The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Prof G Markets: GameStop Buying Bitcoin, an Activist Play at Lyft, & Gen Z Unemployment

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Follow Prof G Markets: Apple Podcasts Spotify   Scott and Ed open the show by discussing Delaware's changes to its corporate governance laws, Waymo’s expansion into Washington D.C., and GameStop's decision to add bitcoin to its treasury reserves. Then they analyze Engine Capital’s activist push at Lyft, offering insights and strategic suggestions on how the rideshare company can strengthen its business. Finally, they break down the growing challenges for college graduates in today’s job market, with Scott sharing practical advice for those looking for a job.  Subscribe to the Prof G Markets newsletter  Order "The Algebra of Wealth," out now Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Follow Scott on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram and X Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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On to explain it all is the veteran sports business journalist John Oran. That's this week on channels from the Box Media Podcast Network. Have you noticed that headlights seem brighter these days? It's more than just a nuisance for some people. Those headlights and other LED lights knocked me out of being a teacher. I just, I couldn't get to work anymore without suffering these impacts, these neurological, psychological impacts. The dark side of those gleaming headlights. That's this week on Explain It To Me. Listen every Sunday morning wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, ProffG listeners. It's Ed. If you're hearing this message, it's because you're still listening on the ProffG pod feed, which means you're actually this message, it's because you're still listening on the Profgy Pod feed, which means you're actually missing half of our episodes on Profgy Markets.

So for all of that content, head over to the Profgy Markets podcast, not the Profgy Pod, Profgy Markets and hit follow. We've also left a link in the description to make it easier. Thank you. And I'll see you on the other feed. Today's number, 1,461. That's how many beers there are on a Canadian brewery's presidential pack, offering one beer for every day of Trump's presidency.

Ed, what's the difference between America and Canada? What's the difference? America has really nice neighbors. I'm very pro-Canadian, feeling very Canadian, feeling super Canadian. Actually, I don't know this, but Canada both passed same-sex marriage and now marijuana, which means actually they're interpreting the Bible correctly. Leviticus 20 13. If a man lies with another man, he should be stoned. That's good.

That's good. I like that joke. That's clever. And historical. It's time for banter. What's going on in your life? Uh, I'm doing okay. I woke up with a bit of a cold this morning, which isn't ideal, but otherwise doing quite

well. You sound fine. You sound good. Sound fine. That's good. Okay. Okay, enough of that. Back to me.

So last night, so I don't know if you heard, but Chiltern Firehouse has burned down. So daddy needs, and by the way, I'm pretty sure that I, oh, I was, I think I told you this, I was borderline hypertensive, which means I almost had high blood pressure. I was 140 over 80. And I uploaded all my results, my urine, my blood, all this shit, and basically everything came back. And I uploaded it into Chet GBT and it said, okay, dumb shit, drink less. And so I just did my blood pressure last night,

and it's 127 over 74 something, which means I'm back to, you know, the rock star superhero I've always been. And I was trying to figure out what's changed and I'm convinced that my blood pressure has come down 13 points because Chiltern Firehouse has burned down. I would go there twice a week. I'd have four to five makers in ginger. So that's 10 makers in ginger. Four to five each, each trip.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Daddy goes deep in the pain. Oh wow. I told you I'm a better version of me, a little bit fucked up. You see me fucked up. I'm nice. No, I agree.

Yeah. And so that's 10 makers in ginger a week. So I'm basically drinking a half a bottle of makers. So I'm convinced and I'm glad no one was hurt. I'm convinced the reason my blood pressure has come down is because children firehouse burned down. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

I'm trying to find the new place. Last night I went to Soho Muse. I told you about this, right? Last I heard you haven't been yet. Is this your first time? I went last night. So if fucking Soho house decides, okay, we've led in too many riff raff at Elson and we need a place for the players.

