist, which is really nice for a professor. That feels very good. But anyways, Vlad was very gracious and responded pretty much saying, but the circling of the wagons part is interesting. That was just.
I was expecting it. I expected it's interesting. I expected on this podcast and on Twitter that I would trigger a variety of cohorts and the only people I trigger are white males between the ages of 40 and 55. When I stand my analysis stands between them and their second billion.
That is when things get really mean and ugly. Do you have a name for this? What does that mean? Yeah, I call them the third basers.
The people who conflated luck with talent and have decided that basically the arguments back and go on my Twitter feed and look at it. I wouldn't even call them arguments because they don't respond. But their basic notion is I'm rich. So fuck you.
I must be right. You don't know. They call you moronic. I'm a moron.
I'm a moron. No data. No response to the argument. Just I'm a moron.
It's literally. It's interesting because young people respond more thoughtfully. They're a little bit more. They come up with data.
They disagree with you. You get the bots and the crypto guys or the Tesla guys that don't make any sense. But those are just bots. It's always from a 40 to 55 year old white male usually in the venture capital or alternative investment industry.
And their basic notion is have you met me? Do you know who I am? And there's just absolutely no desire to have a substantive dialogue. And by the way, I would benefit from a substantive dialogue because I get this year wrong all the the time.
And I try to get them on. The people suggest we have them on is Keith. I've interviewed him on the podcast. And Jason Calcanis has also been.
He's trying to take your place on his podcast. But one of the things that's interesting, those are among the people that complain about you. It's really interesting. It's fascinating to watch him because they never do that to me.
I'm just a difference. I'm okay. I've been very critical of we in Uber. And the first individual you referenced is a angel investor.
And you guessed it, we in Uber, the last individual you referenced is about to go down as Adam Newman minus the charisma. Good looks as he is incinerating more capital for SoftBank at Open Door and DoorDash. So yeah, there is a reason why these. Who's Jason?
Jason, Jason's not SoftBank. No, the teal guy. He's not SoftBank. He's not SoftBank.
Yeah, but he's the founder of Open Door, another SoftBank incinerator and also DoorDash, which will go down is again, another one that's not going to get out that's incinerated literally billions. So why do I find it interesting? I find it interesting because I literally have been tough on many other companies and I've never seen them take... I think that's...
Listen guys, you all, Keith and Jason, besides the fact that I have to threaten you physically with my children. Thanks for that. Which I hope you know, I will have my children take care of it if you'd like. But you know, if you're going to do this on Twitter, call me a moron is not really the way to do it.
You look like idiots and you need to actually have some cogent arguments that he can then respond to. And if not, I will send my children after you. How's that? I like it.
Thanks for that. I feel much safer now. I agree with you. The moron is ridiculous.
It's ridiculous. They need to make their arguments besides I'm rich and you're not. They really do. They need to have some cogent analysis.
That's right. Sexy as podcasters. There we go. We did not win Sexy as podcast a lot.
It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. We should award it to ourselves. Listen, the other thing, speaking of Uber, they released a report detailing an analyzed incidence of sexual assault in their ride.
As they promised, they were going to. The company just closed more than 3000 incidence of sexual assaults that happened on their ride. That's about eight assaults a day. Obviously they do billions of rides.
That was their sort of talking point. But it's the first time that any major right handling service has released this kind. Scott, can you talk about this from a brand strategy or PR perspective? They just got booted from London from misconduct.
Is this transparency an attempt to get ahead of the issues or just a smart brand? And optics management? Well, the first thing is, and I'm really curious of your thoughts, the first thing is it's shocking, right? And then as a data person, you'll be like, well, is this, is this, is it worse on Uber or is this just a function of someone actually doing the data around what happens with ride hailing and taxi caps?
But I mean, first, it really shocks you. It's already changed my behavior. I was starting to think that I could have Ubers take my kids to literally practice and there's just no way I'm going to do that now. I mean, it really was.
