Kara Swisher · 27:54
Worry about Google collecting data. Here's what she had to say about that.
Guest · 27:57
The problem arose when they created a model for an urban data trust, where they said, we understand that people want not just sidewalk labs to be controlling this data, but others should be involved, like the municipal government, the provincial government, Waterfront Toronto, of course, and various levels involved in terms of the actual companies themselves, IT companies, etcetera, delivering these technologies will all form this, what they called an urban data trust. And then they said the following, which is what led to my resignation. They said, and of course, we will encourage companies to de identify data at source, but we can't make them do that. We have no control over what these companies do. And that's the minute I knew that everything was going to fall apart. Because you see, personally identifiable data, it's a treasure trove. Everybody wants to collect personal information and then use it for our advertising, marketing, etcetera. And the minute they said that, I knew there was no way we could preserve this as a smart city of privacy. I'd be interested in your views. Know, I had said that, for example, Bill Gates is thinking of creating a smart city. And I said to Waterfront Toronto, let's create a great smart city of privacy here, and then we can pitch it to them, and they could use that as a model. And hopefully, others all around the world can use it as a model. So I'd be interested in your thoughts. Thank you very much.
Kara Swisher · 29:18
Oh my god. Bill Gates creating a smart city. Alright. Google's statement on this, ZagWit allows us committed to implement the company the principles of privacy by design. Though that question is settled, the question whether other companies involved in the Keyside product would be required to do so is unlikely to be worked out soon and may be out of Sidewalk's hands. Okay, they're washing the hands of third party for these reasons and others. Doctor. Kavukian has decided not to make... That does not make sense to continue working as a paid consultant to Sidewalk Labs, and Sidewalk Labs benefited greatly from her advice which helped the company formulate the strict privacy policies it has adopted and looks forward to calling on her from time to time for her advice and feedback. Doesn't sound like she wants to help them because she thinks it's bullshit.
Scott Galloway · 29:58
This came up in Toronto and my initial thought was that actually it's sort of a neat idea and partner. I like private public partnerships. Sure. And you basically... I thought you had the right response that I learned from and you said, know what, I don't want Google building our cities. I want our governments building our cities. And it kinda goes back to the original story about billionaires paying less than their unquote fair share. That the reason that these cities have to turn to these deep pockets is because they don't have the money to build smart cities themselves anymore.
Kara Swisher · 30:27
Right. Giving away public transportation, giving away prisons
Scott Galloway · 30:31
I'll take you into space. Right. You know, because because NASA's not doing it because their budget's been cut. So it's it's general... It's a reallocation of resources that when it comes to civic issues, we need cities to do it. Even like talk about data hacks. Right? Think about how many corporations have had data hacks, and everyone makes fun of the government. The most sensitive information in the world is probably on the CDC who gets information on...
Kara Swisher · 30:52
We can't get Trump's taxes.
Scott Galloway · 30:54
God. Hasn't police?... Hasn't been hacked. The IRS is the most secure organization in
Kara Swisher · 30:59
the world.
Scott Galloway · 30:59
Everybody mocks government employees. You know what?
Kara Swisher · 31:03
There some...
Scott Galloway · 31:05
Yeah, but in terms of security, you know, in terms of the names of assets and agents and CDC and health information, The government is proving itself to be a hell of a lot more competent than the private sector. So I kind of come around to your thinking. I really like the guy running Sidewalk Labs. Have you met Dan Dockforth? Yes, I many times. He strikes me as a really thoughtful
Kara Swisher · 31:26
I creative just think the whole premise, of all, there's third party companies involved here. There is Google, which is the biggest information sucking sound in the universe. I just... It just... It sounds bad on every level. It's just...
Scott Galloway · 31:39
What could go wrong, right?
Kara Swisher · 31:40
I just like pay more taxes, and let's build some more stuff or be part of the solution where you're highly monitored by people who are elected. Yeah. Like, they are not elected. They just like
Scott Galloway · 31:50
100%.
Kara Swisher · 31:51
I just feel like, look. Maybe we make bad choices in our elections, but they're elected. And nobody picked Google, and nobody picked Facebook, and nobody picked any of these people. And so how do you have consent to what... Just the the ways this... It's like facial recognition. The ways this can go, I can think of 20 bad outcomes and maybe four good ones.
Scott Galloway · 32:10
I'm actually a fan of facial recognition as long as it's controlled by people who are elected. At the end of the day, I believe in Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 32:15
That facial is problematic. And so I just I just... How the data gets used, how it gets de identified, who will have accesses, how will it be used, there's so many questions. And the fact that this woman and so many others are like quitting and being thoughtful about it, I think her issue was this third party. And then Google says this, and may be out of Sidewalk's hands. Well, if it's out of their hands, why not have partners who agree to very strict rules of this? You know, there's lots of ways. Again, pretending they don't have power over this.
