Dan speaks with tech journalist Kara Swisher about her exit from the New York Times for a new role with Vox Media (0:54), Mark Zuckerberg’s huge bet on the metaverse and the future of Meta/Facebook (5:17), Kara’s recent interview with VC heavyweight Chris Dixon on the outlook for Web3 (10:22), if FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried is becoming a Warren Buffett-like lifeline for the crypto industry (13:36), crypto likely becoming more centralized (14:13), Elon Musk’s curious silence on Twitter (16:42), whether Amazon CEO Andy Jassy will overcome the challenges facing the company (22:43), Kara’s push to cover the existential problems from climate change (24:48), and the impact Peter Thiel and other Silicon Valley influencers are having on politics (27:00).
—-
Email us at contact@riskreversal.com with any feedback, suggestions, or questions for us to answer on the pod and follow us @OkayComputerPod.
We’re on social:
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Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter
Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia
#bitcoin #ethereum #stocks #elonmusk #karaswisher
—-
Email us at contact@riskreversal.com with any feedback, suggestions, or questions for us to answer on the pod and follow us @OkayComputerPod.
We’re on social:
Follow Dan Nathan @RiskReversal on Twitter
Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter
Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia
#bitcoin #ethereum #stocks #elonmusk #karaswisher
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Hey listeners, it's Dan here.
00:01 I want to tell you about a company that I'm really excited about.
00:04 It's called Current.
00:05 It's a fintech company that's completely disrupting traditional banking.
00:08 I'm a new Current customer and it's already helping me and my entire family manage our
00:12 finances all from one easy to use app.
00:15 So try Current for yourself and get the app by going to Current.com/ok.
00:20 That's Current.com/ok.
00:23 Current is a financial technology company, not a bank.
00:26 Providing services provided by and Visa debit card issued by Choice Financial Group, member
00:30 FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. and can be used everywhere Visa debit
00:35 cards are accepted.
00:38 Welcome back to OK Computer.
00:39 I am Dan Nathan.
00:40 I am joined with the illustrious Kara Swisher.
00:43 She needs no introduction to our listeners.
00:46 Kara, welcome to OK Computer.
00:48 Welcome back to OK Computer.
00:50 Thank you.
00:51 You still have this name of it, OK Computer.
00:52 Do you still like the name or no?
00:53 I never did, but go ahead.
00:55 Sure enough.
00:56 Listen, so Kara is obviously the host of Sway on the New York Times.
01:00 She's also an opinion writer there.
01:02 And listen, I got into podcasting, I think the first podcast I ever listened to was Recode.
01:06 You have been an innovator in digital media for years.
01:09 Obviously, I use the term illustrious.
01:11 You've been at the forefront of tech reporting for over a couple of decades, but you made
01:16 some kind of big news because you sold Recode in 2015 to Vox.
01:21 You've been doing a podcast pivot for years there, but you're going back to Vox.
01:25 Talk to us a little bit about that move.
01:27 Not back.
01:28 I mean, it's interesting.
01:29 I've never left, first of all.
01:30 Like I was doing Pivot and Pivot's a very big podcast, so it's actually bigger than
01:34 any of them.
01:35 The podcast universe, it's the one who makes the most money and it's really, we have a
01:38 fan base that's just exploding now for some reason.
01:41 There's a real interest in Pivot.
01:43 And so I wanted to focus a lot more on Pivot for one, because it's really promising in
01:47 terms of other ancillary things like a premium service or TV, newsletter.
01:52 There's all kinds of things that Pivot has not done at all.
01:55 And already a good business is a podcast business, a premium version of it, specific ones.
02:00 And so I can't really focus on it when I have another one there.
02:04 And so that was one issue is that Pivot is really exploding and the numbers are very
02:08 obvious that you can watch it.
02:10 Sway was growing well, it was going well, but I had a lot more control over Pivot.
02:14 So that's one of the reasons.
02:15 And the second thing is I really wanted to own my own IP and you can't do that in a big
02:19 media company except for Vox.
02:21 And so one of the issues was owning my IP and having most of the control over data and
02:26 staff, and budget, and revenue.
02:28 And so that's one other thing.
02:29 I've always been an entrepreneur and had control over that.
02:32 I have it with the conference and everything else.
02:34 And so I just was, as much as I love the New York Times, they don't give their staff control
02:39 over anything.
02:40 And so it's fine.
02:41 That's the way they work.
02:42 But I just was more entrepreneurial, especially when I had to do live things or expansion.
02:46 So I couldn't really do much with the product without getting lots of okays from people.
02:51 And as you know, I don't like speaking of okays, I'm not one who really solicits okays.
02:55 I just go ahead and do it.
02:56 And so it's a great place to be.
02:58 I had a great run there, four or five years of writing.
03:01 I had a lot to say I wanted to say about tech in that forum, because I think it had impact
03:05 and it obviously has.
03:06 People have changed their opinions of Facebook and some of the others, I think due to some
03:09 of our writing there.
03:11 And I did want to sort of make the interview higher level and switch it out from just tech,
03:16 which I did there.
03:17 And so there's going to be a new podcast, an interview podcast at Vox, I guess, but
03:21 with Vox that we're going to be making together.
