Scott Galloway · 24:25
Letting the value of double Afford 22,000. Oh, but wait 4,100,000 driver partners who don't have health insurance, don't have minimum wage protection and make on average $9 and $25 Sheryl Sandberg was the ultimate lipstick on cancer for the last few years. It's now Dara Khosrowshahi, who is the head of a shameful organization. We have legitimized the notion that it's okay in The US to move towards an economy with 3,000,000 lords being served by 350,000,000 serfs. That was not the Uber IPO, that was the lords take revenge on the serfs IPO. It's an outrage that we let this shit continue.
Kara Swisher · 25:04
Alright, then you are a socialist. No, I'm kidding. I agree with you. I agree with you. I agree with you. Harlow, you're a social... That guy. Why do you go on with that guy?
Scott Galloway · 25:13
Go back... I go on Fox once a week because I like to go behind enemy lines. Yeah. Okay. And by the way, lot of it is a script. A lot of it is bullshit. They're actually fairly nice, people.
Kara Swisher · 25:21
Yeah. Right.
Scott Galloway · 25:21
And they get talking points every day.
Kara Swisher · 25:23
Oh my god. I don't even start with they're very nice people That's
Scott Galloway · 25:25
an act.
Kara Swisher · 25:26
Behind the scenes. That's bullshit. I'm sorry. That's so much You
Scott Galloway · 25:29
just don't like Tucker because he's not nice.
Kara Swisher · 25:30
No. Invited Tucker Carlson and he he said he was coming and then he said he wasn't. Tucker and I are gonna go at it together. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be fantastic. We're gonna compare our elite private schools of which he paid more for his. He called me an elite and I'm like, you went to a school that was four times more expensive than that.
Scott Galloway · 25:46
Clearly you're not bothered by this.
Kara Swisher · 25:47
It bothers me. Fucking asshole. I just feel like he's Italy too, fine.
Scott Galloway · 25:51
Here we go.
Kara Swisher · 25:52
I'm just saying.
Scott Galloway · 25:52
Here we go.
Kara Swisher · 25:53
Alright, in any case, he also called me no talent, which really, I'm like, okay, I can be a jerk.
Scott Galloway · 25:57
A little bit.
Kara Swisher · 25:57
But I'm not no talent, okay? That's a big thing.
Scott Galloway · 26:00
I want
Kara Swisher · 26:00
him to be accurate about my negative qualities. Yes it bothers me. Anyway your wins and fails because we got to get to predictions.
Scott Galloway · 26:06
Okay, so my win is I've been thinking a lot about John McCain I talked about this yesterday.
Kara Swisher · 26:10
Or in Arizona?
Scott Galloway · 26:11
Yeah, think he's a tremendous role model. The guy you know enlisted in the Navy flew Thunderbolts over Vietnam was supposedly wasn't a very good pilot by the way everyone has their faults and was shot down and you know refused offers if
Kara Swisher · 26:27
he He was from a famous family, a military family.
Scott Galloway · 26:30
From a famous military family. Went on imagine the low points in his life and decided that he was gonna fight for the dignity of humanity and was always full stop. There is no such thing as an enhanced interrogation technique. This is torture. Stop it. Full stop. Can you imagine any of our I don't want to get into names but imagine our current leadership adopting a child. That's what the McCain's did. I mean this this guy real honor and role model represents Arizona very well.
Kara Swisher · 26:59
Okay, alright your fail?
Scott Galloway · 27:01
My fail is the myths that Big Tech continues to propagate at conferences like this around they're moving to a nationalist argument around don't break us up that the Chinese with their weaponized AI weaponized companies are going to come for us. And there's no evidence that 11 smaller more nimble companies wouldn't be just as good. And also the China threat is totally overrated. The Chinese are fantastic at supply chain innovation and property theft. They're not good at building global brands. There's probably not a single Chinese brand in your life right now. They're terrible at going abroad. Chinese brands don't travel.
Kara Swisher · 27:37
Do not be aware. I agree with you.