Scott Galloway · 32:43
Oh, speaking of private corporations overstepping their boundaries and threatening our health as a nation, what did we predict in June and the June 20... I think it was the June 23, I'm looking at our producer Vega Sonos, about Libra when it was announced. What did we predict? That. It was DOA. We said it was going nowhere. Then in this past week it looks like Master Card and Visa are pulling out. I mean, was such an easy one. It just amazes me. Success creates a level of arrogance. It's very dangerous that anyone at Facebook thought, oh, this is a good idea. This will fly. This makes sense.
Kara Swisher · 33:16
Well, it feels innovative and new.
Scott Galloway · 33:19
It was.
Kara Swisher · 33:19
And by the way, currency should be
Scott Galloway · 33:20
It's great idea. A stable coin is genius. If you look at the construct, this is genius. A Walmart, a... I don't know, a JPMorgan, I don't know who's gonna fear Amazon because I think they're more trusted. Somebody is gonna do what Facebook has done elegantly to WhatsApp, Snap, and every other innovative firm. They're gonna pick their pocket. You're gonna see another stable coin from someone in six months. It's just not gonna be from the good people at Facebook.
Kara Swisher · 33:46
No. That they think they are. But anyway, this this smart... So what a smart city should look like? Cities need to get smarter a 100%. Yeah. I just don't want...
Scott Galloway · 33:53
Is that an IBM ad? Smart city? Have they been talking about smart... But no one takes IBM seriously. Right? They're not threatened by IBM.
Kara Swisher · 33:58
I I don't wanna stack rank who would be more appalling in terms of running our cities. But definitely Bill Gates, not on. No.
Scott Galloway · 34:04
Thank you. I think he's wonderful. You don't like Bill Gates?
Kara Swisher · 34:07
I like Bill Gates, but I don't want him making a decision on smart Making a city. I'm sorry. Like, I love the stuff he's doing abroad, and they need it desperately. And in some cases, it's great when billionaires put money into places where government doesn't have enough throughput to make it happen. In this country, we need our... We do have a functional government in lot of ways. But we do. We do. We do. Let me just tell you. I don't pay bribes every five minutes to do something. I don't have, like, you know, I think... I would like their expertise, and at the same time, I don't want them to control it. That's... Literally, they don't want to just join in a model of stone soup. They wanna, like, control every aspect. And I get why they want to. I get it. They they think of government as incompetent.
Scott Galloway · 34:49
Well, and they think they're being good. But it all comes back to one thing in terms of Google. And the reason why Toronto has to go hand in hand to Google for a smart city is that in The United Kingdom Google reported £7,000,000,000 sterling in revenue, and for the purposes of taxes reported a profit of £50,000.
Kara Swisher · 35:04
That's the kind of thing. They didn't pay your taxes, just pay... Like that's the kind of thing.
Scott Galloway · 35:08
Anyways, we're in agreement.
— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 35:09
We're in agreement. We're in agreement here. We're in violent agreement about smart cities. I think I should design a smart city. Anyway, wins and files. There's so many.
Scott Galloway · 35:18
There is so many.
Kara Swisher · 35:19
You don't go for it. What's your fail and win?
Scott Galloway · 35:22
My win is the economists from Berkeley who are pointing out this notion of income inequality. I think data as a force of moral good is really powerful.
Kara Swisher · 35:30
You're a big data man.
Scott Galloway · 35:31
Well, it's powerful, right? That thing that disappointed me about Twitter exchanges is there was just an absence of data around, okay, I disagree, here's my data. Disagree, I'm rich, means I'm right. My fail is obvious. My fail is this and I'm a product of it and I've experienced it. This culture in Silicon Valley where people have mistaken their their blessings for talent. And I think this smells like 1999 and everyone says it's different this time. So this leads right into my prediction. I thought the biggest news story of the year was gonna be WeWork. By the way, coming here, I got off on floors Mhmm. 16 And 17. You know what those floors are here? WeWork. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven or hell, and I'm like, does this mean I'm in heaven or hell? Anyways...
Kara Swisher · 36:15
I know they did. They they like kidnapped you or
Scott Galloway · 36:18
something. They're here. Yeah. And then they pulled me out, put me under a drug and now I no longer have a kidney. I don't know what that means. But anyways and it's being rented out.
Kara Swisher · 36:28
A new business model.
