The Exchanges, every show

Q That's awesome. You, um, you had, um, a pretty bold, uh, thought last time that you were on. I think you said something, Laura, you, uh, you predicted that America's decade, the next decade for America is going to be flat in terms of economic growth, and, um, I think you also said for the, uh, index funds. Do you still believe that to be true?

A Yeah, I'm selling down my American stocks, mostly because I'm diversifying, because I don't want to lose. I've lost all, I've been rich three times, which means I've lost it twice. I can't go back. I'm not, you guys are young and have good hair. I'm neither, neither of those things. I can't make it back again. So I'm diversifying. And if you just look at the cycle of American markets or the global markets, typically the U.S. outperforms for eight years, then emerging markets outperform for eight years. It goes back and forth. We've been outperforming emerging markets for 17 years. I still believe the markets are cyclical. The Buffett index, stock market valuation versus GDP, he likes it at about 90%. It's at 210%. The S&P is trading at historic highs. 97% of the time, the S&P has traded at lower valuations relative to earnings. So, it's not, it's not a criticism of America. I just think America, America is an asset. The rest of the world is an asset. There's America as an asset, everything, every public company in America, every public company outside of America. They're equally priced right now. They're both, you can own every public company in America for a hundred bucks, or you can own every public company outside of America for a hundred bucks. What do you think is the better value right now?

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I'm selling down my American stocks, mostly because I'm diversifying”

Q considered the mag seven, what we're seeing is this kind of concentration of value in public markets. And I really wanted this to be a free flowing discussion just cause I bluntly respect your brain so much, but you see this concentration of value like we've almost never seen before. Does that worry you? And what does that mean for the future value dispersion of public markets in your mind?

A Oh, I think it's, I think it's hugely worrying because you have essentially, 34% of the S&P is represented by seven companies, and 50% of the equity value of the world, and 70% of the enterprise value, if included the debt, is wrapped up in the U.S. economy, which has seven companies, and if any of those seven companies sneeze, the whole economy, and potentially the whole global economy catches a cold. And in addition, it's very hard for small and medium-sized businesses To attract the kind of human and financial capital to be competitors. So when you have the most valuable parts of our economy, e-commerce, one company does between 50 and 70% of all e-commerce, depending on how you categorize e-commerce. When you have social media as being kind of the most powerful thing to happen in traditional, or, you know, what we refer to as media, and one company has 75% share of social. When you have search, 90%, 89%, and then you have AI, the biggest revolution of the last, you know, several decades, 90% of the processing has run through one company's GPUs, and 85% of the queries have gone through one company. I think a concentration of power and shareholder value makes a company or an economy less robust, less diverse. I think it's, it's, I think it's a, I think it's, yeah, I think it's bad.

AI assessment note: “Oh, I think it's, I think it's hugely worrying because”

Q What do you think is the core way that, you know, that they have weaponized government to work for you, and what would you say is the best way to reverse that?

A Well, the tax code, it's the boring shit that moves the needle. So I make most of my money buying and selling stocks and companies, and we've decided that people who can do that should pay a lower tax rate, and the people that can do that are old and rich. Old people make, old wealthy people make their money from buying and selling assets. Young people make their money from salary and working. Why am I paying 22%, and the top income earner on current income is paying 37%? The second biggest tax deduction is mortgage interest rate. Old people own homes, young people rent. Why is, why is the primary cost, the biggest cost for old people tax deductible, but the biggest cost for young people is not. So even the two biggest tax deductions are just to transfer wealth from the young to the old. So I think it starts with tax policy. Um, essentially, um, social security tax. I pay, I make a lot of money. I pay every year 9000 dollars in Social Security, because it taps out at six percent up until 160 grand. An analyst working for me that makes 160 pound also pays nine grand. So if you look at the tax code in the U.S., and I apologize for deferring to the U.S., but I just know more about it. The tax code's gone from 400 pages to 4000, and those incremental 3600 pages are basically full of loopholes for corporations and the wealthy to get wealthier and wealthier. So some solutions. I thin…

AI assessment note: “Well, the tax code, it's the boring shit that moves the needle.”

Q Yeah, I agree. I also find it shocking how big the endowments of the universities are at the same time that we have education costs for universities going up so high and sort of like a declining ROI that kids are getting from universities. What do you think about it? Because you're, you're not quiet about the things that you don't like about universities while also working in one.

