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Amazon presents Laura versus fruit flies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen. These little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say yo, chill. But Laura shocked on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps.
Hey fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the every day with Amazon. You were so capricious, it's ridiculous. You were at first, you were with Beto, and I was like, that guy is like a man boy and he's not going to make it.
And you were like, no, no, no, he's the future. Then you went over to Dreamy Pete. And again, he's the future. I love him, he's the best.
Then you moved over to Bloomberg, our favorite billionaire, essentially. And now he's dumped, he's gone, he's left the building. And now you're momentum. I would worry about anyone, you back.
Your disparaging comments are compensated by the fact that I like it when you call me capricious. Call me that again and yell at me. Listen, listen, how can you just shift? You just can't stand the social.
I want the pivot to the middle. I want the ass clown liar big at stupid out of the White House. And you know what? We need to stop, and I'm serious about this.
We need to stop taking. We need to realize this is not the Olympics. It's not that the cathlon, or it is the decathlon. It's not a biathlon where we base it on debates and how much money you raise.
Who can build a coalition? Who can calm the markets when shit gets real? So you were surprised by this, right? You did say you can't do this.
I'm all in. I'm moving towards Joe. Who would you feel more comfortable if there's another RNA to like virus? Who could look at the cabinet this guy might put together?
Who would you rather have his attorney general, Bill Barr, or Kamala Harris, you know, Perry? Or who would you rather have as, I don't know, Secretary of State, Pompeo, whoever it is now, or Amy Klobuchar? Who would you rather have his NSA advisor, a guy going to prison or a mayor Pete? You look at that debate stage the last couple of weeks.
It's an outstanding cabinet. It's America in 2020 as opposed to Selma in 1961, where Bernie wants us to take us Norway in 1971. This is America moving forward. We need to realize that the president is not about a two-minute sound bite on the debate stage or how much money they raise.
I am all in on Joe. I am with Joe. I want you to join me hand in hand. That is happening.
It's not over yet. Let me just say. How is it not over? The problems that he has for exists.
So I'm just saying, there's going to be a lot of, literally my mom called me. She's like, Joe Biden is adult, because that's the news on Fox News. And I was like, I can send a video of Trump. Is that capricious?
Is that just like, you know, just I thought lucky like Joe. She did. I said, what happened to you is to love Joe. And she's like, well, you know, he's lost his mind.
I was like, would you like me send a video of Trump misusing words constantly? And Reagan was all there. Let's be honest. And I'm just saying, there's a long road to November.
That's what I'm going to tell you that is going to be tough. Greatness is in the agency of other Joe others, Joe being better than others. And then we're going to get to actual stories. But listen, why didn't you like him before?
Don't ignore why you didn't like him before, just because he was a loser or now he's a winner. That's what you've got examined. What was it that bothered you before? And you've got to.
The other thing about Joe Biden is that we usually don't go back to our white people. I didn't feel like he demonstrated the same, what I'll call a joint nimbleness on his feet as some of the other folks he had put in place a weak campaign and fundraising. But quite frankly, no, it's exciting is that it doesn't look, again, I've had this all wrong. I said, this is all about money.
He had no money going in. He doesn't have the toxic Avengers known as the Bernie Bros online. And now what's going to happen? How was Bernie going to claim the whole thing's rigged now?
Joe went into the Super Tuesday with no money, and he didn't have those toxic Avengers online that called the Bernie Bros, and he won it. The whole world is moving to the middle. How can they claim it's worth it? They're doing it.
I'll take a moment to pour one out for Mike Bloomberg, because I have 100 million pour outs from our political. You were way behind him. And now, because you were looking for an alternative, that's what you were doing. I was looking for the person who could win it in the middle.
Now, I think it's Joe. But what was very interesting about what's happened with Bloomberg is it's clearly easier to buy a president than buy the presidency. And that is, from a fierce economics standpoint, you'd rather be the Koch brothers and just buy a president, as I believe they've done, as so many people have done with the current president than buy the presidency. And that's a good and a bad thing.
But look at what the Mayor Bloomberg has done. He's brought tensile strength, organization, and some of the substance and on-the-ground artillery that the Biden campaign was lacking. One plus one equals three. And I just want to give a shout out real quick to, well, probably it'll be later for my win, but Senator Warren, which I talked about today, I can tell you as an academic, she makes the entire academic world look so much stronger, so much more resilient.
The ideas matter, the truth matters, the data matters. And if you had just put it, I believe that she elected a female president, more so than Hillary, it's just not her. If you think about Senator Klobuchar, Senator Harris, Senator Warren, I'm gonna, wait, give me a minute here. So I think one of the big, big points were trends that made us more accepting and helped us get a great progress about our brothers and sisters was Will of Will and Grace.
And my favorite show of the odds, and that is it portrayed two gay men who didn't, were like each other. And they were both likable. And we had the stereotype in the US of what gay men were like. And then we saw that, yes, I'm gay men are that way.
And some aren't. And getting more familiar and getting more comfortable with the idea of being friends or not friends or with neighbors that were gay, made us more accepting of home. And seeing three or four ridiculously competent strong people who also have ovaries, that is making the world more comfortable with the idea of a female president. So I think Senator Klobuchar, Harris, and Warren, absolutely elected the first female president, even if it wasn't them.
