- I love all the people protesting Facebook on Instagram.
We prove as humans all the time how we think about privacy
which is, we love to talk about it, but we don't fear it
as much, because the underlining issue is,
the amount of bad things that happen to the health
and wellbeing of our family, or having our money stolen
is extremely far and few between.
- [Emily] You bought Facebook stock on the back
of this drop, how much did you buy, and why?
- I bought a couple hundred thousand dollars worth
of shares, I bought some more this morning.
Because I'm a long-term believer in the stock and I don't
think there's gonna be a lot of moments over the next
three to four years, outside of macroeconomics, that
I'm gonna be able to take advantage of it.
I don't tend to buy a lot of publicly traded stocks.
My original Facebook came pre-IPO but, when it got hit
when all the Cambridge Analytica stuff happened
and Mark was on trial I bought a ton.
Then obviously off the missing numbers or news recently,
I've been buying up a little bit more.
Mainly because I think in the next four, seven, nine, 13, 26
years it's a good buy.
- So, it's interesting, then that is a big bet,
Roger McNmee, early Facebook investor, who I'm sure
you know has been out there
very publicly critical of Facebook.
He compared Facebook to Phillip Morris to me,
in terms of Facebook's negative impact on the world.
What about concerns about fake news?
What about online hate? What about concerns about privacy?
- I think there is a stunning non-conversation about
taking on some sense of responsibility, meaning sure
but choosing CNN or Fox or MSNBC has
as many dynamics as what you're seeing in your feed, and
then more poorly what you're choosing to consume as real.
I mean to me the thought that Facebook is any different
than Twitter or Instagram, which obviously they own,
or websites or a million different ways we consume
is kind of laughable and silly: I mean visa, and target,
and the American government itself has had breaches
of information far more dramatic.
So, (clicks tongue) I understand the concept,
but I think making a jump from Phillip Morris,
which systematically spent lobbying dollars
and tried to pay off politicians for four to five decades to
suppress information, is an awfully big jump by that person.
- Okay, but what about profitability versus privacy?
Will one always trump the other?
And can we actually trust Facebook?
- I have no problem trusting Facebook any more than
I trust any other company on earth.
Profitability and privacy is kind of funny to me.
We choose to do convenience over profitability
every day of the week.
And privacy, I mean the way we pick privacy
on a pedestal is almost nonexistent in our actions.
Every person watching this right now gives up privacy
every day for convenience and speed.
Whether it's gonna be Amazon, Google, or Apple, or Facebook,
or any of these companies that sit as a layer on top
of the internet, we have shown through our actions
over the last 30 years, and continue to,
with the usage of Instagram and others.
I love all the people protesting Facebook on Instagram.
We prove as humans all the time how we think about privacy,
which is we love to talk about it, but we don't fear
it as much because the underlining issue is the amount
of bad things that happen to the health and well-being
of our family or having our money stolen
is extremely far and few between.
- What about the forces that may be bigger than us?
The fact that Russia tried to hack our elections,
using Facebook, and there's evidence that they're doing
it again to sew discord.
Has Facebook done enough to
prevent itself from being weaponized?
- Facebook, this network, Fox, CNN, Twitter,
it's all the same game where I think about it
from a macro, which is we make decisions.
Facebook or the Russians didn't make us pull for Trump
or Hillary, so, I think the information that people are
buying ads and running them in our screens is
very interesting because, if you look at the execution
of people that run political ads, the cost of penetrating
somebody with a different opinion versus one that already
reinforces your stance is where this starts
getting far more interesting.
I think this is one of the great examples in human time
of us not interested in accountability.
Facebook didn't make you a racist,
you made yourself a racist.
- [Emily] So let's talk about Twitter.
Because you use Twitter a lot, we saw the same huge dip
on the back of Twitter earnings and it's very clear
that Twitter is just not in a high growth state.
They've hit a plateau, in fact they actually
lost users over the last quarter.
