When big companies are hacked, should they have to disclose it immediately?

“It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.”

That old truism from the Watergate affair also applies to the scandals plaguing some of the world’s biggest tech companies, says NYU professor Scott Galloway. On the latest episode of Pivot, he and Recode’s Kara Swisher talked about the Google+ hack that the company sat on for months and did not disclose until the Wall Street Journal came knocking.

“This is probably why [Google] didn’t show up for the Senate hearings,” Galloway said. “What if someone had said to them, ‘Are you aware of any hacks?’ Do they perjure themselves, or do they release that data in front of Congress, in front of national TV?”

Swisher said the incident makes the internet bill of rights drafted by Democrats in Congress even more relevant. One of the proposed rights that Rep. Ro Khanna discussed on a recent episode of Recode Decode is the right of consumers to be notified in a timely fashion in the event of a security breach.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, it’s not used that much,’” she said of Google+, which the company now plans to shut down. “But 500,000 people ... Google not protecting your data, really, is the point. And then not telling you about these breaches to me is again the same problem, that there is not a federal law that requires immediate disclosure of these hacks.”

You can listen to Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway wherever you get your podcasts — including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Overcast.

Below, we’ve shared a full transcript of Kara and Scott’s latest episode.

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Kara Swisher: Hi everyone, this is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I’m Kara Swisher, founder of Recode.

Scott Galloway: And I’m Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU. Today, Kara, I’m bringing you Jared Kushner-like “hidden genius,” so get ready.

You’re in Florida today, is that right? How’s the weather? You’re expecting a storm, right?

Yeah. Fortunately, we’re on the east coast so it’s not a big deal. But obviously, our good wishes go out to the folks in the Panhandle.

Absolutely, absolutely. It got a little scarier than we thought. This is part ... You know, it was interesting because there was a climate change report that President Trump completely ignored this week, but it seems like this is what it’s been predicting, these kind of massive storms just happening one after the next.

And it’s always the stuff you’re not expecting, right?

Right.

I mean, the last thing got a ton of hype, nothing, and then this just kinda snuck up on us.

Well, it only takes one, Scott, in these storms. I don’t mind if it gets hype and is a letdown.

But in any case, there’s been a lot of storms across the tech and media landscape this week. I hate to make a horrible metaphor thing, but there’s been a lot going on. It’s been another bad week for tech, which is really kind of fascinating that it just ... You can’t cut a break on anything, but it doesn’t also deserve a break.

The Google Hack

The first one, obviously, is the Google data breach of Google Plus. It feels like every week these days there’s a story about a data breach; last week Facebook was under fire, and continues to be under fire, and this week it’s Google. So what do you think about this?

Google Plus, half a million people got their data hacked. And by the way, Kara, remember how awesome Google Plus used to be?

No, I do not.

Yeah, neither does anyone else.

Right, right.

That’s my big joke.

Right, okay.

So like most scandal, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. Because when you think about 500,000 people, that is literally amateur hour in the world of Facebook; add a couple zeroes and you’re talking about the Facebook hack, so it’s not the hack itself. The strange thing here is that six months ago — it happened six months ago — and this is probably why they didn’t show up for the senate hearings, because ...

Oh really? Yeah, because they didn’t want to talk about it.

Well, think about it: What if someone had said to them, “Are you aware of any hacks?” Do they perjure themselves, or do they release that data in front of Congress, in front of national TV? So I don’t ... And a decent question for you or anyone else in the media that talks to these guys is, the next time they speak to anyone from Google, to ask them, “Are there any hacks you know about that we don’t?”

Right, exactly. You know, people have been sort of making a joke about Google Plus; nobody used it, and by the way, nobody used it. You know, Google’s been trying very hard to get into the social space for many years a couple years ago, and they were essentially creating a social network for antisocial people and by antisocial people. And they weren’t successful.

They tried Orkut first, if you remember Orkut, which was a guy who worked for Google, and it was popular in Brazil for a millisecond, and it may still be. And then Google Plus, which was run by someone named Vic Gundotra, and again it didn’t work at all and it couldn’t keep up with Facebook; they sort of had Facebook envy. And then nobody used it because it was just a terrible social network. It had circles that I never understood. If you recall, it was all these weird circles and different weird things like that, because of Google, I guess, with the Os.

