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Download the Eater app at EaterApp.com. It's free for iOS users. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway. What is up with the news this weekend, Scott? I'm going to go make- Pick up my son at college and bring him in from NYU. And drama all over the place.
Mergers, drama, Bill Gates, everything. Like all over the East Elon Musk, hating on Bitcoin, etc. Alright, let's start with Bill Gates. We have to talk about this in New York Times, publishing article making allegations that Microsoft founder made many unwanted advances on employees over the years.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Bill Gates' 2020 resignation of Microsoft Board of Directors came after the board hired a law firm to investigate a romantic relationship, and inappropriate one he had with the Microsoft employee. Another, I guess it was Daily Beast said he hung out with Jeffrey Epstein, got married to Vice from him, which I'm not sure about that one, but he did hang out with him more than he said, and it was an issue of contention. And then Bill Gates' money manager was involved in a sexual harassment issue with a person at a bike store. They don't even understand it.
But Melinda was not happy about how that was handled, plus the Epstein thing which led to the divorce, which is where we are, which is where she would be one of the richest women in the world. Anyway, so what up? What up, Scott? I think you were surprised.
Actually, I was really shocked by it, to be honest. You know what, Kara? I only know what's in the news. And you know these people on a personal level.
I just be curious. You just have more authority to speak to this issue than I do. I don't know them. You know, there were rumors that they had an unhappy marriage, but there's lots of rumors about people, right?
It's not what I cover. So, and everyone sort of knew it. It's been chronicled, and there were several real problems that you have with people there. They had a lot of partying in the early days, and there was a whole report about strippers in the early days.
He was a single guy, I don't know what to say, but they had a wild time. They had some wild times there. I think the more problematic things is, this report came in the middle of the woman he had a fair with, wrote a letter to the board, and it was right in the middle of the Me Too stuff. And so the board was trying to figure out what to do in that situation.
And the woman wanted his wife, Melinda French Gates, to read it. You know, I think one of these things surfaced, and there were not just gates, there were a whole bunch of CEOs. If you remember, there was a series of CEOs who had affairs at work. I can't remember all of them, but there were a couple, and they had to step down, right, at that time, because it was the timing, etc.
And some didn't. Some, you know, it's a really problem. I think the one that I was, so that's the question of what happened there in the Wall Street Journal one. And then the one on Epstein, I don't know if you went there too much, or as you know, you said that, you know, it looks like he had a much more significant relationship.
I do not, that says nothing about anything else. He just hung out with them. And then the Times One was essentially someone awkwardly making a series of date requests at work, and not one, like he met his wife at work. So that's fine.
I mean, that happens all the time too, when he married her, and lots of people meet at work and go out, and that's, you know, sometimes problematic, sometimes not. But in this case, it looks like he made a bunch of them, like a lot, and sort of saw work as a date in school, I guess, in some fashion. So I think it was a number of them. And so, you know, I don't know.
I think this is not good. It's disappointing. It's at the same time until I see more, you know what I mean? I'm sort of waiting to see more.
They had an unhappy marriage, I think, and he was trying to get some date people, I guess, on the side or something. I don't know the inside of anyone's marriage, so I don't know what that was personally. But, you know, he's gotten him to him a mess of trouble when he's trying to actually put out some really interesting stuff about climate change, et cetera. So it's a real black eye for him, I suspect.
Yeah. I was really shocked when I read this. And I think you're right, or I think you need to bifurcate the issues. And that is someone pursuing extramarital relationships after, you know, a 27 or during a 27-year marriage.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that that happens a lot. And it's easy to be judgmental, but it happens a lot, and we don't know the dynamics of that relationship. What is more troubling is that, and I always go to, what's the learning here if you're a younger person in a company? And learning is, if you're a 20 or 30-year-old, you know, 30-something, and you meet someone and you want to establish a relationship, and there's even some risks in that.
But when people are saying, we're asking people to spend so much time at work, young people are supposed to meet, fall in love and mate, and that's going to happen at work. And I'm going to a wedding this summer of two people who met at work. And so I don't, that's going to happen. And that's what happened with them.
What is not acceptable, especially in this age, once you get to a certain level of power and influence in a company, your fly needs to be up and locked. Well, he's a public company, so you have a massive way. That's my point. He became the wealthiest man in the world based off the stock of the company that he founded, and then he was on the board of emboss.
If you're the wealthiest man in the world, it not only gives you the obligation, but quite frankly, it gives you the opportunity to take that shit off campus. It's just, that's just not the sandbox. I think it's interesting. He could travel over the world.
I was surprised he didn't meet people. Exactly. And then the other thing is that I thought about this, that there's a positive. I think that this is an example of how strong Microsoft's board is.
I think the board did the right thing. I mean, can you imagine how easy it would have been for them to make all sorts of excuses for Bill Gates? Yeah, they do have a strong board. They do.
Yeah, this is the difference between Microsoft's board and Tesla's board. Their CEO engages in massive market manipulation, and they're like, well, Elon's going to be Elon, and then Bill Gates arguably the most iconic figure in the history technology who's made a ton of money for everyone sitting around that table. He does this and they say, sorry, boss, this reflects really poorly on you and on us. You're out.
Yeah. And I think it really speaks to the character and good corporate governance. But it's easy to judge people personally. I don't think we should do that.
But you get to a certain level in a company where you garner that kind of wealth, that kind of authority. It wreaks of an abusive power and it just wreaks of just terrible judgment. Well, it's interesting. They have John Thompson on the board.
It's a long time. He's been there a long time. He's a chair. He became the chair during the situation.
They've got a Penny Pritzker who was a commerce secretary. She's obviously a very wealthy private investor. They've got a really interesting board. One point, Reed Hastings was on the board.
