The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Office Hours: The Strength of Sanctions, the Short-form Video Revolution, and Yielding to Economic Security

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Scott answers a question on whether Upwork and other gig economy companies did the right thing by suspending services in Russia. Scott also shares his thoughts on how short videos might make their way into the enterprise after TikTok accelerated the trend towards bite-sized content. The Dawg then offers advice to a couple considering taking a career sabbatical to travel.  Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Welcome to the PropG 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.propgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours.propgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours.propgmedia.com. First question. Hey, Professor G. Jake here from San Francisco.

I'm the founder of a fast-growing startup that relies on contractors from around the world for design, web development, and other support services. Last week, I got an email from Upwork, one of the contractor platforms we use, announcing that they would be severing ties with all Russian contractors, removing them from the platform and ending all currently active projects.

Like most of the world, I'm appalled by the war crimes being committed by Russia against Ukraine, and I fully support the economic sanctions and financial pressures being levied against influential oligarchs. But for some reason, I can't shake the feeling that Upwork's decision to remove all Russian contractors from their platform is woefully misguided. It strikes me that the creative, entrepreneurial citizens of Russia that are eagerly participating in our global economy are the most likely to share Western values. For them, Upwork was likely one of their few means of accessing real news and information about the atrocities being committed in Ukraine, not to mention the meaningful culture exchange and dialogue the platform facilitates.

To me, it seems counterproductive to persecute and isolate the Russian citizens that are clearly sympathetic to democratic ideals and proactively engaged in a global society. Do you think Upwork made the right move here? Was there anything they could have done to better harness the attention and productivity of these Russian citizens? Curious to hear your thoughts. Thanks for all that you do. Jake from San Francisco. Yeah, thanks so much for the very thoughtful question. And so obviously this is an opinion. I don't have domain expertise around geopolitics and the ethics around these types of sanctions. But that won't stop me.

So, like, there is no moral clarity or even rational clarity around this type of action. There's, I mean, this is just a hard one. The Washington Post reports that tens of thousands of Russian contract workers and content creators have essentially lost their livelihoods since American and European tech companies like Upwork pulled out of Russia. Most of these companies, as you referenced, have cited solidarity with Ukraine and said sanctions are making it impossible to pay workers. Some systems or protocols, including MasterCard, Visa, and Payoneer, began blocking Russian accounts days after the invasion started. And that's how most of these creators and gig workers get paid.

There was a whole lot of stories about how OnlyFans creators, if you will, couldn't get paid. PayPal also suspended services in Russia. Upwork withdrew its forecast for the year after pulling out of Russia. Roughly 10% of Upwork's total revenue in 2021 came from that region. And Russia and Belarus combined brought in 4%. Ukraine represented the remaining 6%. And shares of Upwork were down 10% on news of the decision to halt services in the country. So I want to be clear about Upwork. This is more than just virtue signaling. This is more than putting out a black square on their Instagram feed that says Black Lives Matter. They've taken a real financial hit. So net-net, difficult decision. I think Upwork got this right. And we talk about war crimes.

We talk about dropping bombs. There's just no way. I think Hillary Clinton once said, you can't have snakes in your backyard and just expect them to bite your neighbors. There's no way to sort of have what I call a clean or moral war. The whole notion of war crimes, and I get the notion of a war crime, but it just feels like everything about war is criminal. There's no easy way to kill people. There's no easy or elegant way or fair way to destroy a city. There's no, you are going to have bombs land on maternity wards when you invade a nation.

And just as I believe our invasion of Iraq was not warranted and morally wrong, Fortunately for us, there was no social media. I think a lot of Americans think that the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that perished somehow just floated away. It's not. There's no elegant way to kill someone. I think these sanctions have to be pretty what I call brute blunt force. And absolutely, there are a ton of good Russian people that are horrified by this war who share, I think, Western values that we can absolutely be sympathetic towards and are as likely as upset as we are, especially I think a lot of people in Russia very much empathize with their Ukrainian neighbors. Having said that, I think populations have to take some responsibility for their leaders. And the way we get past this, quite frankly,

is taking a corrupt, violent, imperialist leadership out or making them less popular or neutering them, whatever it might be. And the way you do that is with the people, I think. That is what Putin is scared of most, is revolution in his own country, which doesn't usually end well for the autocrat. So I don't think there's any easy way around this, but I think sanctions really need to, if you will, kick Russia in the gut and make their leadership there very unpopular. the way you do that, quite frankly and unfortunately, is by economically hurting not only the economy, but when we say the economy, what we mean is hurting the populace of Russia. Are there examples where it's probably overreach? Are there all sorts of externalities and unintended consequences? Sure, when pharmaceutical companies decide they're going to pull out of Russia, you can imagine there's going to be a lot of individual situations of real suffering of people who can't get their medication. But I'm on board with Upwork. I think this is war. I think what Russia is doing

to Ukraine is reprehensible. I think it's a threat to the entire world. We haven't been this close to World War III, I would argue, probably since Cuba, the Cuban Missile Crisis. So to put the world in a situation where we are only a few bad decisions by really old men from true, true horror globally means that we have to speak, I think, with a very, very resolute voice. And sanctions are somewhat of an elegant way to really hurt a nation and really get a message across and put pressure on them and push back without risking all-out war or at least a shooting match. A very thoughtful question. Thanks very much.

