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Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Go to vanta.com. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway, and Cara, this is very exciting. Cara has gone Hollywood. That's right, Cara. Made her TV appearance, and you guessed it, she was the baby Yoda on the Mandalorian.
No, no, no, it's my third appearance on the TV show Silicon Valley. And again, once again, I suspect I probably should win the Emmy for it, but I was again on stage for Silicon Valley, the TV show. We have a clip. I think we do.
Go ahead. I'm now using the touches and means to communicate friendship. Hey, is that Cara Swisher? What are you guys doing there?
We are uplifting each other while we plan our annual Women in Tech and Power in the Panel. Cara's moderating. Oh my god, is that Susan Wojowski from YouTube? Don't point, it's unseemly.
That is, you know what, so I got to be honest. I have most of the time, most of the time you tell me about the stuff you do. I have serious of Jomo. Do you know what Jomo is?
No, God. Do I want to know? Most of the shit you do, I think. Oh my God.
I feel so much better about my life than I don't have to do that yet. This was serious FOMO, though. This was very cool. You're actually in the show.
There's another scene later where I'm actually interviewing her about her company. It was all about sex-positive feminism. It was really fun. It was really fun.
They were making fun of that. What the fuck is that? Sex-positive feminism? Is there anything a sex-negotism?
What is that? No, but it was funny. You'll see. It's very fun.
It's adorable. It's really well done. It was nice. It was nice.
And what? I am on another episode. I'm sorry to tell you. In terms of expectations around those of us who've never been on an HBO show, did it meet, not meet, exceed your expectations?
It was fantastic. I love Alex Berg and Mike Judge. I like the whole team there. The food is great.
I had a trailer. Eric Anderson went with me. We hung in the trailer with all the other celebrities. It was fun.
And who's the nicest? Give me the most. I want some Page Six gossip here. Who is the least like their character and the most like their character based on your limited impressions?
Well, Susan Cryer, who plays Lori Bream, is not like that. She's delightful and witty and funny. And she does a perfect job channeling either it's Marissa Mayer, mixed with Mark Zuckerberg, mixed with all of them. And I think she's really, they're all great.
I've interviewed, I've actually, every year that they've had a premiere, I've done a interview with the cast, a lot of the cast. And so I think they're all wonderful. The particular one is the guy, I can't blame him. He plays the assistant, Jared.
He's amazing. He's amazing as a person. And in person, he's so funny. But they're all great.
We've got the best of John TV. He was in TV. He played the boyfriend. I think they're all great.
I think they're all great. I think they're all great. I don't think there's anyone on it. I don't think that I've met that has been great.
They're every one of them. Listen. This episode was actually written by Daisy Gardner. It was actually an all-female directing cast.
Everything else was great there. Who told Eric America that she listened to Rico decode to inspire her script. So shout out to you, Daisy. Thanks for writing this hilarious episode.
Maybe you'll get on a show someday. You want to be on the Mandalorian. No, don't even say that. Don't even say that.
You might catch you on the Mandalorian. You're literally like a 60-year-old man trying to seduce some 30-year-old impression of all these false promises. I just don't buy it. I just don't buy it.
Anyway, let's get down to business. There's so much news happening. Now all my colleagues at Rico were at Code Media in LA this week. A ton of information from Tignadaro to John Stanky of AT&T took the stage.
There was one particular interview with Carolyn Everson. She's the Vice President of Global Marketing Solutions. Whatever that is at Facebook. She told them that the government should regulate ads and not companies.
She said that Facebook was probably not going to do anything from their stance and then walked it back 12 minutes later in another interview. Let's play this day. We really believe that Washington DC needs to put regulation as a citizen. I'm sure you want this too.
Probably everybody in this audience. We'd like to know that the ads we see from our political candidates are truthful. That's really important for democracy. You want the government arbitering what's truthful or not?
We think there should be regulation. We do not think Facebook should be choosing what is true or not. In the interim of that, Google, following in Twitter steps, decided to put in some more less targeting, no targeting, and we'll take out really egregiously false ads, not sort of bloving getting ads. But anyway, Google's now moving in what you call.
What do you call it, Mr. Galway, Professor Galway? I don't know. I'm drawing a blank.
What have I said? White hats. They're white hats. They're white hats.
They're white hats. Like you said, they start to kind of an off-white here. It's not the full starch. It's not Twitter.
It's not a band. That's right. The best thing that happened to Google was Facebook providing cloud cover. Because all of a sudden, they're no longer the bad kit.
It's literally Facebook's most wanted number one. In that statement, when you said, well, I'm sure people here would like to see truthful ads, but want the government to regulate it. I would bet the majority of the people in the office said, well, no, actually, media companies probably, if they can screen out blatantly false content, we'd probably be down with that too. They're in sort of a corner because what they're saying is inconsistent.
It makes no sense. They're kind of isolated and basically trying to... It's difficult to put lipstick on this pig because it just makes no sense with their stated policy. And you've predicted that they're not going to ban them, but they're going to alter it.
