The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Don’t Lose the Script

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Scott shares his thoughts on Northeastern’s decision to kick out 11 first-year students for not following social distancing protocol. He also discusses what makes capitalism a great system, but how the United States looks more like cronyism.   Then, Julián Castro joins to chat about the pandemic and the economy as well as the changes he’d like to see. Julián is a former 2020 presidential candidate and served as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama and Mayor of San Antonio, Texas.  Office Hours: Big Tech acquisition predictions, the tenure guild, and doubling down on content marketing to build brand trust.  Related Reading: Northeastern dismisses 11 first-year students for partying. They won’t get their $36,500 tuition back Capitalists or Cronyists?  Please take our quick survey to tell us how we can improve The Prof G Show: https://forms.gle/xVRfqCKrrNr9xzor5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 26. 26 minutes instead of 42. Go, go, go! Welcome to the 26th episode of The Prop G Show. In today's episode, we speak with Julian Castro. Julian is the former 2020 presidential candidate and also served as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017. The guy looks 17. So he was like... Anyways, before that, he was mayor of San Antonio. He must have been 11 when he was mayor. San Antonio, Texas, probably, probably the city I most want to go to in America that I haven't been to. With Julian, we're going to discuss the state of the world, the upcoming election, and what he hopes to achieve through his new podcast, Our America. How does Prop G get people like Julian Castro on the podcast? Simple. They're pimping something. So we're going to talk about his new podcast, Our America. That sounds like vote for me in 2024

if President Trump is reelected. But anyways, what's happening? Okay, who would have thunk it? The New York Times conducted a review of 203 counties in the U.S. where college students make up at least 10% of the population. And guess what? Guess what? Shocker! Spoiler alert! They found that about half experienced their worst week of the pandemic since August 1st. The latest New York Times survey shows that there have been at least 51,000 coronavirus cases at more than 1,000 American college campuses since the pandemic began. Okay, enough already. Enough already. Northeastern University kicked out 11 first-year students for not following social distancing protocol. Okay, what are they supposed to do? The protocol, the ultimate protocol is your goddamn instinct. And we've been telling kids between the ages of like 16 and 25 that their only job, their only job is to socialize

and find mates. And we're inviting them. Okay, get this, get this. I think his name is President Ayun, who makes $1.7 million, the president of Northeastern University, and President Aoun, I apologize if I'm getting his name wrong, decided to bring or invite 14,000 students to a campus that is 0.11 square miles. So come here and cluster 14,000 of you in a 0.1, a tenth of a square mile, but don't cluster too close. Why? Because we expect you to follow these ridiculous protocols that are nothing but a farce, nothing but an illusion, such that we can maintain this ridiculous charade of normalcy, such that we can collect $34,000 from you in the form of debt or from your kids in the form of debt or your parents, such that if by chance you follow every hormone, instinct, non-rational

firing or rational firing of your brain and get together with a few more people than that, say 11 people in a renovated Westin hotel room. Gosh, this university clearly doesn't have any money if it's renovating hotel rooms into dorms. They find 11 of them and then they say, okay, you're out. And here's the kicker, we're keeping your money. The arrogance and self-aggrandizement of university leadership is stifling. Imagine if a cruise line was stupid enough to announce that in the midst of a pandemic that they believe that it was important, they wrap themselves in this

bullshit strident Americanism that we have a national responsibility, as the president of Brown claimed, to reopen our universities. No, you don't. You have a fucking responsibility to cauterize the pandemic. Anyway, anyway, but say people bought into it. Why? Because the kids that are going to college, typically in wealthy households, the majority of the media has kids that are thinking about college. They all went to college. So we have totally blown out of proportion the national tragedy of Bobby and Cindy having to stay at home for their sophomore year at Tulane for one semester. So we have totally over-dramatized the tragedy here, giving license or cloud cover to university

leadership to invite super spreaders back to campus just long enough to infect them, keep their money, keep their money, and then tell them to go home and act disappointed and shame them. This is nothing but thievery, pure and simple thievery. It's one thing to stick your head up your ass and say, okay, we're going to try and pull this off. We're going to try and bring all these kids back to campus. What is the upside? Simple. We have more of an excuse to cash your check. What's the downside? We're seeing it. We're seeing it. We're seeing spikes in college towns. What is the downside? And people say, well, it doesn't matter. To be clear, there have been zero deaths reported at college towns, but aren't we just creating more nodes of transmission? Aren't we deciding to create more geometry of spread here? And it's not we, it's university

leadership that's decided, I know I need to cash that goddamn check. Well, okay, that's immoral or at a minimum stupid. But at the same time, if you decide that somebody does in fact show up for the cruise liner and they congregate in a room and they say, okay, fine, you're out of here. The captain says, you're out of here. I no longer believe the ship is safe. You don't keep their money. Captain Steubing wouldn't do it. Captain Steubing, he'd say, Julie, we're kicking everyone off the boat, but we're going to give them their money back because we're not thieves. Well, guess what? The arrogance of university leadership has more from denial to pure thievery. Northeastern University, stop stealing Americans' money. Send them home. Fine. Give them their money back. Okay. Let's think about Labor Day. I think that Labor Day is a decent reminder that capitalism is the worst system in the world except for all the rest. I think that is what Churchill said about democracy, but I still think it is the way to go. And it's been questioned, and a lot of the younger generation, a lot of those young people think that socialism or communism might be the way to go. And I think

that they don't realize what we're practicing here is not capitalism, it's cronyism. And the capitalism only works when there's a decent amount of empathy and an agreement that we're all in this together. So taxes are the opportunity to participate in the comedy of man and also redistribute wealth. Does it really make sense? I mean, I'm all for capitalism. I'm all for billionaires.

