Security program on spreadsheets, new regulations piling up, and audit dread? It's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place, and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clear visibility, faster deals, zero chaos.
Call it compliance, or call it comp-liance. Get it? Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Go to Vanta.com/comp.
Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need.
It's an all-in-one, fully-integrated platform, and makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So why not you? Try Odoo for free at Odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O.com. Hi, everyone.
This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher with a really bad cold. And I'm Scott Galloway with some news that'll cheer you up, Kara. The New York Times has decided to endorse me and Angela Lansbury for General Consulate of Australia.
Oh, my God. We'll get to that. That is insane. I'm sorry.
They're endorsing two people? Right? Does the editorial board only have one testicle each, or one, I don't know what the equivalent is. I mean, literally, they're endorsing two people?
I don't, I don't know what to say. I think... You worked there. I was sort of surprised.
You worked there. It's your fault. I was surprised. And I would say, we're going to talk a lot about lady issues this week, because they would never do that to a man.
I'm sorry. Like, two women. Oh, these are good ladies. It's just...
We need a group of them. It takes a village, Kara. It takes a village. I mean, why don't they just throw in Hillary Clinton?
It's just like... I'm going to let it go. Well, they, I think they're like the entire electorate. They're like, well, we like Elizabeth Warren, but she can't win, and then Amy Klobuchar is kind of okay, but she's a realist versus the radical.
And I'm like, what? Pick a lane. Yeah. Anyway, anyway.
Do you like them doing it through the video thing? A lot of people thought it was like a reality show. It felt like a Trump show, but I kind of liked it. I thought that part of it was innovative, and I loved how they, I thought the graphics online of the New York Times were fantastic, and they went into the pluses and minuses from their viewpoint.
I thought there was a lot of courage in the article. I think they came out and said, I don't know if you read Bernie Zideup, but he's 79 years old, and he just had a heart attack. And that's dangerous, and we need new blood. I thought that was surprisingly honest and politically incorrect for the New York Times.
Well, that's what they say behind the scenes. Why not? That's what they say in the newsroom. Get us to the back.
But I agree with you. I think if it had been an all-male race, they would have picked one candidate. What it does, what it is an interesting argument for is plurality voting or rank voting, which I think is going to get a lot of steam. But yeah, it did seem kind of, I don't know.
It did seem very... Fox News wouldn't pick two candidates, right? It's only the politically incorrect candidates. No, well, they'll just pick one.
Donald Trump and then Donald Trump. Yes, it was very odd. But speaking of lady issues, I'm going to get to your Sheryl Sandberg rant in a minute. But I just want to say people loved our fight last week on privacy.
I think we're going to have another one over Sheryl Sandberg, but people were on my side for the most part, by the way, FYI. But they were very pleased with you for going out on an idiotic limb, I think. That's how they felt about it. Yeah, I have four of those idiotic limbs.
I know, you had a lot this week. But I'm saying they liked it. What do you think? I liked our debate.
I was surprised that people reacted in such a way. They enjoyed the... They thought it was a very civil back and forth on an important issue and that we were respectful to each other. We were respectful, Kara, you ignorant slut.
But anyways, there's... No, look, I think it's important to argue to learn, not necessarily to argue to be right. And I think our society has lost a lot of that. And I think that if we have respectful, data-driven, you know, thoughtful debate, we'll craft more thoughtful solutions, or at least that's what the framers initially thought.
And we've lost a lot of that. Yeah, I would agree. Are we going to talk about our debate? Is this part two?
Is that what we're doing here? No, we can talk... No, I'm just saying, I just noticed the New York Times giant piece about Clearview and facial recognition. Some asshole decided to do this.
Like, I'm just saying, if there's no laws in place, this is how it's going to go. They're gonna... These little companies are gonna pop up, and then there's gonna be someone's with no ethics. That guy who ran that company with the facial recognition selling it, someone's gonna do it.
It's like the cloning guy. Like, I think I'll just do it. And so we need the government in here to talk about this. I'm sorry.
I think this is an important part of our society. And if it's just, you know, all hell breaks loose, all hell's gonna break loose. Yeah, I agree with you. But that's different.