Which is what I thought Google was going to do, which is what they do. Now I'm the prediction queen here. What's interesting is that... You're just a queen.
You are just a queen. What's interesting about Google is, look, they've got YouTube, which is more like a TV business, right? It's more akin to a TV business than anything else. And then they've got search, but you've got to search on things to get them.
So they're not in the micro-targeting business the way Facebook is. That said, Google compared to Twitter is a big player here. And the question is, how much pressure it's going to put on Facebook to do something else besides nothing. And what's interesting is that then the Trump people tweeted lobbying Facebook against changing the way it started because the Trump campaign loves it.
And so Brad Parcelle is probably sweating in his Levi's about this situation. But it's going to be really prominent because they're being buffeted by the Trump campaign on one hand and by what Google and Twitter have done on the other. Yeah. The weird thing though is that we are in sort of a little bit of our bubble and we read the media every day and we say, okay, there's a lot of pressure on Facebook.
But it's difficult to bring pressure to bear on a monopoly because there's very little downside. And if you look at some of the things that Facebook's done and then what's happened to them, if you look at the stock price, if you look at the fact that the CEO and the CEO still have their job, I mean, they're really at the end of the day. We think there's pressure on them, but none of this pressure has been resulted in anything potentially bad happening to the company. There's been some fines, we like parking goods.
Well, I agree. What's that? I think they're going to change. I think they're going to do something different.
I think they're keeping their options. But what Facebook has to do is there's got to be 26 disasters and then they move. And I think that's really what it is. But I don't think they like being in this.
And that said, Mark, was it dinner with Trump? That's just revealed because they don't keep blogs in the White House anymore. That Mark had dinner with Pierre Teal in Trump when he was here. That time he gave his idiotic free speech speech.
And so you're trying to play it both ways in that regard. Yeah, it's in the tech executives, Tim Cook got a lot of grief. I know that I don't know how you feel about Tim Cook's role in it. But these corporate leaders are sort of in an impossible position because if they in any way, what Tim Cook, in my opinion, has done, it's been incredible, is his ability to somehow thread the needle between she and Trump and not offend people and figure out a way to still remain, in my view, a principled person who appears to want to do the right thing and does the right thing.
And still maintain anything resembling a productive working relationship with the president. And when you're the most valuable company in the world and you're a less based company, you want to maintain a good relationship with the administration. I thought the media was kind of unfairly harsh on Tim Cook. You feel like he should behave differently.
No, not this one. Go ahead. Look, this is what I tweeted. This is what I tweeted.
This is what I tweeted out today. I opened a major Apple manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America today. Nancy Pelosi closed Congress because she doesn't care about American workers. This is a law.
This is a major law. There's no opening of a major Apple manufacturing plant in Texas. This is what's happening. They toured a plant that's been in operation making Macs since 2013.
They toured that plant. It's not even an Apple company, by the way. It's a company called Flex. It used to be called FlexTronics.
So they didn't open anything. Apple is working on expanding its campus in Austin to a larger campus. Yes, they are. It will have no manufacturing.
And it's obviously going to be more jobs there, but it's not even close to this tweet. And then the Trump campaign turned it into a campaign ad with a lie. And Tim said nothing. This is just look.
When he gets called Tim Apple, I get it. And this is what I wrote. This is completely false. I get the Tim Cook.
Do not correct the Tim Apple thing. Pointing out someone being at it. It's awkward, but this is different. It's a plant run by a company called Flex.
I don't know what deal he's getting in response, but he's pretty much a shocker to a lot of people to do this. I get the idea of having dinner with him. I get like having to be nice to him, but to be part and parcel to a lie that became a lying campaign ad that I guess you then run on Facebook is gross. We know what he wants.
What he wants is exemption from terrorists that are going to take his stock price down. But look, the good news is that Carolyn Everson believes that Apple shouldn't be responsible for checking its own lies. It should be the government regulating them. That was a joke, Kara.
That was good humor. Anyways. In any case, it's a mess. There's a point where you kiss up to people and then there's a point where you don't kiss up to people.
I think that people who use Apple, I was surprised at this level of lying. Silence is annoying enough, but allowing this kind of lie to go on under the corporate name is just, I'm surprised, I have to say this. But if they ran the ad on Facebook, then it's the government, it's Trump that should be regulating the lies of his own making. It's a mess.
It's a mess. But the whole point is that we've gotten used to these lies. Lies are okay. And arguing.
I've got all these imbeciles on Twitter going, they're investing a billion dollars. Trump is right. I'm like, no, he's not. By the way, if you want to give credit, give it to Rick Perry or whoever was governor of Texas at the time, and Obama, because it was 2013, it's just, and by the way, politicians don't matter in these decisions these companies make.
They need to manufacture in China. They will if they need to do it here for some political reason, they'll do it. There's nothing to do with these politicians. Not most of this stuff has nothing to do with politicians.
