Office Hours Podcast: The Pain And Promise of Crisis
Spencer Rascoff
Spencer Rascoff is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire and dot.LA, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. He is currently executive chairman of dot.LA and a board member at Zillow and TripAdvisor. In fall 2019, Spencer was a Visiting Executive Professor at Harvard Business School where he co-taught the "Managing Tech Ventures" course. In 2015, Spencer co-wrote and published his first book, the New York Times' Best Seller "Zillow Talk: Rewriting the Rules of Real Estate." Spencer is the host of "Office Hours," a monthly podcast on dot.LA featuring candid conversations between prominent executives on leadership, diversity and inclusion, and startups.
Managing through a crisis is difficult, but great leaders and great companies are created during challenging times. Spencer grappled with crises at two companies he co-founded, Hotwire and Zillow. In this episode, Spencer Rascoff and Katie Curnutte, former SVP of communications at Zillow and now a partner at Kingston Marketing Group, discuss how to manage a company through the strain of calamity while keeping a steady eye on the big picture and the opportunities that can arise.
Want more? Subscribe to Office Hours on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Minutes into filling out my absentee ballot last week, I was momentarily distracted by my dog Seamus. A moment later, I realized in horror that I was filling in the wrong bubble — accidentally voting "no" on a ballot measure that I meant to vote "yes" on.
It was only a few ink marks, but it was noticeable enough. Trying to fix my mistake, I darkly and fully filled in the correct circle and then, as if testifying to an error on a check, put my initials next to the one I wanted.
Then I worried. As a reporter who has previously covered election security for years, I went on a mini-quest trying to understand how a small mistake can have larger repercussions.
As Los Angeles County's 5.6 million registered voters all receive ballots at home for the first time, I knew my experience could not be unique. But I wondered, would my vote count? Or would my entire ballot now be discarded?
<p>There are reasons enough to worry about mail-in-ballots counting, even without the appearance of fake ballot boxes and the unfounded rhetoric that has filled the nation's airwaves over the last months. After all, much of the information I found online told me to notify a poll worker if I made an error. Alas, no poll worker at home.</p><p>"I don't think your experience is unique, and it's exacerbated by how big L.A. is," said Eddie Perez, election administration and technology expert with the nonpartisan, nonprofit <a href="https://www.osetfoundation.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OSET Institute</a>. "These experiences are happening across the country [as] many voters are voting by mail the first time and they don't know what to do. It's a microcosm of all of this change."</p><p>Part of the problem was that I didn't receive my sample ballot beforehand and so didn't engage in the practice round I typically do. Worse though, the instructions that came with my ballot said nothing about what to do if you accidentally make the wrong choice. The only advice is to call a phone number or go online and request a new ballot. Does that mean the whole thing won't count? But it was such a small mistake.</p><p>"That's a failing right there, the fact that they didn't include it on the instruction sheet," said Perez, who previously worked for Hart Intercivic, voting technology company, and has made thousands of ballots in his career. He noted that in Colorado, the instructions for how to correct a mistake are on the ballot instructions.</p><p>I called the phone number, but couldn't get through to a person. I then sent an email to a recommended public address asking if my ballot was "spoilt" and if I needed a new one.</p><p>Then, for hours into the night and through early the next morning I searched the vastness of the internet for an answer.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUxMjgwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODEyMTM1NH0.eGBNQueLJopk_XhIaWqmpFPgnsHuEk1qVeQmRMH-DY4/image.jpg?width=980" id="3663d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3a4af8f33f024f411c8cfef27e2678a1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
My distractingly sweet dog, Seamus.
