Scott Galloway · 27:08
Every year, and they're walking the floor, and they're scouring for new tech. That's what they're they're doing.
Kara Swisher · 27:12
But, you know, I saw Ash Carter this week, who is the former defense secretary, who's... Has some really very sophisticated thoughts on this. I mean, you... You've got to allow these companies to, not these companies, these employees to voice these problems and then figure out what to do because there's gotta be, you know, more humanity into it and and thinking about it. And you shouldn't... If you don't wanna make drones that kill people, you shouldn't have to make drones that kill people just because you work for, you know, Google or Microsoft or whatever. I don't know. It's very difficult. Mhmm. Difficult question. I don't think Apple does make stuff for the military, do they?
Scott Galloway · 27:43
Not that we're aware
Kara Swisher · 27:44
of. Not that we're aware of that story. Let's get on that story. I think they know. They they tend to fight the government with encryption and things like that, which is interesting. Alright. Another, another fail. Any other fails this week that you have? Any other wins?
Scott Galloway · 27:56
$2,600 smartphones.
Kara Swisher · 27:58
Oh, what? How about that?
Scott Galloway · 27:59
So so I mentioned Mobile World Congress
Kara Swisher · 28:01
earlier. You said a folding phone? Like, Motorola
Scott Galloway · 28:04
Folding phone... So I would actually say that folding phones are a win, and I'm gonna tell you why. One, because the smartphone market is really boring right now. We're... We've all got the same Bored.
Kara Swisher · 28:13
We're bored.
Scott Galloway · 28:14
Regular glass slabs. Bored. The innovation is incremental at this point. Some people would say it's a mature it's a
Kara Swisher · 28:20
mature market at this point. Bring me a new toy.
Scott Galloway · 28:23
Sales have slowed. Folding phones we've seen as concepts for years, but now a couple of company... Actually, three companies, maybe if Motorola rumors are true, are gonna be shipping consumer ready folding phones this year. They're so
Kara Swisher · 28:36
hard to folding? Is that like the... My flip phone?
Scott Galloway · 28:38
It literally means no. It's not like your flip phone, which has a hinge. Mean, there is a hinge, but it it means the display, like that shiny display that you're looking at right now because you never pay attention to me. I do. You could just you could fold it at the display point, and there might be
Kara Swisher · 28:50
like a fold it.
Scott Galloway · 28:50
Like, you could take this Yeah. And it would actually be larger. It'd probably be closer to a seven inch tablet size, so a big thing. And then there would be a hinge here, and you would actually fold it backwards, and then you would use it like a... So they do it different ways. Samsung's folds in. Huawei's folds out. And then we don't know if Motorola's thing, which may or may
Kara Swisher · 29:08
not And so what's idea of folding?
Scott Galloway · 29:10
The idea is that you would carry both a tablet and Oh. A phone at once. Some of them are. Yeah. Some of them... You know what they look like to me?
Kara Swisher · 29:19
They You like fat... Those fat devices. You're always carrying the things on your wrist. You're always wearing... You're like, look at this look great.
Scott Galloway · 29:24
Not wearing wrist stuff anymore.
Kara Swisher · 29:25
Know. What's going on? It's gone. I don't know. I just like You got a hair tie.
Scott Galloway · 29:28
I don't know. I got a hair tie.
Kara Swisher · 29:30
Wow. Interesting. So... But why not? Why aren't you wearing... You you tend to like those things and think they're okay. I never do. I don't know. They're not too fat?
Scott Galloway · 29:38
I don't wanna The phones or the wearables?
Kara Swisher · 29:40
Wearables are fat. You like fat worms?
Scott Galloway · 29:42
The phones are like, you know, when you walk into maybe, like, a not nice hotel, and they've pushed two twin beds together to make a queen.
Kara Swisher · 29:50
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 29:50
And you can kind of see the seam in between the two. And if you lift up the blanket, you're like, that's
Kara Swisher · 29:55
two beds pushed together. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 29:56
Yeah. It's kinda like that with these phones. If you look really closely, you're like, it's two phones smooshed together. Right. But what's interesting in the innovation side is the display.
