Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy please sit and stretch steep flip Or that and enjoy via rail love the way It's the family and friends event at Shofers drug mark get 20% off almost all regular price merchandise two days only Tuesday April 28th and Wednesday April 29th open your PC off from a map to get your coupon Hi everyone, this is pivot from the Vox Media podcast network. I'm Cara swisher and I'm Scott Galloway Well, you sound good this morning Scott. How's it going down there in Florida?
Well, you know, I've decided to really take stock of life and I've decided to change the way I approach life Cara And I've taken the toaster setting down from five to three so I can stop and smell the roses Let life play out as it was meant to Quarantine what point are you in the quarantine? Are you like this is it? This is my life now or you like I shall not accept this What I don't know I'm sort of at the point where I wish I could find one of those machines that can clone you so I could murder me and then kill myself I'm kind of at that point. I've had a good shot.
I don't know about you. Oh, you know what I'm fine. Yeah, no No, daddy's not fine. Really?
Oh, well, what can I do? I want it? I want to reach out as Vince rain Vince rims from I think Pulp Fiction said after getting raped in a basement. I'm pretty fucking far from fine What you know, there's a couple things you can do first off you can convince my kids to find the movies I enjoy that I'm making that I can't do it wonderful.
They can't stand it. I know it's a spry. They're just not into it I know they aren't they might my son calls those old movies and I'm like oh, they're from like I made him watch analyze this this weekend Yes, oh my god, he ended up liking it. He was at first like that's an old movie But then ended up liking it and so I'm gonna analyze that now.
That's a great movie Go back to that movie. That's a really I like Robert De Niro There's very few people that have this sort of academic the sort of like industry kind of recognition and at the same time are such incredible Horrors if you put ten dollars at the end of it. He would literally be a cats too. He would start cats to it It's only one of the greatest actors of all time.
Yes, he is I'm telling you my Robert De Niro a story about Twitter Do you have a guess you dated in college? No, I just I told him not to use Twitter at a party anyway It's a good story. I'll tell it to you some other time, but listen, but you know, he's having a good week Joe Biden in terms of getting endorsements He's got some real action going on as they say Barack Obama Elizabeth Warren Bernie Sanders and Cardi B indoors them and then Stacey Abrams told El magazine Yes, I would be honored to be Biden's vice president I would be an excellent running mate. She's doing him and listen Warren said she'd be as running Everyone says he'll be as ready.
Well, you have been very hard on them Let's you know, we get into lots of stories one of the things you did want to talk about this week was Bernie dropping out Let's talk about that briefly and then we'll get into the World Health Organization your excellent call last week But let's first talk about this. I mean from a marketing point of view What would you do if you were Joe Biden now like you've got anything anything anything like what? I want to know actual concrete things. I don't want you to just yammer on a complaint about him I want some actual I'd have to tired you Scott Galley.
I'm Joe Biden. I'm sleeping Joe. What do I what do you I'll do whatever you say? What would you advise him?
So you you basically announced not only do not you be people you announce your candidate and immediately following every Cabinet and after essentially following every bad news bears be league Oh wait, I could be in the cabinet of these fucking Joey bag of dough and it's gonna be in the cabinet every time that the president Does one of these does one of these press conferences and that everyone puts their head in their hands and goes Jesus Christ No wonder everyone's dying here. He does something similar with his team Right, and that's the thing he can pull together the team. We all want right He's actually over there. He's got a drag vouchy over there But go ahead keep going but he could he needs to respond he needs to get out of the basement He needs to start hold hosting his own his own meetings And he should speak he should introduce and wrap up You know 10 seconds on the front end 10 seconds on the back end and have other people He needs to basically start being the president and providing providing a contrast to these ridiculous press conferences I mean where the president places own videos with the president interrupts dr Fauci and it'll absolutely drive president Trump crazy president Trump won't be able to not start insulting them And they just need to they need to immediately provide a contrast and your show Would you need Cardi B should be set press secretary?
I think that would work Cardi B is press secretary. I think it's press secretary should be Stephanie roll Communications director Name the cabinet. I want to hear some of your cabinet names. Go ahead.
You know I think I would rather hear yours because I think mine are gonna be I want to hear yours. Well, I think I think Kamala I think Yeah, Elizabeth Warren would probably make the best be because I think she is she is in my opinion the smartest person in the intellectual thought leader of the Democratic Party right now I think you will probably pick Senator Harris because I think the bottom line is he owes the black community the black community is a big part of the Okay, I don't think Stacey Abrams has that same attack kind of I don't think she's an effective on the attack is Senator Harris pretty good. I don't agree with you. Yeah, yeah, and you know, I think senator van der Beggar sector of education I don't know who we bring in Secretary Trying to think who else was really strong.
I think I think Andrew Yang would be very interesting around something around Treasury or commerce, or I don't know. I'm trying to think who should be in charge of health and human human services Maybe bring in out of the governor from Michigan. I think it's been very effective. Okay, anyways But that's sort of my that's sort of my start.
Who do you who do you think would be? Well, I think I think you're right I think you should hold a press conference and actually out in the open not in his basement I like it shouldn't be in his basement, but I think they're worried about I'm getting sick I think that's a hundred percent what's going on there But I think probably I would have it out. I would have a thing that I'd have every day I'd have the Joe show I call the Joe show or something like that and you know ordinary Joe show or something funny or sleep You know something like that. I bring in guests.