There's some nuance. There's a difference between technologies that run amok and can violate people's privacy and the need for regulation and laws to prevent people from doing that such that you can't put on a pair of Ray-Ban glasses and then see everything about somebody, including their phone number, and decide, you know, to abuse that information or stalk people or whatever. You can see where this technology goes a lot of bad places. What we were arguing about was whether Apple should create a doomsday fail-safe box that no matter how dangerous that information is to national security or safety, that there's a right for people to have a place, a safe box, if you will, or kind of the ultimate safety deposit box that no one can ever get into regardless of the threat.
I feel like those are two different issues. I don't know. These guys are selling to the government. That's what they're selling to.
Anyway, we shall keep going. If there's another, we need laws. We need a long and debate like we had about it so that people can really decide and then let our elected officials decide once we give them instructions and put people in place. Anyway, it's a very important topic that we need to have much more.
Just some observations because I do learn a lot from the feedback I get. And I would say the feedback was sort of like two thirds negative, one third positive to my position. What I found is that people have a knee jerk reaction and they're triggered and they do what Daniel Kahneman calls slow thinking. And that is they immediately make assumptions about their viewpoint because they're unable to separate the ideology from the person.
In this instance, because Attorney General Barr and President Trump had proposed or highlighted a need for a backdoor into the iPhone. A lot of people were very upset about it and assumed it was the wrong thing to do. And what I found is that people don't realize or don't want to recognize or there's not a lot of discussion that the UK government, the Australian government, the Indian government have all asked for a backdoor. And the Department of Justice under the Obama administration asked for the same thing.
They just did it more elegantly. And they've all asked for kind of the same thing. Of course they want it. If I was a spy, I'd want it too.
Obviously. It's the thing. It makes government life easier in terms of as people use these things. But eventually these people go to these encrypted other apps.
It just goes on and on in terms of chasing these people. And if you give a backdoor to Apple, they go to another app. They go to another app, whatever one they're using. And it just, it never ends and it makes everybody more vulnerable.
So anyway, it goes on. We're going to move on because Google joined Apple, Amazon and Microsoft and become the fourth trillion dollar company in the world. They're creating enormous value for shareholders. This is, as you've been talking about, you own these stocks.
We've talked to lots of people about this idea of where they go in the future and how they get bigger than ever. But it's tax season and Amazon didn't pay any federal taxes. Speaking of which trillion dollar company on $11.2 billion in profits. I am allowing you to rant right now about this issue.
You like the idea that these are trillion dollar companies as a shareholder, no taxes. Same thing with JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley posted earnings this week showing they saved $18 billion in 2019, more than the prior year. And thanks to Trump's tax overhaul. So, I mean, this is like great for a shareholder, not so great for citizens.
Yeah. So like every other government policy, it is effectively an elegant transfer from the lower middle classes to the wealthy or from small and medium-sized businesses to large You like watching these parties, those ridiculous parties. I have to say, I agree with you. I've just been obsessively reading about Muhammad.
The New York Times had a big Zayed at the United Arab Emirates. He's running with the richest guy in the world, I think. It's $1.3 trillion in wealth that is at his disposal. That's almost more than Putin.
Yeah, exactly. And he's been super close to the Trump people. There have been several really fascinating stories about him and his decision that autocracy is better than Islamism. And it was, it was, it's been really interesting.
I think he's there. And I just, I do agree with you. It's good that these people all go there. I just don't think everybody gets access.
And when you're talking about this issue of every, the rich getting, getting theirs, and they have these meetings and something. It's just, it's part of that elitism. And there was a real pushback to Davos a couple of years ago, if you remember the protests. I was there one of the years.
There was a lot of protests. That sort of died down. It sort of died down. And while they talk about climate change, the idea of doing something about it seems farfetched at this point.
Just even if they have Greta Thunberg there. I don't know how she got there on a bicycle or whatever she gets there. But, but it's, it's really, I find it, I agree. It's just, I just feel so uncomfortable in those salons and those parties of which if anyone's been there, the parties are insane.
And the wine is insane and the food is insanely expensive and beautiful and everything else. I just, there's something, that's not the way I want my representatives to behave. But that's just. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's an unusual gathering.