A Well, my industry is arguably the most, one of the most corrupt, maybe with the exception of social media or, you know, I, I work in a corrupt industry. People aren't under the impression that we're nice people with our Labradors, watching PBS every night, and we're noble people. We're like everybody else. We, Academics and administrators wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and ask themselves the same question, and that is, how do I increase my compensation while reducing my accountability? And we found the ultimate business strategy, and that's to sequester the majority of public from the freshman class and artificially constrain the, the freshman seat. So Harvard, fifty-four billion dollars in endowment. It's grown its endowment 4000% in the last 30 or 40 years, up forty-fold. It's grown its freshman class size four percent. So it admits 1500 kids on 55,000 applicants. It has the resources. It could let in 15,000 and not sacrifice any quality, but they decide to artificially constrain it because they're, if to a certain extent homeowners and people who already have college degrees, Have figured out that this LVMH rejectionist exclusionary strategy is the best way to entrench the incumbents. So if I already have a college degree and I already have a house, I love it when UCLA is impossible to get into. How many people do you say kind of proudly or jokingly say, I would …

AI assessment note: “Harvard, fifty-four billion dollars in endowment. It's grown its endowment 4000%”

Q Yeah, I agree. I also find it shocking how big the endowments of the universities are at the same time that we have education costs for universities going up so high and sort of like a declining ROI that kids are getting from universities. What do you think about it? Because you're, you're not quiet about the things that you don't like about universities while also working in one.

A Well, my industry is arguably the most, one of the most corrupt, maybe with the exception of social media, or, you know, I, I work in a corrupt industry. People are under the impression that we're nice people with our Labradors, watching PBS every night, and we're noble people. We're like everybody else. We, Academics and administrators wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and ask themselves the same question, and that is, how do I increase my compensation while reducing my accountability? And we found the ultimate business strategy, and that's to sequester the majority of public from the freshman class and artificially constrain the freshman seat. So Harvard, fifty-four billion dollars in endowment, It's grown its endowment 4000% in the last 30 or 40 years, up forty-fold. It's grown its freshman class size four percent. So it admits 1500 kids on 55,000 applicants. It has the resources. It could let in 15,000 and not sacrifice any quality, but they decide to artificially constrain it because they're, if, to a certain extent, homeowners and people who already have college degrees, Have figured out that this LVMH rejectionist exclusionary strategy is the best way to entrench the incumbents. So if I already have a college degree and I already have a house, I love it when UCLA is impossible to get into it. How many people do you say kind of proudly or jokingly say, I would ne…

AI assessment note: “So Harvard, fifty-four billion dollars in endowment, It's grown its endowment 4000%”

Q Did you have a good relationship with your father?

A Uh, this is very interesting, cheap therapy. Um, the, no, I mean, my dad was fairly absent. My dad left us, my dad's been married. My dad was handsome, strong jawline, and a Scottish accent, which meant in seventies, Southern California could not only think with his dick, he could listen to it. He's been married and divorced four times. And as far as we know, and he's on his fifth wife, which is a woman I basically pay to be his kind of home health aide. Um, And he let, you know, he, he, he, uh, basically started his third marriage while I was still married to my mom, left, moved to Ohio. It was a different age. It was the seventies. Kids were sort of like, uh, furniture. They, we didn't revolve our lives around kids back then. So I saw him, uh, uh, holidays and summers. So we weren't, he wasn't very involved in my life. Um, but where I forgiven my dad, um, And I'll put the question back to you about your relationship with your father. What was a big unlock for me was I think we have an evolutionary obligation to just be a better dad than our dad was to us. And my dad was that my dad was physically abused by his alcoholic father. And when I recognize how his father treated him, he was actually very good to me. And that means he checked a box. And then the biggest unlock I used to resent my father and have trouble, you know, sometimes being nice to him was, I, one of my biggest …

AI assessment note: “no, I mean, my dad was fairly absent.”

Q Did you find that money changed the relationships around you?

A My father's 95 and not doing well, so I can say this because he, he's like a baby now. He has no, he's, he's basically just, you know, like a baby, has no cognitive, he's not there any longer. My dad loves me more than my sister because I have more money than her. My dad was raised in Depression-era Scotland and was so obsessed with money because he lived in Glasgow in the thirties and forties, you could starve if he didn't have money. And he had some very weird things happen to him. He was in the Navy for two years, sent his money home because he got his money stolen his first two weeks on a ship, sent all of his money home to his mother, came home and his mom had spent it on whiskey and cigarettes. So my dad just had a very unhealthy relationship with money and it scarred him. And it scarred me because my dad was that guy who I would, he'd be in town for the weekend and he'd take me and my friend to go see a movie. And then he'd lined up, he'd asked my friend for two bucks at the end of the movie to pay him back for the ticket. You know, the closest my father ever came to physical violence was when we went to a hotel, and I'd never seen anything called a minibar before, and I decided that I should eat and drink everything in the minibar. Yeah, so he had a very unhealthy relationship with money, and the reason he came to be really impressed with me was because I made a lot of …

AI assessment note: “for the most part, it's been a real nice thing in my relationships.”

