"Friends of Pivot" breakdown the big stories of the decade

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway: And I'm Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: Capping off the decade.

Scott Galloway: That's right. That's right. I'm Anderson Cooper, minus the hair, the good looks, and the famous mother. But I'm here, and you're my Kathy Griffin, Kara. What were you doing 10 years ago, Scott, without me?

Scott Galloway: I was recovering from the recession. I'd just been run over. I had a two-year-old son at home, and I was starting to get my act together professionally. I had spent 10 years kind of enjoying a wonderful midlife crisis, partying in New York, and then my son had the poor judgment to come rotating out of my girlfriend, and shit got real, and I got back to work. So 10 years ago, I started getting back to work.

Kara Swisher: Oh, wow. You know, I was working for Rupert Murdoch 10 years ago.

Scott Galloway: Really?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I worked at All Things D.

Scott Galloway: Were you drafted off of Walt Mossberg's coattails?

Kara Swisher: Yes, where I did that, but then I surpassed the master. Here we— No, he was great. He was great. I was doing great. I had a nice—2010 was a good time. I had small children. My kids were smaller. And I'm just looking at some pictures. But we had a really good—we were running All Things D. It was going great at the time, and we were doing big deal things there. And it just reached its biggest point after many years. So it was a good time.

Scott Galloway: No, and I started professionally. I just started L2. I was obviously teaching. And then I thought—so wait, back to me. I published a piece of research where I took data points to analyze a brand's digital footprint, and I put the research out ranking 100 companies. 40 of the companies called me and said, "Who are you and why are you doing this?" And I went to NYU and said, "I'll give you stock if you give me the IP," and that was the birth of L2. That was 2010.

Kara Swisher: Wow. Yeah. No, 10 years ago today, to this year, not today, but this year, was when we did the famous Mark Zuckerberg sweating interview, Walt and I did.

Scott Galloway: That was 10 years ago?

Kara Swisher: That was 10 years ago, in June of 2010. And also, we did a great Steve Jobs interview. He was in quite good health then. Or in relative, not great health. He had been sick, but he had a little bit of a rebound. But we did one of the most amazing interviews before he died. But yeah, we interviewed the Mark Zuckerberg sweating video.

Scott Galloway: Wow. And I was, let me see, I'm 43 now, so I was 33 then.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, 33.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Well, I'm really old. I was not that young. In any case, we're going through the—what are you going to do for this decade? What's your decade plan?

Scott Galloway: For the next decade?

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: I just want to surround myself with people that love me a great deal and that know they're loved by me and enjoy the salad days, Kara. What else?

Kara Swisher: That's very nice. That's a lovely thing. I'm going to get bigger and better. That's my plan. But what is your lesson of the past 10 years? Do you have any reflections?

Scott Galloway: Well, I'm feeling a little bit hung over, so I'm a little bit melancholy. But my lessons from—and you didn't do the math, I'm actually 55 now—from 45 to 55 for me, it was a time of recognizing or waking up at the beginning of my 40s and realizing I didn't have a lot of deep meaningful relationships, that I was very selfish. And I started investing in those relationships. So I come out of the last 10 years with a lot. And I just want to—for me, the last 10 years. And Kara, I don't know if you know this, I wrote a book about this, but I recognized that if I continue to be an island and be just a male that was living—

Kara Swisher: I know your book. My children read it. I know that.

Scott Galloway: If I was going to continue to be a—I mean, I was literally at the beginning of the decade living alone in Manhattan, leaving my apartment to go to the ready teller, get food or sex, living like a caveman. And then I decided, this is awesome and I'm good at it. But if I continue this, all the science says I'm going to die in my 60s because men who live alone. And so I started investing in relationships, and it was the smartest thing I've ever done.

Kara Swisher: Good for you. You sound like a lesbian, which is why I like you so much.

Scott Galloway: Do I?

Kara Swisher: Yes, you do. You literally—I mean, you—my—I'm the worst lesbian. I literally the worst lesbian of all time. I don't like sports. I have only two exposures to lesbian culture: you and Cinemax.

Scott Galloway: Other than that, I have absolutely—

Kara Swisher: You know what?

Scott Galloway: Everything I've learned about lesbians I've learned from you.

Kara Swisher: Stop. I'm not letting you go down that lesbian porn avenue. It's not happening today.

Scott Galloway: Okay, listen.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, because the end of the decade, a lot of people are doing this, we're going to do things a little differently. We're obviously going to break down a few big stories of the past 10 years, and some of them, let's bring in a few friends of Pivot. We've got some good people talking to us, people we like and or admire to hear what they were thinking about the defining moments.

Scott Galloway: I haven't heard this yet.

Kara Swisher: No, I haven't. Rebecca went out and got them. Thank you, Rebecca. Rebecca did an amazing job. So shall we get started and close this decade down? We're done with the 10s. We're going into the 20s, my friend.

Scott Galloway: Let's drop the mic. The roaring 20s. And you know how that ended.

Kara Swisher: Not so well. All right. Big decade breakdown. Let's get into it. Number one, FANG. This was a huge decade for big tech. It was very big in 2010, but not as big as it is now. It's a cliche, but really a bit of a reckoning for Silicon Valley toward the end. And you, obviously, Scott, published a book called *The Four*. And you coined the term FANG.

