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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, but Cara, do you know what my close friends call me? What? A boo, a car, a big doggy. That's right.
Drawing a reference, drawing a reference between me and the deceased leader of ISIS, so offensive on so many dimensions that it's not offensive. Do you know, they're not talking enough about it, said Trump last night in Louisiana, about his role in that. About him bringing down an even bigger terrorist. Yeah, I know.
Okay, and we're off. Listen to me. There's a lot of news, there's a lot to go in. It was your birthday this week, wasn't it?
I completely forgot. That's a shocker. That's a shocker. I'm lying about my age, by the way.
Do you lie about your age? No, not at all. Of course not. How old are you?
I'll be 46 in November as the official line. No, you won't. Oh my God. My kids don't know how old I am, seriously.
So just keep it to yourself. That can be easily found. I'm just going to consult Facebook data in a second. We'll get to that big story.
Listen, Scott, there's a lot of news. You've got to get to it. I think, but first of all, first of all, I think I want to talk about the business itself. I think we're going to rebrand Pivot to P-I-V-O-T, all caps.
That's right. Facebook's new brand. Yeah, but all caps. So let's talk about that.
It's sort of interesting. When I was in my second year of business school, I was inspired by this profession named David Ocker, the father of modern branding, and started a company called Profit, my first firm, a brand strategy firm, and we used to do this for a living. We would show up and charge large corporations a lot of money to figure out what the brand was supposed to mean, and then figure out the visual metaphors that reinforce that meaning. And I was trying to figure out what the meaning and the focus group and the ethnographies would be around Facebook, trying to understand the DNA of the brand and what I came up with as they need a logo that reinforces this association and this core identity, if you will, of reconnecting with loved ones such that you can find out that they're racists.
That's the DNA of Facebook's brand. I think they all caps kind of gets that apart. It's not to say it again. It's not Facebook.
It's not Facebook. It's Facebook. It's Facebook. It's Facebook.
It's Facebook. It's not that it's not screaming at you. In the no idea before, now it's screaming at you and all caps. I'm surprised I didn't add some bangers on the end just to drive you crazy.
This huge story is developing. You cannot make this stuff up. There was a huge news dump of leaked documents that showed just how conniving Facebook has been profiting off your data. And now the California Attorney General is doing Zuckerberg and Sandberg for their emails because he says they're not cooperating with them.
This is a Attorney General is super aggressive. But someone put out 4,000 pages of documents detailing internal use of data. This is amazing. I can go through them if you'd like or we can discuss it.
But one was the Switcheroo. It sounds like a sign fill-up is actually Facebook's internal plan. Facebook has been cutting access to user data for app developers from 2012 to quash potential rivals while presenting the move in the general public as a boon for user privacy. It was contemplating forcing companies to pay access user to access user's data and it didn't follow through on the plan.
There's just so much in this Trevor Trove, which is essentially what we thought they were doing, which is trying to quash rivals and trying to manipulate your data. So there we have it. Yeah, I'm not sure it's anything that any other company doesn't do. It's just a Facebook's been better at it and it's more frightening.
They're just so disingenuous getting up and saying we want to give voice to the unheard when they could give a flying F about for some right. So just trying to promote this notion that we don't want to be having any sort of a throttle on our business model. But yeah, you see just inside the organization just how disingenuously they are about everything. Yeah, I keep saying that.
No one believes me, the compromise level is so high. Yesterday, David Marcus was on stage at the New York Times event in New York. And so was Megan Delrahim, who's going to be the one suing Facebook for antitrust issues. And he was saying, I think it's not so much being big and I did a panel with Chris Hughes and a whole bunch of people who create new mark about bigness.
And everyone was like, it's not so much big. It's what if you abuse your big power and this is like showing this is exactly this. These are the kind of crumbs that federal prosecutors need to put together a story of using like a very Microsoftian story. So I think these leaked dumps is not the way you'd want it to happen.
But certainly it shows there are documents out there as we know there are of their behavior. And what do you think happens? Do you think it's California that takes the lead on it? Do you think it's Washington?
What do you think happens? I think all of them. I think this is just too much good stuff here. With Gates, there was just a few documents that were sketchy if I recall.
Or maybe there was more, but there was not these so incriminating documents, which you know, Facebook is saying for there, let's be fair, that this paints a skewed picture out of context of old emails. And you know, that's their excuse. But it's not good to have this stuff to have actual documents. And that's the, it doesn't link to Katie Hill.
