The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Is Reddit Still a Buy? Democratic Strategy and Rethinking Financial Advisors

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

Scott Galloway weighs in on Reddit’s valuation and long-term prospects, shares his candid take on Democratic leadership and the road to 2028, and explains why a 1% financial advisor fee can quietly destroy long-term returns. Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to [e-mail], or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Does the winter weather have you feeling tired, anti-social, sad? You may want to take a cue from our friends in Norway. Really, they tend to orient towards the things that they're, they like about the season instead of just sort of seeing it as a time of year to endure. How to embrace the winter. That's on the next Explain It to Meen. New episodes every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Office Hours of Prop G. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, pick tech entrepreneurship and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to

Office Hours of Proptggemedia.com. Again, that's Office Hours of Proptumedia.com. Or post your question on the Scott Gallery subreddit and we just might feature it in our next episode. First question. Our first question comes from communication number 3650 on Reddit. They say, I'm curious what Scott's thoughts are on Reddit as an investment going forward and its price action. Also, it's price forecast and if he's still invested. Yeah, I still own shares in Reddit. I think Reddit is a phenomenon. I think they do a pretty good job. I have mixed feelings on Reddit and Discord as unfortunately I think a lot of young men are deciding they don't need to go out and make friends that they just spend time on Reddit and Discord.

but generally speaking as a consumer offering, I think Reddit is incredible. They've traded roughly between $80 and $280 over the past year, showing, you know, pretty serious volatility for a newer tech social IPO. The current price of the time of recording is $180. This was my big tech stock pick for 24. I said at $34 a share and granted most people that have access to that, I thought it was the most underpriced IPO of that year, and we got that one right. The stock now trades at a pretty elevated PE, and that is 100 to 120 times earnings, well above the broader market, signaling a lot of growth expectations are priced in. So in some, I'm not a seller here, but I'm not a buyer. And the reason I'm not a seller is because I like the company. And I essentially, the way I have

always made money or the way I've made the most money is not trading, but it's buying stuff and holding onto it for years. I've had big tech stock pick. I lost almost all my money. in 2008 and I took the remaining money I had and I doubled down on two or three big tech companies and they're up between 20 and 50x. By the way, the third company I bought was Netflix. It's up. This is the good news. I bought a 12 bucks a share. The bad news is it's at, I sold it at 10 bucks a share to take the tax loss and never bought back in and I think it's up 110x since then. So I'd be doing this podcast live from a Starlink link on my G650 had I held on to my Netflix stock. But no harm, no foul, other than I would like to invent a time machine, put me in it, go back

such that I could murder me and then kill myself. But anyways, a little bit of trauma, a little bit of trauma. But Reddit right now is what I would call, I don't want to say fully valued, because it's an incredible company and appears to be getting a lot of momentum. And if you compare it to other social media platforms, it doesn't look outrageously priced as a multiple on revenues relative to its growth. Having said that, I have trouble buying into stocks after they're up five or 600% since the IPO. But again, I'm not a seller. I'm not a buyer here. What do they have? They have hundreds of millions weekly active users, double-digit revenue growth since post-IPO, improving margins. The thing that's probably most exciting is that they entered into a licensing

agreement, I believe, with OpenAI to sell their data for input into these LLMs. Whether that last or not, because supposedly LLMs can now synthetically create their own data, which I thought. was kind of interesting. But the bull case is that Reddit has hundreds of millions of highly unintentional users and is still undermonetized relative to time spent. So it's ARPU or average revenue per user. It's nowhere near the other platforms, which creates, you know, which is bad news, but it's also good news, meaning there's a lot of opportunity. The bare case simply is valuation. The stock trades at a premium multiple versus traditional media and even some social peers, which means a lot of future growth is already priced in. The consensus average,

is 250 bucks. The top end of that is 325, and the low forecast are about 150 bucks. Overall, rating consensus is a moderate buy, more buys than whole than a few sales. In some, like I said, I'm not a buyer here, but I'm also not a seller, and I own shares, which I guess technically means every day you decide to buy it because you could sell it. Well, mind-blown. Question number two. All right. Question number two comes from radiative collapse. Radiative collapse. Wow. When do these people get these things? Is there like a name generator on Reddit? They say, hi, Scott.