Scott Galloway · 36:28
It's being rented out. Anyways, I thought it was gonna be work. No, now I think it's gonna be SoftBank. I'm pretty sure like last When
Kara Swisher · 36:36
these targets got go?
Scott Galloway · 36:38
When I have four... Let me see. When I go out to dinner I'll usually have one or two drinks and then afterwards I'll have... Let me see... It's another seven. And the next day most of my decisions are bad decisions and I think that SoftBank's incredible poor judgment around we perhaps means that they've demonstrated poor judgment around other investments. So I'm looking at their other real estate investments, specifically OYO, Compass Failed to Open Door.
Kara Swisher · 37:04
Failed to come.
Scott Galloway · 37:05
Well, what I think we're gonna have since the new prediction is that I think this level
Kara Swisher · 37:08
of Keith Verroy is a big investor in Open Door, but go ahead.
Scott Galloway · 37:10
Is he really? Yes. Oh, delicious.
Kara Swisher · 37:13
I've interviewed this
Scott Galloway · 37:13
week. It's gonna
Kara Swisher · 37:15
be on my podcast.
Scott Galloway · 37:16
Anyway, so This
Kara Swisher · 37:17
week or next week.
Scott Galloway · 37:18
The the abundance of capital, the abundance of cheap capital, a level of arrogance, all this bullshit rhetoric around genius and magic and this Jesus complex. I have been here before. The big story next year, the beginning of the year we said the unicorn class was gonna lose money, which was heresy because the previous year IPOs were up about 18%, the year before that they're up 79%. This year year to date they're only up five which means they go down a little bit more and this year IPOs and unicorns have been a net loser. Next year prediction, take every private company worth over...
Kara Swisher · 37:50
Are predicting that?
Scott Galloway · 37:51
Go ahead. Is my prediction. Yeah. Okay. Every unicorn worth over $1,000,000,000 now that's a private company, and I think we can add them up and I'll do this and I'll publish it on my blog, is gonna be cut in half next year. Okay. Amount of consensual hallucination... Stop,
Kara Swisher · 38:05
stop, slapping you.
Scott Galloway · 38:06
The amount of consensual hallucination between the markets, the unicorn industrial complex trying to shame people for having a thoughtful conversation around valuation. I have been to this movie before. We are gonna see the valuation of private company unicorns cut in half
Kara Swisher · 38:21
You have in 2000 literally just slapped Jason Callaghanis in the face, and you are saying, we hawking at dawn, Jason. I will be your Is
Scott Galloway · 38:31
he the guy that turned $100,000 into $100,000,000
Kara Swisher · 38:34
That's right, Jason. He's coming. I'm bringing him to the end. We're gonna go for a drinks out. He's a good drinker.
Scott Galloway · 38:39
Is he?
Kara Swisher · 38:40
Yeah. You'll enjoy. You'll become best at Buddy's Okay. Just my win is Greta Thunberg is poised to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Scott Galloway · 38:46
You probably she's gonna win?
Kara Swisher · 38:48
I don't know. I think it would be great because it'll drive Trump crazy. That's really pretty much why I want her to win, although she's really quite an interesting... She's a 16 year old climate activist who organized a climate strike earlier this month. And so I think I just... I don't know. She's a win, and so is... And speaking of which, Andrew Yang presidential campaign made $10,000,000 in q three.
Scott Galloway · 39:08
You're happy about that, the
Kara Swisher · 39:09
Yang I I feel like I start... I'm the one who started to really...
Scott Galloway · 39:12
Oh, it's all about you. You're definitely the Yang Yang. But the thought of
Kara Swisher · 39:15
me when I interviewed him, and I was like, no. This guy's got some interesting ideas, and it will resonate with people.
Scott Galloway · 39:20
There's 40 points up for grab here.
Kara Swisher · 39:22
So who is it gonna go to? Warren?
Scott Galloway · 39:24
Who? Been doing all this hard here. You're gonna have someone as... Democratic
Kara Swisher · 39:28
Bloomberg's president coming in.
Scott Galloway · 39:30
Oh my god. Would love that. Do you do you really know that? Do you think that?
Kara Swisher · 39:33
That's my prediction. I'm gonna make a Kara Swisher predict. I never get make it. You're mister prediction.
Scott Galloway · 39:37
You suck up all prediction. More?
Kara Swisher · 39:40
Bloomberg's coming in.
Scott Galloway · 39:40
Do think he's coming in?
Kara Swisher · 39:41
Coming in. Why wouldn't you?
Scott Galloway · 39:43
Well, we need more old people in the race. Jesus Christ. A chicken in every pot and depends in every cabinet. I mean, come on. Enough already with
Kara Swisher · 39:52
Bloomberg's the old coming in. I would
Scott Galloway · 39:53
love it.
