Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. You Joe like our next guest
Speaker 1: might appreciate him drummed in by Little Tom petty musician
Speaker 1: after all. Absolutely so. That lovely voice that you just
Speaker 1: heard is Roger MCNAMEI you know him well, investor, venture capitalist,
Speaker 1: co founder of the private equity firm Silver Lake, also
Speaker 1: partner of the VC firm Elevation Partners. I'm convinced he
Speaker 1: never sleeps um His book now out in paperback. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Zucked waking up to the Facebook catastrophe, and
Speaker 1: he added a new chapter. So he's in our Blomberg
Speaker 1: Interactor Broker studio. Welcome, Welcome, Jason. I've been so excited
Speaker 1: about having you here, so congratulations paperback, thank you. And
Speaker 1: you know, the fun thing about writing a book in
Speaker 1: the first place is you have no idea. You know,
Speaker 1: the goal is not to be wrong. And what happened
Speaker 1: was in the year to the book came out, I've
Speaker 1: discovered not only that I was basically right, but there
Speaker 1: were a lot of things wrong that weren't obvious when
Speaker 1: I wrote the book. So in fact, they're they're really
Speaker 1: four new chapters in the paperbackwork, I too, well, No,
Speaker 1: it's easy to understand because two of them I rewrote
Speaker 1: because looking forward, our understanding what we ought to be
Speaker 1: doing is really really different now, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: give the readers an opportunity to be part of that.
Speaker 1: And so what changed, like what occurred to you as
Speaker 1: you sort of went back through it for the paperback,
Speaker 1: what jumped out at you that you felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got to get this different, or I've got to
Speaker 1: get this better, or think of it as I added
Speaker 1: one chapter that brought the narrative forward, then I added
Speaker 1: a chapter that essentially said what does all this mean?
Speaker 1: And those two are brand new, and then the two
Speaker 1: chapters on what to do both changed because what we
Speaker 1: understand now that we didn't before is what Shoshana Zubof
Speaker 1: the Harvard Professor talked about in her book The Age
Speaker 1: of Surveillance Capitalists, which is that there is an entire
Speaker 1: economic constrict that essentially we've shifted the economy from being
Speaker 1: balanced on natural resources to being balanced on data. And
Speaker 1: in that context, every traditional industry is playing catch up
Speaker 1: to internet platforms like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft, and
Speaker 1: that that's a really dangerous situation for investors because, let's
Speaker 1: face it, most of our money is in traditional industries
Speaker 1: and there's not one out there that isn't being shall
Speaker 1: we say, at least displaced, if not disrupted, by this man.
Speaker 1: It's like you were behind me while I was on
Speaker 1: a phone call earlier today. Jason and I are getting
Speaker 1: ready to go down to Miami to cover the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna do this power player somewhit with owners
Speaker 1: of teams and so on and so forth, talking about sports,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, so what's the biggest change you know,
Speaker 1: the next air and sports? And they go, it's data,
Speaker 1: using that data to create individualized experiences and and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. But it's data, but it's not
Speaker 1: just that. It's also that these forms are increasingly the
Speaker 1: gatekeepers for every form of media, and even sports is
Speaker 1: beginning to feel that effect. So when you put all
Speaker 1: that data in there, there's some benefits from it, but
Speaker 1: there's also some challenges because at the end of the day, Google, Facebook,
Speaker 1: Amazon and Microsoft have a lot more data and a
Speaker 1: lot more experience at using it, and they know more
Speaker 1: about the audience than any content producer on Earth. So
Speaker 1: the NFL, for example, probably knows one percent of as
Speaker 1: much about its audience as Google does, and in that context,
Speaker 1: Google has an ability to leverage whatever relationship it has
Speaker 1: with the NFL to its benefit. But I do wonder,
Speaker 1: and we talk about this too, that I think initially
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm never going to have one of those
Speaker 1: home devices in my home. I know that they're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to they're just collecting more data, and yet
Speaker 1: we're all buying in increasingly into it. I think the
Speaker 1: thing that really scares me, and this is the thing
Speaker 1: that I talked about in the hardback but where in
Speaker 1: getting to know Shoshanna zoopofy now. But my steeper understanding
Speaker 1: of it is there this massive marketplace in our personal data.