03:23 And I brought over someone who produced Sway with me to do that, because she's also very
03:27 entrepreneurial.
03:28 And so we're going to be looking at TV and a bunch of other things, video and stuff like
03:32 that.
03:33 Yeah, well, it is amazing when you think about, for instance, my 79 year old mother would
03:37 see you on CNBC, on MSNBC, on other TV, but she wouldn't be a reader of your Neat Code
03:43 blog, but she used to see you on the opinion page.
03:47 And I think that it is appropriate when you think about all the palpitations that we've
03:50 seen in media and digital media, that her finding you on the New York Times is likely
03:55 to help her find you in other places going forward.
03:57 And I think that's really important.
03:59 I think some of our listeners forget.
04:01 I mean, you were at the forefront of this digital transformation of media, because I
04:07 remember All Things Digital being one of the first blogs.
04:10 It was the first.
04:11 Yeah, everyone's like Substack.
04:12 I'm like, we did that already.
04:13 It was interesting.
04:14 I mean, it's a different business model, obviously, and I have a lot of regard for
04:17 Substack and what it's doing.
04:18 But we were doing that very early.
04:20 We did that within the Wall Street Journal.
04:21 Remember, I worked at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York
04:24 Times.
04:25 So it's not like I hate old media in any way.
04:26 I think they're great.
04:27 You know, within the journal back then, they weren't entrepreneurial enough and we left.
04:31 So that's why we left is they didn't want to expand our All Things franchise.
04:35 I thought they were cheap about that myself.
04:37 And they decided to do that daily.
04:39 If you remember, it was a disaster.
04:40 We felt that All Things franchise was really interesting, but they decided not to do it.
04:45 And at some point, I don't like to ask permission.
04:47 I'd rather ask forgiveness.
04:48 In fact, I don't even want to ask forgiveness.
04:50 You don't ask for forgiveness.
04:52 I think the history of Recode was asking all of the tough questions, interview after interview.
04:57 And I think it really spawned this whole industry, I guess, cottage of creators basically saying,
05:03 hey, listen, if I have something to say, I'll find a way in which to say it.
05:07 But I think what's very unique about your situation has always been that the people
05:11 and largely men in tech or in business, their willingness to talk to you and have you ask
05:17 them the tough questions they know it's going to be asked.
05:19 And maybe this was a bit of a warm up.
05:21 I don't know if you saw Mark Zuckerberg with Jim Cramer the other day.
05:24 He did not sweat, Cara.
05:25 It's a pretty easy interview, I'd suspect.
05:28 No, well, listen, I mean, I think from Jim's viewers, what they might be really interested
05:32 is like a better description of what the pivot of the name of the focus of the company means
05:37 and how they're thinking about it.
05:39 And I actually did think Mark did much better.
05:41 I'm just curious, though, the one takeaway that I had from that interview is that the
05:44 stock got basically cut in half from the time in which they announced.
05:47 So it basically lost a half a trillion dollars in market cap.
05:51 Obviously, Sheryl Sandberg recently left.
05:53 And I thought that was a really interesting scenario, because to be frank, I'm not sure
05:58 that investigation on her way out is something that if everything was all cool, would have
06:02 happened here.
06:03 But I'm curious how you think about this.
06:04 I think he did the best job of explaining what the metaverse means, at least that I've
06:09 heard over the last few months or so.
06:12 So he said by the end of the decade, they hope to have a billion users doing things
06:17 in the metaverse and monetizing them.
06:20 And again, here's a company with three billion monthly active users.
06:23 It's not a far cry.
06:24 But what does that mean?
06:25 Does it mean just trying Oculus once?
06:27 Does it mean I'd like to know the specifics?
06:29 He likes to throw out numbers.
06:31 It probably means commerce.
06:32 It probably means monetizing.
06:33 I'd like to know what that means.
06:35 That would be my follow up question is like, does that mean one person who tries an Oculus
06:38 once or does that mean he loves to do that with the numbers?
06:41 Remember, if you recall during the Russia thing, they're like, there's no instance of
06:45 Russia on this platform.
06:46 And I called them up and I said, Do you know that?
06:49 Or you just made that up?
06:50 It was some number 0.11%.
06:51 I said, there's no way you could have done a full accounting of your system at this point.
06:56 And so they always like to do that.
06:58 Obviously, look, it's where he wants to go.
07:00 That's why one of the reasons probably Cheryl left.
07:02 It's a very different environment.
07:03 It's probably a more subscription based environment.
07:05 It'll have advertising, I guess.
07:06 But that hasn't been creatively created yet.
07:08 The stuff that Snapchat is doing is more interesting to me creatively.
07:12 Some of the stuff gamers are doing are really creative.
07:14 I mean, good luck.
07:15 He doesn't have anywhere to go, right?
07:17 That's the thing.
07:18 The social network is starting to go down.
07:21 And that's it, right?
07:22 So they've been monetizing Instagram really well.
07:23 E commerce, I think, is a big part of that.
07:25 I think he did mention, which I think is pretty fascinating.
07:28 When you think about WhatsApp, they've really never monetized that.