It was shocking and upsetting. But the second that you go to the next thing, my genuine belief here is that trying to get out ahead of the issue and be somewhat transparent and take the lead around it is a smart move. They did, I think, and currently announce some of the safety features they're trying to build in. So I think they get, it's easy, it's easy to, it's a problem.
And they're trying, is this something specific to Uber about their culture? I don't think it is. I think it's something specific to, to the activity that's creating a dangerous atmosphere. But it's just having the data out there is, is productive because I do think you're going to see action against it and hopefully reduction in it.
But again, it's another thing is a, is a male. I just never would have, you're safe in the back of a car. People don't start acting weird with you. I mean, they might take the wrong bridge and then you go insane, but I've never, as a, you know, a six to male.
I've never felt threatened. So again. Well, welcome. That is my column in the air times this week, oddly enough, about the safety.
This idea around safety. I think what's interesting is that you're a human beings behave, whether you're in a hotel or a car sharing, you're going to get these kind of behaviors everywhere. Like no matter what you're selling, if you have these encounters, it happens in taxis. It's happened to, you know, taxis would be the most, it's obviously, there's tons of us, tons of us, tons of us.
I know it's really keeping track of those, particularly, and so that's good that they're keeping track of that. That's one of the things. But I think Uber from his early days did not focus on safety in any way, that did not make sure they vetted the drivers, did not ensure, you know, that this was the safest ride, did not bet the cars. And so this is what's coming to haunt them, I think, in that way.
And I think that, under dark was a try. I think they're trying to do that. Obviously, there's issues around payments and things like that that are still problematic for this company in economics, but they didn't do this for the longest time, and they did not take the, they didn't do a very good job of vetting, they didn't do a very good job of safety. And now they're trying to backfill that this problem.
And so, and the reason being, which is what I'm going to argue in the New York Times Club this week, is that these people have never felt unsafe a day in their lives, and therefore they don't understand. We don't have a thighs. Because you would, you're not going to want to go yay this, but there's been enough incidents of them for them to understand that they need to be, not perfect, but they certainly need to try harder. And so, this is a great move.
I did talk to Dara about it. And you know, he, you know, he sort of, every day, it's, it's incoming, essentially. But this, I think, was a good thing for them to do. I think they have to keep doing it.
And then, besides releasing this data, they got to say what they're going to do about it. Like, very cogent things that they need to do to make this safer, because it's going to be on, there's going to be some level of lack of safety, no matter how you slice it when humans come together. But they could do a better job. That's my question.
I'm a big fan of, he had a tweet that sort of summarized the issue and the problem. And it goes to the Gestalt, a big tech. And that is big tech. A big component of their value add is innovation, their incredible products, regulatory arbitrage, or they just bomb into a city and believe they can overwhelm the local authorities.
There's quite frankly exploitation of people where they figure out that a lot of people aren't working, have smartphones, so they can put them to work for the low minimum wage standards. But there's also the basic Gestalt that wraps around all of it is how do we make this process more frictionless such that could scale like no other, like no other business in this category. So anything that adds friction, checking a driver's background, a probation period for the driver, right, installing a camera in the car, anything that adds friction, it gets a red light from moment one. And the reality is all of these safety, all of these issues, all of this porous nature that makes the platform weaponize subject to abuse that you can reach out in DM on Instagram, underage girls, all of these things are a function of these aren't evil people.
But part of their Gestalt around billing shareholder value, their DNA, is to never acknowledge or green light anything that might result in friction of scale. And the majority of the problems come from their inability to recognize that friction is a component of safety and of responsibility, like mature, mature, mature. You just used two thoughtful words, friction of Gestalt. Friction of Gestalt.
Friction of Gestalt. There you go. Friction of Gestalt. There you go.
My wise German, I used those words for foreplay. Oh, God, I knew that would happen. Sometimes I just like Poland and she invades me. Sorry, no, no, no, no, that's not happening.