Scott Galloway · 27:38
The notion that and I'm not trying to pile on Susan but when you asked her about breaking up or Peter did excuse me, she said well you just got to be careful there's a lot of unintended consequences of breakup. Oh my god. Facebook and Google are the land of unintended consequences Not antitrust. Antitrust is probably the most predictable government action in history. Try and think try and think of an antitrust action that didn't work. It's like one of the few things we screw up wars, we have bad taxes, the government screws up all the time. They mostly get a ride and they don't get enough credit for mostly getting a ride. Antitrust, they're batting a thousand. Every time they break up companies we look back and go, yeah that was the right thing to do. So, the notion that they're making the nationalist argument. Oh and the other one I like is we're the only ones with the scale to fix the problems that we It's scale that's getting them into all the trouble. They can't manage it so enough already. Yeah. Just stop it.
Kara Swisher · 28:38
Alright. Just
Scott Galloway · 28:39
stop it.
— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 28:39
Okay, so now we're gonna do predictions now Scott. I like your anger. It's very controlled though. Didn't jump up or anything which is nice. Okay. We're gonna do something a little different for today's
Scott Galloway · 28:48
Meet me in Arizona in June.
Kara Swisher · 28:49
It's hot. Yeah. You're welcome. Okay. We're gonna do something a little different for today's prediction segment. We're playing some of our past predictions and talking about what changed since we made them. We gotta do this fast. We've got a very short amount of time. Let's start with something we discussed back in February, whether it be this be the year that big tech gets regulated. This is from February 15. Let's play the clip. What was your message to these congress people?
Scott Galloway · 29:12
Well, know my message. My message is that these organizations have become invasive species. They are Sith Lords who started up benign and then turned to the dark side of the force. And unless we arm you, our representatives, with insight and data and the backbone and wherewithal to break up what have become invasive species that we're gonna continue kill innovation in our country. Our tax base is gonna erode. The middle class is gonna continue to experience flat wages. Government is here to serve the governed, not the governors. And these companies have become the governors.
Kara Swisher · 29:46
And So the Sith Lords. Move in. The Sith Lord. That's really interesting. I just had Shoshana Zuboff on talking about this. She shares a book called Surveillance Capitalism where she has exactly the same messages. The the hijacking of everything by these companies, and and for more dire... Even more dire predictions from her in terms of what's gonna happen. Do they hear you? Do they do they... Because, you know, I've been banging this drum for a while too. So do they hear hear your messaging?
Scott Galloway · 30:11
They hear you. They agree, they nod their head, and they are totally befuddled as to what to do about it.
Kara Swisher · 30:17
Alright. In this show, we thought probably not they get regulated. What do think now? Very quick. No?
Scott Galloway · 30:22
Yes. It's happening.
Kara Swisher · 30:24
It's happening. Yes. Just today, DOJ, Matt Macon, Delrahim, who I also did podcast with, was laying out the arguments for antitrust. A lot of regulators, lot of things. David Sapoloni at
Scott Galloway · 30:35
Congress. Saying that consumer harm is not the only litmus test.
Kara Swisher · 30:38
We're going back to Yes. Brand Okay. Clip two.
Scott Galloway · 30:42
Which is gonna be terrible for my career. Right. I'm like basically MSNBC if a Democrat gets elected.
Kara Swisher · 30:47
Alright, okay. Alright. You can become a... You can go to Fox.
Scott Galloway · 30:54
By the way, us on stage listening to ourselves on radio, this is like narcissism gone crazy,
Kara Swisher · 30:59
isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Okay. Next next one.
Scott Galloway · 31:04
Snap has the same two class shareholder system. You have a young man who's already a billionaire. And if it wasn't a two class shareholder company, I think they probably would have sold by now. And this is a problem with two class shareholder stocks is right now he doesn't really need to be a fiduciary for other shareholders. He's off to the races. He thinks he has a viewpoint or a vision, which he has been totally unable to articulate what it is exactly they're gonna do here. Mhmm. You know, the redesign didn't work. They're getting killed.
