Oct 30, 2024 · 1h 35m · bigdeal
How the US is SABOTAGING Young People’s Future | Scott Galloway
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In this in-depth conversation, Scott Galloway and Codie Sanchez analyze the economic and cultural headwinds disenfranchising younger generations in America. Together, they explore practical blueprints for individual wealth creation, solutions for the growing crisis among young men, and the necessity of structural tax and corporate reforms.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Codie holds 19.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Codie as informed peer 3.1 Guest teaching 4.0 Guest disagreement 3.3 Codie pushing back 1.5
speaking balance: gold is Codie, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:04 Galloway dismisses the 'follow your passion' ethos
Galloway forcefully rejects conventional career advice, calling 'following your passion' nonsense spoken primarily by individuals who achieved wealth through unglamorous industries.
Hardest push from Codie ▶ 17:05 Sanchez challenges tax policy framing and government inefficienciesSanchez pushes back on pure tax solutions, pointing out that institutional interest advantages and wasteful government projects like California's high-speed rail frustrate taxpayers.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 55:10 Galloway details Tinder swipe statistics and mating market inequalityGalloway educates the host with empirical data showing the stark imbalance where 46 of 50 women pursue only 4 men on Tinder, leaving average men isolated.
Codie holds their own ▶ 1:26:05 Sanchez shares internal cultural analysis of Vanguard vs GoldmanSanchez leverages her direct financial career background to detail how Vanguard's non-meritocratic internal structure contrasts with aggressive Wall Street institutions.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Codie as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Codie pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode Preview: Wealth Inequality, Passion, and Dating | 1 | 5 | 6 | 1 | Codie asks open-ended questions about how systemic economic problems occurred and Galloway forcefully breaks down the intergenerational transfer of wealth and the shift in societal compacts. | |
| Sponsor Segment: Riverside Studio Platform | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Codie delivers a solo sponsor read for Riverside Studio Platform. | |
| Higher Education Cartels, NIMBYism, and COVID Stimulus Distortions | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 | Codie touches on university endowments and declining ROI, prompting Galloway to critique the higher education cartel, exclusionary housing policies, and COVID fiscal bailouts. | |
| Tax Reforms, Progressive Incentives, and Youth Relief | 3 | 5 | 4 | 1 | Galloway explains progressive tax anomalies, highlighting how asset appreciation drops effective tax rates for the ultra-wealthy compared to high-earning W2 professionals. | |
| Tackling National Debt, Entitlements, and Spending Inefficiencies | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Codie pushes back on institutional finance purchasing single-family homes and questions government spending inefficiencies, leading Galloway to agree that both entitlement reform and revenue increases are required. | |
| Galloway’s Four-Pillar Blueprint for Long-Term Wealth | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 | Galloway rejects common tropes like 'following your passion' and details his four-pillar wealth framework: focus, stoicism, time, and diversification. | |
| The Value of Corporate Apprenticeship Over Entrepreneurial Hype | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | Both host and guest share personal backgrounds at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, aligning on the compounding value of corporate training over premature entrepreneurship. | |
| Harnessing Rejection, Failure Resilience, and Personal Well-Being | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Codie asks how Galloway handles public failure and atheism, leading Galloway to discuss cognitive behavioral tactics (SCAFA) and building resilience to rejection. | |
| The Crisis of Young Men, Asocial Living, and Algorithmic Dating | 2 | 7 | 4 | 1 | Galloway delivers an in-depth data breakdown of male developmental delays, loneliness, unequal dating app mechanics, and societal consequences. | |
| Rebuilding Guardrails, Social Habits, and Dating Standards | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Codie shares observations on church community dynamics and dating polarization, while Galloway details actionable rules for young men and women navigating dating. | |
| Corporate Monopolies, Tech Concentration, and Antitrust Enforcement | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Codie and Galloway discuss corporate concentration, private equity buyouts in small business, and the economic benefits of aggressive antitrust enforcement. | |
| Passive Index Investing, Wall Street Fees, and Work Arbitrage | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | Codie shares her career experiences at Vanguard versus Goldman Sachs, and Galloway explains corporate work arbitrage and passive index investing advantages. | |
| Critiquing Elon Musk, Tech Oligarchs, and Public Investment | 5 | 4 | 5 | 2 | Codie brings up Galloway's exchanges with Elon Musk, prompting Galloway to critique tech billionaires who disparage the public infrastructure and subsidies that enabled their fortunes. | |
| Concluding Reflections and Scott Galloway's 'Adrift' | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Codie wraps up the episode, commending Galloway's newsletter and book 'Adrift' before closing remarks. |
Statements from this episode (42)
Galloway: US policy drove an intentional wealth transfer from young to old
“There has been a purposeful transfer of wealth from young to old over the last 40 years.”
