My First Million - Scott Galloway Tells All - $100M Net Worth, $4 Trillion Business Opp & Career Advice

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Episode 511: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) are talking to Scott Galloway a.k.a Prof G (https://twitter.com/profgalloway). In this episode Scott... opens up about his scarcity mindset despite a $100M net worth and the best way for young people to get rich slowly.  Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to our YouTube channel here. Want MFM Merch? Check out our store here. Want to see the best clips from MFM? Subscribe to our clips channel here. — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com/ Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Try Shepherd Out - https://www.supportshepherd.com/ • Shaan's Personal Assistant System - http://shaanpuri.com/remoteassistant • Power Writing Course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing • Small Boy Newsletter - https://smallboy.co/ • Daily Newsletter - https://www.shaanpuri.com/ — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (3:00) Surviving rejection (5:00) Scott Galloway’s net worth (9:00) How Sam made $20M in 6 months (12:00) Scott gives Sam financial advice (16:00) Get Rich Slow Strategy: Seller-financed boomer businesses  (19:00) Get Rich Slow Strategy: Go work for a big company (20:00) Trillion-dollar carcass: AI for Healthcare (22:00) Prediction: GLP - 1 will be bigger than GPT-4 (28:00) Second order effects of Ozempic (31:00) The economics of obesity (33:00) The drug that changed Scott's life (35:00) Inverse Galloway Index (40:00) Is Putin cyber-bullying Scott Galloway? (44:00) $5M/year to speak — Links: • No Mercy / No Malice - https://www.profgalloway.com/  • Inverse Galloway Index - https://inversegallowayindex.com/ • Adrift - https://tinyurl.com/5ajwcy35 • The Prof G Pod - https://tinyurl.com/5dfdbywx • Prof G Media - https://profgmedia.com/ Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I look at this category and how much money is in this category. And it's going to happen. It's just there's never been a business. There's never been a carcass so tempting, so bloated, swimming so slowly. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel never do.
Starting point is 00:00:23 All right. We just asked Scott Galloway if he was 25 years old again, what businesses would he start? Because this guy started, I think nine businesses, sold one for over $100 million. And we said, if you were 25, what would you do? What are the ideas, the opportunities, the trends that you would take advantage of? And he gave us two answers. He said, if you had no degree, no college degree, no fancy education, he would do this.
Starting point is 00:00:44 And he said, if I had a fancy degree, instead, I would do this other thing. Very cool to hear kind of where his heads at, the small opportunities and the big one, what he called the multi-trillion dollar carcass that he can't believe nobody has disrupted yet. And on top of that, we asked him about his finances. We talked about when he sold his companies and made his first few million bucks and then tens of millions of dollars all the way up to how he got over $100 million, how he lost it along the way. And what were the key moments that allowed him to reach those heights with his with his on finances? You know, I've seen probably 100 interviews with Scott Galloway and I'd never heard him reveal these numbers or talk about this so openly. In fact, at one point, he goes, I'm naked here. I'm naked here, guys. You got to tell me something.
Starting point is 00:01:25 And so very, very good interview with Scott Galloway. Enjoy it. But, you know, we're not Scott Galloway. We don't have $100 million in the bank. So first, a message from our sponsor. Welcome to the pod. I've been listening to you for a very long time. I was a fan of yours starting, I think, with L2,
Starting point is 00:01:44 with the no mercy, no malice videos. And the reason I've liked you is I find myself, you might be 15 or 20 years older than me, but I find myself looking up to you. because I think we have a lot of very similar characteristics, which are erectile dysfunction? Not yet. Anger?
Starting point is 00:02:03 Depression. I have hair, but you're pretty buffed. You might be buffered than me. I admire you for that. Thanks for that. Like, you like to post shirtless picks. I like you for that. I do.
Starting point is 00:02:15 But you're very hard to peg down politically. You're kind of like all over the map when it comes to that. You also, you have beautiful language. I'm a big fan of beautiful. language. You've got beautiful language. You're better than I am. So I look up to you for that. And you started a bunch of really amazing businesses. But you're kind of known, like, I've told, we did this episode where we talked about your personal finances, where you talked about spending $200,000 to $400,000 a month. And people were like, I didn't know, Scott was so rich.
Starting point is 00:02:43 And I was like, no, he created a bunch of really big companies, but you're more famous for being like Scott Galloway, the brand. And I think that that's pretty cool. And so you've done a bunch of really interesting stuff. This is the whole episode, by the way. It's just Sam complimenting you. It's like a reverse roast, actually. So you just sit there and you just get compliments. At the end of the hour, you know, you feel good. That's what happens here. Yeah, so far, I just let me say, I'm really enjoying this.
