Non-Competes, Inflation, and Peloton

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And today we have a listener mailbag for you. We love our listener mailbags. And so we're doing them. We're also traveling. I have not seen these. Have you seen this? I've not seen this. No, I haven't. This is the whole point. We're supposed to react to them in real time because that's the kind of people we are.

Scott Galloway: Our first message out of the mailbag is about non-competes, which we've talked about quite a lot, especially you, Scott. I'll read it. Scott and Kara. Why is it? Lately, it's been Scott and Kara. I feel a change in the universe. Ooh, a little power shift. The student becomes the master. The student becomes the master. The next sentence explains everything. Scott and Kara, I've had two glasses of tequila and tornado just touched down about two miles from my house. We're fine. So I'm uncharacteristically emboldened to ask, in what scenarios do non-competes actually make sense? I agree with you and Lena regarding large corporations, but for small specialized businesses, the calculus may be different. If small business owner takes years to train an apprentice in a highly specialized field, the effect of a princess immediately setting up shop across the street would likely disrupt the original business. Does this change your thinking? Sudenum? Maybe Eddie or Jimmy or something 80s cool? Love to you all. A shout out to Lara, Zoe, Taylor, and Ernie. What do you think, Scott?

Scott Galloway: I mean, I still think I don't believe in non-compete. So what if someone competes with you? That's just the way it goes.

Kara Swisher: I don't know, Scott. There are some situations that were, and I think the law mostly gets us right, where a non-compete makes sense and it's enforceable. So if you're Andy Jassy's head of cloud and you have access to proprietary information, it comes down to this. It's not even the position, the litmus test on whether it should be enforceable is if you make so much money that a non-compete would never economically constrain you and your family. And so, for example, when my company was purchased, I had to sign a non-compete, But I'm a grown up and I was given the choice and I had I wasn't forced into a non-compete because I need to feed my family like a waiter or a hairstylist or some of the people are being forced to sign non-competes. I was signed to non-compete because I got an enormous payday in exchange for non-compete. They were going to pay all this money for my company if the top people were going to walk across the street. So I think it's more a function of are you being paid so much money and have access to such proprietary information that could provide material harm to the company if you walked out? And quite frankly, put economic strain on some of the other people in the company because you are the person who knows the AI plans for AWS. Right. Those people, okay, it sucks to make millions of dollars, but I think those people should probably be subject to, if they agree, a non-compete. And sometimes they're paid so much that part of that extraordinary payment includes a non-compete. But anybody, I mean, generally speaking, a non-compete is nothing but a transfer of wealth from labor to capital to the firm. It creates a lack of opportunities and bidders on their human capital, thereby reducing their currency in the marketplace. And if you look at what's happened over the last 40 years, capital has been beating the shit out of labor. So we need to do away with things like this and transfer some, some leverage back to labor. It's just, look, too bad. You train someone and they do something better than you, they should beat you. I'm sorry. It's just, it's just, I enjoy when people leave my employee. I do. I like go on and make something, copy me, beat me. I don't care. If you are, you have to still be good at what you do. And I have heard from so many people who was just telling me, not just hairdressers, but someone else. Someone else was like, you can't believe these non-competes and things. You can't hinder a hairdresser. It hinders innovation. You know what the best non-compete is? What? Money. Money or do a better job. What I've done, I try to be transparent. We're getting a lump sum payment from Vox in a year or whatever it is. I mutualized it and almost every full-time employee at Profit Media gets a percentage of it. So guess what? They're not going to compete with me or us over the next 12 months because they're going to get a lot of money. The best non-competes, the best retention vehicles aren't handcuffs. They're gold bullion. They're Krugerrands. Gold bullion. We give away bullion. That's what we do. Bouillon. Bouillon. We do. Bouillon and actually chicken bouillon too. We do both. We give all the bullions together. We give them little square things and bullion. That's what we give them to. You love that word. That bullion. Love that word. It's a good word. Okay, let's move on to a question about antitrust regulation. Let's listen.

Announcer: Hi, Karen. Scott, Elena here, long-time listener, first-time caller. I'm a strategist in LA who writes about technology ethics. My question is, what would happen to stocks if a big company such as Amazon or Google is ordered to break up by regulators? What would happen to Alphabet stock if YouTube is forced to spin off? I'm curious both technically what would happen, whether there would need to be a new stock ticker, and also how the market would react to such news. Love the show. Love both of you. Love the books. Thank you so much.