Kara Swisher · 30:04
Is that... The sensor out, it's two phones smooshed together.
Scott Galloway · 30:06
Smooshed. Smooshed. Yeah. My very eloquent review of these things.
Kara Swisher · 30:09
Yeah. Okay.
Scott Galloway · 30:09
But... So you can't fold glass. Right? You can't fold, like, Gorilla Glass or So something like so these companies are using a polymer. And I don't know. It's...
Kara Swisher · 30:18
Like, we've seen concepts. Idea?
Scott Galloway · 30:20
I like the idea.
Kara Swisher · 30:21
Why? Because I don't agree with you.
Scott Galloway · 30:24
As someone who travels a lot and commutes a lot, I like the idea of of having the same device, one device, and folding it open and then saying, okay. Now I have something that's a Kindle size or something that's a tablet size if I need to see something. Can't just have
Kara Swisher · 30:40
two devices, Lauren? I mean, just pull
Scott Galloway · 30:41
them carry around a lot of stuff.
Kara Swisher · 30:42
It's I know that, but
Scott Galloway · 30:44
Two devices the first world problem. I guess there's so many gadgets. God.
Kara Swisher · 30:48
How you say it.
Scott Galloway · 30:49
Yeah. So many gadgets. So Anyone have an extra charger? I have seven gadgets with me. I need to charge.
Kara Swisher · 30:54
I don't know. I don't know.
Scott Galloway · 30:56
But the fail is that they're really expensive.
Kara Swisher · 30:58
Yeah. $2,600. Jesus. 22... About $4,600, I like to say. That is a lot of money.
Scott Galloway · 31:05
I was gonna buy that. You're gonna get... You you are super gonna get one.
Kara Swisher · 31:08
I'm not getting any folding any. Next time you let
Scott Galloway · 31:10
me back on this show, you're gonna have a folding phone.
Kara Swisher · 31:12
I was... I'm still recovering from the... From from a lot of things, but I still like my AirPods. Everything littler. I want it littler. I don't want it bigger. I want it to be tiny, and then it comes in front of me in a way, like, on the desk that there's no device there. I'd like no device, folding or nonfolding.
Scott Galloway · 31:26
Are you still using your AirPods?
Kara Swisher · 31:28
I love my AirPods.
Scott Galloway · 31:29
How many
Kara Swisher · 31:29
pairs have you gone through now? Seven. 10. Okay. 15.
Scott Galloway · 31:33
This is bad.
Kara Swisher · 31:33
That was a Michael Cohen reference because he's like, how many times have you threatened people? I don't need calls. Was it 50? No. Was it 50? Bigger. Right. Was it a 100? More. Was it 200? More. Was it 500? Yeah. 500.
Scott Galloway · 31:46
How many times did you consult by phone? I don't recall. Approximately, how many times did you consult by phone? I don't recall. How many times did you take a meeting? Six. Okay. Cool. Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 31:55
Got it. Yeah. So... But I have lost a lot of AirPods, but I I love love them. I I would say several thousand dollars worth of AirPods. I'm through the Kara Swisher. I have... And I'm gonna do one more win, which is the Serena Williams, dream crazy ad. Yes. Love her.
Scott Galloway · 32:10
Mean her.
Kara Swisher · 32:11
It's Yes. That ad is great. It's great because women don't get to cry. And then the cover of Rolling Stone had all the the ladies of congress on it again. It was Ocasio. It was Pelosi and others in in the squad. It was just then they were looking great, and they just... It was... I just loved it.
Scott Galloway · 32:25
I I... Yes.
Kara Swisher · 32:27
And that Serena Williams is... Please watch this video. She... It's it's a Nike video. Even though you're getting sold sneakers, it's all, you know, women crying, and they're not allowed to do this, and you're thought of as crazy or you're too big. And she, you know, she gets a lot of attacks because she's big or she had... Had a baby and then came back and stuff like that. And it's all about... It's sort of playing off of the job thing, like, think different kind of thing. But it was it was dream crazy. So if they wanna call you crazy, fine. Show them what crazy can do.