Does it really make sense that we have an individual worth $200 billion that not only doesn't pay taxes, but probably is a net benefactor, a net beneficiary of taxes because he demands or gamifies the subsidy process across municipalities who are all desperate to detonate a prosperity bomb in the middle of the town square. So as a result, plays them off against each other. And then given that he owns somewhere between 16 and 20% of the company, effectively, if there's a subsidy of $10 million in Albuquerque to get their latest data center, he receives 16 to 20% of that. Haven't we kind of lost the script here? And to be fair, a tax policy or redistribution of income,

the argument comes off the track because the far left wants to say, okay, let's raise taxes on wealthy, but let's talk about taxation. People in the bottom 50% of income earning actually don't pay that many federal income taxes. They pay a lot of regressive taxes in terms of sales tax, education, basic foodstuffs, housing. Granted, they pay probably a disproportionate amount around consumption taxes, and they don't get to participate in what is the most, in my opinion, immoral tax deduction, which is capital gains tax. Why on earth do people who own assets get to pay a lower tax rate than people who earn money with their sweat? When did sweat and work become less honorable than money? The money money makes is taxed at a lower rate than

the money that sweat makes. Why? Because we've fallen into this bullshit conservative lie that, oh, we need to encourage investment. We are awash in investment capital right now. Interest rates have never been lower. If you're a Harvard dropout who then went to work for a hedge fund and then dropped out and has an idea about a self-automated, autonomous driving, AI-driven photo sharing app that can put people on Mars or, I don't know, come up with some sort of organic something. You're going to raise tens of millions of dollars. That's not the problem. The problem is we have no redistribution of income.

We have no concern or comity for man. We seem to have sort of lost the script. There's a fairly basic correlation between income inequality and the rights of unions and minimum wage. And what do you know? Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute found that union workers are paid 11% more and have greater access to health insurance and paid sick days than their non-union counterparts. Look at General Motors and Ford, where the average wage is $27 plus health insurance. And then look at Uber, where the average wage is, we don't know, but it's probably less than minimum wage in certain instances. Joe Biden said during a virtual event with the largest federation of unions in the United States

that if elected, he's committed to increasing essential workers' wages and passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act to give workers more organizational power and penalize companies that fight back against unionization efforts. I'm a member of the United Auto Workers Union. Why does that make any sense? Well, it doesn't make any sense, but for some reason, the UAW is the union that organizes part-time, which I am technically now a part-time professor because I'm only teaching one course, although they're giving me 280 students, which is a lot more students than full-time tenured faculty teach. Go figure. Go figure. Less accountability, more compensation for the one guild I hate,

which is tenure. If it seems inconsistent that I'm talking up unions and down tenure, then trust your instinct. Unions are difficult to bucket into one blanket term because I believe some unions, some around schools are using their kids as drug mules, basically to over-inflate their salary with no accountability. It's never been worse than it is with tenure. But at the same time, we also have to realize that some of that spillage is probably worth leveling up a middle class that has been kicked in the nuts repeatedly, repeatedly. Even the Act Proposition 22 in California that has received $110 million in support from gig economy companies versus the $800,000 that has been given to the no on Prop 22. Part of Prop 22 being sponsored by basically Uber

says that it would require a six-sevenths vote to unionize, which basically means unions have absolutely no chance, no chance, or I should say the workers slash drivers slash who should be employees of Uber have absolutely no opportunity to unionize. Unions have played a key role in the society. Is there corruption? Is there spillage? Yes. But on the whole, I would argue that we need to seriously think about a serious redistribution. Going back to the tax rates, I think the people that actually get screwed the most, screwed the most are what I would call the workhorses. And that is people that make between, call it $100,000 a year combined household income and a million. That puts them somewhere between the 90th and 99th percentile of income earners, which means that

they make enough money to get taxed a great deal, somewhere between 35% and 50% if they live in a high-tax domain, including California and New York, but they don't have enough money to make the jump to light speed, and that is get a lower tax rate by virtue of the fact they get the majority of their income from investments. Why? Because if you're making that kind of money, it probably means you live in an urban center, which is expensive. It probably means you don't get to save a lot. I know that sounds ridiculous, hard to feel sorry for someone making $300,000 or $400,000 a year. But if you live in New York and you make a half a million dollars a year and you have

two or three kids, you're not saving a lot of money. And what happens? They pay the highest taxes, don't get a chance to invest. But what happens once you get above a million dollars? You start investing and you start accessing lower capital gains tax rates and then taxes. Tax rates actually go down once you hit the 99th percentile, which makes no sense whatsoever. So who gets screwed in terms of federal income taxes? The workhorses, the people that are successful, but not uber rolling in it, so to speak. We need to rethink our tax policy. We

need to rethink redistribution. We need to rethink our tax policy. We need to rethink redistribution. We need to really understand that just saying capitalism isn't an excuse for having people worth $200 billion. We need to understand that empathy is really the key to capitalism surviving. Without it, it just becomes cronyism. Look what's happened in Central America repeatedly, repeatedly. The wealthy class can't resist the temptation to co-opt the government and then each year lower their tax burden and tilt the game for them. And then what happens? You end up with five or six families in a Central American country that control way too much wealth. And the rest of the populace says, I know, I know the