Q I thought it was interesting. You said that young people had a right to be angry or deserve to be angry. Do you stand by that when you think about that today, or in your words there, like, you know, it's the world that you make it?

A Well, yeah, but young people, to a certain extent, kind of an inherited world that is sort of set up for them by people before them. But in the U.S., and I'm not as familiar with the data in the U.K., maybe you are, for the first time in our nation's history, a thirty-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. And every year in the U.S., we spend 12 dollars on seniors for every one dollar we spend on kids. Um, uh, the average seven-year-old in the U.S. is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. The average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy. What seniors in the U.S. have figured out is a way to vote themselves more money, and you could argue, well, if young people don't vote, that's going to continue, but children aren't allowed to vote. And every year, young people transfer 1.3 trillion dollars in the form of Social Security payments to the wealthiest generation in the history of the planet, seniors. So when you see the cost of education, the cost of housing skyrocketing, When you see massive prosperity, and then it's rubbed in your face every day, 210 times a day, you're kind of Reminded that you're not on a Gulf Stream or partying in St. Bart's, and it makes you feel bad about yourself. And meanwhile, you just see just the unbelievable economic growth and prosperity, but it doesn't appear that young people are sharing in it in the same exte…

AI assessment note: “Well, yeah, but young people, to a certain extent, kind of an inherited world”

Q Did you find that money changed the relationships around you?

A My father's 95 and not doing well, so I can say this because he, he's like a baby now. He has no, he's, he's basically just, you know, like a baby, has no cognitive, he's not there any longer. My dad loves me more than my sister because I have more money than her. My dad was raised in Depression-era Scotland and was so obsessed with money because he lived in Glasgow in the thirties and forties, you could starve if he didn't have money. And he had some very weird things happen to him. He was in the Navy for two years, sent his money home because he got his money stolen his first two weeks on a ship, sent all of his money home to his mother, came home and his mom had spent it on whiskey and cigarettes. So my dad just had a very unhealthy relationship with money and it scarred him. And it scarred me because my dad was that guy who I would, he'd be in town for the weekend and he'd take me and my friend to go see a movie. And then he'd lined up, he'd asked my friend for two bucks at the end of the movie to pay him back for the ticket. You know, the closest my father ever came to physical violence was when we went to a hotel, and I'd never seen anything called a minibar before, and I decided that I should eat and drink everything in the minibar. Yeah, so he had a very unhealthy relationship with money, and the reason he came to be really impressed with me was because I made a lot of …

AI assessment note: “My dad loves me more than my sister because I have more money than her.”

Q What do you think is the core way that, you know, that they have weaponized government to work for you, and what would you say is the best way to reverse that?

A Well, the tax code, it's the boring shit that moves the needle. So I make most of my money buying and selling stocks and companies, and we've decided that people who can do that should pay a lower tax rate, and the people that can do that are old and rich. Old people make, old wealthy people make their money from buying and selling assets. Young people make their money from salary and working. Why am I paying 22%, and the top income earner on current income is paying 37%? The second biggest tax deduction is mortgage interest rate. Old people own homes, young people rent. Why is, why is the primary cost, the biggest cost for old people tax deductible, but the biggest cost for young people is not. So even the two biggest tax deductions are just to transfer wealth from the young to the old. So I think it starts with tax policy. Um, essentially, um, social security tax. I pay, I make a lot of money. I pay every year 9000 dollars in Social Security, because it taps out at six percent up until 160 grand. An analyst working for me that makes 160 pound also pays nine grand. So if you look at the tax code in the U.S., and I apologize for deferring to the U.S., but I just know more about it. The tax code's gone from 400 pages to 4000, and those incremental 3600 pages are basically full of loopholes for corporations and the wealthy to get wealthier and wealthier. So some solutions. I thin…

AI assessment note: “Well, the tax code, it's the boring shit that moves the needle.”

Q defense. Um, and yet there remains this extraordinary fear about speaking out. Um, go back to Michael Jordan, Republicans buy sneakers too. Um, what do you say to business leaders who are struggling with when to take that public position, um, or even internally with their team when to say something about, um, an issue that is going to inflame passions on one side or the other, if not both?