Scott Galloway: A key moment of the decade.

Kara Swisher: No, but you said "The Four." That's how I met you. That's when I met you. Did you coin this term FANG or not?

Scott Galloway: No, I didn't. I coined the term "The Four," but no, I didn't coin the term FANG. That's not me. Thank you, though.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, what do you think about this big tech? I mean, I think this has been the big story.

Scott Galloway: What do I think about it?

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Well, look, first off, they've gone from $1 trillion in value to $4 trillion, which is the GDP of, I think, Spain. Incredible prosperity, incredible potential. We spent the first six or seven years arguing over which one of their leaders was going to run for president. And they've been incredible vessels for the transfer of wealth from the rest of the world to the U.S. But there's a dark side. When I started—you mentioned before—when I started writing that book, it was a love letter.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, you did. People don't remember this, but I used to literally be the biggest evangelist in the world for these firms. I thought they were just incredible. And by the way, they say—you were talking about decade in review, asked me what I was doing in 2008. I literally got run over by the recession. And I know you're not supposed to talk about money because rich people create this dictum or this gestalt where you're not supposed to talk about money such that they can pretend that they're just following their passion. It's like the godfather said, only rich people tell you not to talk about money. But at the end of the recession, I got run over. I called my accountant, I said, "How much money do I have?" Because at one time when I was much—you know, it felt like a lot of money. It wasn't a lot of money for where I was in my life and where the success I thought I achieved. And I took all of that money and I put it into two stocks. I put it into Amazon and Apple. And those companies since then have gone up, I don't know, between seven and 12 fold. So I want to be clear, big tech economically saved my ass. And I started writing a book about them because I was so impressed with them. And by the end of the book, after really understanding them, the book, as you know, turned into a cautionary tale. And ever since then, I just get more and more disturbed. But I am absolutely biting the hand that not only fed me but saved my ass. There's been incredible economic prosperity. But the question is, have we opted for economic prosperity at the expense of income inequality, at the risk of the weaponization of our democracy? Have we lost all empathy? Are we dividing into different cohorts? Have we turned our backs on teen depression because of economic prosperity? Have we been overwhelmed by private power where the government is no longer a countervailing force but a co-conspirator, which is a key step to fascism? There is a lot to be concerned about here.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's been a tough day. It's been a big shift. People don't realize this, but Uber didn't get founded until 2009 and Airbnb 2008. And Facebook—when I did that interview, he wasn't huge. He was sort of obviously up and coming, but they weren't dominant in the way they were. And obviously Steve Jobs was still living. He didn't die until 2011. But there was a whole different kind of internet. It was sort of a hopeful time. It certainly was, it absolutely was. And we didn't see the seeds of what was coming in the middle of the Obama administration. So it's sort of fascinating to think about how quickly that had changed. You were quite—that book, *The Four*, it was a love letter. You're right. That's exactly right, which is kind of interesting. And I do think what will be interesting to see in this next decade is what's going to happen with these companies. Will they continue to do this? Do they understand the damage they've done? Where is the room for the safe internet, the people who are going to create the good internet and the possibilities? And I think that's—I have some hopefulness about that. It's like, who is going to do that? And I do have some hopefulness that someone is going to figure out ways to remake some of these things so it's not just a continued transfer from everybody to them.

Scott Galloway: The only one that kind of looks like it right now—it'll probably be someone new, but I've come full circle on this—is I think the only one that sort of feels a little bit like that is your guy, Evan Spiegel at Snap. And I'm glad that they're doing so well. And one-to-one communication is much healthier than this sort of group performative. You don't feel like you're speaking to someone, so you tend to be much meaner, and trolls and bad actors can weaponize it. It'll be interesting. Obviously, the internet was the medium of the last 10 years. I wonder what will be the medium of the next 10 years, and what impact will it have? Or does it just continue—do we continue to have more and more power and more and more of the spoils continue to just get concentrated?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I agree. He's an interesting character. I'm going to do—I just talked to them this morning, actually. I'm doing something for them at CES. And then he's coming to Code. So it's going to be a really interesting—I agree with you, he's a really interesting character. I'm looking forward to talking to him about that. That's why I invited him, because I want to talk about where it goes. Instead of just bellyaching about the shit that Facebook's pulled on him, I want to talk about where things are going and where the safe internet is. So it's one of my things I want to talk about a lot in the next decade. It's like, what are we going to make from this mess? And what can all the players start to think about? So anyway, big tech. That's the big story, and realizing how much has changed in just a very short 10 years. Number two, obviously, politics. This has been a pretty big decade for politics and presidents. We've had two very different presidents in the past 10 years. Barack Obama and Donald Trump couldn't be more polar opposites. There's probably too much to dig in here. But we reached out to Scott's friend and someone I admire very much, Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado. He is one of the candidates for president and has been a senator for the past decade. So we asked about what he thinks about the biggest moment in policy this decade.

Michael Bennett: When we look back at the past decade, I'd say that a moment that stands out as one of the most important to me is the failure of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. I was part of the Gang of Eight that wrote the bill in 2013. And its ultimate failure in the House of Representatives was emblematic of a crisis in our democracy. And in many ways, that set the stage for Donald Trump. It set the stage for the anti-immigrant screeds that he started his campaign with and the way that he governed our country.