fastest way to double our income is to take their money away. And somebody shows up and says, you need to leave the country or we're killing you. Or they elect a populist leader who basically Robin Hood's all their assets. At some point, this is going to happen here. When you have Jamie Dimon saying that income inequality is out of control, maybe he's a good person. I have no reason to believe he's not a good person, but I'll tell you one thing, he's a smart person. He recognizes that pretty soon people are going to show up with pitchforks. When six families globally are worth more than the Southern Hemisphere plus India, the Southern Hemisphere is going to figure out a way to take their money away. We have gotten to that point where it's no longer about comity. It's no longer about fairness. It's about preservation. The 1% or the 0.1% has woken up and realized this has gotten

out of control. Talk about a lack of comedy. Talk about a lack of common sense. It's coming from both ends of the spectrum. Who will be seen as the agents of super spread or the guardians of super spread when all of this is over and we look back on the pandemic and say, oh my God, how could we have gotten this wrong? One, red state governors who opted for this weird loyalty to the president bought into this bullshit notion that their economy was more important or reopening was more important, which was an incredibly short-sighted decision as the economy is largely dependent upon our ability to cauterize the spread of this thing. And have only shot themselves in the foot with premature openings, as we've seen in Florida and other states where we're seeing spikes. And two, who else has really gotten this wrong? Who will be seen as the

governors or the guardians of spread? Really blue governors, specifically university leadership, that's opted for money and opted for denial and has decided to invite people back such that we can affect them and then redistribute them to the four corners of the nation. I just think that red state governors got this wrong, blue state governors, i.e. university chancellors got this wrong. Let's talk about comedy of man and how there just seems to be a general lack of empathy coming from the far right where you have these gun nuts showing up to retail establishments and open carry states with AR-15s. Okay, that's your right. Yeah, you can go to the Michigan Statehouse wearing a mask and carrying an automatic rifle, but you're not helping. That's not accommodative, man. That's not

civic responsibility. Or on the far left, we have people building a working guillotine outside of a private residence. Yeah, Jeff Bezos probably shouldn't be worth $200 billion, but you don't show up and make a working guillotine. We need to move back to the center. We need more citizenship. We need more comedy. We need progressive tax structure.

Capitalism is the best system in the world, but it has to sit on top of a mutual respect. It has to sit on top of a comity of man. It has to sit on top of recognition that if you're blessed, if you can carry a gun, if you can amass huge wealth, then you need to redistribute some rights. You need to show some civility and we need to move back to the center. We need more raging moderates in this nation. We need more understanding that this isn't just about a grab bag. That capitalism can collapse under its own weight if it isn't served with a heaping spoonful of respect for others, of civility, and of a redistribution of income. We'll be right back with our conversation with Julian Castro. The rest of it doesn't really matter. Luckily, there's Constant Contact. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform can help your businesses stand out,

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Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Hey, it's Scott Galloway. And on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should you use it for? What tools are right for you?

And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with former Democratic presidential candidate, Secretary Julian Castro. Secretary Castro served as the Secretary for Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration. Julian, where does this podcast find you? I am in San Antonio, Texas with my family, scrambling to keep up with my kids' virtual learning, like jumping from one Zoom to the next.

I got a five-year-old in kinder and a sixth grader, an 11-year-old daughter. So let's use that as a jumping out point. You were the mayor of San Antonio. Give us your sense of how you think, and we'll be specific to San Antonio, or we can go broader to Texas or nationwide. How do you think the nation is handling, given the state of the pandemic, the return to school of K through 12 with primary education? You know, from what I can tell as a parent, just watching this up close and personal with my own kids, I don't think they're getting what they need to

out of it compared to being in the actual classroom. Now, that doesn't mean that everybody should go back to school right now, but I think the best school districts are putting safety first for the teacher staff, the students, everybody involved. And as they look at bringing students and staff back, they're also prioritizing which students need in-person instruction the most. So, you know, oftentimes kids with special needs, those who may have a lack of access at home or parents, grandparents, caretakers that may not be able to manage or just don't have access to the devices or the tools that they need for the learning. The limitations of virtual learning, I think, compared to in-person learning also have added up to less learning is my hunch for most students. But that means that school

districts need to move forward with safety first and also prioritize as they bring students back. So let's broaden the lens here. Let's talk about the pandemic. And then I want to talk a little bit about the election. I would love to just get your sense of the state of play. Talk about the novel coronavirus, the government's response, where you think we are, what you think needs to be done. I wish that everybody these days could be singing the praises of our government when it comes to responding to the novel coronavirus. When you look at the United States and compare it to the rest of the world, whether you're comparing the number of deaths, now we're at about 190,000. You're looking at

the number of hospitalizations, the number of infections. The United States lags behind these countries. We have an administration that tried to pretend like this was not a big deal, that referred to the calls for mandates and mask requirements and so forth as an overreaction, a hoax, didn't invest the resources ahead of time to get ahead of this. And because of that, we're playing catch up right now, or even worse than that. Not only that, our economy obviously has suffered. In terms of the stimulus, we've spent trillions of dollars, PPP. Any thoughts on what we got right or wrong as it relates to the economy or specifically trying to reflate the economy? I think what we got right was that we needed to provide assistance to everyday Americans out there, both in terms of the checks that people were eligible for a few months ago, and also a tidal wave of evictions that were forecast, the number of

evictions across the country has not met the worst case scenario. In fact, it's been a lot better than the worst case scenario. Now, by one estimate, we're still facing a potential eviction crisis of 30 million people through the end of October, but it has been gone a lot more smoothly than people thought. And I think that's due to two things, that stimulus that was put out there, the boost in unemployment benefits, the hard work of a lot of employers and a lot of employees to scramble and make do with what they have. And also the responsibility, the seriousness that everyday Americans give to priorities. There's this caricature of people that they're going to go spend their money on a $1,500 TV, or they're going to go blow all of their money.

