The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Office Hours: Prof G's Best Advice

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

For our first Office Hours episode of the new year, we’re highlighting Scott’s most helpful advice. We hope this helps you start 2023 on the right foot. Enjoy! Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Welcome to a very special episode of the PropG Pod's Office Hours. Every month here at PropG, we receive dozens of questions about big life decisions. Some of you want help figuring out where to live or a career move to make next or how to be a better friend, partner, or colleague. So to start the new year off on a high note, we're highlighting some of the most helpful advice that our producers think we gave to you. What a thrill! Oh my God, it's the Yoda of everything.

Yoda to the Yoda. And as always, we love hearing your questions, so please submit them by sending a voice recording to officehours at profgmedia.com. Again, that's officehoursatprofgmedia.com. Question number one. Hey, Prof G. My name's Will. I live in LA.

I work in the advertising tech space, and I'm a rapid listener. I've chosen a path to business school, and I think I have a real shot at a top-tier MBA. But in recent reflection, I realized my happiness is always going to be capped unless I'm working for myself. It seems like half of a great MBA program is just recruiting back into the corporate world. I'd love to keep doors open in case things don't work out, but does a full-time MBA make sense for entrepreneurship? Appreciate the advice.

Will from Los Angeles. This is a really good question. What is the value of a top-tier MBA as it relates to entrepreneurship? First off, when I got out of business school 20-odd years ago, there were two people in my entire class starting a business.

One was me and the other was my partner. Nobody started businesses. That has changed. And now I think something like a third or half of HBS's graduating class is going to be either starting a business or joining a startup. So much of this is situational. The first is what kind of school you get into. I do believe that a top 20 MBA, it's basically 19 or 20 months. If you have the money, kind of hard to go wrong. It's just, it's great certification for the rest of your life. You make great contacts.

It's a shit ton of fun. You get to kind of go back to college and have a little bit of arrested adolescence or revisit your adolescence. I went to business school at the Haas School at Berkeley, and it was just great going back to football games. But at the same time, if you already have kids, you already have a mortgage, you're killing it at work, you have access to capital to start your own business, maybe you don't need business school. So it's situational. But if you get into a great school, and a lot of these questions are moot, it's like, well, I kind of sense that probably the next step is for you to apply and see where you get in, and then wring your hands around these questions.

I can't stand when kids come to my office hours and say, should I go to work for Google or Amazon? I'm like, do you have offers from both? And they're like, no. I'm like, well, what the, you don't have a fucking decision. You don't have offers. Get out of my office.

Or, you know, wait till this is a real decision or problem. If you're thinking about business school, apply. And if you have a really high bar and you have opportunities costs, then apply to your two or three dream schools. And if you don't get in, let the market make a decision. Then you go start a business. It does help.

There's a lot of very well-publicized stories about the most successful entrepreneurs in the world not going to business school but dropping out. Assume you are not that person. There are tremendous skills you garner in business school. But if you get into a great school, if you're not already kind of at letter C or D with a startup, and you have the wherewithal to go to a great school, you can afford it, or you get a scholarship, you have the freedom and the flexibility, then I'd say go for it. You're incredibly blessed. Very few people, 99.99% of America can't go to business school. If you have kids, it probably means you can't go. If you don't have access to a quarter of a

million dollars in capital or debt, if you're not freakishly remarkable and do really well on the GMAT, all those things, all these moons have to line up for you to go to an elite MBA. So I would say, boss, if you have the opportunity, the 19 to 22 months to get an MBA, oh my gosh, it goes so fast. It was transformative for me, but I think it's very impactful in terms of contacts, domain expertise, credibility for starting a business. So unless you're already off and running, boss, punch that ticket, go get an MBA. Become part of the Navy SEALs of an information age business economy. Question number two. Hi, Prof G.