I agree. Except for AOC and Senator and state Senator Gianaris that saved New York taxpayers $3 billion by telling the wealthiest man in the world to put his hand back in his pocket. I think actually they did have an impact. And also you talk a little bit about code media.
Code media was a lot, a lot happened. And then with John Stanky, he says HBO Max wants to be the next cable bundle, not the next Netflix. Let's listen to his tape. I really expect that the platform at some point in time is a platform that we allow others to bring content into.
I don't think, from my point of view, we're ever going to have AOC or a monopoly on creativity. And I think there's been a number of articles actually written in the last couple of weeks about the frustration and the fragmentation of the bundle and what's going to happen. We're basically unbundling the rebuttal. At some point there will be platforms that re-aggregate and re-bundal, and we like the platform ultimately to be a place where re-aggregation occurs, and that doesn't just mean our content.
Scott, your rundle idea is catching along with John Stanky. He has a very deep voice, by the way. He has water media. The rundle, Scott, what do you think?
There's too many things out there. What do you think? Well, I actually think this will be the brand disaster move of 2020. And I think what Mr.
Stanky... Oh, explain yourself. Well, okay. HBO has 23% of their shows are rated higher than 7.5 on IMDB versus just 6% for Amazon Prime or 10% for Netflix.
If you look at the amount of Amuse that HBO's went and went 34 last year, which is more than Netflix and Amazon almost combined. And what you have here is an incredible culture that has created the equivalent of a luxury brand. And I mean, some more data here. So if you were to take the monthly fee of these bundles and then divide it by the billions of dollars we're spending on original content, basically what HBO has been able to do is nothing short of remarkable.
And that is that for basically for $7.50, HBO gives you a billion dollars worth of original content. And despite charging you more, in other words, it's the worst value versus Apple TV, you only have to spend $0.80 a month as a consumer to get a billion dollars in original content. With Netflix, you have to spend $0.90 prime video $1.30, HBO charges you $7.50. Like this, HBO continues to produce the best content.
So HBO is the equivalent of a Birkin bag. And what Stanky is deciding to do by trying to go more mass and layer in all this kind of mediocre content from Warner is he said, I know we're Birkin. We're a luxury brand. We have the best, highest margin company or creative machine in the world.
We have artisans in the form of content creators and we're going to turn it into fucking coaching on Walmart. But the brand has done that. Can you recall the brand that's gone? That's great.
There's a bunch of brands that have done that gone too cheap, right? Well, I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot, I mean, Cartier when they started putting their names on Lincoln town cars, but then they got it back and made an incredible brand. It's much easier to go downhill, but then there's no going back. And the bottom line is they can't compete with the deep pockets of Netflix or Apple TV.
So this is literally John Stanky taking a Birkin bag down to a coach bag down to a Brooklyn messenger bag. It's just the worst strategy in the world. They can't compete with the deep pockets of Netflix and Apple TV plus. They only have about 200 original shows or 200 shows on their platform versus 2000 on Netflix and Amazon.
So they can't go toe to toe with these guys. They had to stay. And they shouldn't. And don't you, when you hear a show is from HBO, don't you naturally assume in the back of your mind, it's probably going to be better and you're more willing to trial it.
Except now I was using those on an airplane yesterday and, you know, Fleabag is from what Amazon? Yeah. I forget anyone else. Fleabag is from Amazon.
Maisel is from Amazon, which I watch. I'm trying to think of the things I watch. Homeland is some short time. I don't think of HBO as the only place for great stuff.
Although there's great stuff on it, right? Let me just be clear. There's tons of great stuff on there. But others have started to make great stuff, HBO worthy stuff.
So I don't know if they have the market on that anymore. But they don't have any choice. They don't have any choice. They have fewer programs, but better programs and they have to maintain the only asset they have.
So in terms of capital and armaments and spending against these deeper pocketed players, the only strategy they have is to maintain a hundred percent succession. Think about it. Oh my God. That's a pronto.
Six feet under the best show that nobody ever watched. The Wire. Hank on Larry Sanders. This company has the secret sauce of being able to produce amazing content on a fraction of the budget.
They're a luxury brand. And they've decided, no, we're not going to be a luxury brand. We're going to be Walmart and Target. And by the way, that market is covered like crazy with cheap tacos.
So the worst brand decision of 2020 was the decision for AT&T to basically trust or positioning as a luxury brand in the content arena and move into the mass market. It is not going to work. It's going to result in one of the large corporate breakdowns. I think you're a hundred percent right on that.
And I think other people are moving into the luxury space and they're taking their eye off the ball. But you know, AT&T is a mass brand and they don't know how to own something. People want to see Cara Swisher on Silicon Valley. They don't want to see the dog on a bunch of like big bang theory on HBO.
Right? They want the high end stuff. Anyways, I'm running on. Okay.
Scott, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back after this with friends of pivot. We've got listener mail. We've got predictions.
We've got wins and laws. We'll have to go. We'll be back in a minute. We're all talking to each other to see what do we do wrong?