But I think what we've seen over the last few months is even as people have had to scramble, they know their priorities. They got to pay the rent. They got to make sure that their family has a roof rear view mirror now for so many families. And a lot of people are still out of work. The unemployment boost that was there is gone. The eviction moratorium that existed at the federal level and that was in place in a lot of states and cities. Most of those are gone. There was no direct rental assistance that was provided because the Senate has not passed the HEROES Act. So people are going to get more and more desperate as we go along. So let me put forward a thesis, and you agree, disagree, and respond to it, that the stimulus about a minority or a third of it or a quarter of it actually reached the people

it was supposed to reach, that it was effectively a flattening of the curve of rich people, that PPP, most of it went to the wealthiest cohort in America, and that is entrepreneurs, many of whom are already millionaires. And then the savings rate last quarter was the highest it's ever been, meaning that a lot of people, the 90% of people who haven't lost their job probably didn't need the stimulus. And the result is a lot of this excess capital has been levered up on trading apps such as Robinhood, which has pushed stocks up to flatten the curve of rich people. That this stimulus just didn't, the majority of it just didn't work. Where do I have that wrong and right? I wouldn't disagree with you in terms of that stimulus getting to a lot of people who didn't necessarily need it. And, you know, that's what, basically, that's what we get when we use an instrument as blunt as that. I do think that we should learn those lessons and take them forward.

I read the Wall Street Journal had an article, I think just today or last night, about the fact that refinancings on mortgages are up 200% versus last year. You can't get a car right now, right? Or you got to wait. Yeah, housing's on fire in Florida. Yeah. I mean, it's also, it's a tale of two Americas. I mean, because there's still a lot of people who are scrambling. There are a lot of people who are being evicted right now. But then as you say, you have a lot of folks who are being evicted right now. But then, as you say, you have a lot of folks who already were doing well, who did not suffer much or at all during this pandemic, and now they're doing even better. And that part is not right, because we need to invest those resources with families across the country that really do need it.

So what would, if we were going to have the next round of stimulus, what do you think it should look like? Well, I think it should be as targeted as possible. And that goes for whether we're talking about a check or rental assistance, the standards that we use to deliver resources to families. Now, I will say, you know, we also have to be thoughtful about this. For instance, if you have a cutoff of, let's say that you're going to, that somebody that makes up to a couple that makes up to 150 or $180,000, $200,000,

if they make $200,000, they're no longer eligible for any kind of assistance. You're basing that on their 2019 tax return. In other words, basing it on last year's income. I've always seen that as a failing of the approach because I do think that there are people that fall through the cracks. People that have lost their job. And so for me, as somebody that appreciates policy, policymaking, it's how do we be as precise as possible to reach the people that actually need it now? Not that needed it or didn't need it last year. And I think that's still a work in progress. And so my approach would be to try and get as precise as possible.

Also to include things like rental assistance that addresses the needs of tenants and also landlords to take care of something as stabilizing in somebody's life as housing, which of course is near and dear to my heart. So the Latino community or Latino households, black households command about an eighth, I think the average household wealth is about 20 or 25 grand, white households, it's 150, 160. I mean, it's just, there's just no getting around it. The economic apartheid here is pretty

distinct and obvious. When you look back as someone who served in cabinets, someone who was charged with a pretty broad swath of the economy looking at housing, how did we get here? How did the most prosperous nation in the world figure out a way such that a community whose only distinction is their race has an eighth of the wealth. And in a capitalist society, that usually translates to power and influence. How did we get here? And I know this is a tough question to answer in less than several days, but are there any one or two things you look to that has sort of created just this, even when we were talking about this recovery, this K-like recovery, right? White households are recovering faster than households headed by people of color. Are there one or two

systemic issues that have resulted in this economic apartheid in the United States? Yeah. I mean, there's so much, right? It's rooted in our country's history. Even just take, nevermind as important as it is to our nation's history, the 18th and 19th century, just within the 20th century, I mean, look at redlining and the refusal of banks to lend to particularly Black Americans so that in that post-World War II boom, that they did not have the opportunity to become homeowners in the same way that white Americans had the opportunity to. And that was systemic.

I mean, those were policies that were in place for quite a while before World War II as well. And then you can look at access to capital if you're a small business owner and research that demonstrates that similarly qualified black small business owner, entrepreneur that walks into a bank versus white, there's a difference there in terms of their access to that capital. And you add all of that up, plus we know that during the Great Recession, black wealth in this country was decimated because in general, so much of people's wealth is tied up in their home and even more so with people of color because they have less. And, you know, we went through that great recession and so many people lost their homes, their equity. That put us even further behind. into the general dynamics of the last 40 or 45 years of economic policies, whether it's trickle down or other policies that have made the rich richer and the poor poorer. You have more Black