Speaker 1: In the United States, you don't have any rights with
Speaker 1: respect to your own data. And what happens is that
Speaker 1: every time you touch the digital world, whether it's a
Speaker 1: banking transaction or credit card purchase, or an airline ticket
Speaker 1: or using your cell phone with location and tweets and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Anytime you're going around the Internet,
Speaker 1: that data not only gets collected, it gets sold. And
Speaker 1: if you're Google and Facebook, the data that you have
Speaker 1: on your users. Maybe a one or two percent of
Speaker 1: it comes from their interaction with you as a platform.
Speaker 1: Most of it is coming from them tracking relentlessly and
Speaker 1: then acquiring all this other data. And now there are
Speaker 1: things we never thought about. You may remember last week
Speaker 1: there was a story about a company, a startup called
Speaker 1: clear View AI. They scraped six billion photographs. They took
Speaker 1: them illegally, in violation of the terms of service of Google, Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and others. And they created this application where you can
Speaker 1: identify anyone based on a single photograph and it doesn't
Speaker 1: even have to be a good one. And you look
Speaker 1: at that and you go, wait a minute, they took
Speaker 1: those photographs without authorization. Well who else did that? Mark Zuckerbert.
Speaker 1: That's how Facebook got started. And there's something about the
Speaker 1: culture of the tech industry today that what I I
Speaker 1: try to explain to government people is just like the
Speaker 1: chemicals industry in nineteen sixty, the medicine business in d
Speaker 1: and the building trades after the Great Fires, tech is
Speaker 1: so important to the economy that we can't allow the
Speaker 1: people who are in charge today to be the only
Speaker 1: ones who have a voice in policy. You know, the
Speaker 1: chemical industry. We decided they can't pour waste products like
Speaker 1: mercury into fresh water. That's that's just you can't do.
Speaker 1: And I think you have to have the same kind
Speaker 1: of approach to tech. We have to sit there and go,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but if you and nabal interference in a
Speaker 1: democratic election, that should be a crime, not a civil Roger,
Speaker 1: we have a minute. Then we're gonna bring you back here.
Speaker 1: So so if you could put one law down there
Speaker 1: right now, do it on social media? What would it
Speaker 1: be so to protect the only three I want to do,
Speaker 1: But the one for immediately is I want to have
Speaker 1: a moratorium on targeted advertising for some period prior to
Speaker 1: any general election, at least seven days. But it's not
Speaker 1: just political ads. It's all targeting of ads and on
Speaker 1: all platforms, because voter suppression over Internet platforms is something
Speaker 1: that happens relatively late in the campaign and you need
Speaker 1: to clear some space. The French already have this, Others
Speaker 1: are looking at it. That's a no brainer. When we
Speaker 1: come back, i'll talk about the other two things I'd
Speaker 1: like to do. Roger mcnunee is still with us. He's
Speaker 1: going to spend a little more time with us, and
Speaker 1: in these couple minutes we have sort of in this
Speaker 1: into regnum Roger, I want to ask you, you're here
Speaker 1: in New York City, what's the culture of sort of
Speaker 1: New York tech versus Silicon Valley? Right? So, I think
Speaker 1: New York tech is really cool. You know, there was
Speaker 1: a long time when New York tech was you know,
Speaker 1: people wearing a certain style of clothing and hanging out
Speaker 1: in hotel lobbies. And a lot of really cool things
Speaker 1: are going on in New York and I believe it's
Speaker 1: past that point where you know it's real, and so
Speaker 1: much what's going on is media related now in the
Speaker 1: tech world, and New York is the home of media,
Speaker 1: and so it is a natural place for that to happen. Plus,
Speaker 1: I think New York has caught a lucky break and
Speaker 1: that the culture of Silken Valley has gotten really weird.
