Hey, I'm Happy Shell, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your FYP. I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, don't swipe away. It's called That Sounds Like A Lot.
You know that feeling when you check your phone, read a few headlines, and think, that sounds like a lot. I can't do this. Well, I can, and I'm going to get into it every Friday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm going to start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world. Then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or honestly anyone who responds to my DMs. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little bit better about it. That sounds like a lot.
Coming May 1st, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
And this is Scott Galloway. Kara, where are you today? I'm in New York. You're supposed to be here.
There was a screw up on the schedule. I'm sorry. And who? Okay, but whose screw up, Kara?
Usually you. Usually every week you. Okay. Every week you.
But in this case, I'm here in the studio. I was on time. I took a red eye in from Las Vegas where I was at the Anthony Scaramucci Salt Conference. How was that?
It was good. I saw John Kelly from afar. He was in the green room with me and John Greenroom. I interviewed Mark Cuban and Steve Case and I interviewed Scooter Braun, which was really interesting.
He's the manager for a lot of big music acts like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande and a bunch of others. It was interesting. It was interesting for me because I got to talk to those people. And what was the mood?
You know, rich people get richer. That's really pretty much the mood I could tell. Like, you know, Jeff Sessions was there. Chris Christie was there saying that opinions are not lies.
That was the thing. Opinions that Trump has aren't lies. And I was like, well, are lies opinions? No, lies are lies.
Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. It's strange, though. They're all incredibly compromised in a way that's really disgusting. Under the banner of it couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys, the hedge fund industry has actually been pretty much wrecked the last three or four years because you have all of the returns have been aggregated to six or seven stocks, which we talk about ad nauseum.
And nobody's going to pay these guys two and 20 or 2% management fees and 20% of the upside to buy Netflix. So as a result, their selection set of investments has been this cluster of companies that have underperformed. So as a result, all of these hedge funds have underperformed the last three to five years. The best way to describe the hedge fund industry is expensive but bad.
And you've seen this massive shift of capital out of active investing and passive. And a lot of the biggest names in the business are literally a shadow of themselves. They're just managing their own money now. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. There's a lot of discussion where investment should go, you know, where and where it's going to go. And I think everyone was sort of spooked by the tariff wars.
And they don't know where it's going with the White House. They also are in love with the economy. So it was it was an interesting time to be among all those very wealthy. Well, welcome back.
Off the red eye. More importantly, I have something we have to talk about. What? I saw Endgame at your suggestion.
Okay. I took my eight my 11 year old boys. And just to give you a sense of what I thought of the movie, 45 minutes in, I asked them if they were okay. They said yes.
And I walked out planning to hit the bar. I go to IPA where there's a bar. I was so bored and halfway through the bar, halfway through the bar, I realized, wait, going to the bar, going to the bar in the middle of a movie where your kids are in the theater, it's like one step behind putting them on the roof of the car and then driving away on a Walmart. That's literally like child services.
How old are they? Eight and 11. Yeah, that is a little young. Yeah.
So anyways, I came back. I didn't hit the bar just to be clear. I came back. I wanted to ask you.
He's probably the cutoff. I literally I just don't get this. I'll tell you why. What don't you get?
I'm asking you seriously. Miraculous people who are giving up their lives for our planet. Okay, because you know what, Kara? I'm very sensitive now for my book on love.
You know what I do sometimes, Kara? I sometimes just go up to a window and I whisper. I whisper at the window. I say things like, I wish we could spend more time together and I don't even know who I'm speaking to, but I whisper at windows now.
Anyways, I want you to tell me what is the genius of this whole Avengers genre. And then I'm gonna tell you what I think the genius of Game of Thrones is because they are different types of genius or whatever. I don't get it. It's just Star Wars and Star Trek.
It's you know, there's just a different level of hopefulness in Star Trek. There's less of like Star Wars is such a friggin bummer all the time. They're always losing. Like same thing with Game of Thrones is a bummer.
There's never a good day. Like this last episode. I'm not gonna go into it, but once again, they win and then they lose. So like, it's just.
So you say, okay, so Avengers more hopeful. What else? Is it the storytelling? Is it the special effects?
Is it the characters? It's the repartee among them. It is funny. I'll give you that.
It has humor. It has much better humor than Game of Thrones. Yeah, it's humor. It's Thor.
The whole Thor angle was really great. I love him. What angle other than hot? What's the what's the Thor?
Hot and fat. He was fat this time. And then of course, anytime Captain Marvel shows up with a lesbian haircut, I'm all in. That's what it's called.
That's what I should ask for. That's next time I'm at Bello Barber and I pay $60 for someone with tattoos to shave my head for seven minutes. I go, I'm going to Lesbos. Give me the Lesbos.