But what was really fascinating about it is everyone’s like, “Oh, it’s not used that much,” but 500,000 people still ... Google not protecting your data, really, is the point. And then not telling you about these breaches to me is again the same problem, that there is not a federal law that requires immediate disclosure of these hacks, which I think was among the Internet Bill of Rights that I wrote about last week in the Times. That they have to immediately disclose these things, they have to be required by law to do so.

And it looks as if we’re headed that way, right? What’s your sense of this regulation in California? What have you heard? I read somewhere that Representative Khanna actually showed you a draft of the legislation.

He did, he did. It’s not legislation, it’s an Internet Bill of Rights, and then you make and craft your legislation out of it. You know, there’s all kinds of ... It’s a whole grab bag of things from net neutrality to privacy to data protection to ... All kinds of things.

And one of the Bill of Rights, I think it was number seven or eight, was the idea that you have to immediately disclose these hacks. And that could be legislation by itself; it’s not gonna be one big giant legislative mass, it’s going to be a series of them.

And I talked to Nancy Pelosi, who would be the Speaker of the House if the Democrats won ... But of course, they may not have the Senate, so this may go nowhere. But she was talking about the fact that they were going to craft some sort of legislation.

Until then, California and Europe are the places where this is happening. California’s been super aggressive and has passed a privacy bill, it’s passed a diversity on boards bill, net neutrality. So this is gonna be a really interesting time to see what states are gonna probably put into place things to control these companies.

Do you worry, Kara, that inadvertently this legislation or this type of regulation might in fact end up emboldening or empowering the companies it’s meant to curb? That really it hurts the middle guy?

Yeah, it does.

... the mid-sized company that doesn’t have an estimated budget ...

A lawyer.

... of six or eight billion dollars to comply with this stuff?

Yes, I do. That’s one of the big things. That’s one of the arguments of the big companies: “Don’t do it because we have lawyers.” I don’t know if that’s the ... You know, I think it’s gotta be crafted in such a way to protect smaller companies. And that’s definitely the case, they don’t have the ability. Like at GD[PR] … you know, all the stuff in Europe. It’s problematic for small companies, so it would hinder innovation. And the argument from these big companies is this is gonna hit ... You know, China doesn’t have to deal with these things. Well, China’s run by a president for life, so I guess it doesn’t.

Like Facebook?

Yeah, exactly. Oh my God. Scott, you were waiting for that one.

By the way, we’ll have Xi for 20 years because of biology; we’re gonna have the Zuck for 70 years.

You’re right. That’s a fair point.

All right, in any case, they’ve gotta do something about this and there’s gotta be real payment for what’s going on here. It’s going back to the Yahoo thing, the Equifax thing; it’s just, you put your data online at great risk, and these companies are making billions of dollars off you, and they’re not protecting your privacy, and that’s just pretty much the situation going on.

What was also interesting is you see big tech is now actually warming to the idea of federal regulation because of the transaction costs of dealing with a bunch of statewide regulations.

Yeah, yeah. And then they can water it down because, you know, people in Washington. But you know, Mark Warner has issued some very strong statements. We’ll see where it goes.

Facebook Portal

And speaking of privacy, the Facebook Portal this week! Another product that is gonna sort of be like Google Plus to me. Joining the Portal game, which is a word we don’t use anymore ... It used to be Yahoo was a portal, and Excite was a portal, and stuff like that, and they’re re-taking this word up, Portal. And now they’re creating this device, and it has Amazon in it. What do you think of this? Are you buying one?

I thought this was fascinating because, you know, “I want a camera in my house controlled by Facebook,” said no one ever. And actually, if you’ve looked at the product feedback, I think the product development folks at Facebook did a great job. My gut here is that it’s a great product. I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the automatic framing it does.

I have.

The notion, and it’s a genius notion, of not having a video conference with someone but feeling as if you’re in the room with them. Even little things like syncing music on both ends so you can enjoy music together. I think this is a great product, but here’s the problem: It’s from Mark Zuckerberg.

Yeah.