Starting point is 00:03:08 It's like a verbal massage. This is, this works for me. Anyways, go on. Just going, Sam. Well, like, I read these sentences and I'm like, that's a beautiful line. I love that shit. I just love how he's coming up with that stuff. but yeah, I mean, I think it's like, I think it's really good. And what's crazy is you've had a better
Starting point is 00:03:29 career as a, as a business person. And I would say the key to my success is, is rejection. And that is I've had a lot of the marketplace businesses, capital providers, women have provided a great deal of rejection for me. And my skill is my ability to endure that and move on. And I'll lose my sense of enthusiasm. You know, the ability to mourn and move on is key. And the wonderful thing about America is that we don't embrace failure. That's bullshit. But we tolerate it. And I know so many really successful people who are very successful and then they do something on their own or they do something and it doesn't work for them and they get stuck. They just lose their mojo. And they can't get past it. They can't handle the bullet to the chest or the bullet to the arm becomes an
Starting point is 00:04:19 opportunistic infection that starts damaging everything about them. And I've, that's my only skill. I'm really into my dogs. I started an e-commerce company. I wanted to be the William Sonoma pet supplies. I put a million bucks in my own money in. I sold it for like a million and a half. So I made some money, not a lot. I invested or I started another e-commerce company. I started a travel site, sold that for a little bit of money. You know, I've had a lot of kind of, and then I've had things where I, you know, I ran into a, you know, drove into a wallet 200 miles per. I started coming to a red envelope, which went public on the NASDAQ in 2002. And because I was young and dumb, I kept investing. And then I got an award with the board and I did a proxy fight. And I took over the board and put
Starting point is 00:05:03 more of my money in. And then 2008 came and there was a longshoreman strike and a software malfunction at the warehouse where we sent 10,000 gifts to the wrong addresses. Over the holidays and a Wells Fargo analyst, it was like 14 decided the credit crisis was coming and pulled out a line. And my stock went from seven bucks this year to zero in about 11 days. And when the company I declared chapter 11 and I lost, you know, I lost pretty much everything. Do you remember how much money when you felt that tipping point where you did feel financially secure? Not like bulletproof where nothing ever will happen, but do you remember the inflection point where you're like, okay, this feels different than I've felt on the climb? I still haven't hit that point.
Starting point is 00:05:43 I'm still very anxious about money. You know, I had, and I like to be very open about money because I think that not talking about money is basically a decorum that is promoted by the incumbents and the wealthy, such that you don't understand how much money wealthy people have to keep poor and middle class people under the illusion that, oh, you should be paying 45% taxes
Starting point is 00:06:07 while I'm paying 17. And I think it's important. to be very, I think it's helpful to be transparent. And I talk about how much money I've lost, all my investments, how much money I've gained, my tax rates, et cetera. But the, you know, I'm still, I'm not obsessed with money. I think about it all the time. I'm trying to get a lot more.
Starting point is 00:06:30 I'm giving it away. Five years ago, I decided I was going to give away every dollar I made in current income because I want to start catching up to, the non-philanthropic Scott for the first 45 years of his life, but I'm still trying to make a shit ton of money. I still feel financially very insecure. I still worry about a recession becoming a depression, and I'm the guy who lost it again.
Starting point is 00:06:54 I've lost it all a couple times. And so I don't feel I'm at that point where I don't have financial anxiety. I do sleep with one eye open. The big, you know, I sold my first company for $28 million. By the time I split it with my ex. and my partner in taxes, I ended up with a few million dollars. Red envelope, I got a few million there. But I always seemed to figure out a way to lose it.
Starting point is 00:07:19 But I was able to start again because I never had debt. I've always lived below my means. But I would say the big win was probably selling L2. And I like that, oh, wow, I can buy a plane. Like, that was not in my reach before. So that was kind of the big one. That was like all the moons lined up. What was the price?
Starting point is 00:07:39 What did it sell for? $200 or $300 million? No, it sold for $158 million, but we'd only done one round of venture capital. So the common shareholders, you know, I was the largest equity owner. So the top, you know, between me and the top six employees,
Starting point is 00:07:57 we'd probably own 70% of it. So that was, you know, that was a lot of money for me. I'd never had that kind of money before. I'd always done well, but I'd never had that kind of capital. And then getting to invest that, in the midst of a bull market, we sold in 2017. You know, I've made more money investing actually
Starting point is 00:08:17 than I've made from my small, from my businesses. And I got a book coming out in March about financial, trying to develop financial security. And the ability to create an army of capital, even if it's only 50 bucks a month or 100 bucks a month, put it in a tax deferred or a tax-sufficient vehicle, diversify it, and then let time take over. Again, see above, you don't know how fast time is gonna go.
Starting point is 00:08:39 That's where I've built. real wealth. This doesn't make sense for Sean because Sean is not worried about money at all. He's got this thing that I like to call good emotional health. He's very emotionally healthy. His parents did him well.
Starting point is 00:08:56 And he's talked to me about this. I sold my company two or three years ago and I made a fair bit. What did you make? I'm like, I'm naked here. What did you make? Yeah. Let's go.
Starting point is 00:09:07 Let's go. Sam, you got to say. He's hesitant. He's hesitant. because he's worried people listening. No, I'll tell you. Okay, go ahead. At the end of the process, I walked away with about $20 million.
Starting point is 00:09:19 And how old are you? I was about 30. I was 31 or 32. So you should be extraordinary, unless you really screw up, you should be much wealthier than I am by my age. Because to get that capital base. Yeah, but I still feel shitty. I feel the same. Like, I still, like, I felt awesome for a minute.
Starting point is 00:09:38 And then I felt shitty where I was like, oh, like when I see these world events right now, when I saw like whatever happens every six months, I'm like, the world's going to end. And I do like an eight, I'm boring. Sean makes fun of me. I do 80, 20 index and bonds. That's the only, I only own those. Exactly what you should be doing right now. I think so.
Starting point is 00:09:56 And I, and then I own HubSpot stock still. And then I own Airbnb stock. That's basically my portfolio. And Sean makes fun of me. He's like, how are you feeling insecure? And I'm like, dude, I'm broken. Like, I'm broken. Like, it doesn't matter how much therapy I go to.
Starting point is 00:10:10 I'm just, I'm a broke. When it comes to money, I have a scarcity mindset and I'm broken. Yeah, I'm the same way. And when you talk about how you're worth, you know, 100 million plus and you don't feel secure, and Sean said he's like, what a little bitch. Like, you know, like, you talk about masculinity, man up. You know what I mean? Like, and I have the same thing.