The influences there, the President of the United States
is using it as his megaphone but it's not the next Facebook.
- No, but it was never the next Facebook
and the truth is Facebook is pfft, all encompassing
with Instagram and who knows what Mark and Cheryl and
the team is up to on their next M & A
or innovation gotwhats app.
It is not the next Facebook, I assume it's not priced
on wall street in the same manner.
I will say this, if you look very closely to Moon Pie,
which is a small snack brand, if you look at Wendy's,
I will say the business world is starting to understand
how to use Facebook to drive business.
We're working with Kraft Heinz on Miracle Whip.
It stuns me how much Twitter is the back bone
of driving sales at Albertson's and Wal Mart.
So I will say that maybe the width of attention
on Twitter is not growing to a stock market's want and needs
but, the depth of attention in the platform
and the ways to maneuver in it and it's ad product.
I've been, over the last three to four years,
quite critical and not excited about Twitter publicly.
But I no question have seen over the last six to 12 months,
a resurgence different than the Trump effect
of just how much attention is in the platform.
When you have attention I think
you have the ultimate currency.
It will be interesting to see what they do with their OTT.
I think they should play in that space.
I think they were flirting with that a year or two ago.
Again, I don't know how earnings are done or how much
the street values things, but I will say depth,
maybe not width, is emerging on Twitter.
- [Emily] The top five companies by market cap are
Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft.
In 2007 just before the financial crisis,
one of them was a tech company and that was Microsoft.
Is the market putting too many eggs in the tech basket?
- Honestly, I want to be very fair for the audience,
I think about things in such long term.
The thought of me understanding the short term economics
of 90 day terms and numbers that most of the viewers here
play on and the arbitrary nature, and the fact that we're
playing financial engineering, not actually building
businesses, in the macro, of course not.
We're not going backwards.
Tech companies will continue to gain momentum.
Let me pull it out here, this is where we actually live,
not here, so in the super long term, no.
In the short term, I have no sense if the market
has overpriced these companies based on
what the numbers they can hit over the next 90 days.
People aren't gonna be watching ABC and NBC
over Netflix, right?
People are not gonna be consuming newspapers
over Facebook, that is only gonna continue.
We're just starting in that world.
Short term economics and the way the street likes
to play, that's up to all of you guys.
The danger in a five, 10, 15 year macro, I don't see it.
The reality is we're only heading in one direction,
which is technology doesn't care about our feelings
or our short term judgement, or Wall Street.
It just continues to advance
and humans are engaging deeper and deeper and deeper
and will continue to in perpetuity.
- Let's talk about the long term when
it comes to Apple and Netflix.
You played a role on an Apple original show.
That show unfortunately didn't last long.
Certainly not because of you, but Apple is
doing this original content grand experiment.
Do you think they can succeed where Netflix has
when they haven't shown an ability to do so thus far?
- I think the sheer amount of money that I'm hearing
they're throwing at it makes me optimistic.
I spend a good amount of time in Hollywood
and Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue.
You get a real sense, I think the sense, if you talk
to any of your Hollywood friends, production
and agents and things of that nature,
is everybody understands that it's an Amazon, Apple,
Netflix, Hulu, and who's the next OTT, Facebook,
kind of world, that the networks are in deep trouble.
Even the cable providers, even with mergers, the
sheer dollars that these internet companies are gonna
throw at content, the NFL rights.
It's gonna be an Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple world.
And then, kind of fighting for that, so yes.
I think that programming the IP is what matters in the end.
When Apple, not if, has its Breaking Bad,
or Orange is the New Black, or NFL,
that it will suck people in because of the IP.
It's the same way that so many more people watch
Hulu and Amazon than a lot of people thought they would
24 months ago, predicated on just one hit.
- I know you say you're not an expert on short term market
dynamics but we're all watching Apple and Amazon
in this race to a trillion dollars,
Amazon sort of coming from behind.
In the big picture do you see more
potential in one company or the other?