My name is Mark, and I'm a longtime listener of your podcasts. Given your recent relocation to London, I thought you would be a great person to provide insights to the following question that my wife and I have been pondering. I teach at a high school in LA and have been asked to join a school in Sydney. My wife works at AWS and has been given an opportunity to lead a team in London. So the question is, what framework would you use to help inform our decision-making process? What would be the top things to consider prior to making one of these

moves? How did you decide on London versus moving to another city you might have been considering? Maybe one last piece of information that can help clarify our situation. We're in our late 40s, in good health, fairly mobile with two kids away in college. One at your alma mater, Berkeley, and the other in the state you used to call home until very recently. Mark, what a wonderful message and congratulations on raising what sounds like two really impressive kids and the good work you do. This decision is so personal. So a couple of things. One, would you rather spend a lot of time traveling throughout Southeast Asia and Asia or spend more time traveling through Europe? One of the reasons I moved to London is that I wanted to spend more time

in the great capitals of Europe. I think I've spent probably 60 days plus in 17 of the 20 super cities around the world. And my observation is, loosely speaking, America is still the best place to make money, but Europe is the best place to spend it. And I'm in a stage in my life where I want to slow down a bit, spend more money, really enjoying myself. And I thought Europe is

the right place to do that. I also have roots in London. My parents are from there. Do you have any roots or anything that would give you a sense of family or any affinity or anything tugging at your heart that puts you in Sydney. The professional opportunity, where would your quality of life be better? London, even with the pound crashing, I think is still likely more expensive in Sydney, but that depends on the economic opportunities or the salary you and your wife would get.

I do think Sydney is a bit more remote than London. I think it is easier to get back even to the West Coast from London than it is from Sydney. I've always just thought we'd all live in Sydney if it wasn't so damn far. But even getting around Asia from Sydney, it's a lot of travel. So this is such a personal decision. Where are your kids more likely to visit? Where do you feel like there'll be more professional upside?

Where do you envision like there'll be more professional upside? Where do you envision yourself on weekends? Would you rather be in Munich for Oktoberfest or on the Amalfi Coast or going to Ireland? Or would you rather be exploring, going to Singapore and checking out Thailand and going to the wonderful cities in Australia, including Melbourne, which I always thought was underrated. I've always thought, I don't want to say Sydney's overrated because it's such a spectacular city, but I've always just absolutely loved Melbourne. I think Australia is singularly not only one of the best cultures in the world, but it feels very American to me. And I mean that in the best way. They're a rugged, entrepreneurial, rough and tumble group of people that love humor and love, you know, they kind of embrace sport and embrace a certain comity or camaraderie another mother, if you will. So this is such a good problem.

My decision was pretty straightforward. My parents are from there. I've always felt a pull. I wanted my kids to experience a different culture. I thought that would be a gift from us to them. And we're football crazy and thought it would just be a great excuse to go to a bunch of football games

in different stadiums around Europe with our kids while they're still school age. What a great problem. Congratulations on all your success. And do me a favor, ping me and let me know what you decide to do. And thanks for your good work. LAUSD public school teachers are doing God's work.

Thanks so much for your contribution. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO, Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea?

Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. 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, question number three. I'm a new listener to the show and I've really enjoyed hearing your perspective. I've been at my job nine and a half years and I love it. I get to do work that I'm a new listener to the show and I've really enjoyed hearing your perspective. I've been at my job nine and a half years and I love it. I get to do work that I'm good at and enjoy, have a great team, work for a business I believe in, and have comfortable work-life balance. I've also advanced from my role here and gotten promotions and raises in that time. I'm not really interested in leaving, but I'm concerned that staying in one place too long may hurt my marketability as a job candidate down the road.

It seems like in today's job market, people jump roles every three to five years. Is being at one company too long seen as a negative for hiring managers? Is there a right amount of time to stay in one place? Thanks for your help. Caroline from Atlanta, a really thoughtful question. I just can tell by the way you articulate the question and how you've thought this through that you're a thoughtful person. And I get the sense you're probably a good manager. Anyway, first off, ask yourself some basic questions. Do you have senior level sponsorship? Do you enjoy what you do? Do they appreciate what you do? Do you see opportunities for growth? Is the company you're at doing well? You'd rather be good at Google than great at General Motors. And so all of these things, you have to make sort of a qualitative assessment. And if the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, then you should be apt to stay. Now, having said this, having said this, you are going to be more attractive to strangers.

