Decoding the Gurus - Gurometer: Teal Swan and Scott Galloway

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

In this Gurometer double bill, Matt and Chris break out the much-sought-after Gurometer™ to score Teal Swan and Scott Galloway across the 11 recurring guru traits. In one efficient episode, we compare cosmic-certified spirituality with secular man-talk (and a surprising amount of puffer-jacket merchandising). As a bonus, get ready to thrill at Matt's eternal puzzlement at his own simple binary question of 'guru-osity'.LinksGurometer scores to dateThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (51 mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusGurometer: Teal Swan and Scott Galloway00:00 Back to the Gurometer: Teal and Scott02:33 Galaxy Brain-ness04:18 Cultishness05:25 Anti-Establishmentarianism08:31 Grievance Mongering10:55 Self Aggrandisement and Narcissism 14:30 Cassandra Complex18:03 Revolutionary Theories21:49 Pseudo-Profound Bullshit26:07 Conspiracy Mongering28:50 Excessive Profiteering36:25 Moral Grandstanding40:33 Overall Gurometer Score41:27 Rapid Fire Bonus Guru Points

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's Gerometer edition. You thought it was gone. You thought it had faded into the midst of time. No, it's back. And it's a double bill, Ma. It's a double bill. Scott Galloway, you don't escape the Gorameter. You will be entered.

And you're joined by T.S.1. Perhaps a useful comparison point for him. But, yeah. I mean, basically two very similar characters. We'll just do it too far, right? They can get the same scores. basically the same kind of people. Yeah, not really.

We forgot to do Scott Galloway or our thing's gotten away. Maybe we didn't forget. Maybe we just had, you know, all their stuff to do. In any case, we're here and we're ready to do it. And the garrometer for people who don't know, Matt, what is the grometer? When I put you on the spot? What's a garrometer? Well, it's much like the borg.

It just absorbs entities and integrates their deseromater. instinctiveness into the collective. Is that a fair description? Yeah, yeah, that's it. For those who might not be Star Wars Geeks, it's the scoring that we give the gurus on 11 factors that we find recurrent. One to five, we score them. We added up and we do a quick fire round.

You'll see how it goes. But, you know, we're on a tight ship scheduled today. So we're going to be efficient map. We're going to get straight into business, all right? And let's do them both simultaneously. one factor, two gurus. Yeah. And as you said earlier, realistically,

Scott Galloway could benefit from the comparison. Let's be honest. That's not our intention. It wasn't our intention. No, we don't have time. We need to do them both at the same time. We need to be efficient. That's right.

So let's see. I'm just putting their names in my part of it. All right, all right, all right. So we go time for term, Matt. That's how we do it. This is how we roll. Okay. So we'll start.

You do the first one because the second one looks incredibly easy. Okay. Oh, yeah. So the first one is Galaxy brand. We know what this is offering opinions confidently about a wide array of topics. And here, Matt, I'm going to give Teal a five. And I'm going to give Scott. He is really going to have had it from this.

I'm going to give Scott a free, I think. middle of the road. Because I think he does have quite a lot of takes around different topics, although he does stick to, you know, economics and... Mostly. Mostly. He's branching out. Yeah.

So Tils Swan, I feel like she's someone that would basically take any question. Like she's in touch with all of the entities out there and outer space. So really she's, I think she should be pretty, not confident, but she'd be willing to give her opinion on literally anything. It would be bullshit. It would be some vague aphorism, but she would give it. I think she has insights into everything. I think that's fair.

Scott, you know, he's in the normal range, I would say, of galaxy brightness. He is mainly a finance guy, a markets guy. But he's also, you know, he talks, you know, it's the nature of the discourse, right? He's talking about tech. He's talking about AI. He's talking about politics. and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. He's branched out with the...

Masculability chat. How to be a man. What, children, raising children. I think he's a little bit more galaxy range than your average, and that puts him just touching the clinical range. He gets a three from me too. You know, your instinct was right, Chris. Three and five, of course.

What's next one? Next is cultishness. Cultishness, cultishness. It's a very... It's a very tricky one. How to describe cultishness? It is the act of being cultish. It is, imagine a spectrum with a cult at one end and not at all a cult at the other end.

Cultiousness measures that spectrum. Yeah, so what are you going to give the two of them? I'll let you go first of this time. Okay, well, let's knock off too. She's an easy one there. She is a court leader. Most sources agree on that. That's not even our opinion.

That's what they say. It happens to be our opinion as well. It just happens to be our opinions as well. Yeah, sorry. I'm not going to spend too much time on that. Scott, no, not at all. I would give him a one. Yeah, I also.

I went the same way. Five and one. I think Scott, you know, you can talk about him wanting to establish a brand and a lot, but it's not a cult community. Come on. He's not establishing a cult. There's no Gallowites.

So, yeah. That's one and five, agreed, Matt. Now, anti-establishmentarianism, a kind of reactionary or reactive, if you like, response where anything establishments and institutions through is bad. By default, they're all lying to their, you know, out to keep you non-self-actualized. And I again feel that this is a slam dunk for teal. She's going to get a five. Is it?

Well, I knew that you would give her. of five, but justify that to me, because in the material that we listen to, they didn't talk about institutions very much. I mean, she, I mean, maybe implicitly, yes, perhaps. She thinks they're all

controlled by satanic worshippers who hid her abuse and just everything about her screams new age, conspirituality person. I have no issue giving her

a five on this. I think, you know, maybe there's some institutions that she's okay with, but she wants to replace them all with hers. That's the essence of anti-establishmentarianism, isn't it, Matt? Well, she didn't explicitly say that. That's all I'm saying. Okay. So I'm just going to be a bit more conservative there.

Like, I agree with you, right? Like her whole mode is intrinsically into establishment. It's just it didn't come up a great deal. in the thing, right? Because it's all about self-help, we're spiritual. They're talking about gods and... Conspiratory.

Conspiratory. Yeah. Anyway, I think if you did get it talking about... If he did ask her about the government or anything, I'm pretty sure it would be anti-establishment. But I got to give it a four because I feel like... A four. I just like to see stronger evidence, Chris.

Unlike you, who just likes to wing it and goes with your intuitions. I prefer to be like that. Now, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott. I mean, my gut feeling is he's pro. He's pro establishment. He's more pro establishment. He wants more establishment. Than the median, more than the median American, I would say, easily.

Yeah, I mean, I think as anti-establishment street comes out when he talks about men, you know, they won't let you talk about this or not. But it's kind of restricted. And his solution to those is like more, more investment in institutions and taxes. So it's really more a little bit like pandering down the establishment framing as opposed to being inherently. That's how I read it too. I think the criticism of Scott, if you want, is he's two pro establishment.

Yeah. That's such a common framing. Like you could read any article in the Atlantic or the Guardian and it would be something like, we need to talk about X. implicitly that. People aren't talking about such and such that you would have be. So that's kind of what they're doing.

So I'm going to give them another one. Next one. What is the next one? Grievance mongering. The having of grievances, personal grievances, inculcating grievance generically against society, against the elites, all that stuff. And yeah.

Now, Teal, I feel like grievance was sort of coming out of a pause. Yes. Yes. Okay. So you detected that. I was waiting for you to say, I didn't really know does she. No, she does do that. She's a cult leader as well. Like, I mean, oh, that whole section about the followers who are not giving that 110% and they're going to have to be really okay with the aggressive monkishness. As I say, they serve her needs. Yeah. I mean, I know too much about Thiel that leads me to be aware that she is incredible. incredibly grievance-wongering, but I don't think it's really secret. That's the thing. Like narratives of grievance about how the elites have ripped us off or something like that

didn't explicitly come up. It just, it's interesting. It just came through in her personality in the way that she talked about everything. Yeah. Okay. So I think I am comfortable giving her a five there. I'm five as well.

And with Scott, I'm actually, again, for my disagreements with Scott, one of them is not that he's, grievance seems grievance prone. Like I saw him recently appear with

Pierce Morgan, right? And he was talking to some Mike Sternovich style conservative, right? Michael Knowles was the guy who interviewed Chris Langham. And he was trying to push all his buttons and Scott Gallo was just like, yeah, whatever, no. Like this is the policy.

And he only talked for like five minutes and he was like, okay, Pierre, see you later. I feel like he just wants to make money pontificate of ideas. He doesn't want to be in all these feuds with people. So I don't think that's a big part of his brand. No, and he's very pleased with himself. He's very happy on the personal level about how life is going for him.

He emphasizes how lucky he has been. And he doesn't inculcated either at all. He's aggrieved at getting older. I mean, he's agreed. That's fair enough. I agree with that. I agree with that. I am too.

I am to is that a I share some of those grievances as well so that's right they're getting they're getting larger the older again but um the next one might

is self-acrondizement and narcissism and Scott's gonna sneak in here I think he's going to sneak in here he's gonna push the needle over one here yeah and let's see Scott first because he's more fun I think he like he is very self-deprecatory At times.

Like, I've many times. I've heard him. Okay, is he? But I just thought some of it as strategic. Like one of his comic jokes is how he's completely impotent now. Okay. It's part of the getting old grievance, right? But he does do it in a performative, funny, I think, an amusing kind of way.

I think underlying that is, I mean, he is also self-aggrandizing and that he does like to talk about how much money he makes and how he's, And he's Prof G. I mean, I know Americans have a different attitude about that, but just... Yeah. It's like, yeah, professor, professor, professor. So does he, does he... Actually, I'm just curious, I never checked this.

Does he publish? Of course he does. It's all over the place. I mean, you know, like research articles, I'm asking. Oh, sorry, I thought you were saying, does he brand themselves as professor? Yeah, I mean, this is just something like I just naturally do when somebody... He doesn't have a Google Scholar account. No, I can't.

tell. I can't tell. Your one tone was taken from you. Google Scholar. Yeah. No, no, I mean, he doesn't have an account. As far as I can tell. So it's not easy to quickly check. But it doesn't really matter. I was just, I was just curious what kind of professor he was.

Anyway, um, so look, I give a two or three. I don't know. Maybe you can you talk me, can you talk me up from two? No, I'm going to go 3.5. I think because like I agree that relatively speaking, like compared to Tils 1 or in Eric Weinstein, he's completely normal

person. But I just think the confidence with which he reeled off all those statistics which are false or hyperbolicly exaggerated. And I've seen him in various other contexts during the same sort of thing. So I think he just has a

lot of confidence in his teaks. And I know he's a professor of marketing and all that kind of stuff, but I'm going to Anglame 3.5, Matt. I think that's right. He's up there. Sabine Hossomfelder got around three for this. I mean, she should have run up.

This was back when we go to her end. But, yeah. That extreme confidence for me isn't really a self-aggrandizement. That would go more into the, you know, galaxy brainness or something, offering very confident, overly confident takes across a variety of different things. we don't actually have a specific dimension for people that are overly confident and while

they're making incorrect um assertions i'm putting it in here mom i'm putting it in here you do what you want in your score three and five i'll take away to no point five okay i'll go free that's fine don't you want i'll give them it to which pulls you down three and five that's all right you have consensus that's fine we welcome diversity of thought at d t tisg um that's right Teal Swan. Yeah, fucking hell. She's five.

She's five. Yeah. I mean that. Yeah. She's five. She might marks. She's, we don't even know if she's human.

She's, she's, she's some sort of demigod, really. Um, right. Um, okay.

Next up, next up. Next up, your turn. Cassandra Complex. Warning of. Fraught terrible things in the future. Talking about the future. Predictions and things like.

bad. Yeah, but be, you know. Yeah. Again, he feels like shooting fish in a barrel here, but I'm still going to give her vibes with just a spoilout, but it is funny because like technically she predicts both terrible. Yeah, good. Yeah, yeah. But I think I do agree on that technicality, but I think it accomplishes the same function, right? Which is, like she, she isn't actually predicting the future. She's not brave enough to do that. She hedges her bets, but But it gives the impression that she can see the future and you need to listen to her. I think she's claim she directly does see the future multiple times. Of course, she does.

All right, I give it up. So he gets a five for sure. Now, Scotty. Look, honestly, in the topics or the fields that he traverses, some degree of Cassandra ring is really common, right? Like, anyone, people talking about AI, as you know. Oh, yeah. And it's not just doomers.

It's just like, oh, there's going to be a crash or there's going to be whatever. And also talking about markets, you know. There are so many doomers. Like, you never only got to buy gold or whatever because it's this. He's almost boringly conventional there, which is, yeah, things might get better. And might not. So put, you know, he gives the same advice basically as Warren Buffett is pretty much his thing, which is just, you don't know the future.

So just be considerative. What about this man talk? What about his man talk? Well, I mean, you know, I think I think we, you know, we gave her opinion on his, his diagnosis of the problem with men. Is he Cassandra complex in there? Warning about like the dire consequences to men if we don't. I just didn't really.

I didn't really read it as that. I don't really. It's more he's doing the, they won't let you talk about this. But even then when Chris Williams and tried to get him to leave. into that he just seemed to want to pivot back to talking about taxes yeah yeah you got a factor in his how accommodating he is to whoever is speaking to um yeah okay i'm gonna give him a one you're right i'm thinking i got got no reason to give him a two sorry sorry to all the um scott galloway haters out there must be very unsatisfying for you similarly matt the thing

with scott galloway recently has been doing a campaign against the cancel your subscriptions, the AI and all that. He was looking at you, Matt. And he was talking about that in Peart Morgan, but it was similar where he was like, yeah, but you know, like in a capitalist society, one way you can express this content is, you know, economically. So that's all I'm saying.

Like if you're annoyed by stuff, maybe signal it. And then they were like, what if everybody did this and society collapses? And he was like, no, that's not going to happen. I was like, Eddie was like, you don't have. have to do it. I'm just saying that's one where you could just do it. And I was like, okay, it was quite different. He seemed particularly subdued when he was still going to be as well again, but whatever the kios, anyway, it was a riff of fresh air. It's almost overly chill.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so that's that. I've got the next one. What did you give them? What did you give? I give him one, by the way. I gave one, too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, revolutionary theories, like, developing your own revolutionary theories that will completely... If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com slash decoding the gurus. Once you do, you'll get access to full-length episodes

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