I bring in different guests all the time I would show off a cabinet today and every day I'd make it like a TV show like today I'm gonna introduce my health and secretary who knows it's gonna be like make some excitement about it Like he's not by nature an entertaining person That's the problem and you got to have someone who just loves the limelight And so I think that's you know He could step out of the way But someone around him that loves doing the limelight shows and I would bring in like a like a any show runner to do it Like do it like it and it's like a reality show. I know it sounds crazy, but you know get what's his name The guy who did Trump's shows is a Democrat. What's his name? Mark Burnett.
Yeah, the guy who did all the reality TV Yeah, I get him to do it get one of them to do it It'll be like he's actually a Democrat He's actually you know I would get in my comments I need your help or someone from Hollywood and do it like a show and have different outfits and have lived different memes like today I'm wearing this time. What do you think? I'm an old sleepy Joe like I would lean into sleepy Joe I would lean into like making fun of himself that kind of stuff I didn't think it would be great. Anyway, in any case Joe get on it or call us because we will make a circus out of your Can I do something yeah, like a good circus like a smart circus Pull out George Clooney every now and then like bringing a big star kind of thing actually bring them in on a private plane You know what I mean and if people say oh is it dangerous?
You know like you know what got a live got we're being as we're going all the safety things and we're doing all this stuff Or pipe them in in a beautiful way pipe Tom Hanks in for friggin's sake, you know kind of thing anyway My favorite line so far from this entire podcast and this week a good circus A good circus, you know bring in George Clooney Like bring in some interesting including a standing circus good people need entertainment right now in a good way like really good Like it's counter programming to the shit show that is the Trump Canadian guy let's make a circus to lay Biden stuff Yes, and then a little bit of those you know when they bend around each other you're gonna search the delay when those two guys just Bend oh my god. Have you met me? That's like you do edibles and by the way I do edibles and go to circus so like that's for real We usually start with one big story, but today I want to do something a little different as I mentioned before I've watched a lot of the Apprentice we can't just sit Trump down and shout your fired We can give him a review though on how he's handling the pandemic Shall we take a look at a few of his most recent and usually unfortunate choices? We're gonna make entertainment here all right first Trump blames World Health Organization for getting COVID wrong on Tuesday Trump ordered his administration to defund the World Health Organization is not clear that he can which is part of the United Nations He said that who which is created after World War two is very China-centric in 2019 the United States contributed about 553 million to the World Health Organization's six billion dollar budget the US is the organization's largest donor in response Bill Gates tweeted Who is also given billions to the World Health Organization?
Holting funding to the World Health Organization during the World Health Crisis is dangerous as it sounds their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if their work is stopped no other organization can replace them the world needs at who now more than ever tell me What is your review of this and why I know how you came up with that Oh, this was an easy one whenever whenever the president is facing a crisis of his own incompetence and his own making his playbook And it's very effective is to create another crisis within the crisis is distraction and the ultimate crisis within a crisis from the president Is to find a non-white or a foreigner to blame and the head of the who is non-white The World Health Organization is not American for the 90% of people in the United States that do not own a passport They're unfortunately given in or they have a bias or a dangerous tendency to believe that foreigners when they're under attack or when they don't like their lives Are responsible any place of those very tribally placed are worse than snakes and the who is international You know, he doesn't like those things it feels European There's a guy with an accent who's not who's not from Norway much less Michigan so they make the perfect target This was an easy one and he also signaled that he typically says something outrageous that everyone we think everyone's gonna freak out And then when his face doesn't freak out whoever it is whoever the most afraid person in his administration is and that's I mean That's a real you want to talk about fight for the podium whether it's even Miller's or someone else They say actually this was playing well This is playing well in the press is fighting the World Health Health Organization and they and they do it and this is and you know Who loves this? You know who absolutely loves America defending the World Health Organization first and foremost the virus the any enemy begins to win When they start atomizing their adversary and the way they add up the virus atomizes us and divide is to divide and conquer us And the idea that we're gonna take the only organization that is pan pan your pan pan or just borderless Which is this virus this virus is borderless. Yeah, and it's working on it's working on aids is working on malaria and And trying to defund them. It's just I mean, it's just so I think the press will now start like looking at China, which they should have been doing in the first place Nobody thinks China's any nice player now Trump himself was complimenting China until he stopped complimenting them Obviously, you know, and so I think what he's gonna do is get the press to like focus on trying There's an AP story that was disturbing, but no surprise to me I think I you know how I really it's China and their behavior all the time But I mean it's focusing the tension on China and not the incompetence also of the white house The two things could be they're not mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination And so that's what's really effective.
Like what would you say is this effective? This is effective is working Oh, this is yeah, but you'd like to think you're not working from a moral and and like I think I'm 100% with Bill Gates This is dangerous, but it's it's something that he's doing this politically politically. It's probably a good move. It's probably good move He's finding he's creating a distraction.
Look this is this is the reality and Americans don't want to believe this because we don't we don't want to look In the mirror and see the reflection right now the reality is we had more time to prepare We spend more money on healthcare. We have some of our best and brightest put on scrubs every day and go to work as doctors And yet we we have fucked this up so badly. Yeah, we there is there's just no way to look at this and go Okay, how did we get this this wrong? And so the president has to deflect and start blaming other people and now he can say the World Health Organization is responsible because they didn't report I mean to know that he didn't tell him and of course he had a million other ways to know but And there's some truth to the fact that China probably hasn't received the scrutiny it deserves the China If China had been more forthcoming if they'd been more transparent the World Health Organization can only work with the data They're given they're not an investigator unit They don't have they don't they don't confirm or validate or have spies on the grounds confirm information coming out of China They have to work with the information they're given and I think when all of this comes that you know all of this comes out in the wash We're gonna find that the Chinese a lot more people have died in China than they've reported that the numbers They reported are actually probably just just two sets of numbers There's a real numbers and and what they're reporting and there's no doubt about it in situations like this a certain level of transparency around data It's hugely important especially in the initial phases so China China as a corrupt nation Which it is and the leadership is corrupt there.