That's a good cold war humor. That's a good cold war humor. That's a good cold war humor. Take a quick break before that is your one.
You get one. Every episode. Oh, you get one. That is it.
Before Eric Anderson. All right. Okay. It's time for a quick break.
Listen, I am the podcaster of the year. So just back down. It's actually a podcaster alive. No.
Okay. It's got time for a quick break. We'll be right back with more. More pivot.
More pivot. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Hear that? That's your next obsession.
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Short. Because some days call for that espresso kick and sometimes a smooth silky latte just wins. I have to learn from this. And I will learn from this.
But, you know, for me, it's not a 20-28 question. It's about what it means to be a better first boss in my office and also a better center to my constituents. This week on America, actually, I'm in Washington, D.C. this week to interview Ruben Gallego.
He's a Democratic senator from Arizona. And he's been thinking openly about running for higher office. But he's recently running to some hot water because of his connection to Congress and Eric's well well. I have to learn from this.
And I will learn from this. But, you know, for me, it's not a 20-28 question. It's about what it means to be a better first boss in my office and also a better center to my constituents. This week on America, actually, we asked Gallego about predatory behavior in Washington.
His plans for immigration reform and more. Okay. We're back. We've tamed Scott.
Cara Swisher, Comma, podcast of the year. Comma has managed to do her excellent job. Scott, where did you listen to her mail now? You got an interesting email last week from someone who wanted to remain anonymous about their experience at WeWork.
They said that their family member worked as a salesperson at the company for about six months before quitting. They were paid more on commission than the rent the tenant was paying for WeWork for the entire lifetime. At least they signed. Scott, can you talk about this from a manager section?
Basically, this shows they were indications this model was going to fail long before their S1. This is what the listener said. This is a Ponzi scheme, essentially. What do you think about that?
I'm seriously, my mind stopped. I still can't get over the fact you beat out the daily for podcast of the year. My brain says catching up. What's going on today?
I'm a baro. You know who caused this? This listener mail thing? Amazon.
Amazon, basically, reconstructed or reshaped the relationship between investors and the marketplace. As a result, absolutely reshaped behavior and capital allocation. Now, how did this happen? How are we getting to WeWork?
Let me see. It's a long windy road. I'm a thought leader. I'm a thought leader.
Let me just do a Michael Baro voice. Go on. Go on. So.
I'd love to have some dirt on him. He's very intriguing. Anyways, look, for the first time in history, a company got third and most valuable company in the world, arguably the most influential company in the world with almost no or negligible profitability. And what Amazon taught the markets to do, which drive everything as compensation typically drives everything, is they taught the markets to replace profits with vision and growth.
And so all of a sudden companies take a page out of that book and go, as long as we can massively grow the top line, profitability takes a distant number two. So if we as a means of growing our top line faster than any real estate company in history can incentivize brokers to get any tenant in these 10 new buildings or facilities we're opening up every week and create a top line growth that is unprecedented in the world of real estate. If we build it, they will come. They being a massive shareholder value, even if it means an economic model that makes no sense, including giving a hundred percent of the commission to the broker responsible for growing that top line.
All right. So why did it go wrong here? Like it worked for Amazon. It was people not paying attention.
What was different here in this WeWork situation? Well, everybody needs a little bit of sugar and then there's diabetes, right? So what happened as a species, it was drilled into us to want salty, fatty, bloody food. But once it became produced institutionally, our instincts didn't catch up and now we have tremendous obesity in this country.
And what's happened here is that investors are starting to catch up with the fact that we are overindulging. Our companies are overindulging in this notion of replacing profits with growth. And Amazon always had positive gross margins. I mean, in the year Amazon went public, I think it lost $30 million.
It wasn't losing $100 million a week. It was called Amazon.bomb. I don't know if you remember those headlines and stuff like that. People are on to it then.