Speaker 1: When I came up, we all followed Steve Jobs. It
Speaker 1: was this notion that technology was there to empower the
Speaker 1: people who used it. And you know, I'm a huge
Speaker 1: believer in capitalism, a huge believer in entrepreneurship and innovation.
Speaker 1: But Silicon Valley today it's much more move fast, it's
Speaker 1: break things. It's it's bro culture. It's very and it's
Speaker 1: sad because the technology gene now is more predatory, you know,
Speaker 1: it's this idea of I'm you know, like we were
Speaker 1: talking about clear of View AI, I'm just gonna steal
Speaker 1: these six billion photos because nobody's gonna stop me. And
Speaker 1: I think we're better than that. And I'm hopeful that
Speaker 1: in New York, you know, you'll have enough cross fertilization
Speaker 1: with traditional media culture that the values that come across
Speaker 1: may not be perfect, but at least they're better than
Speaker 1: the predatory thing that is so dominant value. And I'm
Speaker 1: really hopeful that the value when we wash this this
Speaker 1: generation of startups out, which surely looks like it's happening now,
Speaker 1: that maybe we'll get back to something that I can
Speaker 1: be excited about again, because the problem is the tech.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week, Continuing our conversation
Speaker 1: with Roger McNamee, his book Zucked Waking Up to the
Speaker 1: Facebook Catastrophe out in paperback, refreshed, revised some new chapter
Speaker 1: as he was telling us a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: And Roger, great to have you still with us, so
Speaker 1: up to us about what happens next. From a regulatory
Speaker 1: perspective or what you would propose. You talked about this
Speaker 1: sort of moratorium around elections, but what else would you do.
Speaker 1: So the most important thing for people to understand is
Speaker 1: there is no solution that comes just from us changing
Speaker 1: our behavior. We need to have regulation, and the reason
Speaker 1: we need to have it is that this industry is
Speaker 1: too important. Tech really matters, and we need it to
Speaker 1: not do harm, the same way we need the chemical
Speaker 1: industry not to pollute the water and not to pollute
Speaker 1: the ground, the way we needed drugs that didn't include
Speaker 1: quack medicines that kill people. So that's my basic logic,
Speaker 1: and I think there are three things to do. First,
Speaker 1: I want to ban algorithmic amplification. If you think about it,
Speaker 1: your news feed on Facebook, your search results are not
Speaker 1: actually the result of things you're doing. They are the
Speaker 1: stuff that those platforms are putting in front of you
Speaker 1: to maximize their gains. And the problem is that they
Speaker 1: want to hold your tension all the time. The best
Speaker 1: way to do that is to a appeal to flight
Speaker 1: or fight. Think of that is hate speech, disinformation and
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. We cannot help, but look at it because
Speaker 1: our native instincts of self preservation require us to pay attention,
Speaker 1: and so they are pushing hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories for profit, and I don't think that should be allowed.
Speaker 1: I would ban that entirely. The third that I mentioned
Speaker 1: the algorithm com comiplication. I mentioned the micro targeting, which
Speaker 1: we want to ban in the weeks before an election.
Speaker 1: The third thing is I want to shift the focus
Speaker 1: of data from controlled by corporation to control by the individual.