Kara Swisher · 39:54
Bloomberg's coming in.
Scott Galloway · 39:54
He's competent. He's ran the eleventh largest economy in world.
Kara Swisher · 39:57
He choked the last two times. Bloomberg, you choked.
Scott Galloway · 39:59
And he wouldn't need to take any money from anybody.
Kara Swisher · 40:03
Serve as like him.
Scott Galloway · 40:04
Appoint Stacey Abrams as his VP. I'm only gonna serve four years. And then she gets it. She's great. I'm here to repair and restore.
Kara Swisher · 40:11
Yep. I like it. Like
Scott Galloway · 40:13
it. Other one, the other launch back, you know who would have double digits if you got in right now? What be if Gavin Newsom announced.
Kara Swisher · 40:19
Oh, I love Gavin. You know? Yeah. Love that Gavin Newsom.
Scott Galloway · 40:22
He's very lovable.
Kara Swisher · 40:23
He's my friend. I like him. I like him. I think he's a good...
Scott Galloway · 40:25
So you think there's gonna be a new entrant?
Kara Swisher · 40:27
Oh my god. I could possibly president Pelosi if this this impeachment thing.
Scott Galloway · 40:31
Jesus Christ. This is literally like this is like, I mean, golden girls.
Kara Swisher · 40:35
I mean, Christ. You don't really have to hang with me. I will know all the presidents. I'm just saying.
Scott Galloway · 40:39
You keep saying that.
Kara Swisher · 40:40
I'm just of these people get in. We can go to the White House. You and I could stay in the Lincoln Bedroom together. It'll be great.
Scott Galloway · 40:45
I like that.
Kara Swisher · 40:46
Platonic. But, you know
Scott Galloway · 40:47
I have a lot of mixed emotions when you say that. But but in general, I'm in.
Kara Swisher · 40:53
But we don't even have to buy the
Scott Galloway · 40:54
General, I'm in.
Kara Swisher · 40:55
And then ending on that, Keith Raboy and Jason Galcanas will be wishing they were us because we were in the Lincoln bedroom.
Scott Galloway · 41:01
Yeah, I'm sure they're jealous
— Predictions segment ends —
Kara Swisher · 41:02
with their fleet of Teslas. Their fleet of Teslas. Okay. All right, Scott. I love talking to you about tech and business. I've got Thanks for saying I've got babies to
Scott Galloway · 41:11
raise a That's so exciting.
Kara Swisher · 41:13
I know. I'm so sorry. She's a wonder. She's real wonder. Makes you happy about the earth. Anyway, we'll be back together again in New York this week and in San Francisco, and hope that you're glad I'm here.
Scott Galloway · 41:27
By the way I got rejected from Stanford twice. So Undergraduate
Kara Swisher · 41:29
I got rejected from Stanford just once. Twice. You know what we're gonna go back and say?
Scott Galloway · 41:34
I was also rejected from the University of Indiana, University of Texas, Michigan, Duke, Cornell, and you know who I'm in? The the generosity and vision of the University of California taxpayers and regents, UCLA and Berkeley. Only two colleges that ever let me in.
Kara Swisher · 41:46
Wow. Only got into Georgia. I know. It was a backup then. It was a backup.
Scott Galloway · 41:52
What's a Georgetown a backup plan?
Kara Swisher · 41:54
It was a 100
Scott Galloway · 41:55
and Since nine years
Kara Swisher · 41:56
you're pointing out
Scott Galloway · 41:56
a mythical conversation ever.
Kara Swisher · 41:59
No. I'm just This is seriously like
Scott Galloway · 42:00
no way.
Kara Swisher · 42:01
In any case.
Scott Galloway · 42:01
I'm whiter. No. You're whiter.
Kara Swisher · 42:03
You're whiter. No matter how we slice Scott Galloway, you're whiter and malar than I am. Well, slightly. May... Maybe probably not actually. Let's re... Let me restate that. You're not. I'm whiter and malar than you are.
Scott Galloway · 42:14
I'm hanging out with Karen Pence's first husband.
Kara Swisher · 42:16
Oh. That's what's happening. Me too.
Scott Galloway · 42:17
That's what's happening here.
Kara Swisher · 42:19
That's what's happening here. Live in New York this coming week.
Scott Galloway · 42:22
That's awesome.
Kara Swisher · 42:23
I'm very excited that our relationship is moving to another level. Anyway, today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis and Eric Johnson. Eric Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Rebecca Castro, Drew Burrows, and Nishad Kerwa. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast. If you like this week's episode, leave us a review. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.