They have Padmashree Warrior who was another top executive in the CTO of Cisco. And it's now working on all kinds of stuff. So it's definitely an interesting board, a very strong board. And you're right.
They did act. I don't think there's women on it, but there's the CEO of Galaxo, Smith-Klein, obviously probably close to Gates because of a lot of the medical stuff he does with this foundation and stuff. And then there's Sachin Adele, of course, who's making keys. I'm not sure he's on the board.
He's on the board. He's on the board. He's the CEO. Yeah.
So it's a really interesting situation for sure. I mean, and I think they acted correctly. They investigated it, looked like, you know, without fear of favor and then decided it was problematic and said so. So there you have it.
Yeah, I just, and the other thing I thought about, wow, someone is very angry at Bill Gates. And someone is leaking all of this. I mean, these letters leaking these inside baseball. And I don't think it's anyone on the board because they had a couple of years to leak it.
And I don't know if it's the woman he was having a relationship with. The obvious pick here, but I don't know. He's soon to be ex-wife, but somebody is very angry at Bill Gates. Well, it looks like it's not going to be particularly cooperative divorce, as say that the Bezos one was, even though Bezos essentially left his wife or another woman too.
I mean, that outside of work, but he, you know, that was sort of a very cooperative. And I just wanted to finish that. I think there's a big distinction there. I think there's a big distinction.
Yeah. I think that the really disappointing or the real, the real what I would call professional lack of judgment here was doing it at work. I mean, I just like, he's such a smart guy. And it's just such, in a lot of ways, it's kind of tragic because this is an individual who's literally trying to, you know, cure malaria.
I mean, could save the lives of millions of people and to on a risk-adjusted basis, take these kinds of risks when quite frankly, whatever he was looking for was probably available elsewhere at a much less collateral damage. It's just like, this isn't the kind of guy you would think that would make this sort of risk-adjusted, self-inflicted error. Well, he's an awkward social person. I mean, I'm not, excuse by any means for him.
I mean, I've heard he's alerted with different people and it's awkward. It's never, I've never heard him say it was menacing or no, but still in the workplace it's unwelcome to do it multiple multiple times. My guess is he met his wife there. He's like, oh, that's where you meet your, you know, I think in his head, that's how he thinks.
And she was very high-level executive at Microsoft. Not high-high, but you know, she was in the group, not in the work that many women have. I'm not making excuses for Bill Gates. This is a bad look.
This is a bad, bad, bad look for him. And again, we haven't gotten along that well over the years, but it's, it's, it's both, I thought the board acted. I think that's the best way to take the board acted correctly and seem to have tried to take care of it. You know, people will complain that they didn't say anything publicly, which, you know, billionaires get a pass here, but I think in this case, probably, you know, I don't think so.
I think letting him be, I mean, letting him be his idea, maintaining integrity of the company, maintaining his ability to do the good work he's doing, not embarrassing him, his wife and his family. Yeah. I think they, I think they did the right thing quite frankly, not making it. You forgot these companies, you know, it's, it's so much emotion.
There's so much emotion work. Anyway, this was, this was a sad story. This is a really sad story. And he really had that judgment.
I think that's pretty much it. Speaking of that judgment, Elon tweeted that he would not be creating his own cryptocurrency unless Dogecoin is unable to make changes about sustainability practices. So, you know, it's kind of a YA. Like he's been doing all these anti Bitcoin stuff.
Please tell me what's going on here, Scott. There's never been anything like it. I think the clearest blue flame daily newsletter is a guy named Matt Levine, this guy, every time I read something, I'm like, God, I wish I'd written that. And he's just so funny and insightful and all that prolific.
Him and Ben Thompson, I just, these guys, their brain is just most, I can't imagine they sleep. But he had the right take and that is what would an investor Warren Buffett or JP Morgan pay for a little bottle and you rub it in a genie comes out and says, here's an asset. And you can buy as much as you want. And then you can say something and take it up 10% and sell and then say something else and take it down 10% and buy and then watch Rinson repeat.
What would you pay for that? And that's what Elon Musk has now. He has a liquid $60 billion in Dogecoin to trillion dollars in Bitcoin asset that he can take up or down 5 to 10% based on a tweet. Yeah, it's interesting.
What, you know, what's interesting? Let me just go through it. This is from a CNN article. So a user named crypto whale, that guy tweeted a Bitcoin is going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their Bitcoin holdings with the amount of hate.
Elon Musk is getting. I wouldn't blame him and Musk replied an hour later indeed, which of course, like leaves out open. But then as the price fell and then also Coinbase started going down. Also, he tweeted, followed up the tweet writing, just clarify speculation, Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin, which he would suggest the other day.
But it still went down to 40, 42,000 was way up at 60. And so he really is causing all kinds of gyrations here, which in an area that's not regulated, of course, at the same time. But he is a public company CEO with ownership of some of this stuff. So it really starts to get problematic here.
I'd love to know the behind the scenes here. Why did he start doing it? And then he did his Twitter poll Tesla to accept Dogecoin, which he did too. So I don't get it.
He's launching a coin. He put out a tweet the other day saying, we wouldn't do it unless Dogecoin didn't improve, which I read is coming soon to a theater near you, the Tesla coin. And I just, the guy has so much. I mean, he's clearly a genius, right?
He clearly might. He already has probably put a dent in creative momentum around the electrification of internal combustion engines. He could put a man or woman or just people on Mars, which is very exciting. And this at a minimum is just a weird distraction.
And you know what a board member is supposed to do? A board member, everyone's supposed to call the CEO and say, what the actual fuck. Maybe something happened here because he was sort of what he was into Dogecoin. And he was, I want to know what happened.
I want a great reporter like Matt or someone else that can't tell me what happened there. Tell me what happened. Who has really good sources. That board really doesn't like to, they have a let you on kind of attitude.
It's not a board. I agree. I'm not talking about it. I'm like, let me on.