Americans and people of color that already were at the bottom end of the scale. And so they've taken that ride with everybody else and it's gotten worse and worse for them. That's why I think the question for the next administration is, of course, we got to deal with what's in front of us, this coronavirus and getting the economy back on track. But how do you take a crack at those longer term inequities? Well, how would Julian Castro take a crack? What are the one or two things, regulations, laws, changes in the way we approach each other as Americans, what are the one or two things you would want to see happen that might bridge that gap or close that gap? As you know, there's so many things there, but I think, number one, some of the things that we've

talked about, universalizing, whether it's universalizing health care, universalizing pre-K, making sure that people have much more access to safe, decent, affordable housing. Because we know that that's the most stabilizing force in somebody's life to have a solid, safe place to live. And then also doing what we can to enforce in a robust way our non-discrimination laws, whether it's the Fair Housing Act or any number of other laws that try to create a more level playing field. On top of that, I think just societally, we need to heed the call of those right now, whether they're out in the streets or they're policymakers in the halls of Congress or people in corporate boardrooms who have spoken about addressing head on systemic racism in private institutions as well, and society. How do we do that? And so companies have to take a look at their policies and practices. In our education system, we don't learn nearly enough about the contributions of other Americans, whether they're Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans. We need to raise a generation of

people who has more of an understanding of one another and the value that everybody brings to this society. And that's not something that is a short-term thing. It's not something that necessarily directly relates to the economy. But over the long term, it creates more opportunity for people to prosper unencumbered by systemic racism. Let's talk about one of those upward lubricants. You went to Stanford undergrad, Harvard grad, and I can't imagine that the opportunity to attend what are arguably the two best educational institutions in the world wasn't a huge hand on the scruff of your neck to lift you up and forward. Let me ask you a question as a Stanford alum, as a Harvard alum. Stanford endowment, $32 or $35

billion. Harvard, $40 billion. Neither have increased the size of their freshman class. And it feels to me that they've adopted this notion around scarcity, that we want to be luxury brands. Do you think these guys have lost the script? Well, I think they can do a lot more. And as higher education changes, the expectations that this youngest generation has, and frankly, the medium through which people engage in higher education, whether it's virtual learning or other ways, they're going to have to change. You know, the question for them, I'm sure that they keep first and foremost in their mind other than, you know, how can they protect that endowment and make sure that they meet their fundraising goals, which seems like every college president, right? Like that's their first job description now. How good of a fundraiser are you? But of course- It's like running for president.

Yeah, no doubt. I'm sure some of those college presidents probably could run for president because they're so accomplished at fundraising. But look, the question is, can you keep very high quality, the highest quality education and democratize, so to speak? And I think that you can. In fact, I mean, look at what these schools have done, whether it's Stanford or Harvard or Princeton or a number of others in putting more material online over the years. That's basically a nod in the direction and opening that up, right, beyond the bounds

of just their students, that's a small nod in the direction of, well, we have a role to play outside of this. So, yeah, I don't want to make it seem like they haven't taken any steps of doing that. They have, and there are a lot of other benefits that they have for the communities that they're in, the research they produce, so forth. But when it comes to the student body, I think one of the things that that cheating scandal, the SAT cheating scandal reminded us of is that too oftentimes, this is like just a opportunity that's offered only to a small elite. And that that's not the way that it should be. Where are the best schools for people who are middle class,

people who are lower income? You were going to say Texas, quarter of a million kids, great school system. And not only that, it strikes me, and you would know more about this than me, but it strikes me that the citizens of Texas, similar to the citizens of California in the 70s and 80s, have not lost the script,

that they still see it as the crown jewel of your state and have expanded enrollments and um you know it strikes me that the University of Texas is a great model yeah A&M you know Texas A&M and and uh UT both great schools I think Michigan you know you do have still like the legacy of these robust state systems, but, you know, even there you get overcrowding and, you know, they can't meet the need. A lot of people who are in the top 10% of their class in Texas and should have automatic admission to, you know, UT Austin, they have to go to another school, public school, because UT is already overbooked. And so in general, I think that we need to invest in expanding the reach of higher education and making it as nimble as possible to meet the reality of how kids are learning today and what they're going to need in the years to come. Do you think any of it is, I mean, so, you know, word, brother. When I applied to UCLA, there was a 60% admittance rate. Now it's 12.

It's literally five times as hard to get into UCLA as when I applied. And I just wouldn't get in. And I wonder if some of it, and a lot of people will point to state funding and federal funding has gone down or sideways. And I wonder if some of it is, Harvard just did a survey of its faculty and found that one and a half percent of its faculty identify as conservative. And you have these kind of neon blue ideology at most universities now. And I wonder if some of it is that universities, while we've been great at embracing people who don't look like us, we haven't been great at embracing people who don't think like us. And that is conservative ideology has largely been starched from campuses.

And I would imagine that that doesn't help get funding from the Texas state legislature or the state Senate in California. Do you think that universities have a problem where they are promoting an orthodoxy around progressive values that ultimately ends up hurting us, that we don't have freedom of thought, that we should be more thoughtful about having more viewpoints on campus? I mean, I certainly think that one of the roles of a university, of a place of learning, particularly when you have adults there, is a diversity of thoughts and opinion and I know for me getting exposed to ideas and people and cultures, ways of thinking that I never had exposure to when I was going to the public schools of San Antonio, that was a big value. And so absolutely those universities should embrace that.

