The Exchanges

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 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 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 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 and I see things that maybe other people don't see, and I just notice things, and I am able to talk about them, and it makes everyone laugh because it's something that they all notice, but they're not exactly sure that they're sensitive enough to really, uh, comment on it. What allows you, do you think, to come up with these interesting observations? Is it being sensitive? What is it?

A It's mostly IP theft. I get most of my ideas from other people, and I'll pause when I see something really interesting or that kind of moves me. And I'll repeat it a bunch of times and try and apply it such that I remember it. I, I've just found this thing, I forget who even said it, but it really moved me, and it was that, ah, everything does not demand your judgment. You don't have, you are entitled to not have opinions on things. And it, I just paused and I thought about it over and over and over, and I've used that, I've used that line a bunch of times because I was falling into this trap of Dunning-Kruger. I thought, okay, because I have some insight around a couple of things that everyone demands to deserve and wants my opinion on everything. And I w I do all these hot takes on the podcast and videos and, you know, it's like the Epstein files come out and I'm like, all right, how do I wrap my hands around that? And I'm like, you know what? Maybe the world isn't dying to hear from me about the Epstein files. Uh, maybe the world isn't dying to hear about my views on Iran, although I have a lot of views on Iran. It's like, okay, it's okay to occasionally sit back and just shut the up. Anyways, my point is, if I see something that I find really insightful and interesting, I stop, I read it a bunch of times, I try and apply it, and I try to cement it into my gray manner. So I …

AI assessment note: “It's mostly IP theft. I get most of my ideas from other people”

Q So you're picking companies that have kissed the ring, is what you're talking about?

A These are the enablers. These are the people who've said, okay, kiss his ass. I mean, there's some historical precedents here. In the early thirties, Germany, the captains of the manufacturing industry turned a blind eye to Hitler and the rise of fascism because he said, if you don't come out against me, they were very worried about him. I will crush the trade unions and you will make a shit ton of money. There's an apt analogy here. And that is I get text messages from these guys saying, I hate myself. I don't want to go to the white house. I'm like, well, I hate you too. Cause you're not willing to speak up. And the very values and principles, rule of law, capitalism, competition, free markets that built these amazing companies and made these guys billionaires is under attack right now. And they don't want to speak up because they think they're going to make money. We'll be careful what you ask for, but these are the enablers and your free gift with purchase, spend less money, send a message to the people who, you know, tell them to put away the knee pads and speak your mind. They probably have to do it collectively because he goes after people who go first, but this is a, Great way to send a message to the president, to the markets, and to these individuals that this, what, what is happening here is un-American, and you are desecrating the values that made you so goddamn ric…

AI assessment note: “These are the enablers. These are the people who've said, okay, kiss his ass.”

Q Do you remember how much money, uh, when you felt that tipping point where you did feel financially secure? Not like bulletproof where nothing ever will happen, but do you remember the inflection point where you're like, okay, this feels different than I've felt on the, on the climb?

A I still don't, I still haven't hit that point. I'm still very anxious about money. You know, I had, and I like to be very open about Money, because I think that not talking about money is basically a decorum that is promoted by the incumbents and the wealthy, such that you don't understand how much money wealthy people have to keep poor and middle class people under the illusion that, oh, you, you should be paying 45% taxes while I'm paying 17. And I think, I think it's important to be very, I think it's helpful to be transparent. And I talk about how much money I've lost, um, all my investments, how much money I've gained, my tax rates, et cetera. But the, the, you know, I'm, I'm still, I'm not obsessed with money. I think about it all the time. I'm trying to get a lot more. I'm, I'm giving it away. I, five, five years ago, I decided I was going to give away every dollar I made in current income. Um, because I want to start catching up to the non-philanthropic Scott for the first 45 years of his life, but I'm still trying to make a shit ton of money. I still feel financially very insecure. I still worry about a recession becoming a depression, and I'm the guy who lost it again. I've lost it all a couple times, and so I don't feel I'm at that point where I don't have financial anxiety. I do sleep with one eye open. The big, you know, I sold my first company for Twenty-eight mil…

AI assessment note: “I still don't, I still haven't hit that point. I'm still very anxious”

Q Did you, you know, you're, you're, you're incredibly successful, you're incredibly influential, but when you're at Davos, you're around, like, literally the people controlling the world of the most famous, powerful people on earth. Was there anything that you learned?