Great work you and your team do every week. Thank you, mostly the team. In your chats with Jessica Tarlove, you've let on that you're getting more into politics and specifically into supporting candidates that will bring the Democratic Party into sync with what the country actually needs in these fraught times. My question is, in your engagement with political players, you get a sense of where the Dem Party is on strategy, midterms 2028 and beyond. Thanks again, and I look forward to your comments.

So I'm incredibly disappointed in Democratic leadership, specifically Leader Schumer or Senate Minority Leader Schumer. Even more recently around ICE, he said there needs to be restraint and restriction. A bunch of fucking blah, blah. His leadership was epitomized by, I sent a strongly worded letter to the pro. Well, that's going to do a lot, Chuck. Thanks for that. I just think he's too old. I don't think he has the weapons at his disposal for change.

I think some of the younger Dems, whether it's Tala Rico or Crockett or AOC, while they're probably a little bit further left than I am, I find that they're stars, unafraid and know how to weaponize the weapons of choice and are just, quite frankly, clear blue flame thinkers. And I think, for God's sakes, enough of the Golden Girls and the Walking Dead. It's time for a new generation of Dem leadership. I am consistently inspired when I speak to Democratic senators. Senator Murphy, Senator Booker, Senators Kelly. I supported Senator Bennett for president. I think he is incredibly smart, moderate. I just think we have an amazing bench. Some of the governors, Governor Shapiro, feels like he was built in a factory of lesser presidential candidates or parts from lesser presidential candidates.

He is very good. I'm an enormous fan of Governor Newsom. I was at Davos, and I walked down into the main Congress hall, and there was like this enormous crowd asking what felt like Adele or Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift for autographs and was this big, tall, handsome guy with great hair, and I immediately recognized it was the governor. The guy literally walked around Davos as if he was going to be the next president, and he just sort of felt and looked that way. And it was, I compared and contrasted it with, I saw a Lindsey Graham walking around desperately looking for someone to talk to, and no one gave a shit about him or that he was there. So I think Governor Newsom, and for all the shit he gets about California, the reality is as governor or president of California, he's overtaking Japan as a large economy in the world. And all these people ship posting them are ship posting them from their computers and their homes in California.

And the people of the most options decide to live and wait for it, California. Anyway, I think our bench is really strong. Governor Whitmer, I think would be a decent VP. I think these are, I think there's just, I love Senator Klobuchar. I think she's incredibly smart, understands antitrust, which I think should play a huge role. Anyway, long-winded way of saying, I think we have a fantastic bench. I think their strategy right now is to, you know, what Sun Tzu said when your enemy is making mistakes, stay out of their way. I think they're sort of staying out of the way. I think they're doing a good job, highlighting how outrageous this is. I think the government, Minnesota's done a good job, the mayor of Minneapolis has done a good job. The frustration is that, well, okay, what actual impact are they having? The answer is little to none other than raising awareness, which hopefully builds momentum going into 2026, the midterms. And there's already evidence that Dems are beginning to win races. They traditionally haven't won before, and then hopefully that carries

over into 2028. But Timothy Snyder, the professor from the University of Toronto and the historian, and said something really powerful, and he said, change never starts with political parties. Change starts with people, and then the political parties respond. So I think I keep hoping for some sort of religious Mandela, Jesus-like figure to descend from the hilltop of the Democratic Party and save us all, and I shouldn't hold my breath. But I think their strategy is to highlight affordability, violation of constitutional rights, and what it feels like really serious overreach of a mass police force, secret police force going into American cities and trying to convince, okay, the president believes that harsh activity at the border was warranted and a lot of people

support him. And I think he's done a good job at the southern border. But now what he's trying to do is bring the border everywhere in the United States to justify violent, harsh reaction as if every citizen is trying to illegally enter the country. And that's just not the case. So their strategy, let them continue to shoot themselves in the foot with what is a lot of people consider depraved behavior, focus on affordability, find good candidates, and wait until the election. I don't think that's a good strategy for the midterms. I don't think that's the right strategy for now. I think we need to do more that has more of a short-term impact because I think unfortunately between now and November, the Trump administration can do a lot of damage. very much appreciate the question.