Kara Swisher: This is so exciting. I'm going to start. Everyone would be richer. Everyone would be richer. Everyone would be better at competing. Everyone would be more innovative. They'd figure out how to decide. There'll be more jobs because they'd have to hire lawyers and other people and things like that. I just think more efficient, better, competitive. It actualizes the businesses that should be together and one isn't propping the other up. I think it's fresh. What do you think, Scott?

Scott Galloway: You're absolutely right. There's a ton of empirical evidence. I'm a shareholder in Amazon. I hope it gets broken up. You know why? I believe in five to 10 years, the most valuable company in the world would be an independent AWS. us. What happens when there are multiple companies that are, even if there's synergy there, if they're not related in the eyes of the investment markets, you pay a conglomerate tax. The market looks at the shittiest business and assigns that multiple to the entire business. When they're competing, they're innovating, they're not coordinating. A, it's unfair to competitors. You don't have as many startups. There's fewer people bidding on labor, so employees win, right? There's more taxes, there's more profits, competitors win, the ecosystem wins, the shareholders win. Typically speaking, when eBay spun PayPal, the shareholders of eBay got shares in PayPal. So spins or breakups are almost always a creative. The only person that doesn't benefit, the only person that doesn't benefit in a breakup is the CEO who wants to sit on the Iron Throne of all seven realms, not just Westeros. And because typically they're narcissists or like having bigger companies, and also the compensation of a CEO is largely driven by one, their performance, but also the size of the company. So they have a financial incentive to say, I preside over a $50 billion company, not a $10 billion. But typically spins and breakups are accretive to shareholders. They happen all the time. They're good for shareholders. They're good for competition. They're good for wages. They're good for labor. They good for the planet.

Kara Swisher: Yep we agree on that And I do think that you know I was at the center I was at someone from one of these companies was there and they like why do you always talk about breaking them up I like it just doesn belong together It such a it good for you but nobody else, like it doesn't work. And why should company, you know, and they were saying, oh, this one supports this business. I'm like, well, then it shouldn't be in business or they should be better at business. Or why is one part subsidizing the other? I don't understand. They don't belong together for any good reason, puts them apart. Any, we believe in that. And just the Google antitrust trial just wrapped up. We'll be hearing about some of the remedies if things don't go Google's way. We'll see. We'll see what'll happen. We'll see what'll happen. But they'll figure it out. They have lots of lawyers and restructures and things like that. It's not that hard. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

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Scott Galloway: Scott, we're back with more listener mail. Next up is a question about Peloton. Let's listen.

Announcer: Hey, Tara and Scott, this is Brad in California. Love the show, love you both. Keep modeling the way on what it looks like to disagree with each other in a thoughtful, caring, and constructive way. The world needs you both right now. There was a period of time where you both talked about Peloton a lot, through both its meteoric rise and its precipitous fall. Count me as one of Peloton's extraordinarily high percentage of dedicated, loyal customers. My question is really around where do they go from here? It seemed like a foreground conclusion that they were an acquisition target, and yet that still doesn't happen. Given that they will likely go it alone, where do they go from here? How do they grow? And what is the state of the connected thickness market? Thank you both.

