Scott Galloway · 10:30
Conservatives, means they're gonna lose the far left in terms of the the... Any any attempt to sort of rein these guys in. It's just... It's it's reminiscent of the, you know, Amazon, Washington Post, the ham handed talk... Attack from Trump, where he basically undercut legitimate concerns about Amazon.
Kara Swisher · 10:47
Yeah. And so why did they do it? What's the... Is it just press?
Scott Galloway · 10:51
I don't... I I just... You know, I I'm... I have such a terrible time predicting this administration. I don't understand 95% of what they do. So it feels just very political and it's unfortunately there's real harm here. This could have been a bipartisan effort and what's gonna happen is Big Tech is gonna respond thoughtfully in a measured way with data. Big tech... One of them... Big tech's gonna act presidential, the other is president. Mhmm. And you're you're gonna see you're gonna see... It's like... I don't I don't know what the analogy is. It's it's like complaining, you know, complaining about minimum wage because you want young people to smoke more. It's just, okay, we should raise minimum wage, but that's not why. And you end up contaminating the whole argument. Anyway, that's the whole thing.
Kara Swisher · 11:39
Think they're gonna slip right out of I think they're gonna slip right out And they... By the way, they should slip right out of this. This is insane. This is just a waste of time and, you know, again, focusing on things. And then we'll get, like, 60 tweets from Trump about the silliest of things when we should be focused on bigger things. Okay. We're gonna take a quick break, and then we're gonna pivot to Snapchat and Amazon. Every week on pivot, we take a sharp unfiltered look at the technology and media industries and highlight examples of winning leadership. When it comes to leading a successful business, time and again, entrepreneurs and executives from across industries share this incredibly simple secret. Turn to the experts for help. That's why small and medium sized businesses rely on TriNet for human resource solutions. No matter what industry you're in, TriNet tailors strategies for your organization to grow with confidence. Learn more about how TriNet's industry tailored HR can work with your business at trinet.com. That's trinet.com. Incredible starts here. TriNet. We're back, and we're gonna talk about Snap and Amazon. Explain for the people the situation.
Scott Galloway · 12:43
So Amazon and Snapchat announced a partnership earlier in the week where you'll be able to use Snapchat to zero in on a product and it'll be recognized kind of visual search and you'll be queued or prompted with that product page on Amazon. So the link between social and commerce, it's a, you know, it caused a lot, it got a, rightfully it got a lot of interest because one, Snap needs something. I mean, this is a company care. I believe this company is going out
Kara Swisher · 13:10
of business.
Scott Galloway · 13:11
I do not believe it'll be a, you know, prediction. Snap will not be an independent company by the end of twenty nineteen.
Kara Swisher · 13:16
Independent, you mean sale
Scott Galloway · 13:18
It'll or be 100%. Who? I'm not gonna
Kara Swisher · 13:21
let off on
Scott Galloway · 13:21
the hunt. That's the correct question. So first off, 10 to a 100,000 kids every week say, hey, we tried this new version of Snap called Instagram Stories, and they switch. And so the the the metrics
Kara Swisher · 13:31
But they might got a... They might have caught a break here with Gavin and Mike gone, by the way, at Instagram, but
Scott Galloway · 13:36
go I think the match is probably deep enough to be fine, but anyways, you have a situation where I think there limited number of buyers, so Snap even though it's people talk about how its stock has gotten crushed, it's still got a market cap of $13,000,000,000. So I believe the stock gets cut in half again, but any acquisition is sort of an 8 or a $10,000,000,000 check. And there's a limited number of companies that can buy a company that's not making a lot of money for eight to ten billion dollars, so the universe gets very, very narrow fast.
Kara Swisher · 14:06
So who? Come on.
Scott Galloway · 14:07
It's either Google or Amazon. You said to me, and I had not thought about this a month ago, that the only guy that Evan Spiegel would want to work for is Bezos. I mean, I know who it won't be, it won't be Facebook.
Kara Swisher · 14:18
Or Apple, or Apple.
Scott Galloway · 14:19
He'd for Tim Cook, but Apple is not that acquisitive.
Kara Swisher · 14:21
Oh, they're not getting near it.
Scott Galloway · 14:23
They're not that acquisitive, and I think Bezos says, alright, you have a core constituency that buys stuff and buys stuff irrationally. High margin coffee, flying knit tennis shoes, you know, you... They're crazy. Right? We love teenagers because they're stupid because they spend all their money.
Kara Swisher · 14:38
I bought high margin coffee yesterday
Scott Galloway · 14:39
with their head. Yeezy's. Did you get your kids a pair of those? Anyways
Kara Swisher · 14:43
don't wanna show you my shoes, though. Like, go ahead.