We will find out that they in fact They treated that party line. I don't think there's any way those numbers are accurate Anyways, but the World Health Organization to blame them all they're saying is I know let's take one organization that could help make progress against us And make sure that we don't have the relapse is much more likely now in in the late fall by defunding the World Health Organization So great. He's created a distraction from his own incompetence and as a result We're likely gonna have a more severe relapse globally. I mean, I don't know if you've seen what's happening in Africa There was riots and food lines in Nairobi.
It just says a total lack of empathy for for man It's just so I mean it's getting to the point where these decisions are they're just somewhat depraved and I was trying fine I was trying to say okay I'm a raging moderate which means I can see the other side and it just it disappoints me that more moderatesates Yeah, it just is getting so I mean it's just getting kind of almost you're almost becoming numb to this stuff But you're gonna see I was I was appreciating the Bill Gates who was never political almost never never never Trump's name Which he should have but that's all right. I'll take it You know, they've been giving a lot of money I had a lot of back and forth with people are like why are you listening to just a rich guy? I'm like this guy actually has expertise We need you need to stop, you know attacking the messenger He's a hundred percent correct here, and he's right and of course they've given a lot of money to the World Health Organization The line on him is that he wants to make vaccines and make more more money. That's what he's lining up to do I this is not true same or about that Well there that you know, he's been pushing he's building factories to make vaccines And their whole thing is he wants to make you know, the anti-vax people who are just abominable As far as I could be concerned He's saying he's lining up to make money off of vaccines.
That's what he wants. That's his end game here I was like he's the richest fan of the world. I don't I feel like no I don't feel this is not a profit opportunity for Bill Gates This is not I don't know anyway The World Health Organization is about to become a new Planned Parenthood and that is yeah, unfortunately It's gonna be become hugely politicized and it's going to become one of the largest recipients a billionaire democratic philanthropy You're gonna see tech billionaire step into the void here and fund the World Health Organization And it's gonna make it such that the Republicans begin to hate the World Health Organization Just the same way they've started to hate that's a very good Planned Parenthood very good call all right next Trump announced a new business council to reopen the country Which was a disaster in a press conference. He wrote off a list of names of big CEOs in Wall Wall Street tech sports other industries Who would be part of that effort to restart the economy names on the list included Tim Cook Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos Mark Cuban It's not immediately clear if they agree it's not immediately there They didn't agree to be on the council a lot of them and how they would buy the president what capacity they just put up the list of names And then told them later there's lots of reporting on that As a reminder after Trump's big Rose Garden Presser at the start of the quarantine He announced that Walmart would be making drive-through testing for COVID-19 NPR reports at a total of eight drive-ins that he described have been implemented Same thing with all the stuff he showed and his dog and pony show there Most of the things like these these devices to do testing they're not being used very much at all There's a lot of announcements and not a lot of a lot of vaporwares they say in tech But I talked to a number of tech executives and they're like we had no idea And then they sort of have to respond and be on these calls but most of the people on these calls were like don't open the country This is ridiculous and testing is what's most important and so Trump didn't like what he heard on these And they thought they said it was desperate It was a weird desperate call it's very similar to those original business councils that Trump did that everybody jumped off of in the beginning of the Of the administration remember those when he started doing crazy things they all left What do you think about this?
What do you think of this business council thing? What would you like to see in it's not a worst idea in the world to consult business people But the way he did it of course was hand-handed and disorganized What do you think he said and Bill Gates wasn't on it by the way interestingly enough? What do you think about this? Yeah, but he's treating them like his PR team He wants to send shoulder to shoulder with Tim Cook and Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and say that anything I say because they're sitting next to me makes it more valid because because these are these are the heroes anyone who's rich means They're smart is how he perceives himself and thinks other people perceive him So if I can get these guys to stand if I can get Tim Cook to sit next to me It means anything I say has more credibility and what he should be focusing on instead of some sort of photo Opportunity is two things is leveraging the power of the private sector and our innovators for Testing I think that it reopens the country is to give people the confidence That we're actually yeah that we're actually getting testing whether it's testing for immunities whether testing super super fast I'll real-time testing around whether you have it and then the second thing is I don't understand why they're doing this I understand why they haven't hired up or scaled up two or three million people But from what I understand quite a few people are out of work and turn them into overnight into the world's largest organization That does one thing and that's tracing and these are people using new technologies that would immediately once someone gets an alert And once they're alerted after our incredibly robust system of hopefully testing gets ramped up to do incredible contact tracing And notify people using new technologies.
I mean it's testing and tracing so Which is what every CEO including the head of the bank of all of them said it to him They didn't like the new they didn't like the information. They were imparting They don't have anyone competent. We should have we should have the most I mean look at what France is doing. France is totally mobilized their infrastructure They have makeshift emergency hospitals and transportation vehicles from the Tejave and from their aircraft carriers Their armed services have been brought to bear.