Speaker 1: And the term that you use there is I want
Speaker 1: to have opt in to using my data rather than
Speaker 1: opt out. Today, people can do whatever they want, and
Speaker 1: maybe you can turn it off, maybe you can't. I
Speaker 1: want the default that they have to ask permission every
Speaker 1: time they do it. If I take a ride from Uber,
Speaker 1: I do not want Uber sharing my data with Google
Speaker 1: and other people. I do not want them keeping my
Speaker 1: data and then using it for something else I don't
Speaker 1: know about. And so at the end the day, those
Speaker 1: changes really do matter, and they're all completely doable. They
Speaker 1: are not if you will out aligned with the kinds
Speaker 1: of things we've done in industries historically, and frankly, they
Speaker 1: would enable a whole new wave of innovation to happen,
Speaker 1: which I think is super important. That last point, I
Speaker 1: mean that was underneath g d PR in the EU. Right,
Speaker 1: with that not enough or with that the model GDPR
Speaker 1: was a great idea as we understood the industry at
Speaker 1: the time, and in the past year and a half
Speaker 1: two years, we've come to understand that privacy is just
Speaker 1: one of four harms happening here. We have the damage
Speaker 1: to democracy, we have the damage to public health you know,
Speaker 1: kids and adults, and we have the damaged competition in
Speaker 1: addition to privacy. And they all come from this business
Speaker 1: model of surveillance capitalism, which is why you need to
Speaker 1: go at the root elements of it, algorithmic amplification, micro targeting,
Speaker 1: and then the opt out model. And oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: please no, it's just the thing I would just say
Speaker 1: to people is that I believe that technology is not
Speaker 1: the problem here. It's business models. And I don't think
Speaker 1: the people are bad people. They just have a different
Speaker 1: value system. They value efficiency more than anything else, which
Speaker 1: if you're an engineer makes sense, right, But when you
Speaker 1: apply that to society, you run up against the basic
Speaker 1: values of the Enlightenment, which is to say, democracy and
Speaker 1: self determination. Those are inherently inefficient. If everyone of us
Speaker 1: were forced to wear exactly the same clothes, that'd be
Speaker 1: super efficient, but that's totally un american. And if if
Speaker 1: everybody tells you how to vote, that would be very efficient,
Speaker 1: but un american. And my point here is we shouldn't
Speaker 1: have that. We can have tech coexist with society without
Speaker 1: doing harm. So I'm curious because you were an early
Speaker 1: mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, and now you're basically saying, here's
Speaker 1: this thing you created that has created an awful lot
Speaker 1: of problems. Do you guys have conversations? No? I wish seriously,
Speaker 1: if you could sit down with him, what would you say?
Speaker 1: I would say exactly what I just said. I would say, Mark,
Speaker 1: you can be the hero in your own story, because
Speaker 1: he can do more good by changing the business model
Speaker 1: of Facebook then he can with a thousand chan Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: Initiatives or any other foundation. The reality of this thing
Speaker 1: is that, for whatever reason, there's no one in his
Speaker 1: immediate orbit who has been able to give him perspective
Speaker 1: to understand this problem. And the same as true at Google,
Speaker 1: it's true at Amazon. It's true it to a lesser
Speaker 1: degree at Microsoft, and those are the four big players
Speaker 1: in surveillance capitalism. And again, I would love to talk
Speaker 1: to Mark, but I last communicated with him on the
Speaker 1: thirtieth of October when I warned him that I thought
Speaker 1: there was something catastrophic going on related to democracy and
Speaker 1: related to uh civil rights. And you know, he got
Speaker 1: right back to me. But they were incredibly dismissive. And
Speaker 1: I spent three months pleading with them privately that this
Speaker 1: was like the tail and all poisoning at Anson and Johnson,
Speaker 1: that there's one right answer, and that is to to
Speaker 1: work with the the authorities to find out what the
Speaker 1: problem was and do everything it can to protect the
Speaker 1: people who use your product. And for whatever reason, Facebook
Speaker 1: chose not to do that. Just got thirty seconds. How
Speaker 1: quickly do we catch up on the regulatory side is
Speaker 1: and and create those you know, like we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: people taking bad drugs. These things are not going to
Speaker 1: happen overnight, but they don't have to happen everywhere in
Speaker 1: the world at once. We can do one piece in
Speaker 1: many different jurisdictions and get the same effect. These guys
Speaker 1: are so automated that if you make a change in
Speaker 1: one jurisdiction, they will implement a global GDPR has had
Speaker 1: a profound impact everywhere. It didn't solve the problem because
Speaker 1: these guys were allowed to control the way people signed up,
Speaker 1: so they trick them into not signing up. But we can,
Speaker 1: we can solve this problem, but we gotta get on it.