But if you don't want to see something later, you don't want to see something later. They just, they did these things at a time when they were much looser and thought it was smaller. But now in context, it doesn't look very good that they're trying to block other people's business, which everybody accuses them of. And instead, and now there's proof of it.
So I think it's problematic on lots of levels. You know how they could, seriously, they could solve this in about 90 days and their stock would go up 30%. And they could, absolutely. Tell me.
Well, it's what the kind of the patriarch of the family succession, which is a great series, says when he comes under fire. And that is, all right, it's time for a blood offering. That was right. That was crazy.
If Mark Zuckerberg said, look, we're proud of the progress we've made. This is an incredible company, but our role in society and the economic growth we provide, the economic security we provide, the connections we provide are so important. This has grown beyond me and similar to Bill Gates. I'm going to kick myself up to Chairman, and by the way, Cheryl Sandberg has announced he's leaving to start a foundation focusing on, you know, name whatever, I don't know.
The latest fabric softener for her reputation is the stock would be up 20 to 30% in 90 days. This company, there's never a company that's needed so badly to turn the page. And it's interesting that people really don't talk about the notion that it is so time for a change of management here. And it's weird that we just don't talk about it because we assume that's an impossibility.
And at some point they're going to say, you know, all right, enough already. It's time to move these, either kick them upstairs, but to bring in somebody who has, who can kind of hit the reset button. Who's going to do it? Well, you said Brad Smith.
I don't know if that's the right guy or guy. Who's going to actually get Mark to do that? It's got to be Mark doing this. No, the board.
There's only one way to do it. The board's got to hold hands and say, we want you out or we're putting a press release out saying we want to do. Why should the stock is at a high? Why should they?
They're not going to do it. Sorry, stock. I think that's a valid point. Logan Roy's situation, which is very tenuous at the end of last season.
This is a company at full bore. Like, it's going crazy. And, you know, Gates didn't have this kind of control. Nobody had this kind of control.
And I think it's not a, this is a board which is sort of like the Trump cabinet or Lindsey Graham. They're just not going to do anything about it. Power, power, absolutely corrupt. Speaking of the Trump cabinet and a segue to our next story, you know where, who's going to do absolutely nothing and start making excuses for the Saudis is our president after we found out that they, in fact, had infiltrated Twitter.
They're also a shareholder, by the way. Big shareholders. The Saudis are the funds? Yeah, one of the, one of the crown princes, this current crown prince, put in jail, was a big investor.
I mean, I, I assume they still have the investment. It was large. It was quite a big chunk of, chunk of root with that company. Can you sort of break down or give a summary of what's happened to Twitter?
Because I read through it and I think I understand what happened, but can you sort of summarize what's gone down there? Yeah. Well, they, they have these employees. And believe me, I've raised down stories, not just about Saudis, but, but Russians at Google, so-and-so at Facebook that there's places that these countries are placing people in these access points, which makes total sense.
Right. I've never been able to. I'm not a national security reporter. I think it's the FBI's job to figure this one out.
I don't have special powers to catch these people. So many rumors over the years that I've never been able to. I'm just not going to have a reporter to do it. But employees access to Twitter's information on dissidents who use the platform.
This is the first time federal prosecutors have accused the Kingdom of running agents in the U.S., which should come as a shock to zero people. One of them is implicated in the scheme, of course, is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, MBS. He was the one who, who the CIA has concluded, killed Jamal Khashoggi. And so it's just, it's just crazy.
It's just, they're just using it as their way to track people. Their own little CIA. And I don't know what the companies can do to prevent it. Like they have to really the vetting on these employees.
I don't even know if they could do it correctly. I don't blame these companies because they've got thousands of employees. And who knows which one is working for which country and et cetera, et cetera. Oh, you can blame them.
If you were to. So this is, go ahead. Go ahead. Tell me how, because I think this is a really tough situation.
I don't know. You start putting Facebook or Twitter executives in prison. They'll figure it out. They'll start figuring it out.
They'll start figuring out the same thing we do at our national security agencies that can damage. If information comes out of the CDC or the CIA, people die or their privacy is massively violated. We're going to find out that Khashoggi or some other horrible acts have gone down because of the poorest nature and the lack of oversight and the lack of concern for our commonwealth. The platforms demonstrate in every way, every day.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has figured out that these platforms can do tremendous damage to our country. Our national security apparatus has figured this out. The only people that haven't figured this out are the people running these companies because it might cost them money. But if other organizations can figure out a way to plug the leaks, so can these guys.