They should have there's incredible logistics service people in the armed services Why hasn't Trump kind of weaponized them if you will or emboldened them to say okay Here is the basic technology around testing It's going to get better every day and we need to take testing from x to 10x in the next 30 days help us get there Instead he's trying to trying to convince the nation that I'm the one that should be able to decide If and when we open and what those tech executives should be doing is they should be getting together and say okay Let's coordinate they should be having their own counsel And also they probably should be saying in a thoughtful way and non-confrontational ways possible So we look forward to the all clear for when to go get back to work from our governors Who are on the ground and republicans who have to walk a walk around the importance of limited federal government and it's up But they always want states rights when it's around gun control or around family planning Which they never want to face and then when it comes to this him pointing at his head and saying i'm going to decide I do think that's something he'll lose on I think the governor's gonna stick up the middle finger and say sorry boss You're not deciding what that's obvious I think this you're right around the pr elements of this of this thing and I think they didn't bite I think they're very nervous about being used as like props in a show You know what's happening here is he's announcing things and then it has nothing to do You should say why doesn't he do something because that's not he just says things and then that's that's the whole thing Which is what a tv show does like you don't actually create the things I was I wrote a piece I don't know if you saw about me testing myself for antibodies I got a hold of one of these tests from someone I know And how useless underground underground underground underground yeah for now, but but I don't know I don't know there's no like the FDA has sort of let these things go like on the antibodies tests And they have to really like they just like anybody make them's and there's a whole bunch pouring in from China and Korea And so what happened? I didn't I usually read absolutely everything right I did this time it was negative but I thought I had possibly had covid 19 because I had a really weird bout of illness But I didn't but I can't even get a test as you know I like I don't even know how to get a test and it's not easy to do so and she should walk into a drug store and be able to get a test Right there and know right there. It's like it should be like a home pregnancy test It should be like anyway So I was gotten a lot of people wrote me and one person who was working this was saying You know this this you could just dragoon these people to do them and make them and they would be out like that Like you just dragoon them not even dragoon saying you're gonna be making these tests Abbott or whatever and they abbot is and other companies are but you're right the testing thing and I think all these CEOs That was the message is we're not opening up until the science leads us there and until the science until you do something about the science We're not gonna open our companies. There's no way we're opening a Disney world.
We're not opening Uh, you know this and that and this anyway, um Scott Let's go in a quick break We'll come back to talk about soft bank and also hear from a listener who's done something very interesting with AI and Scott Galloway Oh Some say the bubbles in an aero truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light rich creamy chocolatey aero truffle feel the aero bubbles melt It's mine bubbling amazon presents jeff versus toggo truck salsa Whether it's verde roha or the orange one for jeff trying any salsa is like playing russian roulette with a frame thrower Luckily jeff saved with amazon and stocked up on and as its ginger tea and milk habanero more like haban year Yes, save the every day with amazon Okay, scott we're back. Let's talk about our favorite thing soft bank is in trouble Soft bank warns investors at the value of its vision fund chakaru may have dropped by as much as 16 Uh point seven billion dollars over the last year and a statement posted to its website vision funds that it would record a loss of 1.8 Trillion yen in the financial year that ended in march due to the deteriorating market environment Soft bank has other areas investment that will likely offset those losses But this is the first annual loss in 15 years. Of course stop bank issues started before covid 19 way before When we when they back and we work and other companies that were kind of insane last week We were announced is suing soft bank for abandoning a three billion dollar share buyout offer They say soft bank made up reasons to back out of the plan as financial prevers precious mounts and covid 19 pandemic Worsons an interview with forbs maseo She's on the founder and seo of stop bank said he expected 15 vision fund portfolio companies to fail But he said the long-term plan for the vision fund was unchanged. Okay.
All right. What is this the end of the vision fund? I think it is I think most people I talked to think that it's still compelling We predicted this was over four months ago with this with the walking dead And yeah, you got to imagine some point their investor step in and say all right stop spending money on overhead Substantiously reduce the staff of the general partners that is the people I mean that one guy I can't get over that one guy so it's a job or geeze the guy who His background includes I think like losing billions of dollars at do we charge during a credit crisis? Okay, let's put him in charge But you're gonna have this is I don't want to say it's perfect for them But it's given them cloud cover just to get the hell out of dodge And this thing is over.
Soft bank is actually a great company. They do really well. They have fantastic They have some fantastic assets Telcos are a good place to be the merger of sprinting to mobile made You know made a lot of sense in terms of scale and having a viable number three So this will give the cloud cover they need to get out What's gonna be interesting is just to watch this thing unwind when they don't have the drunk sailor showing up and feeding them more crack of can of cheap capital So, I mean there's there's companies like by that. You mean the Saudis Well, I think so I think was doing these follow-on rounds, which were just ridiculous to companies that some some great companies slack There's some real good companies in the portfolio.
I think I'm not even sure what I think so I think an Airbnb Small I don't think so And then but what's really gonna be interesting is the next shoe to drop I think within the portfolio other than just the crazy shit like robots making pizza making robots Is there real estate stuff? So oil is already out of business. They just don't know it yet That's gonna be a disaster trying to roll up budget hotels overpaying 26 year old running the company that just stupid and then the next ones You got to imagine that soft bank class real estate in this economy The next ones we're gonna hear more about even despite the distraction from COVID-19 will be compass and open door open doors I buying so they take they actually buy houses side on scene using algorithms and then they Fix them up and then sell them and it's an interesting idea creating more liquidity and real estate and taking a very inefficient process where you're You know, Joan your friend's wife It shows up on a sunday and sells your house and then brokers take 5% of what is your most valuable asset I mean, there's just a lot a lot of inefficiency there But the problem is they now are sitting on inventory of houses that are going to be increasingly illiquid and likely go down in value So they have this match duration. It's the same thing that happened that we work where they basically buy long the side tenure leases And then sell short that can when the market turns against you.
It's just vicious, right? So you're going to start to hear more about oil compass and open door as companies as distressed companies in the soft bank Portfolio and they're not going to have you know, uncle masa to show up with his his trunk and checkbook They're going to get a lot more discerning around following rounds. Well, and I think the thing is they just were funding everything And I think they were doing things like competing, you know competing they have some interesting one They have bike dance, which is interesting coupon coupon fanatics First story. They've got some interesting companies Some of them are or instead they are not in there being be by the way, you know, you're right They just have to just move along.