Galloway: Older Americans receive $1.3T annually from Social Security
“And the wealthiest generation in the history of the planet gets 1.3 trillion dollars a year in the form of Social Security.”
Galloway: 30-year-olds are poorer than their parents were at 30
“And for the first time in our nation's history, a thirty-year-old man or woman isn't as wealthy as his or her parents were at 30, which in my opinion is a fundamental breakdown in the compact we have between us and America.”
UCLA admissions dropped from 76% when Galloway applied to 9%
“When I applied to UCLA, the admissions rate was 76%. I barely, and I didn't get in. I was one of the 24% that got rejected. And I applied the second time when I got in. This year is going to be nine percent”
Galloway: Elite universities constrain supply to create billionaires, not millionaires
“The artificially constrained supply among the elite institutions, and the kind of gestalt in America is that we want to identify a super class of freakishly remarkable kids, and then turn them into billionaires. As opposed to trying to let in as many kids as p…”
Galloway: Harvard grew endowment 4,000% while class size grew 4%
“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.”
Galloway: 85% of US COVID stimulus was saved, not spent
“So we flushed six to seven trillion dollars into the economy, under the auspices that this is a national emergency and people that need it. 85% of it wasn't spent. So, 85% was saved, meaning five to six trillion, which is kind of like, let's flush money into t…”
Galloway: Mississippi's Average Income Matches or Exceeds the UK and Germany
“So, for example, if you take the poor state, Mississippi, the average household income there is still the same or higher than it is in the UK, Germany, South Korea, Japan.”
Galloway: Corporate Tax Rates Are at Their Lowest Since 1938
“Corporations are paying the lowest tax rate since 1938.”
Galloway: Top 25 Wealthiest Americans Pay 6% to 8% Tax
“The wealthiest 25 Americans pay an average tax rate of six to eight percent.”
Galloway: Share of 30-34 Year-Olds with Children Plunged to 27%
“40 years ago, 60% of people aged 30 to 34 had at least one child. Now it's 27%.”
Galloway: Top 2% Pay Roughly 90% of Federal Income Taxes
“The bottom 50% pay almost no federal income tax, and the top two percent pay about 90% of the taxes.”
Galloway's average tax rate over the last decade was 17%
“Once you make the jump to light speed, and you can have the privilege I have, where I basically buy and sell assets to make a living, I start companies, I sell them, I piece out to Florida because I have that kind of mobility, my average tax rate the last 10 y…”
Galloway: Foreign Buyers Will Abandon US Treasury Auctions, Spiking Rates
“At some point, the Chinese or whoever aren't going to show up for one of our treasury auctions, and interest rates are going to skyrocket, and you're going to have, you know, shit's going to get real pretty fast.”
Galloway: Economies Become Inefficient When Government Spending Exceeds 32%
“Government, when an economy goes above sort of 30, 32% of spending is the government, it just becomes very inefficient.”
Galloway: US Spending on Seniors Is Rising from 40% to 50%
“40% of all spending right now, government spending, goes to seniors. It's about to be 50%, which lowers the amount of money we can invest in technology, R&D, and education, which have a much bigger payoff.”
Galloway: US Will Spend More on Debt Interest Than Defense
“We're now, this year, gonna spend more money on interest on the debt than we spend on our military.”
Galloway: 83% of SAG-AFTRA Members Failed to Qualify for Health Insurance
“83% of them last year didn't qualify for health insurance because they didn't make 23,000 dollars.”
Galloway lost a $5M investment in a VC-backed healthcare startup
“Two weeks ago I found out, I made a, one of my biggest, I invested five million dollars in a tech space healthcare company, tier one VCs, baller CEO, best investors, had to elbow my way to get in, that's a big investment for me. It went out of business last we…”
Galloway Caps Any Single Investment at 3% to 4% of Net Worth
“I don't invest more than three or four percent of my net worth in any one thing.”