A So I've been on the board of seven public companies, I think, 17 or 18 private companies, and generally speaking, I tell them not to. And that is, for the most part, like if you're Ben and Jerry's, or, you know, Hobby Lobby or whatever, and part of your identity or your REI as a political position, fine. But for the most part, I think the American corporation is meant to be a platform to help people garner economic security for them and their families. And I feel like the tech sector got a little out over its skis in that as CEOs started virtue signaling and trying to appeal to their younger employees by emoting and articulating these fairly progressive values that sometimes are disingenuous, and that is that when really push came to shove, they weren't just honest. I, I, I like a CEO who says, I'm here to make money and, and create shareholder value that you'll share in. And we're gonna be good citizens, we're gonna be ethical people, we're gonna be respectful of one another, but we don't have to take a political stand on everything, and I don't need to weigh in on George Floyd as the CEO of a company just because it happened, and I, I don't, I, I like kind of the wrap of trying to, unless it's part of your identity, stay out of it, and at the same time, I think government and citizens make the mistake of believing that we've personified companies, Companies are for profit. Th…

AI assessment note: “generally speaking, I tell them not to.”

Q dozens of board seats you've held. Um, uh, Sally from our audience wanted to know, as a board member, Scott, how do you assess whether a company has a strong company culture, whether it is a healthy company culture? Um, is it something you, you even are caring about and are trying to figure out, and is it a forward-looking financial indicator for you when you're sitting on a board?

A Yeah, but generally it's hard for the board, because the board doesn't spend that much time in the company, and the company, everything about the company is filtered through the CEO. When you, when you terminate a CEO, I'm going through this right now on one of my boards, you find out all this stuff about the CEO, because all of a sudden you're forced to speak to the people below that person. And generally, when you deal with the CEO of a public company, you're generally dealing with the rush chairman or the rush chairwoman, and that is the most popular person in his or her fraternity or sorority, and they become very good friends with the board, because the board's in charge of their compensation, And they edit and manicure kind of the messaging that the board gets. And I demand, or I ask of every board member that at least two or three of his or her reports or other people in the company come in and present something, because we just want to get to know these people. Generally speaking, the way a board, kind of, the board gets very few indications of culture. They can go on Glassdoor, but generally the way we evaluate culture through a shareholder lens, quite frankly, is retention. And that is, you should have eight to 12% turnover a year. And if you have a lot more than that, something's wrong with the culture of the compensation. We don't know how much we don't know. We don…

AI assessment note: “generally the way we evaluate culture through a shareholder lens, quite frankly, is retention.”

Q brand more than being Scott Galloway, the founder of like, are you enjoying it more than being an operator of companies or are you enjoying, uh, I mean, you have some cool blog posts where you're like, when people say hi to me in the streets, I love it. It makes me feel great. Which one are you enjoying more? Scott Galloway, the brand or Scott Galloway, the business person?

A Oh, on the whole, this is really wonderful. I mean, people come up to me. And are super nice, and you know, I'm at that age, I have 13 and 16 year old boys, so everything I do is just like tragically uncool in their eyes, and they don't really seem to like me a great deal. So when someone comes up to me, it happened yesterday, and like wants a picture with me, and they're excited to meet me in front of my boys, to be honest, it just feels really nice. And people, generally speaking, are just so nice, and they come up, and I get to meet new people. Yeah, it's awesome, and it feels very gratifying. I'm also, We talked about addictions. I'm addicted to affirmation from strangers. It's sort of pathetic, but I at least know it so I can modulate it. And it's really wonderful. People are really friendly and really nice. Uh, you know, I went to the Arsenal game with my boys and a bunch of people came up to me and said hi. And I was at the Taylor Swift conference, uh, concert and the six year old girl had made me a bracelet and came up and gave me a break. I mean, it's just like, I have all these wonderful moments with strangers. So. It's wonderful. I do think there is an algorithm for happiness, though, a pretty good one, and that is to be rich but anonymous, because at some point I'm going to become the villain. And some of the things you talked about before, there's an entire industr…

AI assessment note: “Oh, on the whole, this is really wonderful. I mean, people come up to me.”

Q the media, TikToks, and Reels that go around of you are a representation of who you are, Scott? Like, just being transparent. I loved your content coming into this, but I wanted to see this show. But the person that I'm interviewing now is completely different in an incredible way to the image I had of you. Do you feel like the image Is not aligned to who you are?