It's strange. We're just more attractive. When we recruit, when we onboard, when we recruit CEOs, we have a bias towards bringing in someone new. Because the people you don't know are easy to create a mythology around them and think that they're superhuman. And what you find out is that no one is superhuman. And you discount the qualities of the people who are just below the CEO. And you're sort of tempted to bring in someone thinking that they might be amazing. And here's the thing. Your employers or your bosses have a tendency to look at you through the lens through which you came in. And I purposely tried to check myself. I work with a kid now, and I say he's a kid. He just turned 50. I've been working

with him for 25 years, maybe 27. I hired him out of Yale at my first company profit, and he went back to law school, did really well at a law firm. But we've sort of been working together off and on for the better part of three decades. But I can't help seeing him through the lens of some bright, little dopey kid right out of Yale. And then I realized, no, he's an incredibly experienced expert even in the legal field, good manager, seasoned professional. And what you have to do or companies need to do is one, look at the person through the lens of who they are now and who they've evolved to. And two, imagine them leaving. This is what I do. Now, you're on the other side of that.

And that is, you need to help them imagine that you can leave. What do I mean by that? I don't think it's a bad idea to every two or three years do a market check. What do I mean by that? Return a call from a recruiter, maybe talk to a friend about their company, maybe even interview somewhere, have an informational coffee, and do a market check on the economic and non-economic rewards you might get if you moved. really fast, usually switch jobs, I don't think every three years, but maybe every five to seven

years. Because again, there's a halo, there's a round up, if you will, effect to our impression of people who work somewhere else, who we don't know as well. It's like that saying that functional families are the ones you don't know. We have a tendency to romanticize an outsider. What did I do at NYU Stern? When I first started at NYU Stern, they paid me $12,000. Think about that. I'd just come out of an internet company. It was 2002.

I had just moved to New York. I wanted to teach, and I took a job, and they paid me a whopping $12,000 a year. Ultimately, I worked up to about $200, grand a year, plus housing, plus benefits. The reason I got there was two reasons. And I don't know which was more important. One, I'm good at what I do. I put a lot of butts in seats. My class was very popular. At the end of the day, business school is a business. So being good is the number one or the number two. Now, either the number one or the number two is, you know what I would do? I would do market checks on a regular basis.

And that is I would get a call from a Wharton or a Cornell or another school, and I would entertain the conversation and get a sense for what the opportunities were there in terms of role, in terms of compensation, in terms of opportunities. And then I would go to my department chair, the dean, and say very transparently, I like it here. I don't want to leave. This is my market value. I expect you to match it.

And I wouldn't threaten to leave, but that was an implicit threat. It was like, look, I'm attractive to strangers. I need to be attractive to you. And quite frankly, a really good organization will stay ahead of the curve here and give you raises ahead of the curve. That's what a good manager does.

Now, you have to decide whether you work for an organization that is forward-leaning and figures out a way to constantly surprise and delight and stay out of the curve. And there are a lot of companies like that. I think big tech is really good at that. I think they identify their key players and say, we're going to make it such that you never need to do a market check. We're going to stay ahead of the curve. That is a smart company. That is a good manager. I'd say two-thirds of to make it such that you never need to do a market check. We're going to stay ahead of the curve. That is a smart company. That is a good manager. I'd say two-thirds of companies aren't like that.

One caveat, you don't want to do this more than once every two or one years. And that is the person who is constantly in your face about compensation, you set up a dynamic as the person who's been on the other side of this conversation where you don't want to give them a raise. You're constantly fighting with them and coming up with reasons for why they shouldn't get a raise. You don't want to set up that dynamic on an infrequent but credible basis. You want to have this conversation if needed. Thanks for the question. That's all for this episode. Again, if you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at profgmedia.com. Thank you. catch you next week. What software do you use at work? The answer to that question is probably more

complicated than you want it to be. The average U.S. company deploys more than 100 apps, and ideas about the work we do can be radically changed by the tools we use to do it. So what is enterprise software anyway? What is productivity software? How will AI affect both? And how are these tools changing the way we use our computers to make stuff, communicate, and plan for the future? In this three-part special series, Decoder is surveying the IT landscape presented by AWS. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. Support for the show comes from Alex Partners. Did you know that almost 90% of executives see potential for growth from digital disruption, with 37% seeing significant or extremely high positive impact on revenue growth?

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