Anyway, we have to get on to the big story. Speaking of let AT&T be AT&T is spinning off Time Warner and murdering it with Discovery Plus in a new standalone company, the abrupt move will combine the reality TV streaming power which includes networks like the Food Network, HDTV with Time Warner's HVO Max, Warner Brothers, studios and CNN, an effort to compete with heavy hitters like Netflix and Disney, Discovery CEO David Zazlov will run the combined business which is interesting. It also, an effort for AT&T will unwind its 2016 deal with Time Warner, the $85 billion deal included the phone company's debt, the deal took several years to get approval about the Trump administration if you recall that, the announcement after all that said this week it received 43 billion in combination of cash debts and securities and the company will still start with $55 billion in debt. I just don't want to, you know what it says?
John Stanky is a shitty strategist, media strategist for this company. And I don't know what to say, especially, you know, I like David Zazlov, but again, he's an old media type personality. What do you think, Scott? You must have a lot to say here.
Yeah, so look, the most expensive trip ever taken was Verizon and AT&T's trip from New Jersey and Dallas to Los Angeles. Yeah, to go to the Oscars. Yeah, Verizon leaves $5 billion less rich. They bought Yahoo AOL, Tim Armstrong sold for $10 billion.
It's worth $5 billion just a couple years later. Yeah, but you think it's worth more. Go ahead. Yeah.
Fourth most traffic in the other side. Anyways, and then AT&T, it wasn't 85 with the debt, it was more like $110 or $120. It makes Jeff Yggis look like a genius. He sold at the top.
And then the company, they get supposedly $44 billion in debt relief from the new entity, or they're taking $44 billion. So that's $41 billion, and they're going to send it to the new company, which to make this a wash, that means the new entity would have to be worth $100 billion in equity, which it will not be. So this also looks like it's going to be something that acknowledges the valuation has been cut in half. Now, having said that, a step back when you're on the wrong path is a step in the right direction.
Yes, you've got to go. And to Stanky's credit, he said, this isn't working. And how do we have some sort of piece of honor here and make this mistake or the exit wounds as least damaging as possible, putting it into a spin, an independent unit, with, and then to bulk up with discovery is the right move because it creates arguably the third or fourth player. The consolidation is happening.
This will be a company with $20 billion in original content budget. It will be a dramatic honor. I don't know how that synergy is going to work together. I don't know if Don Lemon is going to be naked and afraid or Anderson Cooper is going to be hosting Shark Week.
I don't know how these things play together. But Zazoff's challenge is he's going to do with very few traditional media executives other than Bob Iger being a licensed to do. And then he's going to have to walk to the Valley of Death and make such extraordinary investments and take his e-bit to down in order to move people from analog cable where they don't have access to consumer data to streaming where they have access to it and hope that the market, that somewhat of what they've done with Disney, tolerate that decline in e-bit because they see the great world of streaming. But this was strategically, in my view, a very, very smart.
Well, I was trying to think that one of the things, obviously Twitter and CNN acquisitions are not going to happen to Scott as much as you like that. Still good. Still good. But this, I mean, okay, but what did we say?
We said AT&T is going to spin this thing. Yes, you know, I know. I like your Twitter, CNN. I like that a lot.
So AT&T needed to reduce that. They've done that. They want to get the most money they can. They're putting it in a pure play because this is what happens in conglomerates.
Investors, unless they say it's an immediate synergy, they find the shittiest business and they value the whole business at that multiple. And that's what they were doing with AT&T. And AT&T Verizon had these amazing businesses. Yeah, and they're like, okay.
And they're like, okay. And they're like, okay. And then they're like, can you imagine the culture class here? A bunch of Dallas Republicans and a bunch of New York Democrats?
Well, you know, when Richard Butler left, like you were like, oh, yeah, you know, he couldn't stand stanky, like, and the rest of them. And he didn't want to be lectured. I was like, stanky lectured me about media. And I was like, are you talking?
He's real tall. And I was like, I can't hear you up there. Like, I don't want to listen to you. But it was really astonishing.
The lecturing that went on by these phone people about media to media people. And I know media people can be obnoxious, but literally they knew nothing about it. It was all such nonsense, the stuff they were spewing. They were on stage at Code a number of times whether it was Randall Stevenson or stanky.
And I was always like, I kept thinking of my head. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, like the whole time. And so, you know, maybe they'll do the thing is they're competing with these tech companies and Netflix, which have done a fantastic job and have tons of money for content creation. That said, look, I'm watching last night, I watched two HBO shows, The Nervors.
It's all about bad as women and Mary Niston. HBO still has some of that secret stuff. Not to throw, but to have Plepler, like, you know, take as Gucci loafers and go is a real. Well, you know, who's the next exit?
Jason Keeler. Zazoff came out on top. Someone told me someone pretty high up said he said one of these restaurants looking for a job right now. But look, I had a different experience with John Snanky.
I haven't had a lot of interaction with him, but he basically called me and said, what should we do? And seemed very humble and very thoughtful and listened a lot. And so I had to. Not the ladies.
So, but I'd like this was, this was again, a mistake is bad, not acknowledging a mistake is worse. And I think this is probably, as I think about it, a bulking up and a spin trying to get some of that multiple, no one was going to pay the money they wanted in an asset purchase. But they've already made the wrong decision. I don't mean to insult David Zazoff, but he's just not the future leader of media.
It's like you put him against Tensor Andos and Renee's things, give me a break. It's like, they're going to just dunk on him over and over again. Even the, even the, you know, I don't know, I just didn't like, Oh, God, this guy like him, but he's so old media. Then maybe people like him, people like him.
You know, what we never talk about though is a lot of this is dictated by shareholder base. AT&T has a shareholder base that wants a dividend and was never going to let Snanky make the types of investments in your business. They need to make the pulse. Keep in mind the cable bundle.