You know, now I think you can ask a couple of questions. The one that you asked, which is, does it hurt that oftentimes there's basically a dearth of conservative professors or organizations? Yeah. I mean, you've seen that in Texas a few years ago, especially under Governor Rick Perry. And then at the beginning of Governor Abbott's term here, it seemed like there was an effort to weaken the university system, especially UT, and putting ideologues on the Board of Regents and beginning to underfund or more pronouncedly underfunding their needs and so forth. And I always got the sense that the attack on the public university was in the same vein as attack on labor unions by the state legislature and trial lawyers, frankly, even though, I mean, those things are different, right? But if you think about the base oftentimes of progressivism, funding of progressivism and thinking around progressivism, it's a lot of places, Texas. I mean, it was the trial lawyers funding it.

It was universities producing this thought. So, yeah, I think there's something to that. And you've seen that in some states more than others, including Texas. But the other question to ask is, well, in this place where people are really thinking about things over the centuries, why is it that they've actually embraced progressive thought instead of conservative thought? So you're married to a school teacher. You were a lawyer in private practice. I assume if you have the opportunity to serve in the cabinet, you would do that, but let's assume that doesn't happen. What's next for you? Do you

go to private practice? Do you run for something in Texas? What's next for Julian Castro? It's weird. For the first time in a while, I don't have an office that I'm aiming for. I got into politics early, ran for city council right out of law school. I was 26. I became mayor when I was 34, mayor of San Antonio. And then five years into that, you know, got asked by President Obama to service HUD secretary. And then when I got out of the Obama administration, I pretty much knew that I wanted to run for president in 2020. This was the first time in a while that I'm not aiming for anything. And so, you know, that's been liberating, kind of, you know, I get to pursue

things that I'm passionate about. Of course, one of those is helping other people get elected. So I have this people first future. Also, I just launched my podcast called Our America, which is exploring people as they live now and their struggles and how we make sure that everybody in this country can enjoy prosperity. Sitting on a couple of boards. And so yeah, I'm keeping busy. And I've always believed that if you work hard, and you're opportunistic, you keep your eyes open out there, that good things will come. And so I'm not sure in the next five years whether that's mostly going to be in the public sector or the private sector. I don't feel compelled to jump into a race right now. Julian Castro served as US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President

Barack Obama. Before that, he was mayor of his native San Antonio, Texas, the youngest mayor of a top 50 American city at the time. Secretary Castro launched People First Future in May. His podcast, Our America, is out now, and he joins us from San Antonio. Julian, thanks for your good work and your service, and stay safe. Thanks a lot. Good to be with you. We'll be right back. Think about those businesses that grew their sales beyond their forecasts. Companies like Momofuku or Feastables by Mr. Beast or even a legacy business like Mattel. When you think about them, sure, you think about a product with demand, a focused brand and influence-driven marketing, but part of their secret is actually the business behind the scenes,

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Because businesses that sell more, sell on Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash voxbusiness, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash voxbusiness to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash voxbusiness. Okay, it's time for Office Hours. As a reminder, you can ask us anything. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at section4.com. First question. Hey, Prof G. This is Raj from LA. My question is around Apple and

augmented reality. I heard on another podcast recently that Apple should buy Warby Parker for its upcoming move into the AR space. I'm curious, what kind of acquisitions do you see on the horizon for large tech companies in the way that you call the Amazon and Whole Foods acquisition? Raj from L.A. I like that. Raj from Raj from LA. I bet you have a fabulous life. Hi, I'm Raj from LA. Buy a Porsche, start snorting a lot of cocaine, date actresses, have a midlife crisis at the age of 25, you sound 25, and then just write about it or keep me informed. Text me around how it's coming. I'm in the midst of a midlife crisis. That's the bad news. The good news, I'm growing out of it and expect to be fully out of my midlife crisis within 30 to 40 years. Anyway, anyway, Raj from LA, yeah, I don't think they're going to acquire

Warby Parker. I don't think Apple wants to be in the business of retail. And while there's some manufacturing and sourcing and kind of business model and retail execution prowess with Warby Parker, they've gotten out in front of their skis. I got a look at the most recent fundraise for Warby Parker, and they were trying to raise money at a valuation of $2 billion. And I think that is aggressive for Warby. I think it's a great little specialty retailer, arguably the best specialty retail startup. I think Away doesn't really make a hell of a lot of sense. I think Brooklinen was a great little company, but was lucky to kind of hit the eject button when the markets were frothy. And I think you're going to see a down round at Warby Parker given kind of

the one-two punch of overvaluation into COVID. So I don't think they would buy it. But okay, so let's get to your question. What are some acquisitions? I think that Peloton will likely get acquired should the stock go down. I think the stock has a floor on it. It's gotten very expensive, so there are very few acquirers. But if you're going to talk about a brand fit and connected fitness, you'd have to think that Apple and Peloton is like a hand in a glove. It's a hand in a glove. I also think that the most likely acquisition for Apple or Netflix or somebody else, if I were in the merge, our business and trying to buy a stock, and I may buy some stock in this company, is Sonos because they're in the homes of the wealthiest people in the world. They're sort of the iOS of audio,

is the way I would describe it. And companies are going to need more vertical distribution. They're sort of agnostic. I just think this company is going to, and given the fact that we're going to see a dramatic reallocation of capital and value from offices to homes, people spend less time in offices and more time in their home. I think Sonos is a natural acquisition. Other than that, Apple is not a very acquisitive company. I don't think it's Warby Parker. I think it's potentially Peloton, although Peloton may have become too expensive. Good for them. But somebody, somebody, you heard it here, Rosh from LA, is going to pick up Sonos. Next question. Hey, Scott. Paul from Boston here. Really enjoy the show. In some of your shows,