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I'm married and owned my home. my wife and I make a modest salary, 240K combined, and are able to max out our Roth IRAs each year while still being able to put away 10 to 15K for investing. For my entire time in the markets, I've been using Betterment to manage my portfolio. I'm contemplating hiring a financial advisor. Betterment charges 0.25% of my 170K portfolio whilst an advisor would charge 1%. What do you think about financial advisors and what would they need to do to earn their 1% commission? God, it's just so strange. It's someone at 33 who's been fortunate enough to find someone to share their life with and makes $240,000, describes that as a modest salary. I would bet 240K

puts you in the top decile. So at the age of 33, you're already in the top decile of income earning households. Now, the problem is in the Bay Area. That feels very middle class. I lived in Pacharo Hill, then in Noe Valley. True story. First house I bought in 1994 was in Petroo Hill, $2,000. I then bought a house in Noe Valley. I came out of the gate strong. I peaked early. I was invited to Davis in 99 and just got invited back 27 years. What have I done the last 27 years? Let me see. Dot bomb implosion, a bunch of failed businesses, a divorce.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I've done. No wonder that it didn't invite me back. Anyways, I then bought a house on Doloreson 21st for $760K that ended up being the house next to where Mark Zuckerberg ultimately. I think it's worth like $10 or $11 million. I sold it a couple years later to move to New York for $950,000 and thought I was a fucking real estate genius. Jesus Christ, see above, want to find a time machine, go back and kill myself.

Okay, back to your question. So I would not hire a financial advisor at 1%. 1% doesn't sound that bad, but 1% compounding, compounding literally takes away a third of your returns. And when I say returns, I mean inflation adjusted. You should be able to get 9% in the market over the long term and paying out 1% a year, even in down years. It just wrecks your portfolio.

and with AI and investment allocators or bots and even good, there's really good financial information, I think you could spend a lot of time developing a really long prompt, being very honest about your risk tolerance, what you're hoping to achieve, use different LLMs, after February, of course, because you're unsubscribing in February, and then invest in low-cost diversified index and ETFs. I just think at the age of 33, you're going to wake up, you're going to be my age 53, 61, and you're going to realize how fast time went, and if you just diversify across not only asset classes but geographies,

you're going to be just fine. So especially if you're able to put away say you're able to put away an average of 20K a year. Okay, let's do the math here. So I'm about to blow your mind, Eric. The difference, okay, so I'm going to assume, and I don't have this right, you have a quarter of a million dollars already. You're going to be able to save, on average, $20,000 a year,

and it sounds like you're probably able to save more as your income goes up. If you're 33 and for the next 30 years, and I'm going to assume you already have a quarter of a million dollars, maybe that's right or wrong. If you get 9%, which you should be able to get over the long-term, that's what the markets have returned since inception. In 30 years, you're going to have $6.1 million. Now, assume you pay 1% a year in advisory fees. In 30 years, investing and saving the exact same amount, you're going to have $4.5 million. Think about that. You're going to have 33% more in 30 years

avoiding that 1%. So what I find advisors are really helpful for is, quite frankly, tax optimization which is a long-winded way of saying, or a fancy way of saying, tax evasion. And if your taxes ever get complicated, I think it's worthwhile to hire a tax advisor. But paying 1% of a year to a financial advisor who, if they're smart, is just going to put you in low-cost index funds and then sometimes puts you in their own funds, which have their own fees, which are hidden to you. Uh-uh. This is what you're going to do. So you're going to want to put that money on low-cost funds, either with Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, GQG funds. low-cost diversification. That's it. And my fear as the financial advisor not only takes that

6.1 and turns into 4.5, but takes down even lower by picking their own vertical, you know, private label funds that charge you additional fees. So yeah, this is some work. Upload everything, your W-2s, your income, how much you're saving your current portfolio, and start asking these LLMs, what are the lowest-cost funds that can, give me diversification across asset classes and geographies and go into those and pay yourself that 1% because keep in mind that money adds up. It's a difference between 6.1 million when you're my age and 4.5. So boss, no, no to the 1%. Held to the no of the 1%, low cost, diversified funds, and do your own work here and pay yourself. It's worth it. Oh, and also never ever work with

anyone who offers to take you to a basketball game, a Broadway show, or sends you expensive gifts, because that means that that trip to the basketball game is costing you tens of thousands of dollars. Vanguard doesn't take anyone to basketball games. GQG doesn't take anyone to the theater. All right, that's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to office hours of proptuMeet.com. Again, that's office hours of proptuMeet.com. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Delaware's subreddit, and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Jenaire. Cammy Rieke is our social producer. Brad Williams is our

video editor, and Drew Burroughs is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG pod from PropG Media.