Starting point is 00:10:29 I'm like, I can't. I'm weak. But the only thing I would say is just, I mean, you both you guys, obviously, super smart guys. and you know it's sort of irrational that you're feeling that way. And I guess the question I would have, Scott, is like, like, you know you actually are financially secure now. Like, it would take a lot for you to get to the point where you're not able to fund your lifestyle
Starting point is 00:10:52 or provide for your family or whatever at this point. So you know that that anxiety is somewhat irrational. And you're a very smart guy. And you've clearly, like, done the self-development work in a bunch of other areas of your life. I'm just surprised that, like, I can't tell. Is it just one of these, like, virtue signal things where you're like, hey, guys, I'm just, I'm still like you.
Starting point is 00:11:12 I'm still, I still sweat it. And I'm like, oh, is that what these guys are doing? They're just trying to relate to the common man. Or are you actually just not, like, fixing that irrational part of your brain and just being, like, you know, working on that, like getting it, getting it right. Which one is it? Yeah. So, first off, the neuroses is real.
Starting point is 00:11:33 It's not a, it's not a, it's not a, humble brag. It's part of a brag, but it's not a humble brag. The neurosis is real, but it's also, it's also a feature as well as a bug because I'm all over the people managing my money. I know where my money is. I think a lot about diversifying. Sam, what you're doing is exactly what you should be doing because you're not looking to get, you're looking to get richer, but more than anything, you're looking to not get poor. And the mistake I made at your age when I had some wins was I would double down. And I would start another company and put all my money into one thing. Like, you're, quite frankly, you should be selling down your Airbnb and your HubSpot stock
Starting point is 00:12:12 and just letting, you don't need the needle in a haystack. You just need to buy the whole haystack because you've got enough capital. I have a price target. Like I have like a number where I'm like, when we get to around this, we're going to, we'll get out of those. Yeah, but I would doubt it would talk. I mean, a longer conversation. But, Sean, to your, I think about financial insecurity a lot. It is still very possible.
Starting point is 00:12:33 You know, there's been periods in economic history where if you're invested and, you know, you can lose most or all of it, I've put a little bit of pressure on myself because, and this is virtue signaling, I give a lot of money away. So, but yeah, I don't. And also, I have a really nice lifestyle. But no, the insecurity is still there. I was always financially insecure growing up. And I just don't know if that's a really nice lifestyle. I just don't know if that's a really nice lifestyle. I'm not. I was always, I was always financially insecure growing up. And I just don't know if I just don't know if I goes away, but I think some of it is a good thing. I have my eye on stuff. I think about it a lot. And it's like if you want to be good at money, if you want to be good at anything, if you want to be good at tennis, if you want to be good at stamp collecting, you need to think about it a lot. It doesn't, you know, Roger Federer thinks about tennis a lot, a lot. And if you want to be good at money, I think you have to have a certain amount of financial literacy. You have to understand interest rates. You have to be thinking, wait, when my mortgage rolls in 14 months, is it to go from two and a quarter percent to seven percent oh wait it is does that mean i should be thinking
Starting point is 00:13:38 about selling it paying off my mortgage you just if you want to be wealthy unless you're extraordinarily talented at something i mean extraordinary talented and also can live below your means and most extraordinarily talented people have a tough time living below their means it's not how much you make it's how much you know you spend in your ability to create a delta so you always save below live below your means. Yeah, the insecurity is real. It really, I still am very fearful of being broke. I don't, I don't want to go back there. And now either I'm getting to an at-trite. I don't have that much time to make it back. So, no, the insecurity, the insecurity is real. What helps is that you have cash flow now. Like a lot of startup people, you're poor,
Starting point is 00:14:25 you're poor, you're poor, and then you're poor for seven years, then you maybe hopefully have an exit, then you get a windfall and then it feels good for a little while and then you're like but there's there's no more income um what changed for me because this podcast and sean this podcast has done well and a few other things we have got going on in our life we actually have regular yeah really great cash flow you have the same that has made me feel better is like getting checks every month and like seeing the balance go up on a consistent basis the cash flow like there's a difference between entrepreneurs i found between who sell and just make windfalls versus who have a business that they fully own and they're able to take out income every quarter or every
Starting point is 00:15:05 year. And having that cash flow definitely makes me feel better. Oh, no doubt. You always want to be making money. And also it keeps you in shape. Being subject to trying to make as much money as you spend or ideally more at any age keeps you in the market. You have to understand what the market values and doesn't value. It keeps you, it's how I think it keeps me that an exercise keeps me, hopefully going to keep me sort of young. And that is understanding how to create something in the marketplace, whether it's a podcast or a book or a talk for me that people are willing to pay for keeps me in the game.
Starting point is 00:15:47 It keeps me in the ring. It keeps me in shape. So I think it's really important, too. And also, you're right. It does, if you, at the end of the year, know, okay, even if my investments are down 20 or 30%, which they were last year, I'm still making almost as much or more than I spend. You do get huge comfort and peace from that.
Starting point is 00:16:09 One of the things we like to do on this podcast is that's different than most is that we ask every guest who comes on about what they're seeing now. So, like, so far, we talked about the past, and most podcasts are just about your past. How'd you do it? But we like to talk about trends, opportunities. What business would you be starting, or do you see as something people could start now, right?