07:31 So they're talking about a kind of business to consumer monetization model.
07:34 Listen, I think there's a lot of things there.
07:36 You mentioned Snap.
07:37 And I saw that Evan Spiegel is going to be at your Code Conference in September.
07:42 You seem to like him.
07:43 I think it's kind of interesting, though, that that company, that is a ready for this
07:47 a $22 billion enterprise value, which is kind of remarkable when you think about it.
07:53 It's a small company.
07:54 They're going to do $5 billion in revenue, primarily ads and Facebook or Meta, whatever
07:58 you want to call it.
07:59 This year is expected to do $125 billion with over a $400 billion market cap.
08:04 And so it's just interesting that we still have the David and Goliaths.
08:07 And I think when you started reporting on the Internet 20 some years ago, I mean, a
08:12 $22 billion enterprise profitable on an adjusted basis company would have been huge, right?
08:18 But this is like a really small company right now.
08:21 So I'm just curious, how do they play?
08:22 So it's Twitter.
08:23 They're all small compared to Facebook, right?
08:25 At this moment in time.
08:26 The reason I like Evan is because he's creative and the stuff he's making is interesting.
08:31 And most of the stuff I see on Facebook is copies of other people's and sort of pale
08:35 copies most of the time.
08:37 I haven't seen that much that's innovative out of them.
08:39 And so that's all.
08:40 The same thing with Microsoft back in the day versus Apple.
08:43 Apple was so much smaller than Microsoft.
08:45 Remember how small it was, how small, small.
08:47 And I don't mean to say Snapchat is going to be bigger than Facebook.
08:49 It's not.
08:50 That would be hard.
08:51 But when Apple was in trouble, its products were still innovative.
08:54 And I was like, they're going to win because they're innovative.
08:57 And I guess you could muscle your way into any market and muscle everything and copy
09:01 everything.
09:02 But it doesn't make you a great business.
09:03 I just don't think it.
09:04 And so if they're creative here, that would be great.
09:07 Seems to be the same people.
09:08 So there's no fresh new faces there that I see particularly.
09:13 With Sheryl leaving, but the same gang that's hung around Mark's basket forever is sort
09:17 of jockeying for position.
09:19 And so that's great.
09:20 If they can do it, that's great.
09:21 I like the Oculus, as I've said, but it's a small business.
09:24 If you actually look at the business, it's small and it's a lot to wait an entire business
09:30 on.
09:31 Now they can hope just like with AOL, that this other business just declines in a nice
09:34 slow glide down.
09:36 But down is where it's going.
09:37 Listen, they still have dial up customers at AOL.
09:40 Listen, Yahoo just got lifted out of Verizon Media by Apollo.
09:44 How about that?
09:45 They had a big presence at Con Lion.
09:46 I was there.
09:47 I was sort of like Yahoo is all over the place.
09:49 They had advertising.
09:50 A lot of purple.
09:51 Our friend Katie Stanton was just named to the board.
09:54 I don't know if you saw that.
09:55 Oh, was she?
09:56 Yeah, that's the Apollo.
09:57 Okay.
09:58 And it's very interesting.
09:59 Katie would tell you that her first job that she loved in tech was at Yahoo Finance in
10:02 the late nineties.
10:03 She was.
10:04 I remember that.
10:05 So let's see what they do there.
10:06 They have a lot of data on people.
10:07 They've got a lot of users.
10:09 You could do something with that.
10:10 I don't think you can't.
10:11 There's very few big groups of people on the internet.
10:14 That's valuable and you can make some cash out of it.
10:17 Same thing with Twitter.
10:18 It's small.
10:19 Small and unprofitable is Twitter.
10:21 We're going to get to that through Elon, but here's one thing I really wanted to hit this
10:24 because you've been spending, it seems a bit more time trying to figure out.
10:28 You had Chris Dixon, Andreessen on Sway a few weeks ago, and it was a really fascinating
10:33 conversation, especially when you consider where crypto as an ecosystem or an asset class,
10:39 if you will, was at the time.
10:40 It's bounced a little bit, but not really.
10:43 And Chris is obviously, I think you just raised a $4 billion fund to invest in Web3.
10:48 And your question really was, what the hell is Web3?
10:52 He's the one with his famous thread who defined it, I think, in the start of 2021.
10:56 And then what's the future of it?
10:57 And I think that this is really interesting because we've had this war of words between
11:01 Jack Dorsey and Marc Andreessen and Elon got in there and a bunch of these tech luminaries.
11:06 But Chris's comment to you, I thought was really interesting.
11:09 I think this is the most important thing to counterbalance the power of the big tech companies.
11:13 And I'm just curious.
11:14 And this is the thing that got Jack Dorsey snapping back in December saying, "Who owns
11:19 Web3?
11:20 It's the VCs."
11:21 And so you're going to create the very thing that you're trying to counterbalance.
11:24 I'm just curious what you took away from Chris's conversation on the topic.
11:29 Well, I think he's on his back foot, right?
11:31 Of course, he's on his back foot right now, given the situation there.
11:35 The numbers are really down and I don't see them going back up anytime soon.
11:39 Wait, you're already speaking, Kara, like a crypto folk when you say the number is down.
