Tesla’s Rising Value, Meta’s AI, and Twitter’s Ad Problem

24:55They've got the Snapchat glasses. That's interesting with the headset. Think about with the headset, which again is fantastic. Okay. All right. You need to try it. I love that Scott talks about the headset and I never tried the headset. You don't need to try it. Yes, you do. You just need to have common sense. No, you don't. You have to try the headset. Notice how Tim Cook didn't put it on his head? What? Didn't put it on his head. Didn't get near it. If he'd launched an Apple car, he would have rolled out in it. Wouldn't get near the headset. oh come on he knows this is ridiculous it's not ridiculous just a quick a quick message i see a lot of bad attempts at mating at the carlton after around 11 p.m yeah just just some tips to the guys don't get caught dead near a headset that is how your gene pool ends right by the way if somebody asks you if you have allergies also and this will trigger some people say no because here's the Here's the bottom line, gentlemen.

25:48No woman wants to fuck a guy afraid of toast. Back to you. I don't even know where to fucking go with that except for Scott. We need to go on a quick break. We'll be right back from cons.

26:02Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

26:30No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

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28:21All right, we're back.

28:29I'm getting you a headset for Christmas. All right, we're going to go to questions in about five, six minutes. Twitter's ad sales team here in Cannes on a brand safety push. Brand safety from Twitter. The new CEO, Linda Iaccarino, isn't here in spite of our many invitations to join us on stage, but she is coming to the Code Conference. Very exciting, which is later in the fall. Chris Reedy, the head of ad sales, is, and he wanted to assure brands that ads won't appear above or below any of the bad stuff on the platform. The platform has asked its vendors to submit proposals for brand safety solutions, specifically products that give advertisers more control over how their ads are displayed on Twitter.

29:06Is that enough? We're going to work with third-party vendors to make sure that ads aren't next to bad content. Just some quick stats on how much bad content is actually on the site. A recent study found that Twitter fails to act on hate speech posted by 99 % of Twitter Blue accounts. Those are the ones that pay the$8 for boosted visibility. just in time for Pride Month. GLAAD has named Twitter the most dangerous social media platform for LGBTQ people. Even if your brand can use their tools to avoid certain keywords and accounts, it's enough to feel confident where your ads end up. And just speaking of bad content, self-described misogynist Andrew Tate is someone who's still on the platform.

29:43He and his brothers have just been indicted on charges of rape and human trafficking in Romania. He was, welcome back to the site by Elon. In response to the charges, Tate tweeted out his nearly 7 million followers I'm sure this case has absolutely nothing to do with stealing my wealth. I don't know what to say. What do you think? What do you think? They're not here. They don't have a presence here. Linda's going to do her level best to make people feel. I don't see the ads showing up in my feed. It's usually really weird little ads and strange things, I assume, because there's a lot of inventory and it's cheap.

30:13How do you look at that? What's the best case scenario for them to do to advertisers here who think the platform has been effective in the past? It's not the first buy from most people I talk to. but what do you imagine is going to happen here? I think there are a few organizations that have made teen girls feel worse about themselves than Meta. And I feel there are a few organizations that have made our discourse more coarse than Twitter. Twitter has fomented a culture of cruelty, a lack of civility, a lack of grace, because from 1945 to 1995, the ultimate theme or zeitgeist for advertising was sex, right?

30:56The majority of great advertising kind of involved this implicit association that if you drive this Buick or this car, you're more likely to have a random sexual encounter. And that speaks to us on a very basic level. And then unfortunately, the algorithms since Google have figured out that it's not really sex that sells, it's rage. and then you have individuals specifically the US the last US president and now the wealthiest man in the world who foment this culture of cruelty and rage and Twitter is the embodiment of everything that is bad about these algorithms in addition you have I'm not going to say they're immoral people but the management of these companies are amoral the biggest threat to our society is not immorality bad people get starched out it's a more out it's people that like I'm so rich I I have so many people around me telling me I'm amazing, that my connection and attribution to the people, the teenage girl, the person who has to move from their home because I accused him of a sex crime after I fired him, I don't have any contact with this person, so I lose my civility, my sense of grace.

32:06And I think that it is an impossible task to come here and ask a brand to advertise. The clearest blue line path between you and losing your job isn't sending a transgender girl a beer. It's advertising on Twitter because the upside is limited. It's still a shitty subscale platform, but the downside is enormous. You might end up next to a swastika. So they recognize that. They don't want to come here. And in addition, he doesn't pay his bills. else so but the poor people at twitter here that have to come and try and pretend i mean what you just said i think those are all lies i don't think there's any veracity around what you just read from them from that they are here to protect you i think it's i think it's i think this this culture we have fomented by trump that the longer you repeat a lie the more veracity or it seems more like a truth, if I can just, if I'm a rich guy or I'm the president, if I repeat a lie long enough, there's no fidelity to the truth anymore.