But for some reason, we give them a haul pass and we decide, oh, when there's a threat to our national security, how did they know that Khashoggi was in a foreign embassy getting a wedding license at a very specific time? My guess is it was probably an operative inside one of these platforms that had access to his email, access to his social media. I mean, this stuff is, it's so obvious that the best investment a foreign intelligence firm can make is to plan operatives inside of these companies. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
It also doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out to protect against it. It's like, why do you rob banks? That's where the money is. That's where the information is.
That's the kind of concept. It goes to a bigger problem. And that is, I'm just barely old enough to remember the Cold War and the duck and cover and the fact that there are foreign adversaries who are trying to undermine our way of life. We have a world where the finite amount of resources are all competing for it and some of us are ideological enemies.
And I don't think this generation of leadership in tech has a shared or collective history around our threats. And also, I don't think they think of themselves as global citizens and they're making money. They're making $200 million from Malaysia. So, Malaysians must be good people who share our interests.
I don't mean to pick on Malaysia. But they also don't, they've never, I mean, what we had in the 50s, 60s and 70s, I'm not saying that was the best era for politics, but there was more bipartisan cooperation because the majority of our leaders had served in the military together. And I wonder if we need some sort of national service, whether it's teaching or the Peace Corps, where there's some collective shared regard or empathy, not only for one another. They definitely don't see it that way.
I'll say, you're right. I agree with you. I think everybody should serve. I tried to, but I was unable because of Don't Ask Don't Tell, but there is no shared sense of this.
Or, you know, although they have like, you know, Google Tangled with China when it was hacking into their systems, but that's why they pulled out. So, they have a sense, and they're battered every day from, you know, they're fighting nation states. So, what's the problem is that we created these massive information centers that are just catnip for intelligence agencies. I mean, I hate to tell you, but that's what, it's like, this is like, Facebook is an intelligence officer's dream.
And so, they don't have to try hard to like, find anything about people. And so, it's really, we've created our own spy system by giving them our information, which is really kind of disturbing on many levels. But it's still creepy that Saudi Arabia did it. And by the way, in perfect timing, Travis Kalinik took $400 million from the Saudis today.
Nobody's touching their money. Like, everyone's like, at least pretending it matters that these guys killed a journalist and they're spying on us via Twitter, and of course he collects. Just as you said that, someone at Twitter is getting your home address and phone number. No, that's all right.
They know it doesn't matter. But it's not all right. It's just, it's really, it's really disturbing on so many levels that they can, that there's so many access points. And honestly, I agree with you.
They need to have a better sense, but like, it's like, someone was like, what should we do at Facebook yesterday at the New York Times thing? And I was sort of like, is there anything we can do? Like, it's so big. It's so, like, the world isn't what the world is.
The world isn't what we make of it. We kind of started with the business problem. I felt it. I felt it.
I was like, oh, you can't fix something. You can't do shit. Talk about Kalinik cashing a $400 million check. Is this for cloud kitchens?
Is that what it is? Cloud the kitchens. Yes, the kitchens. Explain that concept is I'm entirely, I get it conceptually.
It's actually not idiotic. He's not an idiotic man. I actually made a remark publicly at the New York Times when, because Uber's CEO was on stage. Derek Haus, who replaced him.
And I said, I said, you're better than Travis, but that's a low, extremely low bar. And everyone was like, that's so mean. I'm like, watch, just wait five seconds. He'll do something like this.
But yeah, he took us a cloud kitchen. So Uber eats is getting big, obviously. And so he's, even though he's on the board of Uber, he's creating these kitchens, it's sort of like the munchery idea, but not as a brand. So it's a white label kind of things that they can cook for their ghost kitchens, essentially.
And so they would, they cook and then take out people can use them to, this delivery is growing like crazy. It's actually, so he's in the white label part of it. It's sort of like, and it's a great idea. It's actually, and it also takes advantage of a business he knows well.
And so it's, it's on lots of levels. It's smart. But at the same time, he took $400 million from, according to the New York Times, from the big Saudi, sovereign wealth fund. So he don't care.
It's an interesting thing. So the idea is to, if I understand it, say you're great at cooking Indian food, but you don't have access to the capitalist, restaurant, you can rent a kitchen and, and then they will provide all the infrastructure and the delivery such that you can offer Indian food for delivery and be up and running really quickly. Something like that. Yeah.
It's, it's interesting. It is interesting. There you have it. And talk about it's deep in Uber.