11:44 I'm not a crypto folk.
11:45 Just by being like, I don't know, the anti-cryptos attack me all the time because I'm like, I
11:50 don't know, maybe there's some contracting, maybe there's some collectible thing, maybe
11:54 there's some financial things.
11:56 Obviously, one of the things that a lot of the Bitcoin, like Michael Saylor is trying
11:59 to get rid of all the other coins, right?
12:01 Because most of them are Ponzi schemes, essentially.
12:04 And so because there's so many and it's so wild west, you're going to have a lot of grift.
12:08 And so what I wanted to sort of explore with him is how do you clean that up?
12:12 How do you make it into a real business?
12:13 And is it going to be useful?
12:15 Is it just a speculative asset?
12:16 Is it a commodity?
12:18 Is it like a stock and asset?
12:20 And so I think a lot of that has to be sorted out.
12:22 And so I think people are uncomfortable when you're like, I don't know, I don't know, I
12:25 can't tell.
12:26 There seems to be some stuff here that many people I think are smart find interesting.
12:30 There's also a lot of things that many people I think are smart find illegal and problematic
12:35 and not scalable.
12:36 And so, again, what I like to do is say, all right, well, let's figure out where it's going.
12:41 People are so reductive these days.
12:43 It's really hard to have a conversation with anybody.
12:46 And some of this stuff is really interesting.
12:48 And some of this stuff is clearly illegal.
12:50 And obviously, all of it's unregulated.
12:52 And even stable coins, you don't know where, how many dollars and what and how do they
12:56 like, which is what I was saying about Mark is like a billion what I would like specifics.
13:01 And what tends to do is these people tend to throw out numbers, whether it's Mark Zuckerberg
13:04 or the Bitcoin people, but they don't tell you what the specifics are.
13:08 And so, therefore, it's a lot of hype until I actually see the actual business of it.
13:13 Which comes back to regulation.
13:14 And you had Gary Gensler, the head of the SEC at Code in September, and you guys spent
13:18 a lot of time on that topic.
13:20 And you know, it was Preet actually interviewing, which I thought was pretty great.
13:23 It was kind of surgical in a way, and he kind of refused to frame the regulatory path forward,
13:29 which I think is one of the things that really frustrates a lot of practitioners in the space.
13:33 But here's one thing that I'm curious, and you got to get him.
13:36 Have you met this Sam Bankman-Fried?
13:39 He is the founder of FTX, and he's really capturing the imagination of both crypto and
13:45 other folk.
13:46 And I thought what Dixon said to you was really interesting, is that this feels a bit more
13:49 like '08, some sort of big macro event with what's going on.
13:53 And so here, Bankman-Fried has kind of stepped up as the kind of Warren Buffett in the space
13:57 offering lifelines.
13:58 And it's really interesting because we talked about it a little bit on Fast Money last night.
14:02 It was almost like the island of misfit crypto toys, that he's trying to be like this buyer
14:07 of last resort, and he may end up with a lot of crap, if you think about it, due to the
14:11 transparency or the lack thereof.
14:13 He could.
14:14 He could be a zillionaire, right?
14:15 It's the same thing going on with Binance.
14:17 Suddenly that guy's under siege.
14:18 And I think it's just in the beginning of the internet, and it's not as similar.
14:22 So before these anti-crypto people go after me, it's similar, but not the same is how
14:27 I will say it.
14:28 There was a lot of crap in the early internet, a lot, a lot of crap.
14:31 And then there was consolidation and ownership, and they built walls around it, essentially.
14:36 And of course it got too consolidated and too centralized.
14:39 And so this is a reaction to that, but I suspect this is going to get just as centralized in
14:43 some fashion.
14:44 And of course there'll be regulatory scrutiny because it's money and governments aren't
14:49 prone to give up that control very easily.
14:51 Yeah.
14:52 I mean, all the on-ramps are very centralized.
14:53 And to your point, I think one of the remaining sort of pillars of the bull case for Bitcoin
14:57 in particular is this kind of censorship resistance.
14:59 And I do think it's funny that some of the loudest voices on this topic over the last
15:03 few years have really gone quiet.
15:06 So when we come back, we're going to hit all things Elon Musk.
15:09 So stick around.
15:10 Hey, Dan.
15:11 What up, guy?
15:12 You're into this FinTech.
15:15 What's all this I'm hearing about Current?
15:16 You're going to like this guy.
15:17 Current is a FinTech company that's completely disrupting traditional banking.
15:21 Wait a second.
15:22 Does that mean I don't have to drive to the bank anymore?
15:25 Yeah, exactly.
15:26 I'm a new Current customer and I manage all of my finances from one easy to use app.
15:31 Well, I got to get this app, but where can I learn more?
15:34 It's super easy.
15:35 Just go to Current.com/OKAY and download the app.
15:39 That's Current.com/OKAY.
15:41 Current is a financial technology company, not a bank.
15:44 Banking services provided by and Visa debit card issued by Choice Financial Group, member
15:49 FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. and can be used everywhere Visa debit
15:54 cards are accepted.
15:55 Hey, it's Dan here.