Scott Galloway · 14:44
And then... But... So... And the other the other real, I think, interesting piece of information here is the former VP of finance from Amazon is now the CFO of of of of Snap. And basically the CEO and his top finance people become like twins that can communicate non verbally because it's very important that CFO and the VP of Finance are what I call the CEO's source of truth so I can see this guy, the CFO calling Jeff and saying, look, this is a deal with our company, this is why it makes sense for you, and then literally short circuiting an acquisition.
Kara Swisher · 15:15
Yeah, that makes
Scott Galloway · 15:16
sense. This might be...
Kara Swisher · 15:17
And what about Google? Make the Google argument.
Scott Galloway · 15:18
I don't think I have a good argument for Google.
Kara Swisher · 15:21
I don't either.
Scott Galloway · 15:21
They've tried to be in social. It hasn't worked. I don't know if they need to be. I, you know, I just...
Kara Swisher · 15:26
They don't
Scott Galloway · 15:26
need just don't know.
Kara Swisher · 15:27
And they're robots. They don't... They they just can't even... Like, remember when they were doing Google plus or whatever the hell it was? I was like, oh, stop. It's painful to watch. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 15:35
That was rough.
Kara Swisher · 15:35
And they had, like, one of the original ones with Orchid, if you remember.
Scott Galloway · 15:38
I do
Kara Swisher · 15:39
not remember Orchid. When. Orchid was this little guy named Orchid that worked there, and he created this... One of the earliest social networks, right on par with Facebook and others. And it got very popular in, like, Brazil and some other countries, some strange countries.
Scott Galloway · 15:51
Remember? Social network in Brazil. That's what I remember. Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 15:53
Brazil and and a few other small countries. And I remember a Google executive saying, you know, we're really big in Brazil. And I go, way to lose it. Like, Brazil as compared to The United like, Facebook was killing it in The United States and else in bigger markets. And it was just... He was a great guy. Oh, he still is around, but he's... I don't... I think they killed the thing off. But they're... They they just can't do social. They can't. They just shouldn't. It's it's painful to watch.
Scott Galloway · 16:15
So who did that leave? No traditional media company can afford that check
Kara Swisher · 16:19
And why?
Scott Galloway · 16:19
And losing money. But Amazon, if they think they can pick this thing up for $10,000,000,000 which would be a 1% dilution on a trillion dollar market cap and capture a core constituency that gets them traction among high margin products, maybe gives them another entry point, gets more people on their app.
Kara Swisher · 16:38
Those with entertainment.
Scott Galloway · 16:39
Maybe they stream stuff from from Amazon Prime Video. I don't... I... There might be a pony in there somewhere.
Kara Swisher · 16:45
I like it. I like it. I like it. I'm going with... I I agree with you on this one. I don't think there's any other buyers. I... Except for an Asian company. One of the One of big guys? Yeah. WeChat.
Scott Galloway · 16:53
And Jeff Sessions says it's a security risk. Right?
Kara Swisher · 16:56
So Yes. Oh, yeah. Because because what goes on on Snapchat is high security.
Scott Galloway · 16:59
They're they're they're gonna weaponize our youth, Kara. They're coming for us.
Kara Swisher · 17:03
They are gonna weaponize.
Scott Galloway · 17:04
The army ro... The robot army of our 15 year old boys is coming for us.
Kara Swisher · 17:08
Yeah. Yeah. Although I have to say, I have two kids. They still use Snapchat. They love Snapchat. Use it as a communications tool. That's what they use it as, a 100%.
Scott Galloway · 17:16
And you know, Instagram Stories, have they tried it or don't know about it? Or...
Kara Swisher · 17:19
They, you know, they do, but I think it actually goes along generalized. I think more girls use Instagram stories. It's interesting. They... He uses... They use they use it sometimes, but just the other day, I was like, how how are you liking Instagram? And one of my sons goes, oh, the museum. And I was like, what? And I go... He goes... They go, you put up pretty pictures there. That's all. It was not fun or useful or utilitarian. It was just a museum. That's what they call it. I thought it was very smart, actually.
Scott Galloway · 17:43
GOAT, greatest of all time this week. What inspired you?
Kara Swisher · 17:47
I think Craig Newmark Mhmm. For funding the markup. It's it's being done by Julie Anguin, who I actually went to school with, and some others who are getting together to look at big tech, to look at issues around big tech. And I think that Craig has... I did a great podcast with Craig Newmark. He started Craig's List, obviously. And he's been giving a lot of money to journalism efforts. He gave one to a school recently, a big school, 20,000,000... In $20,000,000 increments, essentially. Nice. Made a lot of money from tech, and he's using it to support journalism. Think it's a great thing. He's he's an unusual and sort of an odd character in Silicon Valley. And I think he's he's he's really enjoying his media mogulhood in this way. And it's a very different way from others like Mark Benioff at one time and and Lorraine Powell Jobs and Jeff Bezos. It's it's really trying to really support traditional journalists into doing what they do.