What do we not see? I'm in Washington, D.C. this week to interview Ruben Geigo. He's a Democratic Senator from Arizona and he's been thinking openly about running for higher office.
But he's recently running to some hot water because of his connection to Congress, the Congress, Merrick, Swallow. I have to learn from this. And I will learn from this. But, you know, for me, it's not a 20, 28 question.
It's about what it means to be a better first boss in my office and also a better Senator to my constituents. This week on America, actually, we asked Geigo about predatory behavior in Washington. His plans for immigration reform and more. This week on Network In Chill, I'm breaking down the institution everyone's talking about right now, but nobody actually understands the federal reserve.
With all the drama happening between Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell, you're probably seeing headlines and wondering what any of this has to do with your money. Spoiler alert, it's everything. I'll explain what the Fed actually is, why it exists, and how this one institution controls the interest rates on your mortgage, credit cards, student loans, and more. We're diving into why raising or cutting rates isn't just boring policy talk.
It's the difference between affording a house or watching crisis spiral out of control. Plus, I'm breaking down the current controversy over firing Fed board members and why both Republicans and Democrats are freaking out about it because this fight isn't just political theater, it could mean real chaos for your wallet. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash your rich BFF. Welcome back to Pivot.
All right, Scott, we're going to hear from a friend, a friend of Pivot. That's a new thing. Fop. Fop.
Okay. Fop. She's Ariel Duhaem Ross, the host of Fox's podcast, Reset, where she covers stories where people want to hear what's behind new tech developments and policies. So go to tape.
This week on Reset, we're doing an episode on Sharenting, which is basically what happens when parents share information about their kids online. So while I was working on this episode, one of the things that I learned was that even when parents announce the birth of their child online, they tend to give the specific date and that can actually be a problem because that makes it more likely that your kids' identity will be stolen. I know both of you like to talk about your kids on the show and on social media and Cara. You just had a baby.
Congrats on that, by the way. So I'm curious, especially going into the holiday season and, you know, when parents are posting lots of pictures of their kids online, how do you decide what to share on the internet about your children? Thanks, guys. It's a really thoughtful question.
Yeah. You go first. I got in trouble speaking with my 14 year old because I share it. I'm a Sharon.
Yeah. There's no way around it. I don't like it. Well, the older one doesn't care.
Let's see if I could have sat with him. Well, no. Yeah. The older one doesn't care.
It doesn't seem to care. It seems fine, but he doesn't care. But the other one, he was furious at me because I shared a picture of him holding his new sister. He doesn't mind.
He was fascinating. He doesn't mind me necessarily sharing, but now I have to check with him if the pictures are good, which he's totally fair. And secondly, he wanted me to tag him, but not always. And so I realize I have taken it.
I am a Sharon and I'm doing the same thing. I don't know. It's a good debate to have and it's a really important topic because I just don't have anything to stand on it. I have what I'll call moral clarity around this issue and that is initially I turn my Instagram account private and I don't accept new users because I have pictures of my kids and it feels it just feels private.
And it feels like that should be one area of your life that is just that is private and you keep it sort of precious and special and unique. But I also write a lot about my children and my black person, Merci no Malice, but I try to refer to them in the generic of my oldest and my youngest. I did publish a picture of my youngest and then afterwards I thought I probably shouldn't be publishing pictures of them until their age of consent. And I talk about them on this podcast a lot, but sometimes I think it's that performative am I trying to be more likable by showing these incredibly, you know, we all think our kids are special and wonderful and they are and I wonder am I doing that to make a point or because I want to be more likable.
So my kind of move right now is I've decided I'm going to be performative and pimp my dogs. I'm going to not try to talk less about my kids and talk more about dogs. Those dogs give consent. I'm not sure.
Oh my God. Such joy. Zoe the Vichla. And now we have the Puerto Rican rescue ham gangster and he's doing very well.
He's doing very well. He's doing George Conway with your dogs. That's right. It's a really interesting topic.
You should listen to this show. But I think it's something you have to think about a lot. And my son, Louie, I've talked about their names that has been on the podcast and he's very valuable and likes to do it. And the other one I'm not going to say his name because he doesn't want me to and or maybe he does.
I don't know that things change every day, but it's a really it's a big issue and people should listen to this topic because it's a big issue between being called a Sharon screen agent. That's the other name my kid has for me and a an okay boomer. It's been a great time at home. Anyway, let's take a listener question now about another topic sort of related to kids.
It's a topic that I think about a lot. Jewel get sued. Go ahead. This week's pivot listener male comes from Owen Libby.
He's from Manhattan, New York. He's wondering is Altria's investment in jewel, the worst corporate investment of all time, a little background, California and New York formally sued jewel earlier this week for allegedly targeting teens toward flavored nicotine with their marketing. So he's wondering because you both have kids, whether you have any vaping testimony or self, whether you have any thoughts on this area in general, thanks, Owen. Oh, I have thoughts.