Starting point is 00:16:31 Like if you go on hot ones, you eat hot wings. If you come on MFM, you talk about ideas and opportunities. That's sort of the schick. In fact, we almost canceled this podcast because we didn't know if you were prepped and ready with that. But Sam said, no, no, no, he's going to be, he's good. He's good off the cuff. He'll be ready. What opportunities or ideas do you see today that either, you know, you're tempted to do
Starting point is 00:16:54 or you say, no, I'm out of the game. But if I was 25 again, this is what I would. be running at this is what i would be working on um this is a problem that i think somebody could go solve what do you see out there today so first of a lot of it is situational right someone coming out of someone with a degree from an elite university who has the ability whose parents will support them and doesn't have a high burn and maybe a partner that works you know it's just a lot of it's situational i i don't like it i've never liked this hustle culture where people say go offer to carry jeff bezos bags or have
Starting point is 00:17:28 have coffee because if you're a single mother, that's just not an option for you. So some of it's situational, so I'll go through a few situations. If I'm a young man or woman and I haven't had the opportunity to get credentialed, I don't have a traditional four-year college degree, much less a college degree from an elite institution.
Starting point is 00:17:46 I think there are going to be a lot of businesses, whether it's carpet cleaning or gas stations or hanging and selling draperies into small furniture companies that are owned by boomers, they're going to need transition. Nice, small businesses, and these individuals will need liquidity events. They're just aging out of the business. They're hitting their 60s and 70s,
Starting point is 00:18:11 and they don't want to be calling on car washes to sell in their product or whatever it is. And these are businesses doing between half a million and 10 million a year that have no succession strategy. Because if they made money, their kids don't want to be in this type of business business because their kid went to Emory and wants to go to work at Google. And I would try and find, be really scrappy about getting into a business, understanding it, trying to find people who own it
Starting point is 00:18:39 and figure out a way to buy it using that person's capital. Approach somebody and say, I want to take over your business. I'm going to buy it slowly over five years and then I'm going to give you coupons so you can retire. If I'm a credentialed person, if I have a degree, I'm fortunate enough, I would go to work for a big platform. I think we live in an era of where antitrust is no longer in effect. So the big companies, if you were to divide the stock market into deciles, the 10, the companies with the largest market cap over the last 30 years of outperform, the bottom nine by huge factor.
Starting point is 00:19:14 So going to work for a big company is vastly underrated. They can abuse their monopoly position. They will have that mole removed. You will get rich slowly working at Google or at McKinsey. So if you're credentialed, you know, we overrogram. romanticize entrepreneurship, if you have the ability to get into the greatest wealth-creating vehicle in history, and that is the U.S. corporation, do it. But they have security at the front saying, do you have a degree from an elite college? But if you do, absolutely go to work for a big
Starting point is 00:19:43 multinational conglomerate. If you're an entrepreneur, I think that the end credentialed and can raise money, I would say that the intersection between AI and healthcare, the most disruptable business in the world is U.S. health care, three and a half to four trillion dollars. Four out of feet, five people aren't happy with it. It's cost of outpaced inflation for the last 40 years, meaning it's got the biggest chin in the world. And I think the fists of stone coming for it is artificial intelligence where we can take health care from a defensive-based industry to offensive. I give my grocery receipts, my workout routine, my health care records, my sleep patterns to a company that figures it all out and then gives me,
Starting point is 00:20:29 prescripted, goes on offense, proactive, lifestyle, grocery, and exercise recommendations. And I think there's just going to be a ton of niche businesses and health care that leverage some form of AI. Are there any out there that you like? Yeah. I'm an investor in a company called 98.6. It does text-based healthcare. It's a private company, so we sell into B2B, a big, you know, Sam's, and Sam's offers for $3 a month, every employee, or we charge them $3 a money, an ability to text somebody in an AI says, okay, it's a rash. We're getting a dermatologist on the line. They look at the rash using your smartphone and say, this is fine. I'm sending you a cream, or this needs a prescription. We're hitting the pharmacy. And by the way, that investment, I've written down by 80%. It's been really hard. I've lost money so far on that. So I don't want to pretend that this is all easy, but I would
Starting point is 00:21:26 say if I were young and had intellectual capital and credentialing, I would go into something around AI and healthcare. Man, well, like, that shocks me that you said that say that, because when I look at, I've done a few healthcare things and I look at like the landscape, it seems like impossible to, like, it just seems like there seems like there's a shit ton of regulation. Figuring out insurance companies seems like the hardest thing there is. And even though everyone is frustrated about their setup, this seems like a very challenging space to crack into. And of course, there's there's huge rewards if you can pull it off, but it seems very, very challenging. I just look at this, I look at this category and how much money is in this category. And it's going to happen. It's just
Starting point is 00:22:14 there's never been a business, there's never been a carcass so tempting, so bloated, swimming so slowly as U.S.-based healthcare. We spend $13,000 per person, but we die earlier, and we're obese, and we're more depressed. The U.K. spends six and a half though. How can the UK and Australia be living longer and spending half what we in the U.S. spent on health care? That's just the mother of all chins. There's going to be disruption there, and I'd want to get in the way of that. The other thing I'm really excited about, and I think it's the most under-hyped, I just did a blog post on this. I think GLP1 is bigger than GPT-4. What's GLP-1?