Scott Galloway · 18:36
Well done, Craig.
Kara Swisher · 18:37
Well done, Craig.
Scott Galloway · 18:39
Nice. And so I had a moment of inspiration, Carrie, yesterday. I met one of my heroes. Legitimately one of my Who? EU Commissioner Margaret Marguerite Vestager.
Kara Swisher · 18:48
Vestager. Yes.
Scott Galloway · 18:50
She's great. Margaret's I'm on the train back from Macella, and I see this woman outlining
Kara Swisher · 18:55
Met her on the train. An
Scott Galloway · 18:56
analyst report. No. I stalked her on the train. An analyst report. And you know what she was doing? She was highlighting this report. She was knitting. How awesome
Kara Swisher · 19:03
is Oh, yeah. Knits. I got off the train.
Scott Galloway · 19:05
I introduced myself, took a picture with her. But this is a woman who is fearless, fighting for the EU middle class, and is fiercely intelligent. Just really exciting.
Kara Swisher · 19:15
They did a whole series about her
Scott Galloway · 19:16
in Denmark.
Kara Swisher · 19:18
Margaret Yeah. Vestager is the EU commissioner who has been sort of making every tech's company's life a living hell. And it's great to watch. She... I've interviewed her twice, and I think she's really quite something. She's like a superhero. And they hate her in tech. They just they just... They're they're polite about it, but
Scott Galloway · 19:33
they Yeah. I would argue she's the only public official in the world right now whose testicles have descended when it comes to dealing with big tech.
Kara Swisher · 19:40
You don't need testicles. You don't need testicles, Scott. You understand it. I don't. I'm not using testicle. No. We're not using any
Scott Galloway · 19:46
back the inappropriate for the left, balls.
Kara Swisher · 19:48
We're not using testicles. We're not gonna be
Scott Galloway · 19:51
using man up. We're taking No. We're taking the irreverent word either. For the left, Carrie. That's fine. That's You and I are taking it back.
Kara Swisher · 20:01
No. That's not words I like using. We'll think... We'll come up with new metaphors. Alright? I'm not trying to be politically correct, but there are other words we can use. Alright. Absurd quote of the week. Anything comes to mind?
Scott Galloway · 20:11
Back to you.
Kara Swisher · 20:13
I I
Scott Galloway · 20:14
I'm sure you have so
Kara Swisher · 20:15
so absurd. I think the the the stuff around Instagram, the the fact that Facebook had no response to this because they were obviously taken out, whereas these guys just came in. And they had been dropping bombs all over these guys for months and doing different things and messing with the thing. And even though they did sell it, I get that, they still had given them enormous autonomy and then just changed the rules of the game. And so these guys just left. I, like, dropped the mic and left. I thought that was kind
Scott Galloway · 20:43
And by the way, from a seller standpoint, worst trade in history. Best trade on the buyer side.
Kara Swisher · 20:47
Yes. It is. Although they did get a lot of stocks.
Scott Galloway · 20:49
Oh, they did just well.
Kara Swisher · 20:51
I think they're gonna walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars.
Scott Galloway · 20:53
Lot of Oh, My worst quote I'm piling on here, but your favorite person said, she said she was drunk.
Kara Swisher · 21:00
Oh.
Scott Galloway · 21:00
Right? Oh, okay. Okay. Then then I'll bet her off she was drunk. Anyways.
Kara Swisher · 21:06
You know what's interesting about Trump? He doesn't drink at all, like myself. He doesn't drink at all. So he has he doesn't he has an issue with... No. Don't. Not
Scott Galloway · 21:12
really. It's It's wonderful.
Kara Swisher · 21:14
No. I do it every now and every
Scott Galloway · 21:15
single And trust me on this. As Winston Churchill said, I've gotten more out of alcohol than it's gotten out of me. Trust me. More TV, more alcohol. Boom. I'm at
— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 21:23
the radio. Alright. Thank you. Alright. So last segment are predictions because because you have to make a prediction every week now, just so you know, and you have to be right. Oh, yeah. So what is your what is your prediction?
Scott Galloway · 21:37
Despite... Well, one, we've already made one, and that is by the end of 'nineteen, Snap is no longer an independent company.
Kara Swisher · 21:42
Alright. That's a good one. Okay. Do you have any others?