33:12I think that is a series of falsehoods that have no basis in any reality about what's going on. So what do you do if you're a brand and you want to use this? I mean, for example, earlier today, this guy that was attacked, they wanted him to debate RFK Jr., who's a lunatic, who's an anti-vax lunatic in the United States, who happens to have a good name and is running for president. And that's why he's getting some numbers because he's a Kennedy. They kept yelling and including Elon, debate, debate, debate. And this guy's now getting death threats all over Twitter, which is a bullet, pictures of bullets.

33:45They're not taking them down. So if you're a brand, how do you think of that? You stay off the platform. There's so many amazing places here where you can spend money. So what does a brand do? This is one of the questions. What do you do then if you're a brand? That was one of the questions from Sarah that I saw before. I think this is an easy one. I think there are more good places to spend your money than there is money, right? I mean, anyone who's in ad sales, you're probably selling a good product, and it's really hard. It's really hard to find dollars. There's a ton of good places to put your money.

34:20So why on earth would you go somewhere that has this level of risk and fuel this culture of cruelty? I can understand why people advertise on Meta. I can understand. If I'm starting a business, people call me all the time or email me all the time. We have a small business. We're getting bigger. And we agree with you. I have teenage daughters. I have a problem with Meta. And I'm like, oh, advertise on Meta. You don't want to. I don't believe in coal-fired plants, but I still turn on my lights. These companies have a monopoly. They have unbelievable ad stacks, huge ROI. Twitter has all of the calories of Meta and Alphabet, but none of the great taste.

35:02Yeah. So why on earth? There's a ton of great places. So when would be a good time to go back there? When? Well, when there's a new owner. That's it. Okay. What do you think? If I got it wrong? I wouldn't advertise on there. There's just too much. I don't have comments on it. I have been on Twitter since the very beginning, and it's really hard. And we love it. We love the product. People think we hate it. We do not hate it. We hate what they've done to the place. And so I think one of the problems is, is that I'm not sure it was ever a particularly good place for brands to be necessarily, except for sort of some fun moments.

35:35Like if you're, you know, you're a stake-em or whoever the brand happens to be, or movies coming out, that's the kind of thing. People see it as they scroll through. You could see a lot of great uses for that. But what's really hard is that you are next to, I've never seen so much neo-Nazi anti-women and what's interesting I was at an event yesterday and someone's like why do you don't like Twitter what why I like it I have a good time on it and of course a white guy I'm sorry I showed him my Twitter he's like what what has happened like the experience that certain people get on that platform versus others is very different and I don't think it's safe I don't think it's it's it's actively unsafe for many many people you said something And I'm not a shrinking violet.

36:17I just don't like being called a bitch in the C word. You said something that was really powerful once to me. You said, you know, these guys have never been victims, so they don't understand the potential for victimization. That's correct. Correct. Because the majority of them, I feel entirely safe in Manhattan. I walk around with my AirPods in. I never even think about safety, but I'm 6 '2", 190. Very few people I don't think are going to fuck with me. Right. I'm walking with my sister who's not a big person and someone darts out of a building and she jumps. Yeah. And I'm like, Jesus, that was a bit of an overreaction.

36:55It's just like easier for you to say boss. Yeah, I would agree. And when I see the shit you have to put out, I feel sorry for myself because I say something about Tesla or Apple or the headset, that people kind of come after me. I go on your feed and I see the sewer of toxicity. And I'm like, how can they, so they're gonna take somebody who's a journalist, who has a big following, who's credible, and they're gonna let people say these things to you? In a feed of a person that's well-known and has a lot of followers, and by the way, that person doesn't come in and say, hey, stop that. where else would you find this?

37:37We would never say these things to each other. Right, so it's difficult from a brand perspective. I haven't used it for that. And that's a shame. No way. That's a shame. I've never, I've always wondered when it was going to get good. Let's ask some questions to the audience. We don't have a lot of time. What would be your, this is anonymous, what would be, and make them pithy, Scott, what would be your advice to middle or senior executives in their mid-40s? In the ad business? Yeah, I guess so. These aren't truckers.

38:04You go first. No, learn AI, learn it, learn it, learn it, learn it, learn it, learn it. Like really use it and understand it and how you can use it for your job. I was in the brand business. My superpower was attracting and retaining good people. And I didn't realize until I was in my 40s that sitting young people down who had the opportunity to go to Google or go to Meta, that the superpower was to ensure you had a vested interest in understanding what success looked like for them and that is do you want to manage people do you want to work from home do you want to do you want fame do you want to present on stage are you all about money and willing to work 12 hours a day and we'll pay you more and i think there's a role for that person all right do you want to live in london well you know because if the key when you're a manager and by the time you're in your 40s, you are a manager, you have to be able to attract and retain good people.