Starting point is 00:22:55 Ozampic, Wagovia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, which I've tested semi-glute had a tonne. It's amazing. Like, I think there's, like, so many crazy implications on what it could do. Like, I think it could, I've been saying this, I don't know shit, by the way, other than I tested it. And I had drinking problems in the past. it could help solve alcoholism. I think there's so many crazy things. There was this guy on Twitter,
Starting point is 00:23:18 our buddy from CB Insights was like, what did he say? Did he say that food companies are going to lose money because people are eating less? And he said airline companies are going to make more money because people weigh less. He's like, that's how big of a deal these drugs are. I was starting a hedge fund right now. I would have a fund that did nothing but go short. Food stocks, McDonald's. Nobody walks into Arby's and looks around and thinks, this was a good decision. No one ever thinks that. And if all of a sudden I could get an ejection or take a pill every week that helped me make better decisions, our instincts have not cut up to the institutional production of our economy.
Starting point is 00:23:58 We drink too much. We eat any time we're near salt, fat, or sugar, we gorge. Because for 99, again, 99% of our species history, we couldn't find these things. when mating, the majority of men have had almost no mating opportunities through history. A small minority of men have had all the mating opportunities. And then you're presented with a reasonable facsimile of sex called porn. And there's a decent segment of men out there who aren't working, aren't getting out of the house, because they're staying home and watching too much porn,
Starting point is 00:24:31 and they're also not engaging in relationships. We drink too much. I'm addicted to other people's affirmation. My kid is on Snap too much. This could be scaffolding. I mean, the weight loss thing is arguably the biggest addressable market in the world. 40% of America is obese, 70% is obese and overweight. But even bigger than that, this could be the scaffolding on our instincts to update our instincts to where they need to be with the industrial production that has gone exponential in the last 100, 150 years with assembly line technology and the microprocessor and say, okay, Scott.
Starting point is 00:25:07 you like THC too much, you like alcohol way too much, you're too desperate for other people's affirmation and what people say about you on Twitter bums you out way too much. We're going to calibrate these GLP1 drugs to help you moderate your cravings.
Starting point is 00:25:23 I mean, what these things do is they moderate your cravings when your cravings are getting the incorrect signals from 300,000 years of instinct on the Savannah. And everybody, I mean, they're finding out, they're finding out people on OZempec drink 60% less alcohol. They're biting their nails less. So the opportunity to update our instincts for the entire, I mean, the market, I'm just,
Starting point is 00:25:54 I'm blown away by this thing. I think it could be just enormous. And there isn't anybody that doesn't have, that has instincts, that has a behavioral model that is driven by instinct that is caught up to our world. I don't care who you are. Have you tried it? I haven't, but as you can tell, I'm ready. Yeah, geez.
Starting point is 00:26:17 I feel like you just injected me digitally just now with it. That was amazing. You know how much it costs a month? About a thousand bucks a month, right? It's between $500 and $1,000 a month. When I was trying it, it was $500 a month out of pocket. Most insurance companies, and I think if you have diabetes, they actually only cover it.
Starting point is 00:26:35 I think for a limited time, but most people using it now are just paying $500 to $1,000 a month. And here's the crazy shit about this drug. You have to increase your dosage every week. So you start with a very small amount and every two weeks or so, you have to increase it. Like forever? Well, I don't know forever, but over a course of at least a year, you have to. So like when I first started taking it, I would test out just a little bit and it would make me a little bit sick to my stomach. You know, the downside of, there's a few downsides.
Starting point is 00:27:04 One is upset stomach. And then after about three weeks, I'm like, all right, I feel great. Let's increase it. And then now at the end of six months, you're taking 10 times, basically on a syringe, you've got to fill a thing up to 100. At first, you fill it up to 10. And over a year, you have to increase it. And so you have to pay more and more money.
Starting point is 00:27:22 What could go wrong? There's a lot of things that can go wrong with that. Like, I've tested it. One downside is I actually don't know if you develop healthy eating habits. just eat less. And you lose muscle. There are definitely downsides to it. It's not a terribly new drug. I think that these types of things have been around for like 30 years. So there's some studies, but as it's being prescribed now, it's definitely new-ish. So there are definitely going to be downsides, but it's super promising. Another one is metformin, which isn't in the same, which isn't in the same
Starting point is 00:27:55 category entirely, but it does similar things. That's super interesting. I always think it's interesting when people like Sam Altman, like these geniuses who like see everything, take it. And he's been like, this is the drug I take. I take metformin all the time. So that's super fascinating. So I agree. I think, I think these, this classification of drugs is quite interesting. I mean, I was even thinking, I'm trying to figure out the second order of effects here. And like, does Moderna stock go down 80%? Because the reality is, through the pandemic, we, the far right, weaponized and politicized mass and vaccines and decided, well, if you take them, it means you're far left, so if you're far right, you don't want to take these things.
Starting point is 00:28:30 On the far left, we weaponized and politicized obesity. We didn't want to acknowledge that 88% of mortality has had one comorbidity, at least, that was obesity related. And we started with this trope of, oh, you're not obese, you're finding your truth. No, you're not. You're finding diabetes. There's nothing to celebrate here. And so we decided we didn't want to have an open conversation about the fact that America is obese.
Starting point is 00:28:57 40% of America. The kids, you're more likely to commit suicide, obesity and children. It's terrible. You're much more likely to be depressed as an adult, not go to college, and become more likely to kill yourself. I mean, so what happens to Moderna stock? If all of a sudden we drastically reduce, if you drastically reduce obesity in America,
Starting point is 00:29:23 you drastically reduce the vulnerability of the population to a coronavirus. So do you need Moderna? I mean, at some point, the reality is a 25-year-old who's thin. Yeah, you get vaccinated for a variety of reasons, but it's not, at some point, it becomes less obvious whether you need these vaccines when the society is healthy and not obese. I mean, I'm just kind of blown to hospital networks, entire hospital networks,
Starting point is 00:29:51 could go out of business. If they're really honest, the Milken Institutes that obesity-related costs are, $1.7 trillion a year. When you look at everything from knee replacements to cardiac to cancers that are obesity related, we're looking at $1.7 trillion a year. That's 7% of our economy. So what happens when the entire economy gets a cost cut of 7%. So I'd want to get kind of near this technology.
