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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 Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway, Rebecca Q, the bad 80s music. Oh no. That's right, you nose ringed bearded yoga babble bitch. Jack Dorsey, you take my breath away.
I hate Twitter, but I hate it less today. Oh my God, OMG. Did you see last night? Talk about like a massive bitch move.
The announces are not, they're no longer being political advertising. All right, okay. When I say bitch, I say it in sort of like a Jack Dorsey kind of way. I know that, but ladies don't like it.
Let's move on. Let's say gangster, just call him a gangster. Anyway, so he announces this. Literally five minutes into the Facebook earnings call.
I know, it was before. Literally I talk about waving your little bird finger in the face of Facebook. He announced it five minutes into their earnings call. I think it was right before.
It was enough that they had a chance to ask about it. Oh, yeah. It was perfect. It was like, I said, I hope not.
Of course, it wasn't a coincidence. Has anyone called you or have you heard anything? Yes. What's going on?
It's the same war. Same war. So first of all, it was happening Halloween. I don't know.
Do you love Halloween? I do not hate it. I hate dressing up. I hate costumes.
I hate the whole nine freaking yards of it. I hate the whole thing. I don't get it. I just find it fascinating what people pick to wear.
I always found it interesting. I only wear one thing. Hair. Okay.
You really do. You put on a wig? You put on a wig. What should we do as a king?
What would be our couples costume? That's an interesting one. I think we're Kagan and Lacey. Kagan and Lacey really.
Yeah. And as well. Okay. Twitter.
Twitter. Alright. So, here's the deal. So, the people know what exactly happened yesterday in the afternoon.
In the late afternoon, Jackedorsy suddenly started tweeting that he was going to stop all political advertising on Twitter. Obviously, Facebook has been dealing with this same issue around false political advertising. And in fact, encouraging false political advertising. And last week, in last two weeks, Mark has been making a pretty much a fool of himself in Washington discussing this issue.
Earlier this month, Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign wrote letters to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, asking that they don't want false or misleading political ads. And among other things, Jack pointed out that quote, some might argue our actions today could They could favor incumbents, but we have witnessed many social movements, reach massive scale without any political advertising. They're putting more details out on November 15th, although Vijig Gade, their chief counsel way, I suspect is quite behind this in a big way. It'll start on November 22nd.
So here we are. They're just not going to take political action. Now they don't have a lot. They're not the big player in this.
Facebook is. But it's a big stake in the sand. And so he did it right then. And I think it came as a shock, I think, to Facebook people.
Well, it's interesting because first you had a key component of Facebook and the Zucks Kevlar is they were like, okay, we can't all be evil. It was sort of big tech as evil. And then, and then Tim Cook said, I want off this evil train and purposely said actually on an interview with you that I wouldn't put myself in this position and began to disarticulate himself, remove himself, extricate himself. And also said we're doubling down on privacy and be clear, there's big tech in this apple and we're off.
We're out. We're no longer having lunch with the mean girls here. And then now Jack Dorsey's doing the same thing. He's like, I want out.
I want off this big tech train. So it kind of isolates uniquely Facebook and to the lesser extent, Google is the bad guy. And it's the argument that Facebook has it just so indispensable is that letting false ads run rampant creates more discourse that you should we should have the opportunity opportunity to see who lies to us, recognizing that makes it absolutely better. But at the same time, two days later, by the way, we're a platform and then Campbell Brown, who is kind of the kind of the less, less well paid, less effective beard to all this bullshit goes on head of news, former journalist, totally throwing her reputation out the window in exchange for options that are more in the money today because as per our prediction, the stock is up on earnings.
But basically said, you don't want to tech platform making decisions in the midst of announcing that they're launching a new service that they will curate where they're announcing what we will get to see. So when they pay for content, they get to decide what we see and edit it and show some journalistic editorial discretion. But if you pay, there's no journalistic discretion as long as you're paying, we'll put anything up. But when it comes to us putting news out, we're going to have that same editorial coverage.