It just was the fact they were doing this in this sort of a strange way of Overfunding things or else they would they would offer money to one group and then if they didn't go for it They say we're not we're gonna fund your your competitor like by a lot and so a lot of people didn't I wrote several stories about that It was sort of this sort of we're coming in with giant piles of money screw you And so, you know, this is you know, this is what they're reaping what they so essentially even their winners though They want they want to experience the type of IR that typical BCs I mean, it's just a quite capital put in client Perkins got 20% of Google for I think about 25 million dollars in their series where as and so the the return there was you know 40,000 percent Whereas even the winners at soft bank because they came and said here's a billion at a pre of 7 billion or something crazy or here's 500 million at a pre one and a half million even their winners the IR will be it will be good, but it won't be exceptional So they're not gonna be yeah, they're very tough Especially they're all over driving like with grab and all of them They're not just they're indeed either and grab their and cruise or and get around there, you know, you know, they're all though They're like everything uber, you know, who's gonna benefit what the the the vintage if you will of these Raised right now that will be deployed not now But in in 21 and 22 will be some of the highest returning funds in asset classes in history because what you're seeing is this great calling Of startups and you're also seeing costs come way down and valuations come down and a largest source of stupid crack cocaine capital It's about to leave the stage meaning that they won't be competing against drunk uncle driving evaluations The best time to start a company is at the very very depth of a recession And the best time to invest is at the depth of a recession and all these guys that have just had fortunate timing All these VCs who've just raised big funds are about to pick up great companies and great startups at 40 to 60% off I don't know if you look at the term the most recent terms on Airbnb. I was a great piece of paper For the VCs so the VCs who have just close ones the 21 and 22 Vintageists are gonna have some of the highest returns in the history of all right good point All right last one what sort because it has to do with you to a court rule Amazon operations shut down in France a court rule The company failed to protect warehouse workers against COVID-19 now Amazon must restrict deliveries to food hygiene and medical products that impacts 10,000 workers They will get full pay during that time and a statement Amazon said it was perplexed by the French court's decision and that And the threat and fine was too high to risk for not complying similar shoes of reason in the US I doubt the US will do anything about it, but the pressure of COVID-19 push Amazon Will it push them to reconcile its tenuous relationship with workers? They've been firing workers who complain here in the United States What do you think of this very briefly? What do you I mean Amazon is doing a great job delivering but at the same time putting their workers at risk and not doing enough?
And although the question is is there anything they can do that's enough that doesn't end up in this situation Well, I look I just don't think I'm getting around it I think Amazon and Walmart are now becoming too big to fail in the sense that they are now you want to see a riot Amazon and Walmart all of a sudden if their supply chain was interrupted and they announced they were no longer able to deliver food Or they had to start closing stores. You would say your neighbors You know they'd be like honey grab the the Glock or going to Publix You would start to see you could you could really see a panic And so those companies are playing probably in some ways a more important role than the federal government right now So I think what Amazon is doing is I think it's a good thing that we have people That are smart enough brave enough to put themselves in harm's way I think the difference here is that it's people who unfortunately weren't paid enough to make that decision They have to put themselves in harm's way because quite frankly they haven't even made any money And that great line from the little prince what is essential is invisible the eye our essential workers that we keep talking about They're then invisible to our eye and while we lean out our windows and applaud the health care workers as we should Are we really leaning on and applauding the essential workers who deliver our groceries or put stuff in our backseat or run our sanitation trucks Or have died in transit I think 41 transit workers have died in New York because the bottom line is it's more really it's a continuation of the war on the poor And that is we don't respect these people We don't have the same affection for them because we think of them as losers The difficult thing about a meritocracy or what we think is a meritocracy is that we believe billionaires deserve it And that we should idolize them and we believe someone Someone who is delivering your groceries at 14 bucks an hour they fucked up because they deserved it They're not as smart as good as the rest of people and we're not leaning on our windows at 6 p.m To clap for these people and they become increasingly important So I'd like to see these warehouses be open. I would just like to make it a real function of option and that you get danger pay Well, you gotta know what they're doing I mean my the whole foods near me just had a bunch of illnesses in it and I have to say when I went in there I've been in there several times, which I was like, oh great This is not great They were they did have gloves they did have masks they did like I wonder what's happening I mean obviously this virus is gonna get people sick no matter what like it's gonna get through But I was sort of like what there's there's they obviously didn't respond quickly enough And the question is what are they doing behind the scenes because in front of the scenes everybody's all as as protected as I guess You can be but but but you wonder like they have to be sort of you know What is it called? Pure than Caesar's wife on these things like you really have to go as far as you can But is there any doing these jobs is inherently like my brother's might get sick He's just gonna like there's a possibility and and and the question is what do we do that?