Starting point is 00:30:18 I think this technology is going to have a bigger impact on the real economy than AI. I think AI, we've kind of hit peak AI. I love it. I use it a lot, but it's a little bit overhyped right now. We're definitely kind of, I would say, I think about a month ago we hit peak AI in terms of, from an investor's standpoint, I would not want to be buying into AI companies right now. As an entrepreneur, I'd want to be raising money for an AI company. But anyways, you asked me what I was excited about. Trying to find a baby boomer that wants to sell a small business and do seller financing. If you have certification, you're fortunate enough for whatever reason you either have rich parents,
Starting point is 00:30:56 you're freakishly remarkable and you ended up at Dartmouth, go to work for a big American company. We are, they're amazing, you'll get rich slowly. Smart people, great place to meet mentors, great place to meet mates. You just, these companies are totally underrated in terms of their power and what they can do for you professionally and economically. If you're an entrepreneur, something around healthcare and AI, and I think from an investment standpoint, I just want to be near,
Starting point is 00:31:23 I'm very excited about GLP1 as an emerging technology. we need to get you to start taking it. So we're going to... Well, have you not taken it because you're afraid of the side effects? Or have you not taken it because you're like, I'm already cut. I don't need this. Oh, no. I think, I don't know this.
Starting point is 00:31:41 But who GOP one should be, who it should reach right now is poor and middle-income households that are obese. That's where the greatest societal benefit would be right now. Who I think is probably driving the sales are rich people who want to lose the last 10 or 20 pounds. That's my gut. My gut is the people taking it right now. It's the Hollywood drugs. 100%. Dude, I went to CBS the other day. I had to get the woping cough vaccine and I went to CVS and I had to wait for an hour to get the vaccine. Five people were in line. The fucking worst thing about CVS and Walgreens is they say out loud, oh, are you here to pick up your Symbolta? Like they say it like really loud.
Starting point is 00:32:21 And I'm like, what the fuck? Five people had lied and it was all all. older people who looked like they had diabetes, five people, they were like, oh, are you here for the Ozempic? And like they say what the pricing is, and they go, all right, I'll pay it. And these people, it was like the white new balance crowd. It wasn't like a like, you know, like it was a Wrangler jeans crowd. This wasn't like a high. They didn't, I didn't stereotype these people as like yuppies. And they were swiping their card. Just jump up and yell, chlamydia. Oh, wait, you said something else. I don't know. I hate that about.
Starting point is 00:32:56 The pharmacy is where they say. I'm like, can you, I'm like, could you shut the fuck up? Scott, this could be your philanthropy thing. You should be given away GLP one to the masses. That could be your moment. Nobody's on that train. So you inspired a thought that when I was 19, I had terrible, I had terrible acne growing up. And it was a real source of an enormous insecurity for me.
Starting point is 00:33:19 And I was painfully thin. I looked like Iqabod Crane with bad skin. And it was just really, really pain. And I was starting to get scars on my face because my acne was so bad, and I started taking acutane. And it was about the time I made the crew team at UCLA, and I put on a bunch of weight and a bunch of muscle, and my skin cleared up. and it literally changed my life. It just changed my life. And not only because, you know,
Starting point is 00:33:48 I was, people were more attracted to me and I started having sex, which was a wonderful thing in my life, but I just felt so much better about myself. And still to this day, and it's probably inappropriate, I was at a gas station and the gas attendant had just terrible acne. And I'm like, take this as you want.
Starting point is 00:34:03 I don't mean to offend you, but if you heard, you know, there's great drugs for this. So I'm out there basically, trying to prescribe as an unlicensed doctor. I don't know what made me think of that. But this drug, that drug literally, I found a guy who invented it,
Starting point is 00:34:21 this guy who sold the patent to Hoffman-LaRoche, and I tried to write him a letter, and they're like, well, he's dead, but we appreciate the letter. Anyways. But no, I haven't taken it. I haven't taken it. I do take creatine.
Starting point is 00:34:37 I struggle with, and no one's going to feel bad about this. I struggled with keeping weight on. Creatines all the rage right now. So far, you've said, I've made a bunch of money and I just don't feel good. And God, it's hard for me to put weight
Starting point is 00:34:50 on. I just keep losing it. So you're two for two on unlikable. Yeah, punch, punchable. Yeah, crime me a river, boss. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm too rich and too thin. Oh.
Starting point is 00:35:03 Yeah, Professor Punchable. You've got Professor Punch on the pod today. I hate that guy. Well, you do get a lot of punches. the what's it called the inverse, the inverse ETSF, the inverse Gallo Index. What do you think about that? That's pretty good. I like that. Yeah, and the craziest call was the Macy's. The Macy's call. That was a crazy. I'm going to apologize in advance, but I'm going to sound defensive. The Macy's call was, I said
Starting point is 00:35:28 that multi-channel, I said that about 10 years ago in Germany at a talk, and I said that multi-channel retail was the future of marketing, and that Macy's who had a great website and stores. I said that was the future. And in the same talk, I said, I believe Amazon will buy stores. And I said, I think Amazon will buy Whole Foods. But my detractors don't take that clip. They take the clip when I said the future looks more like Macy's. The anti-Galaway ETF or index, it's a bit cherry-picked because I know my picks and they've actually done pretty well. but the reality is the gout the the index says
Starting point is 00:36:10 since october 4th 2019 tech companies that the professor has predicted would fail have outperform the s&P and seen a whopping 61% return even excluding Tesla was that published I don't know because I think I well one I picked I picked some companies that would lose
Starting point is 00:36:30 that skyrocketed specifically Tesla but I think someone who tracks it as of last year, the end of last year, because a lot of those stocks got hammered, it was up again. But I want to be clear, I get it wrong all the time. And someone who makes predictions like me should be held accountable. What I find, though, is that the, people stop tracking the index when it's, there's no longer a story there. When I, I mean, this is what I've found. When I talk about, when I say that I think that Tesla is overvalued.