I mean, it just, it literally makes absolutely, their position is literally the definition of indefensible and they're now in a corner, totally alone. What was interesting is Sheryl Summer put out a video was on Bloomberg's TikTok. She was talking about, we believe in free speech, the same thing that Mark was spouting, the same, the same stuff. And one of the things they were talking about is we, and Mark talked about it in the earnings call, we're going to double down on transparency, like saying what things are and where the political ads come from and everything else, but we believe more speech is better speech.
That's essentially what she said. And one of the things is these very elaborate transparency, I don't know what they are, they're like desktops where you can look at things, but nobody looks at like, one of the things was really, just what they're doing is offering all these really complicated ways to figure out who's doing what, but it's completely utterly impossible to use. And someone from Facebook, I sent them this, and what she was saying is we believe in free expression, we believe in political speech and ads can be important part of that. So Sheryl Sandberg, when asked why Facebook decided not to ban political ads, what the person said is it's so, as usual, the company is being astonishingly confusing about what they're doing, instead of doing something easy to do, not to cut out, and this is what someone from a former Facebook person told me, they love complexity, it's amazing, not to cut out political ads, but create all kinds of difficult to understand rules, it's classic.
Yeah, they're just more attractive versions of Rudy Giuliani. They have a 750 person corporate communications department, which is bigger than the newsroom in Washington Post, which tries to craft this bullshit narrative and talking points whether it's, we want to give voice to the Unher, I mean, it's just all narratives, all earnest, thoughtful commentary is always about an excuse to cash anybody's check, and it's just so ridiculous that they've decided not to take this cycle off, and what's great, the Twitter thing isn't that big a deal, they weren't getting that much money from it, what it is, is it now puts Facebook in a corner alone, and it puts more pressure on Facebook, and actually I'd like to think, and this is, this is, I don't know, I'll come up with another prediction, but by Thanksgiving, Facebook. All right, you said that, you said that, tell me about that. Well, okay, so under the cover of darkness, right, in the midst of the earnings call, under the barrage of cloud cover and flack from other news, Susan Desmond Hellman, at the board, now what have we had here?
We had anyone who has a conscience that isn't a venture capitalist or corrupt, as decided to get the hell out of Dodge. Well, she claims, and I want to be fair, she claims that some of it was health reasons, and obviously we hope that she's doing fine. She's a terrific person. My guess is she's like, like, Ursin Bowles or Rehaysing's choking on the corruption of bullshit of Facebook.
You just don't have this many people running for the hills on a board, this prestigious, and probably this well-paying. So essentially, you have board members who are like, okay, let's be honest, I'm kind of done with this 34-year-old, Jesus Christ, total control, fucking up the world in humanity train. I'm on off, and people who are worried about the reputation, people who are supposed to be curing malaria as the CEO of the Gates Foundation is supposed to be doing, are just all quietly saying, I'm out. Which leaves us with the Zuck, Peter Thiel, and Sheryl Sandberg.
What could go wrong? Marc Andreessen is there. Marc Andreessen is there too. Marc, I feel so much safer.
So it's literally okay. This is arguably, I mean, this thing is turning into the Pollard Bureau, the board of directors there. But I thought I was telling that she decided to leave under the cover of Darkness. It feels like all the people he would point to and say, this is a high integrity person.
She was quite active on the board, too. Is that right? Oh, she was the lead director, right? She was one of them.
Yeah. So one of the things that was interesting that I liked about Jack's announcement, and I'm not going to slather Jack with it, because I think they still have massive problems of bullying and everything else. Yeah. But I wrote a column at the time that appeared this morning about this.
I did a quick take on it. You write for the New York Times? Yes, I do. Thank you.
I did know that. I did know that. I did know that. Anyway.
What do you say? That's where you can find it. Oh, good. God, you're so jealous.