15:56 I'm excited to tell you about a $1 billion app that's disrupting the way people like
15:59 you and me invest.
16:01 It's called Masterworks.
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16:10 I'm talking about blue chip art.
16:13 Blue chip art has seen price appreciation that's outpaced the S&P 500 by 164% from
16:19 1995 to 2021.
16:21 And the Wall Street Journal recently called it among the hottest markets on earth.
16:25 It's no wonder the ultra rich like Jeff Bezos recently sold tons of Amazon stock and bought
16:30 more art.
16:31 And now you can too with the art investment app called Masterworks.io.
16:34 Join over 300,000 members for free on Masterworks.io.
16:39 Just go to Masterworks.art/OKAY.
16:44 That's Masterworks.art/OKAY.
16:47 See important disclosures at Masterworks.io/disclaimer.
16:51 Taboola uses AI to power recommendations for many of the world's top publishers and cell
16:56 phone manufacturers.
16:57 You know Taboola if you ever went to websites like CNBC or USA Today.
17:02 When you finish reading an article, it's that tricked out recommendation engine pointing
17:05 you towards additional content you will like.
17:08 They also help brands reach over 500 million daily users, which makes them a compelling
17:12 alternative to Facebook and Google ad platforms.
17:16 Taboola has long-term exclusive partnerships with publishers, which means they help people
17:20 like you and me discover content outside of social media.
17:24 Taboola is a founder-led company that is traded as TBLA on the NASDAQ.
17:28 Find out more about their mission at taboola.com.
17:34 So have you checked on Elon?
17:35 I suspect you have his phone number.
17:37 I do.
17:38 He's not talking to me right now.
17:39 He tends to go in and out of touch with me.
17:40 Well, he's not talking to anybody.
17:42 He hasn't tweeted in a week, which I think is really interesting.
17:44 Well, I have one theory that maybe because his tweets drive so much engagement on the
17:48 platform, maybe he's trying to get them to miss the quarter badly so he can negotiate
17:52 the price lower.
17:53 No, that seems dumb.
17:55 I know.
17:56 I'm just sneaking a hot picture.
17:57 The last thing he tweeted, gas prices, probably $2 over most people's gas prices.
18:01 So he's signaling anti-Bidenism just because Biden didn't hug him.
18:05 That seems to be that.
18:06 And then the birth rate.
18:07 I'm not sure what he's doing around the birth rate.
18:09 But I guess the main point is that he hasn't tweeted in a week and he was very, very active.
18:13 And so he's had a bad month, if you will.
18:16 He started out in early June by saying he has a super bad feeling about the economy.
18:21 That was June 3rd.
18:22 He had the back to the office decree where he caught a lot of steam.
18:27 He was speaking to Twitter and then he spoke to Tesla people about his back to office.
18:31 Maybe he's decided to shut up a little bit.
18:33 Probably a good idea.
18:34 The SEC at one point did have some sway, if you will, over his tweeting, if you recall.
18:39 But then on June 12th, he said something that the company had a very tough quarter.
18:42 He was trying to rally the troops a little bit.
18:45 Then he said, and I think this was in around the same time that the Giga Berlin and Austin
18:50 were money furnaces.
18:52 And it really goes on and on.
18:53 Now, here's the one and I want to get your take on this.
18:56 So he voted for this woman, Mayra Flores, who is a pusher of QAnon conspiracy theories.
19:03 This was a special election in Texas for Congress.
19:07 OK, she's pushed a whole host of just Jan six conspiracy theories.
19:11 The list goes on and on.
19:12 So he said it was the first Republican he ever voted for.
19:14 And then responding to a Twitter user, he said he's leaning towards voting for DeSantis.
19:19 Now, you and I have talked about DeSantis in Florida.
19:23 I mean, there's a bunch of funny business going on there with obviously Disney and a
19:26 whole host of other companies.
19:27 What about this hard turn by him?
19:29 It just seems like something that is not going to be particularly attractive to Tesla customers.
19:34 OK, that Tesla stock is down 40 percent.
19:38 It was over a trillion dollars.
19:39 Yeah, I don't think that's why.
19:41 Well, a lot of the acceleration to the downside.
19:42 Now, granted, you could say that there was a lot of weakness in the overall market, but
19:46 really started around his Twitter turn.
19:48 And I'm just curious your thought on that.
19:50 He goes up and down.
19:51 This is just my personal experience is one year.
19:53 He didn't talk to me the whole year and then he suddenly got really friendly.
19:56 I don't know.
19:57 He goes up and down.
19:58 I don't think we really care about what he thinks about most things.
20:01 And I thought he went a little overboard on Twitter.
20:03 Like I don't really care what you think about corn.
20:05 That's what it felt like.
20:06 Like, really?
20:07 You're weighing in on this.
20:08 Yeah, I mean, typical stuff, I think he was quite, I would say, justifiable and being
20:12 irritated by the Biden administration for not acknowledging his credit around electric
20:17 cars.
20:18 They kept having Mary Barra and others at the White House.
20:20 What does it say about him as a leader, though?
20:22 Well, he's just mad.
20:23 He is a pioneer, but he's going to carry on for months and months.
