Pivot · Apr 28, 2020

Amazon under scrutiny; Zoom security expert Alex Stamos explains it all (and talks Facebook), plus some special Wins and Fails

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 50:47. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Kara Swisher · 50:47 What... Three things, and then we'll get going. Guest · 50:49 Yeah. So the the biggest... I mean, when I tell people about Zoom, the thing you gotta think about is you gotta think about what's the metaphor you're trying to replicate with when you configure the product. Right? Like, can use it for the equivalent of a super private conversation between a couple of people in a physical office where you don't just invite strangers into your office. Right? Right. You can also use it for webinars for, you know, like a concert for 50,000 people. And so make sure to set your settings as paranoid as possible for what you're doing. So, you know, having invite only make sure to set a password. Don't use the personal meeting link unless you absolutely have to. There's people who are setting, you know, meeting IDs and then using them over and over again, then people can get in. Sure. Turn on the waiting room feature. And then when... Once your your event starts and you've got all the people there, you know, go and lock the room or or turn waiting room on if it wasn't so people can't pop in. But the key thing is just be careful about, you know, who can get access to those invites. And if you're doing something like, I'm gonna throw this out on Twitter, then you should be turning off people's cameras, turning off the share screen, and then inviting people up or use the webinar feature. Right? Scott Galloway · 51:51 So you Guest · 51:51 can set up a Zoom webinar instead of a meeting. I think that's where a lot of kind of the the really public events have been Kara Swisher · 51:56 The dumbest thing. So they have to be more Guest · 51:57 It's not dumb. It's... I mean, you get Zoom didn't make this super easy. Right? It's an enterprise product. And so, you know, enterprise IT teams love fiddly bits. They love to have these admin interfaces that have 55 little Kara Swisher · 52:07 Fiddly bits. Is that a technical term? Guest · 52:09 That's exactly a technical term. Yeah. That's what we call those UX. Like they love to hit the little buttons And that's not what missus Smith needs when she teaches her tenth grade class. And it's not what you or Casey needs if you're going to run a discussion with, you know, strangers. And so that's one of the things they're trying to work on is to make it easy to click a button and get all those settings. But for now, you gotta go through and just make sure to turn on all the security features. Waiting room, super important. Invite only, super important. And to be careful who you send your link to. Kara Swisher · 52:36 Alright. But they should they should make these easier too if they're gonna... They're now become this. And it should also be... Should they charge? Guest · 52:43 Well, so that... This is one of the the funny things here is that Eric basically did this to himself by by raising... By making the free accounts for education and getting rid of their limitations. Right? So you end up with that... I mean, to me, the really... The stuff as a parent, the stuff that I really don't like to see is the kids being disrupted and people going in and showing naked pictures or yelling cuss words Kara Swisher · 53:05 I was porn bomb. Classes. I was porn bomb. Guest · 53:07 Yeah. Well, I don't mind about you so much, but like, You I'm talking about for Scott Galloway · 53:10 say that like it's a bad thing. You say that like it's a bad thing. Kara Swisher · 53:14 This is why I like you and I hate you at the same time. It's perfect. It's a perfect relate. No. I like... I think Alex is great. Alex, we really appreciate you here. We could talk Scott Galloway · 53:21 to you for a while. Kara Swisher · 53:23 It's really helpful. Keep... Fix the Zoom so the kids can be safe. Alright? Yeah. We're good. I appreciate it. Thanks for being here. Guest · 53:30 Thanks, Scott. Scott Galloway · 53:31 Alright, Kara. Break time. We'll be right back with wins and fails. [Ad break] Kara Swisher · 55:11 Okay, Scott. How's that? That's my next cohost. He's so smart. Scott Galloway · 55:15 Isn't like that? Famous. He's Kara Swisher · 55:16 very good. Really good. He... You know what? He pushes back on reporters. Unlike the Facebook people, he pushes back intelligently and tells them and tries to be educational and Mhmm. Decent. And the other ones are like, how dare you say that to me? Like Mhmm. He has never been like that. By the way, I I met him a long time ago when he was at Yahoo when he was pushing really hard back on Marissa Meyer and others there because they weren't taking the the the, email hacking seriously enough that was going on. And he was, you know, he left there over that. He sort of stalks out angrily. Anyway, we're gonna get back to wins and fails. Obviously, Alex is a win. But what are your wins and fails? — Predictions segment begins — Scott Galloway · 55:52 I'll start with my fail. I think Zoom stock is going to get cut in half in the next one hundred and eighty days. On Friday, it breached the value of Airbus. So Zoom, a video conferencing technology, now has a greater market capitalization than the second largest manufacturer of commercial airliners. And I think that, by the way, if they go to 23,000,000,000 instead of 45, it's still an incredible win. But the stock's gotten ahead of itself because there's a pretty large cohort of investors who are all trying to figure out, by the way, we said this stock was going to go up when it was at when it was about 