- In a substantial way.
I think the Delta between Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook
as a 2018 CEO is unbelievably substantial.
I would bet every day of the week on Amazon.
- [Emily] Why?
- Because I think Jeff has just shown so much more ability
to navigate the end consumer's attention,
which I think is the ultimate value in society.
I think that Tim A. Is an incredible guy
and I like a lot of the things he as a human
and the company is trying to push to stand for.
But he's been the CEO now what, seven, eight years.
I'm not sure you can help me with this but,
I mean what, ear pods?
I have not seen Apple win in voice
the way they should have with the lead they had with Siri.
The home pod's still not out there.
We have not seen them win an original program.
It's now been 24, 36 months that cat's been out of the bag.
There's been no hardware innovation outside the ear pods
that has any blimp of anything.
All they've really done is slowly advance things
that have been in place prior.
You know, at least the way I think about the world,
I don't look at it the numbers and the ways short term
and maximizing profit every 90 days,
the way everybody who watches this does.
In the long term, what it means for consumers,
Amazon through a magnitude of things
has done a far better job of mattering to the end consumer
and continues to gain leverage.
- You mention the Networks are in trouble.
I have to ask about CBS, which is currently deciding
the fate of Les Moonves after these accusations
from a New Yorker article about crossing a line with women.
Should he stay or go?
- Well if he's guilty he should go.
- Even after such a long and successful track record?
- Doing the wrong thing is always the wrong thing Emily.
You're only as good as your last at bat or the truth.
We now don't look at Cristopher Columbus the way we used to
after we looked carefully in all the things he did.
So of course.
I'm very aware, listen I love winning in business too,
everybody who's watching does, but if you're a human being
that's willing to look the other way for money,
you're not a good human being.
- So Gary, you've launched a new media mens-lifestyle
grand focused on the intersection
of entrepreneurship and pop-culture.
You say there's not gonna be any walls.
There are no walls between editorial and advertising.
What's the vision here?
- 18 months ago I bought purewow.com.
I have VaynorMedia, the holding company's VaynorX,
VaynorMedia's the agency, Madison Avenue madmen.
Purewow and 137 PM is the publishing side,
the hearse side of things.
To me, if you really look at what the BuzzFeeds
and the vices and the refinery 29s did a half decade ago
is they kind of created publishing 2.0
where they started to do creative work
for clients instead of just buying commercials
on TV networks or in magazines.
The branded content world started to emerge, and you saw
those crazy evaluations for a lot of those companies.
I think the continued evolution of making content
and getting people to see it contextual,
that brings the Proctor & Gambles and the Coca-Cola's value
is what's going to happen in publishing.
We continue to try to innovate on creating original videos
and apps and event marketing.
Things to help clients sell beer and makeup and deodorant.
- Last question, how are all of these dynamics
that we're seeing in social media companies
impacting your investment strategies?
What is hot right now and what is not?
- A couple ways to look at this for me, it's just real life.
Facebook and Amazon are the two stocks all in
that I believe in, in a five to 10 year macro.
As long as Mark and Jeff are running those companies
I'm blindly in belief of how they'll innovate
around voice AR, you know, machine learning.
They just are CEOs that are willing to hurt
their short term economics to do the long term equity
for having legacy over short term profit.
I think the most interesting thing for this audience
and your show and what I grew up with in the mid-2000s
on web 2.0 and social media is,
is there room for a musical.ly or a Snapchat?
Where is this next social network and are people scared
to do it because they're scared to be a feature,
and Instagram, and Facebook, Twitter will "copy" it
and slow it's growth like we saw with Snapchat?
I'm most fascinated, will there be another social network
on mobile devices, my assumptions yes, but how?
Then more importantly, my investment strategy
is massively being effected by one core thing.
I believe voice devices are the next iPhone
and the apps built on top of the Google home, Amazon,
Alexa, and Apple pod are gonna be the place where I come
out of retirement and do early stage investing
the way I did with Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.