I think on the whole, it's, I think what Professor Schwab has built, I actually think is productive for the world. I think it's, I think the world is a net net gainer from Davos. But I think the scrutiny they get, and when they show up and talk about, you know, when they show up and talk about climate change and then board their Gulfstreams, it's, you know, it's important that the media highlight the inconsistency there. I don't, but in general, I think it's good that people get in a room with other world leaders and say, hey, we're, we're having problems at the border.
What do you, I just think it's good when people get together. I guess, I guess. I think the fix is in, Scott. Just so they don't pay taxes.
I'm starting to turn into Elizabeth Warren radical, according to New York Times or something. But you've been radicalized by YouTube. YouTube, right. Exactly.
But it's just, I think there's a lot. People have a lot hearing whatever Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders is saying has a lot of resonance for a lot of people. It does, yeah. Much more so than you realize.
Anyway, we have to take a quick break. We'll be right back with a friend of Pivot. Recommendations can be amazing. I mean, maybe someone recommended that TV show you've been obsessed with lately.
But when it comes to home projects, it's different. If you don't like a show, you might lose a few minutes. If you hire a friend of a friend of a friend to fix a leaky ceiling, you could end up with a flooded kitchen. Maybe I know a guy just isn't enough for your home.
That's why Thumbtack works so well. They'll match you with a top rated local pro. And you can see photos of past work, credentials and reviews all right in the app. For your next home project, try Thumbtack.
Hire the right pro today. Support for the show comes from Odo. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other?
Introducing Odo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce and more.
And the best part? Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you?
Try Odo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Welcome back. So this week I did an interview with Franklin Leonard on Recode Decode.
He is a film executive and the founder of The Blacklist. The Blacklist is a yearly survey of the most liked screenplays that were not greenlit. Lots of which were not big blockbuster action films, but more unconventional characters like Juno, Spotlight and Slumdog Millionaire. Because of The Blacklist, people notice them and a lot of them go on to be produced.
And last week the Oscars, after basically not paying attention to this in any way, nominated a bunch of white men again. Not to say white men aren't talented, but you know there are a lot of stories that aren't about World War I and race car drivers. He wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post on how that did not need to be the case. So we asked him whether he thinks the streaming wars will have an effect on who will be represented in movies and television in the future.
Let's go to the tape. I think that increased competition for talent in the business will require people to look further afield than the traditional places they've looked. And the sort of insane size of their slate means that those people will be left alone to make the things that they see fit. Which I personally believe will make it more likely that the stuff will be high quality.
Not only that, it's good business. If you're trying to make money by making content, you'd be a fool to not be focused on a strategy that includes a full embrace of the country's diversity. These companies need to hire women and people of color, both as talent, writers, directors, producers, etc. But also in the boardroom.
And separate from hiring them, they need to give them the resources in order to realize their vision and empower them to do so with real autonomy. Because they know better their audience than likely the people that are hiring them. All right, Scott, what do you think about this? I mean, Oscar So White is back, as you know.
And then it was coupled by the Grammys controversy. They had hired a woman to shake up everything, Deborah Dugan, and then fired her over, it sounds like, trumped up charges because of the sort of old boys network at the Grammys. What do you think? What do you think about this issue and what Franklin is saying?
Well, I think that's so hard to argue with. I think it starts, though, earlier again with education. And I'm a big believer in affirmative action, which at the end of the day, let's be honest, is discrimination when you pick one kid because of the color of his skin over the color of her skin over other people. But I think that education, I think if you have more people of color going to the greatest film school in the world and that's UCLA School of Film and also the distant second and thirds, NYU and USC, that's some Bruin pride coming through, by the way, Kara.
Then you're going to have more people of color collecting gold statues. So I think it's important that the greatest upward lubricant and means of advancement for economic power and to contribute to our society to make our economy more robust because companies perform better, we're better when there's more diversity that has economic power and the ability to tell these stories. But I think where you start is not with these kind of what I'll call artificial means of different awards or categories, which I just don't think work. I think it's ensuring that people of color have the same access to opportunities, including grad school, such that they can get on stage.
They are making the movies. Look at Netflix and others. There's much more diversity now in terms of moviemaking. And there were plenty of choices in this year's Oscar.
I mean, J-Lo was robbed. I'm sorry. If you saw that performance and the fact that she was not even named, Greta Gerwig. You think it's the people?