you've mentioned the problems created by the guild of tenure at colleges. It certainly creates a cost problem. And you've also mentioned the quality problem created by tenure as professors who are good at just one of teaching or research, or actually neither of the two, can't be fired. My question for you is what breaks this guild? Will the financial pressures from COVID force a change here? In my observation, college presidents generally aren't known for their backbones, though. Presumably, if anything happened and changed, a handful of prominent universities would have to move lockstep on this. Really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks. Okay, Paul from Boston. If you want to roll, if you want to roll large, you need to hook up with Raj from LA. Paul from Boston doesn't sound

nearly as cool, but you sound like a very thoughtful person. So an interesting question. The average salary of a full professor before benefits and admin is $105,000 for a full tenured professor. And that includes all these little towns where it's not very expensive to live at. At NYU, I would guess it's more like $180,000 or $200,000, plus you load in benefits, and the benefits are really, really wonderful, i.e. expensive at a university. You're talking about $300,000 probably for a tenured professor at what I'd call an urban campus. Now, something I have not talked enough about is that, and a lot of tenured professors have reminded me that I don't speak enough about about is that much of the explosion in costs around universities is not a function of tenure, but a function of administrative bloat. Because say you're a tenured professor and you actually have to work and you actually have to do research and you actually have to teach. Oh my God. Oh my God. You want to get promoted into a job with less accountability and more compensation, i.e. an

administrator. Administrative bloat is probably the smoking gun around exploding costs. At the University of California, administrative costs have exploded 80%, I think, in the last decade, whereas these overpaid administrators will immediately point the finger at cuts in state and federal funding. That's sort of true. State funding has stayed flat to down, whereas federal funding has actually increased a touch, a skosh. That's not the primary culprit here. The primary culprit here is vice chancellor of you name it, making two or $300,000 plus a staff of six people that loves his or her job because there's no accountability. We're going to need a massive increase in cost pressure. The problem, I think the biggest risk to reconfiguring higher ed is

that the crisis isn't deep enough. And I also want to be clear, the most impressive people I've ever met are tenured professors. And that is people who decide to pursue the truth, pursue the truth, who could make a lot more money working for a hedge fund or running a company and decide that they want to do world-class research, write textbooks and be outstanding teachers. Now that's about 3% of them. The other 97%, I would say 20 to 30% pull their weight and two thirds should be put on an ice flow. However, however, what happens to those two thirds that aren't very good, but get used

to the compensation, get along with people, think big thoughts, but can no longer teach their way out of a paper bag or brighten up a classroom by leaving it? They go into administration and we don't cut their salaries. No, we keep increasing it faster than inflation such that we can pass on those costs to young people. So tenure is a complicated topic. There are some departments that likely need protection from the current administration or which way the wind blows. I can see in the legal

field, the humanities, that there are some very controversial statements and there are academics that need to be protected from the vagaries or the opinions of short-term trends or trends against a certain line of thinking. At the business school, I would argue, where I teach, tenure is nothing, is nothing but a guild. It's nothing but a means of overcompensating your buddies you went to your PhD program with. So tenure, which I've spoken a lot about, gets a bad rap relative to its actual costs. The real culprit here is bloated administration. There's going to be an opportunity to disrupt the university education system. It'll start with students, it'll start

with technology, and it'll start for a general lack or a general lack of tolerance or pushback, which is happening now on these outrageous prices. But tenure, tenure, sure. There's a lot of people who are tenure professors who aren't pulling their weight. Next question. What up, Prof G? Brandon Gerson here, longtime fan, also born and raised in LA by a single mother. Now I'm coming at you from Aqua, Nicaragua. I got a lot of value from your recent conversation with Professor Arun specifically about the role Airbnb will play in the future of hospitality. Aqua is a community we built on the jungle beach down here, and our model is to have vacation properties function like a hotel, not independent Airbnb rentals. There's a lot of value realized with this model with variable and fixed cost savings and successfully marketing

unique properties in a country that's nascent and raw as a travel destination. Since the pandemic, however, we've pivoted to attract a local market to stay afloat while international visitors have stopped, but we're now revisiting our international marketing plan as things start to open back up. However, we've pivoted to attract a local market to stay afloat while international visitors have stopped. But we're now revisiting our international marketing plan as things start to open back up. Arun mentioned three reasons why Airbnb will win in the post-pandemic era versus hotels. And I think we have a good handle on two of them. We're a small destination, not a city, and we function with low occupancy. But trust, that's a huge one.

My question is, what do you think a brand can do to build trust and value and be presented as a safe destination, particularly a scrappy boutique property that isn't backed with deep pockets? All right, keep it gangster, dog. And if you want to come check us out once you're traveling again, estás bienvenido. Peace. Brandon from Nicaragua. First off, congratulations on running an ad on my podcast posing as a question. So I think that was well done. And ironically, ironically, this is just dripping with irony. I was checking out a hotel in Nicaragua last night as my son has taken to surfing. And when you have kids, you just get excited about them getting excited about anything other than the Simpsons

or being on their devices. So we're trying to support this. We bought them a surfboard for a surfing birthday. And immediately I started thinking, OK, where can we go and do a surf vacation? And I like the idea. I used to surf when I was a kid. I like the idea of trying to take it up again. Anyways, anyways, Nicaragua and Costa Rica are supposed to be fantastic places to go surf for the whole family.