Kara Swisher · 31:31
Well, he had a very good vision initially. Right? It's a really fresh vision. Everyone stole it. Like
Scott Galloway · 31:35
Oh, sure. It's a great company.
Kara Swisher · 31:37
And I find... Have to say of a lot of the people I talk to, I really enjoy talking to him because I always have a really... He's a... I would... Visionary is a good word. He actually... You're always like, oh, I didn't thought of it that way. But you're right. It's execution. Visionary vision can only get you so far.
Scott Galloway · 31:52
But the CFO leaving, it kind of punctures another prediction we had, a few months ago where I thought that Amazon was a likely acquirer because the CFO was a twenty year veteran of Amazon. And the fact that someone who was at Amazon for twenty years, you could hardly describe this person as a flake or someone who just kind of goes off half cocked, leaves snap after six months is a very negative forward looking indicator. I got it wrong. I thought Twitter was going be below $10 a share right now.
Kara Swisher · 32:20
Snap
Scott Galloway · 32:20
and Snap, which I believe that Mark Zuckerberg was more honest, he'd call Instagram stories Snap. I thought snap was going away and they've both held. The earnings they've both held.
Kara Swisher · 32:33
All right clip three and then we're gonna bring if there's predictions from the audience. Next clip.
Scott Galloway · 32:37
Let's revisit our Lyft prediction. How's that going?
Kara Swisher · 32:40
How's that working Not good.
Scott Galloway · 32:42
Good. Nailed the So prediction on Uber let's talk a little bit about Uber. Uber's They coming keep They keep lowering the price range. It's now down to 90 building. I think I'm not sure and it's much more fun to talk about dramatic predictions but I've decided my prediction around Uber in terms of the stock is gonna be met. I think this thing is being perfectly manicured and measured to a small pop and that's about it and I think it'll hold steady. So we mostly got that right, but be clear ride hailing is going to shed more value than the majority of the S and P 500 companies are worth in the next six to twelve months. Lyft makes absolutely no sense. It's in a terrible business and it has no other businesses and it's burning cash. Ride hailing is a terrible business. Uber has assets. Uber is a global brand. They're globally affluent, typically the first and last brand they see when they're on the road is Uber and it's shown a flywheel effect. It spun out Uber Eats which is a great business. So Uber could execute perfectly and take advantage of all their great assets and be worth half what it's worth right now. The valuation make no sense.
Kara Swisher · 33:53
But fixing the lords and surfs problem.
Scott Galloway · 33:55
There you go. Which they won't do but we don't seem to be that jonesed up to fix it. Lyft could literally go away. Lyft is, there's no justification for Lyft's business. It's the number two without the global brand, without the flywheel effect. It's a terrible business.
Kara Swisher · 34:10
Alright, do have any predictions from the audience? Don't know if we do. Any predictions? Did they send them forward? Alright, one more prediction, Scott Galloway, then we'll get out of the way for the other podcasts.
Scott Galloway · 34:19
I just... The prediction yesterday, the markets got it wrong when they announced the FTC and DOJ said, okay, you take Amazon and Facebook, we'll take Google and or we'll take Alphabet and Apple, and the markets hammered these companies. They got it wrong. These companies are going to skyrocket in value over the next six months because analysts are going to start recognizing that these companies... WhatsApp is going be an incredible company as an independent company.
Kara Swisher · 34:46
Thank you.
Scott Galloway · 34:47
This is a stock call. I think if you were to buy all four of those stocks, I think they're up between 1020% in the next six months as the markets start to realize that spins are going to be amazing for shareholders.
Kara Swisher · 34:58
Okay, we have just a little time. I'm to do instant predictions with Scott Galloway, Ms. Cleo of my life? Alright. You know who that is, right?
Scott Galloway · 35:07
I don't.
Kara Swisher · 35:07
Okay. Forget it. Don't worry about it. It's perfect. Okay. Prediction on when Zuck will get removed as CEO? You just have to make short answers here.
