Transcript for Happy(ish) birthday, Facebook.

And I'm Scott Galloway, clapping back at your camera.

I am, I'm in Del Rey Beach. I'm actually in Boca, but I think that's cool. I'm on Del Rey Beach.

How much do you love the clap? How much does Kara love the clap?

Yeah.

Of course you do.

Well, Anne, the left wing. Yeah. She wasn't a lock on a leer.

Someone definitely coached her. Yeah, no, she's like that.

Well, by the way, speaking of breakthroughs, I've thought of a couple nicknames for you. You told me that which I think is key and you told me that you're supporting Kamala Harris. Is that right?

Okay, like or whatever supporter. Amy Clovis, you're a lot.

No. Okay. I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way.

I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way. I got a better way.

Okay, so the latest talking point that has been that has co-opted Mr. Garcia or Mr. Garcia Martinez is the notion that we can inflate Facebook and these vehicles with other media communications. Yeah, he does this. that Mark Zuckerberg, if you notice, is now saying, a lot of the criticism Facebook is falling under is similar to all the criticism of the internet. He's trying to bear hug the internet.

Yeah, but the people, the people who are actually who owned the rights of the printing press weren't ignoring bad things. Had they had the options, the tools, and the capital to make books less dangerous, They would have and they did and that is what this management team is failing to do. So to conflate himself with the internet is just another again.

Well, I'm bias. I think Adam is a gangster. He's one of the, he's a rock star in the world of marketing and he's got an Australian accent and dreamy. So he takes every box from me. What do you think?

Washington in the camera.

You had the best line at at that event you hosted in DC and you said it's great to be in DC. I feel 10 times sexier when I'm here. That was the best. That was the best.

Let's go. I'll ask you after this clip what you think of Representative Conon.

Yeah, I think he threads the needle well because he's sort of, I mean, if anyone sort of paid for or should be kind of the spokesperson for the industry at him, but he strikes me as a pretty thoughtful guy that I think the interesting thing about this question or this naval gazing that everyone's going through on the 15th birthday of Facebook is the dangerous word in all of this is is big tech are we net gain or is from big tech and the word on a like or I think it's dangerous is the word net and that is that we do this calculus and decide if on the whole they're a net positive then argument over leave them alone and pesticides. We're likely net gainers from pesticides, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have an FDA. We're likely a net gainer from fossil fuels. We're likely a net gainer from coal is as angry as I get to people, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a mission standards. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have carbon cap and trade. And it just because I do believe we're net gainers from big tech, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be liable for incending violence. That shouldn't be mean they are not held liable when there's skyrocketing rates of depression among teenage girls. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be hit really hard when it's clear they don't put in place the safeguards to ensure our elections or their platforms aren't weaponized to flip our elections. And let's go one by one. I would argue Google is a net positive. Still things we should do. I would argue that Apple and that positive Amazon as much as I hate to say that I think it's a net positive. I think Facebook and possibly Twitter are net negatives. Okay. I believe the damage they have done those two platforms is greater than the net positive.

I know I've heard we need more.

You lost me a bad boyfriend. You hope you hope it you mean you hope it works out well.

I think the better angel strategy is a flawed and a dangerous one. I think all of us, including myself, keep hoping that, and I do believe you call it shaming them. I do think that's an effective tool and an important tool. But I think we keep hoping that the better person who's more concerned with the commonwealth is going to show up. And that doesn't happen. Just as I think, you know, going to Starbucks or you deciding at home, you're not going to have plastic straws, that's all fine and nice and turning your thermostat down. But until we elect people who actually put regulations or just outright ban plastic, we're going to have more plastic in the ocean than fish in 2050. Until we actually create economic disincentives, I start adding a zero to every fine, start making these companies subject the same liability laws that every other media company is liable to. Hoping that the better Jeff Bezos shows up is just not going to happen.

The better Bezos.

The less evil twin shows up. By the way, did you see he was a Super Bowl?

Bezos is at the Super Bowl. You probably want to Super Bowl. By the way, this guy and I recognize this because I'm in kind of a 50, 60 year old 50, 60 year long stage called the Midlife Crisis that just keeps going and going and going. This guy, we are literally watching a midlife crisis on steroids. He might as well put out a reply. I'll email that says I'm about to start sleeping with my secretary and get terrible. Okay. And this guy is seriously seriously at the Super Bowl. What is he doing?

Keep it to yourself, Jeff. No, no. Keep it to yourself.

I think that's a nice thing you've said about him. He's a person.

I think the $3 billion he's taking out of a long island school system. Yes, I think I think that's going to something. You think that's an awesome move.

So you think that, you think that, you know, they just appointed someone who could possibly could Bosch it, who has been a vocal critic of it. You think, and you might be making news here. This is a prediction, Karala, you believe, you believe that that, that, that HQ too. In Queens is not going to happen.