I have a blog. I have a blog. You have hot takes. You have lots of fans.
I have a blog. All right, listen. This is what Jack wrote, which I thought was the best. He wrote a very smart thread, which was very in contrast to having her mark speech, which was very lightweight.
It was sort of free speech good. China bad. That was essential. You said there was no nuance.
It was a very challenging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information and deep fakes, all in an increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale. These challenges will affect all internet communication, not just political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems without the additional burden and complexity that taking money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither well and harms our credibility.
It was just so smart. It went on. It was one smart comment. It also wasn't ducking the difficulty.
That's what I like. Look, we haven't fixed it. We also said, for instance, we're well aware, we're a small part of a much larger political advertising ecosystem. Some might argue, actually, stay good, favor and come.
talking about all these things that were like hard and I was like and he didn't say we haven't really fixed it you know we haven't really fixed it and we know that and it was so refreshing to like get an actual it's not letting him off the hook for the other stuff but at least it addresses it in a complicated way that this is a complex issue that nobody has good answers for. I was I give him a good for shareholders but although let's talk very quickly they had a terrible earnings there's some issue around ads and stuff like that but they've been doing really well this doc had been up to 40 notes down much lower it's come back down you had talked about it going up higher but Facebook killer earnings killer earnings well I just so what was our prediction that Facebook was going to blow away earnings and go over 200 bucks a share it touched 198 this morning I think it's going over 200 the next few days but here's the thing just as Trump has his base of loyalists regardless of how corrupt or how much he lies Facebook has their base of people who are totally loyal to them regardless of how corrupt or how much they lie and it's called the global advertising market. I think on every one. Sorry.
Someone asked me about a small business. Someone asked me about a small business when I advertise on Facebook and I said I'd have to. There's no choice. You have no choice.
That's exactly right here and here it is when you have no choice it's not a tool it's a tax. The biggest tax cut to small business in America would be if you banned Facebook and Google because what they are now is they're not means of differentiation there's something everyone has to do. You have to own the right rail you have to own this first few spots up top two thirds of all social media so everybody doesn't use it as a point of differentiation. I'm one of my colleagues at L2 quite frankly is responsible for the success there are women and Maureen Mullen who's like this incredible blue flame thinker highlighted to me she said name a single company that has established competitive advantage over the long term using Google or Facebook and that just blew me away because if you said TV you'd go well Nike if he's a catalog Joe Williams and Oma no one has been able to establish long term competitive advantage and their genius is they made the tools so egalitarian and the best practices so for us everybody figures out how to buy more words and how to catch up.
So it's really it's um anyways I hope at some point the CMOS do it you're probably right they can't do it because everyone would lot them for their efforts and their stock would go down the next day. So my prediction is the company is the company store a hundred percent it's a tax it's a tax you cannot buy that's how much potatoes are going to cost right it's the one the one railway I called it mother Russia the other day nice speaking of mother Russia let's talk about your interview. Yes I interviewed Edward Snowden it was fascinating he was in Moscow so we were talking about the idea whether he's a whistleblower a trader a leaker an activist you know and he's a cat he's an indoor cat that's what he told me he said how is it a Moscow he's like well it doesn't really matter where I'm an indoor cat and I like to look at the screen so it doesn't matter where I know what came out what was the most surprising thing about that he was so tough I think one of the things look there's all these whether he's a Russian asset or not I don't believe he is I think a lot of the intelligence points that way I think the question is what he will become someday if as long as it continues to be established the acted on his own what is he what did he do because he did reveal the US government doing unconstitutional legal actions that said the way he did it was illegal and they later passed laws to stop the government from doing what he pointed out was illegal but him pointing out was illegal so it's really complicated I think the only issue is proving whether or not he's a Russian asset or Chinese asset or some sort but again if he is not then he's a whistleblower he's a whistleblower who who was a little classified information which you're not allowed to do although that's sort of what the whistleblower did went through the right chain of command in this recent Ukraine thing although it wouldn't have come out had not someone leaked to the press that there was a whistleblower so you know it was a great conversation about what he is and where he's going and then we talked a lot about Facebook and the big tech companies and how he feels you know whether government is more dangerous to people and stuff so let's let's listen to him talking about that Facebook and data collection internet privacy Facebook's internal purpose whether they state it publicly or not is to compile perfect records of private lives to the maximum extent of their capability and then exploit that for their own corporate enrichment and damn the consequences this is actually precisely the same as what the NSA does Google does has a very similar model and they go oh we're connecting people they go oh we're organizing data but we can see privately what they're doing right you open your weather app and it's communicating with Facebook because someone baked the Facebook SDK into it and you didn't even realize that you don't see it it's intentionally kept invisible to you and yet it's collecting material on you. There you go.