Starting point is 00:37:08 You're right. Last updated on one of these, the inverse gallery index.com, last updated to 28, 2022, which is, I believe. Well, no one's interested because the narrative is right when the market started to turn. Yeah, because quite frankly, the index is probably overperforming right now. And no one's interested in that because the people who invented the index, what I find generally, especially on Twitter, is when I am disparaging about a company or cryptocurrency, the people who are along that start engaging in not only professional assassination, but character assassination. Whenever someone really comes after me, I'm like, they must be an investor and one of the companies I have been critical of.
Starting point is 00:37:48 I would say, never get in between a venture capitalist and their second million, because they will take to Twitter and call you a plagiarist or accused you of having done terrible, things at NYU, which you've never ever been accused of, much less people have found you guilty of. What did they accuse you of? I'm not even going to go there. I've been accused of everything. Like behavior stuff or just getting picks wrong? Oh, no, it gets really ugly. And then you click on the Twitter account. It's a picture of a dog and it's an anonymous account. I think that there are venture capitalists who you know fairly well, who when I'm saying this company, this cryptocurrency, this coin, the underlying technology,
Starting point is 00:38:29 there is no underlying technology, and they are funding it with their brand name such that they can dump it because they don't have to disclose their sales. And they hire a PR agency that creates 10,000 bots and then creates a list of people who don't think Come Rocket is going to replace the dollar.
Starting point is 00:38:43 Here, I've got a good shirt that you can wear when you're having those conversations. Cryptos for virgins? No, I would say, yeah, no, it's for people. Yeah, that's right. It means it never kissed a girl. Anyways, but what I have found is, and I wasn't used to getting attack like that, and every time I tried to, you know, I hired a firm to unmask some of the people who were attacking me, it was clearly like the same language. I'm like, they're using fake accounts. And it was almost always someone who had a large financial position and the company that I said was overvalued. But look, at the end of the day, I should be held accountable. And when I get it wrong, you know, I'll have several million people on Twitter pointed out. But as somebody who is very close to his own stockbacks, you know, things have kind of worked out over here.
Starting point is 00:39:29 Wait, wait. You hired a firm to figure out who's behind these tour accounts? I think it's so. I think it's political. I've been very critical of Putin. And I'm fairly, and I know this sounds fair and I'm not. It doesn't mean I'm wrong. If I were Putin, I would hire, I would spend a small amount of money. I'm spending $100 billion a year in Ukraine and 100,000 lives. why wouldn't I take 5% of that or $5 billion and take some very bright scientists and do AI generated AB testing and create a list of my 5,000, 7, 10,000 biggest detractors who are pro-Ukraine and start slowly but surely undermining their authority on social media platforms that have a moral management team who will cash my checks and slowly but surely start undermining their authority? That's what I would do. Do you have any proof that anything like that has happened? Or is this just an idea? Go to my comments.
Starting point is 00:40:26 Well, I don't know. That in itself is out proof. It could just be someone nice to. Anytime. Anytime you say anything, you'll do it. Go on and talk about Ukraine. And you're going to start to see a lot of people attacking you personally and professionally who are anonymous.
Starting point is 00:40:44 And you could say, wow, it's just amazing that all of these anonymous bots seem to have decided to engage in character assassination because I consistently am pro-Ukraine. And wouldn't they be stupid not to do it? Because people don't click on the profile, they just see the comment. And it's always the same language. Professor Galloway.
Starting point is 00:41:09 I don't know. It's like, what's the threshold of your, in my eyes, you're a big deal, but what's the threshold of you're a big deal to decision makers who decide these things? But it's all about public opinion. You can't win. war without public support, you can't lose one with public support. So the Putin, the fastest blue line
Starting point is 00:41:28 path to victory in Ukraine for Putin is the election of Donald Trump, in my view, and also trying to diminish or reduce public support for the war there. So wouldn't they be stupid to not have the GRU identify the 10,000 most critical people or biggest supporters of Ukraine and slowly but surely undermine their credibility? That's what I, why would, they'd be stupid not to do that, especially on platforms that will cash anybody's checks and as it relates to the fog of misinformation are fucking smoke machines. Why on earth would they not do that?
Starting point is 00:42:01 No, I mean, I think they should. I was just, I'm giving you a hard time of like, are you a big enough fish, which that's what I'm trying to figure out. Oh, I might be 20,000 out of a list of 20,000 people, but I think I've made the list when I go on. It's actually like Forbes 30 to 30 bullshit. Putin's 10,000.
Starting point is 00:42:20 under 10,000, that's the list. That's the real list of influence right there. If you go on face the nation and say this is the best investment in the history of the West, unifying for the first time Europe is a union. We've taken NATO out of the brain coma. We push back on a murderous, fascist 90 years ago. This is a wonderful moment for the West. It's 10% of our military, but this is the best investment we ever made.
