The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Office Hours: The Power of the Apple Car, the University of Austin’s Missed Opportunity, and the Algebra of Wealth

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Scott answers a question on how Apple could differentiate from Tesla and Rivian with its Apple Car, and predicts what it will mean for the company’s valuation. He then shares his thoughts on the University of Austin’s controversial launch and offers advice on how much time you should spend managing your investment portfolio.  Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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cards, savings accounts, mortgage rates, and more. NerdWallet, finance smarter. NerdWallet Compare Incorporated. NMLS 1617539. Welcome to the Prof G Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question, please visit officehours.profgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours.profgmedia.com. First question. Hey, Prof G. My name is Alejandro Rivera, and I'm calling in from Los Angeles, California. I wanted to get your opinion on what you think Apple should focus on with their new EV in order to compete with Rivian and Tesla. Do you think their main focus should be on taking advantage of Tesla's poor

customer support? Should it be to manufacture more vehicles than both? Or should it be some other option? Also, what do you think about Apple including their EV into their Apple One program, or a variation of it? They could follow the Porsche model, where all memberships include insurance, roadside assistance, vehicle maintenance, and even the ability to switch between car models. We'd love to hear your opinions on this, and thanks for all the work you do. That's a great question, Alejandro, and I wish I had had more time to think about this because I'm not sure I have a great answer. So I love the idea of Apple folding it into a rundle, and that is Apple One, which now

includes Apple Arcade and Apple Music and some other services for, I don't know what they charge per month, but 20% of the revenue comes from subscription services, including Apple Music. I love the idea of one big bundle that you get the latest and greatest Apple products, including access to their car, or maybe you get their car, or maybe you get access to unlimited free rides in their autonomous Uber-like system. I don't know. But it seems to me that Apple is circling around one giant rundle, if you will. The Apple car, the Apple car, I think it's going to be an EV car that's going to be beautiful. I think they should price it towards the high end. I think Apple is a luxury item and is a way

of signaling that you're part of the elite. You're part of the billion wealthiest consumers in the world, iOS users. It's a great signaling device. It says I'm a great storyteller. I'm an artisan. I think different. I think like Jackie Robinson and Gandhi and Jim Henson have sex with me.

I think Apple is the most kind of subtle way to say, I can protect your children better than the guy who has an Android phone because I'm clearly a baller and smarter and more elegant and all the cool things that we look for in mates. Bit of a digression, but I sort of think everything comes down to basic instincts. Anyways, they'll probably try and integrate better media, I would guess. The operating system will be iOS.

I don't know what other kind of cool stuff they could do with it. They're talking about the Windows could be sort of screens or themselves displaying data. The one piece of information I feel fairly confident in saying is that I think Tim Cook is about to become the cat burglar of the decade. And that is when he pulls that silk cloth off of an Apple car and opens it for deposits, I think you're going to see more deposits within 24 hours on the Apple car than you've seen on the rest of these things combined. And I think you're going to see a giant reallocation of capital out of Tesla into Apple. And also, I think Apple is going to start taking capital from Facebook and other companies that have seen, or there's some expectation they'll play a role in the metaverse.

I think Apple kind of already has a metaverse called the App Store. A lot of people on Twitter have said, I don't understand the future or the power of the metaverse. But anyways, I'm learning. I'm learning. Keep in mind, I'm 85. That's not easy to understand this shit when you're towards your ninth decade. Apple, back to the Apple car. I don't know entirely what to expect.

And also, I think Apple's Titan project has been a bit of a shit show and all over the map and was initially a vanity project from John Ive. And then all of a sudden, the global or the EV market went from being worth nothing to $1.5 trillion. And Apple's like, well, I think we'll take some of that. So it's going to be fascinating. Hope it's part of a bundle.

I'm skeptical on the role autonomous plays. What I do know is that Apple is going to be over, or what I believe is be over 200 bucks a share on the notion or the promise of, well, actually we're going to have the best EV vehicle and we are the metaverse. Thanks for the question, Alejandro. Question number two.

Hi, Professor G. I'm Mia, a third-year student at NYU concentrating in fintech and entrepreneurship at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. I wanted to ask and hear your thoughts about the news surrounding the new University of Austin. According to reports, this is supposedly a startup university known to be in the fearless pursuit of truth, and it's supposed to add some novelty into higher ed. Do you believe what U of Austin pledges is necessary and offers a new take in this dated industry of institutionalized education to maybe help students branch out of their specific majors as well and be willing to explore outside of it, maybe adopting the Theo Fellowship kind of learning experience? Or would it be most logical to just strengthen current university systems and have

them reinvent themselves based on the way of U of Austin proposes? Thank you. Mia from NYU. It's so reaffirming to hear from people as thoughtful and articulate as yourself that you decide or continue to decide to come to NYU. We have two things going for us. One, our brand. And two, that really talented young people decide to come spend four years with us. Anyways, University of Austin. I know some people involved in the founding of this. And I think it's a really good idea.