What do we you know in france just shut them gives them a fine that just shuts them down just completely shutting down is the only Other complete shutdown is the only way to protect but health care workers not that they're not here us But generally speaking health care workers kind of take this oath and that is they get paid Well, they have a lot of respect in our society and they're heroic to sort of begin with in their general Their general viewpoint of their start to the medical community community is that they will put themselves in harm's way to help other people's health And I'm not saying we should take that for granted But for example in the armed services arm and my dad wanted me to go to an apple So he wouldn't have to pay for my college and I started seriously thinking about a career in the armed services And I remember reading about different careers and talking to people in the service I said if you become a submarine or out of college you can make like $50,000 a year Why because you're in a metal tube with recirculated air and you literally don't surface sometimes for five or six months But they paid you so much money that you considered doing it and what we'd like to see in those warehouses among those essential workers If you're a 25-year-old woman the prospect of being infected is a different prospect than a 65-year-old man with diabetes It's just a different risk-adjusted threat And I think at the 25-year-old consciously decides that he or she is going to play a very important role and go to work in our food supply chain into a warehouse I don't think I think that's worth that we had our job is not to shut the warehouse down our job is to make it worth it for those people going Into that warehouse and pay them. Yeah, just pay them a shit ton of money Make it such that a you know if they get sick They know if they get sick, we're gonna take care of them and be if they manage to get through this We're gonna pay them a shit ton of money. Yeah, thank you to something much more creative here Alright, so we're gonna get into listener question. You're a hundred percent right.
Okay. This one is a little different We have a software engineer named Z Long Lee from Montreal He used AI to make a question in Scott's voice. This AI bot does sound like Scott. So here's the robot Scott's question You've got you've got to believe I'm gonna be a male man.
You've got male Karen Scott, I'm Robert Scott and I'm a big fan of the show My question today is can a big touch go to another level and pull a gangster move to replace essential workers with robot in order to protect them against the virus in the Future. Oh, wow, that's pretty good Let me read it just can big tech go to another level and pull out a gangster move to replace essential workers with robots in order to protect them against the virus in the future Scott that sounded like you that was I didn't think that sound I didn't feel I didn't feel like just irresistibly attracted to that voice Loving and sexy I'm thinking doing a show with that robot. I think that robot would be just fine. Anyway, really well done.
Yeah, it was a robot was an AI voice That was a pretty close approximation of your voice I'm such a narcissist. I didn't even listen to the question. I just kept thinking does this sound like me What do I sound like? Do people love me?
Do people love the robot see the robot will not care and will be much easier to deal with I think that's one of the pluses of a robot, but but we talk about this idea of hasten the race for robots I talk again. I talk about the smart cube and he thinks we need more robots Obviously they're working on robots in China. This would robots would solve the problem except that we need to have people to have jobs But so does that strengthen the case of robots or does it you know They putting robots in places like when they go into nuclear facilities that are blowing up They send in robots they send in robots. They're gonna be sending robots into mines to mine and everything should which and here Which we couldn't have contemplated this virus that allows us which we could have contemplated.
That's not true But it creates a situation is do we need more robots Scott? Well, you know, this is gonna I mean Andrew Yang talked about the need for yes He basically said it's not immigrants taking jobs. It's robots So unless you're gonna stop robots at the border, you're gonna see a continued outsourcing middle-class jobs or Well, he was he was making a joke that it's there's notion you're stopping immigrants That's not just taking the jobs. It's not immigrants in factories.
It's robots I don't think you can stop technology and what I think you can do is tax robots the same way we tax payroll taxes That's that you have money to reinvest and take care of people whose job I don't I've always said this on boards when they're talking about whether or not whether or not That's right. It's a good idea whether or not you fire employees or not And we all sit around and pretend we give a shit that we all pretend that we're like thoughtful people and then decide to fire people The reality is I don't think you can protect jobs. You can protect people So the question is all right good automation. It does make sense to where you can automate There's a company called Ocato that does automated Picking and packing and grocery stores, and I just look up their stock.
I'm shocked. It's not up more But yeah, there's gonna be a rush to more robotics the question is how do you protect the people whose jobs are displaced and either Retrain them or give them enough money to find another something else, but you also got to keep in mind There are viruses that can shut down robots right robots and technology are absolutely not immune from viruses It's an entirely different set of pathogens, but they are they too are immune But yeah, it's hard to imagine that robotics doesn't doesn't accelerate I've always thought though at the end of the day the most impressive processing power in the world is the processor between people's ears and a level of nuance Yeah, you know robots can't show courage they can't show ingenuity. They have absolutely no intent So you got you have I think still in moments of crisis We thought by this time according to Star Trek and you know Or the robots would be fighting our wars right and that's just not true There's just nothing they can replace and nuance and decision-making like the human brain and processing power still isn't there And they keep talking about the singularity when they you know you go to these conferences We talk about a singularity that in 36 months we're gonna have robots doing all the shit for us And it just doesn't it doesn't happen so I'm a little bit I'm not I think it's direction only gonna happen I just do I just it's there already in manufacturing already lots more places than you and I are seeing In terms especially and especially robots combined with AI. I just think it's inevitable I just don't I don't it's like me and not driving cars.
It's it's directionally correct And it's just a question of when I don't I think there's no questions robots will replace enormous amounts of jobs I think Andrew Yang was right. I think it'll just I think it'll surprise us where they come in but in dangerous jobs Absolutely, no question or or some other way to do that But I think I use robots rather broadly by the way Some of them are just single hands some of them are like look like robots They look like little square bot little boxes and stuff like that And so yeah, I just I think I think we always conceive of robots as these people walking around and that's not what I mean I think it's much more widespread in terms of what a robot really is and but no question and especially something like this Like if I think I told you when I came back from the base of one of the warehouses Like I was like this isn't gonna have people in it someday It's just the way it was going and the things I was saying I was like this this is being designed for not having people here eventually the way it is And it made sense and robots were doing so many more things than the last time I was there and robots were doing so many more things In the time before so I you know if I was Amazon I would absolutely do this even though it might be heartless I think I mean if you're sitting there from a and passing the same thing with uber I would absolutely have self-driving Self-driving cars. I just I don't know why you wouldn't as from a financial point of view Anyway, we're gonna take one more quick break. I'm not gonna replace you with a robot Scott I want the robots from Westworld.