39:05Good people. That's the whole shooting match is good people. All right, pithy. Okay, what's the biggest untapped opportunity for brands right now? What are we not talking about here that we should be talking about? You answer that one, Mr. Brand. I'm wrapping myself on the flag right now in terms of, I mean, It's impossible not to be politicized. I think there's a big opportunity to start loving our countries again. And this sounds very boomerish. I'm actually Gen X. But I think this is a wonderful moment for the West. And that is we have more together right now in the West than we've been since World War II.

39:43And more when you think about the fact that our enemies are now our allies against an autocratic murderer. And we're winning. and it strikes me that we're not embracing our flags the west democracy that we aren't celebrating our collective victories in a brand doing that as a brand strategy well brands used to wrap themselves in their flag a lot and now that has become unfortunately sort of raising a generation of young people that don't seem to like their countries very much but i think a lot of for lack of a better term, wrapping ourselves in the flag of the West, democracies. I think we have a lot to be proud of right now from a brand standpoint.

40:23All right. So this is Scott's legs. This is someone called Scott's legs.

40:30Let's just take a moment with that. I'm a brand strategy director at an agency, Scott. If you were in my position today, where would you direct your energy to set up your career for success. Pithy. If you're just an economic animal, disruption where they create a lot of new value is a great place to position your human capital. You have, most of you have more time than money right now. So your human capital is where you want to be thoughtful around, you invest it, where you invest it. The, if you're just an economic animal, the place to invest your human capital is the most disruptable industry in the world.

41:04And that's healthcare, leveraging AI. I think AI, I'm an AI optimist. I think AI is going to help a mother whose kid has diabetes, who spends five months a year of her life managing that child's diabetes. I think the dispersion of healthcare with AI-assisted tools and technologies to smart cameras and smartphones is going to create a series or dozens of 10, 50, and 100 billion dollar companies that aren't even named yet. So if I was just an economic animal who was certified, who could get to a big city, who had skills, who was willing to work hard, who understood brands, who understood technology, I would try and get into AI and healthcare.

41:41And healthcare, all right. Doug M., Apple's Vision Pro has the potential to finally establish AR as the consumer masses worldwide. Jokes aside, do you see any potential in the technology? I want you to give me one thing you think it'll be good for, and don't say porn.

42:00Don't. Yes. Yes. uh no porn porn you got you like this shit i don't we don't want anything that can eat you or you can eat came from your peripheral vision that's why outdoor advertising still works you today there's nobody like wandering around your peripheral vision if you have if you hear footsteps behind you in the same pattern for longer than 10 seconds with these glasses you're not going to put on ai and see someone behind you you can actually you answer this had you use them you would know that what do you think it's going to be used for i think it's going to be used for work for work okay work i think the meeting stuff it's going to get rid of screens everywhere it's going to put screens everywhere everywhere and that's a good thing well you don't need a screen anymore like you don't need a physical screen you find that depressing i find it freeing that you can work from anywhere um and do your work and then take it off and then move on not have everything not being attached to a phone is like I think the greatest thing for society to do you take it off then it's done you've tried it I haven't you're a tech journalist I'm not entertainment I defer to you on this the immersive qualities of entertainment the best I've seen I've seen them all I think it's really something it's really something and education I think it'll be I think the good money is on what you say here yeah all right I'm going to give you this one it's anonymous we have two more we've only a few seconds left is there a female leader and even better lesbian leader that you don't think is getting enough attention.

43:27We need an anti-Elizabeth Holmes. What do you think? Taylor Swift.

43:36I love Marguerite Vestier. I think Angela Merkel was wonderful. I think Senator Amy Klobuchar is fantastic. Gretchen Whitmer. Governor Whitmer. Can you name a Republican woman or a European leader here? I'm assuming you're not going to say Marie Le Pen, but go ahead. I was a big fan of the leader in Scotland who's in hot water right now. Anyways, yeah, there's a ton of them. We are incredibly sexist when it comes to our leadership. There are now more. The one thing that all leaders have in common is they went to college. And there's been more women coming through college now for 40 years in Europe and the U.S.

44:12And yet only 24 % of our elected leaders are women. Because instinctively, we not only, A, don't want to put on a headset, but we conflate leadership with depth of voice and height. And so when you have a guy with a lot of hair and a deep voice, that's hello, Mr. Senator. When you have a woman who is 5 '5 and has a high-pitched voice who has 140 IQ, that's hello, school board president. So until we educate younger people that leadership, we have to modulate. Leadership is not a function of physical attributes. But anyways, my point is 76.