You can't have a lesbian haircut. You don't have hair. It's not easy to have a shaved head, Kara. It's not easy.
Okay, but is there hair there underneath that shaved head? Kara, it takes real effort to be mediocre looking. And I just think, do you have actual hair? You want to people to cut it all here off or is it just your bald?
Okay, so back to my favorite topic, me, a little bit of insight into Scott. So my best feature, granted it's a low bar. My best feature used to be my hair. In grad school, Kara, I had a ponytail.
Used to be. And then I was just studying for my finance final. I thought, I don't remember underlining all this text. And I realized, oh my God, it's my hair.
And I was losing my hair. So I just shaved it all off because I found out I could raise money at 20 to 30% higher valuations with a shaved head. Oh God. But I do have it.
Let's get into actual things besides your. Oh, wait, wait, my turn. You know how Game of Thrones works? Okay, what?
The genius of Game of Thrones is that typically storytelling is one. Well, first off, I noticed last week, most storytelling is about a white guy who's redeemed. And Jamie Lannister goes back to Cersei. It's like, oh my God, Jamie, why are you leaving?
I thought he was gonna sleep with Brianne of Tarth or whatever. Well, I don't want to spoil that, but that is like very awkward and hot at the same time. Which kind of describes every time I've had sex. It's kind of killing it, right?
No, it wouldn't be more horrible. Don't even say that. Don't even say that. But anyways, I know this for a fact, that would be my guess.
Where they have changed the game literally is that typically storytelling in modern cinema is a white male protagonist becomes our hero and always escapes death. And they build up these characters. And you fall in love with the Prince of Dorne who is not only hot and kicking ass. Oh my God, that guy's a movie star.
Okay, think about it. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Don't shame me.
This is important. You don't have time to make your point. Just give me 10 seconds. My point is they've built up these incredible male protagonists and you bind with them and you think, oh my God, we're gonna have eight or nine seasons of this guy's spinoff serial boxes.
And then you know what they do? They kill him. And we never bring in another white guy protagonist like Jon Snow. And we never see him again.
Moving along. Moving along. Let's just get to it. Lots of things.
I think the big story today is Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook. It was at the company, let's be clear, a long time ago doing a big rollout. Like he was on NPR. He was on Today Show.
He did a video for the Times. He had a Times editorial op-ed about how Facebook should be broken up. It's a company that should be broken up. Speaking of which, I want to talk a little bit about the Uber strike.
Uber-Lyft strike, yes, exactly. So I think a key component to building a big unicorn, which will ultimately have to create monopoly power, oftentimes destroy jobs, oftentimes engage in predatory behavior or monopolistic job-destroying behavior, not competitive behavior, is I think they all a key component for all of these companies, a key asset, if I were on the board, is who is our heat shield? And that is who is so likable and so inspiring that they hold the wolves at the door longer than they should. So Balmer Gates is not likable.
I think that's why the DOJ moved in on them in 99 instead of like 2003 or 2004 after they probably would have built their own search engine. And the ultimate, I think the ultimate heat shield the last 50 years was Colin Powell, who took a year of distinguished service, honor, integrity, and basically got in front of the UN and lied and waved a vial around and convinced a bunch of Western democracies to make the greatest geopolitical catastrophic decision in history to kill 8,000 Americans, permanently injure 30,000, a half a million Iraqis, and basically a fallacy. All right, come on. Okay, so next heat shield, number two, Sheryl Sandberg.
Inspiring. We're talking about Uber-Lyft stuff. Well, hold on, hold on. Okay, so I'll bring it back.
I'll bring it back. She's underpaid a billion dollars for basically staving off the wolves while the platform is weaponized, right? Because everybody lean in. The new heat shield, Dara.
Dara Khosrowshahi, with the CEO of Uber. Because he is very, very likable. He is articulate. He's nice.
I think he has a lot of integrity. I also think he looks like one of the clipart images. He's ethnically ambiguous and handsome. It's like he's handsome, but I don't know where he's from.
Listen, you were happy until you started on his looks. Listen to me. The work stoppage. You think that they're getting away with stuff with the drivers that you've been talking about this before and that these work stoppages, you think they're going to matter?
This idea that the drivers should get more or these businesses just not going to be good until they get down those wages down. In 1980, there were 400 work stoppages in America. Last year, there were 30. The year before that, there were seven.
Work stoppages have basically become the kind of a privilege only the rich, like at Google, who can walk out and say, we're angry about this. Now we're going to go back to making $300,000 a year because in 1981, Reagan said, okay, air traffic controllers, you want to stop your work? Fine. I'm firing your ass.
And there's basically unions have been wrecked. It used to be 20% of American workers 30 years ago were union. Now it's 10%. By the way, in Ireland, 90%.