Next question. Hey, Prof G. I'm Nilesh from Portland, Oregon. Huge fan of the show. I wanted to get your take on where new media meets education, inspiration, and businesses specifically. So we've seen what TikTok has done for short-form entertainment in the consumer space. And I'm currently building a company that focuses on

really entertaining and engaging content for business audiences. And it seems that Masterclass and even Section 4, while innovative in their own ways, are still delivering their products via traditional offerings like Zoom and long form video. So my question is this. Do you agree that there's a huge opportunity to take strong inspiration from the creative and engaging storytelling we see in TikTok, Netflix, or even HBO and aim that at business audiences? In a world where businesses are looking to purchase value-add benefits for their employees, will we see a Netflix for the enterprise that's focused on education and inspiration?

And haven't we learned that the enterprise can be like a faster way to scale businesses into the consumer space? Really curious to hear your opinions, and I promise I'll keep listening, even if you disagree. So Nilesh from Portland, Oregon. Thanks for the question. We're starting to see some enterprises harness short-form video, but more so in the B2B space rather than the consumer space. TikTok partnered with Vimeo last year to integrate the software company's video creation tools into its app. The tools are meant to help small and medium-sized businesses trim production times and costs. And Vimeo also acquired a short-form video platform called, I think it's called Wibbitz, and the marketing tech company Wirewax to help Vimeo's larger enterprise customers with making marketing campaigns and launching new products. But yeah, there's no question about it. TikTok accelerated the race to short-form video by capturing

the attention of millions, or really hundreds of millions of users around the world. I think it got to a billion users in five years, which is faster, zero to a billion than any company in history. I think it took Instagram nine years, who was the previous champion. The average TikTok user opens the app 17 times a day and spends an hour and 25 minutes scrolling through its content. Think about that. In a survey TikTok conducted, almost 50% of users said videos longer than a minute long were stressful. Get that.

A third of users watch videos online at double speed. God, that's crazy. We are literally becoming just kind of ADHD nation. On YouTube, 12% of the total content in 2021 was less than a minute long. That same year, Netflix launched Fast Laughs, a TikTok-esque feature on its app to feature short, shareable clips of its content for users on the go. And Roku acquired Quibi's library of short-form shows for less than 100 million last

year. So everything's kind of going to short-form, quicker hit, quicker dope. I mean, you can see why TikTok's so successful. It feels like we're sort of the short-form economy. Now, your question more about B2B. I think it's really thoughtful. I think it's a great idea what you're doing. I kind of wish I'd thought of it myself. So first off, big picture. For entrepreneurs, I would say go B2B.

I find B2C is sexier, and sex appeal and ROI are inversely correlated. Opening a nightclub, going to work in sports, opening a restaurant, being a DJ, whatever it might be. Passion comes at a huge cost, meaning I don't invest in anything sexy. Well, I'm investing in, as I said, I'm investing in Boom, the supersonic aviation company, which I guess is sort of sexy. But I generally like to invest in shit that sounds really awful and boring, like healthcare software as a service. I find that if a business plan or a business sounds like something you want to put a gun in your mouth because it's so fucking boring, I smell cabbage. I smell money. Whereas a friend of mine is opening a members-only club for artists and creators downtown, and it sounds super cool. And I'm like, okay, I know that thing's going to

lose a shit ton of money. Now, why is that? Because the fun stuff is over-invested, driving down returns. And everybody wants to be, not everybody, but most people want to be a B2C. They dream of launching a fashion direct-to-consumer brand. They dream of opening a gallery to sell into consumers. Most kids don't dream of selling services into mid-size, mid-cap companies. And I find that's where the money is. I have launched nine businesses. Almost all of them were B2B. My first company, Profit, was a brand strategy firm.