And the most telling thing about this product is it has a plastic lens cap. There are 150 million iPhones sold every year, no one’s demanded a plastic lens cap on that. There are 15 million cars sold each year and most of them have a camera in the rear license plate; no one’s demanded a plastic lens cap there. But Facebook comes out with something and ...

It knows.

... basically the product development people said, “You know what, nobody trusts you. You’ve gotta make it really obvious that people can protect themselves.”

Well, Mark has one on his camera at work. I took a picture once ...

A piece of tape.

Yes, a piece of tape. Yeah, and he has it there. He also has it over the speaker too, so he’s well aware of privacy issues, which is interesting, and I’ve talked to him about it before. Because I have one on my computer, too. I don’t have one on my phone, I probably should.

It’s a really interesting question because I think you’re right, it’s a beautiful product, but there’s a lot of issues. I’ve seen reviews back and forth in that it’s sort of old school where you stay in a kitchen and stay there while you’re talking to people, and that’s not really a use case, necessarily. So I think that’ll matter more than anything else, if people really want to sit in their kitchen and talk to people, or be present.

Telepresence, which has been bandied about by Silicon Valley ... Cisco had a telepresence thing, everyone’s tried this idea of the telepresence, and eventually it’s a great idea where it’ll seem like your parents are there, or your cousin, whoever you want to talk to, are right there when you’re talking to them. And that’ll be interesting someday, and this is a step towards it, but I just don’t see ... It’s sort of like the Facebook phone, if you recall the Facebook phone; again, nobody wanted it ever. Why do you have to have a Facebook phone versus just a phone that has Facebook on it?

So I think it’s an interesting thing, but it’s not ... I can’t imagine it’s going to take off in any way whatsoever. Kind of like the HP iPod. Do you remember that?

I did not know there was a ... I know that there was a Zune. I remember the Zune.

The Zune was different. That was a really awful device by Microsoft trying to copy the iPod. But there was an HP version, a branded version, of the iPod. And Carly Fiorina, who was the CEO at the time, touted it as “innovation at HP,” and I was like, “You just colored an iPod red with HP on it.” It was just odd.

So I don’t know. I just don’t think this is a product anybody’s waiting for, and especially right now where we don’t feel like Facebook has our privacy back in any way, that we want any device of theirs in the house. I don’t want the Amazon one in the house; I don’t want the Google one in the house at this point.

Oh, the Amazon one is awesome.

It is awesome. I have it, I have it. I just turn it off all the time.

It’s incredible.

I just turn it off all the time. It is, it is.

A couple really interesting things that’ll happen here, or won’t happen: One is, if this thing gets any traction, then all the barking at the moon that we do, all the headline news about our concerns, are overblown.

It’s not gonna get traction. I’m gonna go out there with that: It’s not gonna get traction.

Fair enough. But if it does, it means all of this privacy concern that we’re upset about hasn’t gained traction in the consumer community.

I think you’re wrong. I think people are very aware of it. Regular people talk to me about it every day; like they understand.

You speak to regular people?

I talk to regular people all the time. They get it.

And the other thing is, what I was really hoping would happen today is I was hoping Amazon would take a page out of Facebook in terms of what they’ve done to Snap and announce the exact same features in the next Amazon Show.

Oh, that would be funny.

Right? Just say, “Okay, we’re learning from you, Facebook.”

But the Echo, it’s in there. Amazon’s Alexa is in there. You’re not buying it, the Portal. Right? Correct?

Oh, no. I hate Facebook. I mean, I’m even ... I think anyone that’s suffered ... anyone that ...

That’s a no. That’s a hard no then.

Other than ruining America, I’m onboard with the company.

Yeah. Okay. Hard no. Hard no.

I hope this is a big thud.

Yeah. Okay. Good. Okay. Good then. Okay. Well, good wishes towards you, Mark Zuckerberg.

Wins of the Week: Taylor Swift and Nikki Haley

Okay. Wins of the week. There’s so many to think about. I am going to go first. I am going to go first on this one, on wins of the week, is Taylor Swift. I love Taylor Swift. I’m not going to pretend I don’t like Taylor Swift. I’m not going to say, “Oh, she’s annoying, but I sometimes ...” I love Taylor Swift. Everything about her cracks me up.