It's just that Wall Street gave them a pass and Jeff Bezos didn't communicate with Wall Street that much. The Google guys were the same way. So this is an idea that worked on steroids and the marketplace has figured out, this isn't just wanting a little bit of sugar, a little bit of red meat, a little bit of fatty food. This is out of control.
This has come to the point where, and it's a new classic company. It's a company where for a short time, a dumb investor or cheap capital fuels valuation as a function of top line growth and they have access to that cheap capital and what I would deem incinerators. And there's no prospect of profitability. Amazon always had a fairly bright line path or fairly obvious path to profitability.
The only other company that's been able to get away with this to the same extent and has managed to replace top line growth with quote unquote subscribers is Netflix. Netflix, you're right. For everybody else, it's like at one point, at some point, the music stops. But let me, before we move on, what is the differentiation?
Why do they get, why does Amazon and Netflix get a pass and we work and others do not? Because Amazon, there was a path, I mean, for a lot of reasons, we work with no Amazon. Amazon got to a point where it was pretty clear if they stopped massively investing and everything from, yeah, not even marketing, but investment in smart speakers, fulfillment. I mean, they were making true investments that were going to result in flywheels.
They had Amazon Web Services, which I would argue is the most valuable company in the world right now, which is stuck in another company. Whereas we work, let's look at it, was building no moats. It was just massively buying top line. It was a guilty of incredibly poor governance.
It's flywheel effect spun out things like we work, we live, a school, none of these things made absolutely any sense. And it was generally investing just to create the illusion and burning capital, whereas Amazon was investing in moats that would ultimately return shareholder value. There's just an enormous difference. I talk about moats a lot.
You have to build moats. It's the moatiest moat of its convenience, whether it's price, whether it's logistics, they have so many. They're operating margin. They immediately, not immediately, but I think ten years into their life, they went profitable for a quarter.
I just think as a means to show the market, the moment we want to be profitable, folks, we can get there. Well, just to put this back in the day, AOL was always saying, if we just stop marketing, we'd make money. If you remember, that was there in the line. And of course, it's like, you can't, the revenue growth, the top line isn't going to grow without your crazy discs everywhere and stuff like that.
In cereal boxes, Jan Brandt, remember her? Yeah. I know Jant. Jan Brandt had a whole table made out of discs.
Yeah. I actually adopted a lot of her physiology. She had a great line that I thought was hilarious. She used to get on stage at AOL conferences when I started Red Envelope.
You had to go to AOL and basically kiss their ring to try and be the only place that was doing a commerce call. AOL marketplace from by a guy named Greg Shogan ended up becoming a close friend, talking about how the world has changed. And she used to get on stage and say, to resist his feudal, we're going to put a disc everywhere. I love Jan Brandt.
I love Jan Brandt. Jan Brandt is an unsung character in the history of the Internet. She's quite a bit in my book, but she's great. She's a great person.
Well, that's right. You wrote a book on AOL. Yes, I did. I know it's different.
But I remember the table. It weighs like 400 tons. Anyway, wins and failskot. That is a really coach.
By the way, that was another thoughtful thought leadership position. Go on. You just feel sorry for me because all your buddies have been mean to me. I think my buddies, are you kidding?
Yeah. If you can't say anything to me, they're not mean to you. They're not mean to you and not mean to me. It's a lot larger because I don't know if Silicon Valley, if you did not know it, also in my practice.
You're a carnival to me. Me and DiCosta were there. He hasn't attacked you. That's interesting.
He was the CEO of Twitter. Excuse me. He's a nice guy, a comedian guy. The former comedian.
Yeah, I met him in here. He's like a lovely guy. He's lovely. Is it a side note?
Two. I can't decide between the Wonder Woman videos and posters, the new trailer. I love Wonder Woman. I can't stand it.
I'm the car. I met through you. I love Wonder Woman. And secondly, Ryan Reynolds aviation gen ad.