Scott Galloway · 32:58
It was all about expressing emotion. Right. And I think the unspoken, part of that commercial is that men express those same things. They throw rackets and chairs, and they yell at refs and the whole thing and suffer minimal consequences, and women do it. You you know, I mean, as a former athlete, I can tell you I've got at least a few technicals saying things
Kara Swisher · 33:19
like, you've gotta be kidding me. Oh.
Scott Galloway · 33:20
You know? And that's like the kind of thing that, this is my younger years. That, like, you know
Kara Swisher · 33:25
It comes as no surprise. But go ahead.
Scott Galloway · 33:28
Oh, you would have wanted me on your team's for sure.
Kara Swisher · 33:31
I guess. I didn't do many sports. I did some. So so it was great. It was a really great thing to talk to about that. And in that vein, you know, next week at South by Southwest, you are not going? You are not going?
Scott Galloway · 33:40
I'm not going.
Kara Swisher · 33:41
I'm going. I'm interviewing a lot of ladies there. And one of them is Amy Klobucher, who I have to deal with the comb issue, and I... Which I don't wanna do. I don't wanna talk about the comb.
Scott Galloway · 33:49
Well, it's not just the comb issue.
Kara Swisher · 33:51
I know it's about bad bosses. Of all people, Brad Stevens wrote an excellent article in the New York Times this week about that. It's bad bosses. It's being bad boss and saying sorry for being a bad boss. So it's, I I... I'm not relishing. I would like to talk about actual policy, but I do have to I have to walk through the valley of comb before I
Scott Galloway · 34:08
get there. Do you do put that in.
Kara Swisher · 34:11
Oh, whatever. Like, what what should I do? What should I... How should I do that?
Scott Galloway · 34:15
How should you ask her about this?
Kara Swisher · 34:17
You know what I'm gonna say? Listen. The comb thing, that is fucked up, Amy. Like, what's the deal? Like, stop it.
Scott Galloway · 34:22
Like, why did you eat with a comb?
Kara Swisher · 34:23
That is fucked up. I'm just gonna say that is fine
Scott Galloway · 34:25
with me. That she ate with a comb or that she then demanded that her staffers clean and clean?
Kara Swisher · 34:30
The whole incident. The the eating with a comb, the whole thing. She could've eaten with her fingers.
Scott Galloway · 34:34
Could've eaten with your hands.
Kara Swisher · 34:35
Yeah. Yep. Could've done it. The whole thing was just like... I'm gonna just flat out say this is just icky. And then the three is not cool.
Scott Galloway · 34:40
It's not
Kara Swisher · 34:41
cool, lady. Mhmm. And then I'm gonna say, look. It is a little sexist too because I go... I know a lot of men. I had a guy who used to try to make... I had to make toast for him, and he'd line us up by height, John McLaughlin, and then we would have to get dust balls. So... Like, lots of crazy things. This guy. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 34:54
It's crazy article. Mhmm.
Kara Swisher · 34:55
So... Yeah. And and so I'm aware of bad bosses, like, craze... Like, that kind of stuff, that level. There's there's tough bosses and bad bosses. There's two different things or people who are doing crazy things. So I wanna talk about that. And... Because I don't think that's sexist. I think it's... I think... But I do think men get a pass on that kind of behavior. Like, Bill Clinton had his purple rage. You know, they all get pass... Jennifer Palmieri wrote a very good story about that who worked for Clinton, and is very close to Amy Klobucher. So I think there's that part of it. There is a sexism. It just still doesn't matter. Shitty shitty behavior like that is... Should be chastised.