In Germany, it's really high. All German company boards have to have union representatives or workers basically occupy like half the seats. So in sum, capital has been kicking the shit out of labor for the last 30 years in the US. So what do we do?
What goes on? What occurs? Well, When was the last time, this is what is so unusual about the work stoppages at Uber and Lyft. When was the last, I don't think I've ever heard of, of workers going on strike the week of the IPO.
This is like spouses not talking to each other or their parents the day before their wedding. And maybe that happens, but it's a bad sign. Yeah. So this is supposed to be happy, happy.
I mean, you would think. Yeah, but they're not getting, they're getting, there's problems in giving them shares. There is. I was with, I asked Mark Cuban about this.
Super what happens to be an investor. And he said, you know, they should give the drivers stock, figure out a way, even though it's really complex. I've talked to Dara about this and the Lyft people about it. But, um, and what, what the issue is, is there's some of the more, sometimes some of the more part time, it's super hard because they're not employees, right?
And Mark, Mark was like, everybody who works for him gets stock. He was like, there's got to be a way to do it. And he was, he thought it was really that if you didn't equalize pay equity, um, around things and every, every person in your company doesn't get stock, then you're going to, you're setting yourself up for a bigger fail later. And I think Mark is correct about that.
Yeah. And it would be impossible to screen all our content. We've been co-opted into believing that for some reason, it's difficult. It's difficult to give some money after we're about to, we're about to register $90 billion in value, but we can't figure out a way to give more than a dime per ride to our drivers.
What do we do? Poor fucking us. Yeah, they can figure it out. I figured out a way.
And they keep saying that they always go back to, oh, but these workers have flexibility. I have workers that have flexibility and I figured out a fucking way to pay them a decent wage. I mean, this is such bullshit. Oh, we can't figure it out.
I love, I love union Scott. I can show you. Look for the union label. You know, I'm part of the union.
Anyways. Yeah, I do remember that. That's a great commercial. But the notion they just can't figure it out, but they can figure out a way to have you in the backseat of a car and have it get you from here to Montauk without a driver.
Oh, but they can't figure out a way to give their drivers stock. Give me a break. All right. Okay.
And speaking, we're going to do one last thing and then we're going to get to a break and then wins and fails. Pete Buttigieg. Wow. He's become the new toast of Silicon Valley.
I just got another invite for him in Oakland. He's been all over Silicon Valley hoovering up the dough. And why? What is it they like about him?
Well, a lovely reporter, Teddy Schleifer on Recode has been writing a lot about where the tech money is going. Reid Hoffman just did a thing for Cory Booker, but they like Pete Buttigieg, I guess. Like, you know, they didn't much like Hillary Clinton. They did like Obama.
And now Pete Buttigieg seems to be someone they're interested in, although there were a lot of Bernie bros in Silicon Valley and stuff like that. So it's interesting that he's going out there and taking that money when tech is under such siege. That's what's kind of interesting about it to me. And what do you think Pete's, what do you think Mayor Pete's chances are?
I don't know. I don't know. I know you love him, but I think, you know, he's got to keep the momentum going, obviously. He might have peaked too early or I don't know.
It's a little early to be the leading person. And then Beto just hired someone, a very significant person from the Obama campaign who did Delegate Down. So I think it's going to be a long haul here. Who's going to make it.
But he's definitely hoovering up the dough out there. And the question is, is it a good dough to hoover up? What do you think of Pete or others or Booker or others going and getting tech money? Is that a bad thing or a good thing?
You know what? Elizabeth Warren returned the opiate money. Like, is there money you can't take now? I don't think tech money is that tainted.
I don't I don't see. I think he needs the money and, you know, hate the hate the game, not the player. If you want to be elected, you can until Donald Trump, the person who raised the money, always won president. So, you know, there's a direct correlation between there's a direct correlation between money and your ability to win.
So you just can't blame them. I think it's nice. Bernie Sanders kind of changed the game because he got so much money in small money donation and created this upward spiral that people felt powerful to say, I have a candidate that's not taking big money. It's taking small money.
And the Internet is enabled small kind of micropayments and donations. So I think a lot of them have gone woke because they can and they can refuse PAC money. It's just it's pure math, though. I don't think Elizabeth Warren or Senator Warren was going to get a ton of PAC money.
But, you know, Jeb Bush is basically Jeb Bush basically and Hillary Clinton basically blew up the notion that money gets you an election. They were the first ones to raise the most money that didn't win. So I don't know, but I don't resent it. I don't have a problem with him taking tech money.
What do you think? There's an issue? No, I don't. I don't think there's an issue at all.
Yeah, I don't think there's an issue at all. It's going to be. And you know who's what's incredible is Biden has actually extended his lead. And by the way, that was a prediction.
