WEBVTT - Elon and Zuck vs. Grown-Up Management 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.800 Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:08.160 social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:14.080 Kim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Elon and Zuck versus Grown 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:18.560 up Management. Silicon Valley is many things. It's a hub 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:23.239 of revolutionary technological innovation. It's home to novel creative approaches 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.960 to managing businesses and production. It's a giant storehouse of 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.440 wealth and startup britches, stretching along a slender strip of 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.599 land winding south from San Francisco to San Jose. It's 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.000 also the centerpiece of a very specific kind of bro culture, 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:40.680 a culture that has had a certain winner take all 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.720 mojo over the years, but which may be running its course. 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:46.960 That's not to say that the bro's holds will loosen. 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.960 It just may be that, as Silicon Valley matures, being 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.199 a bro is in everything that it's cracked up to be, 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:55.840 at least when it comes to managing a mature and 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.279 complex enterprise, instead of say, launching a world beating company 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.760 from scratch. To test this thesis, I present you with 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:08.040 Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, founders of such landmark companies 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:13.600 as Tesla, SpaceX and Meta aka Facebook. They are both innovators, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.280 admirable risk takers, and bazillionaires. They've also struggled to evolve 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.520 to have early vaunted reputations as wise men correspond with 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.240 equally wise management and wise decisions as the world around 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:30.200 them changed, and they recently considered fighting one another in 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.640 a cage match. Really they did. Joining me today to 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.520 consider all of this is Kara Swisher. Kara has been 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:42.080 watching Silicon Valley since well forever as a journalist, convener 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.440 of Ideas, raconteur, and residence smarty. She is the host 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.800 of the On with Kara Swisher and Pivot podcasts. That's 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.520 a lot of podcasting, and she's an editor at large 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:56.320 with New York Magazine. So howdy Cara, Hi, how you doing. 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:58.680 I'm good, I'm good. Thanks for joining me today. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:01:59.560 No problem. 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.680 So we may come out of this with different definitions, 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:07.560 but can we develop a working definition together of Silicon Valley? Broness, 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:09.480 how would you define that? 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:11.639 Well, it's not meant to be nice, I think at 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.360 this point there's all kinds of cliches about groups of 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:19.400 people Hollywood types or producers or whatever, indie actors, and 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.639 so it's just a type of person who populates Silicon 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.440 Valley who they sort of take on the patterns of 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:27.440 the others who came before them, and so they pass 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:29.960 it down from person person I guess if you had 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:31.840 to broadly put it, and I don't think everyone fits 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:36.080 into this. It's you know, an arrogance youth, frequently wrong, 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:39.000 but never in doubt. Use a word like pivot, and 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.160 you know, failure is just an opportunity for growth, that 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.960 kind of stuff, you know, just a sort of basically 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.600 going through the world and breaking things and then thinking 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.919 it's someone else's fault almost all the time. 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.360 I mean, is it an unfair broad brush, well sort of. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.040 And Silicon Valley and one. 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.359 People are always like, you know, lesbian's evning a sense 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:00.640 of humor. I think I'm very funny, so, you know, 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.000 I don't know, I just I guess it does tend 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:04.880 to fit, though they do tend to dress alike. I 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:06.800 think what happens is when you get in any culture, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.160 people tend to pattern match people, and so everyone suddenly 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.120 was behaving like Mark Zuckerberg, right, But Mark Zuckerberg was 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.000 behaving like people before him. So it's a little true. 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:17.519 Like a lot of things it's got a lot of 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:19.480 truth to it. And they often do tend to look 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.720 alike and wear the same clothes and have the same attitudes, 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.840 but they also contain multitudes. As Walt Whitman wrote. 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.640 So have I picked well? Do you think that Elon 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:33.000 Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are emblematic of the culture of 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:34.280 Bronus Wow? 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.800 In different ways? You know, both have changed rather significantly, 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.640 although I would say, you know, on the surface, I 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:42.920 guess Mark would be the tech bro, of the kind 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.000 of bro you think about. Although personally he's quite nice. 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.640 He's quite a nice guy from what I can understand. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.640 He's quite a good parent, and he's a good husband, 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:53.280 you know what I mean. Like, there's a lot more 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.680 there than people would think about him. At the same time, 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.520 he kind of has people following him or trying to 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.560 be like him essentially, and that way, which is like 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.520 push through I'm right, even though people said I was wrong, 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:06.480 that kind of thing. 