There's three times the profit of the streaming video companies now and has a third of the valuation and people by AT&T stock it to get a 5% dividend. So then we're never going to let Snanky make the requisite investments he needs to make to compete with the Netflixes of the world and with the, with the, with the, with the, He should have been fired. Come on. Like you make this man.
I want to be clear. He owns, you want to talk about foul balls, talk about direct TV. They purchase that thing for like 55 billion and they basically sold it for 15. They will claim they're cleaning up Randall Stevenson's mass, but Snanky was ahead of strategy.
He has to own this too. So yeah, I'm not. You're right. This is, but look, a bad decision is wrong.
Not fixing it as worse. They, they are, they have, this is a self inflicted wound. They have taken, they have, they're trying to like heal themselves. They had to do this.
They did this from a position of weakness. Quite frankly, my guess is they were shopping all these assets around and they realized we're not going to get, we're not going to get the price we wanted. So they're putting it in and they've been very kind of cagey around valuation. I think when the numbers when people actually get their pencils out, I think what this is going to show is that $120 billion acquisition was turned into a $60 billion company.
And so they'll take a, I think they're going to have to take a fairly substantial write down, but just in terms of the future of HBO and CNN, which I adore, I think they're just incredible assets. I think this gives them a chance at getting the pure play and Zazlop, I don't know him at all. People, I would love him. He's not Jason Kailar who pissed everyone off telling them the truth.
Jason was just telling him the truth and just didn't know why they didn't like to be petted. But you know, it would be interesting if Jeff Zuckers stays now. That's an interesting thing. I think he will.
I think he's Zazlop's friend. You know what, I bet they hang out and do cigars and brandy all the time. I could see that. Well, that's what all white guys do.
That's all we do. I just like John Stanky gets to be CEO. Like, everyone moves up into the left after losing all this money. Honestly, like losing all this money, he gets to be the CEO and then goes, 5G, like, fuck you.
You don't know. I mean, who knows? Anyways, I want him to come. You know what, we're having code and you and I are going to grill him.
If he comes, he has no guts to come. Look, you're the bottom line. He's an alumni. He's the short girl biting your knee at the last event.
What about girls biting my knees? What are you talking about? When you were at an event, literally he ignored it. Is it Bill Gates party?
What are we talking about? We were at some event, the Vanity Fair event or whatever. And Stanky and the man, they're so freaking tall. They're ridiculously insanely tall.
And like, I was talking about it. And they, like, treated me like I was like, it never really happens to me that much. But these two were like lecturing me on media. And I literally was like, I got to get out of here.
Like, who's this annoying girl? I could just see it. He doesn't usually come out quite so clearly. But I got to tell you, John, come to code.
And me and Scott will give you have a few questions for you. Questions. I want to go to the Vanity Fair party with you. So we look like we got about cring dropping its daughter off of kindergarten.
Let's go. Let's go and bother celebrities. We would be good at that. Anyway, John, you're not a nonsensical, ridiculous money loser.
Come and come to go. Well, that's an invitation to get through. You know what he should. I'm gonna have Hans Vesberg if he does it.
That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna just play. Vesberg is after rising. Verizon.
He took over after the last disaster. He's cleaning up that one. Anyway. Yeah.
Anyway, I'm excited to see what Zazalab does. He's got like, he's got three or six months. He throws a good dinner party. He'll play that.
It's a go gangster and really pulse the streaming and take and try and take the bottom lines. He needs to keep, he needs to milk the shit out of the ad business and make huge uncomfortable investments to get a direct relationship with consumers of vis-a-vis streaming and stay to the market. We are the number two, maybe even the number one, who really wants to enter conceptualization. Good for talent.
They'll get all kinds of money in the steals. But many years ago, you may not know this starting in the Washington area. That's a bit there. Yeah.
I did a profile when they were starting. They were trying desperately to get on cable stations. I was a guy named John Hendricks who founded the company. I did a little profile.
I went and visited him. I don't know. I was Bethesda Rockville or something like that. I think it was Bethesda.
I wrote the single best lead I've ever written in my whole life for The Washington Post. That's a high bar. You've written a lot of genius stuff. This was the quote from John Hendricks.
It was, Sharks and Nazis, Nazis and Sharks. Thank God for Nazis and Sharks. That's what made Discovery. They did endless Nazi history shows.
I watched all of them. They watched all of them. They watched all of them. They watched all of them.
They watched every week. That was the best quote ever. That's chocolate and peanut butter. Thank God for Nazis and Sharks.
I think Discovery has one of the best friends in media. They have the learning channel, the learning channel. I think they never discovered that. I'm naked and afraid with Anderson Cooper.
No, you said Don Lemon. Right? Yes. Never go on naked and afraid.
I interviewed someone who was on naked and afraid. I would not, Kara. I can honestly say I would not. I would not do that.
They have a show called Return to Amish. You would go back to the Amish. You would look good in Amish. Yeah.
You could pull that off. I don't think I would do that. I appreciate that. It's a little handmaid's tail for me.
Anyway, we'll take a quick break. We'll be back to talk about Twitter's new subscription service. Scott, right again. And friend of Pivot, glad President Sarah K.
Ellis. Hey, I'm Matt Bischell, comedian, writer and floating head. You may or may not have seen on your 4U page. I'm starting a brand new podcast.
Wait, don't swipe away. It's called That Sounds Like A Lot. As in, that feeling when you check your phone in the morning, you read three headlines and immediately think, oh, that sounds like a lot. I can't deal with all this.
I can deal with it. And I'm going to get into it every Friday. I'll break down whatever chaos is happening in the world, then I'll sit down with a comedian. You can be progressive and not be like fucking annoying.
Maybe an actor. They got communism in zone too far. You go, why? Because the Sadie Hawkins dance happened?