Oh, that was mine. Go on. I'll give you this one. That was great.
You take that one as your winner. I'll take Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is such a great brand. They've done such an amazing thing.
It looks like a sexy as heck movie. The visuals. I love the director. Patty Jenkins.
She is a huge talent. Literally what a talent. You can see. Just from the trailer, all I want to do is go and see this movie.
It's crazy. You may go on with it. Aviation, Jen. Everyone talks about agility in the context of a bunch of programmers putting out a product quickly or copying a snapchat feature into Facebook.
That's what agility is kind of me. But agility and creativity still matters. And Ryan Reynolds, I think it's just this incredible talent. I don't know how much it was involved in the production of this.
But they saw an opportunity with the Peloton ad, which kind of documents the heartwarming journey of 116 pound model to 114 pounds over 12 months. And by the way, I stole that from Twitter. I don't know who you are. I apologize if you reach out to me.
I will credit you or I'll tip you. Anyway, it's- Twitter, Steve. But you know what's really interesting? There was a fascinating- I'm going off script here on the Peloton ad.
There was a fascinating analysis breakdown by- and I'll retweet, I think it's a her or this copywriter saying, why do we hate this ad so much? And there was a real genius- I guess not. There was a real genius insight. And that was- it was filmed as if you were the husband giving her that bike.
And they put you immediately in this feeling of like, okay, I'm a fucking idiot that was husband and it made you squirm. Because it immediately said- it wasn't done in the third person. I guess that's the second person and you were the husband, which immediately made you feel very uncomfortable. And I thought, that is just- that was such a genius insight because you see the commercial and don't you immediately go, this feels kind of awkward.
I wouldn't give my wife a Peloton for Christmas and they're saying, I am giving- they put you in those shoes. Anyways, I saw it. Aviation, Aviation Gin's agility, they immediately found her name is Monica Ruiz. By the way, this is the best thing that's ever happened to her.
She did a good job in that ad too. Oh, she was fantastic. And her friends were just like- It was so pitch perfect. It was great.
And she did a great job. We have a mutual win. I hope it keeps going. Like one of those gold Kodak ads with Mary Ann Hart.
You and I, you and I, I want to hear on Twitter how many people think- podcaster of the year, podcaster of the century and sexiest, podcaster of life. I'll leave her the year, big fucking deal. Anyways, how many think we should do a Peloton ad? You and I should absolutely do a Peloton ad.
Peloton, you have been our sponsor. We will do a Peloton. We should do a Peloton. That would be so good.
I like Peloton, too. I think it's one of the few consumer tech companies who's stuck. I don't care what wall she says. I got to tell you the product is amazing.
I just tried to tread milk. It's amazing. I use their app. I use it for meditation.
I do it for all kinds of things when I'm thinking big thoughts that I need to do because I'm a thought leader. I use it for exercise. They have all these exercises. It's great.
I do a great job. Apple like margins recurring revenue. I have to stick to the hardware. What will be interesting is they come up on the first years of public company that disclose their churn and renewal.
This will be really, really interesting. I think Apple should buy it. That's my feeling. All right.
Fails. Fails. I don't think it's a fail, but I know you will. This will be mine.
Elon Musk won the defamation case. You have to fail. No, I don't think it's a fail. I think it's a win for Elon.
I would agree. I thought this is just ridiculous to pull this Twitter stream fast. You did not. You were quite like how dare you do this.
I want to be clear. I think you can do things that are wrong. I would argue it was a hero, a pedophile. I thought it was wrong, but I don't think there's a legal remedy.
I think you can say mean things and do mean things, and it doesn't necessarily mean you should be in court. I actually think the court got this right. I don't think it fell under the true legal definition of defamation. I think occasionally people can do mean things to you, and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a legal remedy.
I think the court's got it right. I also, to his credit, on the stand, he said, I apologize. I just should have said, well done and moved on. I think there was an actual moment of self-awareness, but think about this, distinctive the morality of what he was right.