Starting point is 00:42:42 I think that qualifies me to get on the list. That's what, well, are you enjoying being Scott Calloway the brand more than being Scott Galloway, the founder of, like, are you enjoying it more than being an operator of companies, or are you enjoying, I mean, you have some cool blog post where you're like, when people say hi to me in the streets, I love it. It makes me feel great. Which one are you enjoying more? Scott Galloway, the brand, or Scott Galloway, the business person? Oh, on the whole, this is really wonderful. I mean, people come up to me and are super nice, and, you know, I met that. I have 13 and 16-year-old boys, so everything I do is just, like, tragically uncool in their eyes.
Starting point is 00:43:23 They don't really seem to like me a great deal. So when someone comes up to me, it happened yesterday and, like, wants a picture with me, and they're excited to meet me in front of my boys. To be honest, it just feels really nice. And people, generally speaking, are just so nice. And they come up and I get to meet new people. Yeah, it's awesome, and it feels very gratifying. I'm also, we talked about addictions.
Starting point is 00:43:45 I'm addicted to affirmation from strangers. It's sort of pathetic, but I at least know it so I can modulate it. And it's really wonderful. People are really friendly and really nice. You know, I went to the Arsenal game with my boys, and a bunch of people came up to me and said hi. And I was at the Taylor Swift concert and the 16-year-old girl. It made me a bracelet and came up and gave me a bra. I mean, it's just like I have all these wonderful moments with strangers.
Starting point is 00:44:11 So it's wonderful. I do think there is an algorithm for happiness, though, a pretty good one. and that is to be rich but anonymous. Because at some point, I'm going to become the villain. And some of the things you talked about before, there's an entire industry in America around building people up and them tearing them down. And so I wonder when my story turns to the villain.
Starting point is 00:44:32 Because, you know, at some point I'll probably fuck up and say something really stupid, and then wham, people will weigh in. But for the time being, oh, it's wonderful. People are nice. It's so rewarding. Really rewarding. We're coming up on our time, but I had one last question.
Starting point is 00:44:49 I saw you talk. I've seen you talk a few times, and I've watched your stuff on YouTube. The difference between your talks and most everyone's talks is you kind of break a bunch of the rules. So you have like 150 slides. Each slide has lots of information on it. And you talk super fast. You've got a really beautiful rhythm. I say fast, but fast in a good way.
Starting point is 00:45:11 What is the process of like coming? with one of these talks because your talks seem way more lucrative. One of your talks would be like maybe a big blog post that I wrote or that I would write. And I imagine having like a talk is significantly more lucrative and probably way more fun. You could travel all over the world and deliver them. What's a what's that process of like, do you start with a headline and you're like, let me go find data. Do you find a data point? And you're like, I'm going to build something around this. Yeah. So speaking is the most lucrative business I've ever been. And I had 340 inbound request. for speaking. I accepted 30 of them. I average $112,000 per speaking engagement. And my attitude is
Starting point is 00:45:53 someone's going to pay me $112,000. I can't just show up and be charming and interesting and like be me on stage. I've got to bring something really unique. And so I will spend the better part of three months with a team of analysts at Prop G trying to come up with themes and data and slides and humor and video clips and then choreograph it and practice it over and over and then test it and try and make it something where you go, okay, when... I mean, it's just like a comedian. Well, humor is a great way to lower people's defenses such that they'll be open to new ideas. And so when I say things that are provocative or I'm asking them to think something different,
Starting point is 00:46:36 humor is a fantastic way to soften the beach for new ideas. But you're testing, you're like, you know, before you get the Netflix show, you're like testing it on the, on the small. Yeah. But if I'm a master card and they're spending me 100, you know, they're spending 150,000 bucks to have me speak for an hour in Barcelona, which I did last week. You can't just show up and be Scott Galloway. I've got to be a guy who gets, finds these incredibly smart people to pull data together and they do a great job in my design team. And, you know, greatness is in the agency of others. So, but it's a ton of fun. I get to go to. interesting places. I get to pick the most interesting, cool ones. And it's a nice, and I have an impact. I talk a lot about struggling young men, which is something I'm passionate about, and it's really rewarding. I feel like I'm having a difference. I get to go to cool places. So I kind of feel like it's my victory lap right now. I get to just sort of run around and, you know, but I'm,
Starting point is 00:47:31 but if someone's going to pay that kind of money, you just can't show up and just start talking and, you know, a bunch of war stories about how awesome you are. You got to show up with really, insight or something that's going to catalyze a conversation with data they haven't seen before. Back to the drawing board for me then. I thought that's, I thought what I was doing is showing up and giving myself a victory lap. Dude, have you seen one of his talks? Like, every slide has like a data point that is quite good and a story behind it. And I'm like, dude, just finding this data is a job. You're an excellent performer speaker and like Sam said, you're very lyrical. We enjoy
Starting point is 00:48:08 We enjoy what you do. I think you're really great at what you do. I don't know how you were as an entrepreneur, but I feel like this is what you were meant to do is to be smart and then package that up and perform that because you can't educate without entertaining and you do a great job of both. Thanks for coming on.
Starting point is 00:48:25 We really appreciate it. Thank you guys. Congrats on your success. Yeah, thank you. I think you and I think our pods are going back and forth sometimes in the charts. so I look forward to kicking your ass. I will bury you.
Starting point is 00:48:43 See you in the trenches. Thanks, man. We appreciate Scott Galloway. Thanks again, guys. That's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off.
Starting point is 00:48:57 On a road, let's travel, never looking back.

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