Maybe a filmmaker. Since leaving that show, I'm challenged sparing. I just got to hang out and try to do stuff. You're the one with a charmed line.
Could be a politician, basically anyone who responds to my cold DMs. We're recording the whole thing in a beautiful studio, so yes, you can watch it on YouTube, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is not the place to get the news, but it is the place to feel better about it. That sounds like a lot.
Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. This week on Network In Chill, I'm joined by Tanks and Audra, the meme king with over 50 million followers across Tank's good news, influencers in the wild, and his personal account. Tank is breaking down what the meme economy really is, how much a single sponsored post pays, why major brands are throwing serious money at jokes, and how meme culture, think preparation age, starter packs, and a perfectly timed screenshot is actually reshaping how we think about money and value. Get ready for a conversation that'll change the way you scroll, make you rethink what going viral is really worth, and prove that sometimes the most serious money moves are wrapped in the silliest of jokes.
Listen, wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube.com, slash your rich BFF. Okay, Scott, we're back. Twitter is announcing its new subscription service, Twitter Blue. Oh, finally, finally, I want you just to talk about this.
I'll just give some facts. The tiered services for which cost $3 a month, and testing features include the ability to undo tweets, charge to use a dashboard app Tweet Deck and create Super Falls, which will allow you to follow a creator, a publisher for a monthly subscription fee, and get exclusive content. Twitter has also made several new products announcements over the past several weeks, including updating its warnings for potentially offensive tweets and rolling out tip jar feature to allow users to make donations to some creators. It's not clear yet when this new subscription would launch.
They're taking their sweet time and who will be available. But Scott, all yours. Huh, Twitter and subscription. Well, we do.
What about that? Oh, my gosh. I mean, just literally. I know.
As Snap has become the product development department for Facebook, who is the strategy department for Twitter? Fox Media Podcast Network. As the beard in his nose ring or having the sweat of some monk rubbed on the smile of his back by Sean Penn as they talk about whether Uranus should be upgraded to a planet back from an asteroid. The dog is telling those shitheads.
What the fuck to do here? Now, look, have you, by the way, I'm not a product guy. Is it close to what you want? No, I want it.
It doesn't make, I don't, okay, now you deflated me. I just want to know what you think of the service they're talking about. It seems confusing. I don't, I'm like, I'm not even sure I pay three bucks for that because I don't understand what it is.
I still think they should move to a pay per follower count and rather than, I mean, they're product guys. I think of myself as a strategy kind of a guy and a lot of respect for product people who actually understand and do the testing and some research. But I read it and I thought, when I pay three bucks, I thought the pricing was weird. Three bucks?
Two, five a month? I thought that was weird. And I still think it should be zero to 10,000 or nonprofit or zero hundred thousand free, hundred thousand million, ten bucks a month. And I think everyone will whine and say they won't pay it and then they pay it.
But look, it's a step in the right direction strategically. It's smart, but I am sick. I have been so fooled by these people. This is about the eighth time they've launched a subscription effort and then it kind of tomorrow never ends up being today.
So we'll see. The Twitter stock was $41.65 in 2013 and now it's 51.87. It's not really. You think?
Do you think Twitter shareholders? It's hard for a while in February. It was up to 72 and that was its highest. Do you think Twitter shareholders want to go on a silent retreat with Jack Dorsey and just stare at them?
Well, at least it's not $17. Remember it was down at $17 or whatever. Every one of their peers is up between three and eight X. Twitter has been an enormous disappointment.
It's as if they had a part-time CEO care. It's as if they had a part-time CEO. And by the way, have you seen the product innovation at Square? Yeah.
Oh my God. Let's look at Square stock. There's one family and all the kids are wearing beautiful, cool clothes and gorgeous house and mama's happy and the dogs are well fed. And then there's another house in a fucking double wide talking about subscription.
Yeah. It's been down. Square stock has been down just the past month. So it's only up eleven hundred percent the last twenty four months.
It's up at two forty five notes at one ninety seven. But the max it's been up from almost nothing eleven twelve dollars to now. It's at twenty four. It's up twenty four.
It's up twenty four and Twitter is down. Well, it's close to its original public offering. Yeah. Oh God.
I'm just kidding. I'm out of this. I need to go smoke a cigar and have bourbon. That's a white guy.
By the way, by the way, Kara, I'm at an age where I don't need alcohol to have a good time. I need something much fucking stronger. I need either need math or something named after a woman like Molly. I need I am so ready for more.
Okay. I forgot. I need a big dollars in two thousand four to two thousand two hundred and seventy one. That would have been a good stock to have.
Pintress. Even talking about soapstone kitchen counters and your favorite way, but you can't have some COVID is like tripled in the last. Yeah. Let me look at this.
And then there's Twitter. And then there's silent retreat. Yeah. That's what let's say.
Twenty nine to fifty six. Not great. Okay. Namaste.
You fucking idiot. Get on it. What do you want them to do? I mean, what I want.
Yeah. What I want to do. Well, that's pretty easy. Okay.
developing vertical content and base subscription on the actual value you're adding to someone based on a follower account take 2-3-10% of your revenue be recurring as long as it's going faster than core business the stock's a triple digits And then I saw my share and stopped talking about you Talking about fucking Twitter anyway. Do you like the name? I like the name Twitter blue Twitter blue that is nice good Good branding good branding. Oh, let me say I love the product.
I'm addicted to Twitter. Yeah We should run Twitter we should on Twitter. What do I tell you I was on Anderson Cooper last week? No, what happened?