I thought he was going to crash in the polls and I got that wrong. I did not. He's stronger. He's doing really well.
And you know who he's hurting is Bernie. My mom likes Joe Biden. That's how I that's how I touch these things. She will vote for Joe Biden over Trump 100%.
If you're looking for It's with Uber Eats now. That's going to be a good quarter in terms of growth. It was a very impressive growth quarter. Well, Kara, give me a—Tell me to go build a $2 billion business.
I can use a billion dollars on. I'll show you growth. I mean, that's just not that hard. No, that's not quite it.
Well, suppose to a billion. You're right. Give me a credit card with a billion dollar credit limit. I'll create the illusion of prosperity.
I'm going to get on that next week. I'm going to get that new thing. Give me one of those. It's not a discover card.
Don't give me a discover card. It's got to be an Amex. I'll ask my friend Bill Maher, which you were not on. Oh, my God.
It looks like you. Moby looks like you. Let me just say. Everyone thought it was you on there rubbing the Trump against his penis, but everyone thought that was you.
By the way, what happened to that guy? One of the best albums ever play. I mean, literally one of the best albums ever. And just like Michael Jackson, he can't do anything now.
When's the last thing he's done? He's had issues around personal problems. Drinking and drugs and stuff. Oh, I feel bad.
I'll give you the key. By the way, and I don't know how you're going to respond to this. You know what I thought when I saw you, Kara? You look nice.
You look at what you do. Whatever you did there, you should do that every day. I'm like, wow, Kara is attractive. Is that a hate crime?
Do you feel triggered right now? Yeah, you not see me in person? I'm very attractive in person. I'm like, Kara looks nice.
And then I switched it off and went back to me. And I'm like, I can't believe they didn't invite me on that program. My first thought was that you looked nice. And I thought you were good.
I thought the show was actually passable. It was hysterical. What's he like? Give me some behind.
Is there like, does he take you to his home in the Hollywood Hills and, like, crush up Cialis or something? Tell me about the party. Tell me about the party. It was just a party in one of the rooms there.
It was very nice. And then I went out to dinner with Kathy Griffin and a bunch of friends of mine. Talk about a downshift. Talk about a downgrade.
No, she was great. And in the morning, I had breakfast in Ashton Kutcher, who I know pretty well, was sitting next to me. It was a very Hollywood weekend. It was a very Hollywood weekend.
You had breakfast with Ashton Kutcher? He was sitting next to me with his kids. That's all. He just happened to sit down.
It was weird. I happened to know him because he's an investor in Uber. I've known him for a long time because he's invested in a lot of tech companies. So it was very funny to have him and his lovely wife, Mila Kunis, sit down with his beautiful children.
Anyway. Yeah. What a shocker. They have beautiful kids.
Yeah, yeah. But it was nice. It was at a deli there. It's just I like Hollywood because of that.
You run into people. So speaking of beautiful children, my idea, and tell me what you think of this. And we've got to get out. I think AOC and Beto should marry, have millions.
Hold on. Hold on. Have millions of kids. Predictions.
Then take those kids. I weaponize them with AI. We take over Australia. I become general consulate of Australia, and I'll make you the first lesbian mayor of Perth.
Boom. That's how we roll. Perth is like California in the 50s. It's dreamy.
No, it really is. Melbourne is beautiful. There's a lovely story in the New York Times that 36 hours. I love Melbourne.
Melbourne is very nice. The San Francisco of the Southern Hemisphere. Whatever. It's pretty.
My nephew lives there. Scott. Kara. Thank you so much.
All right. Prediction for the price for Uber. That was your prediction. What is the prediction for the price of Uber?
So there's been too hot. There's been too cold. This will be the Goldilocks IPO. It'll do what it's supposed to do.
It'll get a decent but not a crazy pop. Nothing like Beyond Meat. And it'll actually hold. I think the bankers are going to do a good job here.
Okay. All right. Well, we'll see. We'll talk about that next week.
We'll know these things. And we'll see the fallout from the Chris Hughes team. We'll see what next billionaire turns on Mark Zuckerberg in the ongoing Game of Thrones in that company. Did you see, by the way, did you see the pictures of those two?
Chris Hughes and Mark Zuckerberg. I'm convinced working at Facebook is like being president. I think it ages you unnaturally. Those guys look like my grandfather.
And just five years ago, they both looked like my paperboy. They're in a time warp. They are aging at five times. We've been big, heavy tears for them.
I don't feel sorry for anyone. They look like shit. Seriously, guys. Well, you and your amazing head of hair was so beautiful.
Anyway, Nishant Kurwa is the show's executive producer. Scott, we'll see you next week. Thanks also to Eric Johnson. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media.
We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. If you liked this week's episode, leave us a review.