I think they made huge progress. You left out Williamson and Gabbard just FYA. Okay, like I said, like I said. So we gotta get to- Yeah, saud apologists are no for spiritual healer.
Yeah. We gotta get this. And obviously Jack Dorsey is still fighting for his job. We will talk about that a little bit later.
We'll talk about the ones and veils. I'm doing all that. I'm sucking on that. That's per usual.
That's okay. I like hearing you Yammeron. I think we'll see. I'm a we will see kind of person.
I'm like, it's a long road to November. And President Trump has all kinds of dirty tricks. And I think it's, you know, Joe's gotta get his brain ahead in the right place and stick it there. And his problems are he does wander.
And he does like that's that you've got to like. I don't think he can fix that. I think I think what happened, he's got to really bring a strong team around him right away. And I think I hate to say that.
But I've never thought this is what's going to bring down of a germaphobe, which is COVID-19. You know, this is this is a big deal. This is ironic that a germaphobe gets brought in. I think this is really the big issue politically is this the economy in COVID-19.
The Fed cut interest rates by half a percentage point in an emergency rate cut. This is the first emergency rate cut since 2008 when we had obviously the housing crisis. The new benchmark interest rate is arranged between 1% and 1.25%. As a result, big banks are seeking some relief.
A lobbying group, the Banking Policy Institute, they asked the Federal Reserve to lower capital requirements to ease periodic stress test banks take to provide they can survive an economic crisis. So that's a big deal. Stephen Newton told reporters that he is talking to banking regulators about potential regulatory relief measures, which could be just trying to take advantage of a bad situation. Obviously, airline stocks are getting killed, all kinds of travel stocks.
We may not be at South by Southwest, but you joke about it, but the fact matter is that's a $500 million impact on that city. You know, it has an impact on all the companies that are there and it has reverberations well beyond the $500 million. And so let's talk a little bit about health care stocks are on the way up, Anthem, Humana, UnitedHealth, Clorox shares, as you said, have risen 10% so far this year. And GoJoe Industries, the company behind Purell, privately health company, they're obviously doing really well.
So what do you think about this, COVID and the economy? You're like CNBC with Raybans. I don't need to watch CNBC today. That was outstanding.
So there's a lot there to unpack, but word, my sister, the first thing you brought up about coronavirus, this isn't gonna be Trump versus Biden. It's gonna be coronavirus versus Hunter Biden. And my friend Todd Benson texted me this late last night. And he's absolutely right.
The Democrats are gonna talk about who do you want. It's kind of that, remember that old commercial, who do you want to get the call? This is, I mean, Trump's idiocy and inability to surround himself with competence is really, you know, the chickens are coming home to roost because today, then the latest thing, he's decided that people with coronavirus should go to work. Do you see that?
Yeah, I did. I mean, it's just, and so you can imagine immediately they get the village idiots together and they say, all right, who's gonna walk this one back? Who's gonna ruin the reputation and go out there and say, well, what he meant to say is it's not a democratic hoax, it's just a, I mean, this is, in periods of froth and boom economies, we want nose rings and crazy statements and aggression. In periods of chaos and insecurity, we want an adult in the room.
And this entire positioning around the Biden campaign will be around how poorly that Trump handled the coronavirus. And when you rather have a guy in the office who can call, I don't know, on a foreign policy crisis, maybe on his phone under speed, a guy named Barack Obama, how would that feel? That would feel pretty good in the White House, right? And then you're gonna have Trump absolutely go after Hunter Biden because let's be honest, Hunter Biden is an unusual, strange guy.
And he was put on the board of a petroleum company in the Ukraine, he had no business being on the board. I don't think it was corrupt. I think it was nepotism and it happens everywhere and we need to do something about it. But this isn't gonna be Trump Biden, it's gonna be coronavirus versus Hunter Biden.
I was thinking of Hunter Biden, I think people have already done with that story. And that's the problem. He has created, Trump has created a situation where we are done with stories, lines, like it's almost like a soap opera. And we're kind of dead.
Everyone's like, I got the Hunter Biden thing. And it's not gonna work as well. You think it's done, you think it's played out? I do, I think people are like, okay, okay, he was a rich kid son who shouldn't have gotten that job.
Okay, I got it. Was it really corrupt? Who cares? I think they're gonna have a hard time with that storyline.
And I do think of everything in terms of his show, as you know, I was a watcher of it. And you can't keep hitting a storyline over and over again. And I think they've lost one. I think he's made us move on to other stories quickly.
And this one now is about this crisis and what's the impact on the economy, the actual real world impact of people's jobs. I think that really is where the rubber hits the road. And I think that's where, I think you can't bullshit your way out of this. Your responsibility is unattractive.
You know, I think what is effective is this is being ginned up and it's just like the flu. I think that works. I hate to say it, but it works because my mom repeated it to me the other day. You can take a flu virus, all that kind of stuff.
All this like crazy old man stuff does tend to work, but only for so long as deaths increase, as the virus increases, as it gets more pandemic develops, I think that's a problem. Because then you look like an idiot, that kind of thing. And unless, you know, luck of luck, it slows down like it has a little bit in China. And it doesn't take on the qualities of hundreds of thousands of people getting sick and tens of thousands of people dying, which nobody wants to have happen.