What do you have? That's the worst. The worst. The worst.
If you have teens, I think your kids are a little younger. It's just completely targeted toward them. It's as bad as old cigarette marketing. I have so I own so many jewels.
Like I've taken them from my my oldest good and I just think it's awful. I think the way they're doing this, I think it's dangerous. I think some of these, you know, I think probably the dangers are probably slightly overhyped by the media, but nonetheless, it's just like smoking as far as I'm concerned. And I think the marketing is what really drives me crazy, the flavor, it's so aimed at young people.
And I do think it's the worst investment from Altria. And I think those people walked out with a whole bunch of, they're sort of like the we were people just walked out after perpetrating what is essentially a really dangerous product. Thank you. Yeah.
So I have, again, no moral clarity here full disclosure. I'm an investor in the space. Tobacco had a strangle I called on my household, took my mother's life. And I think that the fast, and I'm not making any way of health claim here.
And this is just a pure thesis or opinion of my view. But if we were to give an e-cigarette to every smoker over the age of 25 and reduce the number of tobacco smokers 10% a year, I think we would save more lives or we could save five to seven million lives. And at the same time, the outrage over the youth problem, I think it's justified. I think your concerns are justified.
The question around whether or not it was the biggest kind of corporate blunder from just a purely financial standpoint, it's not even close. Altria invested $13 billion for a one-third stake value in the company at about $40 billion, it rose to $50 billion. Let's say that's been cut in half or even say they've lost $6 to $10 billion. I don't want to worry about AOL for about $163 billion.
And then fast forward 15 years later, AOL and Yahoo got sold for $5 billion, Google bought Motorola for $13 billion and sold it, I think, for $2 or $3 billion to Lenovo. Game were bought Chrysler for $38 billion and ended up selling it back to private equity after failed integration for 7 to 10. So this doesn't even make the top 10. There have been a lot more disastrous acquisitions that have been written down by much more.
Okay, that's a fair point. But it's still not a good one. And secondly, let me just say, look, look, the Center for Disease Control has reported over 2,000 long injury cases and 43 deaths linked to being more than 120 of those people who were kids or minors. Altria is a tobacco company, and so they are just trying to keep their nicotine addicts with them.
And I just, as a parent, when I see this marketing, it's like mass and the coolness factor and everything else, it's just, you know, if older people want to ruin their lives by smoking and that's what you do, just so you know, you're sucking on a death stick. You don't point them at kids, so it's such a point in their lives where, you know, they think they're cool doing them in celebrities, it's like the old secret days, and I'm sorry even if they're even slightly healthier, it's just, I just think they acted incredibly badly just on every aspect of them and then tried to put themselves off. Another company that pretended they were a tech company, they're not a tech company, they're a smoking company, so sorry. Thank you.
Anyway, we'll move on from that on that note. We need to take one more quick break, we'll be back with wins and fails and predictions. Okay, we're back, let's talk about wins and fails, come on Scott, what are your wins and fails this week? So my win is, who is my win?
My win is Ambassador Ivanovich. Oh, nice. And I just thought this was, you know, this last week what the media has been reporting on that the impact of this was a series of drum beats that have in fact continued to link the President with the criminality that is, you know, the President. What I found especially encouraging or rewarding about Ambassador Ivanovich's testimony is that I think it restores a lot of faith, but I've always felt that we give people in uniform or people in the government who are in what I'd call kind of macho jobs, the credit they deserve, but we have a tendency to mock or be somewhat cynical about the people in government who aren't, you know, don't carry an M16 or aren't working as spies, right?
And the reality is we have an incredible army of people who decide to spend their life working for something bigger than themselves to advance our interests overseas and domestically and Ambassador Ivanovich, I thought, was on full display in terms of how impressive many of these people are and how fortunate we have. So this is the daughter of parents who fled, Nazi Germany and then the Russians figured out a way to get to Princeton, then she studied at the Pushkin Institute, then she received an MS from the National Defense University's National War College. She rose to become the Ambassador, occurred us on, and then Armenia, and then while in Armenia, she was given an award, she went to huge lengths and was hugely successful convincing the Armenian government to release protesters from prison. She was given the Secretary's Diplomacy and Human Rights Award at the Department Award honoring ambassadors who demonstrate extraordinary commitment to defending human rights.
She's been given all sorts of awards. I mean, this is just an incredibly impressive person who had so many options, who didn't go to work for Goldman, didn't go to work for Myspace or a tech company and decided to serve her country. And then to have, you know, soon to be selling me to Michael Cohen Rudy Giuliani show up and basically disparage her, it just really, it not only, it not only highlighted how corrupt this administration is, but I thought in a very positive way, it demonstrated just how incredible and positive this army of people overseas are. Yeah, they were fantastic.
So she's, anyways, Ambassador Yvonne. My friend did a, it was at the jazz department, D.C. called the Blue Sally and she did a tape of people giving her standing ovation, she's a jazz fan, and she was there and when she walked in, everyone gave her a standing ovation. I think people really want to feel proud of their country and the attacks on her are reprehensible by the Trump administration, they're reprehensible.