A No, it's an aspect of me. So I'm an introvert. I'm happiest after an edible at night alone with my dogs, knowing my kids are safe, uh, writing and, and just being alone. And I, when people meet me, they're generally disappointed. They think I'm going to be some fascinating guy full of interesting, you know, data interspersed with dick jokes. I'm an introvert. I'm fairly intense. And so that side of me is, uh, uh, A reflection or a personality or a side of my personality, but it's not, it's not me. And also, uh, social is, the algorithms just love moments where you're making a puncturing statement or someone's calling you out. Um, but no, it's not, I don't feel like, I don't think anybody who knows me, I don't know if you feel this way, would say, oh yeah, that's, that's who that person is. I try to be authentic. I try not to put on an act, but there's no doubt about it when the cameras go on and, you know, it's showtime. It's not, I, I, my favorite thing is to be around my kids and not say a word and just listen to them and just be in the company of people. My partner consistently has to ask, encourage me. It's like, make conversation for God's sakes. You're so fucking boring. I enjoy it. You know, I'm, I'm paid to be an extrovert. I don't know if you feel this way. I'm paid to be an extrovert. So how I relax is I just like to listen to other people and, and be a, you know, an …

AI assessment note: “No, it's an aspect of me. So I'm an introvert.”

Q Will you give your money to your children? Do you believe in inheritance?

A Yeah, I'll give them some money. I'll, I'll give them enough money so they can always have a house, always afford education. I'll give them a start, but they won't inherit. I won't give them a ton of money. I'll give them, I don't know what that number is, but I'll give them enough money. I love what Warren Buffett said. I'll give them enough such that they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing. Um, I'll give them enough money so that they always know they can afford a home, afford their kids' education, you know, which is a lot of money, but I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm not interested in building a Dynasty or anything like that. I don't, I know a lot of rich kids. They're not any less happy than other kids, but they're not any happier.

AI assessment note: “I'll give them enough such that they can do anything, but not enough”

Q So what one belief do you have that most people think would be insane?

A Well, on a practical level, the young people need to drink more. I get a lot of pushback from that. Um, but my, my source of power that most people don't Engage in is I'm an atheist. I, I'm a hundred percent convinced at some point I'm going to look into my kid's eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end, but it's hugely empowering for me knowing that everyone I'm worried about what they think, worried about being shamed, worried about being embarrassed. It doesn't matter that they're going to be dead soon and so am I. So my atheism is like this incredible source of, you know, courage and comfort that I think a lot of people don't have the joy of participating in.

AI assessment note: “my source of power that most people don't Engage in is I'm an atheist”

Q But, but in, like, free market economies, where we see situations like that, do you believe in active government intervention?

A Yeah, but it's a balance, right? I don't, I think one of the strengths of America is we have a tendency to have more of a wild west attitude, and I think that is probably, to err on the side of too little regulation is probably better than too much regulation. That could loosely be defined, or if you were to try and come up with three or four reductive reasons why the U.S. has created so much more economic value than Europe, I think if you're intellectually honest, you would say that in the U.S. companies are allowed to ask for forgiveness, not permission. And there's, there's some value to that. There's also a downside, and that is, we have a 60% uptick in teen suicide in the US, and I don't put it all at the hands of social or the feet of social media, but it's definitely played a role, and Europe is more thoughtful about You know, what privacy regulations are, right? And I do think there is, uh, economic advantage to erring on the, a lighter touch of regulation, but it also comes with some externalities. But again, that's why we have a government and thoughtful people who can hopefully balance economic growth and innovation and risk and being aggressive and breaking some shit with also recognizing that, okay, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are lying to this, to us, that probably it doesn't make sense for a twelve-year-old to be spending 14 hours, you know, a day, uh, in…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, but it's a balance, right?”

Q great, high, well-paid jobs. They've crushed, and they're angry, Scott. They're told, hey, I've been told for a decade that work is the most important thing, career, career, career. And actually, I'm sitting here now where my eggs are not what they used to be, my fertility is not what it used to be, and I feel like I was misadvised by the system. What would you say to them?

A I think economic security is really important. And I mean, so I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died of secretary. And the biggest source of stress in our life, quite frankly, Harry, was we just didn't have enough money. And it was very, in a capitalist society in America, when you don't have a lot of money, even as a kid, I remember registering these little things. It's like a ghost is following you around telling you you're not worthy. Like, I literally felt like there was this ghost following me and my mom around saying you're not worthy. And, and I think poor people get those messages every day. And I think if you're a poor woman or a woman who doesn't have a lot of economic prospects, I think that's an ugly place to be. So I don't fault those women for wanting to excel academically and engage in the fruits of a capitalist society and develop economic security. I'm not sure I would advise them to have done anything different. The hard part is if you're going to have an honest conversation about mating, you have to have an honest conversation, and it's the following. The guy that takes that route and becomes a baller at a law firm becomes sexy, right? You make more money, you're more attractive as a man. You make more money as a woman, you're just a woman making more money. And so the, the, the sort of increase in mating opportunities for men who get mo…

AI assessment note: “I'm not sure I would advise them to have done anything different.”

Q Have you ever felt as a father, like you didn't meet the grade? There was a period where you didn't meet the grade. You, you weren't performing like you should have been and you, you let them down as a father.