Sounds like Halloween, Moscow. Yeah me and Edward Snowden like I think you're right I actually think you will probably go down a history of someone who served a certain utility but and this is going to sound very hockish Republican and I agree with Hillary Clinton I would have liked to see a strong his ass I think when you you I don't know subject this many people in our national security apparatus to this kind of danger which I think he subjected them to there's no doubt about it. No he makes the case that there hasn't been and they have not revealed any instance where he did so that they're just saying that but then don't provide any proof to it and he his contention is that if he had actually damaged people's lives they would have said look what he did and they haven't once so he's good he's containing one that he leaked it I'll just give you his argument he says he gave it only to journalists he made sure they didn't and the stuff that they that he gave them that they didn't write stories that would put people and contact the government about if there were people in in danger's way relieving that we tried on Angel Markle doesn't put anyone in danger it just doesn't I just and he's correct about that it makes it is embarrasses us for sure that we did that and not probably not a surprise that we did that but he his contention was that he made sure the journalist agreed that there was nothing and they would check with the government anything that was even slightly that he never released anything publicly himself so he didn't do a data dump he's you know just wrenching himself from Wikileaks and Julian Assange and he said that none of this stuff has been proven to hurt anybody so it's really it's interesting like so how do you I know a fan is like how do you show that the government is cheating and doing illegal things that they were never supposed to do which is a mass surveillance without breaking the law well look if he wants to be a martyr and a whistleblower then come back and face the consequences maybe he's well actually he doesn't work for it he doesn't work for it doesn't work he lives in a small apartment in Russia yes but he's got stuck there because we pulled his passport he wasn't traveling there he was traveling to Ecuador he wants to live in Europe well I live in Europe that doesn't give you permission to look at it but I think it's a lot more it's a very interesting complex issue of what you do let's put aside say he isn't a Russian asset or a Chinese asset because he went through Hong Kong he also was he picked Hong Kong because it was an area that was at the time not not a Chinese territory or it wasn't it was a free area what would you do if you were sitting there I what I found most intriguing about this interview was that he he had a vision of the internet as a young man and he's very typical of a lot of people I cover where the internet was a safe place it was a great place it's where he lived where it was his world and then it it perverted into not just it perverted by the government and master balance and it was perverted by become big tech by master balance and I think he was he was in love with the internet as he conceived it and he and he had the arrogance to think I can stop them and it's that's the best case scenario for him and he still forgotten under the estimate I just he can't have an actual trial where he can give a reason for doing it yeah which is they were doing something illegal and I was pointing out that's not a defense actually he just goes to jail he just goes to jail that's it there's no other thing but go to jail I think your voice over is a romantic script on some young man who was probably very thoughtful I get it I get it I'll history will judge this man and if things come out in Russia that was indeed a Russian asset that could happen like it's happened before but you don't think he negotiated safe haven in Russia in exchange for something they tried to they tried to try to go everywhere else and he's still trying to get out of Russia he's trying to he's trying to get why does why does why did Russia agreed to host him other than to make us look stupid or they got something in exchange or make us look stupid yeah okay he doesn't have a visa there right now he gets extended year after year everything or something that so he's trying to get somewhere else right now but he doesn't have a passport you can't go anywhere he's a man with the US it's clamps down anybody that offers him anything as a ship if you want to listen to the full interview it's out now on my other podcast Rico deco all right last quick story very quick story HBO Max makes a statement or screaming wars they're now white hot they've been heating up there literally coming in May 1499 per month also we need another streaming service more expensive you know like HBO but don't want to buy it that's what