Scott Galloway · 21:45
I think Facebook and I'm talking about Book here because I own all of Big Tech. But I think Facebook is... I think the stock is remarkably undervalued. And to be clear, bad for America, bad for the planet, but I just think the stock is gonna scream when people realize that probably they're gonna get through this and they're gonna start posting just enormous numbers. It's gonna turn into apples two years ago. Religious looks just incredibly cheap.
Kara Swisher · 22:10
Alright. And Mark Zuckerberg's still at the helm.
Scott Galloway · 22:12
Oh, yeah. Well, why do you say that? How could he not be at the helm? What do you think? How think
Kara Swisher · 22:18
this
Scott Galloway · 22:18
He's is he's got... He clings to power like he makes an African dictator look charming. What what... How on earth does Mark Zuckerberg leave? Two classes of stock? How can he leave?
Kara Swisher · 22:29
I just think this one was bad. This was not a good look. I'm sorry. I just...
Scott Galloway · 22:33
Couldn't believe
Kara Swisher · 22:34
When you start to... No. The Russian thing. Of course, the Russia thing. But I think he flew out of that one. I think this one, he's not gonna fly out of. It's Kevin Sistrum and Mark
Scott Galloway · 22:41
McCormack. That's how Mark Zuckerberg goes down?
Kara Swisher · 22:43
Telling you. You just trust me.
Scott Galloway · 22:44
Oh my god.
Kara Swisher · 22:45
Just trust me. It's like Al Capone and taxes. I'm just telling you. It's... This is... It's not... It it does not leave him beloved.
Scott Galloway · 22:54
Ten days, no one would ever like his name. They're like Trotsky being erased from photos.
Kara Swisher · 22:57
And... Well, just, you know, Brian Acton, who who was one of the founders of WhatsApp, just gave a long interview about how Yeah. Facebook... He just... That stuff starts. That stuff starts as this is a sucky place to work, then you get hated. And then... I don't know. It's just... I I just... It's... I've... I just... It's not a... It's it's got bad juju all around it. That's all I'm saying.
— Predictions segment ends —
Scott Galloway · 23:15
Good stuff.
Kara Swisher · 23:16
Good stuff. Anyway. Alright, Scott. We have to get out of here.
Scott Galloway · 23:19
You have to get out here. I'm... I am I am embarrassingly available.
Kara Swisher · 23:24
No. Are you? I have to get out here. I'm going to New York for a New York Times conference that I have agreed to appear, and I'm talking to some some lovely top women executives about how Silicon Valley is doing. And then I'm doing an interview with Samantha Bee about all kinds of things, including an app she's doing. I wish I helped her with a
Scott Galloway · 23:38
bit I'm so curious what she is like in person.
Kara Swisher · 23:41
She's lovely. She's shy. She's lovely. She's Canadian. Right? So she... Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 23:44
Well, Canadian that says it all.
Kara Swisher · 23:46
I think she's Canadian.
Scott Galloway · 23:47
By the way, that's back to That that inappropriate is technically a racist stereotype, but I'm going at... How do you get a 100
Kara Swisher · 23:54
I mean that in the
Scott Galloway · 23:54
next drunk fraternity guys out of your pool in Canada?
Kara Swisher · 23:58
Oh my god.
Scott Galloway · 23:59
Hey, guys. Can you please get out of the pool? Taking back to inappropriate
Kara Swisher · 24:06
You're care of No. You're not. Canadians is as far as
Scott Galloway · 24:09
I go on that issue. But...
Kara Swisher · 24:10
And I love Canada, by I love Canada. I love Canada so much.
Scott Galloway · 24:13
I'm going to Canada. Wait tonight. I'm going to Toronto. Wait. Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 24:16
Alright. Well, enjoy yourself. Why don't you tell that joke There
Scott Galloway · 24:19
we go.
Kara Swisher · 24:19
See how it goes over. Alright. Anyway, thank you for joining, Scott. Looking forward to talking everybody. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media on our first show. Join us next week for more breakdown of all things tech and business. If you like what you heard, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.
Scott Galloway · 24:43
Every week on Pivot, we take a sharp, unfiltered look at the technology and media industries and highlight examples of winning leadership. And when it comes to leading a successful business time and time again, entrepreneurs and executives from across industries share this incredibly simple secret. Turn to the experts for help. That's why small and medium sized businesses rely on TriNet for human resource solutions. No matter what industry you're in, TriNet tailor strategies for your organization to grow with confidence. Learn more about TriNet's industry tailored HR and how they can work with your business at trinet.com. At trinet.com. That's trinet.com. Incredible starts here.