So I've been looking into it. OK, back to your question. I think a lot of Airbnb's power as a brand is the umbrella of some sort of assurance. Identity is really, if you will, the kind of the key or really one of the central core attributes or innovations around the share economy. And that is you would not... Uber is essentially hitchhiking, except you pay somebody, but it has identity. Meaning that you wouldn't get into the backseat of a car driven by a total stranger, nor would a driver pick up a total stranger. But because it's digital, because we know if that person takes the dog and turns them into their... I don't know. I don't know what the term would be,

their sex slave. Yes, I would pay extra for that. But say it happened and I didn't want that to happen. It's digital. And that is you could track the driver down or you could track the passenger down, whoever's committed the crime. The same with Airbnb. If someone, if you rented your apartment out, you wouldn't rent your apartment out to a total stranger. And if they trash it, you'd have no recourse. But because there's identity, because there's reviews, that is really the gangster attribute here. So anyways, Airbnb brings that. They bring digitization, they bring identity, they bring a certain level of assurance, certain level of credibility on both ends. What can you do? I think it's content marketing. I think it's creating a niche. I don't know if

it's eco, tourism. I don't know if it's beautiful beach properties. I don't know if it's unique properties. I don't know if it's the food, but I would find a niche and try to string together a common theme through all of your properties. I'd build a site. I'd start writing about it. I'd start tweeting about it. But owning these social media platforms as a means of earned media or whatever you term, I think is key. But first I would find a niche that you can own that tries to cut a swath, a needle, a bright blue line path through all of these properties. But congratulations on your good judgment. It sounds like you figured out a nice life. I will actually reach out to you because I am interested, no joke, in coming to Nicaragua for a surf vacation because that's how El Perro rolls. Thanks for the question.

Algebra of happiness. This really isn't about happiness. It's about the moment of September 11 and some of the thoughts or some of the history or things that run through my mind on September 11th. 9-11, as it was for a lot of us, was something I will not forget. I was living in New York. I had just moved to New York. I had changed my life dramatically, left my job, got divorced, started teaching at NYU, just decided to press the reset button. And my ex-wife, who was also living in New York, called me and said, the World Trade Center is on fire. Can you come over? And she was upset. She didn't know what was going on. And I went over. She and I are still, were and are still friends.

And went over and she had a deck overlooking the World Trade Center. And one of the towers was on fire. And then we saw a second plane disappear behind one of them and then explode. And at that moment, we knew that it was a terrorist attack. And at that point, it was such a crazy moment. Your first thought was, should we get out of this building? Because there were reports that there were 17 or 18 other planes in the air. And you started thinking, am I in one of the tallest buildings in New York? Are we in danger? And you started seeing this river of people start to flow up from downtown up Sixth Avenue. And the thing, or a few of the things I remember most about the days that followed were one, how quiet it was. No horns honking other than sirens occasionally. I couldn't get over

the number of federal vehicles, unmarked vehicles just roaming around. They seemed to be speeding somewhere. And also the absence or the fact that the hospital, St. Vincent's, which had been designated as the hospital where they would take survivors, was empty. And that is people either survived unscratched or they perished when the towers came down. And I saw both towers come down. And I remember thinking, watching those towers come down, that it reminded me of Star Wars or something out of a sci-fi novel that you were watching it. And the scale of it, and you could feel the heat, even though we were a couple of miles away from it, you could feel the heat of the implosion of all of that material.

And also seeing what looked like colored chairs being thrown out of windows and recognizing those were people. And then later finding out that a lot of people decided to jump rather than face what was waiting for them in terms of the flames. The next couple of days were very unusual. I remember seeing people walking around on their cell phones, just sobbing. And I don't know if it was stress or learning about someone who had perished, but it was a very unusual time. You could not leave the island. The airports were closed. There were F-15s circling the island of Manhattan, which were incredibly, they would literally shake the ground. And then finally, when the city opened again a few days later, I also remember thinking that it seemed very normal, very fast again.

But the one moment that somewhat haunts me or has stuck with me was being at Union Square, where there were these makeshift memorials for the people who had perished in 9-11. And this couple that seemed like they couldn't have been more than four foot 10 approached me and they had kind of old clothing and cheap shoes. And the woman came up to me and gave me a photograph piece of paper that felt similar to one of those pieces of paper that you attach to a telephone pole when you have a lost pet. And on it was a poorly Xeroxed image of a young man in his waiter's outfit. And it said lost or missing Bergen. And it was this picture of a young man.

And he was a waiter at the windows of the world, which was the restaurant on top of one of the towers. And this couple, this young or this older couple was walking around Manhattan. And I remember this woman and she couldn't have been more than four foot 10, looking up at me. And when she handed me the piece of paper, I remember her pausing. And I remember her looking at me and waiting and thinking, like looking at me, hopefully, as if I actually might know where her son was. Anyways, fast forward, what was it, eight or nine years later during the Obama administration, I remember when he announced that they had found bin Laden and a bunch of, I mean, just this incredible operation that involved hundreds, if not thousands of intelligence

officials, Navy SEALs that they'd hunted down bin Laden, and that they found them. And I remember thinking how rewarding it was to be American, that our memory is long and our reach is far, and we have these incredible people who work for the government, who are not only smart, but put themselves in harm's way. And I remember feeling a sense of, I don't know, a sense of pride that the last thing that ran through Bin Laden's mind as he had been sequestered from his family on the run, the last thing that ran through his mind was that we had found him. Our producers are Caroline Shagrin and Drew Burrows. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. Thanks for listening.

We'll catch you next week for another episode of The Prof G Show from Section 4 in the Westwood One Podcast Network.