The Saudis are deep in, we work obviously. Talk about it. Yet another event. The dog was invited to the New York Times event.
You know what? I got to tell you, top executives came up to me and said, we love pivot so much. We love it. And I said, Galloway is back.
They listen to it regularly. I've been, I've literally, I've alienated every important institution. I've alienated everyone except my dozens and dozens of fans. So thank you, all of you out there.
I was telling you, you've got fans at the top of the New York Times. They've listened to it for sure. Sure. All right.
One more quick story. Go ahead. What was the, what was the highlight of that? It was Andrew, Andrew Ross Sorkin, who gives me me.
He has a deal book. He had Bill Gates there. He had Dara Kusser. He had Kim Kardashian and Chris Jenner.
And then Kanye West was there too. Like he was sitting in the audience watching them. I like, I said hi to Kim. She's great.
I like Kim Kardashian. And then who else? It was every Hillary Clinton was there. What was the highlight?
Any interesting inside or any, any interesting ones? I thought Nathan Delrahim was interesting. I thought he was, he had to say. I thought Brian Chesky did a great job.
I did a podcast with him later about what happened with the thing. I think they talk about a different way to respond to a crisis. He was instantly responsive and blaming himself and saying I fucked up. Trying to fix it.
Being genuine about trying to fix it. Yes. I was like, he's very close with Mark, too. So that's an interesting contrast.
Anyway, it was great. It was great. There's a lot of good stuff. Andrew Ross Sorkin throws a nice conference.
I have to say. Yeah. He's very, he's very talented. In my next life, I'm absolutely coming back as him.
He's got everything. No, you can't. He does. He's a sweetheart, too.
Anyway, all right. So very quickly, last thing. One year away from the 2020 election, the $2.75 million progressive pack that tried to be Trump at his digital game. I think that is Trump change, but it will focus on swing states, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania.
They're just, they're just not spending very much. And Trump has spent more than $26 million so far in Facebook and Google, more than four of the top Democrats. This organization is trying to catch up and include advertisements on Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Hulu, Pandora, and David Plough, who worked for Obama, a campaign advisor, is on the board. But it seems like a small little effort.
That's my, that's my feeling. It's pissing the ocean only because of a small amount, but because of the way they're allocating it. If you wanted the highest ROI capital expenditure that would guarantee Trump's get, Trump's demise, or the Trump would lose, is that Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, Howard Schultz, any of these billionaires that claim they're looking, or we're looking at running because as concerned Americans, they realize we're under, you know, so many of our values have been compromised, and we need to restore an repair. If they were really serious about that, all they would need is $100 million.
And if they took $100 million of their 50, 70, $80 billion in wealth, respectively, and they did one thing, they called Mitt Romney and said, you're the man, and on the first $100 million into your campaign as president, as an independent, and a Democrat will take the White House. That would be the most effective allocation of capitals that a billionaire steps up, leverages the situation, similar to the way that Adam Newman leveraged the massive ego and face-saving a masioshu sound. The opportunity here, the glitch in the matrix, is to leverage the massive ego of every senator that wakes up every morning, looks in the mirror and says, hello, Mr. President, if you condense any of them, call them and say, you're the man, you should run as an independent.
They will not, they will believe you, they will run as an independent, got to find a Republican, they will take three to eight points from Trump, and we are back in the White House. But none of them will do that because they only pretend to care about allocating their billions when it's putting their own face in the White House. We need someone to step up and fund an independent from the right. All right.
Okay. All right. I like that. Who would independent is that?
Yeah. It could be Mitt Romney. It could be Evan McMullen from, obviously, both from Utah. He could get, he could shave off three to seven points.
He's, you know, he's a, you know, he's a rational, thoughtful man. All you need is- He's been on stage a code. Three to eight points. That's all we need.
Yep. Yep. All right. To finish up the section, before we get to wins and losses, if you need to take a moment to mourn your great political love, Beto, we can give you a moment.
Oh my gosh. I will remember. You know, have a montage of moments. I appreciate the fact that we should recognize and take pause when the hottest person leaves the race.
That is, it is seriously, he is by far, he is by far the hottest guy running for president. And we've lost. Everybody got that. I mean, literally these people now bring up a room by leaving it.
It is, it is the debate stage. It's so offensive. Oh my God. The debate stage is so less sexier without Beto.
Okay. I don't think sexy is the point. It's always the point. What other point is there?
Other than survival. Did you have a little weep into your thing? I told you Beto was going to lose way back when everyone was on his thing. I told you it was a man boy who just literally irritated, I said he turned me into a lesbian.