Kara Swisher: Well, I agree with him. I would agree with him. And I think it wasn't just the immigration reform. It was taking, using tech to really get this message out in a way. He had started it with the Central Park Five. He had a history of doing this. But he really did sort of amp it up on using digital means to do this, including some stuff that broke people apart over this issue. It was a big element in the Russian disinformation campaigns. What do you think, Scott?

Scott Galloway: Well, I'm very impressed and fond of Senator Bennett. The way I met him was his office reached out to me and said, "The senator would like you to come down and talk to him a little bit about big tech and its impact on our society." And I ended up spending a couple hours with him. And he was so fascinated with the notion of income inequality as it relates to big tech. And he was taking notes. And you could tell this is a guy—I don't want to say he restored my faith in government, but he made me a lot more optimistic. You could just tell this guy was very committed to helping others that had been really hurt by income inequality. You know, school superintendent, tremendous empathy. You've noted that his demographic and his style are—the timing could not be worse for him. Sort of a substantive, quiet—he's not loud, he's not dramatic. His best tweet when he was still running for president or the Democratic nomination was, "Elect me president, I promise you won't have to think of me every day. I'll just handle the North Koreans." But I think it's important—at least what I found is, when you get to know a lot of our elected representatives, it does, when you don't see it filtered through the lens of Fox or through an impeachment trial, it does in many ways restore your faith in government.

Kara Swisher: Me too, I agree. And he's a very impressive, decent man and exactly who we would want representing us. But yeah, I also believe, quite frankly, that it's shown a lot. My senior senator here, Marco Rubio, basically, in my opinion, cut and run from immigration reform because he was pandering to his far-right constituents. He's a panderer. We had an opportunity to basically—the fact that we didn't pass that regulation as Senator Bennett said led to a lot of very divisive things. And we don't like to acknowledge it, but the notion that somehow we woke up one day and there were 11 million undocumented workers here—we let them in because they're this incredibly flexible, agile workforce that we bring in to farm our produce, take care of our seniors, help us in the service industry. And the notion that somehow these people came over without our knowing, and by the way, it's been incredibly economically beneficial for us. And then all of a sudden we're like, "Okay, let's demonize them now." It's been very damaging.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it is. I think Senator Bennett is correct. I agree with you. He's incredibly erudite. He's just really impressive. I also went and visited him. And just one of these—it does restore your faith in people when you talk to someone like that. He's a very good public servant. He's a very fine public servant.

Kara Swisher: But what do you think the biggest story is politically? I think it is related.

Scott Galloway: Trump. Trump is the biggest political story of the decade. He just is, 100%.

Kara Swisher: It's Trump.

Scott Galloway: Trump signifies—some people would say it's—Trump signifies this undercurrent of anger and also, quite frankly, of bigotry and tribal nature that I think everybody thought had gone away and is still there. And there's just no getting around it. The election of Trump, in my view, is the earthquake, the tremor, the seismic event, whatever you want to call it, of the decade.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's interesting to think about that sort of Barack Obama began the decade, and he almost feels zeroed out in a lot of ways. He isn't zeroed out, obviously, as a historic presidency. But it's just really interesting how forgotten that is, in comparison to how outsized Trump's role has been. And again, it's a role that's been emphasized by tech. He's used tech really strongly. He's used, obviously, not just Twitter and his outbursts and exclamation points and all caps letters on Twitter, but the Russian disinformation, the uses of disinformation to manipulate politics, the political ads. It's all been part and parcel to his success. And a reality show television part of our world that we so love in this country. It's all sort of been echoed and re-echoed and echoed. It's been critical to his success.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, and what will be interesting about moving into the next decade that will be so critical—we've had moments like this. We've had incredible threats, but immunities have always kicked in. Whether it's deciding to enter Europe during World War II after the tremendous damage of World War I, deciding to put our manufacturing base into production, the embrace of civil rights, globalization. There have been so many seminal immunities that have kicked in to overcome what have been tremendous threats to our society. What will be interesting is if in the next couple years, or just year, if immunities begin to kick in against what are some fairly unhealthy and threatening things to our democracy. Whether it's us or tech being weaponized by bad actors out of Russia, or this general move towards autocracy as opposed to democracy. Everyone accuses—the big story on the left, or the big story that Trump has been able to promote with his 60 million followers on Twitter, is that somehow the far left, or that we're prone to being socialists. And I think the bigger story is how the right has become much more prone to fascism. And the notion that fascism at its core is extreme nationalism, refusal to condone violence, and the demonization of immigrants. If there was ever a playbook for fascism playing out right now, it would have President Trump on the cover. So I'm hopeful that as has happened throughout our history, when we enter these dark times, the immunities begin to kick in. So I'm waiting on the immunities, Kara. I hope it started yesterday.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, we'll see. I don't know. I think tech does emphasize this. It emphasizes this in a way that—but television did in a lot of ways with Joe McCarthy as he became drunker and more sweaty. It was sort of like, "Ew, that's not us," right? I know it sounds dumb, but it's the same thing with Nixon. It's just, when is it going to help make it clear that this is not who we are? But we are this way. That's the thing. I hate when people say "this is not who we are." I'm like, it's precisely who we are. We're also other things. We're also good. And we pulled back from Joe McCarthy. One of the stories that really affected me this week, I think it was in the Washington Post, it was about the Tulsa massacres. They sometimes call it the race riot. That's not what it was. They're using all this technology to find mass graves there over what was essentially murders of white people to this incredibly thriving black community in Tulsa called Greenwood. And one of the things, I was just reminded—I'm like, we're just awful as a people. We're just awful. And I was sort of fascinated by the debate that's going on about it. And here's something, like tech is not part of this, but it's being used to sort of resurrect something we should remember. And the fact that I didn't know more about it sort of angered myself. I was like, I should know about these things. And hopefully we can sort of start to unearth some of these qualities we have that we have to look at really hard. So we'll see. But Trump is unfortunately the main politics thing. When we get back after this, we're going to do more of the top decade breakdown, including women and diversity, streaming wars, and more.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's keep going on the decade in review. Did you have hair at the beginning of the decade?