I think that anything that expands the number of freshman seats, anything that can attract capital. If you look at higher ed, the enforcer of the cartel is these accreditation institutions that are staffed by, you guessed it, the incumbents. And they've grown universities at 0.5% per year because why create more competition? So let's keep other universities from starting up. And the result is artificial constraints on supply, which results in this incredible price increases that have really been incredibly damaging to middle-class America. But anyways, back to the University of Austin, it's planning a soft start next summer with forbidden courses, which will offer a spirited discussion about the most provocative questions that often lead to censorship or self-censorship in many universities. and advisors include historian Neil Ferguson, who I know and I'm a big fan of, former Harvard president Larry Summers, psychologist Steven Pinker, Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe

Lonsdale, and journalist Barry Weiss and Andrew Sullivan. So I think anything that expands the number of seats is a good idea. I also do believe there's a problem with a university that's decided to, more from our traditional role of being a place for provocative thought, where we would push back on each other and really stress the muscle in between our ears, our brain, and come back stronger and be open to other people's ideas. The whole idea of a campus was that it was placed outside the city so we could say provocative, even offensive things like the world isn't flat and not have to be worried about being burnt to the stake. And the progressive slash woke culture

and tolerance, especially among students towards each other, where if you don't sign up for a certain narrative and a certain orthodoxy, you're somewhat shunned, I think has been really damaging at the same time, at the same time. And this is where, quite frankly, the University of Austin fucked up. And that is around the messaging initially, because whether they intended to or not, what they didn't acknowledge is that orthodoxy or preconceived orthodoxy that suppresses the free exploration or discussion of different varying viewpoints, which is central to the notion of academia and universities, it happens on the right too. Liberty University, Bob Jones University, BYU, I think you can still get kicked out of if you're found having sex. I mean, they have an orthodoxy that's conservative and aren't as open as they should be to free thought and debate and evidence and argument. But when they try and start a

university on the premise that we should be open to discourse and not a predetermined orthodoxy, that makes sense. But they gave the impression that all they were doing was substituting a left-wing orthodoxy for a right-wing orthodoxy. I think they screwed up as they should have had, they should have messaged better. And I also think that a couple progressives on the founding team would have served them well. Instead, they just came out with, you know, same dog, different fleas. And I don't think that's their intent. I think the University of Austin and any other startup universities are a good thing. We need to break the cartel of higher ed. I'm a supporter of the University of Austin. I just think they fucked up and shot themselves in the foot. And it's a really interesting case study in poor messaging and not recognizing that you're not going to convince people that there's a

problem and a need to have a university that doesn't have preconceived notions of what's right and wrong other than science when you start from a position where you're perceived as having your own orthodoxy that you're trying to force upon young people whether they intended to or not that's what ultimately I think they got kind of pigeonholed out so this is a terrible launch for them these are really talented impressive people my understanding is they've raised a shit ton of capital. We'll see what happens. I think it survives, but it's an interesting case study on how not to message around a launch. Thank you for the question, Mia. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact.

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Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. 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. Question number three. Hey, Scott. I'm really interested in hearing how much time, or in your opinion, how much time I should be spending managing my investment portfolio I sort of go between

spending a lot of time on it day night to not spending any time on it at all and I'm struggling to find that balance really interested to hear your thoughts just generally really appreciate all the work you do and love listening

to the podcast. Thanks so much. This is an interesting question, Adrian, from San Francisco. I would say that the algebra of wealth goes something like this. Focus. Find your talent, be really good at something, so that you can find something people will pay you a lot of money

for. Two, diversification. At the end of the day, the Kevlar that saves you from any one bad decision, I've made a lot of them, but they were never, those mistakes were never fatal, is to be diversified.

And then three, let time take over. And that is, I bought Apple in 2008 at 12 bucks a share. It's 160, but it never had one huge year. It just kept creeping up, and I kind of wake up 13 years later, and it's up 14x, which is very rewarding. The danger to what you're talking about, spend a lot of time trying to get better at what you do. Spend a lot of time thinking and planning around how you save money and what your investment strategy is. But once your investment strategy is in place, unless you really enjoy it or you're learning from it, I would say spend less time. Now, what do I mean by that? Day traders, 80 to 95% of day traders lose money. And a lot of people think that they're doing something worthwhile by trading

stocks. They're not. They're looking for a dope ahead. It's similar to gambling, and that's fine, but recognize it's gambling. Whereas if you picked any five stocks from the S&P 500 and you didn't touch them for 10 years, nobody has ever lost money. So unless this is your profession, unless you get huge enjoyment out of it yourself, what I would say is spend a lot of time thinking about a financial plan, and that is put in place a realistic plan that looks at your income, your lifestyle, and says, all right, I need to bust a move to having at least a million dollars, pick a number by the time I'm 40 or 50, which means saving this much, assuming these types of returns, and then put in place that plan. And what people don't want to acknowledge is your wealth is more a function of how much money you save as opposed to how much money you earn or how well your investments do. of capital came from focusing on something I was good at and selling a company or getting paid well and also living below my means such that I could save money to have a base to invest.

But just thinking you're trading and investing and looking at your portfolio every day, I don't know. I think that's a recipe for losing money and distracting from your ability to have money. And that is focus on what you're good at. So for the most part, unless this is your business, if you will, be focused on how to save money, be focused on how to make more, and then either do an ETF, a robo-advisor, diversification and low fees are really the key. Invest in good companies, invest in good ETFs, and then leave it alone, ignore it, because it's a very difficult time in the markets. I know how to get you rich. That's the good news.

The bad news, Adrian, is the answer is slowly. That's all for this episode. Again, if you'd like to submit a question, please visit officehours.propertymedia.com. Our producers are Caroline Chagrin and Drew Burrows. Thank you. Deliver that feeling to your customers every time. Klaviyo turns your customer data into real-time connections across AI-powered email, SMS, and more, making every moment count. Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond. Make every moment count with Klaviyo.

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