Podcast: analyzing the Trump election results on the Silicon Valley Friday Show
In my weekly podcast this week, the Silicon Valley Friday Show, we had as featured guests Tom Joyce, a former executive with EMC Corp., Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co. and Dell, and Bullpen Capital founder Paul Martino, our venture capitalist of the week.
The disruption this week, of course, was the presidential election of Donald Trump. I wanted to talk about my exclusive Monday night one-on-one interview with Andy Jassy, chief executive of Amazon Web Services, but that was overshadowed by the outrage and debate around the election, which saw Trump win the electoral college, if not the popular vote.
We talked about the division in our country and how everyone got it wrong. The main discussion was how this result happened, the failure of the media, the failure of data scientists the failure of Silicon Valley and much more. It was a dynamic conversation with a call to Paul Martino of Bullpen Capital on the East Coast. Paul called this election right months ago and had the data that showed the election tilting in favor of Donald Trump. Some Facebook friends have other theories here.
Paul is a venture capital and data geek, so his perspective was very interesting and relevant.
We also talked about new consumption models in our life (mainly the media), with examples such as the National Football League’s rating decline and the way Fanduel, a company Paul funded, disrupted the game.
About the Silicon Valley Friday Show with John Furrier
Silicon Valley Friday Show is a weekly talk show recorded live at 8 a.m. Pacific every Friday in Palo Alto, Calif., where I host a discussion on the top stories in Silicon Valley revolving around technology and society. My goal is to extract the signal from noise and bring in my smartest friends to share their commentary and angle on what’s happening around the world.
This is a new podcast, so if you like it share it and follow it. I’d love feedback on what you like or don’t like, or if you would like to see a particular guest or a change in format. Just DM me on Twitter @furrier.
Show Notes:
| Opening Statement |
| Massive Disruption, Donald Trump Pres. Elect |
| Dell EMC Merger & Tom being involved |
| Election, Andy Jassy, Cloud Conf |
| Nothing is safe, trump beating both partoes |
| People displeased with gov – ready for a real change |
| Outrage on social media regarding Trump. How did this happen? Media plays a part in the opposition. |
| Hearing diff perspectives on politics from Texas to California – couldn’t concieve Trump winning |
| Talking to Beth from Intel at Grace Hopper – Amazon telling you things you like based on interests |
| Media is tailoring the stories the same as Amazon- you can get your own echo chamber |
| Facebook dinged for fake news, CNN staged fake interview, data science failed, big data failed. |
| Data driven world but it is a failed model. –Jeff- How do you lie with Statistics? |
| Groupthink – your bubble and ppl with similar thinking |
| California wants to seceed from the US – New California. |
| People accepting defeat gracefully- some people not acting how they expected the other side to. —John–Are you causing civil war behavior, or are you getting involved to work towards change? |
| SV/millenials, and us haven’t had a loss like this in a long time. |
| Tech disruption will continue, economics may change but it will continue |
| Technology disruption allowed Trump to win ex) twitter |
| Technology eliminating jobs. SV is going to come out stronger from this, ppl are going to rally – first time SV is more political |
| Business process of globalizing |
| Business process of globalizing |
| Trumps cabinet |
| No objective media |
| Future of Journalism/data |
| Thoughts from people from other countries |
| Trump Protest/how he won the election |
| What will Trumps policies look like |
| Send to break |
| BACK FROM COMMERCIAL – |
| John’s 1 on 1 with Andy Jassy, he is disrupting the world |
| Everyone is perfectly scripted, but I like to see who has the best script and can add to it |
| The world is changing – Amazon ecommerce and powering social networks – disruptions |
| It is a wipeout! I am a big fan of Microsoft, I compare Amazon to Microsoft. |
| I didn’t buy any servers for a year – we used the cloud. |
| RE-INTRO |
| Paul Martino – blue collar entrepenuer, gut instinct, sees things early |
| Talking up Paul Martino – started bullpen capital, funds companies get the hustle going but aren’t VC ready yet |
| Paul’s team looks at trajectory and formally bridges companies |
| Critique of Bullpen- they don’t do quite enough of it. –Jeff– There use to be a small list of VCs, but now they are out working |