Galloway: Concentration Creates Wealth, but Diversification Preserves It
“The way you get rich is probably through a little bit of concentration, your own business, you double down on a house, you fix it up, you flip it, whatever it might be, but the way you stay somewhat rich is through diversification, and I didn't realize that.”
70% to 80% of Galloway's students expect top 1% incomes
“I survey my kids, when I say my kids, I mean my students, 70 to 80% of them expect to be in the top one percent of income earners by the time they're 35.”
Galloway: NYU Stern Average First-Year Compensation Is $212,000
“The average compensation at NYU Stern is 212,001st year”
Galloway Claims the Majority of Entrepreneurs Are Immigrants
“The majority of entrepreneurs are immigrants.”
Galloway: Business School Is for the Elite and Aimless
“I describe business school for the elite and the aimless. You're good at what you do, you're smart, you want to make money, you're disciplined, but you have no idea what you want to do. We all try to sound very focused in our business school applications, but …”
Galloway: Urban women under 30 earn more than men
“Women under the age of 30 in urban centers are making more money than men.”
Galloway: Female college grads will outnumber males 3 to 2 within five years
“In the next five years, there's going to be three female college grads for every two male college grads.”
Galloway: Young men face vastly higher rates of suicide, addiction, and incarceration
“Young men are four times as likely to kill themselves. They're three times as likely to be addicted. They're three times as likely to be homeless. They're 12 times as likely to be incarcerated.”
Galloway: Extremism and loneliness are bigger societal threats than climate change
“I think the biggest threats to our society aren't climate change or even income inequality. I think it's one extremism from the far left and the far right, and two, I think it's loneliness.”
Galloway: Historically, 80% of women procreated compared to 40% of men
“80% of women have procreated. It's only 40% of men throughout history.”
Galloway: Too Many Men Are Neither Economically Nor Emotionally Viable
“And what we have in our society right now, unfortunately, is too many men who are just not economically or emotionally viable.”
Galloway: Amazon increased third-party seller take rate from 20% to 45%
“Amazon, 20 years ago, if you were a third-party marketer or a third-party reseller selling your products on Amazon, they took about 20%. Of your gross dollar volume, now they take 45, because they kind of own the market.”
Galloway: All seven Baby Bells surpassed original AT&T's value in 10 years
“When AT&T was broken up into the seven baby bells, all seven of those companies were worth more than the original AT&T within 10 years.”
Galloway: Google's existence is a direct result of Microsoft antitrust action
“So if there hadn't been a DOJ ruling against Microsoft in 1999, we'd all be saying, I don't know, bang it. Google is a function of antitrust.”
Galloway: Spun-off PayPal is worth 15 times more than eBay
“PayPal used to be owned by eBay, and they spun it. It's now worth, I think, 15 times what eBay is worth.”
Galloway: Apple's market cap exceeds the entire UK stock market
“One company, Apple, is worth more than the entire UK stock market.”
Galloway: Alternative investments and hedge funds are essentially a grift
“If you took the entire alternative investments industry, any logo on CNBC, anyone that advertises, any hedge fund, it's essentially a grift. And what they, if you look at their performance, they've exactly underperformed the S&P by the amount of their fees.”
Sanchez: Vanguard is a great place to invest, awful to work
“I think Vanguard's a great place to invest, an awful place to work, unless you don't really like working that hard.”
Galloway: Underpaid young talent is corporate America's second-biggest arbitrage
“The ultimate arbitrage in our economy is fossil fuels, but the second of that is finding young, super hardworking, super talented people who are better with technology and paying them 30% of what you're paying Bob, who's a forty-year-old, and they do 90, they …”
Galloway: Elon Musk has been a net good for the world
“I think he's been a net good for the world. Inspired the EV race, the space, I mean, seeing that rocket, that booster rocket captured on it as it's falling, that shit's just inspiring.”
Galloway: Elon Musk is not a good role model for men
“I also think he should be held accountable for his coarseness and his cruelty. I don't think you attain that level of power such that you cannot pay people their legally obligated severance. I don't think you accuse an employee of being a sex criminal such tha…”
Galloway: Major tech companies were built on taxpayer-funded technology
“Every one of these companies is built on a technology that was funded by American middle class taxpayers, whether it was DARPA, whether Elon Musk got a three hundred fifty million dollar tax-free loan. He hates subsidies, but he was there for it when we gave h…”