Pivot · Jan 24, 2020

Bezos vs. the world, retail in India and Scott’s earnings predictions

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 32:10. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Scott Galloway · 32:10 He'll be a job destroyer. I mean, there'll be Amazon will grow a lot of jobs. But if you do, you're going to see you would see massive just in The US, you've seen a massive hemorrhaging of jobs. And a lot of people would say, that's a function of innovation and productivity. And there's some truth there. It's just, again, going back to Daniel Kahneman, we we need to we need to think this through. So India. Guest · 32:31 So last time last thing before we move on from India because there is a through line here of Bezos. One of India's government officials after this visit came out and made a comment to Jeff Bezos about the Washington Post's coverage of India. And I just I just find it hilarious. This is also, you know, what's happening with MBS and and not liking the Washington Post's coverage of the... Of Saudi Arabia. But, like, I just have to say, my perspective is this is insane. Like, from what I understand, Jeff Bezos has no role in the day to day running of the Washington Post editorial newsroom. It's like, there's always a bit of a church and state or should be between the owner of a of a newspaper and and their editorial staff. But it it just felt like a cheap shot to me, like kind of irrelevant. Like, you know, to say, yeah, bring your business to India, but stop covering us in a negative way, just think it's insane. But that's that's my 2¢. Scott Galloway · 33:16 So again, and it feels weird to be defending Bezos, but I think it's hard to argue that Bezos hasn't been a wonderful shepherd and steward for what is a national treasure in the form of The Washington Post. He's not Rupert Murdoch creating talking points and essentially creating a narrative that not only attacks. I mean, now that Kara's not here, I think the first time I ever questioned going on Fox, thought, you know what, I'm not going go on Fox anymore is Fox does these, News Corp does these coordinated attacks on strong emerging progressive female voices across The Wall Street Journal, The Post, and Fox. And I'm like, okay, how is that good for America when one quote unquote and I put this in quotes, journalistic institutions starts attacking, has a preponderance or over indexes around attacking other journalists that happen to be liberal emerging, powerful female voices and it's happened to some other really strong emerging female journalists. And Kara was in their sites. And that was the first time I thought, this really isn't, this is just bad for everyone involved. That doesn't happen. Bezos has been, you look at Sheldon Adelson and how he uses his media, Bezos has been a very responsible hands off. He has a lot of, my sense is he has a lot of respect for the separation between ownership and editorial. And it totally came back to his benefit because when that whole, you know, profile or amateur photography of Big Ed and the twins got out, the media was so inclined to come to his defense because they do appreciate, They wanna like Jeff Bezos around that kind of stuff because he does... He has he has been seen as a a great steward of the Washington Post. Guest · 35:05 Well, let's... Okay. The thing about Fox though is that a lot a lot of what you're talking about is entertainment. It's not news. I actually think, like, news gets a bad name when you consider Fox News to be all news. Like, majority of the stuff that's super salacious, like, they don't have any editorial standards. They're just, like, going all out, you know, doing whatever they need to do for their agenda. And it's not just attacking female journalists. It's attacking, you know, legitimate ideas and facts. Like, facts are under attack at Fox News, and it's actually really destructive. But listen. Let's go to wins and fails. So Scott Scott Galloway · 35:37 You first. Guest · 35:37 Yeah. Okay. Alright. I'll go first. Well, you know what my win is? My win is Kara taking a day off, Scott. Just... Scott Galloway · 35:43 Oh, fuck that. Yeah. Enough of that. Yeah. Enough of that. Guest · 35:46 Whether it was her binge last night or the fact that she's legitimately sick, Kara, thanks for forcing me out of the nest and onto the mic. But... Scott Galloway · 35:55 There are three there are three naked prostitutes on her couch that she's about to kick out. Come on. Get on with it. Guest · 36:02 Couldn't be further from Kara, but I I I love this fantasy. So actually, I don't. Alright. So listen, my win is Britain's new privacy legislation that would protect minors' data. It will require platforms like YouTube and Instagram to turn on the highest possible privacy settings for default for minors and turn off by default data mining practices like targeted advertising and location tracking. So so good for Britain on the privacy legislation. Good. Happy to hear about that. Scott Galloway · 36:31 Yeah. And Britain's also threatening taxes on big tech and basically to try and incentivize the OECD to get their