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:07.160 You know. 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:09.880 Right now, he's got a bit of an obsession with athleticism. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.880 I assume it's because he wasn't athletic when he was younger. 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.200 It's quite aggressive. His athleticism is quite aggressive. Let me 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.599 show you me doing all these hard athletic things or 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.839 show off my body in some fashion, which I'm fine with. Fine, whatever, 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.200 he wants to be healthy. So you know, you probably 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.880 see a lot of people better match that. There's a 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:29.960 lot of people they did the same thing when everybody 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.200 was fasting or whatever, and so you know, he seems 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.320 like it. Although I think people would be surprised to 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.400 find him to be a relatively thoughtful and nice person. 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:41.359 I know people get angry when I say that, because 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.160 he's done a lot of damage. His company has done 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.720 a lot of damage to society. I think so, and 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.880 so it can be cross purposes with he. Well, you 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.320 may like him, but he's done terrible things. Well, I'm 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.800 just pointing out that he's not obnoxious. I've never found 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:56.320 him to be particularly obnoxious. 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.480 But the pro phenomenon is it's a relatively new thing, 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.599 at least in the dimensions we're talking about it, right. 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.320 I mean, Silicon Valley's always been a boys club, right, 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.840 and still largely is. But there's a world of difference 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.240 between the days of Bill Hewlett and David Packard and 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:13.320 Elon and Zach Sure. 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.159 They just wore ties. They were just as arrogant like, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:16.920 I'm sorry they were. If you go back and look 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.280 at that, you know, Thomas Edison was kind of a jackass. 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:21.520 So I feel like tech pros have always been somewhat 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.520 of a jackass, you know, I don't know, there was definitely. 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.039 I mean I wrote a piece when I came to 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:28.000 the Wall Street Journal in the nineties because I started 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:29.720 to notice they all had to wear a certain kind 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.119 of vest. If you're a VCS, you had a different 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:34.919 kind of vest, you know, a fleece fest essentially, Patagonia 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.040 fleece Fest. One of the things I wrote is all 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.520 the lies they tell themselves, which was one is that, 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.120 you know, I don't like fancy things. They needed burrito 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:46.080 places and meanwhile, jump on the private plane two years later, right, 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.479 that kind of stuff. And so they sort of had 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.279 to sort of cosplay being a simple guy just like 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.960 everybody else, you know, that kind of thing. And I'm 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.200 not dressing well. I may wander around in Adidas what 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.000 are they called those things? He wears their flip pops. Essentially. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.400 My son will kill me for not knowing what to 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:04.320 call this, but you know that kind of thing. I'm 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.720 a simple guy. I don't need a lot and then 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.960 of course they all live lives of ridiculous and egregious privilege. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.600 But there has been a cultural shift, right. I mean, 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:14.719 I am amused, and I like the idea of thinking 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.640 about Thomas Edison as a tech bro. He is, and 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.120 maybe in his time he was a tech bro for 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.520 you know the way he rolled then. But I think 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.880 there's sort of a bravado to it now and a 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.479 strutting to it now that seems different from Edison. It 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.040 seems different from Hewlett and Packer. 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:33.920 I think if you look back, do a lot of 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.680 manipulation of the press, a lot of stuntishness, that kind 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.600 of stuff. It's not unlike Elon Musk, honestly. 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:42.719 But that's like a use of power, which I know 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.240 has been eternal. But I'm sort of I just wonder 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.719 if there's a cultural kind of a difference around the 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.760 ma chismo of it and the kind of public strutting 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:52.760 that it income. 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:54.960 I think they just these are people who didn't get 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.320 a lot of attention in their youth and now they 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.960 do because of money and power, and so it's very classic. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:02.840 Feels like a Genesee in song, like they got pick 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:04.800 lasts at basketball and they're taking it out on the 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.360 rest of us for not picking them sooner. I don't 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:09.000 I don't know, you know, you could boil it down 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:10.880 to something like that, but a lot of them Tech 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:13.240 has become cool and nerds has become cool. It's sort 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.960 of the revenge of the Nerds kind of scenario that 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.119 has happened. And what comes with it is an enormous 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.080 amount of money. Like that's really what gives them power, right, 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.960 the money they have, not necessarily it they invented something, 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.400 although that's also important. But you know, when people become 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.520 really rich, they become more and more certain they're correct, 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.200 and very few people push back against that because it's 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.280 all in their interests to get money from those people. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.600 You know, everyone's on their payroll, and so that tends 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:40.800 to be like that. The way I sort of characterize 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.440 it is sort of a juvenilization of people who are 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.040 adults men, adult men, typically white adult men, and so 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:51.000 they juvenilize them by constantly licking them up and down, 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.360 telling them they're smart, saying oh right again, sir, that 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:56.720 kind of thing. And I think one of the things 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.360 that also at the same time that manifests is that 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.480 they feel like they're victims. If they're criticized or given 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.440 any feedback, they find that to be an attack. Like 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:07.920 you're seeing that right now with Elon and ADL. It's 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:12.200 their fault, you know. Naysayers. Well, in this case, he's 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.960 pulling into tropes around Jews or to blame, which is 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.560 very dangerous. And yeah, they're naysayers and they're Miami. He's 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:20.160 got to always have an enemy, you know what I mean, 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.000 Because you couldn't possibly have made a mistake. You know, 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.160 that's something that's very hard for them to accept. 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.880 So is that mindset that you're right and everyone else 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:35.199 is wrong and you're a strutting rooster. Are those things 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.439 necessary to be successful in Silicon Valley? 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:40.920 No, not at all. There's a lot of very nice people, 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.080 not at all, not even slightly. I can think of 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.199 a dozen different people who are just lovely, Brian Chesky 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.520 being one of them from Airbnb. Most of the adults 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:50.080 are fine. 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:50.440 You know. 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:52.640 Even Steve Jobs wasn't that much of an asshole, not 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:54.439 compared to these guys, like you know what I mean, 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:54.880 He could. 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:56.559 Be eric and once he learned, he turned out to 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:57.440 be a pretty good manager. 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.840 Oh yeah, absolutely. And most people stayed for twenty years, right, 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.200 they didn't leave the people who work there. He could 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.400 be very difficult, but you know, he also if you 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.240 go back and listen interview, he's very thoughtful. He's very 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.880 I wouldn't say he was humble, but that's okay, that's fine. 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.200 He was a game changer, but he wasn't just petty 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.319 and juvenile. He definitely wasn't juvenile. 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.120 He also had to kind of go through trial by fire, right, 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:22.800 he got kicked out of the company he built. 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:24.920 Yeah, I just feel like he was an adult and sort. 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.040 Of learned from his lessons and then came back and acted. 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.240 I used the term adult like he was an adult, 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.120 Like there's a lot of adults. Tim Cook as an adult. 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:33.520 Read Hastings as an adult, read Hoffman as an adult, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.400 you know, meaning that they just they don't get into 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.000 peaks if you say, hey, I have a problem with this, 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:41.240 Like when I was doing an interview with Elon and 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.239 I was he was, you know, just forcing his employees 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:48.160 back into the office, into the factory. Before anybody knew 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:50.600 anything about COVID. You could have an argument about whether 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:52.520 it or not, but nobody knew, and he had a 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:54.720 certainty I think he said something like they'll be like 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.360 zero COVID deaths or whatever or something. He didn't know. 0:09:57.640 --> 0:09:58.760 I've read all the studies. 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.959 I couldn't believe it. Completely ignorant everything you said. 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.640 Of course, but he read all the studies of deep ignorance. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:06.720 I was like, we don't know, we don't know. Let's 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.160 assume lack of safety until we have better information, like 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.800 why not? And you know, he threatened to walk off 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:14.840 the show, like I'm going to leave. I'm like, fine, 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.200 who does that? But like my two year old, My 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.760 two year old doesn't even behave like that, right, It's like, 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.960 who does that? That's an adult. I'm going to leave. Haha, 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.960 you know whatever, it's childish and throw out of this ever. Right, 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.240 It's just like, you know, we're someone who posts memes 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.280 of boobs, like he always puts a boob thing up. 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.920 I'm like, you're fifty two fucking years old, really, you know, 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:37.800 and all the young men ooh. 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.720 Cool enough with the boobs. 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.320 Cool boobs, Like, oh, come on, really, you're fifty two. 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.000 It moves in on pathetic. 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.320 And poop emojis. Don't forget the poop emojis. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.440 Yeah, whatever, whatever, they're fifty two. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.319 It's an ecosystem too, right, isn't the venture capital community 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.840 and the media part of the development of Bronus. 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.000 Yeah, it depends. Like the venture capitalist I always thought 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.760 them as enabling parents, like, oh, yes, you're a genius. 