Scott Galloway · 35:17
I think it's within... I'm always early. I think it's within twelve months. Think it'll be within twelve months. We have come to accept, and this is a general unfortunate problem, I think, our society, that we just have to accept it that the world is what it is. No, it's not. The world is what we make of it. Put pressure on the board to take a leadership stand. We can absolutely remove this guy.
Kara Swisher · 35:37
Alright. When will Trump get impeached or will he win in 2020, Scott Galloway?
Scott Galloway · 35:41
What do you think? I get this wrong. I'm terrible at politics.
Kara Swisher · 35:44
No idea.
Scott Galloway · 35:45
No idea. I have no idea.
Kara Swisher · 35:46
Either. Don't know. Either. Don't think they will do the impeachment. Nancy Pelosi's not gonna bend. I think she's she's making a political calculation and she's getting in the way... She's taking the flack for it. She knows she has to protect those those areas that are pro Trump or that are concerned about other things besides the impeachment. And so she's going to just take all the flack from her left and and not do it. She's she's a very savvy political calculator. Yeah. Whether you... Whether it's the right thing or not, she wants to win back the...
Scott Galloway · 36:17
Yep.
Kara Swisher · 36:18
She wants to win. Alright. Will he win 2020?
Scott Galloway · 36:20
I don't know.
Kara Swisher · 36:21
I don't know. I don't know either. Is Kevin Systrom John Snow back from the dead? That's... We're gonna end That's on a good one.
Scott Galloway · 36:29
That's good. He could come back and here's... Okay. So here's a big problem with our economy right now, and I say this is someone who's When sold you sell a company, you get a lot of money. The economy and venture has largely been described as a conspiracy between the venture capitalists and the CEO founders. And the CEO founders, and I'm one of them, do really well on acquisitions. But in exchange for doing really well financially, we sign as does the senior management these very onerous non competition and non solicit agreements. A non solicit agreement says that if you go do anything else or you leave, you can't approach, you can't hire anyone from the company. Now what does that do? It suppresses wages. So, someone making a good living has one fewer employer to come after them and offer them a job. So, it suppresses wages. Two, it suppresses innovation because some of the most talented people in tech, Jan Kuhm, Kevin Sistram, now cannot start a company because they signed these non competes. So when a company acquires a company, the best thing that happens is that it becomes very successful. The second best thing that happens is it isn't successful, they close it down and they cauterize that branch and they don't, they take a competitor off the marketplace. So, all of a sudden what you have is the most productive innovative companies and people in the world are cauterized and in every industry, this isn't true of big tech only, it's true across every industry. The top two players used to control 20 to 30% of market share, now they control
Kara Swisher · 37:58
50 It also can be very ugly. They gave all that money to an executive at Google who had sexual harassment issues because they didn't want him to compete. It can be used lots of ways. In any case, is he John Snow, is he going go and then come back and save the day? Although frankly all the women saved
Scott Galloway · 38:14
the day. That is such an important question, I want to give that some time.
Kara Swisher · 38:17
Alright, next week we'll be back to answer whether Kevin Systrom is John Snow in the continuing nightmare that is my life talking about Game of Thrones. Appreciate it. Come on. I gave up at the casting. What are
— Predictions segment ends —
Scott Galloway · 38:30
you like Avengers?
Kara Swisher · 38:31
Jesus Christ. You know what? Know what? I'm not even gonna say this.
Scott Galloway · 38:35
Quick survey and I will report back. How many people... Game of Thrones are Avengers? How many people are Avengers?
Kara Swisher · 38:40
Avengers? That's
Scott Galloway · 38:42
like eight people. Okay. How many people are Game of Thrones? Oh. That's right. That's how we roll. Dragons for everyone. You get a dragon. You get a dragon. You get a dragon.
Kara Swisher · 38:52
Alright. As usual. A small insight into my life. Anyway, Camila Salazar produced our show today. Nishad Kerwa is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Eric Johnson who's just the best. He's fantastic. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts if you like this week's episode. It leaves our view. Ladies and gentlemen, Scott Galloway.