A Oh, I feel that almost every day. I, I hugely The two people that make me more insecure than anyone in my life are my boys. Like, someday, every day I wonder, do my boys like me? And then what you recognize in a moment of clarity as a dad is like, they're not necessarily supposed to like you. You're not supposed to be their friend. You're supposed to be their dad. And I handle situations incorrectly. I over-parent. I under-parent. I know I'm a good dad, but I aspire to be a great dad, and I still don't think I'm there yet. It is something I have not figured out. I'm hugely insecure around, uh, my fathering. Uh, it's something I struggle with. I have a kid who's applying to college. He's taking the ACT. I don't know how to thread the needle between telling him it's go time. Success is about knowing when to turn on the jets. This is that time. And at the same time, not putting too much pressure on a seventeen-year-old who is already, like, studying all these subjects, trying to make the football team, get his IB scores up, You know, get home on time. I mean, so I, I struggle. The position I find most rewarding, but also the people I'm most insecure around in a weird way are my son. So I think I just decided that's part of it. I, maybe dads, there, maybe there are some dads who just like think, oh yeah, I'm a great dad, no doubt about it. But yeah, I, I, I struggle with what it me…

AI assessment note: “Oh, I feel that almost every day.”

Q Did you have a good relationship with your father?

A Uh, this is very interesting, cheap therapy. Um, the, no, I mean, my dad was fairly absent. My dad left us, my dad's been married. My dad was handsome, strong jawline, and a Scottish accent, which meant in seventies, Southern California could not only think with his dick, he could listen to it. He's been married and divorced four times. And as far as we know, and he's on his fifth wife, which is a woman I basically pay to be his kind of home health aide. Um, And he let, you know, he, he, he, uh, basically started his third marriage while I was still married to my mom, left, moved to Ohio. It was a different age. It was the seventies. Kids were sort of like, uh, furniture. They, we didn't revolve our lives around kids back then. So I saw him, uh, uh, holidays and summers. So we weren't, he wasn't very involved in my life. Um, but where I forgiven my dad, um, And I'll put the question back to you about your relationship with your father. What was a big unlock for me was I think we have an evolutionary obligation to just be a better dad than our dad was to us. And my dad was that my dad was physically abused by his alcoholic father. And when I recognize how his father treated him, he was actually very good to me. And that means he checked a box. And then the biggest unlock I used to resent my father and have trouble, you know, sometimes being nice to him was, I, one of my biggest …

AI assessment note: “no, I mean, my dad was fairly absent.”

Q the media, TikToks, and Reels that go around of you are a representation of who you are, Scott? Like, just being transparent. I loved your content coming into this, but I wanted to see this show. But the person that I'm interviewing now is completely different in an incredible way to the image I had of you. Do you feel like the image Is not aligned to who you are?

A No, it's an aspect of me. So I'm an introvert. I'm happiest after an edible at night alone with my dogs, knowing my kids are safe, uh, writing and, and just being alone. And I, when people meet me, they're generally disappointed. They think I'm going to be some fascinating guy full of interesting, you know, data interspersed with dick jokes. I'm an introvert. I'm fairly intense. And so that side of me is, uh, uh, A reflection or a personality or a side of my personality, but it's not, it's not me. And also, uh, social is, the algorithms just love moments where you're making a puncturing statement or someone's calling you out. Um, but no, it's not, I don't feel like, I don't think anybody who knows me, I don't know if you feel this way, would say, oh yeah, that's, that's who that person is. I try to be authentic. I try not to put on an act, but there's no doubt about it when the cameras go on and, you know, it's showtime. It's not, I, I, my favorite thing is to be around my kids and not say a word and just listen to them and just be in the company of people. My partner consistently has to ask, encourage me. It's like, make conversation for God's sakes. You're so fucking boring. I enjoy it. You know, I'm, I'm paid to be an extrovert. I don't know if you feel this way. I'm paid to be an extrovert. So how I relax is I just like to listen to other people and, and be a, you know, an …

AI assessment note: “No, it's an aspect of me. So I'm an introvert.”

Q Can I ask one final thing before we do a quick fire? We haven't talked about marriage. When you think about sustaining a marriage through wealth creation, through kids, through kids going to boarding school, what have been your biggest lessons on what it takes is to sustain a truly loving marriage through very different cycles of life?