Photo by Tami Abdollah
<p>Someone <a href="https://www.kvue.com/article/news/investigations/defenders/can-i-correct-a-mistake-on-my-mail-in-ballot-with-wite-out/269-3f248b3a-ee4d-41ec-94bd-a0af4a8670d3" target="_blank">asked about whether you could use whiteout</a> to blot out the mistaken choice. The consensus online seemed to be "no" that the ballot could seem tampered with. One <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-opinions-are-local/wp/2018/01/02/its-an-invalid-ballot-period/" target="_blank">Washington Post opinion article from 2018</a> argued that any efforts to rectify a ballot should invalidate it entirely. <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11840343/how-to-make-sure-your-mail-in-ballot-isnt-rejected-in-california#mistake" target="_blank">Another recent article by KQED said</a> that you should put a line or X through the wrong choice and that would be fine. Sadly, I'd already made a different mark by the proper choice. I read <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/4-common-mistakes-that-could-get-your-mail-in-ballot-rejected-and-how-to-make-sure-your-vote-is-counted-11601579628" target="_blank">stray marks can also be a problem</a> and invalidate the ballot. Are initials considered stray marks?</p><p>Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, empathized, noting that "vote by mail shifts the responsibility of getting it right from poll worker to a voter, and that's a big change. It's not insignificant" or easy, and the rules usually differ between counties.<br></p><p>The next morning I called the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's helpline and was connected to a worker whose garbled voice seemed to match my emotions. I presented my dilemma.</p>
<p>"Hmmm it doesn't say anything about that here," the worker told me. "I'll have to put you on hold."<br/></p><p>After several more minutes of terrible hold music, she told me her connection was bad because she was working from home, and she would call me back. It didn't happen.</p><p>When I called the registrar's office back, I was told there was a 35 minute wait for a human being.</p><p>The worker who called me back told me that the specific measure I improperly filled out would not get counted, but the remainder of my votes should. I asked if my initials would present as stray marks and invalidate my ballot, and she said it shouldn't.</p><p>Over the course of those two days, I wondered if it was best to get the ballot sent in early even if one measure didn't count, or if I should just go vote early in-person.</p><p>Because Los Angeles County ballots go through an optical scanner, I wondered whether a human being would review the ballot or if any discrepancy is tossed. There is little reporting about how the county handles mail-in ballots, especially at scale. Is there a human being who reviews the process? A bipartisan team? How technically savvy is the scanner and what exactly can it differentiate?</p><p>The registrar's office never replied to repeated official calls and emails for answers to those questions.</p><p>Perez, the elections expert, told me that in his experience a mistake should not invalidate the entire ballot and that most modern digital scanning technology "should flag contests with questionable marks and present them to human reviewers" who can discern the voter's intent and make sure it's properly recorded.</p><p>Both Perez and Alexander also introduced another potential wrinkle I had not even thought about: In some states having personally identifiable information on a ballot — possibly like my initials — could invalidate the ballot because state laws could see that personal information as a violation of the secrecy of the ballot. Ack!</p><p>Perez said part of the problem with mail-in ballots is that unlike the traditional Election Day infrastructure, unless election officials make proactive efforts to provide more details, there is less knowledge about how votes are processed and counted when they are mailed in.</p><p>"It places a really big burden on the election officials [to] have resources to answer all these questions," Perez said. "How are you ensuring you have good factual information and you're passing it to all the worker bees you just hired?"</p><p>Neither Perez nor Alexander could say for sure what would happen with my initials on the ballot. Both thought it <em>should </em>probably be fine, but perhaps it would violate vote secrecy.</p><p>"You stumped the band," said Alexander, who added she was considering updating their own FAQ for voters.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUxMjgxNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMzM2MzgwOX0.6b-LH137anXm8YHupyAsvRkC2XXvygJ6fZRBIA7PoZ4/image.jpg?width=980" id="09c34" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="54ab7d5c08029f153009ed6bc7ef15cd" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption focus-visible" data-focus-visible-added="" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">My sadly imperfect ballot.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo by Tami Abdollah</small></p><p>There are many more ways to make a mistake when mailing in your ballot, in one fashion or another. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/a45421048cd89938df7c882891a97db5" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported</a> this summer that "more than 100,000 mail-in ballots were rejected by California election officials during the March presidential primary." Among those were 27,525 which didn't have a signature or didn't have a signature match the one on record. A friend of mine was one of those, and she trekked out to vote early and in-person because she couldn't recall what her on-file signature looked like.<br/></p><p>I had no issues with my signature, it's been the same for decades, but I felt a little bereft over my supremely non high-tech problem. I continued to cull through the interwebs.</p><p>It was only much later, after searching diligently online by various keywords, that I stumbled upon a seemingly definitive answer in the latest version of <a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/uniform-vote-counting-standards" target="_blank">California's Uniform Vote Counting Standards</a>. It turns out, whiteout, check marks, X marks and even writing "no" or "yes" can help confirm the vote you meant to cast. It's unclear what the optical scanner can do or whether the county has a human involved in the process though. And there was, sadly, nothing about whether initialing a choice would invalidate the secrecy of my ballot or be considered an invalid "random marking."</p><p>My angst was alleviated when the decision was taken out of my hands. The registrar's office emailed me back, and without answering my question about if the ballot would have been counted, they told me a new one would arrive in five days.</p><p>The reply did open up a whole new line of unanswered questions. I mean, is the existence of a second ballot invalidating? I emailed back: "What happens to my old ballot? How do I get rid of it?"</p><p>(The first ballot is automatically suspended to issue a second one, I later learned. And you can tear it up or put it through a paper shredder.)</p><p>And still, the question remains — what if I had mailed in that ballot.</p><p>Alexander also went down the rabbit hole with me, emailing me on a Saturday morning that she "woke up annoyed by our collective inability to answer" the question. She dug around and found that a <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120SB183" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2011 California law known as the "Doodle Law"</a> would have likely been applied in my case. <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0151-0200/sb_183_cfa_20110824_171242_asm_floor.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">It states</a> that rather than reject a ballot that is marked in a way to identify a voter, that election workers separate and duplicate the ballot (without the problematic identifier) like for other defective ballots, before running it through the scanner.</p><p>So there it is, my vote would have probably counted if I had mailed in my ballot. But now I'll be sending a brand new on instead. In the end, it's clear that the state and local authorities have tried and are trying their best to ensure that all mail-in ballots count regardless of very normal human mistakes (see <a href="https://dot.la/voting-by-mail-tips-how-to-avoid-pitfalls-2648194341.html" target="_blank">this sidebar</a> on how to up those chances).</p><p>But my takeaway lesson from all this is that it's probably <a href="https://dot.la/voting-by-mail-tips-how-to-avoid-pitfalls-2648194341.html" target="_blank">best not to make a mistake in the first place</a> when voting by mail, oh, and maybe put your dog in a separate room while you vote.</p><p><em>___</em></p><p><em>Hit me up if you have any other election and voting-related questions. My DMs are open on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Twitter @latams</em></a><em> You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.</em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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The Case for Triller: The TikTok Competitor Approaching Unicorn Status, And Getting Big Breaks
Jul 31 2020
Fresh off of closing a $50 million round that valued the company at $300 million, Triller – headquartered in L.A. and with offices in New York, London and Paris – is now seeking $250 million at a valuation of $1.25 billion, according to executive chairman Bobby Sarnevesht. The short-form, user-generated video sharing app's momentum has picked up lately thanks to increased usage during the pandemic and the troubles of TikTok.
<p>"The numbers look crazy recently," said Anis Uzzaman, chief executive of Pegasus Tech Ventures, which invested several million dollars in the $50 million round. Those numbers include 120 million total downloads and 60 million monthly active users, Sarnevesht told dot.LA. </p><p>Triller's user count is now close to what Musical.ly's (now TikTok) was back <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/09/chinas-toutiao-is-buying-musical-ly-in-a-deal-worth-800m-1b/" target="_blank">when it was acquired by Chinese conglomerate ByteDance in 2017</a>, and as TikTok comes under more regulatory scrutiny, Uzzaman predicts that Triller will become "the American TikTok." </p><h2>How Could It Get There?</h2>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyNjQ0NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDcxNjYxM30.NIZ9Htq-tt3_k_0nUE4MDIX7AO8H4xbXnQ-dwKpqETY/image.jpg?width=980" id="62bb4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fed6922503c4c419ea01ad0d33a33de2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Triller executive chairman Bobby Sarnevesht.