But this is how these things go, unfortunately. And so I think, you know, the impact on the economy as much as we should focus on the impact on people is really profound. It was really gonna be profound, I think. And that's where the issue is.
And what's interesting is these, which companies, as you know, all these ones that promote work at home, stuff is gonna do well. Obviously these, the anthems and the healthcare stuff, the people making burrell, all the kind of things that you would think of are doing well, and all the ones that aren't doing well, are the ones that you think of, the airline's hotels and on and on and on. So I think that's where we are, is this economic impact. We were talking off Mike about South by Southwest.
And there's been a lot of famous people who called for a boycott of South by Southwest. And I feel like they've sort of grabbed the God Mike. And, you know, I'm listening to the CDC, which is basically said, keep monitoring it, but you're no less or more safer nor the residents of Austin if you have South by Southwest or not. And if you, and again, you know, everyone's scared to make these comments because they could age really poorly.
But right now in the US, and I know you don't like these stats, but the fatality rate each year is 1.23%, meaning that about 4 million people die each year, if 10 million people get Corona, and the current fatality rate holds, it means it'll go from 1.2% to 1.2%, and that is it'll go from 1.23 to 1.24 to 1.25. And life is about, I mean, the math I do. And it's easy to get caught up because the fastest, the fastest spreading the most contagious virus in the history of our species is not Corona, it's not plague, it's not just Spanish flu, it's fear and panic. And I feel like the media has done such a terrible job reporting on this virus.
And the way I look at it is, I have 10 more years at South by Southwest. And that is, in my 50s, if I go to South by Southwest, I could slip and break a hip. There's only so much time left. Time is going faster.
So you weigh the rest and you decide, it's relevance, a chance to see people, a chance to enjoy a great city. And when the CDC says, we don't think there's a reason not to go, I think you go. And you gotta live your life. Having sex is dangerous.
Driving on the I-95 is dangerous. Water skiing is dangerous. You just gotta be smart about the fact that the risk is there. If you're running these companies, look, Google's out, Facebook is out, Intel is out, Netflix is out, Apple is out.
These people have cut and run, all these tech companies, which is a big part of South by Southwest. I'm just using this as an example. But there's real world implications. And I think then you worry about the idea, people are gonna err on the side of safety.
What if you're one of your workers got sick by being there? What if there's a sudden outbreak of it there? Why even bother with the trade? Even if it's a small, it's not gonna happen.
I think that, it doesn't matter. I don't think it's the media, it's the one who knows. I think everybody is gonna be like, I don't wanna be the company that's not my staff to South by Southwest. Everyone got coronavirus when they got home.
Kinda thing. And then it spreads elsewhere. I think it's just inevitable. I don't think it's fair.
I think it's prudent to probably do this if you're in that company room. Making decision to go is one that is really fraught. And I don't think people will. And so the question is, will it push everyone into a recession?
Because this is real money, this is real events, these are real. And that's iterating around everywhere. Every single conference and analog activity has been canceled. They have.
And then again, it's a question of whether it's gonna put us into a recession and what that looks like. Yeah, well, in a lot of time, literally in the last six hours, I was scheduled to go to three events in the next three weeks to have been canceled in the last 24 hours. And I understand on a risk-adjusted basis, especially if you're someone like Amazon that's identified a couple people with a virus to pull out, I get it. I understand it, it's a shareholder driven decision.
The low probability, high severity scenario. And the reality is, if they don't go to South by Southwest one year or if they skip it one year, it's not the end of the world. But just as the virus is preying on kind of the week and the old or people who have an underlying health condition or respiratory illness, I believe the real kind of victims here, if you will, other than the personal tragedy of people who get sick and die, is that small and medium sized business. Amazon's gonna be fine.
Clorox is gonna benefit some firms. Live Nation will get hurt because maybe people get fewer concerts. But the real, if you call economic cost, it becomes more of a human toll, is the guy who's catering South by Southwest and has eight employees. Those companies can't survive a cyclical hit.
Everybody else is gonna be fine. My prediction is, we're gonna see a short-term recession and it's gonna come roaring back as long as people continue to sleep through the fact that we're financing this artificial, you know, we're artificially financing the government with irresponsible debt. But that's another talk show in general, just as, it's an entirely different virus for people over the age of 70 or people with underlying respiratory illness. This is an entirely different economic implication for small and medium sized business.
The big guys are gonna- Yeah, fair point, fair point. But lastly, what about the banks asking for relief? This idea that they should have, regularization should be lower capital requirements. That always makes me nervous.
Interest rates are one thing, you know, to get business, making sure business feels like it can be investing. But this idea about deregulating banks in this time, could that lead to further financial crises? Well, there's two words to describe this. So the banks have come together through their lobbying organization and said, based on Corona, we should have the opportunity to deregulate so that we can be more aggressive around financing certain projects, which might lessen the fallout from the coronavirus.