A Uh, it goes back to that first thing. First thing is put away the scorecard. Say, like, what kind of husband do I want to be? Right? And, like, write it out. What kind of husband do I want to be? And then live to that standard. Instead of saying, well, your parents were in town, you weren't very nice to my parents, so I'm not going to be nice to yours. Or, or, you know, just decide what kind of husband. Don't keep score. Just decide, I want to be a wonderful husband. What does that mean? And live to that standard. Um, notice their lives. You're, you're such a, you're so successful that you're gonna get so used to just everyone applauding for you. You need to take time to figure out a way such that your partner has stages that strangers and other people are applauding for her. Like really go out of your way to try and give her venues and arenas and environments where strangers can applaud for her. So it's just not always about your success and you all the time. Always express Physical affection and sexual desire. It says, I choose you. I think women want to be wanted. I think that's so important in a relationship. Like, whenever you're feeling affectionate, whenever you want to hold their hand, whenever you want to, more than you can, whenever you want to have sex, express that hunger, express that love, express that affection. I think it's really important in a relationship. An…

AI assessment note: “First thing is put away the scorecard. Say, like, what kind of husband do I want to be?”

Q Why though, if you don't need more money?

A Because I, you know, it's hard to get out, it's hard, it's hard to get off the hamster wheel of identifying your self-esteem and your worth with money, and also I would love a bunch more money to give away, and you know, in a capitalist society it's really sad, but the more money you have, the more power you have, the more virtue you have, Look at, we're willing to forgive a guy who disowns his children on podcasts and is being sued by two women concurrently for sole custody of their child and cuts off food stamps to kids and benefits to veterans because he's the richest man in the world. I mean, in a capitalist society, every signal is telling you there's never enough. So I think it's sort of a natural or an understandable instinct.

AI assessment note: “hard to get off the hamster wheel of identifying your self-esteem and your worth with money”

Q So what one belief do you have that most people think would be insane?

A Well, on a practical level, the young people need to drink more. I get a lot of pushback from that. Um, but my, my source of power that most people don't Engage in is I'm an atheist. I, I'm a hundred percent convinced at some point I'm going to look into my kid's eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end, but it's hugely empowering for me knowing that everyone I'm worried about what they think, worried about being shamed, worried about being embarrassed. It doesn't matter that they're going to be dead soon and so am I. So my atheism is like this incredible source of, you know, courage and comfort that I think a lot of people don't have the joy of participating in.

AI assessment note: “Well, on a practical level, the young people need to drink more.”

Q most of the team and restructure the entire company. But he's concerned about doing that in a company this old with this many loyal employees. Um, I know that there's a, that you probably have a hundred questions before you could give him, you know, specific advice. But what, what steps Do you think David should be taking to figure out what to do with his company at this point?

A It's so situational because I, I just don't know this. It could be a group of employees who are very good at what they do and they're, they're facing market dynamics are bigger than individual performance. And he might be in an industry where there's just headwinds and there's very little they can do about it other than potentially cut costs. He might have a bad culture with this group of employees that have become where he just needs new people that are overpriced and not very good. Uh, what I would suggest is someone like this needs a kitchen cabinet or a really talented board of directors who have a vested interest in their success, but are quite frankly a little bit rapacious, are just gonna look at the numbers, just look at the growth projections, look at the value of the company, and are gonna have enough experience to know your compensation costs are out of line, your vendor relationships are not strong, you're too reliant on a small number of consumers, you're in an industry that sucks, we need to either figure out a way to cut costs, Or raise the capital to try and, you know, invest in growth categories in your industry. There's just, it's so hard to read the label from inside of the bottle, and one of the big mistakes I made as a young entrepreneur was feeling that leadership was me figuring it all out. That I, I needed to understand, I needed to portray this image th…

AI assessment note: “what I would suggest is someone like this needs a kitchen cabinet or a really talented board”

Q just, I'm still like you. I'm still, I still sweat it. And I'm like, oh, is that what these guys are doing? They're just trying to relate to the common man. Um, or are you actually just not like fixing that irrational part of your brain and just being like, uh, you know, you know, working on that, like getting it, getting it right. Um, which one is it? Yeah.

A So first off, the neuroses is real. It's not a, it's not a humble brag. It's part of a brag, but it's not a humble brag. It's the neuroses is real. But it's also, it's also a feature as well as a bug. Because I'm all over the people managing my money. I know where my money is. I think a lot about diversifying. Sam, what you're doing is exactly what you should be doing. Because you're not looking to get, you're looking to get richer, but more than anything, you're looking to not get poor. And the mistake I made at your age when I had Some wins was I would double down and I would start another company and put all my money into one thing. Like you're, quite frankly, you should be selling down your Airbnb and your HubSpot stock and just letting, you don't need the needle in a haystack. You just need to buy the whole haystack because you've got enough capital.

AI assessment note: “So first off, the neuroses is real. It's not a humble brag.”