act together and create a kind of a pan European approach to taxation around big tech. As again going back to this notion that other countries aren't as in love with big tech as we are and realize that they can continue to have these companies transfer billions of dollars of capital outside of their country and not leave any behind in the form of taxes. But yeah, I agree Britain, it'll be, that was a strong move and a nice win. So my win is Michael Bloomberg who has placed fourth in the new Monmouth National Democratic poll. Biden came in 30%, Sanders at 23, Warren at 14. And Bloomberg actually came in ahead of Buttigieg at 9%. So Bloomberg looks as if he's about to reach double digits. And I think the gangster move from the mayor here and something I thought was just a, the right thing to do and b, an incredible brand move is that he has announced that regardless of whether he's the nominee, he's going to maintain his staff. And it just sits in such stark contrast to these other billionaires who claim to be very concerned about the nation and say their number one priority is to get Donald Trump out. But only as far as spending their own money on their unique vision and their unique role as commander in chief. And I wonder, is Howard Schultz continuing to fund moderate candidates? He claimed there was such a need for moderates, but now that he's no longer in the race and he said he was willing to fund I think up to a couple $100,000,000, has he decided that there's still such a need for moderates that he's funding continues to fund moderates? Or was it only his unique special vision? I assume Tom Steyer, and to his credit, he's continued to do this and we I trust it wasn't political messaging is going to continue to be a warrior for the environment. But I think Bloomberg, my win as Bloomberg, A, obviously coming up in the polls, but B, committing that he is about getting Trump out of office as opposed to solely being about him being president. Yeah. I think that is a path. You can see Iowa, New Hampshire, the the Democratic front runners beat the shit out of each other and then show up to Super Tuesday where there's Michael and his $250,000,000 that he's already spent driving up the prices of political ads, supposedly 20 to 25% all on his own, which raises a host of issues we need to address around money and politics. But my winner is Mayor Bloomberg. Guest · 38:56 Wow. Wow. Okay. I wasn't expecting that, but that's that's great. Scott Galloway · 39:00 Who's your loser? Guest · 39:01 I mean, so many losers, but I... No. I'm I'm What's your fail? For that. I think my fail is... Actually, my fail would probably be Netflix because I think it was Reed Hastings earlier this week acknowledged that Disney plus may have taken a bite out of their subscriber growth during the last quarter of twenty nineteen. So, as a consumer, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of things I need to subscribe to now to see great content. But, yeah, a fail for Netflix that they're starting to see a cut in their business. And I'll be curious to see how that actually plays out. Scott Galloway · 39:32 Yeah, it's hard to imagine. So Netflix largely will live and die by international growth or lack thereof because they kind of have everybody in The US. And there's a decent argument that people aren't swapping out Netflix. Netflix is kind of a car and Hulu is whether you want leather seats and Apple TV plus is whether you want a steering wheel or heated steering wheel, whatever. Everything else is kind of an accessory to the car which is Netflix. But it's hard to imagine that this sort of massive investment in the category doesn't begin to drive margins down or drive growth down. There are now five ten original scripted television programs. Ten years ago there was two twenty. We're going to spend more on original scripted television this year than I think was allocated in the entire decade of the 90s. So it's hard to imagine just economically how that one doesn't drive down margins and increase competition and two doesn't start to give the market a little bit of a chill around the prospects for Netflix stock. So yeah, I agree with you. That'll be it's going to be very interesting. My lose or loss or fail whatever you call it is a lot more serious and weird. I've been thinking a lot about family planning and it's always the stuff you're not focused on. I think that kind of the two biggest issues, it's the shit you don't see coming that really hurts you or that you're not talking about. And we were talking about the deficit a lot six or seven years ago. Now we're no longer talking about it. I think our deficit has become not only a moral issue but a real threat to our economy given just the incredible reckless spending that we've engaged in with deficit spending. The notion that the Republicans can claim that we have a strong economy when effectively I would argue we're in recession if you take out that trillion dollars a year in sugar high stimulus in the form of debt in record low unemployment. And it's I think it's incredibly dangerous. The deficit is getting to dangerous