Should the CEO of a company that's trying to put a man on Mars or trying to electrify the automobile industry, should he be spending time in court defending tweets? Yeah, that was true. It's just an error in judgment, and the thing is no one on his board. I think he's been able to get through to him and go, okay, do you want to think about picking your battles a little bit more here?
Anyway, I don't think the court got it right, and I do think he handled himself or acquitted himself well on the stand. Speaking of which, he's been driving a cyber truck around LA right now, and he ran over that pylon. I'm totally flummoxed by that thing. Have you seen it?
Is that a word? Is that a leader word? No, he's writhing around. I'm going to try to get a ride with him when I'm in LA.
I'm going to get him to drive me around. That's what I'm doing. He's off to his next thing. But if you see, I literally, if someone gave you a million chances to sketch what the pickup truck from Tesla would look like, it looks like something, looks like that Simpson's episode where Homer gets to design a car.
I just, I look at the thing, I'm like, that's a pick up. It's either genius or it's going to be the biggest fail. I can't, I can't figure it out. What is your fail?
What is your fail? My fail is more of a rant. It wasn't a good story. It wasn't a good story.
This is a story about the Verge published a story about the history of bullying and the CEOs of away, largely one of the CEOs. And then the company sent out an email telling a boy's not to talk about or share the story. It's, you know, it's a tough environment and they, this was a piece about how tough the environment is. And this, it just wasn't a very attractive photo of a company.
It was not a good picture of the company and it seemed rather accurate from all. They seem to be insane on Slack. So what do you think? You have, you do not think this is a fail.
I think there's a word for that kind of stressful, unfair, high pressure, full body contact company that is, that you're not going to find justice in and it's called startup. And I think that we like to think there's this home art channel version of startups and that we can build amazing value and billions of dollars by giving everybody paternity leave and having snacks and saying to everybody, oh no, you're, you know, you're not feeling well home. I have never been involved in a company that's been able to get out of infancy and create real value without management being, you know, all over everyone, all the fucking time and creating an atmosphere of what I'll call productive chaos. And then, and then some people, and then some people, and then some people obviously emerge and become managers themselves, but I, I start ups, if you're looking for quality of life or balance and it's not aspirational, do not go to a startup and I meet it.
Quite frankly, I read it and thought, oh, I would invest in that company and it's, it's not aspirational, but folks, and maybe other people have, I have never worked in a company that's created billions of dollars in value from zero without quite frankly the sausage getting made. It is a tough environment. Go ahead. We had them on the stage of code commerce, as you know, and you know, they sort of have this happy, shiny look.
Anyway, they sort of try to do this, hey, we have all these values, they do, it's sort of like Google pushing this don't be evil line and then really presiding over really egregious sexual harassment, egregious treatment of women, you know, and then not doing anything about it. And so, or whatever they do, whatever they do. I mean, I just, you know, one of the things about the, I'll go to the Googles during the fail is that this investigation continues at Google over what happened around a number of executives there and how they handled a number of executives badly, it looks like. And I think there's no, like, they sort of get out of it because, you know, they get to leave with this sort of kudos, the founders are leaving and this and that, but there's more there.
Like, you know what I mean? The timing is not, it's not coincidental, for example. And so what I do think, I agree with you that there's, that there's a, startups aren't pretty, like, startups aren't pretty kind of thing. But it is irritating to sort of push this idea of your specialness and how much you care about your employees.
Just say, like, this is going to be hard. It's inconsistent. You know, Jeff Bezos never pretended it was a Rose Garden over there. Neither did my personality.
So I just don't like when they do this, like, happy, shiny people thing, the way Google is done. And it's not so happy. It's not so shiny. And that's my irritation.
And that's where the fail is. I agree with you, though, on the thing. That said, you can push employees way too hard and be, like, insanely non-professional. I agree.