Scott Galloway · 35:28
I also don't think it should only be viewed through the lens of gender. Yeah. Because even comparing to Bill Clinton maybe isn't so much relevant anymore because that was more than twenty years ago. Right. You know, when... This his heyday as a politician. So To different it's also... Yeah. You have to consider the state of the workplace now and what is considered appropriate and how we evolved as professionals and also how, you know, the public image... The politicians involved. I never heard. I mean, god. No. Like, would... No. Have I thrown him? Thrown a tip. No. I'm like, not even throw a pencil at Neil Patel. Like, I mean
Kara Swisher · 36:05
He deserves a pencil or two thrown in his direct... Thrown adjacent to him.
Scott Galloway · 36:10
No. And, like, you've never thrown anything, have you?
Kara Swisher · 36:12
I I don't I don't recall it yelling, you know. I don't... Maybe I have, but I don't recall it. There was one incident of a red pen that I shall not go into. Lisa Dickie can tell you that story. I was very under under stress when I was writing my book, and Lisa was helping me write my book, Lisa Dickey. And I... She got me the wrong red pen, and tie jinks ensued. I was like, what is this red pen? I think I think I was just overwrought, and then I apologized. But just was the wrong red pen. I can't explain it. I have no... I I feel badly about it to this day. It's twenty five years later or whatever, and I'm still like, I can't believe I did that.
Scott Galloway · 36:44
I I mean, I can tell you in the workplace. No. I've been... But I remember... Like, I remember when you remember when people around you have that freak out. Right. Like, I remember one person I worked with at an old job who was doing a lot of heads down work. Mhmm. Like, picture, audio, video editing where you have your headphones on all the time, and you really have to focus on what you're doing in a noisy part of the newsroom and, like, one day just kinda lost a shit. But, like, it was forgivable. It wasn't...
Kara Swisher · 37:11
He was, like, throwing things in. I think that's... Plus, in this day and age with Internet and video, you can't... You just can't do it. I mean, imagine that Cohm incident had been caught on a video. We all... Game over for her as a president. Okay. Like, that should carry around the comb video the whole time. Think about that. Yeah. You know?
Scott Galloway · 37:28
That's... My advice to you is not just to look at it fairly and squarely through the lens of gender, but also the area in which we are currently living.
Kara Swisher · 37:37
The Valley Of Calm. Okay. I do wanna talk to hear this. She has a lot of stuff to talk about tech policy and regulation of tech. Very
Scott Galloway · 37:44
smart person.
— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 37:45
Tough on tech. She is tough. So I wanna talk about that. I wanna get to that. I'm gonna move through the Valley of Comb, go past the water bottle central, and and whatever else she's done, and then move on to that. Alright. Last thing before we go, prediction time. In this segment, we talk about what we think is coming in the pipeline. We've talked about subscription bundling, which Scott is calling the rundle. Sometimes we get into things wrong, but
Kara Swisher · 38:05
we often get them right. I was right about Amazon pulling out of New York.
Kara Swisher · 38:09
You have a prediction this week?
Scott Galloway · 38:11
I have a prediction.
Kara Swisher · 38:12
It's somewhat of a hope. Okay.
Scott Galloway · 38:13
Maybe not so much of a hope. My prediction is that the big tech platforms are going to start to embrace their roles as content moderators. Meaning that they're going to... On the upside, you have companies like Twitter that I think will actually start kicking more vitriolic, hateful, terrible, abusive people off its platform.
Kara Swisher · 38:32
Alright.
Scott Galloway · 38:33
That's my hope anyway.
Kara Swisher · 38:35
And Okay. I think you could not be more wrong, but go ahead. Okay. Think we should have no care. I just had the ridiculous cat rodeo with Jack Dorsey, and he still
Kara Swisher · 38:43
didn't take responsibility for the... In the thing. And then decided that Elon Musk was the best tweeter around. So
Scott Galloway · 38:49
Elon Musk is doing things that is harmful to Tesla on Twitter. Right. But
Kara Swisher · 38:54
He does some cool tweets. All I'm saying is he he didn't show a lot of, like... I'd like to know where his health
Kara Swisher · 38:59
of the conversation thing is. That's what I'd like to know.