| It is a hustlers market. –John– Blue collar entrepenuer is interesting, not a negative thing |
| Anyone can start a company- you can become a rockstar overnight- that is the key |
| Not always set up to compete – it’s a tough market |
| It is hard to but a billion dollars to work at a C action level –John– Cradle to grave |
| Let’s call Paul – CALLING… |
| CALLING |
| Paul we’re talking about you…critique later you can check out |
| Election & 1 on 1 with Andy Jassy about massive disruption and how the two relate |
| SV pespective – contrarian as it possible could have been – you can see how it could happen |
| sent a note “trading markets have it wrong, Trump has a 1/3 shot even tho Hillary is in the lead” They asked me why no one else sent a note like this |
| How come people didn’t see Trump as real competition |
| 35% Trump a week before the election but then everyone was saying 2-3% |
| Putting all of the bias at the door, blue collar guy |
| Media failure – epic fail. Paul you point out some of the biases. |
| Aftermath- 1/2 was a wakeup & get out of my bubble. |
| Double down. Editor of New Yorker wrote at 2:30 in the AM saying go to hell |
| We need to look at ourselves and see what the problems are – not best strategy for reaching out |
| Wikileaks – no one has debunked them – If you look at the data, that is key right now. Data is reinforning people’s perceptions |
| Fanduel – Technology intersecting with Political Good & Political Sciene |
| Getting hacked has led to a level of transparency, that is the lesson. If you know you can get hacked, being transparent is the only strategy going forward |
| 3 things how Bullpen chooses their companies. It has to be propriety as you’re going. |
| BREAK |
| BACK FROM COMMERCIAL |
| Impact from election…but now lets talk about the impact of technology |
| Game on for a new trajectory – impact on SV, technology, & globalization. THE WORLD IS FLAT. |
| SV bubble has been popped – Mike Tyson quote- everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth |
| —— |
| No one has ever seen this epic loss before – coddling like it is a tragedy, it is a land of laws |
| How do I explain this to my kids, the next day I realized I wanted to figure out how to play this – the country went on |
| Going to Canada- either you’re a patriot & American or you are not |
| How you act will define you as a leader –Paul– GrubHub CEO tells trump supporters to resign from my company |
| That behavior is unacceptable – that behavior is not acceptable. |
| I will not tolerate a thought police. |
| Double standard – ppl who play diversity card but don’t balance it the other way. it is unacceptable |
| Less transparent – creates more silos, |
| This is what happens when you live in your own echo chamber – I’m going to be the guy putting my foot in your you know what. |
| You need someone in the room saying that everything isn’t perfect. ex) a lot of adds being directed at women of Penn |
| Kicking ppl out of meetings because they had diff in opinions- CEOS enabling this behavior – NoNo |
| NFL – thoughts on investing in disruption. |
| Always contrarian opportunities. Fan Duel, Ipsy….companies with non-traditional backgrounds |
| No one gave them the time of day because they didn’t fit the pattern |
| NFL has been doubling down – ratings are down |
| They blame election, blame baseball…–Paul– Two reasons unable to admit what is behind it |
| Change in the quality of product |
| Consumption patterns |
| The folks that were ahead of data were successful but the NFL hasn’t taken advantage of that yet. |
| Whether you agree or not – this is an issue – politics + sports |
| Built Leauge of Legends for a millennial audience. Incumbents going to get disrupted. New medias are going to disrupt them |
| Colin Kapernick thing goes away, but it is still going to change. –Paul–eroison of ppl 65+ era |
| LEADING OUT Paul |
| Still wrapping up…summary of show & Paul. Successful entrepreneurs choosing contrarian companies |
| How do you deal with change and disruption. How do you integrate all cultures? |
| You have to talk to everyone and be successful. We have to hope and be hopeful that Trump will succeed |
| Lets see how this plays out…the world is changing |
| Changesssssss – gotta face the change |
| You have to seek out the other side, other people’s opinion. |
| It is encouraging to talk to people in the SV, smart ppl doing cool stuff |
| more investment in hard problems, smart VCs are trying to find true changes in technology, acceleration happening |
| Young ppl are pumped. SV will always survive and keep reinventing |
| WE OUT |
| END |
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