Pivot · Oct 30, 2020

Republicans vs. Big Tech hearing, Apple is getting into search, and California votes on the future of gig work

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 37:19. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Scott Galloway · 37:19 One of the most cancerous things about this cancer. The cancer on cancer here is that everybody was outraged by the software that fast serve restaurants tried to implement a decade ago where you got clocked out automatically Mhmm. When it wasn't busy in the restaurant. Like, look, these people. But Uber has figured this out. Alright. If you're sitting in your car, you're away from your family, you're working, but you don't have a ride, we're not gonna pay you. And this is this pretended to say we're gonna take your wages up a certain amount. So I I hope this gets hit hard. It's a heavy Kara Swisher · 37:49 handed I will tell you where it is. Yeah. With only eight days until the election, proposition 22, the mega bucks ballot measure from UberLyft and other gig companies keep their workers independent contractors is running shy of the 50 plus margin it needs to pass according to independent poll released Monday. 46% of likely voters supported it, which is interesting. That's... Advertising works. While 42% oppose and 12 are undecided, that information came from the San Francisco Chronicle. It needs 50%. And so therefore, it's a problem. It's tight. It's a it's a tight race, but it's certainly... It's it's it's not... It needs 50%. And so what they should have done is dealt with the the bill as it was in terms of figuring out what's the best way to do this. And they're threatening to pull business out. They're saying that's just not the way to go anymore. They've gotta work together just as with, section two thirty, content moderation. Enough with this fighting. Like, we've got to figure out a way that works for the companies and works for workers. And and if I was senator from the great state of California, that's what I would work on. So we'll... What is the outcome? What... Me the outcome, and then I wanna get to predictions. What would you think the outcome will be if they lose? Scott Galloway · 38:55 I think that while Uber has claimed that they'll be out of business, no, they won't be out of business. It'll be a smaller business. They'll have to rethink their business model, they will figure it out. Again, the most underreported story, that prop gets all the headlines and all the oxygen, but probably the most important proposition is Prop 15, that would undo limits on commercial property taxes, where basically commercial real estate owners, this asset class that has been wildly favored, what other asset class can you depreciate 3% a year, even if it's increasing in value? Or you can sell it and not register a capital gain, but transfer it into another... Roll it into another asset. California voters are likely gonna say, you know what? We recognize that the tension between government and private sector is out of whack. Feng is kicking the shit out of Xui Ying, has pummeled Yang, and things are out of balance. And we need to restore our institutions. And if our government institutions need in any way to hold, to have the mettle to push back on private power, which they need to at this point, we need to begin funding them. For California taxpayers who, by way, already pay a shit ton of taxes to say, You know what? [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 40:14 up on commercial commercial property owners who, by the way, have seen their taxes not go up in a long, long time. It signals something for the rest of the country and a healthy thing, and that is our government and our institutions are noble, and they need to be funded. Kara Swisher · 40:27 Well, here's the thing, though. It's it's sort of a struggle. It's still not... It's still... It's it's one of those things they don't know what's gonna happen here, but definitely definitely more taxes in California is not something that would be welcoming to citizens of California. At the same time, prop, 13 really gutted a lot of things, and it would bring billions into the state, especially when they need it right now. Because California was doing pretty well, but we'll see what happens. It's... It would be the biggest change, in, revising prop 13 by prop 15. Scott Galloway · 40:55 But the the tax, just because the tax would be on commercial property owners, who, by the way, make up 9% of the Forbes 400. It's an asset class that, for some reason, has lobbied and been very effective at securing what I would call disproportionate advantage relative to other asset classes. Kara Swisher · 41:10 Just so, you know, it would it would it would focus on on on commercial properties and undo those limits. So... And by the way, I... You know, I was just talking to a commercial property person here in DC, and they said the business has just gotten killed through the pandemic. Killed. Scott Galloway · 41:24 Think about this. Think about that. Kara Swisher · 41:26 What's gonna happen. Scott Galloway · 41:27 Oh my gosh. There are there are... Think about the novel coronavirus as a as a a tectonic or a shift in the tectonic plates off the coast, and there are massive tsunamis forming. Mhmm. One of those tsunamis, no doubt about it, no doubt about it, is the transfer in stakeholder value from commercial to residential real estate. Do you realize in a six month period, the vacancy on San Francisco [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 41:52 It went