20:27 Yes, yes, yes.
20:28 Yeah.
20:29 And then he's been I guess he must be hanging out with Peter Thiel and that gang.
20:31 And so we got a little red pilled on the on the stuff.
20:34 I think Peter Thiel who fired him from PayPal 20 years ago.
20:37 Who knows who's around him?
20:38 I don't think his family loves this Twitter thing.
20:40 That's what I heard.
20:41 The family's like, get the hell out of there.
20:43 You know, sometimes you get narcissistic and grandiose and then you realize what's happened,
20:47 I guess.
20:48 I don't know.
20:49 I just it's hard to be him.
20:50 I suspect he's self-acknowledged.
20:52 He's got some issues, not mental, but he has some troubles.
20:56 Someone who spent a lot of time with him recently said he's in his demon week.
20:59 And I was like, I know what that meant, because I've been the subject of one of his demon
21:02 things.
21:03 I got a lot of crazy emails at one point, but then he was nice.
21:06 And so I think the problem Elon has is that everybody's staring at him and he also likes
21:10 attention and therefore you do a lot for attention.
21:13 And I think ultimately, underneath visionary, amazing brain has done astonishing things
21:20 around space and cars and things like that.
21:23 I could use a whole lot less of his pontification on free speech because I think it's hypocritical
21:27 in many instances.
21:29 Don't say anything at my company, but you should be able to say what you want.
21:32 You should hush.
21:33 But anyway, he's a mixed bag and we'll see if he seems to have to pay this amount for
21:37 Twitter.
21:38 Maybe they're not playing along with his wanting a lower price.
21:41 And then he's got to figure out a way to get out if he has to pay that price.
21:44 That's a crazy price to pay for something that's worth half as much.
21:47 Well, to your point, it's a $30 billion enterprise value right now.
21:52 It's going to be much higher if he does pay $54.20.
21:55 And going back to your point about Snap, this is a company that's basically growing revenues
21:59 faster, monetizing better, same revenue base that has a $22 billion enterprise value.
22:04 The cost makes no sense.
22:05 I do want to hit one thing really quickly.
22:07 So your point about free speech is a really important one, right?
22:10 And this was a tweet from a Chinese Twitter user back on April 25th after I think Musk
22:15 made his bid for the company.
22:17 And it was talking about Tesla's second largest market behind the US in 2021 was China.
22:22 Chinese battery makers are the major supplier for Tesla.
22:25 It goes on and on.
22:26 Jeff Bezos quote tweeted that and he said, interesting question.
22:30 Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?
22:34 While it is trolling, but I think that you could say the same thing that you just said
22:37 about Musk as a visionary as this space rockets, this and that.
22:41 You could say about Bezos and you don't have all the drama.
22:44 Well, a little bit.
22:45 You don't have the conflict of potential interest that you do with the Chinese.
22:48 And so to me, I think the free speech.
22:50 Except he gets a lot of products from China.
22:52 Are you kidding?
22:53 He gets a lot of products from China.
22:54 Jeff Bezos is always just slapping at Elon and back and forth.
22:57 And he did that in that interview with me.
22:59 A lot of penis jokes around the rockets.
23:01 And so a lot of them should stay off Twitter maybe because they're not any smarter than
23:05 you or I.
23:06 Jeff Bezos tends to like to show, oh, look, I was right.
23:10 Every time someone tweets an Amazon dot bomb thing, he's like, this is just now I have
23:15 this old business week framed as a reminder of the risky bet that Wall Street disliked
23:18 was AWS, which generated revenue more than sixty two billion dollars a year.
23:22 That's like a humble brag.
23:23 They were wrong.
23:24 Looks like it.
23:25 So it seems like if you're one of the world's richest men, you don't need this much love.
23:29 But OK.
23:30 Yeah, I think he just needs a hug, as I keep saying here.
23:32 Yeah, I like Andy Jassy.
23:34 Yeah.
23:35 Well, let's talk about that for a second.
23:36 OK, that's really interesting.
23:37 So Andrew Jazzy took over.
23:39 He ran AWS.
23:40 This was also in the early days of AWS.
23:42 And you probably remember you were probably reporting a lot.
23:45 This was a very controversial turn for this company that had not been making profits,
23:49 had been pushing them back into these other sorts of things.
23:52 And if they didn't have AWS right now, literally this company, the retail operations are being
23:56 valued at nothing.
23:58 So the stock Amazon topped out the week that Bezos handed over the reins to Jazzy.
24:05 It was down at its lows nearly 50 percent.
24:08 It's down about 40 percent.
24:09 It's massively underperforming its mega cap peers, Microsoft, Apple and Google all down
24:14 about 20 percent.
24:15 So my question to you is, I know Jazzy has been at your events.
24:18 I'm sure you've gotten to know him.
24:20 Are we going to see the sort of succession that we saw with Tim Cook at Apple, with Satya
24:24 at Microsoft, with Sundar at Google?
24:27 Because all of those over the last decade, let's call it, have been massively successful.
24:31 And in some ways, the Jazzy handover might be setting the stage for the next big move.
24:37 Because I think about this.