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:06.720 Their interests for money, They wanted to make money. So 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:08.640 anything they could say to get these guys to do 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.040 what they wanted was what they would do. So more sugar, 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.640 sure you won't get diabetes. Sure more I love you, You're 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:16.160 the best. And of course they would turn on them 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:18.240 in a second if they needed to. But yeah, I 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.120 think the culture was very much we support our founders, 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.440 and in fact it was just bad parenting this way 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.880 I looked at it bad parenting. 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:27.480 And on the note of bad parenting, I'm going to 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:29.840 take a quick break to hear from a sponsor, Karen, 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:39.640 and then we'll come right back. I'm talking with Silicon 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:44.000 Valley whisperer Kara Swisher about tech Bros. And Elon Musk 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.360 and Mark Zuckerberg. Carol, let's talk about each of these 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.920 guys individually. Zuck found Facebook famously in his Harvard dorm 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:54.120 room in two thousand and four. So if you look 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.120 back on his path to an IPO and three billion 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:01.440 users and becoming the most vibrant global social media platform, 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.760 the apollo of the social media landscape. Is there anything 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.960 different about the path that he took to those various 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.920 landing pads as an entrepreneur and then a businessman, You know, 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:13.800 he was more driven. 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.199 He he reminded me of a great deal of Bill Gates, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.760 you know, very driven young man at all times and 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.720 very serious at the time. If you may not recall, 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.600 my Space was the cat's pajamas for everybody, right, everybody 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:26.400 loved my sise. They were cool and handsome. 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:27.360 Remember friends there. 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.880 Yeah, yeah, although that was never cool with my Space 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.679 and Chris, a guy who ran it, and Tom were cool. 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:34.880 They were cool. They were handsome, cool men, and so 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.000 that was where everybody was. And Mark was just plugging 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:37.520 away out. 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.640 And the Murdochs were smart for having remember bought into 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:41.079 my Space. 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:42.800 They did, but they think they lost money at it. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:43.440 I believe they did. 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.000 They ultimately did. But remember at the. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.040 Time, Yeah, the thing that makes me think they're not smart, 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.160 They think they were stupid. But Mark was plugging away 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.360 with the utilitarian thing that I he kept calling it 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:54.640 the utility to me and you can imagine as a reporter, Oh, 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.120 a utility. How fascinating, you know, And so I thought 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.439 that was really smart actually, because he is just sort 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.640 of I'm useful, I'm useful, I'm useful, And I used 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:04.640 to call him a young fogie, like he was sort 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.160 of an old person in a young person's body. And 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.040 so he was quite serious and very like intent and 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.960 aggressive a lot like young Bill Gates, I think, in 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:13.600 a lot of ways. 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.720 And then he grows Facebook sort of in two ways, 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.680 through this steamroller of an ad business, and then through 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:24.120 acquisitions he buys Instagram, WhatsApp as time goes on, and 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:28.400 then organic growth sort of stalls out on him and 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.920 he has to actually try to do something with the 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.480 company other than ride the wave, and the jury still 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.319 out as to whether or not he's up to that, right. 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:38.600 Right, Yeah, I mean that happens with a lot of 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.120 people like Microsoft. You remember they went into media. They 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.960 had AMAZN, they had cable, they had all kinds of 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.800 little alley ways they went down, none of which worked 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:50.720 out except he sold software. 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.679 General electric in a completely different industry. 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:54.800 Everybody does that, like, you know, even the Google guys, 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.600 they don't like search business, even though it pays for everything, right, 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.440 I think we'll do elevators up the streets of Sanford Cisco. 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.880 What about a barge where we you know, we live 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.200 or whatever. And now you know, these people making their 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.880 town up in Solano County, you know, they get bored 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.240 with what brought them there and they want to do 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.440 something else. And I think all these things have a 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.720 life cycle. Right, people will use Facebook until something else 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:17.719 better comes alonger they don't like it anymore, they get 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:19.440 bored with it. There's a limit to growth of it. 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:21.880 And so you've got to be really prescient. 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:22.160 You know. 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.920 The only company that really does this over and over 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:29.360 again has been Apple. Right has continued to evolve relatively successfully, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.480 although they've had you know, if you don't remember paying 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.120 I do. It was their social network. They tried a 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:35.440 whole bunch of things that didn't. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.240 Work, and they're starting to hit some plateaus. 