HBO costs I think monthly so yeah what is it's worth it costs that much if you have cable but anyway you can get it by yourself care last week you said that the streaming wars are going to be won by whoever has the best content yes and you know HBO Max is trying to get in there is the only place you can stream friends they also bought the entire run of South Park for over 500 million out from under Disney Hulu so they're trying to get in there who has the very and that will matter most interesting thing here and I'm parroting a box article which by all measures is probably going to launch their own streaming network we are not is this will test net neutrality because the only thing so Netflix and Disney Plus what they don't have relative to HBO Max relative to the peacock network from Comcast is they don't have vertical distribution and that is basically what HBO Max has with AT&T as a parent is you could flip on your TV or your directory TV channel and they could start promoting it or they could make it more expensive to stream Netflix and that will be a real test of the banishment or the banning of these net neutrality laws so I've always contended that if you look at companies that have been able to get over a hundred billion dollars market capitalization the one thing in common and that is they're vertically distributed they go from creation to they control the end unit so Apple TV Plus is pre-installed on a could be pre-installed on a billion devices when they sell their 110 million phones a year and I don't know if that's the right number they can pre-install it with Apple TV Plus and give you a free year so vertical distribution is an unbelievable competitive advantage and the biggest player doesn't have it and that's Netflix that's why I've always thought that Netflix would probably at this point merge with with someone who's vertical and can control the distribution that would be an interesting one but or Google you know pre-installed on more it's actually more kind of from a grand position standpoint I think congruent with Android pre-installed on two and a half million devices but when you don't control the distribution you are subject to someone else's decision to say you know we're gonna make it almost impossible for industry that's what's happened to Spotify they don't control their distribution so they're the ones so interesting they're both still the best products to hundred percent yeah Netflix is the best products are it does depend on the con it's a lot of them I mean everyone coming out and people say it's gonna be bad for Netflix Netflix needs distribution about you know my prediction and my thought was they should buy Sony is that we get some distribution on handsets or on PlayStation and also great content and Sony's kind of cheap as it's a kind of a shadow of its former self that was considered most innovative company in the world that was the apple it was but without without vertical distribution I don't know if they can bust through from wherever they are plus playing like it's God that's an excellent prediction we'll see but we're gonna get more when we get back and take a quick break we'll be right back with more pivot I'm a said herndon and this is America actually we're all talking to each other to see what do we do wrong way we not see I'm in Washington DC this week to interview Ruben Geiger he's a Democratic senator from Arizona and he's been thinking openly about running for higher office but he's recently run into some hot water because of his connection to Congressman Eric Swalwell I have to learn from this and I will learn from this but you know for me it's out of 2028 question it's about what it means it to be a better first boss in my office and also a better center to my constituents this week on America actually we asked I ago about predatory behavior in Washington his plans for immigration reform and more this week on net worth and 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 viral 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 DFF welcome back to pivot we're gonna dig into some listener mail before we get to wins and fails but you went to the Apple premiere you went to a premiere I did it to morning news Stephen Corral Jennifer Aniston with Reese Wetherspoon a story it's basically what I call the Diet Coke version of the Matt Lauer story and it was actually I thought was interesting I think it'll be quite controversial because at least in the first episode it treats you know the cereal or the harasser that you know the guy with very much kid gloves if you trace him as a bit of a victim so I don't know if there's a twist coming but it felt very happily in the sense that they spent they must have spent the money I have a friend who's like money on this thing. I have a friend who's a doc who has a show with Netflix actually and was like the money it was insane.