And they're back firing. They're just back firing. You listen to these people and they just, the truth has a nice ring to it and it just ringing so loud that everything they say sounds so true. And by the way, Ambassador Sond clearly is Laura, but you know what happened there is Laura clearly said I'm down to it.
I just have one question for you. And if the answer is no, get your shit straight and tell the truth because everybody that's gotten up there thinking that in some perverted source of patriotism and loyalty to the president and lies, misleads, it's like Lady Justice kind of, we thought she might have left the building. She was just grabbing coffee and she is back with a vengeance and it is working. These people when they now stand in front of Congress are like, okay, best I tell the truth because people are going to prison and it's good to see.
It's good to see that our system is working and people when they get in front of these committees are now saying, okay, the best advice you can get is to tell the truth and revise the testimony I think twice. But it feels like the system. It feels like we're in an ongoing episode of Star Wars, like, oh God, the Empire, the Empire. You said that like the bad thing.
So there's like seven people from the resistance left, it's like, oh, Jesus, God, these people I keep on calling. Like, honestly, I just from like even just doing this tweet about Apple, you're like, oh, you're a, you want to tell me about it. I'm like, no, I don't want the president to lie and use Apple as an ad. Like, thank you.
Just like, I'm sorry, you have so little, like you have so few abilities not to think lying is okay. I just, I just, I agree with you. I think it was very heartening to listen to that and to listen to all these people and, you know, Lieutenant Colonel Vin, I thought it was great. Weirdly, he looks, my dad was also the military and he looks like my dad and my dad died when I was young.
And so I was like, so proud of like the idea of like, he wasn't having any of it. You know what I mean? Like, he's, you know, he's an immigrant. He came from the former Soviet Union.
Just, I thought he was great too. I know we revere military more than other things, but I thought he was exactly what was right about the military. Who's your win? Hunter.
My win. I'm going to go to someone who's not like a ambassador, the ambassador at Kylie Jenner's cosmetics company being bought by Cody for $600 million. Oh my gosh. We also make up brands, cover girl, Max Factor.
Yeah. You know, this was really interesting. The question is what's going to happen to it, but Cody's shares rose 2.6% this week. These independent beauty brands, like not just from Kylie Jenner, but from Rihanna with Fenty, which apparently is very good, because people really make up people always tell me it's really fantastic.
I think it's really interesting. And I do think it shows that, look, this is real money. This is real money. The Kardashians, as much as people make fun of them, Kylie Jenner is obviously one daughter of Kris Jenner and part of the Kardashian and the Empire.
I think it's really interesting that these brands are just being created like this and I thought that was fascinating. I'm curious what you think. You can bash the Kardashians all you want if you feel like, but I thought it was, it put some lipstick on this, whatever. No, I agree with you.
I think the Kardashian women or daughters are impressive people and I think it seems to be cynical about them, but they build great businesses. It's doing 200 million revenues. It was actually purchased at 51% of the company for $600 million valuing the company of $1.2 billion. It's really, it's a certain extent it's a victory for social media because the primary asset here wasn't a proprietary skincare line or even a great brand, but her ability to sell $200 million of cosmetics to primarily the Ulta channel using I think $60 million followers on Instagram or Twitter.
So this notion, what are these independent, you have a few trends, one in the beauty space, which is a wonderful space that is high margin, great for e-commerce, and it's one of the few spaces that hasn't been disrupted by technology or Amazon because brands important and there's a certain kind of, similar to HBO, there's a culture of creativity places like Estee Lauder and L'Oreal. They continue. It's the big ones. P&G, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, the big ones.
And then you have Clarence and then P&G looks like the smart company because they sold all their cosmetics line to Cody and quite frankly, it looks like Cody overpaid for it, Cody stock was down dramatically. It's come back, but Cody's largely kind of a fragrance and a licensing company of celebrity driven fragrances. But anyways, what this shows is the power of these long tail brands has incredible power across beauty, hair, hair, cosmetics, and skin, and when you have a $200 million company that's built on the back of social media and distribution through Ulta, valuation of $1.2 billion. I mean, it's just, it's kind of impressive all around and plays on a lot of trends, but I think the big winner here is it shows just how important Instagram is in terms of building a high margin aspirational product.
Condonast, I've been reinvented or reimagined for a digital age. Remember how powerful the Condonast media company was with Vogue and it would look something like Instagram. So Instagram, my thesis is that in 24 months and this is another indication Instagram will be worth more than the core platform of Facebook. Yeah, I agree.
That's like a prediction. I agree. I think this is a big win and I think people like to make back. I got a lot of pushback when I said this was fascinating because they love to just keep talking about confidential sex tape years to come.