And this week, she went, Instagrammed, that millennials should vote. And she was saying she backed the Democratic candidate in Tennessee, where she’s from. And all of a sudden, everyone signed up to vote, which I thought was fantastic. And so I’m really interested in this sort of Kanye-Taylor fight, again because Kanye’s on the Trump side and Taylor now is on the other. So it’s the Tay-ye, whatever, ye, whatever fight. And I really like that she did this.

Yeah. It’s nice.

I like that she used her power for good, in this case.

Have you been to a Taylor Swift concert?

No, I ... yes, I have. That’s not true. I have seen her sing when I was in an iHeartRadio thing, and she was absolutely fantastic. She’s a great performer.

Yeah. In a word, awesome. And not only that, it’s a concert you can take your kids to.

Well, my favorite part of the whole concert was when she finished her song, and then she took this long bow, and then they weren’t clapping enough. And she put her hands up. She’s like, “More clapping, please.” And everyone did. They went crazy. And I loved her for that. I thought, “Oh, man. I love this woman. She’s great.”

Yeah, that’s nice. That’s nice.

So it was interesting to use the power of digital to do this. And not many people can do this, but she certainly, obviously, showed that she could.

Yeah. And supposedly voter registration is up, so it’s having an impact.

Yeah. Well, we’ll see where it goes, but it’s interesting that she’s done it. A lot of these celebrities are stepping out politically, much more. Everybody is, in that regard.

What is your win of the week?

Oh, hands down, biggest winner of the week, hands down, and probably of the month, Nikki Haley.

Nikki Haley? Why? Why? Tell me.

Oh, my gosh. She’s getting out of Dodge with her reputation intact. I mean, working in the Trump administration means A) you’re likely going to jail, or B) your reputation is going to be severely tarnished. She comes out, she exits the administration with probably the best brand in politics.

In my opinion, if you were to bet on anybody who will likely be president at some point, it’s probably her.

Why is that? That’s a prediction, along with your win of the week. Why so? Why so?

She’s the perfect blend of kind of gangster strong, communicates leadership, strength, and I think that brand, mixed with the Republican ideology in a cocktail, is a pretty good mix. I think she’s a player and a comer. Yeah, Nikki Haley.

Oh, really? Interesting. Interesting. See, I heard different things back and forth all week, whether she was really good at politics. She did sort of effusively compliment him on the way up, but then someone else who’s here in Washington told me that what she’s going to do then is take potshots from the sidelines. So now she has permission to take sort of ... on certain issues around women and other issues that would be strong for her.

I think it gives her permission to run in 2020 if things really come off the rails.

Oh, really? Do you think they will? Are you still on that game? I don’t think so.

Well, they are.

Really? I don’t know.

I think they are.

I don’t know.

Analytical.

These people, they seem to survive.

Anand Giridharadas and the problem with elites

So speaking of being a total kiss-ass, you know what the best thing I read this week was?

What?

The writeup of your interview with Anand — and I’m going to massacre his name — the author, talking about ...

Yes, Anand. Yes. Yes. About elites.

Oh, my gosh. I thought that was fantastic.

Thank you.

Just the notion ... this guy is my new hero. The notion that we — basically TED and Davos and the Aspen Institute — invite all these “arsonists,” all these people who created these problems because they’re the ones that can fix them. And that these people need ... these individuals, mostly tech billionaires, need to be more reflective about not only enjoying questions about what can they do moving forward, but how did we get here and what was their role in that. I thought this guy, he is ...

Right. Right. He compared it to a crime scene, which I thought was really fantastic. They want to pretend that a crime didn’t take place, and they wouldn’t ...

Yeah. They show up and say, “Well, what’s happened here has happened. Let’s put this behind us and let’s move on. Let’s talk about making sure this doesn’t happen again.”

One of the things that I ... what I’m thinking about is that they’re also victim-y. I’ve recently been pretty tough on them, and they’re like, “You’re so mean.” And I’m like, “You’re like a bunch of sore winners.”

It reminds me of the Trump ... the Trump people won Kavanaugh, and then they had to be mean. I was like, “Sore winners, once again.” And I think tech people are the same way. They’ve won on every account, and then when you call them to task for a couple things, as Anand did, they get all tetchy. “Well, we’ll take our money and go.” Or, “Don’t you appreciate us?”