levels and we're not even talking about it. The other thing we don't talk a lot about is family planning and choice. And I think that there's a bit of a misnomer or misperception. We always tend to couch choice in the context of it's a woman's choice. Guest · 41:40 I saw your tweet yesterday. Tell us about this. Scott Galloway · 41:43 Well, it is a woman's choice. I get that and it should be a woman's choice. But it's deeper than that. And that is the number one reason cited for women deciding to terminate a pregnancy is finances. Access. Yeah, access. And then the number two is their partner or specifically their lack of a partner. And while we like to think that we want to afford women this choice, oftentimes women don't really have a choice because they lack the financial means to support another child. The majority of pregnancies terminated are terminated by a woman who already has kids. So it's not that she's... It's not that she doesn't want kids, doesn't love love children, doesn't want to have a family. It's that four out of five men when they get pregnant do not end up marrying the mother of their of their child. It's that young men and young women don't have the financial wherewithal because of this systematic transfer of wealth from young people to old people that's taken place across America over the last thirty years. And the notion that women aren't massively influenced, their choices are getting more and more limited around how do you responsibly raise a child and bring a child into this world because of the poor choices and the poor responsibility a lot of men exhibit Scott. In this process. Guest · 43:12 Scott, you're so woke. Is really Bring it on. Yeah. I mean, Scott, you've this is Scott Galloway · 43:18 Dop and free tuna for the dog. — Predictions segment begins — Guest · 43:20 Really deep. Okay. We should talk more about this, but we've got to just do a quick prediction and we're getting kicked out of the studio. So Scott, what do you have? Scott Galloway · 43:28 From abortion to stocks, I'm So making some stock next week is earnings. We're gonna see Uber shit the bed its stock off five to 10% within forty eight hours of their earnings release. And we're gonna see Facebook announce monster earnings at an all time high off the back of Instagram commerce. So tech marches on, ride hailing is shitty business. It'll be interesting. Uber has now gone full into what I call frauds blaming and they're starting to report this bastardized form of EBITDA called segment based EBITDA where basically they take a bunch of costs out and pretend that those costs are for some reason at some point going to go away, they're not. They will begin to downplay Uber Eats as they will either exit that business or sell it to Grubhub as it's, it makes ride hailing look like a good business and ride hailing is a shitty business. So my prediction, Facebook on the back of earnings, all time high, we'd like to think that their gross negligence and their tearing at the fabric of American Dean Depression will show up in their numbers. It will not. Yep. And we're gonna see Uber's decline resume in earnings next week. Great. Those are my predictions. — Predictions segment ends — Guest · 44:36 Alright. Cool. We'll be back next week to talk about it. Scott, was a pleasure. Thanks for letting me sit in. I hope Scott Galloway · 44:40 I had no say in this. Yeah. I had no say Guest · 44:42 in this. For just going along with it, Scott. Scott Galloway · 44:45 My gosh. That's it. You know what are you Guest · 44:48 what are you saying, Scott? If you had to say you wouldn't allow this to happen? Scott Galloway · 44:50 I'm up for any... We need we absolutely need new blood. I mean, Tara, Guest · 44:55 That's not true. Scott Galloway · 44:56 Enough already. Let's bring in bring in the clown. Guest · 44:59 She's not going away, Scott. Not going away. Is just Scott Galloway · 45:02 stuck with her. Kara, we hope you we hope you feel better. Clean up that apartment. Get get Javier and Luisa. Guest · 45:10 I was trying to come Scott Galloway · 45:11 up with ethnically ambiguous names, and I failed there. Guest · 45:14 Done. Scott Galloway · 45:14 Out of your apartment. Guest · 45:16 Oh god. Scott Galloway · 45:16 Put away the put away the mess. God. Guest · 45:18 Away the mess. Scott Galloway · 45:19 Come back. We need you. Guest · 45:20 I mean... Alright. Alright, Scott. So Scott Galloway · 45:22 She's a saucy little minx. What do Guest · 45:24 you think she was doing last night? Scott. Alright. Remember to all of our listeners, we love your questions. If you have a question about a story you're hearing in the news, email us at pivot@voxmedia.com to be featured on the show. Thank you so much for our listener question today. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis, Erica Anderson, that's me as your executive producer and stand in host. Thanks also to Rebecca Castro 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 our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business, and Kara will be back. Scott Galloway · 46:03 Thanks, Erica. Well done. [Ad break]