He was a boyfriend that turned me into a lesbian like type of person. But let me just tell you, I was right. My prediction was correct. You are right.
Now he's going to score that. Anyway, we're going to get to wins and fails when we get back and predictions, obviously. I'm a Seth Herndon, and this is America, actually. We're all talking to each other to see what do we do wrong?
What do we not see? I'm in Washington DC 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 with Eric Swalwell.
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 center to my constituents. This week on America Actually, we ask 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 prices 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. Okay, we are back. We have wins and fells. There's so much news this week.
You know, we didn't talk about, like, the Fitbit by. We didn't talk about much about Airbnb with the issues in, I mean, in around California, and they fight in Jersey City. Give me your wins and fail. So you can try to get some of this news in here.
There's so much stuff. So my win isn't probably that much fun. My win is the Saank Deck from 2010 at Circulating. Oh, yes.
Oh, my gosh. It is so hilarious. It's literally as if, so now in high school, we've replaced civics classes with computer science and entrepreneur courses. And that's how we end up with Mark Zuckerberg, as we've decided that our Dollar Tree of the Dollar innovators, we now have entrepreneurship classes.
This deck reads as if an 11th grade team, the night before their presentation on entrepreneurship, said, I know, let's get really high and pull this thing together. I was going to go with a class before I got high. And this is, I have this thing pulled up. Okay, slide 69.
It's the worst clip. It's literally the worst clip part in the world. So pick any three slides and have a few drinks and then just look at those three slides. Okay, slide 69.
It says natural disaster, terrorism, unknown virus, meteor. It's got four terms and then slide 70 says, yet people long for love and get hurt by love. I think that's your message. And then slide 71, information revolution, happiness for everyone.
I mean, you can't make this shit. Oh, this shit. But you know, Masa talks like that. I've interviewed him many times.
I'm trying to get him to come to code. He talks like this. Trust me when I tell you this is out of his brain. It's his, he's done this before and it's his brain.
It truly is. All right. So in invitation, I invited the Satya Nadella to Coachella and he called my bluff and his office reached out to me and said they would meet me and Coachella and I choked. I just couldn't handle the idea.
So anyways, I'm issuing an invite to Masa, me, him to loom edibles. This guy knows how to roll and I will pull together his new deck. I have, I mean, I come across as rational compared to whoever, whoever he has running around in the sick of fans building his decks, but literally download the deck from Softbank 2010. It is, it is literally kind of new.
There's new ones too about the WeWork problems too. There's like these new ones about like them sort of laying it out and all its glory. That's my win. One of them said, one of my favorite reduced price of existing commitment, USD 1.5 billion exercise price, USD 1.10 to share valuation of $47 billion.
And then a little arrow mark that just says reduced substantially, US $1.60 a share after exercise. And I love the little arrow that just says reduced substantially. Like it's cut to a tenth of its, and it's probably not even worth that. Anyway, it was my favorite.
They just sort of put it out there. Do you have a win? Well, what can you do? So many wins, so many wins.
I do think, I do, I know people, I have issues with Airbnb, but I do like the response that Brian Chesky had. And I think you'll see in this interview, like we talked about Jersey City and he didn't hide from me. He's like, well, we spent billions of dollars and that was shot. Like, and here's why we wanted to do it and New York's been an asshole and here's why.
You know, and it was, and then he was like, but I do see why. He's a very thoughtful guy and I think they did, they're trying. I think one of the issues I have with them, like I have with other analysis, I knew about house parties. So if I know about house parties, they should know about house parties.
Like everyone knows that people rent Airbnb's. And there was, yeah, and there's going to be something bad's going to happen about house parties. Anyone who's seen a teen movie at any point in their life knows what's going to happen at the end of the story. So it just, the anticipation part.
And so we talked a little bit about what he anticipates is the next thing that's going to happen. Like his whole job is like, it's a list of like horror shows. Like, you know, that could happen in any of these houses when you're putting people together with people. And the opportunity for scams, the opportunity for scams on both sides by the guests and by the hosts.
And so I think he, you know, they've got to put more money into safety and whether it hits his bottom line or not. Because they actually, their business is, I think it's going to show a pretty decent S1. He made a joke about it because everyone asks about we work and he's like, I think you'll see that we know how to. We try not to have disclosures in our thing by fixing them before we go public, like the bad things.
And so I think it will be interesting to see how that public offering goes next year. I think it was a win. I think he handled it really well. And I think he's really come in watching him.