Q Can I, how does this pan out? Do we have 10 trillion dollar companies with mag seven, or do we see the traditional bluntly cycle of companies of growth, of sustenance, and then decline, and this is just another cycle?

A It's an interesting question because some people would say that ultimately the market figures out, and look, look what's happening with Alphabet. Google is starting to lose share to open AI, right? And that eventually a competitor comes along, whether it's BYD and Tesla. But I would argue what happens between now and then, and that is, um, I think it is very difficult for companies like a lot of, you know, the retail landscape in the US has largely been decimated except for specialty retail because Amazon could put forward cheap capital and sell a dollar worth of products for 90 cents and starve out other e-commerce players. And I was one of those companies. So winning in our economy has become a function of establishing a great product, establishing the perception that you're the market leader such that you can attract cheaper capital. And essentially, Overwhelm the competition with capital. At the end of World War II, the German army had better soldiers, better kill ratio, better tanks, better planes, better officers, but we, because we cut off their supply routes, we had 38 gallons of gasoline for every one they did, so we were able to overwhelm their superior Tiger tanks with our shitty Bradley tanks, because we would just never get within firing distance and chase them around until they ran out of gasoline. Uh, and now the kind of the business strategy that Has built a lot…

AI assessment note: “winning in our economy has become a function of establishing a great product”

Q Can I, how does this pan out? Do we have 10 trillion dollar companies with mag seven, or do we see the traditional bluntly cycle of companies of growth, of sustenance, and then decline, and this is just another cycle?

A It's an interesting question because some people would say that ultimately the market figures out, and look, look what's happening with Alphabet. Google is starting to lose share to open AI, right? And that eventually a competitor comes along, whether it's BYD and Tesla. But I would argue what happens between now and then, and that is, um, I think it is very difficult for companies like a lot of, you know, the retail landscape in the US has largely been decimated except for specialty retail because Amazon could put forward cheap capital and sell a dollar worth of products for 90 cents and starve out other e-commerce players. And I was one of those companies. So winning in our economy has become a function of establishing a great product, establishing the perception that you're the market leader such that you can attract cheaper capital. And essentially, Overwhelm the competition with capital. At the end of World War II, the German army had better soldiers, better kill ratio, better tanks, better planes, better officers, but we, because we cut off their supply routes, we had 38 gallons of gasoline for every one they did, so we were able to overwhelm their superior Tiger tanks with our shitty Bradley tanks, because we would just never get within firing distance and chase them around until they ran out of gasoline. Uh, and now the kind of the business strategy that Has built a lot…

AI assessment note: “winning in our economy has become a function of... attract cheaper capital”

Q He'll be ready. Um, what opportunities or ideas do you see today that either, you know, you're tempted to do or you say, no, I'm out of the game, but if I was 25 again, this is what I would be running at. This is what I would be working on. Um, this is a problem that I think somebody could go solve. What do you see out there today?

A So first off, a lot of it is situational, right? Someone coming out of someone with a degree from an elite university who has the ability whose parents will support them and doesn't have a high burn and maybe a partner that works. You know, it's just a lot of it's situational. I, I don't like it. I've never liked this hustle culture where people say, go offer to carry Jeff Bezos bags or have coffee. Cause some, if you're a single mother, that's just not an option for you. So some of it's situational. So I'll go through a few situations. If I'm a young man or woman and I haven't had the opportunity to get credentialed, I don't have a traditional four year college degree, much less a college degree from an elite institution. I think there are going to be a lot of businesses, whether it's carpet cleaning or gas stations or, uh, you know, hanging and selling draperies into small furniture companies that are owned by boomers. They're going to need a transition, nice small businesses, and these individuals will need liquidity events. They're just aging out of the business. They don't, you know, they're hitting their sixties and seventies and they don't want to be calling on Car washes to sell in, you know, their product or whatever it is. And these are businesses doing between half a 1,000,010 million a year that have no succession strategy. Because if they made money, their kids don…

AI assessment note: “I think there are going to be a lot of businesses... owned by boomers.”

Q Will you give your money to your children? Do you believe in inheritance?

A Yeah, I'll give them some money. I'll, I'll give them enough money so they can always have a house, always afford education. I'll give them a start, but they won't inherit. I won't give them a ton of money. I'll give them, I don't know what that number is, but I'll give them enough money. I love what Warren Buffett said. I'll give them enough such that they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing. Um, I'll give them enough money so that they always know they can afford a home, afford their kids' education, you know, which is a lot of money, but I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm not interested in building a Dynasty or anything like that. I don't, I know a lot of rich kids. They're not any less happy than other kids, but they're not any happier.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I'll give them some money. I'll, I'll give them enough money”