<p>One clue lies in India. When <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/technology/india-china-tiktok.html" target="_blank">Narendra Modi banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps in June</a> amid escalating military tensions between the two countries, Triller's usage "went through the roof," Sarnevesht said. In early July, Triller <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6684933651794411520/" target="_blank">CEO Mike Lu wrote that his company had become the top iOS app in India "without spending a dime."</a></p><p>"We're seeing (Indian) users say they prefer Triller to TikTok, but just didn't know about it," Sarnevesht said.</p><p>To Uzzaman, Triller's ability to handle the surge of Indian users proved the strength of the platform's underlying technology. "I'm sure many other platforms would have choked with the new volume of clients," he said. With the "possibility of the same thing happening in the U.S.," Uzzaman feels confident that Triller would be ready for another upswing.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzIxNjE0My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyODU1OTYyNH0.idWD75Hkmhk2hzcEyw8c94cL7UkErfPDAfv6xXRrKUo/image.png?width=1500&coordinates=965%2C347%2C825%2C7&height=2000" id="a1935" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="65db52fdfc0610b27e569a3c4bac0ba1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Pegasus Tech Ventures chief executive Anis Uzzaman
Anis Uzzaman<p>TikTok, which <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/bytedance-investors-discuss-tiktok-purchase?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=page" target="_blank">is reportedly the subject of preliminary discussions for a sell-off</a>, has a big head start. According to analytics firm SensorTower, it has been <a href="https://sensortower.com/blog/tiktok-downloads-2-billion" target="_blank">downloaded over 2 billion times</a>. TikTok's global user count is <a href="https://datareportal.com/social-media-users?rq=tiktok" target="_blank">estimated at over 800 million</a>. And <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bytedance-tiktok-exclusive/exclusive-bytedance-investors-value-tiktok-at-50-billion-in-takeover-bid-sources-idUSKCN24U1M9" target="_blank">a recent Reuters piece pegged its valuation around $50 billion</a>.</p><p>If TikTok is banned in the U.S. that would obviously put Triller in a place to pick up some ground. Four factors stand out that could shift the balance in Triller's favor.</p><h2>Privacy & Security</h2><p>The government isn't the only one concerned about privacy and security concerns, Uzzaman said.</p><p>"The market is getting more concerned about security and privacy," he said. "People are getting more vocal." Having Triller's teams based in "the top democracies in the world...definitely makes a huge difference."</p><p>Sarnevesht emphasized that Triller "treat(s) the face as an object – we don't map the face. Data is secure. We don't track geo-locations on where users are."</p><p>Concerns around whether TikTok shares data with the Chinese government, meanwhile, <a href="https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/" target="_blank">have been well documented</a>.</p>
<p><br/></p><h2><br/></h2><h2>Music First, Social Second
</h2><p>"Our business is music. It's in our DNA," said Sarnevesht. Uzzaman said this confers two key advantages. </p><p>One is Triller's product mix. Uzzaman pointed to Triller's "Step Up Challenge," a music battle where competitors can win prizes, and the TrillerFest virtual music festival, which attracted over 5 million viewers and participants this April. </p><p>"We have a music-centric, music-first app that has amazing creator tools," Sarnevesht said. "Amazing events. Concert series coming out in different locations and different genres. It's a very different destination for content users and producers and watchers." </p><p>That musical foundation has lately sprouted other kinds of content. "We're starting to see a tremendous influx of content…(like) cooking, practical jokes, and gaming," Sarnevesht added. </p><p>Another advantage to being music-first, Uzzaman said, is that musical stars like posting on the app. "Alicia Keys, Cardi B, Marshmello: they're regularly posting music videos in the app – we've never seen that in TikTok," he said. "Regular people can create music videos and have people watch them right next to Eminem…(It makes) people feel like they're celebrities." </p><p>"I think artists appreciate the organicness of Triller," Sarnevesht added. </p><h2>Partnerships