I met them when they had three guys living in an apartment. When they started Airbnb, I met him at a coffee shop. I think they've come a long way. And I know the issues around, I get the issues around gentrification and the people inventing.
And they've tended to work with cities except for certain big ones, like New York, pretty well. And they lost interest in the city. I think they're win. And your fail?
Your fail? So my fail is all the self-appointed spokespeople for the entire economy who keep saying that Senator Warren, if elected, the markets would get cut in half. And the only thing that's consistent in terms of the day. I cried.
That billionaire cried. Did you see it? Cooperman? Oh yeah, he was so upset about the prospect of the markets going down that he just couldn't.
He was overcome with emotion. You know what? He was going to go up. And during Republican administrations, markets tend to go sideways and down.
And it's just kind of ridiculous because the notion that a disjointed foreign policy, income inequality, massively blowing up our balance sheet with crazy debt, that's good for the markets long term, is just incorrect. We don't know how the markets would respond to her presidency. In addition, we're studying to the wrong test. We're asking, we're acting, these people decide, okay, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is the most important indicator of the health of the U.S.
And 90% of the stocks are owned by the top 10%. So all it is is a proxy for the wealthy. And if there is, in fact, a cohort that could probably absorb a hit right now, it is the Dow Jones Industrial Average. And Josh Brown, who I think is this incredibly thoughtful guy, is the CEO of Ritalts Management, told me or kind of clued me into something that I hadn't thought about.
And that is, if the market were to go down, markets go up and go down. And they have to do that to be functioning markets. But if the markets corrected, yeah, the people who own stocks would obviously get hurt and be worse off. So baby boomers on the majority of stocks, old people owned majority of stocks, top 10%.
But the people coming into their earning years, 20s and 30s who had the opportunity to buy shares at a more reasonable price benefit from a lower price market. Similar to the way we talk about housing being so expensive and recognized, if the housing markets were to come back a bit or check back a bit in San Francisco or New York, you might actually find people in the 30s who make just a paltry half a million dollars a year could actually afford a house. So the notion that we have to keep the markets going up, it's just not accurate. Yeah, but people have bought into this whole thing, just everyone has.
Because that's how they think about it. Even if they don't have stock, they're like, oh, it's not market stand. It's a mentality. There's a really good quote the other day.
People don't like rich people. Poor people like rich people. They don't like elites professionals. So they sort of give these rich people a break over and over again, whether it's aspirational or whatever.
They were smart to get the money. But rich people, they love. It's the professional class that they elite. They do link the stock market with their own fate, even if they don't stock.
And it's the similar thing that goes, it's been going on in terms of backing Donald Trump, who's just never not done anything for these people. But they back him because he says, I like you, I guess. I don't really know what the dynamic is there. But it's a really interesting psychological dynamic.
Again, setting the wrong test. The question in the next debate, and what I'd love to see people asking the candidates, is which of you is going to reverse the scariest trend in the scariest number in our society right now? And that is three years running, the decline in life expectancy. That's a more important number than the Dow Jones fucking industrial average.
We're dying sooner. What difference does it make it if 401k is up? If you're dying sooner. So which presidential candidate can implement policies that helps people live longer and healthier and more prosperous lives?
But no one ever asks, okay, let's talk about life expectancy. It's all about the Dow. We are studying to the wrong test, Cara. I agree.
I agree with you. And let me just say, let one more. I think failed. Well, there's a lot of fails I would talk this week.
I think, you know, the Saudis once again, prove they're the thuggish thugs of Thugville and then tech for giving them money. But that's, I said that before. But I do think this, the Wall Street Journal, this is something in your area and I have a good blank for college. The Wall Street Journal reported the SAT takers names and data are being sold to colleges to buy applicants and boost exclusivity.
It's not an awful. That's just awful. The non-profit administers ASU selling data about test takers universities. They're using the universities and use the data to target applicants.
They won't likely admit, but recruit them anyway. Also, it gives the university appearance of more exclusivity and more income from applicants. Just like what the hell. That's what a 17-year-old needs, right?
More rejection in their life. Right. Talk about losing the script. Universities are not only supposed to be places of upward mobility, which we have lost the script and now we're just the caste system.
We've now decided that we're going to be points and additional points of darkness and depression for young people when they're applying to schools. This should be illegal, right? This data sale should be illegal, correct? Am I wrong?