”We’re done. We’re done.”

Yeah, which is like, “No. We really don’t appreciate you.” But I agree. It’s a great book. It’s about elites, and it’s well worth listening to the podcast, but it’s also well worth buying the book. And we’ll see where we go from there, if they listen to what he has to say.

That’ll happen.

Yeah. They will. They might.

I’m sure it’s a moment of reflection.

Yeah. They get testy. I am on the receiving end of testy phone calls from tech people all week long for some reason, like, “Oh, you’ve been very grumpy.”

What’s been the worst one? What’s been the ... take angry times famous, who wins?

They’re just so whiny. I just don’t ... “You’re so mean. Don’t be so hard on us.” And I’m like, “You know what? I’m gonna. I’m just not going to stop, you...” The message they should have gotten is, “We have to fix something.” And the message they’ve gotten is, “Poor little me.” And I’m not clear why that’s the case.

What Anand was talking about is, “Let’s be reflective of our impact and figure out ways that maybe you should listen to people more.” And instead it’s, “Well, we’re trying to help,” that kind of thing. It’s just ... what’s the ... they’re just all ... I just can’t ... I’m so now over it. I just can’t even ... I just can’t ... I can’t ... I just hang up. I just hang up. That’s what I do. I just hang up now.

You’re done.

I’m done.

Do you really hang up on those guys?

I’m calling around a lot because of this murder of the Saudi journalist by the Saudis, it looks like. And according to some of the investigation, some of the reporting, this Washington Post columnist, and there’s a lot of money from Saudi Arabia within ... from Saudi Arabia in Silicon Valley. It’s like awash in Saudi money.

And I’m trying to get any of them to say anything, and they’re like, “Well, we really can’t say anything.” And I’m like, “You’ve got to be kidding.” And now I realize, they don’t care. They don’t care. They just take the money, and that this regime is possibly doing this doesn’t seem ... I can’t get anyone to comment, let’s just say. I can’t get anyone to comment.

And what would you have them do?

Comment. “This is terrible. And if they did this, we have to think hard about the investments these people are making.” Something. Anything. Anything that’s human. So anything human would be nice.

A pulse? Something?

A pulse. Anyway, on that horrible note, we’re going to take one more quick break, and we’ll be right back with some predictions.

Predictions: Sniper retail acquisitions and techlash

Welcome back to Pivot with Scott Galloway and myself, Kara Swisher. So predictions, predictions, Scott. You have to have some. We have to have some every week, and you have to be right.

There you go. And by the way, I’ve been remarkably ...

You weren’t right about the Facebook stock again, by the way.

Oh, my God. I’ve been remarkably wrong about that. I said that Amazon ...

Wrong. All of tech stocks are getting hit.

Yeah. I said Amazon was going to pass Apple. I’ve just been hugely wrong. So my predictions ...

All right. Try again.

Yeah. Trying to get back in your good graces. I think that some of these sniper retail concepts are going to be acquired in the short term.

Explain that. Explain that.

Well, there’s a couple trends in retail. One is sort of this Ritalin retail, these Pop-Up Museums, the Frosé Mansion, the Museum of Pizza, which really play on this trend in retail of scarcity. And it’s not that these museums are great. It’s that, one, they offer a giant Instagram moment, and two, you know they’re going away in 90 days, so everybody should go.

Oh, wow.

And I think that’s largely indicative of sort of this Ritalin generation, and where retail needs to head, fast-fashion creating a sense of retail.

The other kind of trend in retail is sniper retail, where you find a category where they’re fat and happy and incumbent, whether it’s Bausch & Lomb, or Labelux with Warby Parker, or the mattress industry, which was literally asleep, so to speak, and you have Casper, and then the luggage industry, which basically had Samsonite, and Tumi, and maybe Rimowa, and went Away. So my prediction is that Casper and/or Away gets acquired in the next three to six months.

That’s interesting. By whom?