Speaker 1: We have to make it an election issue because you
Speaker 1: can't solve climate change, you can't solve anti vacs, you
Speaker 1: can't solve gun violence until you get these guys not
Speaker 1: amp fly dangerous people the messages that get amplified. Right.
Speaker 1: What a pleasure. Thank you so much. Roger mcnamick, the
Speaker 1: founder of Elevation, part of his book Sucked Waking Up
Speaker 1: to the Facebook Catastrophe new paperback out February three. Pick
Speaker 1: it up, read it again. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. I've
Speaker 1: been so psyched about this conversation. I have to say
Speaker 1: I've been talking a bunch about it too everyone in
Speaker 1: the news room, because it's rare that you get to
Speaker 1: interact with the true sort of multi hyphen it in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And our next guest surely is
Speaker 1: that TV Jake's is the chairman of the TV Jake's Foundation.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk a lot about that. But he
Speaker 1: is by all accounts, sort of a mastermind, a pastor.
Speaker 1: He's got his hands in so many different pies. Really
Speaker 1: great to have you here with us in New York,
Speaker 1: So thank you. All right, So tell us about the foundation,
Speaker 1: because you are going after what I think is one
Speaker 1: of the most pressing issues of our day, which is
Speaker 1: sort of filling that gap between people who need to
Speaker 1: hire folks and folks who want jobs. It's it doesn't
Speaker 1: get much more complicated or simple than that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a very important issue, particularly with the disenfranchise. Whether
Speaker 1: you're talking about black, brown, or female, they're underrepresented, particularly
Speaker 1: in STEM programs, technological programs. The divide is so wide
Speaker 1: and the technology is moving so rapidly that that though
Speaker 1: we are at eight percent unemployment right now, we're scheduled
Speaker 1: to be at if we don't close that divide. With technology, science, technology, UH,
Speaker 1: engineering and math. We added another component to it from
Speaker 1: STEM to STEAM because the stats say that when you
Speaker 1: add the ARCH you are far more apt to get
Speaker 1: more people involved and it's kind of a gateway UH
Speaker 1: into studying technology. So that left right brain. You need
Speaker 1: it all right, I think to be really successful. Why
Speaker 1: are we still struggling with this, Bishop Jakes? Because I
Speaker 1: feel like we know there's a problem them about access
Speaker 1: uh and equality for everyone in terms of an education,
Speaker 1: especially for the stam or steam field. Um, why is
Speaker 1: it still a problem? Because the where's we get it?
Speaker 1: We know there's a problem. Schools are working on scholarships,
Speaker 1: but it's still is a problem. The arts have been
Speaker 1: underfunded in school. That's one of the problems that we
Speaker 1: have to face. The other problem is in no part
Speaker 1: of our labs have we caught up with technology, which
Speaker 1: is moving so rapidly. Our laws have not caught up
Speaker 1: with technology. So that's a real problem. And then when
Speaker 1: you start thinking about our laws not catching up, our
Speaker 1: job searchers have not caught up with them, and into
Speaker 1: the culture and the fabric of people outside of Silicone
Speaker 1: Valley and pockets of technology, there's an indifference to the
Speaker 1: subject as if we uh, it's an optional issue, when
Speaker 1: in fact it is not optional at all, and people
Speaker 1: who don't get in are going to be left behind
Speaker 1: in a way that I think is going to be tragic,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be detrimental to the country. And
Speaker 1: so how do you make that case to business leaders, because,
Speaker 1: as we've seen with something like climate change, business leaders
Speaker 1: only really engage when they feel like there's an existential threat.
Speaker 1: Are they sensing that at this point? How do you
Speaker 1: make the case to those leaders? You know a lot
Speaker 1: of them, Yes, I know a lot of them, And
Speaker 1: a lot of companies today are focusing on diversity and inclusion,
Speaker 1: and so it's not a hard case to make to
Speaker 1: them that there is a need to do that. And
Speaker 1: in many instances the criteria requires that in order to
Speaker 1: do business, that your boards and that your company be
Speaker 1: more diversified than ever before. However, there's still a great
Speaker 1: divide when it comes to how do I get in
Speaker 1: touch with the people. Great programs are out there, but
Speaker 1: the people who need to know about the programs don't
Speaker 1: hear the information. Interesting, so, just because you put something
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal doesn't mean that it reached
Speaker 1: the underserved communities. And so we want to be a
Speaker 1: liaison and a bridge to help facilitate accessing those talents
Speaker 1: that do exist in cultivating those that do not. And
Speaker 1: so how do you how do you get that message out?