Scott Galloway: I'm not—just curious.

Kara Swisher: No, I shaved my head in my early 30s so I could raise money for my startups at a higher valuation.

Scott Galloway: I actually have hair. I had a ponytail in graduate school. By the way, if you—

Kara Swisher: I need a picture of that. You need to put that on the internet. We need to see that picture. Was it a ponytail with a comb over or just like a full head of hair?

Scott Galloway: It was like a bad novelty act at a Chippendales they would send out to cool the girls down. They'd be like, "All right, they're out of control. I'll send out Galloway with a ponytail to cool him down."

Kara Swisher: Wait, did you have a bald head and a ponytail? Because that's a look.

Scott Galloway: Oh, no. And with a Corvette. I was pathetic, but I wasn't fucking ridiculous.

Kara Swisher: You weren't Gallagher? You didn't go Gallagher?

Scott Galloway: No, I had an actual—I had a lot of hair. My hair, believe it or not—granted, it was a low bar—but my hair used to be my best feature.

Kara Swisher: I want to see a picture. Send a picture on the internet. Okay, next breakdown, number three, women in diversity and leadership. Huge decade for women. There was the Women's March on Washington and the Me Too movement, and there are more women in Congress than ever before. All Democrats, pretty much. So I think all Democrats. So we reached out to a friend of Pivot, Reshma Saujani, who is a founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, to talk about how women fared in tech and leadership over the last decade.

Reshma Saujani: I think when we look back at this decade, we're going to realize that this was the moment that we had a reckoning with technology and that women rose up. Look, I think we're at a tipping point, right? Women aren't putting up with bullshit anymore. All you need to do is look at the walkouts and the protests from the past year, many that are inspired by Me Too, and the fact that you have girls standing up every single day being changemakers. I'm hopeful that women and girls are going to rise up and they're going to lead and they're going to push tech companies to be better. They're going to push tech companies to go back to reading their mission statements and to really reconciling the fact that right now they are out of touch with their values.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I think Reshma is more positive than I am about this. I mean, there's a lot of things that happened. There was Elizabeth Holmes got a lot of attention. Obviously, Sheryl Sandberg, who had started the decade in 2012, she became the eighth member and the first woman on the Facebook board of directors, which took her a while. It was long after she joined the company. And then you had the Google walkouts over these issues. You had the Me Too movement, but then you had sort of a mess at Yahoo with Marissa Mayer and not very many women CEOs and declining numbers of women in leadership positions at tech companies. Not the case at media companies. I think there's more women in charge there. But what do you make of this?

Scott Galloway: Well, I've always thought that as someone who was raised by a single mother—so when my parents got divorced, they were what I would call fairly equivalent on a balanced scorecard professionally. My mom was more intelligent, but my dad was more charismatic. But they both had been pulled out of school in the eighth grade, immigrated to America. And my dad went on to be national sales manager of O.M. Scott's and make a very good living. And my mom went on to be a secretary. And when you in the 70s and you're a single mother with a kid, you could either be a travel agent, a real estate agent, or a secretary. And I always felt that the ism or the greatest discrimination in our society—and I saw this firsthand—was sexism. I still think women have it harder than almost any cohort. And other cohorts and other forms of discrimination get a lot of attention, as they should. But I think as we stand here now, I still think that it's the thing that creates the most—the bottom line is, when they give money, they've done experiments. When they give money to the men, the brothels and the bars thrive. And when they give money to women, the kids get bigger and fatter, right?

Scott Galloway: And that the best thing we can do in society, in my opinion, globally, and I believe with Christopher Hitchens on this, is to fully fund Planned Parenthood and make sure that women always have access to safe family planning, and two, to economically liberate women. That is still the fastest, clearest path to a better world. It's 100%.

Kara Swisher: And when the numbers keep decreasing, I think there will be some reckoning. I'm really looking forward to this Google investigation and how they handled issues around women. I think a lot's going to come out about that, hopefully, and how the managers who were so fetid did not handle these issues very well. It's something I do want to talk about Sundar Pichai, who was not running the company during this decade, but now is, and has tried to sort of clean it up. But at the same time, you worry about something like the Me Too movement in tech or media or wherever it is just losing its steam. That's my worry. And then not having enough women—like you can criticize Sheryl Sandberg or Marissa Mayer or Elizabeth Holmes or whoever. It's just there's not enough women so that some can succeed and some can't. So much is riding on these women who are fallible human beings, essentially.