You know, you just look bored. I thought I'll call up my good friend and I'll bring him on Yeah, well, you know that that picture I took on my my my salute to Miley Cyrus's wrecking ball Yes, that was lovely he put it on screen and then he put my great day in on screen And then he put so this is a message all your kids out there be careful what you do on edibles it might end up on CNN He told me and made him uncomfortable I'm mad at and of this week. I'm mad at him Cuz they did 60 minutes show on facial recognition And it's literally the pioneering research has been done by women of color and he managed to find a white guy with cool glasses and talk to him I just had done a podcast on this. So I really was upon it And I was like there's one woman who's an MIT who did the pioneering work and he managed to get the white guy to talk about it Just I was like, well, he's talking well this week.
He's doing a great a great story on LGBTQ rights And you know who's interviewing you like this. Oh, I got John Sankey That's good humor We're gonna go right to you guys in 95 Sarah Kate Ellis is the president of GLA the US nonprofit monitoring defamatory coverage of the LGBT community for many years It's my very good friend of theirs this week glad release the social media safety index the first ever baseline evaluation of LGBTQ safety across social media platforms I've helped I give them some advice on it and what to do and how to create it They have done this in the past around movies and television all kinds of things and that's the first time they're looking at social media Which is important because all kinds of anti-gay hatred is all over it including especially around trans people right now with all these Lawsuits across the country. So tell us more about the index. What does it measure and what's why is the metric importance?
Sarah Kate. Well, hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm grateful for being here.
So here's the deal The reason why we did this is because Research report after research report showcases that the most harassed and the most the group that has the most hate speech against it is the LGBTQ community By far the only second to that is Muslims at 46% LGBTQ is at 64% That's a report from the ADLP research shows that one out of eight LGBTQ When out of six LGBTQ people are harassed online daily So while we've been doing this and releasing this we've asked people have asked us Oh, can you get us some examples of people and I say ask any LGBTQ person and they will tell you if they have a social media account So it is an imperative for our community as we know government is dragging its feet They're taking so long to regulate this industry right and it's gonna be very hard in that area to regulate by the way from speech and speech Yeah, well, I mean you can really draw a direct line those bills that you were talking to there's a hundred over a hundred Anti-LGBT cubals you can find all that misinformation that builds up those bills on the social platform Yeah, so what is the metric white? What is the metric you're gonna use how you're gonna grant them a's BC's like you've done it before With movies you call attention from years and years you've all like pointed out various and also rewarded things that were good done Well, absolutely. There's a hammer and a carrot we use that's our approach I always say you can't move what you don't measure And so we were going to give grades this year and we decided to for go that because they all failed And what we did instead was provide them with a roadmap to success to get rid of a lot of this hate speech to get rid of a Lot of this harassment and this misinformation and we gave them the ways to do it We will be giving grades next year based on this roadmap that we've provided and how they've performed against it But we will be holding them accountable all year long As this goes day to day So the way that we've put this report together Which is what I think you're asking me is that we did first of all we created an advisory committee of some top minds at the intersection of LGBTQ advocacy and technology and then what we did was a literature review because quite frankly There's so much out there and you two know this better than anyone. There's so much out there already It's never been viewed through the LGBTQ lens And so that's the lens that we put on it And then what we did was we did a review of all these we did the five major social media platforms were reviewed Their policies their forward-facing policies and then we tested those policies to find out how they actually enforced them Or if they actually import them and yeah, and I really did Scott Okay, nice to meet you.
I did something I almost never do for one of our interviews now as I prepared oh No, yeah, a piece of data that actually like it really like kind of stilled me for lack of a better term is that So suicides of second leading cause of death among young people 10 to 24 and LGBTQ youth contemplate suicide at three times the rate Of their heterosexual peers. There was a study by the American pediatric Foundation that found that 51% of transgender male teens reported attempting suicide 30% of transgender female teens You know it feels to me like if there was a place that almost everyone on the political spectrum would agree is a worthwhile effort Is trying to change those numbers? What what can we do like what it this to me seems like a this to me really seems like a legitimate crisis that warrants a pretty serious Action plan Well, thanks for pointing that out and yeah It is it's horrible those numbers and it's scary and it does point to a crisis And I think one of the places that we could really help these kids is on the social media platforms because this is where they go to meet each Other this has been a lifeline for our community That's why it's it's so sad to see it being weaponized now, right? This has been an organizing tool a lifeline long so many LGBTQ people to find each other because it wasn't safe on the streets or in a bar or in Public spaces and places to meet each other So making this place safe for LGBTQ people would be would would change that number dramatically And I can say that because you can easily see how despicable it is online the first comment when this was announced last week And it was written to me was as a gay woman.
They said you should never feel safe. You don't have a right That was the first comment made on this what was it on what platform? It was yeah in Twitter, right? So there any platform is doing a better job at protecting LGBTQ users Remember AOL was one of the first places these these chat rooms started where gay people could meet each other planet out Was funded by them all kind of I mean, I'm really old so I remember it But it was one of the first places that actively used social media essentially for good like in terms of meeting feeling safe I remember Megan my ex wife ran planet out for a while and she was like we have 61 members of Vatican City Whatever and it was like, you know hundreds here But it protected them in a safe way and same thing with the dating apps and things like that But in this case are there any platforms that are better or what is or what are the worst really?
I think probably is a better question I would say there aren't many platforms that are better tick-tock might be but it's so new that they you know They just have to sit to get off the floor in this in this right Facebook is the absolute worst the doctor Really really I know I know I'm preaching to my ear But they are because it's the biggest or what well, you know what that's a great question Kara one of the big problems transparency We don't know why it's the worst but 74% of LGBTQ people say that they've been harassed On that site and that they've had hate spewed at them So I think we don't know why it could be because it's the biggest it could be because it's the most prolific and that people are on it More often than not, but we don't have the transparency they've cooperated with you. They just won't well. No, I mean Here I they are open to the discussion. They were grateful for the report.