Kara Swisher: This is a great question because just this week, the CEO that was brought in, Barry McCarthy, I think he was at Airbnb or whatever. He was a fix-it CEO. Oh, no, he was at Netflix, Spotify and stuff. That's where he was, not Airbnb. be. He just stepped down and they had to cut 15% of the workforce, 400 workers, in efforts to cut costs this year by 200 million. They've had lots of job cuts. They were sort of at a peak during the pandemic. What a great brand, what a great product. They haven't been able to turn it into anything. And after gyms reopened, much more competition, obviously. They had a chance right there during the pandemic and they didn't take it. It looked like, but again, what a good product. People like it. Crazy fans like yourself. I love Peloton. Scott, your thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Well, so I think Peloton does a great job. I like Connected Fitness. The company, the bottom is the company just caught a wave and it became sort of a meme stock. And that is people's excitement. People said, how do I invest in something that's digital and a COVID winner? And the stock became kind of a household name and it just got bid up to unsustainable levels. If I'm looking at the right chart, in January of 2021, Kara, it was 160 bucks. And today, it's at $2.81. And you think, wow, that means it's going out of business. No, it still has a billion dollar market cap. So, I mean, it's, it's kind of, it's too bad for, I actually like the CEOs there. I think they do an amazing job and it just got swept up in a hysteria that was never, the performance was never going to match the promise that people placed on this company. I think connected fitness is, is a category. Everyone else has been swept off the decks, you know, mirror and all that other stuff. It's all been, it just hasn't worked. It's very expensive to manage these things. High touch, another high touch business. It's manufacturing, it's retail. Things that can break, dissatisfaction, price. And then you have to have a great community and different IP. So I think it's actually a great company and they do a great job. Will it ever get back to the heights it was at? No, it's going to be a nice little small cap company that does a great job, that has a loyal following, what could they do? I always thought the opportunity for Peloton, I thought that Apple or Nike was going to buy them. And I was wrong. That was actually one of my predictions three years ago. And it still might happen now that it's at this level. I think the reason it was never acquired is because I believe the founder has control and didn't want to sell at these low prices. But I think the most powerful part. When you're trying to think about business growth and new opportunities or new revenue channels, you think at the end of the day, what is really our core asset and how could we extend off of that? I think the core asset of Peloton is an evangelical-like community. If I were at Peloton, I would try and create a community of offline physical activity that was essentially a thinly veiled dating service. Because the people who could be part of Peloton Plus, I think they'd like to meet up with each other when they're in Hamburg at OMR, because guess what? They're going to be generally young, generally fit, higher income. It's like whoever rides a Peloton, you're just unlikely to find in a Walmart. And I understand that's very disparaging and classist, but this is a high aspirational group of very fit people. And I think they would like to meet each other. That's where I would go. I would think, what can we charge this community for to connect them with one another outside of when they sit on a connected device?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Well, they're cutting costs. That's what they're doing. They have to. You know, one of the quotes from the company was, this restructuring position Peloton for sustained positive free cash flow. We'll name the company can invest in software, hardware, and content improvements in member support services and optimizations for marketing efforts to scale business. Also, you know, Apple got in the business. I don't even think it's a very good business for Apple, their fitness thing. I think it's a nothing burger for them. So, you know, it's just, it's a very good product that just had a chance there. Probably should have done something at that moment and didn't, and didn't do something at that. That was their high point. And again, it's not a question of the product. It's where they stand in the ecosystem. Do you use a Peloton? I do I have one I like it I like it but I don use it as much That sure because I like to go outside Like COVID I use it continually So wait the seat goes that low on a Peloton Oh very funny Very funny That's good. I love Allie Love. I still love Allie Love.

Scott Galloway: Okay, Scott, the next one is about inflation. Let's listen.

Announcer: Hey, Kara and Scott, Laura Bocos from Wisconsin. I am a huge fan of the show and the both of you. I would appreciate hearing your take on those who insist that inflation is attributable to the Biden administration policy. Can you break down which factors have driven inflation up and their relative importance? I am driven crazy by those who insist Biden's policies and initiatives aimed at blunting the economic and human impacts of COVID on the economy were the cause for our inflationary environment. I would also like to hear what you think the consequences would have been for not having taken those steps. first off um she sounds so lovely doesn't she she does she's lovely we have lovely fans yeah but articulate smart um it's also good like laura bell from wisconsin how can she not be nice i know that's a stereotype she's got to be a nice person nice she's nice she seems nice i mean look the trump administration ran that deficit up high with the tax cuts and then the cost of covid i think the deficit is would be the reason and then we and that's why the in a weird way the dollar is so strong. And I just feel like we're in an inflationary period for a very long time because of these huge deficits. And then the prices tend to take longer to come down than go up. Cost, you know, all the wars with the gas prices, although they've moved up and down, certainly. It's just once they're up, they don't come down quite as easily. Food prices don't do it. I mean, I think Biden's been attacking those people for not bringing prices down. But interest rates and deficit, that would be it. But inflation is very simple. Inflation is too much money facing too few products. So let's start with the supply side, the product side. Between a murderous autocrat invading Ukraine and creating all sorts of supply chain disruption and the ultimate supply chain disruption of the last 50 years, COVID, where the world's 3D printer, China, essentially got shut down. You had a massive decrease in the number of products and you had a massive increase on the demand side of dollars chasing those products. So I have a lot of money and the store has fewer products, which gives the store the ability to raise prices dramatically, which results in inflation. Also higher wages, higher wages because work. Anyway, go ahead.