Scott Galloway: I would, and just such that I don't leave this segment without getting a ton of hate on Twitter, I would argue that people will incorrectly look at the Me Too movement as a seminal moment in terms of progress for women. I worry that the Me Too movement has entered a phase where we're now taking all agency and responsibility away from women, and we're starting to treat a lot of these situations as if the women are children, and that they have no accountability or responsibility. I worry that over time people will look back on it and think that it was not as beneficial to women as they'd originally thought.

Kara Swisher: I don't agree with you. Telling stories is so critical. I get it. The ability to tell stories is not taking away agency. It's telling stories. And it's not that there aren't going to be edge situations and things like that, but the ability to talk about your experience in the workplace, which every woman has—they have 10 episodes, and some of them are minor, like stupid remarks. Right? Like, I guess we can let that go. It should stop, but I guess we can let it go.

Scott Galloway: I'm not suggesting we let it go.

Kara Swisher: I'm not suggesting we let it go either. And I think you're right, and I think it was overdue, and it's a healthy conversation. It needed to happen.

Scott Galloway: I worry in certain instances that the media depicts any sexual situation similar to how we would treat any sexual situation with a child, that whoever's involved is guilty because children rightfully have no agency and they should never be in that situation. I feel like in some instances, the way the media portrays some of these situations is as if the women have absolutely no agency. I wonder if that is good or if there is a negative part of it. But let me go on to where I think the more underreported victory, if you will, or one of the most important things as it relates to female leadership. What is the one developed country that really never had a recession? It's a trivia question.

Kara Swisher: I don't know. Was it Finland? Because that's like, I'm so thrilled it's being run by a woman. Don't go, baby.

Scott Galloway: It was Germany. Germany has been the economic engine of Europe, and it's for a few reasons. One, manufacturing. I never used to buy into the notion of how important manufacturing was, but the bottom line is, if you look at innovation, when you outsource manufacturing and making things, you do lose a lot of innovation. Two, they've always had a lot of respect and appreciation for the dignity of work. Boards of directors are mandated to have representation from labor. They really value the middle class there. And three, I think they've had some of the most competent leadership of the 20th century in the form of Angela Merkel. I think she's an incredibly thoughtful, humble leader who's all about doing what's right for the German people, even if it means she's not famous. I think she is an inspiration. I think that's a moment we will talk about in 50 years as it relates to female leadership that doesn't get the attention it deserves. I think she will go down as one of the more important leaders of the last 50 years.

Kara Swisher: But I do think the telling stories—I think Susan Fowler's essay and also Ellen Pao really did, telling their stories. They were not, they had agency. They had plenty of agency. And it led to Travis being pushed out. I think that, among other things, it sort of led to a number of stories about the behaviors there. And so we'll see. It's just at some point, I think people are on notice, and that's the best part. Even if they're a little scared for now, good. They should be scared. So my feeling is that telling stories is literally the most powerful thing you can do. And then you can't say you didn't know. That's to me the most important part of this. You cannot say you didn't know. There was a great story about something that was going on on the set of *The Affair*. A Hollywood Reporter, Kim Masters, did it. Again, it was great. It was well done, I thought. It was a really interesting question about how people perceive things in talking about sex. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. I don't perceive big executives and women executives in charge of these tech companies anytime soon. I don't see it at all. And again, in this story that Bloomberg Businessweek had about the Vision Fund, it's an all-male management team. All male. All dudes. Well done.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, number four, streaming wars and content. Obviously, over the past decade, a lot has changed in the way we consume media. And the story we're definitely watching in the decade ahead. So we got Richard Plepler, my favorite media local.

Kara Swisher: You love Richard.

Scott Galloway: I love him. He's so elegant. The former chairman and CEO of HBO, on what his defining moment of media was in the past decade.

[Clip from Richard Plepler plays]

Richard Plepler: I think when you're talking about some of the transcendent moments in American culture over the last decade, you'd have to begin in April of 2011 with the airing of *Game of Thrones*, which of course became something of a cultural phenomenon. Nobody knew that *Thrones* was going to be *Thrones*. It's one of the grand intangibles when something breaks through like that. I think anybody who says to you that they either knew that was going to happen or they had an instinct that it was going to hit the cultural nerve, I think they're lying to you.

[End of clip]

Kara Swisher: All right, Richard, by the way, has been reporting he's starting his own production company and talks with Apple. It's going to happen. He's going to be making more. I would be remiss in not saying that he also did *The Sopranos*. This guy has been sort of at the—he has really put a lot of stuff out there. And I think the thing he's talking about is coalescing around good TV. TV got so good in the past decade. I think TV used to be the idiot box. Now it's the intelligent box, essentially. So what do you think is the defining moment in these media wars?