We took them through the report They were grateful for that but at what point I said and they've acted they took life site down You know, there's there's gonna be some look I think this report is actually going to move the bar forward. I can see it already is I know the meetings that are being had because of this report It's not single-handedly going to change it, but it is gonna make it a little safer for some people in our community At the end of the day Why do why does a not-for-profit have to create a report on people who are monetizing hate and harassment? That was my question back to them And I think that's the bigger question is that this monetization of hate is at the expense of marginalized communities Especially the LGBTQ community and that's a much bigger discussion And that's where we really need government to step in and be and take action Do you think so when someone comes on Facebook and says something hateful as they did to you Do you have any research or gut feel for how much of it is just a generally hateful person and how much of it is bad actors? Who are purposely trying to divide us and using this hatefulness and pouring gasoline on it and leveraging a platform that doesn't enforce identity that doesn't enforce Standards that doesn't prevent hate speech that will meet with you and tell you they're proud of the progress We've made and find your report just fucking fascinating and then do nothing Yeah, how much of it do you think is true hate and how much of it you think is potentially bad actors trying to exploit and Amplify that hate with plant forms that are built to amplify controversial content.
I apologize for a long way to question No, it's a great question And I don't know the answer but I do know this that we have been working with Facebook for a year and a half to get Ads that have misinformation about HIV prevention. It's called prep for all Taken down we met with them not too long ago a year and a half later And they finally have found a way to stop this a little bit not fully. There's not a full You know response to it, but a year and a half later There are 16 bad actors that are sending out these ads that are literally scaring especially gay men not to using a preventative health Discourage people from taking I apologize I'm using the wrong term but it's basically it prevents it right yes And Facebook has decided to cash the checks of people who are dampening the uptake of this resulting in more people getting HIV Is that right Facebook and action equals more HIV? Do I have that?
I'll go to them correct? You do it is it actually is and we have Scenarios we have the data around that we have people who have gone to their doctors and refused the help because they said they saw these ads You know what's interesting too is I remember YouTube you have mentioned Google and YouTube because YouTube is a real center Two one of I was talking with the CEO Susan We just gave she said one of the things is they took down someone for a lot of anti-gay stuff like really hates But essentially and what he did is he became an ad he made ads out of them rather than the content became ads And then this the ads went on to gay sites like gay friendly sites and all the gay people like what are you doing putting ads on? So she was like I didn't even know they were gonna do that like it was like they didn't have control of their platform and that they let the anti-gay ads get on Gay side it was astonishing like and she was like oh it was like I don't know what to say to you Just shut him down all everything every part of him shut this guy down And it was it was difficult for them to get wrapped their heads around the damage it causes Well one of the so one of the companion pieces to this report is an index that we're Launching that is going to be very much like the ADL symbols of hate index so that people have a place to report those things There's no place really to go except to outer space to report those things But now you can come to glad org and you can report it we will record it We're not gonna be able to handle it all because I imagine the influx is going to be overwhelming But we're going to prioritize them and as and they'll be prioritized probably mostly on how viral they're going right? So that how big of a damage can they do and then we're gonna be fighting back on them?
My last question we need for a regulatory point of view and then Scott I have a final question But what do you need like a reform of section 230 liability? What do you think will work because you've just sort of entered this like thing that we've been talking about white supremacy whether it's this and that What do you imagine would work for because you're all sort of whether it's an isemitism or racism or whatever It's all the same kind of use of these tools to create problems for marginalized communities So what do you need from a regulatory point of view? I don't know the particulars of what I need just yet I do know that we need help and we need them to step in I think just like they stepped in on the auto industry or tobacco This is a runaway car and we need somebody to throw up some stop signs and talk about you know how to make better breaks And then I think also what we want to do is I want people to know about this report because I think it's really important Obviously, and I want I also think that we need people to report this and to stand up for this and to support each other On this because it is it's unbelievable what's going out out there and you know you talk about YouTube There's this there's a site called Prager you that literally Target is the lgbtq community They create videos and pay for them to go viral so that they can paint a picture of who the lgbtq community and they make money off of it So we need them demonetized, you know on the other side of this too What's really important to understand is that we're the most censored on these platforms, too So when people start to say oh, you're trying to censor the internet No, we're not trying to censor the internet. We're the most censored on the internet if you look at it We get taken down the most by using the word bisexual or lesbian lesbian was a word that was being shut down We get demonetized the most as as creators so that we're really seeing it from both sides as the lgbtq community Scott last question My question is really more personal.
I'm just curious who are your your heroes? Who do you think is is fighting the good fight in your eyes? I? Think you know, I live in a community now where we're seeing it come into the schools There is no offline and online anymore.
There's just life and they've blended and so we're seeing what's going on online come right into our Middle schools or elementary schools or high schools. It's disheartening I think that my heroes right now are those mothers fathers and parents who are standing up in the schools It's it's pretty rough out there right now Especially with all these bills that are like trying to demonize athlete and let me attack kids I mean that's perfect and it's showing up in our schools and I'm in a suburb outside New York City I'm not you know and we're seeing it. Yeah amazing by the way Kate's also an informer a media executive right you were a time Was it time? Yeah, that's the one thing I wanted to say I was at time and Sunday now But we you know, I've in a lot of these meetings and so I understand journalism I wasn't a journalist I was on the business side and every meeting I have at the social media platforms I say who worked in journalism here not one hand they don't know how how it works They don't understand how the world works in that and how we built a model back then that was fair and equitable and gave voice and platform to all But didn't use it as a weapon.
Yep. Indeed. All right. Just real quick Who and who in the house representatives are in the US Senate?
Do you think it's shown leadership and courage around these issues? You know, I think of course Elizabeth Warren has been at the forefront of this I think a lot of people are really starting to I think the past few years has been in education for these folks I really think they were just opening their laptop for the first time quite honestly And now they're starting to understand especially in the past year what we've seen happen and transpire and how much the offline world has impacted Or the online world has impacted the offline world. So I think we're gonna see more heroes coming. I'm hopeful for that.