But look, these people have created a lot of stuff whether you would think the messages about girls are wrong or not. They've done a lot of things that are really interesting and a lot of these celebrities are using these social media problems for really interesting stuff and I think this is one of them in terms of Kylie Jenner and someone like The Rock who I have just been tweeting with back and forth. I saw that. The Rock's all over you.
The Rock is all over you. What did he call you? He called you his hero? He called you the Rock bundle.
From you. Did you see that? When did George Clooney first off? The Rock graduated from college.
The Rock has been an incredible movie so basically we're comparing him to George Clooney about how much more impressive he is and Clooney. The Rock is very impressive. I love The Rock. If I could get The Rock on the podcast or a code literally, it would be a dream.
Someone was like, who's my... By the way, years ago when I was talking to Facebook and who was a real up-and-comer on social media, they said two names, the Kardashians and The Rock and they said he is just something else on social media. I think he's... I can't believe he responded to me.
I literally screamed when I saw that. I just watched Hobbes and Shaw which I loved, of course, and I was really thrilled. He was great about it. He wants to have a drink.
Again, more hollow promises. If I get drunk with The Rock, you are coming. Literally, you cannot embarrass yourself with me and The Rock. Do you understand?
Because I am deeply... It just takes me to the ugly place that my dad constantly holding out that Rabbit code. He was going to get my mom that never came. I'm just saying.
We never got The Rock code. We got a two-bedroom apartment in Cino and mediocre child support. That's where you take me with these hollow promises. I have the Rock.
The Rock. Listen, The Rock. Listen, Duane. I love you.
You need to come to code or whatever. I will do if I don't do anywhere anytime. It will be so much fun. We will laugh and laugh and laugh and then we'll have to keel afterwards.
both on a workout program and let's just see what happens. No, that's not even trying to bother. You're failed very quickly. We got to go because you got to get your prediction.
I like that. Oh, my fail is easy. My fail is just the brand strategy blunder and it will result in what is the erosion. I've had companies that've been acquired and what you realize is the culture is just so important and one of the great cultures in all of corporate America and media is the culture at HBO.
And you have just an incredibly poor judgment right now that is going to erode the culture that has produced some of the most, for me, some of the most moving content and history. And it's not only the wrong thing to do but just in terms of destroying art, it's the stupid thing to do. They can't be Walmart. So my fail is just poor decision-making at HBO going to HBO Max.
No one wants Big Bang Theory to junk up the wire six feet under girls. Richard Zeppelin's probably just joking. Well, did you hear? Supposedly, Apple is eyeing him.
Yes, they are. Yes, they are. The Depockets of Apple, the original content pair. No, I mean, he's going to deal with them.
That makes sense. I mean, that's going to be a formidable. We're talking, we definitely want to know that guy because that's our invite to the Emmys because that guy's going to be accepting a lot of it. I know that kind of as well.
Well, of course you do. That's the key guy for HBO for HBO for HBO for years before he became the head of it. He was in my book. He was in my, I know, I love that plepler guy.
He's a fantastic amazing guy. Yeah, but him on top of a limitless capital in the Apple brand, watch out. I love the plepler. He's very funny.
He's a funny guy. You know, plepler, don't you? I got an email from him asking if we could have lunch and similar to you. He loves it.
Promises another rabbit coat. He likes to go, I forget what your restaurant he goes, you've got to go. I'm going to poke you up with the plepler. I will do that.
Here we go again. More promises, you can't help yourself. He loves to meet interesting people and you're interested in his dinner. And also me and also me.
Yeah, he likes to have interesting people at dinner parties in New York. You know those things where you sort of on display like a zebra. You'd be perfect. You'd be perfect.
I got it. You're like a zebra. Thanks for that. OK, we're going to get to pretty soon.
Obviously it's Tim Cook and Trump this week. And I don't blame Trump because he lies like he breathes. But Tim Cook should know better. Thank you.
OK, your prediction and then we've got to go. My prediction. So a name you're going to hear more about in 2020. And it's going to become a player in the ecosystem between the intersection of tech and the streaming wars, which I'm just fascinated right now, is Roku.
And Roku, now I believe, has a 38% share of devices for streaming ahead of Amazon, whose Firestick I think has about a 30% share. And when you look at one of the keys, one of the missing links to Netflix and to Disney+, is they don't control their distribution. So their ability to go toe to toe with Amazon and Apple streaming offerings that control their own distribution will be their ability to either acquire distribution or build it or the other way. And Roku offers that or the other way, because Roku stock is skyrocketed.
And now, as sports, I think about a $15 or $16 billion market cap, you could see a Roku. You could see a man by its dog. And you could see Roku go out and start to acquire content, maybe even a CVS that I think sports about $13 billion market cap right now. But a bigger name that we're not talking a lot about now in 2020, and a new player in the space, if you will, is Roku.
Roku? OK, that's interesting. You're pulling them out of nowhere. Got Netflix or anything like that?
Well, they either get acquired. They could get acquired by Netflix or potentially Disney that need distribution. Or they, if their stock keeps going up, will use their currency to go acquire a content company. But Roku is going to be in the news, either as a seminal acquireer or acquisition in 2020.