Scott Galloway: I believe the defining art form of our generation—in 100 years, when they look back, it won't be Damien Hirst. It won't be the music that's coming out, although 80s music makes a run for it because it is genius, Kara. But the defining art form is television. There's more risk-taking. There's more resources. TV used to be—the best show on TV used to be *Cheers* or *M*A*S*H*. And now every night there are shows that are much better, mostly because of resources. But I think television is—we tend to mock it, and it's ruined by this tax called advertising. But I would argue that probably *House of Cards* was a more seminal moment because Netflix—the bottom line is Netflix ate HBO. There was a lot of reason that HBO probably couldn't be Netflix because they had investors who demanded profits. But I would argue the more seminal moment was when Netflix went into original scripted television with *House of Cards*.

Kara Swisher: Look, the streaming wars—we started the world where HBO was and TV was getting a quarter of the budget. It's now been featured. Just as FedEx and fulfillment has become a feature of a business that can monetize it through Prime, media is becoming a feature of businesses that will monetize their programming through *Mandalorian* dolls, theme parks, paper towels, or iPhones. The media industry started the decade with tremendous innovation and now it is—I don't even know how to describe it. It's being featured, if you will, or this notion that it's becoming a feature, not a product that's a standalone profitable business in and of itself. The next few years are going to be really crazy. But television, the defining art form, *House of Cards*, Netflix—Reed Hastings was just kind of the tech genius. I know he gets talked about a lot, but he doesn't get the same amount of oxygen as these other guys.

Scott Galloway: One of the things that media has taught me, it's distinct to big tech and Netflix, or the contrast I take away from it, is that social media, if you will, is nicotine. It's addictive, and it's not good for you, but it doesn't necessarily give you cancer. It's the advertising which is the tobacco that gives you all the carcinogens and the cancer. The reason why Netflix, which is just as important or as penetrated or arguably has as much influence over people as a Facebook or a Twitter, the reason why it hasn't been weaponized, the reason why it isn't creating the type of damage, is that it doesn't have advertising. So for me, Netflix shows that social media is the nicotine, but the real cancer of these business models and something we should look at is the advertising.

Kara Swisher: Yep. 100%. Though I will say, I'm going to give it to Richard because, look, they had done *The Sopranos*. They had started with *Game of Thrones* much earlier. *House of Cards* did not come out until 2013. I think Netflix was taking from the HBO playbook very beautifully.

Scott Galloway: 100%.

Kara Swisher: And so I think the idea that television could be that good was something that HBO definitely pioneered completely. And then they still do *Succession*. They still manage to get it out of the park. And managed to do it on a fraction of the budget. Unbelievable series of wins. You spend $50 or $70 million per Emmy, and Amazon Prime has to spend $350 million, and Netflix spends like $200 million. The culture, the case studies that will be written about HBO, I think will be more about how do you create a culture that is that productive, that is able to produce such incredible quality on what is literally a fraction of the budget of the other players. If I were any media company, it's like if you're any basketball team, you watch where Michael Jordan goes. I would be watching where Richard goes. He's going to Apple. He's going to do Apple. He's an independent guy. I think he's been working for people for his whole life. I met him when he was a PR guy, if you can believe it, at Time Warner, at HBO, actually. And he worked for Jeff Bewkes, which was interesting. But I have to tell you, wherever he goes, he's going to—obviously, it's been rumored, and he's going to Apple. He thinks he's going to do it, so he's going to make stuff. He's going to make stuff. And I think that's what's really important about executives like him. That's why I like him so much. He makes stuff, and the stuff he makes is good. It's a pleasure to talk to someone who makes stuff.

Scott Galloway: I do think HBO missed a lot of the tech turns, 100%.

Kara Swisher: I don't know if he could have done it. They certainly couldn't have done it within Time Warner the way they were. But they definitely missed the tech turns. But in terms of ushering in this—you wouldn't have *Maisel*, you wouldn't have *House of Cards*, you wouldn't have every single one of those streaming networks if it weren't for what HBO started many years ago when it was called Home Box Office, when it started with just movies. A lot of companies don't reap the benefit of what they did in a lot of ways. And they're one of them. So anyway, it's going to be an interesting time of who's going to win. Obviously Disney is here now and doing a really good job. My kids are watching Disney Plus a lot now, which is interesting, and they've also moved to Apple Music from Spotify. So it'll be interesting to see if the big guys can come back and reclaim their crowns in this area.

Scott Galloway: 100% it will be. Media has become—whether it's a company masquerading as a platform that's really a media company—media, and as you've said, propaganda, has become even more powerful and more important. And we never realized that it could be weaponized to this extent. But it's almost impossible to figure out where it goes from here. But it's been a great 10 years for what I'll call creativity around media. And at the same time, we've gotten all this shitty reality television, which, of course, brought us Donald Trump.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, win and fail of the decade. Scott, if you had to pick, could you pick one big win and one big fail of the decade as it pertains to tech and business?

Scott Galloway: I will go first if you like.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I would like you to go first.

Scott Galloway: I'm going to give it to Apple. Steve Jobs died in 2011, and I think they've done okay. Everyone was sort of saying, "Oh, now Apple was going to die with him." And I think they've done a really interesting job. Now, people could quibble with stuff, but they've really grown in certain ways. They haven't been crazy creative in the way you think of them, but I think they've really done it. I think Tim Cook's done a very nice job of running that company. Its valuation is huge. It's gone up, I think, 70% this year or something like that. And the big fail, even though it's a financial success, has to be Facebook to me and the awful turn it's taken and inability to really recognize its need to be responsible. I hope it does. I have great hopes. Just like Nancy Pelosi said about Donald Trump, I pray for Mark Zuckerberg that he will begin to turn this company to a more dulcet direction for our society.