All right, Sarah Kate Ellis a glad I ordered you where can people get the report and look at it everyone gets F's F's all around Like my son's Great this year, but go ahead Exactly glad that are glad that are glad that are okay That's out and everyone can look at it and we look forward to more in the future This is a really important area and it applies across the spectrum not just with the Lgbtq people Just this is the same it's the same song just bad as ever. Anyway, we appreciate it. Thanks for your good work, sir Kate. Thank you very much.
All right, Scott one more quick break I'm thrilled that you brought research to the to bear here. We'll be back for wins and fails Okay, Scott wins and fails. I have I have a win go for it. Go for it.
Go for it. Murder, dirt, or Mayor of Easttown That was your win two weeks ago. I don't care this week was crazy. I can't tell you what happened But oh my god, I was like what shocking this is you watching now by the way that's seen Are you kidding?
I love it. I didn't know it comes out. Oh, okay. Oh, by the way that one scene I won't give it away, but I once seen in the house what in a and this episode that did that take you back to another famous Movie one of the one of the great movies of the night early 90s hundred percent ding ding ding ding ding That was literally it sent chills up my spine how similar it was to that one scene.
Yeah for people I'm seeing it. You don't know exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, it's really I was like what I never know what when I'm I did not expect that and also the comedy scene, but we don't have to give any way between her and Jean Smart come on That's a spoiler. It's not a spoiler.
It's comedy and drama together. I have to say love the murder Darter everybody must watch murder dirt is make John. Thank you some money. I mean, okay.
Thanks That's right. There's a pattern here next week. You're wins gonna be mayor of downtown or whatever name anyways I love to go ahead your wins and fails, please I wouldn't fail is sort of the same thing it just different sides of the coin and that it's the CDC's updated guidance around Masking and that is I actually think the CDC does so many wonderful things But one of the most important things they've done is issue communication guidelines And they are kind of speaking with some of the loudest voices in the world right now Trying to make sense of all of this very difficult situation and they they put out a guidance saying that if you're fully vaccinated in certain situations You don't have to wear a mask and I actually they got immediately criticized I thought well actually at some point when you're telling your kids at the age of 25 They should never drink they stop listening to you altogether And I think that that their comments need to have a racity and I think they also have to acknowledge how people are actually behaving And what's realistic? So I think the strategy was right here now to fail the fail is that they missed an opportunity to put some Guidelines on it to say states where they have over 50% vaccinated or a lower than 1% infection rate rate can go to that They had an opportunity to create goals, which would have been really meaningful in this fight and see whenever you're communicating something That's really important.
Yep. You want to pre-bake it in other words What I tell what I coach C.O. Is that you have something really important? You're talking to the board about you don't want it to be a surprise You want to check in with everybody and where they really I think failed here is they should have gotten all the governors online Which are to a certain extent if you think about them being a manufacturer's brain And there's the customer the retailers and then there's the end consumer which is citizens but the customers are their stakeholders are governors They should have got all the governors on the phone a few days before and said this is what we're thinking What do you think and even if the governors had disagreed they would have felt like they were briefed and all these governors that are Responsible for implementing this and enforcing it felt blindsided.
So right strategy really Super-conduced everybody my family alone. We were having dinner in New York and I was like can we eat with it? I end up eating outside, but it was a beautiful weekend But I gotta say we had an argument like nobody knew what to do It was like, you know my one son who's very cautious was like masks on and the other was like whatever like it's a CDC So everyone now goes CDC CDC, which is interesting, but you could almost apply everything. I agree I think it's really problematic fail.
Please was that a fail or win? No, that's my my other I have to it's my big win is the US government CDC Pfizer and Walgreens I took my 13-year-old son to get his first vaccine and it was one of those moments right down Yeah, one of those moments I really felt very emotional I just thought I'm so fortunate to be in a society that mostly embrace the science and I'm appreciative to Pfizer I'm appreciative of Walgreens and my son brought it up to me and wanted to do it But it just felt very good to have you know My son participating in this effort to not be a fiber in this web of death snaring people. It was just a nice moment So I'm very grateful. Okay, I'm gonna have a fail and turn there.
I don't really have a fail this week I think they're sending vaccines abroad 20 million vaccines abroad, which I think is great We'd send a lot more if we have them. I don't know how to feel about parlor being back on the app So what I think I probably think it's a good thing if they're have new rules on hate speech I'm not I think that's a good thing because I was a part in getting that taken down So I wasn't apart this EU was but I think that was I can't tell it's a winner fail, but it's that's what's something It's something I'm not going on a limb there. It's something. All right, all right Matt Gates is gonna be a fail That's we're gonna watch that one, but I don't care about him.
He's such a loser So I don't think they haven't Matt Gates was Bill Gates that stories like on the back shelf seriously seriously Matt Gates is like I'm buying Windows. Thank you Bill Gates. Yeah, yeah, that's talking about another Gates fine. He's a great line Scott once again as usual fantastic in Fantastic in so let me just tell you Matt Gates.
We don't get it. It's not even close to what Matt Gates is alleged Allegedly allegedly is supposed to be doing We'll see what's gonna happen to an unveil now because the guy who was his little friend in their little escapades is now pleated out So we'll see what happens to my kids. Hope that things anyway That's the show we'll be back on Friday for more. This is a very educational show Very educational lots going on go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the pivot podcast the link is also in our show notes Please read us out today I was produced by Rebecca Sonana's earning a ton of engineering this episode Thanks also to two boroughs make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple podcast or if you're an Android user check us out on Spotify or wherever you Listen to podcasts if you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend Thanks for listening to pivot from New York magazine and box media We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.
Thank you us government Thank you Pfizer and thank you Walgreens