44:51that's the thing we get applause for 76 % there are more women eligible and qualified for leadership positions and yet there are a quarter of them so we have to I mean something's got to change something's got to change

45:17One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload. No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

45:48It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

46:14support for the show comes from ag1 look we all know we aren't getting any younger which means we've got to make the most of what we have today and to get that energy it's time you try ag1 ag1 next gen is a daily health drink clinically shown to support gut health and fill in common nutrient gaps with five probiotic strains and 75 plus vitamins and minerals ag1 next gen replaces the need for a multivitamin, probiotic, and more. One scoop in the morning with 8 to 12 ounces of cold water adds up to whole body health support from 75 plus vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food sourced ingredients.

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47:14All right, very quickly. Winns of fail? I mean it. Okay. My fail is that a lot of people at this conference want you to have a reasonable facsimile of your life. They want you to work on a screen. They want you to to swipe left or swipe white instead of trying to initiate a conversation with somebody. They want you to trade on an app instead of actually working to learn money, to earn money. They want you to develop relationships online. Everything is a shittier analog of the real life experience. And you should always opt for the analog experience around anything. I think you should get into the office.

47:53I think you should approach people in person to establish friendships, mentorships and romantic relationships and I think at any opportunity you should say yes to the analog side of things I think we are sequestering from one another we're mammals we're meant to be together and I don't like headsets or anything that separate us I think it's terrible for us as a species these reasonable facsimiles of a life that tech wants you to lead these low calorie low risk entry into different types of relationships will ultimately make you more depressed and less happy. Endure rejection, that's what real victory feels like is after rejection.

48:29My win is Sally Ride. Four days ago was the 40th anniversary of Sally Ride. She was the first woman. She shattered the glass orbit. She was the first woman in space. As far as we know, she was the first gay person in space. She was also the youngest person in space. She was 32 years of age, got a PhD in physics, spent years training. She operated the robotic arm. She spent more time in space to that point than anybody else, died tragically very early of pancreatic cancer. And that is a real astronaut. I don't like these astronauts who pay a lot of money so they can go one six thousandth of the distance and then call themselves astronauts.

49:10And some, the guy on the yacht outside here, Jeff Bezos, is not my astronaut. My win is Sally Ride. Okay, that's a good one. Very nice. I'll very briefly say

49:25I have to say it's very hard it's really nice coming to Europe from the US it's really kind of ugly there the discourse is just exhausting and Trump has exhausted us and he still won't leave so for a minute getting away my win is not paying attention to something that asshole says so I have to say you get away from here and you think how noisy and ridiculous the US must seem to all of you and I'm not insulting the U.S. I love the U.S. but I'm hoping for better days in that regard and we'll see where that goes but you're not every second sort of in this state of partisan agony that has just not stopped for years and that's a fail on our behalf and I think the fail is obviously this submersible story.

50:09It's sad. It relates to him. I feel terrible for these people that were down there although it looks like there's a lot of safety problems and it's a failure of technology. It's a failure of letting people pay for these kind of things. And we have to, and the amount of money that's going into these rescue efforts, although if I was a family member, I'd want that to happen. It's an incredibly sad and also touching story. But it's a failure that those poor people are caught down there, no matter who they are. And obviously, they're very wealthy. I think it's a failure that we also make fun of them, make fun of the whole thing and decry them for that.

50:49But we should be focusing on other things than the past. And so I do hope we really rethink how we're spending our money and how we're doing things going forward. Anyway, on that bummer of a fucking note, okay, we want to say thank you so much for seeing us here. We don't do live things very much. We do things remotely. And again, we're having a moment here right now. We're almost never together. And also just anyone that comes up and says hi. Thank you so much. It's so nice. We love it. We love it. We love it when you do.

51:24And please send in questions and stuff. We're doing a lot of shows with more questions. We really appreciate all the feedback we get from people. We know we were funny and everything else. We're trying to provide you insight and just a little bit of cooperation of people that don't always agree, largely because Scott is largely wrong about so many things. Anyway, let me read us out. Oh, let me you read us out. There you go. That's great. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indretot engineered this episode. You'd think I'd have this down by this point. Thanks also to Lauren Stark, Drew Burrows, Mille Silverio, and Gaddy McBain.

51:58Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. We're mammals. We're meant to touch. We're meant to be together in person. We're meant to take risks. We're meant to have friends. We're meant to hug. We're meant to kiss each other, and we're meant to drink a shit ton of rosé. Let's get to the good work of being mammals. All right. Thank you.

52:36Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

53:04No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

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