Kara Swisher: Wow. So just as James Carville said in the great movie *Old School* when Will Ferrell provided a response to a debate question and James Carville responded, "That was perfect." I think he nailed it. I think Apple's renaissance—all this notion that Steve Jobs is a Jesus figure and no one could run the company, but Jobs, and then the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company quietly tripled the market capitalization and made Apple increasingly relevant. Apple is just—and then they opened stores that went into this dying medium, went vertical, created these temples to the brand. AirPods. As they realized that broadcast was starting to lose its effectiveness, they transferred money out of broadcast advertising into $7 billion in leases, which was arguably one of the greatest unlocks in the history of business. And then I think this dual-class, young, broken sociopath in his $2 billion beard that have, in my opinion, levied more damage than almost any company in modern history and still get to decide what are the algorithms that present the content that nudge the population of the Southern Hemisphere one way or another. I think Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are the most dangerous organization and individual alive today. So, yeah, I think you nailed it. Apple and Facebook, the wins and fails of the last decade.

Scott Galloway: And they're the opposites, too. They're kind of interesting because Tim has obviously been outspoken comparatively.

Kara Swisher: What's interesting about Apple to me, it's kind of a win for the olds. They could have retired, right? Everything could have just closed down after Steve Jobs died, and they would have been hits. They had hit after hit after hit. But they continue. That's what's amazing to me. This is a group of people—there's all kinds of issues at Apple around workplace and things like that, and they continue to have controversies surrounding their app store. But in general, it's—and their taxes, come on, they got a tax break. And he's sort of kissing up to Trump a little bit more than he should. But it's really interesting that this is an older group of people who've been together for a very long time and have had so many hits. I don't want to say it's like the Rolling Stones, but it just continues to make good music. It's really kind of fascinating when you're that rich and you've had that much success, why you keep succeeding. So that's heartening as an older lady.

Scott Galloway: Fear of death, wanting to be relevant, wanting to go to St. Bart's, party with younger women. Do I need to go on? Tim Cook doesn't go to St. Bart's.

Kara Swisher: I'm sorry to tell you. No. That's not his thing. He's a very simple man. He likes football from Alabama—that's where he went to college. He talks about football a lot. And he just loves Apple. I think he just—I don't see that. He doesn't really strike me as—I mean, he has very nice sweaters, but otherwise, I don't see a lot of spendy-spendiness from him. But anyway, it'll be interesting to see if Zuckerberg can redeem himself. Despite these—like they say, "I make a lot of money, so what? I must be right." That's not a good enough excuse anymore as far as I'm concerned. Good for you. You built a great business by hurting other people. I think they have to really start to—it would be really lovely to see that in the next decade for him to turn.

Scott Galloway: It's not going to happen. There's about as much chance of that happening as you getting me that rabbit coat you keep promising.

Kara Swisher: And not only that, it's dangerous. It's not true. I have hope for Mark Zuckerberg.

Scott Galloway: This takes me back to a terrible and awful place when I was eight years old. We used to go to the Mission Valley Mall in Laguna Niguel. My dad would take my mom in, let her try on the rabbit coat. It was $58. It was coming for Christmas. And before you know it, my dad is living with a flight attendant from Continental Airlines, Kara. This takes me to a bad place. Mark Zuckerberg is not going to be redeemed. Let's retire this story for the decade. Let's put it away. Let's put a little box. Let's find a district attorney that does a redemption on Mark Zuckerberg. That's what we're going to do. We're not discussing the rabbit coat anymore. It's not happening. It's done. We're done. We're going to have a little funeral.

Kara Swisher: He bought her a food processor. Listen to me. He's been married four times. What a shocker.

Scott Galloway: You have to do your prediction. And then we have to close. We have a really good close. Our parents are going to talk about us, speaking of that dad of yours who just impugned.

Kara Swisher: Let's talk. What is your big prediction? And then we got to get out of here. I got things to do, Scott. I've got my decade to live.

Scott Galloway: My big prediction? My big prediction is that big tech is up. My prediction for 2020 is that we're going to see another 20% or 30% increase in the market capitalization of big tech. I just don't see anything slowing them down. The market might crash, but they'll outperform—those four or five companies will outperform every other sector. I just don't see anything getting in their way right now. Everyone keeps waiting for the fall, and I don't see it.

Kara Swisher: We'll see. All right. That's not that exciting. So you have to be back to kissing their ass? Is that what you're going to do?