I think these awards matter from a, you know, this is a worldwide television show. They are making these movies and they're not getting the recognition in comparison. And whenever there's a black movie or like Black Panther or a woman's movie like Little Women, which both of them did amazingly well at the box office. They're seen as an outlier.
Oh, look at this. I think it's a mentality in Hollywood of this good old boys network that still exists that does this voting. Even though they've been trying to get the committee that all the people that vote for the Oscars to be more diverse. And they've added lots of people overall into the into the mix.
And they've been trying to do that. That is 100 percent right. It still remains in such areas like the directors area or others. I mean, the difference between 1917 and Little Women, I think, is ridiculous.
Like, which one did you see? Well, I fall into the exact stereotype in that I'm a white dude. And I was dying to see 1917. I went and saw it this weekend and I absolutely would have voted for that for Best Picture over everything.
I thought it was incredibly good. You know who am I? I'm an old white guy that comes home and watches documentaries on Hitler. I mean, that's how I relax.
And you're right, unless. Everybody watches documentaries on Hitler, but go ahead. I'm case, I'm exhibit one of what you're talking about. And that is unless you have more people not like me who can appreciate different types of movies, we're going to continue to.
1917 is going to continue to win. And I think it deserves to win. I think it's But he said in an interview with the New York times, 230 should be revoked because the face was not merely an internet company. It's probably getting false if they know to be false.
No one has said publicly, I believe section 230 should be revoked. Why do you think Biden has decided to differentiate himself? I think he doesn't know what he's talking about, doesn't he? I don't think so either, but I'm disappointed and I think they've missed an opportunity.
I think a lot of income inequality, tax avoidance, some of the, you know, the clip you paid, I was actually at the DCN, the Digital Content, I forget what they are, but basically the OP Online Publishers Association conference. And if you look at, I mean, just what's happened over the last 10 years or 20 years, there's been just so many negative externalities that have come from big tech, whether it's the number of journalists been cut in half and the number of corporate PR executives tripling, thereby increasing the ratio of bullshit spin to people, you know, the largest police force in the world that's never carried badges or guns. And it's, you know, it's not because of big tech, but big tech kind of embodies it where they now have, they now have corporate PR departments that are larger in numbers than the newsroom at the New York Times. So there needs to be, I think there needs to be a thoughtful conversation around, as we've talked about removing the content, you know, CDA.
I thought it was a huge opportunity. There was a missed opportunity for candidates. And the only one who's shown the backbone to start talking about it openly and honestly has been Senator Warren. But I think, I think that the worm has turned.
I think the public is very concerned about these people and it's not only the right thing to talk about, but I think it's an opportunity for a candidate who shows up and actually sounds literate on these, on these topics. So far though, the tech thing hasn't stuck with candidates because like little Kamala Harris was talking about Twitter. Warren's tech thing has not gone anywhere. I think people are more concerned about other issues besides beating up on tech.
You might be right. I think that's, they're going to sail right out of this. And that to me is a fail, but I think they're going to sail right out of this. And once whoever's in power, I don't think Trump will do anything.
He's gaining from it. He benefits from the entire ecosystem the way it is. And when the Democrats get in place, they want to do it too. They want to have that.
They want to have the ability to manipulate the American public in egregious ways. So why not use these tools? I don't know. I don't feel confident of anybody.
So I think by them all failures, all of them, even though, so the win, I would say I'm going to do one win is Bill Simmons. He's a podcaster and someone I know pretty well. And he is in talks to be bought by Spotify. Well, I think that's good for Charlsworth and Scott Galloway.
Yes, I do. We'll talk about it later, but this is interesting. It's an interesting thing that Spotify is trying to, they bought Gimlet, obviously, but this podcasting looks like it has legs. I feel good about it.
I feel that's a win. I feel that's a win. Well, there's $17 billion. Just as the success of a company oftentimes is more dependent upon how incompetent the incumbents are versus the actual quality of the company.
And that is, you'd rather be a good company disrupting an industry with just terrible, fat and happy players than a great company trying to disrupt an industry that's already fairly well run. And so when you have, you've had so much value created by companies going after the media industry because media was opaque, a ripoff. You didn't know how you were spending your money. Small businesses couldn't advertise on TV, et cetera.