That's such an awesome name. Farhad Manji. That's seriously. He can walk into any newsroom and say, don't question me. I'm fucking farhad Manji.

He needs to start.

What abolish billionaires? There's definitely a level of class war, warfare, or like income inequality and what billionaires. or all of us don't realize long-term or don't acknowledge is that whenever we get to massive levels of income inequality throughout history, the good news is they're always self-correcting. The bad news is, well, that's the bad news. The bad news is that the vehicles of self-correction are always consistently three things, war, famine, or revolution. And we're in the midst of what I would call a slow revolution largely brought on by income inequality. So it is in everyone's best interest to figure out a way not to have the levels of income inequality, we are barreling towards. And rather than going after billionaires as a class, I think that the real culprits here are the citizenry that has decided that the class or the economic class that has benefited the most and kind of killed it over the last 20 years should probably pay more taxes. And it's a fair, I think it's an economic argument. It's an argument about policy. But it doesn't have to be an argument that says the moment you become worth a billion dollars, you're less noble and you're less of a good person. People will avoid their taxes. They will make excuses. They will give to philanthropy, which is consumption. I don't think we should excuse anybody. Pablo Escobar built parks after becoming a billionaire. We need to have, and this goes to the clip your winter last week, we need to have an adult conversation around which economic group can afford to offset the massive escalation and debt we're incurring, because the notion that we're going to reduce spending in this nation is a popular notion and it never happens. But I don't like where we're going with the whole 70% the far left is saying using the number 70% or trying to somehow label this class as lesser people or that they're the enemy.

We'll wait 27 people. I don't have more wealth. It's incredible. But we have, this is the world we wanted in America. We have deliberately chosen a hundred games like a connoisseur. Everybody believes they might be the lottery winner. And so rather than post World War II, I think America's collective goal with our tax policy and the way we viewed celebrities in wealth was we wanted to create millions of millionaires. I think that was our collective goal economically and it appears that we have shifted that goal to we want to crown the first trillion air that we're willing everybody realizes the lottery economy and like playing the lottery is a bad idea, but my tickets going to win baby or my son could go to work for Google or my son could be the next billionaire. So we've created a protected privilege class and people are just coming to grips with the fact. I think it's good to tell you.

I don't know, Angela. Sorry.

Angela pulled off an incredible gangster moving the world of luxury and that is she rebranded and repositioned Burberry, which was this tired British brand that meant plaid and bad, bad merchandise and using digital, more as a marketing vehicle, you know, talking about how we can make it rain on Instagram and we're going to live stream the fashion show from Singapore, which I would call kind of fake innovation. But to their credit, they essentially were able to reposition the brand on the backs of at least the PR on digital innovation, it created huge shareholder wealth And good for her leverage that incredible repositioning of the brand to go become the the highest paid person at Apple, which by the way is a great reflection on Tim Cook. I was thought that the best CEOs are the ones that are always the number two or number three best paid person in the company each year and over the long term to almost always the best paid and that's fine. But each year there should be someone in the company that's outperform to the extent where they make more than the CEO and she made by my math about a quarter of a billion dollars over the last five years working in Apple. Now, having said that, I love Apple stores, number one per square foot in the world, revolutionized the world, the retail people will say, what is the most a creative decision in the history of business people would say? It's Apple's decision to release the iPhone. I think they get the brand right, but the decision wrong. I think it was there. gangster decision to open 600 stores and reallocate cap a lot of broadcast television into stores where people still went in and touch the brand if you will. I would argue though, and I want to get your viewpoint in in the last five years, I'm not sure the head of stores has been worth a quarter of a billion dollars. And I believe the conversation that took place was Angela, thank you. Angela, the multi-channel is good. The click and collect the pickup is better. But we probably, you know, the quarter of it, I mean, I'm trying to think of an athlete that was a great, a great athlete, but probably wasn't worth what they were being paid. I think the guys sue on the Rams that came from the Dolphins, the Dolphins, because it wasn't amazing. Yeah, I'm going to lose it, too. I mean, over my head on sports, but you have what I'm saying. I think she was great. And I think she was with the question, is she amazing or was she overpaid? The answer is yes.

Oh, there will be fewer stores, but they will be strategically more important. So organizations like Simon Properties or General Growth that have the nicest malls. will be fine because the death of storesman greatly exaggerated and while broadcast television or all the things you do to build a brand pre broadcast are getting weaker and weaker because what is the media that's growing having common Cara it has no advertising I mean how do you know you're how do you know your wealthy you don't have to subject yourself to this shitty thing called advertising advertising is become attacks The poor and the technologically illiterate have to pay, but you still have to go into stores. Not as often, but still 80% of the time, maybe 80% of the time.

Oh, they're wonderful. They're wonderful. The question is have they changed?

And people are catching up. There's some really interesting innovations.