Incredible and that's what it's just that's become something about content it's no longer needs to be self-sustaining it becomes it becomes something as you said it aptly once you said well we can some more paper towels if we have the marvellous Mrs. Maisel and what it all means it all leads to one one point and that is it's a great time to be in the business of creating content you know young kids a lot of kids meet with me and I'm like you want to get close to processing power you want to get to a city you also if you have the ability to be in the business of creating a mass consumable differentiated content it is a great time to be I don't know if you're a gaffer I don't know if you cater movie sets but you know when you and I have been approached about doing TV shows and when they're coming after Karen the dog it means there's too much capital it's washing around original television did you get to meet Jennifer Aniston we should I didn't I saw her I saw Reese Witherspoon I was doing something that Tim Cook was there but it was you know it was an environment like that is weird you get to so he's uncomfortable he's so he likes talking about football and he's not having a mid-life crisis because I just wanted to be there smiling and I just wanted to talk about football really yeah I he's so damn like a ball he's got good hair and he seems nice and anyways but I saw him that was my celebrity sighting so you were at a premiere I was at a premiere I put on a tie the dog was looking good I was looking good yeah I showered you're very shy people realize you're quite shy well I'm paid to be an extrovert with the rally is when I'm off my I don't want to talk to fucking anybody yeah that's true you are it's something I will talk to anybody I'm complex I'm quite an extrovert I'm a very layers to the dog all right in any case let's listen or mail so we got an email question from the listener Michael Swain about an article that was written on our sister's site the Verge the article is a new bill introduced by some big Silicon Valley critics this month that's meant to undercut social media monopolies the augmenting compatibility and competition by enabling service switching act access is designed to make large communications platforms loosen their hold on user data Senator Mark Warner introduced the bill last week as part of effort to rein in big platform monopolies we reach out to the writer of this article Addie Robertson to sum up the bill and how it might play out access is a bill that's supposed to promote interoperability between big platforms and their competitors interoperability is the idea that if you're a giant platform like Facebook you should create tools so that competitors can interface with your service but it's supposed to make sure that competitors can access the giant user bases and backlogs of data that giant platforms have already amassed the access act tries to make clear that companies are supposed to preserve privacy they're supposed to not use data in any untoward ways but if this does pass then it's going to raise really big questions about how you would preserve security when you are swapping data across services and how you make sure that bad actors don't get access to these systems that's interesting so that was boring no it was not listening listen it is interesting now that affordability is really one ability to move this but these big companies already amassing much data there's no way rivals can compete it's actually critically of course it's very fascinating bill you're absolutely wrong so can people tap into what Facebook or Google is already compiled and create new businesses so it could potentially be a font of innovation so that you don't use no way these companies can compete or create what you were saying different choices in average online advertising without access to this data and so how do you do it right is a really important thing and secondly the ability to do it is a big deal thank you and all of that it's legislation that's difficult and hard and you can imagine writing this thing to get I'm a big fan of senator Warren depending on how you categorize or qualify the statements somewhere between four and nine percent of our elected officials have a background in engineering technology and senator Warner is one of them and he's very thoughtful I got the opportunity to spend some time with him his questions are right on he seems very interested really wants to understand the stuff and I think a lot of our elected officials are clearly very smart clearly I've got instincts clearly our resources but frankly I want to take the time to write this kind of legislation because it's hard I mean it's really difficult it's actually really important this is a bit like this is critically important to allowing competitors and we do have to safeguard against privacy issues of moving the state around but it's not Mark Zuckerberg talks only about data portability not that he has to turn over the data he goes up competitors to let them build businesses I get it this is this is important kudos to you at the end of the day though it solves a fraction of the problem you need to break this