I don't think you can make it illegal. I think if you really weren't. Why not? Because buying a data set and encouraging people to apply, I don't understand what law you would apply to make that illegal.
I think we do what you do really well is we just quite frankly shame them the media rights about this. It's a practice. The majority of faculty that I know, the majority of leadership, I know at universities are good people and they can talk themselves like anyone else into incremental decisions where they create a luxury brand in the form of the university so they can charge more money and pay themselves more. But I think when faced with this data set and the cold heart truth about just how ugly and wrong this is, I think they will correct on their own.
I don't think you need a law for this. I've got to tell you, the counters I've had with them and I shouldn't even say it because I wanted to move something and it's like dealing with the Soviets. It's like no, it has no customer service, first of all. None of it does.
None of it does. None of it does. Every big city has two good schools and then they have the rest. And then they play to your fears.
And I'm the one actually telling my kid, don't worry about it. They don't even play on your fears. They prey on your hopes and dreams. And that is, if you're a middle class, upper middle class family, you've worked your ass off and you think the indicator of your dream against studying the wrong task is if I get my kid into a good school, then I have lived the American dream.
I've checked that box instinctively, instinctually and provided my son or daughter. And we as universities have taken advantage of that emotion and we've raised prices faster than inflation, greater than tech, greater than health care. And now we become a source of moral, you know, a moral bad, the university system wildly needs to be disrupted. We keep talking.
We keep talking about this. And I know your son is applying. It's an incredibly stressful time in households. You pretend it's not.
You seem to be very cheap about it. Well, because I don't care. Well, I am trying to be because it's like, but now, like, you're not just fucking with my son, Louie. You're also fucking with his data.
Go fuckers out. Like, I just, I literally got so furious at this. I was like, are you kidding me just to make him feel bad? Like, oh, just like, and then it's so unfair to everyone along this, this, this, the chain here, like all the kids at every level of income.
It's just like, it's fixed. Like, ah, like, it really is no, it's not a meritocracy in any way. Like, that seems, makes any sense. It's like, everything's being so bought and sold.
And it's, you do have a sense that universities aren't like this, but of course they are. Of course they are. You got to abolish tenure. You got to start taxing endowments in any university that doesn't grow their freshman seats faster than inflation.
We need a Marshall Plan for land grant universities to massively expand wonderful organizations like University of Texas, University of California. We need an absolute, absolute reconstruction of, of our university system. And also local, local and state junior colleges which are this kind of unsung heroes of our society. Prediction, we got to predictions.
We wanted to keep it tight. Yes, we will. But let me just tell you something. Oh, I like that.
Yeah. I just put my shoulders back. It would end in a terrible scandal, obviously. I never said.
But it'd be interesting. It'd be interesting. You would be so taken down, but it'd be so. Oh my God.
The question is, would you defend me? Or would you be like, I knew it all along. I knew it all along. I knew it all along.
No, here's what I'd say. I'd go, I had no idea, but I'm not surprised. Yeah. You'd be like, I'm disappointed, but not surprised.
I have to say, I'm not surprised, but I didn't know anything about it. Like, that's how I would do it. I got it. Predictions.
That's how they're working in my life. Go ahead. So we both predict the Facebook ban. Thank you.
I actually think Gates' idea on stage in the New York Times yesterday and also Ellen Weintraub, who said that they should adjust them. I think that's what they're going to do. I've shifted from your prediction, which is that they're going to ban them. I think they're going to adjust them and remove targeting.
What do you think, Scott? That's something we can take credit for. Well, my, so first off, just revisiting some of our predictions. We said that Uber was going to go down 20 to 40 percent in the next 30 days, and we've already gotten that right.
Uber's gotten taken to the witch, massively overvalued. The lockup came off. It's gotten hammered. It's gotten hammered.
It's still going to continue to go down. But we have a market that's just incredibly, incredibly overvalued. And I think we're going to see, we talked about this, private market unicorns cut by 30 to 60 percent, and public market stuff is already getting taken to the woodshed. But my prediction is about we work.
And that is what Afghanistan and Vietnam were to Russia and the United States. We work as going to be to SoftBank. And that is that they've thrown good money after bad. And my anecdotal evidence that this thing can't get, they can't pull the nose up on this thing.
It will be a bankruptcy or some sort of restructuring, probably by Q4, 2020, or Q2. 2021 is that I've started a new business. And I made just such a working move, overhired, spent too much money on office space. And it's literally taken us six months to unwind that DNA and get back to an agile organization that's where it should be again.