24:38 There was an article in one major publication last week that Jazzy has to now fix the over-expansion
24:44 of Bezos, which I thought was funny.
24:45 There's been some mis-execution.
24:46 Well, let me just say, I don't blame Jazzy for this.
24:49 Like it started to go up like crazy.
24:51 This is maximum.
24:52 It was in the 90s in March 2020 when the pandemic started.
24:55 And then it went crazy upwards to like 188 in July of 2021.
25:01 And now it's down back to the 109, not the 90s, but 109.
25:05 It's where it was.
25:07 And so that was a pandemic spike because everyone was using Amazon.
25:10 So I don't particularly blame Andy Jazzy for anything.
25:13 Now then they are facing headwinds of more labor.
25:16 They've got to be spending on labor.
25:17 They're going to have to deal with recycling and that kind of stuff.
25:20 They're going to deal with regulatory issues.
25:22 He's inheriting a lot of more difficult things, but I don't blame him at all.
25:26 He did a great job with AWS.
25:27 Thank God for Andy Jazzy.
25:28 So a lot of what he's doing is cleaning up from the pandemic expansion, which he's not
25:33 responsible for.
25:35 That's right.
25:36 Well, here's one for you because I know that you're a very proud mom and you and I both
25:39 have kids around the same age.
25:41 Your older set are mid to late teenagers like mine.
25:44 I've read and listened to you for years and years.
25:46 And oftentimes when you're talking about consumer internet or social, you did so through the
25:51 lens of your boys.
25:52 You channeled their sort of stuff.
25:53 And I always thought that was really interesting because I would do the same with my kids.
25:57 And a lot of it was around that confluence of social and mobile.
26:01 And now you have these beautiful addition to your family, two little kids.
26:05 What do you think going forward?
26:07 I found your interview with John Doerr about climate tech fascinating on Sway.
26:11 And how do you think the next phase, the next 15, 16, 17 years of the tech coverage that
26:17 you have, thinking about it through the lens of your young kids now, it might be just totally
26:22 different.
26:23 We might be focused on these really big problems here.
26:26 Sure.
26:27 You know, I don't know.
26:28 I'm worried about climate because of my young kids.
26:30 I'm worried about democracy because I have young kids.
26:32 I have never thought about leaving this country.
26:33 And it's the first time I'm like, oh God, if this crazy Supreme Court keeps misbehaving,
26:38 I'm worried for my marriage.
26:40 I'm worried for, and I don't say that lightly.
26:42 I'm not one of these, I'm going to go to Canada kind of people, but Lord, I don't want my
26:45 daughter to be in a country that this is how they treat women when the rest of Europe is
26:50 great or the rest of the democratic world is great on these issues.
26:54 So I think about that a lot.
26:55 And then of course, obviously climate change is the most important issue, which is why
26:59 I had John on.
27:00 And so I'm going to be doing much more of that because how to solve this problem is
27:04 really significant.
27:05 And so I think about it, not just for my younger kids, but my older kids too, is like, I'm
27:09 not going to be here.
27:10 You're not going to be here, but they're going to have to deal with what we're doing here.
27:14 And so you see a lot of these climate emergencies and you go, ha, this is going to be a challenge
27:19 for a very long time going forward.
27:21 There's something I share with Elon Musk.
27:23 I think he saw that very early.
27:24 He was that last time he was sort of losing his mind.
27:27 It was because he felt Tesla had to succeed and so did his space endeavors because he
27:32 thought the world existential crisis was happening with climate change.
27:35 And I agreed with him.
27:36 I thought he was a little bit over the top, but now I see, okay.
27:39 I see why his concern was.
27:41 And so anyone who has, he has a lot of kids too, by the way, I think anyone who has kids
27:46 and thinks about it almost continually about what the world will be like for them when
27:50 they're older and their children too.
27:53 It is obviously an existential problem.
27:55 I think that your conversation with John Doerr, who's obviously a legendary VC, he said to
28:00 you, it needs to become a top two priority for voters here.
28:04 And I guess I wonder, and it brings me back to Musk's, and maybe it's just a fad, but
28:08 this political turn and that article in the Washington Post from a couple of weeks ago
28:12 about Peter Thiel helping build big tech.
28:14 Now he wants to tear it all down.
28:16 That libertarian bent that we're seeing in a lot of these tech billionaires, it actually
28:21 doesn't, in my opinion, advance those sorts of causes.
28:24 I think the vast difference between Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, well, he's a financier
28:30 is what he is.
28:31 He's like the modern day version of JP Morgan or anybody else who liked to manipulate through
28:35 money, not a creator.
28:37 I love asking you these questions.
28:39 I know that you are A, in contact with a lot of these people.
28:41 I know that you know a lot of their close friends.
28:43 And I think the psyche around these issues are really important.
28:46 I am worried about this handful of Web One, and you talked about this a lot.
28:51 They built this whole thing up and now they want to tear it down.
28:54 And when you see people like Musk, when John Doerr just said to you that he has advanced
28:58 the acceleration of electric vehicles by five years and he's pushing all of these major
29:03 OEMs, and that's great, except though, when he goes and has this political turn, I think
29:08 it really does denigrate a lot of that progress because he's appealing to a group of people
29:13 that don't believe in climate change, that they don't believe in the same things that
29:16 you and I do about individual rights.