</h2><p>In line with Triller's music origins, it has long-term deals with the big three music labels and numerous music publishers. This enables Triller users to include songs from those rights holders' extensive catalogs without having to worry about copyright issues. </p><p>"What differentiates Triller is we've always had music licenses in place," said Sarnevesht. "It gives artists a platform to have their content in a place where it's not being stolen." </p><p>Conversely, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/tiktok-and-nmpa-reach-a-global-partnership-agreement-exclusive/ar-BB176fnk" target="_blank">TikTok has mostly operated via short-term deals</a> with labels and publishers. It does, however, have <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/tiktok-inks-new-global-deal-with-believe-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-independent-music-companies/" target="_blank">a long-term deal with Believe, a big independent music company</a>, and it recently forged an agreement with the <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/tiktok-inks-global-multi-year-deal-with-music-publishers/" target="_blank">National Music Publishers' Association</a>. NMPA's President and CEO David Israelite isn't done negotiating; he <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CDOTK5Vh-DH/" target="_blank">posted a warning earlier this week on his Instagram that Triller should 'watch out,</a>' later elaborating that the company "<a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/triller-warned-that-it-must-legitimize-its-business-by-properly-licensing-all-music-on-its-platform/" target="_blank">must legitimize its business by properly licensing all music on its platform.</a>"</p><p>Triller also has partnerships with Spotify and Apple Music. Jack Warning of Pegasus Ventures said these help boost user engagement. If a Triller user likes a song on the app, for instance, they can add it to a Spotify or Apple Music playlist. And users can pull songs from Spotify and Apple Music into Triller to make videos. </p><p>But "the biggest partnership that really got our attention," Uzzaman said, "was with Billboard." Alongside charts like the Billboard Hot 100, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/chart-beat/9417698/billboard-triller-partner-weekly-top-triller-u-s-global-charts" target="_blank">it has begun publishing weekly charts of top songs from the Triller app</a>.</p><h2>Technology
</h2><p>There is "more technology behind (Triller) than people understand," said Uzzaman, who likened Triller to the earlier days of Google, when it was chasing the heels of Yahoo. He pointed to Triller's AI tools for editing videos, and protocols for helping brands advertise on the platform. </p><p>Among other features, Sarnevesht pointed to new, "game-changing" recommendation algorithms, and highlighted how <a href="https://techstartups.com/2019/10/24/ai-music-platform-triller-raises-new-funding-acquires-uk-based-mashtraxx/" target="_blank">Triller's 2019 acquisition of UK-based MashTraxx</a> came with "13 employees, 11 Ph.D's, all specializing in AI. One of them wrote a thesis on recommendation engines and AI in the short-form video space." </p><p>TikTok has no shortage of technology, which <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21346390/tiktok-algorithm-moderation-policy-transparency-china" target="_blank">it has recently begun to share more openly</a>. But it is currently <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/triller-sues-rival-tiktok-patent-infringement/" target="_blank">being sued by Triller for patent infringement</a>, and <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/triller-sues-tiktok-for-patent-infringement/" target="_blank">potentially for antitrust as well</a>.</p><p>TikTok has <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/were-starting-to-see-a-generation-of-artists-born-and-raised-on-tiktok/" target="_blank">highlighted its relationships with creators as a competitive advantage</a>, which it is hoping to entrench with its <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/introducing-the-200-million-tiktok-creator-fund" target="_blank">recently announced creator fund</a>. But reports have indicated that <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-07-28/creators-leave-tiktok" target="_blank">TikTok creators are beginning to look elsewhere</a>, including to Triller.</p><p>Meanwhile, as Facebook builds its own TikTok competitor on Instagram called Reels, it has <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-seeks-to-reel-in-tiktok-creators-raising-stakes-in-social-media-rivalry-11595928600" target="_blank">reportedly offered big deals to entice TikTokkers to defect</a>. TikTok CEO <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/fair-competition-and-transparency-benefits-us-all" target="_blank">Kevin Mayer has called Reels a copycat product</a>, and pointed out that Facebook's previous "copycat Lasso failed quickly." </p><p>"The same thing can happen for Reels," noted Uzzaman. "Until they are playing in the market, there is no guarantee...Triller is already far ahead of anyone else in the U.S. market."</p><p>---</p><p><em>Sam Blake primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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