And then you have the podcast industry where they're going after the $17 billion carcass called radio. And if you've ever listened to radio after listening to satellite TV, just as when you listen to broadcast TV, it's almost unbearable because it is unbearable. The amount of commercials and just how poorly produced they are. And basically the commercials just kind of educate you about what it means to be old and poor.
The personal injury attorneys. They're, they're essentially health remedies. And a lot of it feels borderline fraudulent. My favorite new ad that's run on everything from CNBC, all over the radio is something called title lock where they, they talk about, oh my God, I didn't realize my house could be stolen online by Ukrainian gangs.
And they say, unless you pay us nine 99 a month to protect your title online, you could have your house stolen from you. And I believe that that is unfairly targeting seniors who don't understand that it's very unlikely someone will steal your house online such that they can get nine 99 a month. I don't think ads like that should be allowed to run. And the only places they run are on radio and on bad broadcast television.
So anyways, a $17 billion carcass called radio advertising. The podcasts are coming for, uh, and I think it's a huge, it's a huge, I think it's the only ad supported medium that's growing it double digits right now. And one of the reasons is people as evidenced by, I did lightfully at snarky readovers, ad readovers. People like ad reads from hosts say they enjoy money.
That's where you get more money. So you and I are violent agreement on how just fucking awesome we are. And we are awesome. We got to make some trouble, Scott.
We got to meet quietly off to the side. You don't think we're making trouble. You and I, we are capital T rubble. I know, but I was happy for Bill Simmons.
I love him. And I think, Oh, you know, he's a nice man. He's great. He's great.
I did a podcast with him. He's really good. He's a great fella. Anyway, that's my win.
What is your win? My win is speaking of more white men getting awards. Peter Dinklage won best actor for an actor in a drama series for Game of Thrones. Oh, Game of Thrones.
You're back to that. So there's a, there's a wonderful, his character is really wonderful in that show. And I spent a lot of time in virtue signaling now, but coaching young men and in a piece of advice, I give them a sort of similar to what theory and Lannister said. And that is once, once you own your shortcomings, they can no longer be used against you.
And, and I think it's important for young, especially for young men to realize to try and turn your bugs into a feature. And that is to look at the things you're most insecure about, about your physical appearance, about your shortcomings, and to find ways to make light of them and own them. And it's really liberating. And I think that is the whole Scott Galloway jam, isn't it?
You know what sister, you know it. Come on. Owning my write down Tyrion Lannister. Now I see things.
Now I understand you so much better. So your whole jam is Tyrion Lannister, not necessarily the actor, but the character. That guy's gangster. That guy, that guy, come on, the hand advising people.
That's how I would have not. That's how I would have survived back, back then. But anyways, I do think there's real value, uh, especially around young people as people mature, they start, they start making fun of themselves and it, it's very liberating owning it. Right.
It's like that first site class you took in college where you realized, oh my God, that's a thing. I'm not strange. Other people suffer from this too. So I like the notion.
I think the win is Peter Dinklage in this notion of owning your shortcomings as a means. I have a slightly opposite version of that, which is I think women are always constantly looking at their shortcomings. So I always celebrate how great I am. And I talk about it a lot because I think women do not celebrate their non-shortcomings, the things that are great about themselves.
And they're, they're trained to sort of say, oh no, or something like that. And so I tend to do the opposite. No, I do. That's, that's, that is something I really do like about you is you're, you're not afraid to say, I just fucking rocked the house.
I think that's nice. Go over your loss, fail. Okay. You like my loss.
It's about a white guy. Uh, so the David Brooks wrote an opinion piece. Oh, that guy. And, and there was actually a couple, there was a very interesting point in the opinion piece.
He was talking about, he basically doesn't buy this notion of, he says the class warfare is dangerous and that if you, uh, he cites some interesting statistics here and that income inequality is more between companies than it is within the company. And that is what's driving income inequality is Google is just making so much more than any other company, but everybody up and down the ladder at Google is making a lot of money. I thought that was an interesting point. And there's some good research from MIT that supports that where he lost the script was, he said, he pointed that in the last few years, as a percentage of their base, uh, low income wage earners have increased their wages faster than the top wage earners.
And that is just so misleading and so dangerous because effectively the middle class hasn't had a wage increase in over 30 years. And because it's popped a little bit, there's a kernel of truth in there, but real income, and this is another piece of advice I give to young people, you never get wealthy