coming up because right now I'm pissed out of Facebook I'm taking my data to Instagram I mean it's just it's not taking your data it's actually getting letting rivals build businesses off this data that never will be compiled again so I said you own your data and you can begin when you when you fire up another service you would have your friends fire up no that's not a portability data this is talking about the some company X decides to make an actual competitive search service they can use data from Google they can use Google's data in a way that they can create a new business I think it's a great idea I think theoretically it is I think it's something do you think all of a sudden across America venture capitalists are gonna start well at least it gives them like literally I've interviewed just today Alexis Ohingian Ben Hart's never gonna invest in a social media company again because you think that changes yes it does if people have people have more stuff and right now these big companies are hoarding all the data let's use their data to create competitors and maybe not to break them up you know I don't know it's I think it's a great bill you're it's complicated which is why it's difficult but I think it's great all right so wins and fails wins and fails what's your win Kara what's my win oh god there's I jacked or see just jacked or see Jack yeah well done I was ago in my win jacked or see is it this is Claudia Lopez okay this week you know how Claudia's no please explain she was elected as the first female mayor of Bogot Colombia and she's also a member of the LGBTQ community okay and after decades of abuse it was especially especially difficult as most civil wars are on women the there's a wonderful story women have decided have turned to political activism and the second most important office in Colombia the mayor of their largest city is now a 49 year old gay woman and it's a huge I think it's a really nice victory in her speech was wonderful it says a lot about the progress of a country that's been war torn and she's now one of the two most powerful lesbians in the Americas the first of course being the senior senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham anyways my win is Claudia Lopez I think that I think that this is a victory for Colombia a victory her for her and a victory for women and by the way what is the number one source of news on lesbian leadership the dog don't call don't impute lesbians by calling Lindsey Graham one don't do that that's okay I'm not gonna take him he's not tough enough anyway actually I do have another win Casey Newton for taking down horrific contract Facebook content moderators cognizant is shutting down its moderation business a few months ago Casey published a couple blocks or stories about contract workers moderating the grimace Facebook content this week to the companies doing that work said they stopped working with Facebook yeah Facebook's got to do this biz wax themselves if they make a mess they could clean it up okay so all right what is your fail so it's not so much as a fail I just wanted to recognize like I went to college with him was actually my turn to say like I'm Keith Boesky passed away at the age of 53 that's very sad you know you know you know yeah well but yeah and we had lost touch and reconnected he was the president at DLD in Germany he was a video game company and a thought leader on robotics and drones and they think that struck me by my I've never had a chance to meet his wife or son Sarah and Kevin but within 30 seconds he would begin them talking about it so I'm in this oh no I'm sorry anyway keep both get down to 53 oh no he was a lovely guy he was a lovely guy that's why I was seeing him every day yeah he was a fascinating guy always interesting send me interesting ideas I'm a nice man I'm so sorry I guess that right yes short carrot we got to enjoy it you know I'm obsessed not obsessed I'm just focused yeah so am I you know that it's motivating us nice I think I'm crazy but I'm like no no no it makes me happier when you recognize that we have very short time this planet and and everywhere we go we're gonna hit this whether we like it or not and so I think it's very touching sky faster than we think right I'm so let's go predictions let's get you out of out of this okay so there's this artificial the unicorn industrial complex is all about pumping and dumping and trying to create a ridiculously artificial high stock price until the VCs and institutional investors can sell and we saw that with Beyond Meat and that is they only had about 16% of their float so the idea is only put a small percentage of your ownership out there and then it creates artificial demand more demand and supply and in the moment additional shares come out beyond meat you know goes public at 25 bucks rockets to 250 ridiculous valuation I mean it's the same valuation they do a secondary stock is down 20% the lock up comes off last week stock us down again and now the stock has lost two thirds of its value all right we're about to see the same happening uber next it seems like uber's your next thing to talk about well uber doesn't go to zero there's