There’s already been some reports that Walmart is sniffing around. Walmart has figured out that the way to kind of push back on big tech is to grab the mic back, and one of the best press releases that sort of says, “We get it,” is these acquisitions, whether it’s Jet or Bonobos. And I said that I thought Jet was a ridiculous acquisition at three and a half billion dollars, but the reality was it gave them the opportunity to say that their e-commerce was growing 40 to 60 percent year on year for four quarters in a row.

So if they can pick these things up as maybe ... Amazon announced they were getting the mattresses, which means Casper’s value got cut in half the next day, in the same fashion that any industry’s value gets cut anywhere between 10 and 40 percent when Amazon just hints that they’re going into it.

Right.

I think Casper actually is probably a little more open to being acquired right now. I think that would be the smartest thing they could do.

And there’s a couple of ... There’s Purple, there’s Casper, there’s a whole bunch of them in this industry.

Thread and Needle.

Thread and — Tuft and Needle.

It’s just incredible.

Tough to name all of them, yeah. They’re all very interesting because I have to say, it is a terrible experience, mattress buying, and they did change it. The question is, can they operate on their own or do they have to be part of a bigger organization?

It’s interesting, because I had dinner recently with the CEO of Walmart, and he’s quite aware of his need to do this. He’s quite aware of the importance and trying to figure out how they can compete, which is kind of odd to think about Walmart being on the back foot on anything, but they are, for sure.

That is an excellent prediction. I like that prediction. I think that’s a really good one.

Yeah, you’re into that?

I like that one.

Thanks so much.

I think you’re right. I think you’re right.

Well, it’s like Eisenhower said, it’s not ... plans are worthless, but planning is invaluable. I think predicting ... or predictions are worthless, but predicting is a lot of fun.

I have a question for you in a prediction. Which of the big tech companies a year on from now has ... looking back, has gotten beaten up the worst?

Oh, Facebook.

Facebook?

Yeah.

Both in terms of usage, not only regulation, but in terms of the actual underlying performance of the company, you think this is starting to seep into the company?

I think so. I think so. I think they’re really ... Yeah, I do. I think a lot of people ... They’ve shown blood, I guess. Do you know what I mean? They’re still enormous and they’re still growing like crazy, but there’s something off. I think probably Facebook. Yeah.

Google just has now finally been drawn into this and it hadn’t been before, but between China and this breach, they had sort of skulked away from some of the responsibility here and I think they’re ... but the two of them, I think.

I think Apple is just fine. It’s just a question of creating great products or continuing to create great products there. They certainly got dinged in this hacking thing, but they fought back pretty hard and so did Amazon against this Bloomberg story about there being an errant chip in there, in the boards that are having to do with their technology.

That was scary.

That was. If true. It’s not ... they’ve been pretty adamant that it’s not true, so that’s an interesting thing developing. We’ll see where Apple goes from there on that issue.

Would Apple or Google buy Tesla?

So not a prediction, but a thesis and I want you to respond.

All right.

The lack of self control, the id on steroids, the weak board that is Tesla. Stock gets cut in half from here, which I think makes it, I don’t know, 20 or 30 billion market cap.

Yeah.

Apple steps in and buys it.

I’m surprised somebody hasn’t stepped in.

Apple steps in and buys it.

Yeah.

What do you think?

No.

No.

No.

Why?

I don’t know, I just can’t see those guys ... I can see those guys getting in a room and going ... I know them pretty well, and being like, “No, we can’t.”

What about Google? Get a jump on self-drive?

Yeah, maybe, but again, it’s who’s gonna do it? Is it Sundar? They’ve got enough stuff going on that it’s sort of who ... sure. Sure, Google would be ... Apple and Google would be the purchasers, it’s just like, would you take that on right now? It’s a level of exhaustion, talk about execution. It’s a lot. It’s a lot, and the issue is can we do it ourselves, slower but better, kind of stuff? Maybe one of the big carmakers might ... that’s a lot of money for them.

They can’t afford it.

Yeah.

They can’t afford it.

That’s a lot of money.

Because they’re valued like car companies, for some reason. Tesla isn’t.

I would question ... I would wonder, what does it buy them? Besides a lot ... remember when everyone thought everyone was gonna buy Twitter? I kept saying, “No. It’s too much. There’s just too much hair on that dog,” kind of thing. And I think that’s the issue, is the level of ... I just don’t see it. I just don’t see it.