up Kara Swisher · 41:52 like crazy. Like, was tight. Scott Galloway · 41:54 This is how crazy it is. It went from the lowest it's ever been in history Mhmm. To the highest it's ever been in history in six months. Think about that swing. Think about the change in stakeholder value. Think about all the debt holders on the building. Kara Swisher · 42:07 Moment back in when web one two point o or one of the webs fell apart, that happened. You know what I mean? Like, whenever all the biz... I guess the stock market went crazy, and remember all those startups were closing. There was a point in that, but nothing like this. There's been nothing like this. And not with secular shift in how people go to work and especially these tech companies doing remote things. Scott Galloway · 42:26 So Dramatic. Kara Swisher · 42:26 Dramatic. Dramatic. Scott Galloway · 42:27 And it's not cyclical. It's structural. Kara Swisher · 42:29 Structural. Exactly. Alright. We'll see what happens with all those props in California, but will... I... We... I think '22 is gonna not pass. Anyway, Scott Galloway · 42:37 Scott. Junior senator from the great state of California. Kara Swisher · 42:41 I'd be so good. I wear outfits. You know, like that senator from Arizona. Scott Galloway · 42:44 Outfits. That's your sales pitch. I wear outfits. Governor Newsom, you should know I'd wear outfits. Kara Swisher · 42:50 I have a really great scene in my upcoming book memoir with me and governor Newsom not wearing diapers. Let me just say that's all I'll have to say. What? I'm... You're gonna have to wait. Not wearing diapers at a tech party. Okay? Scott Galloway · 43:02 What's the name of your book? That's the key. 51% is the name of your book. Kara Swisher · 43:05 Scott? No. My life was Scott Galloway. Scott Galloway · 43:09 There Kara Swisher · 43:09 you to me, Scott. That's what it's called. Scott Galloway · 43:11 Listen to me. Alright. Scott. That would be a bad... Listen to me. That wouldn't be a bad title. Kara Swisher · 43:15 Listen to me. Scott Galloway · 43:15 Listen to listen to me. Kara Swisher · 43:17 Scott, one more quick break. Scott Galloway · 43:18 Okay. Kara Swisher · 43:18 We'll be back for predictions. Predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 44:24 Okay, Scott. We're coming down to the wire in this year's elections. I Yeah. You don't have to predict. Why don't you predict to... What's gonna happen? Why I want you to do that? You're not... You always do business things. What do you predict is gonna happen? The stock market's way off this this, this week. It's really gone down. Couldn't be worse timing for Donald Trump, because he was sort of putting out everything. The economics situation is dire, I would say. Pandemic rising, little... Some predictions. Scott? Scott Galloway · 44:53 Well, first off, the stock markets, quote, unquote, crash yesterday. Everyone... Every media outlet is trying to create the, quote, unquote, situation room and pretend things are more dramatic than they are. Yeah. The stock market plummeted to September levels yesterday. I mean, people... I've had... I had two media outlets call me and say, what does this crash mean? I'm like, this wasn't a crash. Kara Swisher · 45:10 Yes. But the head... I'm talking about the headlines meaning. Like, I get that. Go ahead. Go ahead. Scott Galloway · 45:14 Okay. Look. It's time... I have held my time Kara Swisher · 45:16 on off when it needed to be on. Scott Galloway · 45:17 I have held my tongue on this. Everybody is worried that Donald Trump, a, will either leverage the supreme court or all this doubt he's he's instilled in America about election legitimacy, that we might not have a president till January, that he could hold on to power. This election is over Tuesday night. He is a keyboard coward. He's gonna lose all his support. There... No one in the no one in the joint... No one in the military supports this guy. Republicans are gonna drop him like second period French when they see how badly he's gonna get his orange ass handed to him. Kara Swisher · 45:51 Period French? Could you come up with a better metaphor? Drop him like what? Scott Galloway · 45:55 I don't know. Drop him like... I don't know. The slow fade. The slow... Kara Swisher · 45:59 Don't know. I don't go fast. You're right. Mhmm. Scott Galloway · 46:01 I I think we have... And I... We're all nervous to say this. I think on Tuesday night on Tuesday night... And then a lot of the media outlets will be scared to call it because they don't wanna... They... They're so worried about doing anything, you know, ahead of the curve here. He is out. There's not gonna be any need. He will be scared. This is over. It's over Tuesday night, and the immunities are kicking in. America again. Everyone had their moment. Everyone everyone who's in the middle, and I'm I'm a proud raging moderate, has had their moment when they said that is it. My moment was when he mocked the disabled. Everyone and everyone in America has dozens of points of light around the stupidity, around the the misogyny, around the bigotry, around the lack of appreciation for our brothers and sisters who have built the strongest alliances in the world. Everyone has had their moment, and the sum of all those moments happens by midnight Tuesday. We we will have a change in power, and these fears around moving to an autocratic society where we don't know what's gonna... He may not leave. Bullshit. He's a keyboard coward. He's gonna get his ass handed to him. Coward. And he's gonna leave. Kara Swisher · 47:13 What is a keyboard coward? Scott Galloway · 47:14 Well, someone who's really tough when it comes to a 140 characters. Oh, gee. I think he's gonna coward. I don't think he's gonna... I just don't think he has the the the nads to try and say... To try and... I think he's gonna get beat so badly Tuesday, so badly that there's no way he's gonna try and, pull any of the shit that everyone thinks he's gonna pull. I don't think... I just don't... Not that that would good. Kara Swisher · 47:38 Miller's got executive orders out the yin yang. Of course, they'll be undone, which will be... They'll be done and then undone, which is Scott Galloway · 47:44 Anyway, Tuesday night Tuesday night, the immunities kick in, Kara. Kara Swisher · 47:47 We got one more show before that. Okay. That's your prediction. Okay. Scott Galloway · 47:52 Well, what do you think? You respond to that. You know politics better than I do. And by the way, I get this wrong. I'm... I get more than my fair share around business. I get them wrong all the time on politics. Kara Swisher · 48:01 Worries me because you get it wrong. I I think you're right. I think you're right, but I think that I just... There's no... The only thing that I look towards is how incompetent they were on the Hunter Biden thing. Like, this was their... There... There's someone incompetent in their execution even though it's sort of like they they... As I always say, they throw a hammer at a piano to make music. Like, that's their their their go to. And sometimes they hit, like, these stupid executive orders sometimes work, and they have... What they've done down at the border is is criminal. And all kinds of stuff like that has worked even though it's been cloddish in the way they've done it. But when you look at sort of what happened around this Hunter Biden stuff and that was their effort, how incompetent they are, like how they tried to get it into into mainstream media, and I'm like, they're just idiots. Like, they didn't... Like, they had this... That one story that I think Ben Smith wrote about how this smart group of people went to the Wall Street Journal, and then Rudy was freelancing over here going rogue. And it just was like, you're incompetent. And then them trying to resave it, Giuliani was on, Fox News, and even the Fox News lady was like, uh-huh. No. Scott Galloway · 49:06 Yeah. Even Fox a thing. Kara Swisher · 49:08 What's with the what's with the shirt talking thing? It doesn't seem right to me. It looked like you were getting some. It was interesting. And then Tucker Carlson yesterday going, you know, I have the documents, but I sent them and they got lost in the mail. And I'm like, what? Like, why didn't you make a copy? This is ridiculous. It's now into the, the dog ate my homework period of time. So that makes me wonder how confident they are that they can really actually steal the election. They certainly made all kinds of voter suppression efforts all over the place a 100%. But I do think people are like, I'm voting. Like, no. Yeah. No. Thank you. I don't think that... I think they... People... That is one thing that people don't like being pushed around on, but we'll see. We'll see. I don't know. We'll see if they can pull something off. I think the supreme court is sort of like, well, come down on your side if you're not completely incompetent, but so far, the the decisions have been mixed. So we'll see. They're not gonna go out of their way to give him the the the the seat by cheating. They certainly aren't. Anyway, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. I'm gonna be like a we'll see. I'm not gonna watch any, but I'm gonna I'm gonna get on my Peloton and stay there all night. That's what I've been. Speaking of Rundles, I think I would buy... I just bought clothes from Peloton. Interesting. — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 50:15 Did you really? Kara Swisher · 50:16 Yes. I did. Scott Galloway · 50:17 That is really interesting. It was Kara Swisher · 50:19 an Ali Love thing, and I bought it. It was really good. It looked good. And so I I would buy more from them a 100%. Scott Galloway · 50:24 Alright. Gangster, I mean, I'm regressing a bit, but the gangster feature for the Peloton, Rundle Yeah. Dating. Kara Swisher · 50:30 Dating. Scott Galloway · 50:32 Their their NPS scores are higher than Apple. It's a like minded community of fitness people, which means they're all hot. They could all they could all be on the... They could turn their Facebook page into a dating site that would put Tinder out of business and every other dating site. Kara Swisher · 50:45 Idea. Peloton, are you listening to me? We should have the CEO on the show. Anyway, that's the show. Email us with questions about companies and trends. That was a great question today. In tech and business at pivot@VoxMedia.com. We love your questions. I'm very excited for this election to be over. I'll tell you that, and then we can get on to, like, reengineering the company... The country and and economics and things like that and media and everything else and not in the version that the Republican senators did this this... Which was shameful. Shameful. Shameful. Anyway, Scott, read us out. Scott Galloway · 51:15 Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Fernando Finite engineered this episode. Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like show, the please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, here come the immunities. [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 52:18 app.