real value there but it's gonna I think my predictions I think uber gets cut 20 to 40% in the next 30-60 days as the artificially low float goes away and the lock up comes off and people realize this company is not worth more than four it's a nice company we're 10 to 20 billion not 55 billion anyway so the artificial the artificial demand and the artificially high stock prices created by a minimal float that the investment bankers and the companies manage at some point you got to pay the piper it's happened with Beyond Meat and by the way what what what what uber was to we work so uber breached the firewall and everyone said all right we're not gonna be fooled again and kill the Wii IPO that is what Beyond Meat is to impossible impossible is lined up it's IPO that's not gonna happen because now that now the Beyond Meat is crashing to something that reasonably reflects its value the bankers and the folks at impossible are not fock they're nice businesses are good businesses they're worth you know perhaps billions of dollars but they're not worth more than the entire agra you know food business I don't know not not for a long time they're way too expensive I mean I find I find a decent strategy I only buy chicken and beef stocks because Cara I want to be a billionaire get it a billionaire that's good covered that's good comedy of sweet kind that's good comedy now that that was just some very hungover okay but anyway so my prediction is uber gets cut 20 to 40% as a lock up comes off and in some sort of reasonable valuation is everyone realizes this thing is not going up it's going way down and they head for the doors okay what does that mean then for IPO is going forward I'm gonna push we're just gonna have a massive recalibration of value in the public markets it's happening in private markets the public markets have been the rational ones it's usually supposedly the retail investors in the public markets are the stupid ones and private markets are supposed to be a smart guys and it's actually been reversed it'll next year we're very interesting year for IPOs and we have all these companies delaying their IPOs like Palantir will be the most interesting because they benefit from this kind of black box oh they're so mysterious it'll be that would be just a fascinating us one we'll read that together yeah that would be you know I like it reading as ones I mean the rumors that alphabet Google's company might be buying Fitbit was interesting we'll talk about that next week that wearable space that's right I thought that was bullshit and ended up I got that wrong I thought that was a lie that released by Fitbit but it looks like in fact Google is in fact in talks to acquire them and we'll talk about the space next week and so much more Scott that I was so sorry about your friend I really you know it's a stretch I say we were friends I know it's a very sad right I keep I don't know if you know this I use the the weak rogue app and constantly so I can hear death quotes all the time and so I get five of them a day which isn't which everyone makes fun of me but there's really good one I got today which was oddly enough Liz live as if you were to die tomorrow learn as if you were to live forever my gondi oh that's that's gondi my friend yes yeah Benjamin Franklin death takes no bribes that's right and on that note on Halloween that's right let's go out let's dress up our kids dress up our new rescue rescue dot from Puerto Rico is going as a little wiener dog it's gonna be hilarious my 12-year-old wants to go as an archer a medieval archer it's way too thoughtful as you want as an artist I wanted to do Star Wars as a family you said no okay and you're going as Scott Deloitte no I go every I go as Starship Commander Jean-Luc Picard huge crowd pleaser anyway everybody thank you so much we will be back next week it's time to go but if listeners have a question or an idea of a company pivot should mercilessly take down over the next couple months shoot us an email at pivot at boxmedia.com we're not limited to anything we love new ideas and companies and different things I know we talk a lot about Facebook and Uber and stuff like that but we will definitely willing to talk about lots of different companies also we're hiring a new producer for pivot Scott give the pitch please come come come work come work for the jungle cat and a big dog and for the rest of your life you're not selling you're not selling it anyway please apply at Vox Media dot com slash careers we have snacks person we have snacks to join the team Scott please read the credits oh good I'm sorry find the script Scott you want to start today's show was produced by Rebecca Sonones try to get there Erica Anderson is Kevin's executive producer thanks also to Rebecca Castro Drew Burrows and Shakurwa make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple podcast and if you like this week's episode leave us a review thanks for living into pivot from box Oh my god I keep living I got that wrong yeah it's listening dude if you was hung over as me I know thanks for listening to pivot from box media we'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business