But, you know, it’s a good idea. But it’s ... it’s also a lot of money. Could they get it that way elsewhere without that and just make Tesla one of these pioneers that either did or didn’t make it? Let it go. What does it buy you?

It’s not a lot of money for Apple. If the stock gets cut in half, it’s at 20 billion, 50 percent premium, that’s a 3 percent dilution.

I can’t think of one person who could run that there, and I can’t see him being comfortably within Apple.

And they’re not that acquisitive.

They’re not at all. They’re very controlled about what they do. They just ... I can see them just going ... I can see Tim going, “No.” I just see it. You know what I mean? “No. Let’s just focus over here,” kind of thing. And I think they pulled back a little bit in their car stuff.

Google has ... Google has let go a lot of really great people who worked there. They’ve let people come and go so I wonder where the commitment to cars ... it is but it ... you know what I mean? Who’s the driver of the commitment? Larry’s over making hovercrafts. Sergey, who knows where he is? You know what I mean? Sundar has got his hands full, so who? Who’s the person who’s gonna be that person?

Diane Greene’s busy with the Cloud. Susan’s busy over at YouTube. I wonder who would be the executive. That’s all. I think about the people and I can’t think of any of them that would be any good at it. But maybe, who knows? Who knows? It’s just ... I don’t know. Someone’s gonna win here, it’s just a question of who it is and it’s gonna be a long time from now.

Kavanaugh and Melania Trump

Anyway, Scott, I think we’ve covered a lot today. Did we miss anything? I think that’s it. I think we covered ...

What was your least favorite thing or the thing you hated most about the Kavanaugh hearings?

Melania Trump and her appalling statement about hard evidence. I literally don’t even know what to say.

Just when they were completely appalling, she drops the most appalling thing. I think I ... it seems like the Stockholm Syndrome has really taken effect with her rather significantly.

And do you think Ivanka is gonna be the new ambassador to the UN?

No. I do not. I think probably it’s gonna be Dina Powell, if she wants it.

Yeah. Isn’t Ivanka just her father if he drank water and had a bigger wig?

I’m not gonna comment on that. She’s not gonna be the UN ambassador.

By the way, that is a line from my favorite comedian, Michelle Wolf, who is the next ex-Mrs. Galloway, she just doesn’t know it yet.

Okay. All right.

She is my hero.

She is.

She is incredible. Do you know her?

I’ve never met her.

I think she wants to ... I think she wants to know me.

Okay. All right.

I have that sense.

We’ll find out.

I saw her in a ... don’t try and segue.

I’m gonna stop it. I’m gonna stop this right now, Scott.

I was in Washington Square Park and I saw her with my boys, and I screamed, “You’re a genius,” and she literally ran from me.

Oh really?

Literally ran.

That’s good. That is an excellent response by Michelle.

So that means she has good judgment. She has good judgment.

If I see her, I will tell her to stay away from you.

Funny and good judgment.

I’ll give her a little picture to hold and say, “This guy’s a stalker.” It will be good. It will be good.

Wait. So my least favorite thing about the Kavanaugh hearings?

What?

Can I just tell you?

Yes, go ahead. That’s what you wanted. You didn’t really want to know what I ...

No, no, no. I listen to respond, not to learn, Kara. So, Susan Collins and this whole notion of presumption of innocence. Presumption of innocence is this really important construct used in courts of law for a thousand years and it’s used as a means to determine whether people get to join the three million people who are incarcerated. It’s not a construct of a job interview.

Yep. Agree.

My kids’ school is interviewing a headmaster, and the notion that we wouldn’t pick somebody because, let’s say, “Well, we have to assume anything bad about him is not true unless it’s proven,” where did the presumption of innocence come in when we’re trying to find out if someone should wear the most ... one of the nine most important robes in the world.

Well, they turned it into a court of law, didn’t they? That’s what they’re doing.

That term should have never been injected into this whole process.

That’s because it’s easy to understand by regular people. Like, oh, guilty and ...

Who you speak to.

I do, all the time. Anyway, it was great talking to you. Stay safe in the hurricane.

Thank you, Kara.

Keep yourselves safe.

Thanks very much.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.