What is the one thing you would do in an Apple store? We have a coffee shop. Yeah.

And then, whoever is overseeing the coffee division should run as a central candidate for president.

Like, everybody's piling on. He's, come on. He's not to figure out. He's about to figure out that it's pretty hot in the kitchen, right? People, let me put this way. People of means tend to surround themselves with people of brown noses because you have people around you who kiss your ass and tell you how awesome you are, laughing your bad jokes. And when you say something like, don't refer to people as, Goleaners with people of means, he's used to people around him going, that's genius Howard. You're absolutely right. We need to change that. And the wonderful thing about our process is people get put through the ringer and the kitchen. And the ones that emerge are merge stronger. I mean, you do have a, I mean, this is the mother of all vetting processes, right? And my prediction and I'll use this as my prediction. I don't think he's going to decide not to run. If he were to really want to make a difference, he would probably decide what issues are important to him and then go out and be, you some of his capital and a star power to support candidates who are willing to put up with the bullshit that I think he's going to decide he is not willing to put up with.

My fail. Oh, my fail as I'm angry at Jack Dorsey again. I meet you. He's my wife and my Twitter.

He actually responds to you.

You know what I mean?

But go ahead. At Jack, reach down, fill those round things and come on the show. Anyways, so look, I'm on Twitter and I tweeted out, I've been thinking a lot about there's so much noise around how San Francisco and New York need to be made more affordable and a lot of naval gazing and thought, think, thought, you know, thought pieces. My feeling is that that's a ridiculous conversation. I've never understood how you make a city more affordable, and I also think that's actually, in many ways, a function. It has negative externalities. You've got to address long-come housing. But I think the objective should be to make Detroit and St. Louis more expensive, or figure out a way to invest in those categories, and more businesses, and more people, or those cities, want to move there, thereby, if you will, driving a price. It's not basically put out a tweet saying, the problem is an SF, and New York affordability, the problem is St. Louis and Detroit should be more expensive. Much of tweets, a lot of good arguments back, saying, Scott, that's the wrong problem. A lot of thoughtful things. Some of the things I love about Twitter. And then a comment from somebody that said, so translation, I've got mine fucked the rest of you. And I thought, wow, that's a real incendiary thing to say. That's not what I meant at all. And I looked at the person. I looked at the account. And I went on to their Twitter page. And they had been sending out And you know, AOC 70% tax rate, all these very, very kind of far left statements. And then, all these far right statements. And I'm like, OK, this is an arsonist. This is an account run by somebody else, whether it's a troll farm in Albania or whether it's somebody trying to get somebody elected or suppressed of a who's identified me as one of the, I don't know, 7 million most influential people on Twitter, maybe. And it's purposely trying to pick fights and divide us. And if I can figure this out in about 30 seconds, then the notion that Jack Dorsey is trying to figure it out is just a lie. And when he stands in front of Congress and raises his right hand and says, we have a responsibility to promote a positive dialogue. He is lying to Congress. So my fail or my loser is Jack Dorsey who despite the silence, retreats, despite the namaste bullshit, despite the beard, despite the nose ring. is making America a worse place.

Boom.

Where am I any to presence?

Come on the show, Jack. But come on the show.

It's gone. Okay, are you the king and queen of podcast? What do you think?

I need to be a person.

Yeah. So the total market for podcasts is $350 million or about one quarter, you know, one quarter's worth of ads in the Super Bowl is the entire market for all podcasts. That's the bad news. The good news is it's growing fast. What's interesting about podcasts is the audience over indexes on young and wealthy, which advertisers love and the really interesting thing about podcasts. And I'm new to this whole medium is that the advertising, I find the advertising less offensive and interruptive. than another format, which might be what makes podcasting the only growth medium that is out supported.

Yeah, you know how to be honest, Kara, though, you know how it feels when someone comes up and interrupts me in the middle of the day. And so I really like what you do. You know how it really feels? It feels wonderful. It feels wonderful. It makes me feel affirmed. People act as they're embarrassed because they're literally thinking about to me. I'm like, I'm sorry. Do that again. What did you say? You like me? You really like me? Yeah, I really like it. It's nice.

So SNAP had, I think they're stock bumped 20% because they're not losing users. It was the first time they reported flat user growth. You're pulling for them. You're pulling for them. That's my prediction is my prediction is it. So when people are near death, often times there's a fact where they would literally have a burst of energy and get up and go garden or cook a meal and then they go back to the room and die. This is literally half getting a burst of energy going into the kitchen and cooking. The desoleration, the decline in the death, the death rattle of snap is about the resume.

I think they can call it a prominent they're going to need for more than prominent woman in an escape.

He is so he is so number two your man. Crash first is Elon. The second is Evan. And the third is John love it.

Love it.

Love it.

Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it.

Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it.

Love it.

You know, it's a bad sign, but I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to be next week.