DLD15 – The Four Horsemen: Amazon/Apple/Facebook & Google – Who Wins/Loses (Scott Galloway)

Scott Galloway is on the road to being a bigger star than Kanye. Because Galloway is smart, he oozes intelligence, he doesn’t have to tell us how great he is, we can see it.

I got this video from Vince Bannon. A music business refugee. That’s right, Vince ran out of options. He went from concert promotion to label (Sony Music) to retailer (Best Buy) and then he got out. Or maybe he was forced out. But the truth is now Vince survives, because he saw the writing on the wall, he realized music ain’t where it’s at, Vince went to work for Getty Images, that’s right the company that eviscerated the prices for photos and made everybody a professional. Vince acquires companies. He sent me this video.

Ian Rogers told me about an app. Called NextDraft, I’d never heard of it before. It’s Dave Pell’s compilation of the top ten stories of the day. And not only does Dave curate, he gives an introduction, he gives context, NextDraft is warm and addicting, you feel you’re getting a phone call from a friend, and you can sign up for e-mail or put the app on your phone, as I did, nothing is a better time-filler. That’s right, downtime is history. When we’re waiting for the Uber, when we’re in the doctor’s office, we spend time on our phone. Who owns that time? Dave Pell is making inroads.

And the point of the above is that entry points are delivered by friends. That’s your currency, who you know. People you trust will lead you to wealth. And Vince has done that here.

The clip above was posted on January 20th of this year. Only the music business is idiotic enough to believe it’s all about the launch date, the first week. How many people are listening to the hyped albums of last year? Few. But when something is great, people find it and it gets its time. Like this clip.

I had to watch it twice. I wasn’t paying close enough attention the first time through.

You know how you watch recommended videos…while you’re doing something else. So you can tell your friend you checked it out. And you’re never honest and say it sucks because that would engender conversation, and you don’t have time for that, especially over opinions about what is good and bad, that’s so last century. We just have time to gravitate to the great and partake.

And what I like about this clip is right up front Scott Galloway says he gets it wrong. This is so different from the entertainment world wherein everybody tells us they’re the greatest when it’s obvious they’re not. And when a flaw is revealed they apologize profusely and go to rehab for stuff we didn’t know there was rehab for. Whereas in tech you admit your mistake and pivot. And I could poke holes in a number of Galloway’s theses, but his presentation is so stimulating you realize why Troy Carter pivoted from music to tech, why every entertainment company from WME to Universal Music makes tech investments, because tech is where the action is.

How did this happen? How did getting an MBA deliver more opportunities and stimulation than being a musician? Few want to screw the itinerant broke musician crashing on the basement floor, whereas they’re lining up to have sex with the techies with brains.

Galloway makes a bunch of sexual references. They’re staggering. But what he does most is analyze the big four tech companies and prognosticate.

You remember prognostication, the concept of looking to the future? All we do in music is try to put on the brakes. We’ve got me-too musicians bitching about change. And if you think that’s a recipe for success, you’re probably still addicted to your Palm Pilot.

Anyway, does Amazon have to get into physical retail?

Turns out their shipping costs are enormous.

Furthermore, did you catch the announcement of Shyp? Wherein parcels are delivered by regular folk, replacing UPS just like Uber replaced taxis? This video is six weeks old and just last week Shyp blew up. Pay attention.

As for Facebook… The amazing thing is how they have pivoted. Told you to invest in your page and are now telling you your organic reach should be assumed to be zero. That’s right, you’ve got to pay to play. And unlike Google, Facebook is mobile-ready.

As for Yahoo… Galloway is the first person I’ve heard talk about the Tumblr disaster. It went from cool to irrelevant, a backwater of porn, never mind lacking profitability. What you buy is more important than the price you pay. As for Twitter and Pinterest…irrelevant according to Galloway, they just don’t have scale.

And it’s been the buzz for a year, how Google’s search monopoly is…dying and irrelevant. Facebook search is up, but the truth is on mobile apps are king.

As for Apple… It’s a luxury brand and in one year it’s going to be the biggest watch company, old watchmakers are in denial. Galloway makes a big point about that.

And I don’t want to just repeat what Scott Galloway says, I just want to say we live for stimulation. That’s what got me listening to Frank Zappa and the rest of the icons, especially the Beatles. They weren’t happy where they were, which was pretty damn good, they kept testing limits. How do you test limits today in music? Focus on new distribution methods, new marketing methods, play privates for your bottom line? It all comes down to the tunes and innovation has taken a back seat, or it’s not being done by someone with the brains of Mark Zuckerberg, never mind Scott Galloway.

How is it going to turn out?

How are we going to get our information?

And the rise of data’s importance is staggering. NYU developed an algorithm. You use the new tools just like musicians use Pro Tools. How long did we have to hear about the death of recording studios? In music it’s all about decay, then someone makes a track in their bedroom that blows us away proving it’s all about conception, that execution takes a back seat, and in music it’s about humanity not perfection

That’s right. In tech if it’s imperfect it’s toast, we don’t want it, we expect everything to work right out of the box. But when a fat girl sings great songs well we’re drawn to her, Adele doesn’t look like Beyonce but she’s bigger than everybody. Ain’t that interesting. Meanwhile, she’s gone away. With nothing new to say why stay in the public eye?

I wish I could inspire musicians to take the other path, a new road to riches wherein you’re poor before you make it. Guns N’ Roses wasn’t successful out of the box. Sure, their album was, but there were years of struggle before that. No one wants to pay their dues in music anymore. The dues are paid by the producers and songwriters behind the scenes. The performers are just front people.

But Angela Ahrents is a bigger star than Nicki Minaj. She just may have more influence than Taylor Swift.

And I’m kidding when I say that Scott Galloway is gonna be bigger than Kanye, but if you’re having a conference I’d call him. Because the goal is to get people thinking.

And my synapses are firing like the Fourth of July.

P.S. Stay to the very end. Especially to the heat maps of OS users.