And also there is, there is something to be said just in terms of competitive advantage. If you can provide people who have different needs and aren't maybe young and have, can't focus a hundred, ten percent of the time of work. If you can create an environment where you do give certain people more flexibility, and quite frankly, they're probably not going to make as much. But I think if you do offer those opportunities, you end up with a better company.
But I mean, I just look back on every startup, and maybe I'm a bad manager. I look back on every startup I've been on that worked, and oh my gosh, it was full body contact. It was ugly. Balance wasn't a word we ever use.
Yeah. I used to work late at night at the Washington Post and places like that. I don't recall it being, like, there is an interesting mentality of people now being able to speak out on Slack or wherever they can talk out or Twitter or wherever, where they, like, the complaints are, I hate to, like, differentiate. There are legitimate complaints.
Yeah. And there are other ones, especially on sexual harassment and behavioral issues and abuse. And then there's, oh, just suck it up. You know what I mean?
Like, that kind of thing. It takes this long to do this. And so it's a really, in this environment, I think you cannot be hypocritical on the same one thing on one hand and behaving in a different way. You just say, you know what?
Just like you're saying, start, it ain't pretty. Yeah. The sausage, it ain't pretty. And so they don't think it was a very good look for them, and especially because it's these two women running it and everything else, it's not, it's not, it wasn't a good look.
And they're under enormous pressure because everyone's trying to copy their business, their business. Well, they have to support a tech valuation on a luggage company. Yeah. It's, I think most recent valuation is $1.4 billion, which is greater than what Toomey was, I mean, this is, this is a company that's got to, again, pull off this kind of yoga babbo illusion that it's a tech company, not a company that shapes plastic into a company, into a thing you put your toiletries in.
So they found out, they found an area of the market that wasn't taking advantage of the asset. It's a great product. And by the way, if you're ever, if you're ever in an airport with a bunch of cool looking aspirational people, half those suitcases are away. It's just whether or not, I want to be clear, I love the company.
I just don't love the valuation. I just think the valuation's got to happen. Well, let me get full disclosure away is advertising with us this week, spending some of that money. But it's really, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting, it's a, they are going to have to accept and the same employees are really, it's a, it's a, it's, it's sort of, it's typical of so many Silicon Valley companies, uh, and in, in terms of how they behave.
And it's a really, it's a, it's a, it's a fascinating time. Anyway, Scott predictions. I don't want this week here. I'm going to predict that you're going to be impossible now with all these wins.
I'm still, I still can't believe you beat the daily and Joe Rogan like, and I didn't, and I didn't just weed and I don't have that smooth jazz voice as I said in my tweet. Oh my God. Congrats. I mean, it's sincerely a congratulations.
That's a nice moment for you. Thank you. I'm already focused on the people to my friend. Cause you're not supposed to know I won't get one because they're really, they're very much not here.
Then it's not a super imprise, something, anything, think about it. We're in, we're in the only ad supported medium that's growing. You're, you're literally the person that you're in a medium in a medium. Right.
You're done. Ring the bell. Peace out. Drop the mic.
I have speaking of, which I have a great interview today with, uh, Neil Kachil who was a Supreme Court litigator solicitor and that's, and he used to be a solicitor general. I think, uh, he, about the impeachment and he also does a lot of tech law. So it was really, I, I just want to say I'm, I'm going to continue to do, someone was oddly enough saying, Kara get in your lane, like stay away from politics. What is your lane?
That's what I want to know. Oh my God. I was so furious. Your lane is a fucking 405.
Your, your lane is a San Andreas fault. Define your lane. I hate when men say that. It's only men that say that to me, by the way.
Stay in your lane. I was like, you know what tech affects everything. No. Dose.
I'm going to interview anyone. Here comes the Spanish. Here comes the Spanish. Here it comes.
Hey, Yama. Cara. Oh, speaking of it. We're going to biblioteca.