Kara Swisher · 39:01
Like, where is it? I I don't see any
Kara Swisher · 39:03
health of that. I mean, I judiciously use Twitter, but... Because I curate it well, but I think you're wrong.
Kara Swisher · 39:08
Why why do you think they're gonna do it legitimately? What's gonna happen
Scott Galloway · 39:10
the Jacob Wool thing was the first step.
Kara Swisher · 39:12
Alright.
Scott Galloway · 39:13
I think that there's probably gonna be a lot of attention paid to the reaction and the fallout from that.
Kara Swisher · 39:19
They should not care.
Scott Galloway · 39:20
Fuck it. No. They shouldn't. They should not care, but that's the thing. Maybe we are getting to Yeah. The point where Twitter won't care because
Kara Swisher · 39:27
Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 39:27
These companies are... Yes. They're publicly traded companies, but they're in the private sector. That's right. They can make the rules on their own platforms. They can decide what kind of content they want on there. This is not a matter of free speech. It's not government censorship. It is a matter of what these private companies decide works or does not work for their platform. And I curation.
Kara Swisher · 39:43
This is their new
Scott Galloway · 39:44
But on the downside of curation
Kara Swisher · 39:46
Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 39:47
Now this is, like, very metamedia here, but there have been reports that Apple is going to be launching a curated new subscription service
Kara Swisher · 39:54
Okay.
Scott Galloway · 39:55
Next month. Yep. And so that is going to be... And and that they're offering deals with publishers that are not necessarily favorable to some of the publishers. And so I think
Kara Swisher · 40:02
There are.
Scott Galloway · 40:03
That's going to be, potentially a downside Because a big tech company coming in and saying, here's this cute curated Yeah. People content experience.
Kara Swisher · 40:12
I had Sam Altman on stage. He's like, do you want Mark Zuckerberg deciding on everything? Blah blah. And I'm like, you know what? I want someone to decide on it. I don't care how they do it. They have a outs... They're thinking of an outside counsel at Facebook, all kinds of stuff. They have to curate it. They just can't have this platform with... An editorial platform without editorial controls. They just can't do it. It's the it's the purge every freaking day of the week.
Scott Galloway · 40:32
Yeah. And I also tend to believe that this... These creations of bodies outside of the platform... It's exactly what the gaming industry did years ago when the gaming industry was coming under a lot of fire for violent content. They created... Like, the... Was this outside body that was launched saying, like, well, we're gonna moderate the content, and we're gonna make we're gonna make judge... Judgment on that. And, like, ultimately, I mean, I think video games are still pretty violent.
Kara Swisher · 40:51
They
Scott Galloway · 40:52
are. We've all we've all kind of assimilated. Right? So, yeah. I don't know. So, anyway, I think there's going to be... My prediction is that in the short term, there's gonna be more of an embrace of curated content from the big tech tech platforms. You're completely wrong.
Kara Swisher · 41:06
Okay. Let's see. Just crap.
Scott Galloway · 41:08
Alright. I'm kidding. You might be right.
Kara Swisher · 41:10
I just think they don't care. I think they still don't. They still push back. They just don't wanna take responsibility. They want all the benefits and very few other responsibilities. I I just I just don't get a sense
Kara Swisher · 41:20
that they've gotten it, and they're
Kara Swisher · 41:21
hoping it'll all go away. That's my feeling.
Scott Galloway · 41:23
It's not going
Kara Swisher · 41:24
to, though. I I I like your hopes and dreams. However crushed them. What's your prediction? I predict you will be wrong. Anyway, time to get out of here, and thank you so much for coming to Pivot, Lauren. I'll be back next week, so will Scott. Anyway, Rebecca Sinanis produces his show. Nishat Kerwa is the executive producer. Thanks as always to Eric Johnson, and thank you again to Lauren Good. Thanks again for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We're back next week with more of a breakdown on all things tech and business. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.
— Predictions segment ends —