Kara Swisher: Well, that's right. And because I'm sick of bringing you your cob salad sandwich at Panera and having to ask you to put on a mask, and because there's more CARES Act money, I decide I'm not going into work for $12 an hour. You've got to pay me $18 or $20. And quite frankly, that's been the bright spot here is frontline wages have caught up for the first time more than inflation for the first time in a while. Purchasing power is actually going up among America's frontline workers. But you have essentially, now, to be fair, Biden and some of the overstimulus and some of the deficit spending and some of what I'd call this normalization of spending more money than we have, that is partially to blame. And you can lay some of that blame at the Biden administration and their inability to make hard decisions to get our spending in line. Having said that, that deficit, if you want to talk about deficits, no one has increased the deficit like Donald Trump. I mean, let me get this. I understand people will say, all right, I think that COVID was the ultimate intergenerational theft of the ages. Let's put $7 trillion into the economy, or maybe it was $5 trillion, depending on how you account for it. And somewhere between 60 plus percent of it wasn't spent. So that just sent asset prices flying. And inflation in housing and stocks is great if you're an incumbent. It's terrible if you're an entrant or a young person who want their piece of the action. But we decided to artificially inflate the prices of all these assets. So the inflation here has had real social ramifications. But what we didn't do is say, OK, we had an emergency. We had to pay for it. We had to borrow money on the credit cards of our kids and our grandkids. now shouldn't the people who have benefited from it, specifically corporations and the wealthy, shouldn't maybe we pay a little bit more taxes? No, here's an idea. Let's cut our taxes to the lowest they've been, corporate taxes, since 1939. Corporate taxes used to be 3.5% of GDP, now they're 1%. And then we cut taxes on consumers. So now we have this just ridiculous this deficit. So inflation is a function of exogenous shock and economic policies. Biden can share some of that blame, but most of it goes to Biden and things outside of our control, specifically the invasion of Ukraine and COVID interruptions of the supply chain. And you're right about the deficit. That deficit is what's sitting there. It's like a big part of GDP. One of the things that's also happened is they've shifted not just from products, goods, spending on goods, consumers, but also services, because they weren't flying, they weren't going to concerts. So service prices have gone up quite a lot, and they had fallen. And then the tight labor market is, I think, absolutely. I just interviewed the guy who started Chipotle, who now has a vegan robot restaurant. Yeah, it's really interesting. But he was talking about moving from 12 to, I think, 50 employees to three in a store and using these robotic methods and this sort of hub and spoke method. And it's really interesting. And I was talking to him about like jobs and he's like, you can't hire people for this. They can't get them to do it in stores, cut things up and stuff. So it's not even, he can't even, he goes losing jobs, you can't get people to do it. And then, so now he can pay the people at the hub much more money over $27 an hour and give them benefits if he has fewer people in the store. So, you know, there's a whole shift going on, but labor is certainly part of it. But the deficit, lack of our tax, we won't tax rich people, things like that. Just to dwell on the deficit for just one second, just to bring it down, because people don't understand it. And it's just some illusory thing that doesn't seem to impact them. Imagine you had a household that had the best credit in the world. A credit card offers every day. You can sign up for a new credit card almost every day. and your income in that household is 50,000, but every year you spend 70. That is America. We take in 5 trillion in revenues and we spend 7 trillion. Now, at some point, at some point, you're going to stop getting those credit card offers and they're going to say, we're not going to lend you any more money. Or if we're going to lend it to you, we're going to jack up the interest rates because you are becoming a high risk borrower. That's where we're headed. We need to get our house in order. Do we need to raise taxes or cut spending? The answer is yes. At some point, America is going to vote an adult into office. Yeah, and we'll have to do it. It's going to be hard and not very popular. But the consequences probably would have been dire if we hadn't spent some of that money. But they always overspend. And the tax breaks, I'm sorry, we didn't need to do those. We just didn't need to do those. I know Trump touts them, but just trickle down economics is really nonsense. Anyway, Laura, great question.

Scott Galloway: Scott, one more quick break.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, this is our last listener question. I think you'll have a lot to say on this topic.