29:19 This Maya Flores, this is a problem.
29:21 And he voted for her.
29:22 And if he starts supporting DeSantis, that's a problem.
29:25 Don't think that that won't come back on tech companies who want to be in Florida and stuff
29:29 like that.
29:30 So I find it very problematic.
29:31 Yeah, it's problematic.
29:33 I would agree.
29:34 I think he has a different game going on.
29:36 I think he thinks he can convince them.
29:38 I've had him tell me that about Trump one time.
29:42 I remember him saying around gay and lesbian issues, obviously, he's a support.
29:45 He has was when I spoke to him, a very strong one.
29:49 And he said, I can handle I can convince him.
29:51 And I was like, listen, Jesus, I'm sorry, this guy's really quite an unsavable character,
29:56 an unsavory and unsavable character.
29:58 And so the problem with the right now, they're sort of embracing him and he's the best thing
30:02 ever.
30:03 He'll turn on them to when he wants to.
30:05 That's the thing.
30:06 I'm sort of like, just wait 10 minutes and we'll see what happens.
30:09 I think eventually he will shift again, as he always does.
30:14 He did like Obama.
30:15 He did like certain Democrats.
30:17 I just think he wants nobody to bother him.
30:19 That's my impression of him is that he wants nobody in his business.
30:24 And so anybody who does that, like a Ron DeSantis, he gets influenced by.
30:29 That's all.
30:30 And by the way, so what?
30:31 Let him do what he wants.
30:32 It's not my business.
30:33 If you want to be a complete troll your whole life when you're a visionary and if you want
30:36 to change your incredible visionary accomplishments and swim around in the mud for a while.
30:42 Well, I think that's a shame.
30:44 I'll just say this is that for all the advances that he's made as it relates to electrification
30:48 of automobiles and what he's done with space and that sort of thing, I think he runs the
30:51 risk with his views on free speech and what he wants to do with Twitter of really setting
30:56 back the clocks on so many of these issues.
30:58 And you just mentioned climate and we have gun control and we have reproductive rights
31:01 and we have same sec.
31:02 I mean, there's a lot of things that are tearing at the fabric of our country right now.
31:07 And his voice and his influence could be used in a much more positive way that are affecting
31:12 Americans every day.
31:13 And so I don't actually give a shit if he got hit by a bus tomorrow and I'm not wishing
31:17 it on him.
31:18 The electrification of auto would still happen.
31:21 We'd still be moving forward with rockets.
31:23 We might not have the same focus as Mars.
31:25 You know, I mean, so my point is, is like he's just one man and he has influence and
31:29 I don't think he's using it the right way right now.
31:31 Well, guess what?
31:33 Never had kids.
31:34 They never do what you want.
31:35 You know what?
31:36 There's a lot of people and a lot of people have influence and he's not the only one.
31:38 And what unfortunately happens, we coalesce around a Trump or a Musk and we think they're
31:43 the everything matters and they become this sort of Rashomon test on all of us.
31:47 Right.
31:48 So there's lots of people besides Elon Musk in this world.
31:50 I'm certain of it.
31:51 And I'm certain there's a lot of people who will help us and a lot of people will hurt
31:55 us.
31:56 So why don't we focus on that?
31:57 The problem is we tend to like coalesce around one great leader and it's a mistake on our
32:01 part to put so much faith.
32:03 How much influence does he actually have versus how much we think he has?
32:08 Well, I probably heard you say this.
32:10 I know you're a comic fan with great power comes great responsibility.
32:14 I think he's acting like an asshole on Twitter.
32:16 He should stop doing it.
32:17 That's all.
32:18 Otherwise, get back to the good stuff.
32:19 We love it.
32:20 We love the good stuff.
32:21 That's a great way to end it.
32:22 I really appreciate your time.
32:24 I love chatting with you.
32:25 I always love your opinions.
32:26 I can't wait to see what you do with Vox.
32:28 You are not returning.
32:29 And Code is coming.
32:31 I will be at Code September 6, I think.
32:34 You should be there.
32:35 Let me just tell you.
32:36 It's quite a thing.
32:37 I was there last year.
32:38 It was amazing.
32:39 No, it's amazing this year.
32:40 Maybe Elon will be there.
32:41 You can tell him you think he's a joke.
32:42 He'll give you a Rudy Giuliani slap on the back.
32:45 Yeah, that was amazing.
32:46 I was nearly pushed over.
32:47 I was like, that's a Staten Island hello.
32:50 Give me a break.
32:51 Yeah, that's what they do there.
32:53 That would be what Pete Davidson would do.
32:54 All right.
32:55 Well, Patricia, thank you so much.
32:56 We're really looking forward to see what happens over there at Vox with you.
33:00 And we'll check you at Code in the fall.
33:01 All right.
33:02 Thanks, Dan.
33:03 Thanks, Cara.
33:04 See you.
33:05 Bye.
33:06 Thanks again to our presenting sponsor, Current, and our supporters, Masterworks and Taboola,
33:08 for bringing you this episode of OK Computer.
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