Scott Galloway: Well, no. I think they're terrible people and I'd like to see one or more of them in an orange jumpsuit. But from a shareholder perspective, I just don't—monopolies make great investments, and they continue to be unregulated monopolies. I vote with my feet. People say it's hypocritical of me to be so disparaging of these companies and then to invest in them and finance their growth. My feeling is I'm a capitalist. I don't want to be some professor in tie-dye barking at the moon. Everyone has an obligation for economic security. But effectively, if you did not invest in these companies and Microsoft and Netflix and—I forget what the other crazy performer was, Domino's—it was the best-performing stock other than Netflix—you've been shut out from the massive increase in the S&P over the last 10 years. I just don't see that changing for the next one or two years. I think these companies are going to continue. Every time I use them, every time I look at their moves, every time I see an Amazon van, every time I order something seamlessly off of Instagram now, I think, "Oh my goodness, these companies, they're just getting their momentum." The flywheel, the mother of all flywheels. The most valuable company in the world—okay, my prediction: the most valuable company in the world is AWS once it's spun off. It's going to be the most valuable company. Who can't own a share of AWS? Who will not be able to own shares in the biggest cloud company in the world? Those are going to be the shares you give your granddaughter at the christening. Those are going to be the shares that every pension, every alternative investment company in the world has to own regardless of the valuation. So, anyways, my other thing: AWS, most valuable company in the world.

Kara Swisher: You're going to keep getting rich and insulting the tech companies. Very nice. There you go. That's how the dog rolls. He's complex. Let me just use the opportunity to say, who raised you? And we're going to find out in just a second. Before we head out for the decade, Rebecca also called our parents to talk about how far we've come over the decade. First, let's hear a cameo from my mother, Lucky Carney, Lucretia Carney.

[Clip from Kara's mother plays]

Lucky Carney: Kara is her own person, as you know, much to my chagrin at times. Yes, she was wearing the aviator sunglasses. She was known for that. She hasn't changed much. I didn't think she would be as famous, I guess, as she has become. Kara, I am so proud of you. And while we disagree politically, I love you and I couldn't be more proud or happy for you at this time of your life.

[End of clip]

Kara Swisher: Oh my God. She always does this. That's nice. She's like evil half the time and then pulls something like this out. That's nice. That's going to make you feel good.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it does.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. But I don't like her political things. I do think Fox News has changed her brain. I really, truly do. When she dies someday, I'm going to donate it to science to see if there's Fox, like CTE. There's Fox syndrome. So, yeah, but parents loving you and being proud of you—that's 99% there. You're at 99%. You can argue over the other 1%. She always shows up. My mother always shows up. I got to say.

Scott Galloway: She looks good.

Kara Swisher: She does look good.

Scott Galloway: Now a word from Tom Galloway, the dad of Scott.

[Clip from Scott's father plays]

Tom Galloway: The biggest change I see in Scott is going to the other end of the way he has changed. His whole family life now is like a little closed circle. They don't go out a lot. It's like a little circular group—there's the boys and him, and it's that little closed loop, like a family living in a prairie. But Scott cares very deeply for my well-being, and he gives me the benefit of his intellect and helping me to see things clearly in my life. He makes me take a step back from my impulses and look at things in a more balanced way.

[End of clip]

Scott Galloway: That's unfair. Oh, my God. This is so manipulative.

Kara Swisher: Irish?

Scott Galloway: No, he's Scottish. Glasgow, San Diego, Glasgow. Scottish. That's unfair. By the way, that was clearly the dementia speaking. Dad, that's it. We're putting you in the Happy Valley Act of Living Home.

Kara Swisher: I didn't know your dad was Scotty from Star Trek. That's amazing.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's him. By the way, a Scottish accent and good looks. No wonder he's been married four times.

Kara Swisher: You're a closed loop. You're a closed loop. I like that. That's lovely. Oh, look at that. Your dad, you just insulted him and he said a loving and touching thing about you. How do you feel? You have all heart, Scott. I think that's what he was saying. I believe that's what he was saying. And you've become a great family man. Is that correct? Is that the correct translation of that?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Says the man who's been married four times. Anyways, but yeah, that was very emotionally manipulative, and I think we should move on or I'm going to start crying because you know I will cry.

Kara Swisher: You know I will cry. I like when you cry. I love when you cry. It's so touching.

Scott Galloway: You know what? Also, you talked about it with Deca. I don't know about you. At some point, you'll get there. I did not cry from the age of 34 to 44. Now I cry all the time. I've embraced the sloppy part of me. I like it. I like the sloppy, Kara.

Kara Swisher: Not me, baby. I'm not going to be crying. That was nice. Nice is still around. How old's your mom? How old's Lucky?

Scott Galloway: 85, or somewhere in there.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, my dad's 89.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, anyway.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, on that touching note, it's time for us to go. We're going to take a break for the last days of 2019 to reflect, but we'll be back in the next decade starting January 3rd, 2020. I like 2020. It feels good, 2020. It feels fresh. It's going to be fresh, Scott. You'll see. Things will turn around. Meanwhile, you can reach us by using hashtag PivotPodcast or emailing us questions at [email protected]. By the way, we recorded a Recode Decode episode about our favorite moments in the podcast in 2019. Listen to it on Monday, December 30th, before the new decade begins. Scott, happy decade.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, likewise, Kara. Congratulations on all your success and all the relationships in your life. Thank you so much for doing this podcast with me. It is a great pleasure and a great honor to do so.

Kara Swisher: All right. And we will do more in the next decade in 2020, as Barbara Walters says. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Eric Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Rebecca Castro and Drew Burrows. Thanks again to all the friends of Pivot who lent their voice to this show. Make sure you subscribe 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 liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. Scott and I will be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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