I'm a fan. You know she is working hot. Oh my god. Have you seen Westworld?
I can't watch it. I told you that it's totally confusing. It's completely oh, it's it's it's you can't you can't even try and follow the storyline You gotta sit back. I can't even read it and understand it I was like here's there was a story like here's the people who cannot follow this thing and I couldn't follow this Story trying to describe it.
I was like what it was like what it was like the beginning of the beginning so it's gonna be get so and so be get so and so be get So I was like what what what happened? Who are they talking about like literally? I just can't follow anyway We're gonna take one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions Square note that hospitality efficiency is everything.
That's part of the system Unless you take payments track sales handle inventory manage staff send invoices and keep up with finances all in one place Play through orders with zero mistakes get the data you need and keep everything working together So you're ready for whatever's next learn more about their customizable plans at square up.com This episode is brought to you by tell us online security. Oh The worst you mean hack season sorry what yeah cyber criminals love tax forms But I've got tell us online security it helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud So I can stress less during tax season or any season plans start at just 12 dollars a month learn more at tell us dot com slash online security No one can prevent all sniper crime or identity theft conditions apply Okay, we're back. It's got your predictions have been spot on and reason I think you're a robot That's what I think is happening You had the one about the world health organization and a few weeks ago You predicted that universities wouldn't reopen in the fall now boston university is the first school to say it will likely shutter until january 2021 What I think that's going to be followed by a lot of schools. I think my son's going to be living at home in the fall I suspect I told him that either they start looking for a job, but um, what do you what is your next prediction?
This is you're you're really doing well here So along the lines are well, too that these are the less important one is you're about to see gap years, you know taking a year off between High school and college you're about to see that increase two to three thousand percent this fall And that is kara swisher's going to decide that her son Uh, he can either go to this we don't know what it's going to be the great school's your son has been admitted to and For orient some sort of weird strange orientation and then do a bunch of bad zoom classes, which will not be worth $50,000 so you'll decide all right and by the way Decided gap years then decided gap years when someone takes a gap year 90 percent of them end up going back They do in fact nine out of ten doing fact enroll in college. It's not like they join a rock man and leave forever Too they end up graduating at higher rates with higher gpa's I also think it's a great idea for young men because I think an 18 year old man is still a boy Boys don't mature as fast and I think that if you're like me and you're 17 and you show up to UCLA You just don't have the emotional or mental capacity to deal with college You end up just smoking a shit ton of bottom watching the planet the age trilogy over and over So I think we're going to see gap years absolutely explode, but that's not my prediction My prediction is by the end of 2020 Amazon is the first two trillion dollar market capitalization company There's just it's just hard to imagine if you look at Henry Blodgett really tell me more tell me more Well, think about big tech first off big tech has gone from 21 percent of the NASDAQ to 24 Just in the last 30 days you have every every media company is going to be picked dry of their best talent by google and facebook Who've increased their hiring as they see weakness you're going to have a severe downturn in media spending and revenues at google and facebook But their recovery will be what president trump is hoping for the large economy their recovery will in fact be a v-shape Whereas the recovery for every other media company is going to look like a chair It's going to be an L and then it's going to go down again and it's going to be Google and facebook have been weakening if you will These media industry and covid came in and it's going to finish them off apple apple is probably overvalued right now It got recast from a p of 12 to 24 for no real reason It's hard to believe that people won't slow down or put off buying that $1400 phone even though They're well positioned even though they have apple tv plus even though the air pods and most innovative product But the company that is going to come out of this is literally going to grow through this It's going to run through the tape and start running a marathon after the 400 meter of the covid is amazon How do they not come out of this with so much momentum and in the markets you can have people go? Okay Why would not just buy amazon? Why wouldn't I just buy amazon?
So you're going to see amazon is already up amazon has already I mean think about this i'm stuck at home playing with my toaster and starting to hate my children and jeepes That's gets his divorce paid for in the last 30 days. That's what's happened He's increased his wealth about 35 billion dollars in the last 30 days Spot on so you have amazon coming out of this stronger and you have they're going to have the confidence to start making more and more overt Expressive announcements about health care. They're going to be the ones that kind of drive More automated real-time testing and everyone's just going to throw in the towel investors The government consumers and go all in on amazon amazon first two trillion dollar company by end of 2020 I'm going to add to your prediction, but I think it's spot on with the idea that it's not going to be just amazon I think you're right you saw a story and the time to speak about google and facebook is sort of losing out financially From the advertise they're also getting hit but I think they're coming right back in here and they are hiring They're hiring people and so that's really and I think they're going to hire a lot of people that don't want to go back That or feel like they're gonna have to which is not a good. I don't think that's ever good It's like oh, I'm gonna go here because it's safe.
That's sort of like marrying the person you didn't want to marry You know, I mean like oh, I'll deal with this person is they're a good provider But I think that's a problem for later on down the line, but I do describe my two wives He's so strange that I heard he's successful. He's a good provider. He's a good provider Good provider is not something you want to be called necessarily Although it's not a bad thing, but I think you're right. I think it's not just Amazon I think all as we've talked about before I think big tech is gonna come back stronger than ever all of them Look at what's happening.