My most successful company, at least economically, was L2, which was an analytics company selling into kind of Fortune 1000 companies. And those were much more successful than my one B2C company, Red Envelope. I find B2C, generally speaking, is overinvested. Consumers are, what's the term? Assholes. And what I mean by assholes is they're incredibly demanding. Netflix has trained the entire consumer economy to expect a billion dollars in content for every $1 a month you pay. That's kind of the

consumer benchmark. And consumers have become, and I'm guilty of this, so incredibly demanding that anything short of amazing service at a low price, they want to speak to the manager. Literally the definition, we have become the Karen and Ken economy, if you will. So I'm a big fan of going into B2B and also a big fan of benchmarking companies and saying, where are the X of Y? So to have a vision that you're going to be the B2B TikTok just makes all the sense in the world to me. Now, when you're going to try and build a platform to get the kind of scale you need, that kind of smells like you're going to need to raise a lot of money. But I think there's huge opportunities in video for B2B that's more instructional, more training, more about upskilling.

In sum, I like the cut of your jib, Nilesh. I think it's a great idea. Good luck with it. But we are a short-form economy. There's some good things about that. There's also some very bad things about that, especially as it relates to our youth. But net-net, I think it's a great idea. So well done and best of luck. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

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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. Welcome back. Question number three. Hey, Prof G. Nick here from Austin, Texas. I'm 30 years old and both my wife and I work in tech. We've been saving for the past decade and we're now in a position to be first-time homebuyers

as we start our family together. However, the closer we get to parenthood, the more convinced we are that we should first take some time off to travel, especially to see parts of Asia and Africa that will be more difficult to visit with young kids. Is this type of career sabbatical one that will certainly impact our savings and potentially derail our career momentum, incredibly irresponsible? Or will future hiring managers be able to understand and empathize with this decision. I find it hard to believe that

on my deathbed, you'll hear me say, Scott, I wish I'd taken off less time from work to travel, but I'd appreciate your candid advice either way. Love the pod. Thanks for everything. Nick from Austin. This is a great question. It's also a very difficult question. So I think the temptation from a distance is to say, quote that adage, you know, on your deathbed, you never think I wish I'd work more. And I think the majority of the responses you're going to get from people who are outside of your closest circle, meaning your parents, family members, are going to tell you, get the backpack and go. These are deeply personal decisions. There is no wrong decision here. This is you and your wife got to own this and feel good about making the decision. My advice is to not go.

I think we live in a capitalist society and America becomes more like itself every day. What do I mean by that? If you are wealthy or economically secure in the United States, it becomes every day a more loving, generous, and forgiving place. If you don't have money here, it becomes a more unforgiving and rapacious place. And I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying it is. And if you have momentum in your career, if you are tracking to developing that economic security, I don't think you want to interrupt it. And I can tell you that, and a lot of this is projecting just how I approached life. I was very focused on busting a move to economic security. And it was not up and to the right.

I had a lot of dips. I got beamed in the fucking face a couple of times economically and professionally. But that focus and that sacrifice got me to a point now where I can go to Africa and I can go to Europe and my kids are older. It's wonderful to travel with your kids. You got to have money to do it though. I can't tell you how expensive it is for a family of four to go skiing in Colorado. And to think that I sacrificed a lot. A lot. I don't remember anything from the age of 22 to 40 other than working. And those would have been great years to travel and spend more time. It cost me my first marriage, how focused I was on work. That and I'm kind of a selfish asshole. That too, that also

didn't help. But my brother, if you and your wife are blessed with trajectory around developing economic security, you know, I would avoid the Hallmark Channel speeches you're going to get from your friends and family. And I would keep track in my brother. And I would put money away. I would invest like crazy. I would make as much progress as possible before kids be very focused on work, be a fucking capitalist animal, get through the hell that is young children. And then as your kids get older and become less awful and sometimes even wonderful, the economic security and the freedom that affords you to really enjoy your kids that is without the stress, the financial stress of kids is a wonderful thing.

And it's worth real sacrifice. And that sacrifice comes now. Anyways, brother, congrats. This is a good problem. But I say focus on your career and bust a move to economic security as quickly and as violently as possible. Thanks for the question. That's all for this episode. Again, if you'd like to submit a

question, please submit a voice recording by visiting officehours.propgmedia.com. Our producers are Caroline Shagrin and Drew burrows claire miller is our associate producer if y'all like what you heard please follow download and subscribe thank you for listening to the prop g pod from the vox media podcast network we will catch you on thursday also i would be remiss if i didn't inform you that tomorrow the the 29th, I think this plays on the 28th, is the world premiere of No Mercy, No Malice, my show on CNN+. So please subscribe to CNN+. Please download the show several thousand times if you can. This is me on TV. We got newsletters right. We got podcasts right. We're doing well with books. TV hasn't been a big hit for me so far. The dog on TV, sort of a dog out of water. This is my last shot, folks. So anyways, I've seen the pilot.

I actually feel pretty good about it, and I hate almost everything. So please tune in on CNN+, no mercy, no malice, and send me an email and let me know what you think. 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.

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