I think that's really smart. I never even thought about Roku, but you're right. Well, I heard Richard's listening, so I'm trying to impress. I like that a lot.
I like that concept a lot. It's interesting. Netflix, I still think, despite the fact that Disney's done a great job with this thing, and HBO Max is coming. I still think Netflix got a lot of kick left at it in terms of its programming.
I watched, if you can believe it, Let It Know, which is their Christmas movie. It's trying to sort of be book smart, but not as quite as smart. And I thought I could see why they're doing really well. It was really well done, even though it was ridiculous and empty for a rom-com.
But it was sort of a mixed book smart in love, actually. So I still think they're really canny as programmers. And so it'll take a lot for others to keep up with how good they are. We know who winners are, just based on that, as content creators, as evidenced by just an anecdotal or a small data point, Netflix is expanding their creative community and their producers and their content hub in Madrid, Spain from 13,000 people to 25,000 people.
So think about Netflix. It's going to have 25,000 people in Madrid producing European content, and it gives you a sense of really, it's a wonderful time for kids coming out of college right now. If they can be any part of the ecosystem, it manages to figure out a way to produce creative, differentiated content that is a really good wrap right now to cost of producing a show in the last 12 months, according to Netflix, it's gone up 30% to 40%, which indicates that everyone from the gaffers, to the caterers, to the people moving your trailer around are making a lot more money. So this is a growth part of the economy.
Get to content, get to content. Yeah, and speaking of content, I'm going to have a prediction. Star Wars, the rise of Skywalker is going to be huge, and cats is not, even though it's weird looking. Well, you're really going out on a win there.
I know, you want to have to go to both in a double future. There we go again, there we go again. It's right on this rabbit coat, it's coming. Yes, it's going to go see cats and sing along.
You're taking me back to Sears. My dad pulls out a diner's cart club card. That's right, we're going to go see cats together. We're going to hold hands.
Yeah, that's what you call JOMO, joy of missing out, joy of missing out. Taylor Swift is a cat, we need to talk about Taylor Swift, Giggings, Scott, or Jett, or whatever, and Scooter Braun in the place where it hurts. Taylor Swift. Nice, Taylor.
What do you got going on this week, Kara? What's the big cat up to? This week, we have a lot of interviews. I've got a lot of interviews.
I'm going up to Boston for Thanksgiving. What are you doing for Thanksgiving? My sister and her family, who I will not be posting on social media or Instagram, will be coming down. My dad's third wife, my wonderful stepmother, was the first person to ever spoil me.
She's Linda, the first person to spoil me, buy me things. She used to send me cookies, and you always love for the rest of your life, the first person who spoiled you, I didn't have grandparents, but I had my dad's third wife. Thought she couldn't have children. He's on number four, but we think this one's going to stick.
Yeah, he's a heartwarming family. Isn't that nice? Isn't that nice? My dad's third wife.
She's wonderful. What do you think? What do you think before? I'm thankful we live in a country that attracts some of the best and brightest that can you continue to want to serve for us silently and quietly and competently.
I'm thankful for ambassadors, the Secret Service, the DMV and the University of California. I'm thankful for all the wonderful people who've made this incredible experiment as robust as it is. Oh, god, that's so good. And your wife, all that's for her third wife.
Am I dad's third wife? Listen to me. I'm thankful for you. What do you think?
I'm thankful for you, because you make me look good. You make me look good. Someone the other day goes, you know, Scott's really offensive. And I'm like, uh-huh.
Well, no shed. And they go, well, do you think that's OK? I'm like, I love it. It's fantastic.
It's my favorite part, because I can kick him in the deep. And then he says something really smart. It works, and then he says something else. But I'm thankful for you, and I'd be more thankful if the next time we meet you were dressed in drag, that's what I would be thankful for.
That's nice. All right, we're going to see chats. And you're going to dress like a cat. Rebecca Newman, I'm dressing as Rebecca.
All right. Anyway, Scott, we've got to go now. We'll be back next week. We do have to go.
There's more things. Before we go, I want a big thank you, actually, to all the amazing listener questions and feedback in Twitter in our inbox. Thank you all, and thank you for the people listed it to pivot. We love our fans.
We've gotten great notes from Mexico, from everywhere around the world who want us to come there. And we are going to go everywhere as long as you buy our drinks. That's how it works for us. How to stay in the world.
Mexico, how to stay in the world right now. We're going to figure it out. We're going to perform it online. Erica is on it.
She's going to figure it out. They're all going to. And Rebecca, they're going to figure it out for us. Anyway, please keep your questions, requests, suggestions coming into our inbox.
Keep telling Scott he's the best on Twitter. We can be reached at pivot at voxmedia.com. Also, tweet at us using hashtag Pivot Podcast. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sonones.
Gauthem Srikashen engineered. This episode, Eric Anderson, is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Rebecca Castro and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast.