Grubstakers - Episode 137: Columbia University feat: Stephanie

Episode Date: February 4, 2020

This week we take a look at Columbia University with our spy on the inside Stephanie. We discuss how the business school operates in teaching the propaganda of capitalism to students all over the world for a profit. From biased views of how business can and will save the world to never really solving the issues of murder, sex abuse as well as racism rampant on their campus. Tune in and tune out you got the Grubstakers.

It's the kind of thing that makes the average citizen puke. I looked at this system and say, yeah, you know, what's going on? I don't know anything about this man except I've read bad stuff about him. And I don't like, you know, I don't like what I read about him. We are more than just one coin. We create the world around this coin. Cop. Invention. Cop. Cop. In 5, 4, 3, two. The evil has gone.

Hello, welcome back everyone to Grubstakers. I'm Steve Jeffries. I'm joined by... Yogi Poliwog. Andy Palmer. And we have a bit of a different episode today. We're not covering a billionaire, but we are covering one of the premier billionaire factories. This is a business school.

It's Columbia Business School. That's right. Before we get into it, I just want to say the results from Iowa are in. And I just want to congratulate Rob Blagojevich for pulling it out. I didn't even know he was running, but he knocked it out of the park. Also Delaney, solid third place. Solid third place for Delaney and the Super Bowl result. Everyone had fun.

We're also joined today, actually, by my good friend Stephanie. Hi. Thank you so much for having me on, you guys. Yep, welcome. Thank you for being on. She's a student, actually, at Columbia University Business School. And she's going to help us kind of give us the inside scoop. That's right.

We got a mole on this episode. Yeah. So we have someone on the inside. Oh, don't, like, gas me up to be. There's a lot of pressure, guys. No, these, like, business schools in general though are sort of like the the incubation chamber for a lot of the future capitalists of the world and it's important to know how they operate yeah and so we're we're hoping we can dig into some of the the culture

of them that you wouldn't you wouldn't't really learn from, from say Columbia University's YouTube channel. Right. Yeah. Like personally, I don't know much about Columbia University business school, but I do know that Columbia is home to the man who has made probably the most lucrative career you can imagine about a made-up science, Brian Green, and his devotion to string theory. Before this, I was playing a TED Talk of him talking about string theory in 2005. And since that TED Talk, 15 years later, there is exactly as much evidence for string theory, which is zero. And he's not some there is no evidence there

isn't even it's uh the the there's kind of a lower level theory called super symmetry and there isn't even evidence for that uh they what about just regular symmetry there is regular symmetry i remember i watched um this is what kind of a nerd i am as i watched the announcement of the higgs boson um uh like it was like 2 a.m right where i was um and they did this press conference uh with one of the lead physicists and you know she's really psyched they've found the higgs boson and one of the journalists is like so have you guys found any evidence for super symmetry and she just gets this like really annoyed look on her face. And she's like, no, no evidence for super symmetry.

Yeah. Also, according to four theory, four billionaire list, Warren Buffett, Leon G. Cooperman, Noam Goetzman, Robert Kraft of, I think, Patriots fame, Henry Kravis, Richard LaFrockin family. I don't know why they added and family on that one. Daniel Loeb, David Sandsbury, Thomas Sandell, Shindong Bin, Jerry Speyer, Henry Suika, S. Robson Walton, Daniel Ziff, and Dirk Zift. Drink Theory. Dirk.

A couple of those people we've covered, like Daniel Labe, Warren Buffett, Daniel Labe of Third Point Capital fame. Yeah, this has been like, this is where they sort of first cut their teeth on like, well, the ideology of... String theory? Not of string theory, but of capitalism.

Right. Which is a little bit like string theory. And that it's... Yo, enough talk about string theory, guys. String theory. There's too much. We're losing listeners every second. This is where they sort of...

It's like capitalism in that it works on theory. Yeah. It doesn't even work on paper, does it? No, not really. No. Yeah, so they get their... They sort of... Business schools are often where these billionaires first cut their teeth at pretending to know how businesses are really run.

These are the staging grounds quite often for, well, among them the sons and daughters of wealth to meet, collaborate, maybe even learn a thing or two about discounted cash flows. Maybe somewhere in between. But just as importantly, though, if not more so, this is where they become fully sort of initiated into the ideology of capitalism and the bondholder class. And that is if they haven't already. And I guess I'll just pass it off to Stephanie a bit. And so you're midway through your course at Columbia University. Yeah. So it's two years and I'm halfway done with my first year. So I just finished my first semester and I'm a week into my second semester.

And I guess I do know how to do a discounted cash flow now. It's very useful. That's good. That'll come in handy. Oh, for sure. You know. Does that mean less cash flow? Actually, yes.

Like the first lecture, the professor made it very clear that like money starts getting devalued. Like he was like, oh, if you have $100 in your mattress and then you give it time, that $100 is going to go down in value, so you need to discount for time, yada, yada. But it's very hard to take it seriously when you're like, oh, this is all fake. We're all just making it up. What does it matter?

I had an econ professor in my undergrad when I was thinking about maybe applying to business school later and he was like oh discounted cash flow school as as if to say like they uh that's like the one serious topic that they cover and then the rest is meeting people who will help you start your business later right or like making family connections or whatever right and like someone who has a rich uncle. Yeah.

It's not, that's not technically true, I guess you're staying. So they have you staying in statistics and, um, I mean, I willingly signed up for it. Yeah.

I willingly signed up for like more data analytics classes, but you could take like a lot of more kind of strategy, uh, qualitative fluffy classes. But, uh, I really disliked my strategy class because a lot of these case studies

you have to take on the other side. You have to think like the CEO or like the manager. And it's very uncomfortable when you read like a paragraph that's like, oh, and there have been labor disputes, but you have to be the one to like... And again, like there was one onmart and like here's a whole section about all this controversy walmart had but which direction do

you think we should take walmart from it's it's sort of like realm total war where they're like oh there's a slave uprising you better go kill them all yeah i. I was going to say, it's like, they do role-playing like, you're Robert S. Walton. The laborers are massing outside of your window. They're chanting $15 an hour now. What do you do? Do you give up your yacht to pay them the rightful wage, or do you hoard more cash? Yeah. I mean, I guess it's like useful i i try to tell

myself like this is good because it's like you know i gotta get into the mindset to be able to figure out how to take them down but it's still like really weird that it does seem a lot like training materials and like this is the mentality you need to have do you find people in your classes that are more gravitating towards the material and instead of being like this is kind of odd like like a i would argue a rational person would look at it that some people are like oh wow this is how i move up past the ranks i mean actually my class isn't like very outspoken in their political views um actually i i feel like there's a handful of like disenchanted people, like people who used to be from nonprofits

or some other sector that's more woo-woo or whatever. But then like, you know, the industry kind of chewed them up and spat them back out. And now they're like, okay, I'll just go to business school and make money. It doesn't matter. There's also people who like,

I would say they're very well-meaning like they're like i want to help people the best way to help people is by making a good product i'm going to go into product management i want to help people the best way to help people is finding the best economic policy i'm gonna become an economist and work in dc like like stuff like that gotcha yeah that makes makes sense. Actually, one thing that I found or that I realized at my last job was that while there was sort of a labor dispute in a way of the management was finding a way

to kind of screw a bunch of us out of getting a state-mandated raise. And one thing I realized while I was like going through this was like, oh, these people, because they had a very like strong IV pedigree. And I realized like, oh, these people have kind of been trained in how to undermine these kinds of disputes. And I was wondering, like, if you see anything like in that, in that vein where maybe it's not explicitly stated you know how you kind of try to have to undermine um uh you know if someone is uh you know agitating or maybe starting to form a collective bargaining unit but i was wondering if if maybe there there are like um if they do

cover kind of like strategies for situations like that in um in running a business actually um i feel like really down to the wire labor dispute unionizing stuff isn't touched on that much during class what we really talk about a lot is like kind of the more oh how does this affect the business what do we need to move around what does the accounting reflect like those those sorts of mechanics although i do remember there was a very interesting case study we had to do in uh microeconomics and it was about like a labor dispute in gm and then my classmates and I, we were in a team and we were looking over the financial statements

and someone was like, oh yeah, it seems like a lot of their capital is going towards these sorts of like unionized workers. That's, they have a very high salary. And I like kind of offhandedly say like, oh yeah, you know, that's, unions are great. It's great for like, you you know if you want better pay and then like one of my classmates pauses and then just goes like i disagree in this really

really really serious voice and i'm like okay well uh maybe we'll talk it over drinks one day we're gonna move on now i mean this is the same classmate that like we were talking about uber and like the we were actually talking about the morality of like surge pricing and if it's necessary. Unfortunately, the professor came to the conclusion that like, oh, you know, if we do not do surge pricing and everybody, you know, gets a low rate, then too many people are going to crowd the market and Uber drivers won't be able to provide. Yeah, that was the explanation. It's like then there's going to be secondary markets and Uber drivers won't be able to provide. Yeah, that was the explanation. It's like, then there's going to be secondary markets and so on and so forth. And then I was like, but, you know, it's still, you're still leaving someone out in the cold and like, you know, that's not good.

And then the same classmate turned to me and was like, I disagree with everything you just said. I mean, like, I think he's just very cynical like he's told me before oh I wish we could live in a world where it's all rainbows and puppies forever but it's just it doesn't work like that sweetie wow what a condescending asshole

I don't know this person but fuck that person I wish we could have labor laws but you know this is the real world I guess I'm gonna have to abandon my platform of rainbows and puppies forever. I think it's just he bought into the narrative of like, oh, like Bernie wants to give everyone a unicorn, you know, like that kind of line. Right, right. So I think, again, I put him in the category of like he means well.

Like he really does think this is the best way. I don't want to actively make things worse. No, of course. And I'm being condescending because I think that anytime a person is like... Anytime people try and say that things can't be perfect by adding things that are created by nature, like puppies and rainbows, I'm like, what are you... Those things already existed without any laws or any rules.

To Bernie's point... To their idea of what Bernie's point to, to what, to know, to their idea of what Bernie's point was, um, we could all have ponies. Yeah, no, no,

I mean, it's conceivable. Yeah. I think it's a, it's a question of, it's a, it's a problem of biophysical resources being directed by currency. So that's true.

Yeah. As long as you have the productive capacity to secure the ponies for everyone then there won't be inflation you can just do it i think uh yeah the imagination is somewhat limited in business school like that makes sense sometimes we push the envelope a little bit by like talking about oh what if we had nationalized health care what would that look like but then you know but then like it's very hand-waved off like oh no no no but then this would happen and that would happen and so on and so forth right jedi mind trick these aren't the healthcare you're looking for oh gosh it brings to mind uh uh was it mark fisher's book uh capitalist realism with the idea that it's like

you know this capitalism is brutal it's um it's kind of this ideology that people adopt where it's like yeah the system is brutal it's hard but it's the best system we can have and there isn't an alternative you know i guess the thatcher thing and it also brings comes brings to mind like things that noam chomsky says about how um propaganda tends to work where the ruling class will kind of instill this propaganda in people where they try to make people believe that this is the best system. It doesn't typically work in the lower classes, but the upper and managerial classes will tend to actually internalize it. And people in schools like Columbia Business School, those are the places where people are actually most receptive to this kind of propaganda of like,

this is the only system, there is no alternative. Yeah. It's very hard to put that out there because then people look at you like you're kind of speaking nonsense. Right, right. Yeah. Well. then people look at you like you're kind of speaking nonsense right right yeah well but even like at least with communism at least it worked on paper yeah like capitalism doesn't even work on paper yeah you just have like okay a guy gets to a guy gets to a deserted island but that has 100 people with he has a he

has a pile of money never mind where he got it sure they don't explain that step no and then they go straight into how you can um efficiently divide up the labor processes to make the best possible system through this like process of primitive accumulation there's more nash equilibriums man yeah i think they're very removed from like how things happen like uh when we analyze like oh what is the investment rate of building this new building they don't think about okay what about like the exploited labor that goes into making this building how many how much real estate do they need to seize up? What could there have been like a homeless shelter there all that stuff, but then it's just you know on paper It's just like calculate the you know NPV of what happens if you invest in this

Do you think that blind spot exists because in terms of learning the skill of business? to Calculate in the exploited labor and the just general misdeeds capitalism breeds, it would overcomplicate the learning process. So they cut that stuff out to make it so that when you're learning about business, that it's like, we're just going to teach you one plus one. And then we're going to deal with the fact that one is is a group of people that are being exploited i mean i i know that that analogy doesn't really uh transfer but you see

the point i'm trying to make here it's that like to teach business they're trying to cut out the what they would call the fluff variables which is human lives being lost and exploited to make the profit itself um yeah that definitely seems like a viable like theory i mean i i haven't given it much thought myself because you know they also swamp you with a lot of work and sure yeah i think honestly thinking about all these implications and these like fake case studies it would sort of emotionally wear you down so maybe they do it for everybody's sanity or maybe people just aren't aware i don't know maybe people just think oh yeah we just have this sort of neutral ground um i forgot the term for it but i think it's like the sort of a historical

approach to history sometimes where people are like oh yeah in america there was like nothing and then columbus discovered it like So likewise, I think maybe in business, it's that sort of like fake neutrality. I think you're telling me that in one of your fluff classes... This contest should make your brain shit itself. Sorry. People are asking for more drops. In one of the fluff classes you're taking

at a Columbia me business school they put up a chart that like on the y-axis it was like doing good and then on the x-axis it was doing right yeah um this was actually this was like um an orientation talk actually not a full class but they actually were thinking about it turning into a class it's like a business in society or something like that it's like it's sort of like the kind of liberal mindset where it's like oh we need to think about csr and our responsibility but they had this really weird chart that's like say the y-axis is doing well and the x-axis is doing good. And at first they were like, you have to make trade-offs. That's how people thought back then.

You had Milton Friedman, and then, you know, Milton Friedman is problematic because then you get Martin Shkreli. So that's doing well. So places like Walmart and so on and so forth, those like quote-unquote bad companies, that's on the doing well axes. And then you have doing good and that's like you don't care about profit and like you know your business might be struggling but at least you're putting some good out into the world so they use like red cross as an example and then

they were like but the reason we're here at cbs is so we can find a way to kind of reconcile the two and do well and do good and you know what the solution is micro loans because you get to make money You know for your business, it's it's profitable and it's good but you're also doing good because you're giving people the capital they need to start their business and I'm like I Get that like on concept micro loans are probably great, but it's like aren't they super predatory and whatever? I don't know too much about it myself. I'm not well versed in that there's a there's actually a great jackman piece about how they are predatory didn't they give someone a little prize for that too yeah they did they gave someone a little piece prize for running a one of the large micro loans from

micro loans i think right what else would it be? Economics? But he wasn't an economist. He was just running a business. Oh. But why would it be a peace prize? Wow. Let's look this up. They claim, yeah, like,

the claim is that it would alleviate poverty, and so... Yeah, I guess it's like, this is, again, like, their imagination is limited, so they think the best way we can help people is by integrating them into the system effectively. Right, right. Oh, yeah, like their imagination is limited. So they think the best way we can help people is by integrating them into the system effectively. Right. Oh, yeah.

Muhammad Yunus. He got the Nobel Prize. Which one? He was the what? So he got the Peace Prize? Let me see. This is really important. Which type of prize he got.

I don't know. Maybe it was the chemistry. Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, wow. Yeah. important which type of prize they got i don't know maybe nobel peace prize nobel peace oh wow yeah for founding gramian bank which went on to uh exacerbate inequality in third world countries i mean peace that's what that's all about so even i don't see what's wrong with peace pieces of the country the next oopius prize goes to the silent greenent Green Corporation for ending world hunger. I remember when microlending was in the New York Times and New York Magazine and all that as the answer to inequality. They were specifically targeting, they wanted to get credit to minority groups

within countries in particular so that they could start businesses. And what would happen is those groups like women women would get loans and then men who controlled them through the patriarchal system of their country would then take part of the the proceeds of the loan and then have the women repaid repay the full loan without any help from them wow um yes that is so like in communities they're full of all sorts of capitalistic predations credit necessarily is not

really the answer and I would argue that like country it's been shown before that countries that have a higher incidence of small business startups are typically also third world countries. So like having lots and lots of new companies startup is not necessarily an indicator that you're like lifting people up. a lot of the measures in kind of the business mindset have to do with incorporating, or like integrating people into the world economy. And one of the arguments that you'll hear a lot from neoliberal types is that the kind of global capitalist order,

the kind of end of history order has alleviated poverty, according to this and that metric. And I was wondering if, like, you had any thoughts about the reality of that, whether there's any truth to that in terms of, I don't know, that's a little out of left field. So if not, I mean, I definitely do not think poverty is going to be ending at the state we are now uh for sure um and i mean like i i do think like at the basis nobody wants to say oh you know screw all the people who are strapped and have low income we don't care about you it's like they do want to they do want to care it's just like they just feel i i know i keep repeating this but i think their imagination is just so limited

that they think this is the only way and but i mean there are some people i think who just straight up are like well like i got mine i don't really know what to do with you. Right. Right. Then the only tool they have is like a hammer. So, you know, it looks like the problem's a nail. Yeah. The hammer of global finance. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's also a big worry about like, oh, does this mean that my money is going

to be taken away? I mean, that probably is the root of anxiety of most like billionaires. They don't want their wealth to be taken away. Yeah. We haven't really talked about this on the show, but I think that one thing I've always wanted to consider is we look at hoarding random crap as a disease, but this level of wealth accumulation is some sort of hoarding branch disease.

And I think the thing you mentioned about the anxiety of it being taken away from them, but a lot of times it's just points on a board to them at some point. Like the amount of wealth that some of the top billionaires have, they could lose 98% of it in their lives. It really wouldn't change all that much. I mean, and sure, if like Bezos or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett went from 100 plus billion to 25 billion. Like theoretically, their lives are changed, but it's like, well, you can still live the way they live with 20 plus billion dollars. You know, I've been I've been thinking about like why these people are so psychotically

opposed to like Bernie Sanders, relatively mild proposals about their wealth, because, you know, obviously their quality of life isn't going to drop and I think the real reason is they it's the only thing that they've pursued in their life and it's the only thing that gives them meaning is you know winning on that scoreboard so if someone comes to take away your points and your whole life has just been spent you know trying to gain all those points you're gonna fight tooth and nail well warren buffett uh columbia alumni famously he said like yeah i mean that's one of his big motivations yeah it's like it's just his points i i mean i'm not here he said like i'm not here to accumulate physical wealth at all really even though he kind of is i mean he has yeah funnily enough he has

nine houses so funnily enough a running joke in the uh cbs community is that like buffett never donates back to us i don't know how true that is but if he actually doesn't donate back i would i'm kind of like what is wrong with you see um let's okay Columbia Business School has an endowment as as of 2019 of 750 million which is the most for any business school wow um some IB schools have obviously a lot more for the whole university but not for their business school right and um adding to that actually recently was, uh, someone we hope to cover pretty soon.

Um, one of the co-founders of KKR, Henry Kravis. Um, I love his music. Kravis. Kravis? No,

it's, it's differently spelled, but it, it sounds a little bit like yeah so you have like a lot of private equity money coming in to fund the place um oh yeah during orientation they gave us like oh you get a free backpack and you get a free water bottle but the water bottle had like the bane logo on it. And I'm like, oh my God, are we being like groomed or something? This is so weird.

It's funny because actually the people I was talking about earlier, my former bosses were all from Bane. Wow. Yeah. It's like everybody wants to go for the elite companies. You have like Amazon coming in. Amazon had like five recruiting events separately really and it's very uncomfortable because i i'm aware of all the horrible stuff amazon does and everybody just it's like oh i want to go they're so great stephanie are you going

and i'm like i i mean my excuse is like oh i'm not planning to go into tech or whatever but yeah i'm just like i kind of want to just like shake them and be like do you not see what they're doing what like yeah no i've got friends that i grew up with or that i went to school with and they all they a good chunk of them work at amazon basically everyone i hated growing up and i was like i don't know why i hate this person now works at amazon and i'm like oh that's why their morals and values are bullshit and who they are as human beings is uh trash and i was talking to a friend once about uh one of them and he was like oh why don't you like the person i'm like well they work at amazon he's like well

is that really a problem i'm like it's not necessarily a problem that they work there but the fact that they're proud of it is what i'm bothered by. It's like, I don't, you know, everyone... You're just grudgingly working. Yeah, everyone needs to work. So I'm not, you know, listen, I work at this company, Grubstickers LLC. I don't like it. I'm not proud of it. None of us are.

I show up, you know. Is it the labor practices? I think the abuse of the people of color at this company is certainly hurting the bottom line. No, but I mean, like, you know, some of them are doing various tech positions, but a handful of them are actually like a good chunk of them are like they just like run events for Amazon. So literally their job is just like, you know, every other day they've got a new celebrity that they're grooming for an event where they're talking to Amazon staff.

So like there's a famous photo of Lil Nas X, Jeff Bezos, and I think it's Katy Perry. And in the background, one of my friends or a person I went to high school with. Yeah, fuck it. Olivia Obanesser, this dumbass woman I went to high school with who I think sucks at life and is a terrible person. Yeah. Is in the background. Drag her.

Yeah. And it's like, you know, I don't give a fuck that you work at a corporation that's terrible, but when I see you in the background of a photo of a billionaire and you're giggly and smiley, part of me goes, you know what? You are the fucking problem. Because you're not literally going, hey,

Bezos, stop being a weirdo divorced dad that doesn't know how to live his life and is wearing Lil Nas X's jacket and fucking give the money where it needs to go and stop breaking down cities for profit. Are you just mad that we couldn't get Lil Nas X and Katy Perry on the show? I mean, you know how much I love Lil Nas X. His work in improving LGBTQ rights in the urban communities is something that nobody should deny.

I thought you were going to say his work in improving his own song over and over again oh that is disappointing to hear that he uh hung out with jeff bezos though i mean i guess i shouldn't be surprised but i'm like oh man i mean when bezos is paying you a couple of million to show up and do a song or two you you pal around with the boss i mean i'm not happy about that either but I'm more mad at my high school friend because they suck. They were mean to me. Yeah. I think it's like Amazon also gives off this really good perception of charity too, on top of like all the bad stuff.

So I think like, like again, I think a lot of my classmates are well-meaning. I don't have any that I like hate, hate. Sure. So I think it's just, they see that part, but maybe they're like maybe they're like

just unaware or they just don't want to acknowledge it because it is very uncomfortable like uh people are recruiting for deloitte and when i say i came from deloitte they're like oh can you give me tips and i'm like but they they worked with ice I don't know guys and like I try to hint at it but then they're like oh but like they weren't really involved you know right right we actually recovered we covered a billionaire supporting Buddha judge and Buddha judge got called out for working at McKinsey on a contract where he helped a supermarket in Canada increase their bread prices more than you would expect just from inflation. Yeah, he fixed those.

Oh, man. I just love the delivery. Yeah, the dude's face is just stoic. You fix bread prices? No. First of all, I worked with a company that fixed bread prices. I had a client. First of all, I worked with a company that fixed bread prices. I had a client.

First of all, I was a consultant. I had a client who wanted to fix bread prices for his company. He just described it. He tried to abstract a way in the moment in a way that I think other people who go on to have a career at Deloitte or something might necessarily do, because they actually do feel kind of bad about it. An average person would. First of all, I had a client who I consulted with,

and they had death camps, but I was not personally involved in the death camp creation or the death squad creation or the death squad creation. I think you should get your facts straight. Yeah. I mean, like I was optimizing a business strategy,

so it's fine. I mean, to the school's credit, well, to one of my professors credit, my data analytics professor, he had a whole session about the dangers of data analytics when it's taken too far quote unquote and he talked about how mckinsey helped out with the sort of opioid crisis

by like working with the pharmas and being like okay based on our data here's a strategy to push as much of your product as possible and he's like he's like in human lives we're lost because of that so please be careful how you bring their business practices but then he kind of tempered it by saying like you know figuring out how to maximize profits and uh you know uh what price to like make your clothes that you sell is fine but when it's like pushing this so i'm like it's not totally perfect but i really appreciate that professor for doing that yeah at least he tries to start the

conversation you know when you were mentioning that some of the business students might have a blind spot because it's uncomfortable to cover some of these things, do you think that some of the professors, instead of divulging truly the reality of some of these things, for their own job security, sometimes kind of coddle some of the information? Because if they're outright just being like, oh yeah, in the case of what you're mentioning like data analytics is used

to abuse and kill people whether it's opioids or clothes or whatever it is i mean if you speak that outlandishly columbia business school is going to be like okay you can't work here anymore you're literally tarnishing the brand oh yeah i definitely think that could be an option. And like, I think like, my strategy professor had a session about Eli Lilly, which is like a pharmaceutical nonprofit, I think. And he said like you know their strategy of like targeting uh keeping things domestic instead of expanding to africa is because it falls in line with their uh what they want to put out an image to the world so maybe it would have been more useful but they did this because and he showed like an interview with it like a private interview with the eli lily ceo and they were like yeah we decided to go with this strategy because it fits in with the brand blah blah blah blah blah blah and I'm like this is great you know it's like it's cynical but it's like people need to hear this but apparently at the end of

class and he's like and here's some notes I wrote down from other students who were like really mad about this and they said stuff like why would you say non-profits are like that you know they're trying to yeah and so it's like I think like and he said like and like i think this stuff is important but like you know obviously i don't want to offend anyone by saying this if you want to go into non-profits sure sure so i think it is like probably potential backlash from maybe students and administration alike definitely so so what was uh i know it's a tangent but what was the eli lily um strategy oh gosh it's been a while since i read the case but oh no you're fine i think it's like so they have the choice between like trying to fight this uh virus that was more prevalent in

america or going to africa to expand research into this other virus there and they ended up picking the strategy of America because it looks more better in line with like their sort of strategic goals and stuff like that so it basically the point of the class was to show like non-profits are you know not anything special they're like other businesses and even even that rankled a few students. We could be a charity, but we're not a charity. Yeah, we've covered plenty of charities that are basically just tax havens for the rich. Yeah, yeah.

I've worked at one. Yeah. Jim Simons, a billionaire, recovered recently. He's like, in addition to being terrible, he actually had a nonprofit that was like focused on math education. So he was a mathematician. And he said just $2 billion would revolutionize math education in this country for public schools. And like he's worth more than that. Yeah.

And his company takes in more than that each year. And didn't they do like a tax fraud that would have given the public $6 billion? Yeah, they avoided $6.8 billion worth of taxes over 10 years. So, I mean, there's sort of like so many people we've covered and I think sort of the ideology, as you're explaining it to me in columbia business school seems like they're just stuck in this liberal state straight jacket

where they have they think that um the effects are like sure the effects are bad but the cause is very good that's capitalism it's very evocative imagery and i would say uh it's pretty accurate so like um like the chart you were describing that was uh head on one axis um doing well versus doing good yeah like that that chart is like such a good sum summation i guess of like um like sort of the neoliberal problem of optimization. So basically, I mean, the image I'm getting is that between those two axes, you have to sort of compute a gradients where you're like optimally altruistic, I guess. So there's a trade-off between doing good and doing well. Okay, if you accept that that then there's like an

efficient frontier yes of like doing doing good things for humanity beyond which is just like inefficient yeah yeah because it's like um i'm taking actually a non-profit class right now and a lot of the conversation is like you know how are we able to make our business sustainable while still sticking to our mission? You know, we need to balance mission stickiness, as they put it, with like the pull of the market and so on. Yeah, I've been learning a lot of great, fun buzzwords. This is what I'm paying money for, learning all these fun buzzwords. So you were going to ask about econ? Yeah, sort of related to that general problem. You're also taking some macroeconomics right now? Not right now, but last semester, yes.

I took a macroeconomics course, or rather global economic environment. I think that was the official name. Okay. A couple times you would bring up to me... I would complain to you a lot, yes to me some fun charts and diagrams that your professor would pull up for you. I'm just thinking about that liberal straitjacket. Just trying to see the NASCAR designs that would be on that jacket.

Just every corporation that seems to be bombing countries and profiting off the labor conditions. Just patches on that liberal straitjacket. I think Raytheon said that they're a leader in LGBT rights. They sponsored Pride for Rights. Yes, they did. Actually, Raytheon was rated the best on LGBTQ rights or something like that. Well, that liberal straitjacket's a rainbow color. That's a huge part of it.

I just remembered I was in, I think it was when Yogi Sean and I had our old podcast. We went to Washington, D.C. for a weekend and went to the Air and Space Museum. And, you know, one of the things they have is a drone. And very prominently on the front of the drone is the raytheon logo like it it's like it's not enough to have a killing machine you also have to put your logo right right prominently so they know what company made the killing machine yeah if if your killing machine isn't branded what's the point yeah i mean it's uh i learned this in marketing you know the more you have your product show up and have it associated with the brand name the more people

will think positively about it so it's like a you know it's actually a smart uh marketing move no i can get behind it i remember i felt that way when like i i don't know what i was watching but it was like the fourth i think it was at a movie theater and you know they do like 80 coca-cola commercials and i just remember being like everyone knows coke exists and i know that they're showing me so i go buy a coke but like at no point has anyone in the last hundred years been like hey what's that brown sweet stuff you know it gives you diabetes but it's sweet and got bubbles in it it's so that like you know every now and then you'll think, wait, that'll kill me slowly. And then they're like, no, Katy Perry.

Yeah, seriously. Actually, I know we're getting off topic, but I was actually talking with my boyfriend the other day about ads. And I was complaining about like, oh, my God, I was so annoyed with ads on an app I have that I just paid the money for them to go away. And he said, I think that's how like advertising is nowadays. It's like not, oh, we put this ad out so you would be tempted to buy the product. It's like we put this out so that you would stop being inundated. Right, right, right. And maybe Raytheon is doing that.

It's like, if you pay us money, we'll stop threatening you. Dark joke, I'm sorry. No, no, it's great so i guess in your macroeconomics class like you'll have these presentations and a few of the slides you've shown me are like like one is just should the u.s adopt a universal basic income and you can respond either yes or no oh yeah that's uh that's a poll like you you take a poll for attendance and people give their opinion and say oh this is why i voted yes and i was like i wish there was a third option that was like really long sentence

that's like wow universal basic income hits on the good because i would have picked that one where it's like i do understand i can get behind the idea but i don't like why it's being implemented yeah oh okay so that like serves as a dual purpose to take attendance yeah interesting but um i don't like how it's very like clean yes or no especially because my econ professor started like arguing with people who wanted ubi like he was like oh okay so you would be okay if everybody was like paid the same amount and one hapless student was like yeah i mean like i i guess and then he was like what if a surgeon and a construction worker were paid the same amount and one hapless student was like yeah i mean like i i guess and then he was like what if a surgeon and a construction worker were paid the same would you be okay with that

and i think that scared the student off and i was like oh man you know honestly i might have been scared off too i wish i could imagine myself standing being like yes you know because the labor they put out is all the same and you can't really get touch you know amount to your value but i'm also like i want an a that is also the most like elitist uh analogy where yeah where it's like a surgeon or a construction worker like i mean sure they're both jobs where if they fuck up, it'll kill people. Yeah. Like, and so trying to say that, oh, the surgeon's more important than a construction worker. It's like, well, you guys are in a building right now.

Right. Hospital. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like that, Professor. I have a couple of complaints. Okay.

Another one is, why do you think that productivity growth has declined respond with one of the following new innovations are not that groundbreaking businesses and advanced economies have become less dynamic or we are not correctly measuring productivity and like i i feel like all three of them i can sort of see a a socialist viewpoint because the first one is like, yeah, we do have a lot of useless stuff from capitalism. Like, oh, what was the name of that billionaire's son who put out these ridiculous looking shirts? Oh, the white coat. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay, that doesn't count as productivity, but it is.

And then what was the second option? I don't know. I think that's probably one of the most valuable themes to come out of that. I mean, yeah. Businesses have become less one of the most valuable things to come out of that family. Businesses have become less dynamic. Yeah. Again, from a socialist viewpoint, it's like, yeah, you're not. You know, hedge funds.

Yeah, you're not like really keeping up. People really need basic needs now, but you're just caring about like moving wealth management around. And then the third one is like we're not correctly measuring productivity. Again, with the construction worker and the surgeon, the construction worker is valued as lesser just because he gets less money, weirdly enough. But, you know, that's not how the professor chose to taught this. Right. A lot of this seems to be that they want it to be cut and dry one way or the other way, like a right and wrong.

But so much of theoretical economics is like, you know, layered in these decisions mean things for everyone. But if we're not going to talk about what implementing capitalism means for everyone from the global south to the elite, then how are we actually accurately learning any of this material to begin with. You know, actually what you just said about wanting to get an A, I think is especially interesting because you have to wonder how the education would change if that power dynamic weren't in place. Oh, actually, this is really interesting. So Columbia has this thing called grade non-disclosure, which basically means your employer cannot ask you for your transcript until after you're hired.

Oh, really? Yeah. And I'm like, this also weirds me out because I'm like, means your employer cannot ask you for your transcript until after you're hired so it's like yeah and i'm like this also weirds me out because i'm like you're i feel like this is a tactical thing you're right because it's to inflate the value of the ivy league or whatever or maybe it's like a you already made it so you can let go of that neuroticism but i don't know but that's so weird it's it is very weird and it's one of those things that where it's like this loophole exists because of like i would guess that and this is a conspiracy but like rich kid that graduates have terrible grades and so companies were like uh no fuck that person and so they're like we're gonna make it so that you don't see the grades necessarily until you hire the person. So then they could be like these kids with trust funds that got terrible grades are going to get the job as well as the kids that work their asses off to get a great GPA.

Well, the good faith argument they put out is that like they want us to have the freedom to take whatever classes and not worry about like potentially failing and like hold ourselves back which i'm like that could be a grain of truth i i do feel a little more like comfortable trying a hard class because of that but it's like i you know we've all been kind of beaten down with the idea that grades measure your worth and your value and then suddenly they yank the rug and go like nothing matters here i'm kind of i'm kind of mad about that i'm like no let me strive for an a right yeah because it no why should what you work for to make yourself a better candidate in the workforce not be considered at these workplaces it doesn't make any sense i mean it seems it seems to have like an altruistic good which is like everyone should be judged on the fact that they've graduated not by what they've done there and it's like no no that doesn't really make any sense either i mean i understand i don't know i i might be talking a little bit too outlandishly

because i didn't graduate college but i think that it's one of those things where it doesn't make sense to me to force people to go through a system where you have to pay to get a better job prospect and then when it comes time to get a job be like well i mean what you actually did in the school doesn't really matter as long as you got through the system it it just feels infuriating because i'm like if you guys really did believe that grades quote-unquote shouldn't matter why do you help perpetuate a system that allows us to be so like frustrated and stressed out like from like elementary to end of senior year of college and whatever yeah why would they still have grades anyway exactly they're not allowed to i mean i guess you know you want some

kind of metric to um uh motivate people but at the same time well it's what she was saying earlier she wants an a in the class. So she, like, to get that, she will do all the work necessary. I mean, not words in her mouth, but, like, to get the grade, you know, to get a good grade, you want to do your best and do the work, and you'll... Education makes soldiers of the working force, not innovators that are trying to improve the working force.

And one thing that you need to be to be a good employee is to go, I will do whatever you want me to do. It kind of makes me wonder if in the kind of Bain consulting corporations of the world where they'll just hire a bunch of Columbia grads. And then once they actually get the grades, they'll just have a room of Columbia grads and then once they actually get the grades they'll just have a room with a bunch of busy boxes for the d students oh gosh even though I mean like uh I feel like if you've if you've gotten into university even if you're making c's you're probably still capable of doing 90% of the work of the company that eventually hires you. It's like every can govern, you know?

That sort of mentality. My first job out of undergrad, I like used nothing I learned in school. So I feel like I'm kind of worried like after this, I'm like, ah, okay, I just have student debt and nothing I've learned. At least I'm, you know, having fun. I guess, question mark. You have debt and nothing i've learned at least i'm you know having fun

yeah i guess question mark yes use anything i've learned in college in a professional context like my last job was entirely stuff that i taught myself after school when i was bored i was like oh javascript and adobe illustrator oh well uh going back a little bit to that that productivity question i wish they would have also showed a chart of labor's share of the output for us so like between labor and capital which factor is getting more of the national output and it's fallen from like mid 60s percent or so in all the way from the 40s to 1980. Like now it's down over 10 percent. So it's had like a steady decline at the same time that they're saying that productivity has decreased.

Yeah. I think it's also like my professor professor at the beginning of class he said like there's different frameworks to view the economy you could view it as like it's made up of labor and capital these are the two things but what we're going to approach it is the y equals c plus i plus g plus nx whatever and i'm like oh man i wanted you to talk more about the right yeah about the real thing i think you uh i think you said at one point you're a macro econ professor like somebody asked him about mmt and then he got really mad he he gets if you ever want to you know waste time in class and not learn about something just

get him started on mft because twice he like went on rants about it and uh i was like after one of them i was like okay let's see where this goes so i approached him after class and i was like, after one of them, I was like, okay, let's see where this goes. So I approached him after class and I was like, I was really interested in what you had to say about MMT. And I would like to, you know, pick your brain a little bit more. And like, it was really interesting. I think his talking points were mostly like, oh, they're using language from the forties. It's not relevant to this anymore. And it's also like, and oh,

he gave us a case study on Argentina and the hyperinflation that occurred there, that class. So he was like, and, you know, literally, you know, this whole class, I've been trying to tell you guys that when you print more money, you're going to get more inflation. So why would they? It's like they're ignoring all that education. I've been trying to read this paper by the Cato Institute, by the way. And I was like, okay, good talk. Thank you. And wasn't it?

Did anyone ask him about Japan? I don't think so. What about Japan? A place where they printed a lot of money and there's no inflation. Yeah. Also, wasn't hyperinflation in Argentina due largely to foreign loans? Yeah. I mean, they had foreign denominated debts.

Well, the story I was given was that the government wanted people to have money because money can buy things. That was the explanation. Nothing about foreign intervention or the like. Well, just for the record, they did have lots of foreign denominated debts, which the government can't print money to just get rid of. And they had real capacity constraints that made inflation go up. Right.

Man, you guys should have been in my class. I didn't know any of this stuff. I'm serious. Well, I wouldn't say anything. I'm on an A. Yeah, I mean, I would probably not challenge you because I went to A too. I would have shown up. I would have missed the class.

Sorry, I slept in, Stephanie. I really wanted to show up to school your professor, but honestly, I went want to sleep at 2 I was watching a lot of First Amendment audits on YouTube Yeah, he's a he's an interesting fellow and like the weird thing is at the end I kind of pushed the envelope I was like yeah But I mean like I do appreciate the fact that they're working from the basis that money isn't really weird And he was like of course money isn't real. It's just that these are the rules we set and we've got to follow them. And so it's like at least he acknowledges that money isn't real.

Yeah, which is good but bad. It's real in the sense it has real effects on people's lives. Right, sure. But it's not real in the sense that it doesn't take biophysical resources to create it. Yeah. And it's, I think like a physical money in this country is about 3%. I think that's like 96 or 97% of it is digital.

So it's, you know, it's real in that it changes everyone's lives and it dictates how we all live, but it is numbers on screens. You know, it's actually real. Drink theory.

Oh yeah. We were due for a drop, weren't we? Drink theory. Drink it's actually real. Drink theory. Oh, yeah. We were due for a drop, weren't we? Drink theory. Drink theory. Oh, God. So although we've been talking about Columbia Business School and some of their interesting way that they're teaching business, I think that we'd be remiss because most of my research was typing in Columbia University racism and rape and then the Bing exploding every time I do that

because literally every year there is a new issue of abuse going on between bigotry and sexual assault. A student was recently stabbed in a park near Columbia and a foreign exchange student a few months before was robbed in the same location and when he went to the police, the police were like, those kids doing that are teenagers so we can't do anything. So Columbia and the police aren't doing enough

to protect the students that are at the university and you might be wondering, well, why not? And well, some of the students react kind of like this. We built the modern world. We built the modern world. Europeans. Built the modern world. We built the modern world. Who? Europeans. Europeans.

Built the modern world. I think this is Adam Friedman from Comptown. We invented science industry. And you want to tell us to stop because, oh, my God, we're so bad. We invented the modern world. I feel you. You're so dumb. We invented the modern world.

Yeah, so this is from 2018. A Columbia University student goes on a drunken rant about how Western Europeans have invented the modern world. And I think later on he says, we saved a billion people from starvation. We saved billions of people from starvation. We built our own starvation. White people are the best. How do you not notice? There's like five people with cameras pointed at him. Like, how do you? Oh, and don't worry.

After this released and became viral, he let everyone know he's not a racist. So he just thinks everyone should have pride in the race that they're from. He's doing the Michael Richards circuit. Yeah. So, yeah, and there have been a lot of settlements due to sexual assault between students and some with professors. I mean, you know, these individuals are paying to get an education

and some of them are being abused by other students or other professors. There have been a whole bunch of cases with black students. Bill Murray from Ghostbusters. Black students being profiled by police. And, like, you know, the thing that's so nuts is that, like, each story that happens every couple of months or every year or so

kind of makes the old ones slightly more forgettable, which is so unfortunate. Like, five years ago, there was a famous case where a woman was sexually assaulted, or I believe she was raped, and then she carried her mattress everywhere she went as an activist protest. Now, part of the thing that's interesting about that is that was her thesis at Columbia as well, was this performance, this activism protest. And I don't know why that it being a part of her thesis is interesting to me because

it makes it it doesn't cheapen the fact that she's protesting the fact that the university wasn't doing enough about her rape case but then if you look at what happened they settled with uh her and the uh person accused of rape because he was like emotionally traumatized by people handing out flyers being like this person raped me i mean it's being mishandled left and right and you have 19 people that graduated from the cesspool and are billionaires so if you ask me it's one of those things where columbia university has a lot of uh growing and and uh figuring out how to be a better entity that tries to teach people academia,

and to stop being a place where bigotry and sexism are rampant. Yeah, and I remember during orientation, they also tried to emphasize, like, we follow Title IX, you know, and we are legally mandated to report stuff, and so on and so forth, but, but like title nine has problems of its own i feel like the problem of this sort of you know rape culture to be very candid is is it's very systemic it's at the root of things but once again columbia says okay let's take the liberal approach we're gonna do title nine and we're gonna focus on punishing those who did it like this is a brief aside but like I was at a Columbia party last Halloween and I was wearing like a costume and there was like this guy and he was kind of drunk and like I don't know if he was from CBS

or just a random bar patron he seemed like he was from CBS though so he comes out he's like whoa are you a diva or whatever? And then he like physically lifts up my arm to like look at my costume. Yeah, I know. It was very weird. I like barely knew him or I didn't know him at all. Yeah, it's a stranger edible. And then he like drops my arm and walks away. And I was like, I'm okay.

Like it wasn't awful. I mean, it sucked. But like what concerned me was like, this is the sort of mentality that creates these sorts of instances. And I don't know if Columbia is addressing the mentality. Rather, it's just they look at the after effects and they're like, okay, we just need a double down. But it starts with guys who are just thinking, oh, I can lift up someone's arm to look at their costume. Right. And they want to put a Band-Aid you know literal stabs and it's like it's not gonna work and you know the issues that columbia is facing are problems that are happening in every organization in every country um but with

columbia specifically people are paying like thousands upon thousands of dollars to be subjected to this bullshit i think it's also the mentality of like, I'm the new world elite. Like for the people doing these crimes or for people at, at, at Ivy leagues in general is, uh, you know,

the, when, when you go to the school, it's associated with this, uh, mentality that you are, um, the best,

the best of the best. And you are the best of the best, and you are now part of the ruling class by merit of going to this school. I mean, this guy was probably a dickhead before this anyway, but I'm sure it only made it worse. Yeah, emboldened by the pedigree of the fact that you belong to a university that is supposedly one of the best of the best.

But I think that the thing that's so frustrating is this, one thing we talked about before we recorded was that the hierarchy of this whole thing is so horseshit. Like, you know, in this country we seem to recognize that royalty is bullshit and that no one person should rule over others just off bloodline. And yet we do it time and time again, whether it's students to teachers or whether it's employer to employee. And it's frustrating that in the cases that we've been talking with Stephanie today, it seems as if the people that are defending capitalism have blinders on. But not only do they have them on, but they're forcing themselves to keep it on as well. it's not like oh they are oblivious and they need to be uh explained a bit more it's

like no they like it like that it's this way in a certain regard i don't know that's my take on it yeah i think like uh that drunk screaming student you you know, yeah, it's, it's very mockable, sure, but I think definitely, I, I, I personally sense a lot of anxiety about, like, you know, if I stop thinking this way, I'm going to have to accept that maybe I am not at the top of the pegging order, maybe I should not, okay, I'm gonna double down, and I'm gonna say, and I think that that's at the forefront of many like sort of white supremacist thought that sort of anxiety, that misplaced anxiety, that there's perceiving harm where there is none, I guess. Yeah, definitely.

Their points are being taken away of being great. And, you know, that applies in the economic sense. And that's why we have econ professors telling me to read Cato Institute papers. I've always gotten the impression that there's almost like a relativistic observer problem in wealth distributions, where if you are extremely high up on the wealth distribution, if something happens that could possibly make you lose 1% of your wealth, that harms you psychologically much, much more than it would if someone else at the bottom lost 1% of theirs. And that's actually part of... Drink theory.

Does that make sense? Yeah. sense yeah the like yeah the wealthier you are the smaller amount of a potential loss it takes to make you go insane yeah i think we'll explain it some more steven i think you're saying that the richer you are the more money it takes the less it takes as a percentage of your wealth to make you just totally lose it and say like these these people can't take this. They're killing me in my business. I mean,

I guess that makes sense. Cause like, uh, you know, we're recording this on the second and like, um, the, from where I am financially paying my rent is a massive percentage of my

wealth. Yeah. I mean, it turns over every month. Yeah. Yeah. Like the wealth it turns over every month. Yeah. Yeah. Like the wealth tax. So like that,

I think they're, the reason that they're freaking out so much is it's not like the merely a half a percent or something. It's like a good chunk is at risk. Right. And that's why we're seeing, starting to see like the establishment and also billionaires coalesce into a faction against Bernie.

Yeah. Yeah. I remember once a friend of mine who is conservative, we kind of like calculated the amount of money that the, the like middle ground, uh, upper middle class would get from the like downturn tax cut. And we literally boil it down to it.

We won't do anything for them. They might buy another supercar or something. But that extra $300,000 or a million dollars, depending on the group we're looking at, they don't give a fuck. It doesn't make their life so much better that a tax cut against them

wouldn't infinitely improve the lives of people in the bottom half of the totem pole yeah we'll talk about like why isn't productivity going up or something like the only stimulus we ever do

is tax cuts to the wealthy right and like that's probably like the least stimulative in terms of like productivity that you could possibly have

yeah so like it does does it help growth no not really but it does increase the wealth of the top 0.001 percent like substantially and that doesn't result in jobs and it doesn't it results in people creating useful things to do useful stuff

yeah and it probably also feeds into this mentality. Like even if it doesn't, uh, even, even if it's just like a marginal increase to their wealth, it's still like, um, uh, an exercise of power for them to get that little, to get that tax cut each time they get that tax cut. You know, it's, it's still like them winning and getting, getting a little more from everyone. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely true. I think that them winning shouldn't be at the cost of other people literally dying because they can't afford the basic needs, the human needs to exist. And it's frustrating because it's like, you know, Warren Buffett loses half of half a percent and it's the world's biggest fucking tragedy. The world's ending if you lose half a percent of your wealth. Whereas someone in the middle class or lower would be like, okay, but I got free healthcare.

Right, right, yeah. I think it's just this idea of you earned it, right? You earned it, so now you get to play around in it. Like great non-disclosure, we've earned our way. And now we can just mess around and take whatever classes and not worry about grades. But it's like, you know, I don't know. I'm like, sometimes it's going to be a little unfair.

Ah, you know, much as I would love to live in a world of puppies and rainbows and let you keep your wealth, fortunately people got to eat. We've got to live, so live so sorry man fork it over and uh puppies and rainbows exist regardless of how much money you have oh we'll see about that climate change could kill off rainbows for all time that's a good point you do need water for rainbows to exist oh i meant puppies oh i i do want to mention a couple more things oh of course uh one piece of local news related to cbis um they've been expanding manhattanville yep so i guess you've already heard about it i'm sure everyone's talking uh yeah we got this uh new dean Dean Mark Gullis, and

he's very, very pro-Manhattanville. Really? Yeah, they're expanding their facilities into a neighborhood called Manhattanville. It's near Harlem or in Harlem. Let's see, I think it's $6 billion of

development. They've actually used eminent domain a few times to to get people to move out so they could develop i actually um i feel that manhattanville area is actually getting pretty gentrified whenever i walk there like i already see like a few luxury apartment buildings and so on and so forth so times are changing well like having the introduction of a business of an elite business school uh is probably going to drive up rent prices as you know this suddenly you have this amenity of a bunch of elite people with lots of money living there right yeah do you notice like amongst your um classmates like that there tends to be kind of a people raised uh um in more like you

know wealthy backgrounds oh for sure oh my god so like before school officially started there were a lot of like summer programs that were like oh come and hang out with your classmates and there was this thing called yacht week right i'm i'm being completely serious here. You like pay. Yachts? Yes. You pay a lot of money and then you go on a week on a yacht with your fellow Columbia Business students. Hilarious. That's perfect. No, and they had like an ad for it and everything. And it was like those Fyre Fest ads where it's just like, oh, you see all those beautiful people cavorting around. It's like, oh, you know, yacht week.

It's going to be great. And there's drinks and there's food and beautiful people and I'm like, I can't afford this. Thanks, guys. I'm sure I'm missing out on many, many networking opportunities. Now, from the pictures from your classmates on Facebook

or whatever, did they match with the beautiful people in the ads? I think my classmates are generally like a good-looking bunch i guess when you got that much money yeah are they are they so a lot of them are from wealthy backgrounds oh i i would say so um i mean there are a few who like also can afford to go to yacht and like there's but there's like regular class trips planned for like, oh, we're going to go to Cancun. We're going to go to Rio de Janeiro. We're going to go to St. James.

We're going to go to Korea. And I'm just like, how are you finding the money to do it? And it's just there's such a strong disparity with these people. And like I visited a few of my classmates places and they all live in like really nice luxury apartments. They definitely i think they have money and probably because the people who want to go into consulting and i banking they already come from wealth because they were doing consulting and i banking they graduated like it's just elite feeding upon elite and perpetuating and their parents that are footing the bill most

likely know that if they don't pay for these things that they can't get the networking opportunities that they're paying for so it's like you know it's the x the optional luxury package of buying a supercar for them it's like well it's an extra 20 grand but i'm already spending uh the amount of tuition i might as well spend the rest on them going to king koon in korea and yacht week i mean the fact that they have something called Yacht Week and like you're describing, it's like a fire fest advertised activity. Like it just is, it's so blatant how business is ripe with the worst part of capitalism

and yet the people in it don't even recognize that. It's like one step removed from bring the help to class day. Oh my gosh. Okay, so we have like a group chat, right? And I saw a message a few days ago from a classmate that's like, anyone who can recommend a good cleaning service for me? And like they were swapping tips down below. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh. And like, and also the Yacht Week is not even the half of it.

There's also a thing called Hamptons Week where you room with people in the Hamptons. It's a lot. Business school students tend to be a little bit older than a normal master's program, I think. If they have been in business before, they've already of been doing it for like i don't know like five or six years or something and like i know that a lot of the ones that come in have already been on wall street or if not wall street then some other like fortune 500 group or something oh yeah for sure yeah so like they have money from that and then you're telling me they also mainly come from wealthier backgrounds and got Yacht Week going on. I mean.

I mean, Hampton's Week, buddy. Come on. What is this? Money begets money. And if you have the most, you got to spend the most to appear like you can have the most tomorrow. I will say, though, in terms of Hampton's off-season, very affordable. Really? Montauk, at least. Yeah.

You got a bunch of empty beach side hotels because no one wants to go there when it's 30 degrees and I'm like well I want to go there when it's 30 degrees because it's a nice hotel room for like 100 bucks a night well we can go there and just pretend we'll make our own yacht week

we'll stand in a bathtub fill it with water splash it around have a Roomba deliver you a drink. You know, it's the same thing. Buy a souvenir boat that says the end and put it in your little bathtub. I have to... I would be remiss

to not mention that Epstein does come up in this saga of Columbia University. So, this isn't the business school, but a former dean of the College of Columbia University. So this isn't the business school, but a former dean of the College of Dental Medicine, he accepted $100,000 from Epstein to research whether dentists could help

in the early detection of diabetes. Which, you know, fair. Yeah, if your teeth are rotting, you might have diabetes. That's a fair sentiment. So apparently you might be able to diagnose diabetes doing that, which is good. But maybe you should vet your donors a bit more closely. Because this was in 2011.

So Professor Lamster, who was the former dean of the dental college, he says, quote, I was introduced torey epstein in late 2011 as best i can recall by one of my faculty members who was his dentist lamster told buzzfeed news by email he goes on to say um quote i sent him a thank you message but he had no other substantive communication with him at that time i inquired about his background and learned that he had a conviction and subsequently paid his debt, Lamster said. He was not in the news during the time that he and I were in contact. Okay, but you just said that he was convicted and you probably know why he was convicted.

So why would you still accept money from this guy? Listen, it didn't make me look bad. It wasn't well enough known that I would look bad when I was taking money from him. He wasn't in the news. I mean, you just admitted that you knew that he was convicted for what he was convicted for. Yeah.

Which was being a sexual predator. How much money did you give him? 100 grand? 100,000, yeah. Wow. Yeah, I mean... Which I suppose for Epstein is chump change, but like come on, man.

He was in the news. Stephanie was saying she encounters all these bizarre acronyms. So one's ZOPA. Which is Zone of Possible Agreement. Yeah, I'm taking a managerial negotiations class, and I've only did one class so far, but I learned two important acronyms. The first one is SOPA.

So when two people are negotiating, you have a point where you're like, okay, if you don't go lower than this, I'm going to walk away, or higher than this, I'm going to walk away. And when the two people have an intersecting point where it's like we're okay with ten dollars we're okay with twenty dollars that's your sopa right and the point is like you push pull in the sopa to get as much distribution on your end right

and then the other acronym is batna best alternative to negotiation agreement so if it's like okay you're not gonna meet me at the zopa i'm gonna do my batna where it's like i walk away and do something else instead so it's like you need to make sure you know what your batna is before you come into a negotiation so that you're able to leverage and blah blah blah but like yeah weird weird acronyms so so with batNA is basically an acronym for other option. Yes. Plan B. Yeah.

Option B. And ZOPA is just haggling, right? It's just figuring out where you want to talk to. Well, I guess. That's just like the range in which you intersect with the other person. Yeah. Yeah. But sometimes you can't have a ZOPA. Sometimes people's like limit is not in your limit.

Right. Okay. But yeah, I'm kind of like, why don't you just say normal words? I don't know. Yeah. Like it doesn't even have like a, in terms of jargon, it doesn't even have like a functional reason where like you have to use ultra specific words in order to convey the idea it's just it seems like it's it's it's an acronym that's created to create an acronym yeah it's a hierarchy

of language if you come into a situation and you describe something with these terms then other people that have gone through these programs were like oh that person knows what we're talking about here it's it's um you could go in and say what Stephanie said in plain English and people would be like, sure, but if you're like, this is the bad nun, that's the zopna, and people are like, wow, this person's not even a Muslim. We should listen to them.

I mean, you get that in quantitative stuff too, like when you talk about derivatives and commodities, I guess it's a little more approachable, but I don't know. Oh, like a discount rate and stuff like that. Right, right.

Yeah. But if anybody wants to hit me up, I could give you a crash course on all these annoying terms. Honestly, it is actually pretty simple. They just make it more complicated than it needs to be. Sounds like it. And with that, this has been Grubstakers. I'm Yogi Paiwal. I'm Eddie Palmer. I'm Steve Jeffries. Stephanie, thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me on. This was such a pleasure. Alright, see you later. Drink theory.