You know what's happening here google and facebook are calling Condonastus furlough people Viacom's furloughing people west one and art high radio Are are firing it for only people and google and facebook are gonna call now you can go home You can take 60 percent of your pay there They've identified the five percent the best five percent at all these terms We have the best relationships who are really good in the column said how do you like to get a raise during furlough come to google? I'm on the so nobody at old media is getting a raise right now Unless the ones that go to google and facebook and these guys are gonna play offense are gonna increase That's what I've been doing they're gonna increase their hiring and it's also what it gives advertisers What happens is it gives them an opportunity to break bad habits and quite frankly traditional media or terrestrial media is a bad habit And they have great relationships with these companies the primary competence of old media is they hire incredibly exceptionally high EQ person to establish relationships with a person at ABM They're in charge of the budget and they take them out and they're nice to them and they give them fake awards They say you're such a great scene because you continue to waste a bunch of money by com And all this people are gonna rethink their media budgets And they're probably not gonna come back to the same levels they were pre-covid But the mix will be again much more towards facebook and google and digital It's gonna be a few these comes gonna snap back really fast I think the top ones will do fine in media the ones that are high quality things I don't think everyone's gonna suffer the same level right Well, there's a bunch of organizations There's a bunch of media organizations that are that I think people people flee towards quality I do think that's the case and I think that's the issue But you know and guess who owns the Washington Post Jeff Bezos Well, you know what the decent survivability index across media is you just all you need to do is look at the percentage of revenues They get from subscriptions so Viacom almost nothing they get they get the kick in the nuts New York Times 68 percent of revenues now from subscription recurring revenue So they're advertising can get cut in half and they still have money to take care of swishers It was already a big article Yeah, they're fantastic articles by the way You should try to invest in a relationship by reading some of my work I read all your now you're stealing my terms investing our relationship I just want to say I listen to all your little grants that go on I like I respond to your text. Do you do you know mercy no malice every week? Yes, yes, I will know I watch your videos.
I watch your videos. I watch your fights with people online. I watch your responses I watch you very you're the fighter online. You're much better out at the me I know you get it you get in there.
No, you get in there You just get offended when you say something and people call you want it. I don't know why I think you should say Yeah, I'm gonna double down on this. I hate that about myself I hate that about myself. Yeah, you do you're like I think the Jack Dorsey think bothered you now What do you think of him?
I think that really upset you you I'm glad you stuck to your guns on that I'll tell you a question to dog. I know you do you get very offended when people question the dog I love it. I'm like, oh really? I'll just you know by the way New studies of and thank you Rita Wilson for hydroxychloroquine I was like straight by those idiots or like it's the only thing and I'm like well I think it's very good to be wary and then Rita Wilson talked about how they didn't help her and same thing with this doctor and See how other things did and I'm not not open to it But you have to just be like stick to your friggin guns.
That's why I'm but I try to be you know It's being a senior guns something I did learn about I did put out in Twitter I put out a tweet saying all right wet markets a lot of these a lot of the pandemics into originated from bats Should we think about purposely and thoughtfully reducing the bat population? Oh my god Bad people are out there. There's a lot of bad people. I kind of told you that call me before you do Seriously, I got such pushback, but I got to be honest It was really thoughtful pushback And I got a bunch of emails from these there are women and it's usually women for some reason that work at these bat rehab centers or bat And there were these really thoughtful articles around how important a role bats play in the ecosystem including including Maintaining like these maintaining the population or reducing the population.
What is the most dangerous animal in the world? Which is no not right? Well, he does. Oh, yeah, that's something like two thousand a day.
We're responsible. That's important. I knew that I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
That's important. That's not rats. That's not right That's when I take it back. I just want to say I take it back when people get ahold of them and do bad things to bats That's what we're the problem.
Not the bats. We let me just that is the problem on this planet It's not bad. You know rats. I would say I'm not good.
That's not good. That's not good. We're like rats. We're the rats of Anyway, anyway, I want to apologize to the back community that I end up here you and Twitter has educated me I was wrong bats are important.
That's alone. Leave the bat alone. Please stop sending me emails. You crazy bad people.
They say all you bad people I want you to keep writing Scott about the efficacy of bats. I want as many emails as possible this week to Scott about Well, you know the stereotype and then by the way be people all the people that are fans of ours, please write them about bees That would be great, too. I'm never saying but you know how cat people want you to get all this information There's a stereotype of cliche of cat people being a woman who's in her 50s who lives and dies alone The cat people to the cat people is bad people These are strange people who are obviously living alone and not getting out enough because they are they are coming out of the woodwork To talk to me about the importance of bats. Anyways, I am wrong.
I would draw the comment. I've been educated bats are important Please stop sending me email. Send more send more send more. Anyway, Scott.
It's time to go. What are you doing this weekend? I hear florida The same thing I did last weekend. What are you doing?
I know but wrestling is now an essential business Linda McMahon's short stint with the Trump administration paid off I mean, honestly, I need to get to a rest and get to a wrestling You know what a bunch of people when a bunch of people in florida decided to go to church services When a bunch of floridians decide to go to a church service on Sunday the middle of the pandemic. That's what I called Darwin. They should be wiped out That's just there you go. That's your letters for this week.
That literally that's just that's just evolution. That's naturally all right It's not something that's natural. It's a natural selection. It's natural selection.
Okay, it's done You're gonna get a dozens of I'm Dave in the blood of Christ emails. Good luck with that Anyway, don't forget if there's a story in the news and you're curious about it and want to hear our opinion Especially if you're an AI bot wanting to be Scott Galloway. We're very welcome to that. Email us at pivot at Vox Media dot com I'm Andy Noon for several of them.
Okay, Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sonones our executive producer is Erica Anderson And special thanks to Drew Burrows and Rebecca Castro if you like what you heard, please hit the subscribe button Do you know for the first time last week our listenership was down is because people are not commuting or because we're talking about Hannity too much We had a dip for the first time we've been growing every week. Please reverse our reversal of trend We got it. We need to be able to be snarky to bank off in our new bosses in New York magazine Please hit subscribe and tune in next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business