A I don't think I was able to discern differences or draw anything, conclusions around these type of people. The things I walked away from Davos with is that the last time I was there in 99, it was about e-commerce, and the U.S. brand was capitalism consumption and Bill Clinton. Now it's about AI. Everyone was talking about AI, and it's about the American brand is chaos, coercion, and I don't know, compliance. I, I just, I find the US brand has fallen so far so fast. I came away from Davos unsettled about how unsettled the world is right now, but I don't think I Jew any. I personally, and people hate this, the billionaires I know, I know about a dozen. Are actually really good people. The Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, like, you can't be a billionaire unless you're a bad person. Well, okay, Elizabeth Warren, you're worth twenty million. Does that mean you're only a fifties as bad, but you're 20 times worse than a millionaire? I don't buy the rich people are bad. I have generally found The distinct of the Epstein files, which I understand gives people the impression that once men get to this point, they feel like they're no subject to the rules. I think that's a really interesting discussion. I personally have found that billionaires are generally very high character people because the key to being really successful is to create allies along the way such that you're put in a ro…

AI assessment note: “The things I walked away from Davos with is that the last time I was”

Q You've, uh, you've talked a lot about marriage and this is our next question, but you said, uh, you talk about how important it is both financially and emotionally to marry the right person. So if we were gonna do, um, the, uh, the inversion of that, what would you say is the best and easiest way to marry the wrong person?

A Really thoughtful question. Um, when I was a young man and I was trying to find romantic or sexual partners, I was constantly trying to figure out what person do I need to be that will get them to like me. I was trying to constantly figure it out. Do I need to act indifferent? Like I don't care. I, uh, I was just, it wasn't me establishing a relationship with this person or on a date with this person. It was my representative. Who tried to figure out what I thought this person would want from me, or specifically how I could convince this person to have sex with me. And what you realize is the person you want to end up with is the person where you get to be you and they like you despite the real you. Like, and the best relationships I've ever had are people that I, like, I can be me around, and they just really like me for me. Like, I, I look back on sources of confidence. My first serious relationship with a woman named Melanie Kagan, and I was crazy about her, and she was crazy about me, and I think that confidence of someone who actually knows you, And you can be honest with and call and who sees your insecurities and, you know, and still really is into you. I just think I, if I could wish anything on a young person, it would be the opportunity to be who you are around somebody and find out that people, there are people out there who will love you for that. I just think that …

AI assessment note: “It was my representative. Who tried to figure out what I thought this person would want”

Q What age did you, uh, start traveling with your kids? I've got a, a two-year-old and a, and a, and a three-month-old, and I'm looking forward to traveling.

A Uh, the three-month-old is actually easier to travel than the two-year-old. Zero to three is awful. It gets better. You're, you're no use. Your job is to be supportive of your wife and make money. That's it. You add no value. You'll pretend to like it. You'll come on podcasts and say, oh, I love it. She did the cutest. It's awful. And keep them away from a large body of water. That's your entire job right now. And then at about age three, they become less awful. And then about from like four to 14 is the golden decade. Oh, do everything. I mean, again, these are incredible stories of privilege. But even if you don't have money, take your kid. The best week I've had in probably the last three years, I did a college tour with my son. We planned it out together using AI. Should we go to Indiana? Should we go to Wash U? Should we go to Michigan State? What if we go to If we go to Michigan, can we see a football game? If we go to UNC, can we see a basketball game? I mean, we did nine schools in nine days, and it was just, it was just amazing. And, but, uh, take time with your partner, take them somewhere cool and amazing. Spend, there's a ton of research on this. People overestimate the amount of happiness they'll get from things, and they underestimate the amount of happiness they'll get from experiences. And some, drive a Hyundai and take your husband to Africa.

AI assessment note: “from like four to 14 is the golden decade. Oh, do everything.”