Announcer: Hey, Karen, Scott, it's Joram from Minnesota. Longtime listener and reader, yeah, sure you betcha. Self and negativity out there, I'm calling to ask you to put on your positivity prognosticator hats for the day. What has you most excited, happy, or curious about the rest of the year? There's some possible upside surprises on the horizon for tech, politics, or business. What's putting a smile on your face? What's circled on your calendar to look forward to? Anywho, Kara, I finished your book last month. And Scott, I'm listening to your book so my boys who are 12 and 14 can hear your insights on the way to and from school. Congrats on all your success.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. These Midwesterners love us. Why? Jesus. Why? We're really terrible people, Midwest. So salt of the earth. Salt of the earth. We are terrible people, people of the Midwest. But nonetheless, thank you. I answer the door without pants on. And I am a grumpy lesbian from the East Coast and West Coast and from the elite parts of the coast. Listen, I'll start with this. I am looking forward to Scott's birthday in September. I am. I'm so excited to wear a kilt. That's nice. That makes me feel good. I'm going to wear a kilt. I'm so excited. I'm not going to wear any pants with it. By the way, folks, we rented a castle in Scotland for my 50th. Yes, we did. And we're creating economic opportunities for the Scots. I'm excited about economic opportunities. I feel really good about things I'm making. I feel like us having best-selling books are like great. We're like creating money. We're creating businesses. We're creating stuff. I feel good about that because I can then fly in a nice seat to Scott's birthday party in Scotland. I feel excited about my next book, which is about sort of where tech in a good way, like all this climate change tech, healthcare tech. When you start to meet some of these new younger entrepreneurs, you feel so much better. Honestly, you do. You know, leaving behind the whining Elons of the world, I think I'm feeling like that's happening. It's time for a new group of people. The same thing with politicians. I even know there's Marjorie Taylor Greene, the whole gang of them and Trump and the choices we have. I've also met some amazing politicians, especially governors across the country, both parties, but really some really astounding. Josh Shapiro, I'm thinking of, or Maura Healy or Gretchen Whitmer. And, you know, I'll put a shout out to Mike Gallagher, who's leaving Congress, but really interesting. Someone I think is going to be back on the scene. So I'm excited for that. But my kids are doing great, and they have all kinds of cool things they're working on. Claire is going to public school in the fall. I'm very excited for that. She just got into the school that we want her to go to, the public school. What about you, Scott?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, there's a lot. I was thinking, this is how old I'm getting. I immediately go back to last Saturday when in one day we passed legislation that is pushing back on a murderous autocrat trying to invade Europe. We're supporting our allies against the terrorist group, and we're banning the CCP's—we're unplugging the neural jack from the wet matter of our youth. I think America, after exhausting every other option, gets it right. I think generally speaking, we're going to see a massive increase in healthcare opportunities, both through AI and also I think GLP-1 drugs are going to reduce death, disease, and disability in this country. I think that obesity is the pandemic that kills more people than COVID every year. And I think we're finally having an honest conversation around that. I'm excited. I think more people are starting to wake up to how young men are struggling and that to have empathy for them isn't a zero-sum game. I think that dialogue is getting more and more productive. Personally, you know, I'm rounding third, Kara. I'm healthy. I'm happy. I'm economically secure. I have people who love me immensely and let me love them immensely. I have two, I get to see two boys turn into men in front of my eyes. I get to spend time with dogs. I have a partner that I love spending time with and love fucking. I just. Thank you for that. You know, I am going to squeeze so much juice out of this lemon called life. I have a ton. I have a ton to look forward to. And if it's just a weekday, I'm doing really well. And I'm trying to take stock of my blessings. Yes, it's true. So we've had a good year, Scott Galloway. We have. That's right. And I have a great business partner in you, and Vox has been nice to us. I get to talk about things I'm interested in and make money. I mean, Jesus Christ. Yeah, who, like, talk about hitting the lottery. Both of us have hit the lottery. Yeah, we have. But we've worked hard, too. That's the other thing. I feel good about making things. I think that's the biggest part, is it feels really good when you make something and it works out. And the other day, someone's like, are you surprised about how well you both are doing? I'm like, no, we work really hard. We make good stuff. Why wouldn't we? Really, I'm a little surprised. I'm not. I'm not. The other thing is, I really do like hearing from our listeners like this, especially on the book tour. I think you're probably hearing from listeners on your book tour as you start to meet people. We really are helping people in a nice way. I feel like what we're making is a positive contribution to society. That's what I feel the best about. That's a little much. It is, though. We make people happy. We're in the happy business. Okay, I'll go with that. We are. People are amused by us. It's fine. We're very amusing. But what? I find you amusing? Is that true? Remember that in Goodfellas? I think people find us amusing and I think it's going to end in tragedy probably or some really horrible fight. No, scandal, not tragedy. It won't be tragic. It'll be scandal. Recombinations. Let's try to end it badly. So in any case, thank you again, all our Midwestern listeners. We love you all. We love you all. We never would live there because we would be thrown out. But we appreciate you. Those were great questions. Send us more. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday with more with a show we're taping in front of a live audience in Hamburg, Germany. Ausgesicht. Ja. Ja. Ja. Uli Schnitzel. I'm going to dress up like Poland and Kara will invade me. Oh, my God. You tell this joke every time we go to Germany. It never gets old. You need a good new German joke. You need some other German joke that doesn't reference Nazis. Can you do that? Can you find one? I answered the door without