Speaker 1: What's the mechanism that you have to get in there.
Speaker 1: About thirty thousand members in my church and almost thirty
Speaker 1: million people on my social media database creates, uh, my
Speaker 1: own media hub within itself. I just want to say
Speaker 1: stop right there, because Jason and I are just struggling
Speaker 1: with a few thousand people. So we just later on
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk and you're gonna but that's a great platform,
Speaker 1: and can I just want to say something you talked
Speaker 1: about diversity and inclusion. Someone said to me diversity is
Speaker 1: getting an invitation to the party. Inclusion is being asked
Speaker 1: to dance, and I thought that is such a telling thing.
Speaker 1: It's not just about being brought in, but you've got
Speaker 1: to be asked to do a significant role, right. It's
Speaker 1: got to be deeper and and in this case, you
Speaker 1: may be prepared to do mentoring programs to teach me
Speaker 1: how to dance, because a lot of people are underqualified
Speaker 1: for these positions, and we have to rethink how we educate,
Speaker 1: how we implement, how we mentor how we develop if
Speaker 1: inclusion is really the goal that we have, and I
Speaker 1: hope that it is, because we have right now today
Speaker 1: seven hundred thousand jobs that are available right now in
Speaker 1: tech industry that we don't have anybody to feel. And
Speaker 1: when you look at that and you understand that we
Speaker 1: have twenty three percent of African Americans are living below
Speaker 1: the poverty line, then that's an opportunity. It's either either
Speaker 1: a disaster or an opportunity. So here we are in
Speaker 1: a political year. Are politicians listening because are we are
Speaker 1: is that they'll talk about jobs. Is that pool of
Speaker 1: workers better off today than they were? You know, I
Speaker 1: used to think like that. I used to think that
Speaker 1: it was about the politicians, But I am totally convinced
Speaker 1: that it is not about the politicians totally. I think
Speaker 1: they need to have a seat at the table. Four
Speaker 1: different entities need to have a seat at the table,
Speaker 1: especially for the African American community. Faith leaders need to
Speaker 1: be included at the table because we are the gateway
Speaker 1: to the community. And most CEOs don't understand that they
Speaker 1: are so afraid of faith because they're in the mainstream world.
Speaker 1: They don't understand that the churches up to our community.
Speaker 1: The politicians do because anytime they want, they're showing up
Speaker 1: a lot on Sunday. Right up on Sunday just happened
Speaker 1: to be in the neighborhood. But the CEOs are just
Speaker 1: coming into an awareness that we can be an asset
Speaker 1: and a facilitator, that we can market their jobs, that
Speaker 1: we can do things and they work it. We just
Speaker 1: got about thirty seconds. Are they reaching out to you
Speaker 1: and say, let's fix this. I'm seeing some progress in
Speaker 1: that regard our Texas or Finders Reentry initiative taken twenty
Speaker 1: three thousand formally incarcerated and worked them through the system.
Speaker 1: And we've been partnering with companies like A T and
Speaker 1: T said down with Randall Stevenson, he gets it. Several
Speaker 1: others are starting to get it. We just want to
Speaker 1: be a bridge between those who have the need and
Speaker 1: those who have the opportunity. We are just delighted you
Speaker 1: stop by to see us, Bishop Jakes, and really look
Speaker 1: forward to spending more time with you and understanding come
Speaker 1: back to start figuring out how this initiative goes. T. D. Jakes,
Speaker 1: Chairman of the T. D. Jakes Foundation. As I said,
Speaker 1: so much more than a multi hyphen it one of
Speaker 1: the most influential voices certainly across the country.