Take that times 2000. And that's what we're talking about at WeWork. And my piece of anecdote 11, although I do think it's telling us, I have a friend that runs an architectural firm. And he was telling me the other night that they got a resume from a woman who's an architect who works at We, because obviously they're laying off a lot of people.
And it's a very liquid market for recent architects or architectural recent graduates. And he knows exactly what they should earn. And he said, this individual should make between 90 at the low end and 110 at the high end. And she's making 205 at We.
The DNA, not only the DNA of the costs around the numbers of office and the growth, but the DNA they have set in terms of their cost structure around compensation, that if she's an indicator, you can't take salaries down. So you have a DNA of cost structure here. Well, you can, it's very, it's much easier to fire people than it is to reduce their salary. It's trying to try to get someone's salary.
I understand, but I have had people come and say, I burned this much. Bloomberg was like a crazy payer. I'm like, OK, I'm not paying you. Yeah, but that's enough.
It's an unwind bad DNA of an organization. It sees how difficult it is, even when the organization is only 20 or 30 people. When you have an organization of 12,000 and you have that sort of horrible DNA, you can't. You just, you can't unwind fast enough.
So they're going to have to pick in the bankruptcy. 100%. That's a good question. That's a good question.
Key four next year, key one or key two of 2021. That, what? That is good. I like that.
I like that. I think that's a good one. I don't have a prediction except to say that you should read these Facebook documents. I think, you know, and people saying this is OK.
I know they're good at what Facebook's going to say. And I met a really delightful Facebook PR guy, John Panette yesterday. You know, I'm good friends with John. I'm good friends with John.
He's great. Oh, yes. He's your pal. He's lovely.
What did the like? He's got a dark side, but he's a wonderful man. I did. He told me.
He told me he told me he told me that. But let me just say he's delightful and smart and interesting. I just don't know how I got it. It's going to be an incredible PR job for him and others there to be like, OK, let's tell you what this really means.
And so I think that is to watch what this goes out because they've sort of, they feel like it feels like a moment. Like it's got to stop. And I have to tell you, a lot of people on this panel I had, a lot of people at the conference, like a laser on Facebook and more than anything. We need a blood offering.
Although you know what I'm doing? You know how that turned out? I have to say for those who haven't. But Facebook has added a ton of value to my life because I'm literally, they are such geniuses that delay in obfuscation and wallpapering over corruption.
We have this new rescue dog, Gangster. And we're not sure if it's a Dachshund or a Doberman. But I think it's a Dachshund because Dachshunds are impossible to house train. But my only job at home is when he is out of the crate is to watch him.
And of course, whenever I'm home alone, Gangster goes and he takes a big dump on the only expensive thing we own this carpet that's worth a good $400, $500. And then my wife comes home and goes, Ape shit. And I'm so good. You know what I'm saying?
I'm like, you know what? We need to do better. Or I'll say to her, I'll say to her, I'm sorry. I need to reestablish trust.
Trust is the most important thing. Or I'll say to her when the dog's in the crate and has some shit and that's like, I'm proud of the progress we've made. So I'm announcing here and now I'm taking this to the next level. I'm going to start dressing as Cheryl Sandberg at our live events.
We're talking Oscar de la Renta. We're talking Christian Louboutin. We're not going drag events. Oh my God.
I am so ready to go drag. No. I have more legs than a bucket of chicken. We've got to pick on Twitter.
I want to hear from our dozens and dozens of fans that are next live pivot. Should I cross dress as Cheryl Sandberg or Rebecca Newman? Rebecca Newman's more poochy. She's a little bit.
But I can go there. I am so ready to cross dress. I'm Johnny Depp. I literally want to tell listeners that I knew nothing about it but I'm not surprised.
Women's fashion is so much more interesting. And I have a model's body if I were a woman. I'm so ready. The inklings that Scott was a problem.
Oh my God. I'm so shocked by this behavior. It's time to go. Seriously, in a poochy dress, I have a tall drink of lemonade.
A tall drink of lemonade. Starting with inappropriate terrorism jokes and moving on to drag. It's so ready. I'm so ready.
If you have a question or idea or company pivot, just take down the next couple of months. Shoot us an email at pivot at Vox Media dot com. Also, we're hiring for a new producer for Pivot. Please apply at Vox Media dot com slash careers if you think you're the right person to join the team and can deal with this giant situation with Scott.
It's situation. You didn't know about but you're not surprised. There we go. There we go.
Wait. Hold on our credits. We got to do our credits. Go ahead.