And I would summarize that entire effort in two words, gross and opportunistic. It's the notion of creating lowering standards such that these companies can fail certain stress tests. So they want us to come out of Corona and then perhaps in the midst of a recession or a corporate debt crisis, which a lot of people think might be the next epicenter, as opposed to subprime, but the exceptional levels of corporate debt we're at, that the banks are gonna be able to get into deeper trouble before they really, really fuck us all up like they did in 2008. This is stupid, it should be this dumb idea should be stopped at the door and say, you know what, that's just kind of gross and self-serving.
Stop it, just stop it. They're walking in the coronavirus door, trying to do that. It is kind of, and they don't say shouldn't have lesser, you know, regulatory in this regard. I think it's just the wrong place.
You know, this government has done so much deregulation and you're starting to see the impact of that. It just seems like COVID should not be the reason they try this. The big lesson here is we need more regulation or specifically we need exceptional increase in funding of the CDC. That's the lesson here.
Yep, yep, CDC. All right, Facebook is also rethinking Libra to appease regulators or plan for a single digit currency. Let's be fair to say it has not taken off. They're redesigning it to possibly include several different currencies, but and Bitcoin has also taken a coronavirus hit.
The cryptocurrency trading is below 9,000 for the first time since January. So that's an interesting trend because you would think cryptocurrencies would do well for the first time of virus. So, you know, you had talked about the idea. First of all, why is Facebook still at this?
You know, and again, the trust in the company and other things else. Why are they still at this? I'm thinking of having David Marcus on the show to talk about this. And then you mentioned, obviously, Elon Musk was going to design his own coin.
Talk briefly about the coin situation, the cryptocurrency situation. So I absolutely love Facebook's Libra. I think it's fantastic. I love it personally because then there's a lesson in here and what I tell them.
I see this is that. Oh, let me get there. All right. So the worst, the best thing that can happen to anybody professionally is success.
You know, success is wonderful. The second best thing that can happen and someone to start a lot of businesses is you fail fast. It starts something. It doesn't work.
You've got a media market feedback. It's over, you move on. I started an e-commerce incubator in 1999. I raised money from J.P.
Morgan, Goldman, Maveron, all these big players in December of 1999. Not a great timing by March of 2000. It was effectively over. And that was sort of a blessing because if you're going to fail, fail fast.
The worst thing that can happen to an organization or an individual, especially someone starting a company, is that you fail slowly. I started a company called Red Envelope and we failed slowly over 10 years and it's devastating. Red Envelope? So anyways, it makes me, it gives me a great amount of joy to think that there's just enough success for the people at Facebook to continue to go to work and allocate capital so they can fail slowly.
And that is exactly what I'm hoping happens here. I thought most likely it was going to fail fast. But in the case of Libra, what we have is a company failing slowly and I love the people, I just love the idea of hundreds or maybe thousands of people who have made excuses from Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg going to work today and that they are absolutely in the midst of an enormously glacier-like failure. Libra will not happen.
It's just a question if it fails slowly or fast. They did get a bit of a Botox boost last week and when that Shopify decided to join a consortium, which made no sense to me. But this thing will not happen. It's a great idea.
But again, unfortunately, it's from the good folks that Facebook whose leader puts a piece of tape over his camera and I've controlled the media and I want to take control of the economy and then the military and then find out that their very naive sociopath has been the most dangerous man in history. All right, well, so, therefore, and what about you? Too much, no, you want them to fail slowly. I love that.
It's like just slowly over here. Don't tell them they're failing over here. Let them bleed out slowly. They should just stick to their knitting.
I think what you're basically saying is eventually they have to stick to their friggin knitting and the idea that you're successful in one area and that you can do it. Facebook, keep at it. It's a great idea for you. It's definitely going to pay off Facebook.
And where's your Elon Koy? He tweeted in front of the mind of Bitcoin. Doge. I wonder if Shale Samberg used Libra on her honeymoon, on her engagement party.
You know what, I'm not going to go there. No, no, no. She was a refugee camp. Where's your Elon Koy?
That's why I know he was supporting a Bitcoin rival called Doge Koy. Tea Koy. Tea Koy. No.
He could do it. It won't be a stable currency though. It won't be a basket. He's more gangster than that and not as thoughtful.
I mean, genius, but I think he'll just, I think he'll just, I think he'll just, Tesla stock, in any way, regresses to some natural level below 100 bucks. He will think of, he could pull off a coin. He has that same fanaticism following the Bitcoin debts. So they could absolutely fill out.
The way do coins is what Facebook wanted to do. They wanted to be more responsible and have it guaranteed by basket of currencies, as opposed to it being a currency. It was going to be an asset or something representing a basket of assets. It could be tradable and transfer assets.
Whereas Bitcoin is just a currency where two parties agree that something is worth something. Tesla could effectively do a coin, to avoid the SEC, what you can do is you can say, all right, initially we're launching a million coins or a hundred thousand coins. And what this coin does is it puts you first in line. Any Tesla product.
And then you could avoid the SEC and then, that's exactly, it's the launch. You need kind of the launch without, if it represents ownership and Tesla, then it's subject to SEC regulations and Elon doesn't do well with that. But they could pull it off. Tesla is one of the few companies in the world that could pull off what I call a non-stable coin.
Or as an Amazon would have to go stable and do a basket of currencies, which requires a lot of regulation. Just what I want to buy, non-stable coins. Unstable coins. That may not be built.
Sounds fantastic. We have a stable genius as a resident. His stock is killing it. Killing it.
Oh my God. That's kind of why I was hoping South by South West would be canceled. Why we have to face people where you're utilizing it. I know you did.
I was going to play it. I have it all queued up. In any case, Scott, we have to take a quick break. We'll be right back with a listener mail and predictions.
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We had a few listeners ask a question about a Jezebel article that investigated how therapy apps like BetterHelp handle user privacy. As you know, all user data is sensitive, especially healthcare and mental health data, so we reached out to Drew Merotra to tell us a bit more. Hi. My name is Drew Merotra.
I am an investigative data reporter at GEO Media. A few weeks ago, Molly Osberg and I put out a story in Jezebel about how online therapy apps are leaking sensitive mental health data to companies like Facebook and Mixpanel. For the story, Molly and I did a week of online therapy with two popular apps, BetterHelp and TalkSpace. In the process, we use software to monitor and track the various third parties that were receiving data about us while we spoke to therapists or filled out intake forms.
The article basically finds that the regulations that safeguard medical data are unprepared to deal with the realities of online advertising. We reached out to BetterHelp several times and they essentially just told us that this type of behavior is pretty standard practice for measuring engagement and that they aren't collecting personally identifiable information. However, as an end user, while all of this may be legal, it certainly feels like a deep invasion of privacy. So the question that I have is this, what will it take for companies like BetterHelp to take this stuff seriously?
All right. There's a lot to unpack here. Now if we'll switch again, we better help advertise with this. But this is a real big problem.
I recently talked to the head of Stanford Medical School and I'm doing a lot of healthcare related podcasts that reco Tico. And one of the things that comes through is how do we get these things off the ground? They really haven't and a lot of has to do with HIPAA and privacy. But at the same time, people should be able to avail themselves the same way in other areas to these things.
So from an advertising perspective, how damaging for people in profitable companies to access this level of personal information depends on how much information they get, whether it's identifiable and then what responsibility do therapists have to disclose this type of information to patients? Well, it's the same tension we're dealing with everywhere, the tension between utility and privacy. And I've always thought that the real danger is not that you can't trust better health or calm or there's I think there's some great online, I think online can be tremendously powerful as it relates to talk therapy and bringing the cost down and taking the friction out of. I mean, there's a lot of friction.
If someone's not feeling well and they think I could really use a certified professional to speak to about some of the shit that's going on in my head, there's a lot of friction to figure that out. So the idea of an app that helps connect you with a licensed professional, I think that's a wonderful unlock and the idea, but with something like that, I wonder if you just turn off all targeting and they're not in the data business. And what I mean, my head immediately goes to care is that the reason why Apple is probably one of the reasons Apple's so well positioned to get into healthcare is that they have made some real sacrifices and some of it's PR, some of it's real around emphasizing privacy. But it feels like with something like that, it's a decent idea for these companies just to say, we're just going to shut off all data as it relates to targeting, we're not selling our data, we're not using our data, and we're bringing in these crazy cybersecurity experts to make sure that we're not hackable because it's not that these firms are malicious in terms of their use of the data, it's the fact that many of them haven't put in place the standards to record the standards to ensure that data isn't weaponized or hacked by someone else.
Yeah, I think hacking is, I mean, what's interesting is to the government regulated, especially you want to call it sensitive data, but I think all data is sensitive because, as you said, to your point, a few months ago, an article came out saying that several dating apps have released data about things like sexual orientation at third parties, as you move into these areas, it really does, if there should be two types of ways to handle data, and what's the ethical difference between selling data about the content and messages versus larger metadata, would you invest in one or when you invest, how do you think about this kind of things? Because if something got out in the wild, especially on dating apps or mental health apps or any health apps, but things like that, it starts to get real, children, there's all kinds of areas where it starts to get really problematic for these companies, and government, this is just the kind of thing government jams in on and does something about. Yeah, this is sort of a trope event, though, I think, I don't know, I haven't looked at these companies, so I don't know, you know, investing is such a, your decisions are one, do you like a management team, do you, I was invested behind people, not concepts, because typically a startup changes the concept mid-streams, but you still have the same management team, so you want to invest behind people, and then you look obviously at the market and the valuation, et cetera, but this is a space that somebody is going to emerge in the space. Now, like almost every space online, it will likely, there'll be a lot of innovators, and they'll be acquired or put out, or have infanticide performed on them in Apple or Google, or someone will step in, but this is, I don't think this is, I don't think this is any reason to avoid these apps, I don't think it's any reason to avoid investing in them, I think it's a catalyst in what I would call almost like a wake-up call for this sector to say we should operate by a different set of standards, because our data says sensitive, I mean, we'll talk about the CDC, Google, every major tech company has had their data hacked, CDC hasn't had their data hacked, we constantly- That we know, but go ahead, sorry, go ahead, keep going.
Well, I think I would have gotten out, but my point is that we constantly talk about the geniuses in Silicon Valley and how stupid the government is, meanwhile, the CDC has the most sensitive information in the world, and they have put in place the requisite safeguards because they're not a for-profit company to ensure that the most, arguably the most sensitive data in the world is kept private. So, I think it's a wake-up call for the health guys. I don't know the company that advertises with us, but I think this is an exciting field and could be a huge unlock that is both profitable and really wonderful for society. We've talked a lot about mental health.
I think mental health, just as cancer has become, I think one of the reasons that we found, the cancer is now more curable, the survival rates have gone above 50% in addition to incredible research and funding. A lot of it is societal, and that is cancer used to be something you didn't talk about, it was almost like there was something wrong with you. People were very hush-ish about it. Women didn't talk about female cancers, men didn't talk about prostate cancer, and just having it come into the dialogue and speaking openly and honestly about it leads to early detection, I think the next big unlock from a societal dialogue standpoint is mental illness, which touches every life at some point.
Have you ever used any of these? I've used the calm and the meditation apps, but you haven't used any of these. You know what, though? I did a podcast with Sam Harris last week.
Yes, I did. Yes. How did that go? He's groovy.
He's very calming and nice, and the guy has incredible, the thing that struck me about him, he has incredible range. He knows how some people know a lot about one subject or a very little about everything. He seemed to know a lot about a lot of different subjects. I felt like I was talking to someone who knew more about this subject on anything I brought up, and he also has that kind of dreaming, calming voice where you just want to put your head on his shoulder and have him pet you.
I really don't want to do that. Okay. He is very calming. But anyways, he brought up, I said in the last half of the show because he's very into meditation.
I was very, you know, fairly open with him. I said, let me flip a script here. I struggle with anger and kind of mild depression, and I want to understand how meditation can help my blessings foot to my mood more regularly. And he went into, he talked a lot about it.
He's very thoughtful. He's the kind of guy that could start a podcast or meditation app, and I think it's interesting about Sam Harris. He's been quite successful putting his content behind a wall, and that is we did a two-hour podcast, and the first hour is free, or penance for some people. And then he stops it, and now when he says, if you want to listen to the full thing, make sure you subscribe and you card his people five bucks a month.
I understand. He has a lot of subscribers. Wow. We could go on.
Lots of people do that. Send it to an enemy. Send it to an enemy. That's interesting.
Anyways. What do you think of you? What do you think of these? I don't use them because I worry about the data implications.
I mean, I have no mental health problems. As you know, Scott. Right. Someone literally said that to me last night.
They were like, I said, I was happy. Someone said a dinner thing, and they're like, no, you're not happy. I'm pretty happy. I'm very happy.
And they're like, well, no, you don't know that you're not unhappy. I'm really happy. I don't know what to say. And they said, you can't say that.
I go, I'm pretty happy. And then again, last night, someone said you're fully actualized, which is really interesting. So I might not use it because I don't really have. I don't feel, I really do feel very happy.
But here's the deal. I would worry about the data. I just don't know who they are, if they're going to close, whether it's better to talk, whatever the other one is. I just don't know what's going to happen.
This issue around 23 and me, where I was one of the first people to use it, because we showed it off at one of our early all-things Ds. And they have all my genetic data. And just recently, they've done some layoffs. And I think they're fully committed to keeping the stuff safe.
But then I'm like, oh my god, I better destroy it. You know what I mean? Like, my data is out there. What was I thinking?
Because it's out there. I don't know. Where it's going to get out there. At some point in the future, you're going to be short with great hair.
Or like, clear. I just recently started making like, they have my eye thing. And then I'm like, you know what? I'm just fucked if it's crazy.
If it's crazy if they're too fine. That's too loud. But let me ask you this. My genetic history is I am German and Italian, which means I'm smart enough to know that I'm fucked up but too lazy to do anything about it.
Is that racist? Is that racist? I don't even want to know. Is that racist?
Yes, sure. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Anyways, that's my genealogy joke.
All right. It's funny. Your genealogy jokes need some work. Go ahead.
I did 23 of me. And it said I was going to have to pee five times tonight. Yeah. I know that's a problem for you, aged people.
So I just worry about the trust in these companies. And again, there's so much data out there. But these particular, particularly sensitive data, mental health, health data, dating data, there's got to be a different like there's some and just today there was an amazing story on the New York Times by Kashmir who I think is one of the best reporters out there on these issues is this facial recognition company Clearview, you know, that they handed it out to their investors, including Ashton Kutcher at it. And they were showing it off like that you could put it up like it was supposedly they're giving the view out that they're only giving it to law enforcement people, but actually like Ashton Kutcher's walking and the guy who runs your CDs is walking around and his daughter came in and he checked the facial recognition of her date.
And so that's like, are you freaking kidding me? You see how these things go. But is it just isn't it? I didn't know how I'm curious about you.
I'm curious about you. What is that? Isn't that just googling someone and taking it? Yes.
Well, that's what Clearview is saying. You can just Google them. But this case you put the camera in front of someone and you could get all their information. So yeah, it's like a super Google really, but it takes it one step further because he didn't know his name.
And so instead of like asking the daughter of the name of the date so we could search for them and stock them online, he just had the waiter take a picture and did it. And then it's a party trick for some of these people, but it's still like it's just I don't know. I just I don't know. Well, again, you've always said this institutions.
Like institutions matter. And I think we're all looking for guidance around this and there's a wisdom of crowds and we elect officials and the idea of the word liberal in the term liberal democracy is that we insert institutions to slow down. So our FASM of thinking moves to slow thinking and then we think, all right, what components of data, where does the data versus utility versus versus something scary violation of your property? What's the intersection of that?
And how do we create laws? Or how do we create quite frankly liabilities such that if a company ends up doing something wrong, then get sued and they get more careful about it. So, but it feels like there's an absence of institutions or institutions haven't caught up with the age. All right.
That's very wise. Got it. Oh, yeah. It's because you've been medicating on the app.
So it's a prediction. We don't have wins and pails today. So I'm going to force your prediction in a certain way. You may have a different one, but where is Elizabeth Warren does not endorse anybody?
And there's a question whether she should be Senate majority leader if the Democrats win. Which one will she go to? If she makes an endorsement? The fact that she's not making endorsement tells me bad things for Bernie Sanders because that's where she would naturally go.
Oh, 100%. 100%. So what happens with her? She's going to be a big player, I think, here.
So, I get more than my fair share of predictions right about business. I get more than wrong about politics. I'm clearly in a bubble and don't know what's going on, but I think just in terms of game theory, the fact that she didn't immediately come out and endorse Sanders means she's seen the tea leaves and recognizes that Sanders is not going to win and she's either holding on to her cards for a later endorsement for Biden, but you know what would be a pretty interesting ticket is Biden Sanders would take the moderate and then probably do some sort of, I mean, let's be honest, Elizabeth Warren is sort of in some ways non carbonated or in some ways the more effective Bernie Sanders. She's actually passed legislation whereas Bernie just rants and raves in his past five bills, including two to put post offices in Vermont.
Yeah, that's a great legislator. Anyways, she is the only prediction I'll have around that. I don't know. She's not going to endorse Sanders because I think these people are all very power hungry.
I think they're all very strategic. And that would be her. She had that kerfuffle with them over women, whether women could be president. Remember?
You don't remember that when they had the little fight at the time? Yeah, I think they're all hornier for power than they are around and they are being easily offended. I think she's going to go with the winner right now. Joe has so much momentum.
She went to him. And all that. I mean, what do you think of a Biden warden ticket would be pretty interesting. It would really control it a lot.
It would be his very east coast. The VP is supposed to be the attack dog and she is. No one's out of her. Her pants.
Oh my God, her with pens would be like, I would pay $150 to watch that card. Who would you rather? Who would you rather be on your softball team or be armed with you in legislation? She took him.
You're friend Bloomberg. She took down your candidate Bloomberg. Who would you rather have on your side or have all the blood draw out of your face when you see she's on the other side than Senator Warren? I think, yeah.
She's a fantastic ally and a fierce enemy. Yeah, that'd be interesting. Also, Klobuchar is another possible VP choice for him. So is Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams.
I mean, the ruthless real estate realtor, Amy Klobuchar. Anyway, give me a business prediction and then we got to go. I just wanted to do a quick fail though. Okay.
The Fed cutting its interest rates. That's just so stupid. I mean, the market is about, it's good and it's bad. With coronavirus, the majority of government actions around the nation's around the world is to figure out a way to manufacture and distribute free testing tests.
Our reaction is to cut interest rates. Of course. That's because they're worried about dealing with it. I like Jay Powell.
I'd like to think he was not going to be bullied. He's clearly being bullied and slapped around by Trump. That was what he cut interest rates. That doesn't work.
I thought that. And the market saw right through that. It was down to 750 points that day. Anyways, my prediction, because we weren't making predictions, my prediction is I'm doubling down on this.
Three days ago, I said that Twitter was going to come to an agreement with activist investors and give it board seats within 10 days, where three days in there are some segments in the next seven days. And within 30 days, now it's 27 days, the part-time CEO from Africa is going to step down. So I'm doubling down on my prediction that board seats activist and Jack Dorsey is going to find a lot of time to be a full-time CEO somewhere or do interesting things in Africa. Well, I wrote a column based on you.
Like a concept. I wrote a little bit more about that. Was it called sexy? No.
Was it called sexy professor? No. I was like, let's focus on the money here. These is a business.
And also that, you know, I compared them because Elon Musk sent out a sort of tweet. I read that. And I thought the tweet was interesting. And he just pushed himself out of it by putting his shoulder down and she wrote bravado.
And it was interesting that his stock was from 200 to 700 and this one has been bumping along along in lots of ways. So one of the things I would agree with you. I think this is any key is cornered by these people. And he doesn't have it.
And I have to say I got a lot of reaction to it by people who thought. And then someone was like, well, who could be better than Jack, the founder is everything crew? And again, I have a lot of references to her. But I made a list without even trying last night.
I was sitting at a bed. And I was like Kevin Sister and my cruiser, Adam Bain. Shelly Bonny, Shelby Bonny, a lot of companies, Susan Wijiski, Brad Smith, Chris Cox, Jeff Wiener, Trita Rumswani from Google. I literally just thought of those at the top of my head.
Wow, that's impressive. Lots. If you need any help, I made a list. So you think it's quicker than that.
And how does that happen? Because everyone was writing. Can you just quickly explain this? Someone's like, they only have 4%.
Why do they get to decide? Explain for the people why they get to decide. So right now, they're contacting other shareholders institutions and saying, OK, we believe there should be a full-time CEO. What do you think?
And pretty much everybody, other shareholders, at least I've spoken with, has nodded their own. If the stock is skyrocketed like Tesla, we put up with this nonsense. But you can't be both in Africa in part-time and have the stock go nowhere. That's a bad cocktail that investors don't like.
And so these guys are going to basically file a proxy that got into shareholders and they're going to see board seats. Only three come due because Twitter has what's called a weapon of mass entrenchment and that is they have a staggered board. The board full board isn't up for election every year. Only a certain number of the seats in this case, three.
They'll nominate four sets out of case, one drops out or one of the board members on Twitter steps now and they're kind of ready to go. But right now, what you have is shareholders lining up behind Elliot and then calling Twitter's board and saying, hey, just FYI, we've lined up behind this guy and once Twitter's board realizes and it's probably happened 48 hours ago that they're going to lose at the annual meeting, that rather than go through that humiliation, they're going to go back and say, we'll give you one seat. And then Ellie's going to say no and they'll say the Twitter will go two seats. And then Ellie's going to say no.
We want all three seats. And then they're going to call Jack and say, Jack, we have to give up seats or in a corner and then Jack's going to say, I'm stepping down. So what do they give up three seats? And then Jack doesn't step down.
Well, the board. Oh, there's no way. Jack, well, the first board meeting will be a shit show. The first board meeting will be all three of you.
You don't have enough vote to vote them out, right? There could be three. No, he's done. If they get three seats, Jack Dorsey doesn't want to show up to a board meeting.
There's three new board members based on one thing and that is that the CEO should leave. He's not, I don't think he's that antagonistic or arrogant and all that. And then he's going to say, and by the way, we have to schedule the board meetings during the morning because I'm gone in afternoons. It's just, he's done.
He's absolutely. This is dead man walking. How could he resist? If you were him.
If you were devising him, how could he resist? I would create a side show. I don't know if you saw today, but they announced a new fleet product which is a big distraction. Which is a copy of everyone else that's been doing.
I would say, oh, this is, I would try and plant stories that this is a Republican conspiracy. I would try and find people in the organization to say, I've even seen some Twitter volume that Jack was progressive and that this is, I would just try and create a series of sideshows and hope to God that the stock begins to skyrocket or something. Which is not going to do right now in the middle of coronavirus, but go ahead. I think this is over.
I just think it's over. So is there anything you can do to hold on to his job? From your perspective? Well, even, okay.
So what if you came back? He could say I'm going to read their full time. I'm sorry. You're right.
But the analogy I use when I talk to investors or people about this is like, imagine Twitter's next CEO and you've read a lot of a series of people. What if the CEO showed up with an interview and said, you're amazing. Let's assume Jack was amazing and you're incredible product development and you maybe were involved near the founding of the company as Adam Vayner and Dick Costello. And they said, okay, I want the job.
But here's the thing. I don't want to give up my CEO position at the job I have now. Would that be a deal killer? My guess is it would be.
And then if they said, okay, we can get past that because you're just so amazing. And he said, well, okay. In addition to keeping my job. I get it.
So what could he do? If he said, I'm going to be full time. I'm going to put my shoulder on. It's a very Elon Musk thing to do.
That's what Elon did. Like I'm going to put my shoulder in. I'm going to be 24 seven. I'm going to get this thing out.
I'm going to get this amazing product because I'll tell you what both of them share. Whatever you do. He's created two amazing products. He is responsible for both of them.
Incredible product guy. Elon Musk is an incredible product guy. Like really visionary. So what if he says that's what they share and that's why they like each other I think is the real deal in terms of product creation.
So what if he says, I'm going to fix this. I'm going to focus on product. I'm going to be all over this. I'm just going to be all over this.
He's not quite the intense person that Elon is. That'd be one way. The investors might go. I think once investors decide that they want to mount which they basically are deciding if they put an Elliott.
I think it's going to be hard for them to backtrack. And the question then becomes, well, it took an activist and the threat of you being fired for you to decide to do this. And I don't think he's going to do it because 89% of his wealth is this afternoon's job. And it appears to me that Twitter is really a hobby for him.
It's golf. He loves it and he's passionate about it. But it's not where he makes his money. He makes his money this afternoon's job.
He's got quite a bunch of executives over at the other company though. I'll tell you that. They're great. They're going to start a bank.
That thing is killing it. I think he does have executives who could be CEO there, by the way. That's the move for him. That's the move.
You think that would have a hard press because he's very well respected. He says, I think what's interesting is nobody of the square shareholders are upset about this. Why those? Because the stock's up.
It all comes out as a star. You can show up in a pink dress, in a tin foil on your head, as long as you're input. And then say I'm going to put cure death or put a man on Mars or whatever it is. He's crazy.
I'm going to build a clock the last 10,000 years. Go figure that. But that's fine. I'm showing up at the Academy Awards and sending out dick pics.
That's fine as long as your stock keeps going up. That's it. If your stock goes sideways and your part-time CEO, people actually start calling irrational unacceptable behavior irrational and unacceptable when your stock goes sideways. Okay.
That's it. I think that's the move. That's the gangster move he does speaking. Gangster moves.