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.720 Everyone says the proper Steve Jobs tied. It's over. It 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.280 was not over forth ten times the amount when he 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:43.760 was living. 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.600 And they brought in a very competent, boring, skilled manager 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.040 and Tim Cook, not a. 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.880 Bro yeah, and grew it. Didn't just manage it, grew it. 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.960 You know, the Internet's littered with companies that were popular 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:57.640 and I've forgotten the names of a lot of them, 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.400 right that were super popular and then weren't. And these 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.200 are consumer products in many ways, and so that's normal 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.000 and natural for people to move on from what they're doing. 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.160 And so Facebook certainly has had the longest run of 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:13.320 successful utility for people who use it, and smartly bought Instagram, 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:17.160 which still remains really interesting. I think what's hard is, 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.960 just like with Google, is everything else pales in comparison 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.960 to their original product, and very few companies can change 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:24.360 course in that regard. 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:29.920 So how do you see Mark Zuckerberg's management evolving over 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.440 that time, from those heady days when Facebook was just 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.000 a self generating piggybank to now when he's trying to 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:41.040 find new businesses. He turns through Cheryl Sandberg after a period. 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:42.560 It was a long time. I know he was ten 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.320 fifteen years. That wasn't a short period. I think Mark 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.960 has an admirable consistency of the managers there. They were 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.120 there ten twelve years, which I think was unusual to stay. 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.160 I think the shift from Cheryl Sandberg to Nick Clegg 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:55.760 is meaningful in terms of. 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.440 Well that's just it's a late stage company, right, late 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.800 stage company for internet companies which have a very short, 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.800 much shorter life cycle. You know, Cheryl was critically important. 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.280 Mark had a chaotic management style for a long time 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.400 because he was young and never he's actually quite good 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:09.040 as a manager. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:10.320 And she was the adult in the room. 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.400 Well I hate the expression, but yeah, sure, I think 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.240 you know, she just knew how to run a business 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:18.240 right with stuff he wasn't interested in. He was interested 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.560 in the products. She was interested in business. And she 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.680 had come from Google where she ran the most boring 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:24.600 part of Google that did really well, which is this 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.240 ad serving business. And she really should get a lot 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.160 of credit for, you know, jacking the ad business as 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.520 high as they did, and they had a great partnership 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:35.560 for a very long time. And I just think it 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.480 evolves over time and again as these people get rich, 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.280 as they get wealthier, they get bored with what brong them. 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:43.800 They don't like oh, or in the wire hanger business, 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:45.760 I'd rather own a sports team, right, you know what 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.600 I mean? Like nobody wants to be what they were, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.240 And so I think he evolved, and then of course 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.360 he got hit with all the accusations around misinformation and 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:59.560 Russian involvement and meddlesomeness and. 0:16:58.360 --> 0:16:59.520 For division and hate. 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.640 And so what does he do. He renames the company 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.639 going down another alley, which is the metaverse, which I 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.840 think has proved rather expensive and quite premature. 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.000 Well, and also sort of imposed that on an entire 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:14.240 company because it was his idea and he thought it 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:15.040 was the way to get ys. 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.840 Well, because he controls the company, he can't be fired. 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.040 Right, But this is also to me another sort of 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:25.840 signal moment and whether or not young Mark can evolve 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.639 into a good manager, like the embrace of meta as 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.399 both an idea and a name and a direction for 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.800 the company. Yeah, that he sort of jams down. 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.640 He was trying to pretend he wasn't you know, No, No, 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.640 I'm not Genghis Khan. I'm really Phil Jackson. I don't 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.680 know whatever. He just wanted to change his name. He 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.800 didn't want to be one thing, you know, ignore that 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.800 over there. I'm over here doing this fabulous future stuff. 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.000 He should have said AI really is what he should 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.679 have said, but he said metaverse instead. And you know, 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.080 with the time, we were like, no, this is so early, 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.200 this is so wrong. But it's his party's he controls 0:17:58.200 --> 0:17:59.879 the company. So that's the way it is. 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.840 So let's focus on Elon for a second. He launches 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:04.560 PayPal famously with people. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:06.840 He did not launch PayPal. No, that's not true. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.240 Well, it was through a merger with X dot com. 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.160 And they were they were competitors. PayPal existed, they were rivals. 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.439 They didn't like each other. That gang Elon's gang and 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:16.000