100. But what I'm saying now, and it's dangerous to be a trader, I think this thing at $160 is overvalued. One, because it's inspired just a massive number of competitors. I've gotten calls just in the last seven days from VCs who've asked me to help them evaluate video conferencing competitors. We're using Squadcast instead of Zoom. You're gonna see competitors around education, different verticals, different concerts. Zoom doesn't scale that well beyond 1,000 people. There's gonna be ultra secure versions of Zoom. So basically they've inspired a ton of competition, including who announced last week a Zoom competitor, Kara? Who? I'll give you a hint, Alex Stamos worked there. Kara Swisher · 57:07 Facebook, yes. Facebook, you know, of course, because they couldn't think of themselves. But also, you know, there's other, there's tons of people doing this. There's Microsoft, there's other, Google, obviously. Cisco has Webex. Yep. You know, everyone's gonna double down. That said, nobody has... Nobody's got sort of the... This has been the biggest consumer marketing event for a company. Well, I think it's gonna get acquired. That's... That would be my guess. Scott Galloway · 57:31 That would be... You know what? It's... There's only a Kara Swisher · 57:33 handful Yeah. Of Scott Galloway · 57:34 But there's only a handful of companies. At 45,000,000,000, that means you have to pay 60 to 70 Right. Billion to acquire Kara Swisher · 57:40 It's gonna go down, and then someone's Scott Galloway · 57:41 gonna Once it's buy down, you think it'll acquired. Kara Swisher · 57:43 Well, it's sort of like... There's two companies, Slack and Zoom, that have sort of outrun, even though their struggle comparatively, they've outrun them in terms of consumer liking them, liking the product. So that's that's your fail. What's your win? Scott Galloway · 57:55 So my win is I spent a lot of time last weekend thinking about there's, I think there's a bunch of moons lining up. And that is, this is going to be the mother of all gap years across America and probably across Europe too, as people recognize that $68,000 tuition at a university is hard as a jagged little pill to swallow that's been washed down by certification and a four year experience. And when that four year experience turns into a bunch of shitty Zoom calls, a lot of people, I'm getting a lot of these calls, are going to decide, them and their parents are going to decide that they should take a gap year. And my win, if you will, is the Latter day Saints mission program, the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps that take young people and help them serve the agency of others. And I always say greatness is in the agency of others that help them at a young age develop grit, work hard. You know, the missionaries, I love missionaries, they work six days a week, twelve hours a day, focused on something bigger than themselves. I think the Peace Corps is a wonderful thing. AmeriCorps is fantastic. And I think there's a huge opportunity given that the key to our economy moving forward and our society's superpower, America's superpower, that is maintaining our optimism, is all about now the apex of the relapse. And the key to flattening that curve, if you will, is simple algebra. It's testing, tracing, and then isolation. And it looks to me like the weak point in that now is tracing. We only have 2,500 tracers around The United States, which are mostly focused on foodborne illnesses and STDs. And I think there's an opportunity to take all those gap year 18 year olds and put them to work in what I would call some sort of AmeriCorps like army of people to trace and use it using handheld technology, ask them to work exceptionally hard, and give them the opportunity to serve in the agency of something greater. What would you have? You know, people, we send 19 year olds to the front lines in Kandahar and all sorts of hot spots around the world. They're not immune to bullets, but to a certain extent, this army of super soldiers would be immune to this virus. And I don't want to... I'm not an epidemiologist, so I'll only report what I've read, but my understanding is the mortality rates and the severity of the disease is much lower among people who are under the age of 25, that this is in fact an ageist disease. So the idea of tracers Not Kara Swisher · 1:00:16 totally, but okay, all right. Scott Galloway · 1:00:17 An army of tracers and giving them the opportunity to go to work and do something bigger than themselves. Because part of the reason we had such fantastic leadership and legislation and bipartisan cooperation in the 50s and 60s is that the majority of our elected leaders had served in uniform, and they felt they were out there in the agency of something bigger than their party. Kara Swisher · 1:00:36 I agree. Guest · 1:00:37 That is important. Scott Galloway · 1:00:38 We need to reestablish that sense of empathy and cooperation. I think we need a massive effort. And if you were to give all of them, say, 25 to 100% remittance on tuition post, similar to what the armed services do, post their service in what I'll call the CoronaCorps or AmeriCorps, would have a reduction in cost of college for a lot of middle class kids. And we might emerge or generate a series of a generation of leaders that understand the importance of cooperation. That Kara Swisher · 1:01:05 would be like a great program if our leaders have the ability to do that, but they Scott Galloway · 1:01:08 Well, here's the thing, do the math. I've figured the math, 500,000 people, dollars 30,000 for two years, 25 to 100% off their tuition that costs $50,000,000,000 And the way to think of it is it's a 2% insurance policy on the $2,500,000,000,000 stimulus to ensure we don't have to pay it again. So I'm really trying to promote this idea a volunteer corps of young people that take advantage of the insufficient education we're going to have for the next twelve to twenty four months at the university level, and an opportunity to establish a generation of people who are more cooperative and think bigger than themselves. Anyways, my winners are AmeriCorps. The missionaries from the Latter day Saints are the Peace Corps. By the way, Peace Corps including the wrestler China and Reed Hastings from Netflix. Yeah. Peace Corps volunteers. Kara Swisher · 1:01:50 Like that. And I wanted to be in the military, just so you know. Was not allowed because of the gay thing. But let me tell you, my win and fail, same thing, Clorox. Scott Galloway · 1:01:58 Clorox? Go on. Kara Swisher · 1:01:59 Disinfectant. I love disinfectant. Disinfectant. Thank you, Clorox, Lysol, and all these disinfectants. Scott Galloway · 1:02:05 Bottle of Clorox because I heard what Thank the president Kara Swisher · 1:02:08 you for them for saying that. The fact that they had to say it is appalling, and obviously the fail is the... And then pretending they didn't mean it. This is just this administration is out of freaking control. Out of con... That is just like... I I know we say that all the time, but, like, drink disin... Like Scott Galloway · 1:02:24 No. Inject it. Inject it. Kara Swisher · 1:02:26 And I was kid... And then I was kidding? Like, what? Scott Galloway · 1:02:28 I was being sarcastic, obviously. Kara Swisher · 1:02:30 Let me just tell you. He's crazy enough, but the the the the right wing media that has continued to back this stuff is literally... I just don't even know what to think. Breitbart had a story that was so appalling right afterwards. Fact. You know, he didn't say that. I was like, he did. And then when he... Then he then he turned on them. Both his press secretary defended him, and then then he said, no. I was kidding. And then he she looked. She he hung her out to dry. Like, the the amount of people he throws under buses on a daily basis because his his lunacy is really quite amazing. Look. But they deserve it. Scott Galloway · 1:03:05 They I bet the Hannity viewers wanna take the ultimate Tide Pod challenge. I just think that's natural selection in Darwin. I I don't like... Go for it, guys. Kara Swisher · 1:03:13 Go for Nonetheless, thank you Clorox for putting out a statement that people shouldn't drink you. Good idea. I appreciate that. Speaking of marketing, we didn't intentionally want you to take our Clorox. Anyway, I appreciate it from them, and it's... And I can't believe I appreciate that statement. Anyway, Scott, what's on tap for you the rest of this week? We're gonna have a lot to... It's gonna be a busy week, I think. Busy week. — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 1:03:34 I got a lot going on. I'm filming my first TV show premiering on Vice May 7. Yes. Kara Swisher · 1:03:39 We gotta get you on the podcast to talk about it. Scott Galloway · 1:03:41 That's right. And, you know, just, you know, everything's kind of blended. There isn't really a next week. Everything's just sort of blending. What are you up to? Your life's much more interesting. Kara Swisher · 1:03:50 I have an interview with Joe Walsh. I've got an interview with Who's Joe Walsh? He ran for... No. He ran for for president, you know, the one who used to be really conservative, and then he became not as conservative. He ran against Trump. Scott Galloway · 1:04:02 Oh, the guy who hated... Who loved Trump and now hates him? Kara Swisher · 1:04:05 Yes. That guy. I'm Scott Galloway · 1:04:06 gonna talk to him. I'm talking bitch. Ask him how he became such a bitch. Kara Swisher · 1:04:10 Okay. I'll tell him. That's exactly how I'll ask him. Scott Galloway · 1:04:13 Then that people don't like me. Isn't it? Isn't it shocking? Kara Swisher · 1:04:16 I know. And then I'm interviewing Ryan Murphy, who who Scott Galloway · 1:04:19 is sad. He's the Canadian actor? Kara Swisher · 1:04:21 Oh, no. That's... No. I'd love to interview Ryan Reynolds. No. Ryan Murphy Scott Galloway · 1:04:25 you can leave your hat on. Right? I've got that right. Kara Swisher · 1:04:27 Right. No. Scott Galloway · 1:04:28 Listen to Kara Swisher · 1:04:28 me. Ryan Murphy was... He created Glee. He created American Horror Story. He does a he has a new series called Hollywood, which is... Looks fantastic. He's a really he's a really great creator of TV shows. He did that big ink, that big deal with Netflix along... Shonda Rhimes did one and he did one, Ryan Murphy. And he actually claimed to fame. He and I were interns together at the Washington Post. And so we were... We hung out, like, one summer altogether. Just... He was he's an amazingly interesting guy. So he is now sort of one of the most premier producers in Hollywood. We're gonna talk about all that stuff and how it... What it's like to be at Netflix and stuff like that. Scott Galloway · 1:05:04 So That sounds good. Kara Swisher · 1:05:05 It's gonna be fun. I will bring back stories for you. Anyway, don't forget, if you have a story that you're you're curious about and wanna hear our opinion on, email us at pivot@voxmedia.com to be featured on the show. Scott, please read us out. Scott Galloway · 1:05:19 Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Our executive producer is Erica Anderson. Special thanks to Rebecca Castro and Drew Burrows. If you liked what you heard, please hit the subscribe button. Send in your questions. Hope you have a wonderful week. And we'll look forward to seeing you at the end of the week for a breakdown of all things tech and business.