Scott Galloway. Small cap player. I called them and they're like, no, we're let in too many riffraff at Elson, and we need a place for the playas. Scott Galloway. Small cap playa. I called them and they're like, no, we're sending out invitations slowly to members. I'm like, what the fuck, I'm a member. And she said, no, it doesn't matter. So anyways, I called someone who knew someone

who knew someone, went last night, nice, not Chiltern, but still pretty nice. And definitely like, you could tell it's sort of a little bit of another level. And tonight I'm going to this place called Kensington Gardens, which is, I guess, also a new hotspot. So I'll soon be hypertensive again. Interesting.

What's going on with your drinking? Yeah, I'm not drinking that much. I drank a little bit last night. My friends took me out to the grill in New York. Have you been, have you been to this restaurant? This is like the successor to the famous Four Seasons restaurant, it's in the Seagram building. Fancy.

So they went out and bought me a nice dinner, it was very nice, and they forced a martini on me. So I did drink last night, I didn't really want to, but I got peer pressured. But beautiful restaurant, I would highly recommend, yeah, The Grill. Apparently it's where Bob Iger goes every lunch. Oh really, to acquiesce to the Trump administration?

Ha ha ha ha. Perhaps. Someone from the administration come up to him and say, okay, now put your elbows on the table, you fucking coward. Ha ha. Anyways, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. That's all I have to tell you. A martini!

Ha ha ha ha. Anyways, get on with the headlines. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's start with our weekly review of market vitals. The S&P 500 fell ahead of Trump's auto tariffs announcement and struggled to recover. The dollar climbed, Bitcoin was relatively stable, and the yield on 10-year treasuries rose.

Shift into the headlines. Delaware is making big changes to its corporate governance laws, such as restricting shareholder lawsuits against founder-led companies. The move aims to prevent businesses from relocating to states with looser regulations. Waymo is launching its RoboTaxi service in Washington DC in 2026. The company currently operates in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Phoenix. And finally, GameStop is officially adding Bitcoin to its treasury reserves. Its stock initially surged on the news, but it eventually fell 23% after the company announced

a $1.3 billion convertible bond sale to fund the investment, which is of course exactly what MicroStrategy did. Scott, let's start with your thoughts on this change coming from Delaware and just some context. I mean, this is coming right after this highly controversial lawsuit against Tesla that we covered where the Delaware court ruled against Elon Musk. They canceled his $56 billion pay package. And in response, Elon decided, fuck you guys, I'm leaving Delaware. I'm going to reincorporate Tesla in Texas. And we've seen other companies either following suit, moving, or they're at least signaling

their intention to move. One of those companies is Facebook. And so this is Delaware's response to that immigration out of their corporation system. They're loosening their governance laws in favor of founders. They're making it harder for shareholders to sue. They're also narrowing the definition of a conflict of interest. These are all the very conditions that made that Tesla lawsuit possible in the first place. And so this is basically their reaction to what happened with Tesla.

They're now acquiescing. Scott, your reactions. So two thirds of Fortune 500 companies, 67% are incorporated in Delaware. And then Generates get this at 2.2 billion in corporate franchise taxes annually. That's almost a third of the state's budget. And I would imagine it's really high margin revenue.

And as you mentioned, Musk, they basically denied or voided Elon Musk's $56 billion Tesla compensation package despite shareholder approval. And you can go back on the tape. We said, whenever this happened, six or 12 months ago, bad decision, bad board, but they get to make this decision. And that for the courts to overturn it

was a judgment call on what is, quote unquote, fair compensation. And if you want to talk about compensation in America around CEOs, you just shouldn't use the word fair. And in capitalism, the owner of the asset or the majority of the assets get to nominate directors who get to decide correctly or incorrectly the compensation of the CEO.

And the moment someone weighs in and starts using words like fair or unfair and overrides the decisions of the people voted in by the owners of the company to make these decisions, in my view, you have government overreach. So I think they screwed up here. I think intrastate competition is a good thing. I think other states, in this instance, Texas, saying, okay, we want to compete with Delaware for companies to list here and offer them lower fees.

The problem is there is a social good to some of this around the disclosure requirements and how a board behaves. It is a social good. And I worry that there's a race to the bottom around governance that ultimately hurts retail investors. What are your thoughts? The most important stat you mentioned there is the fact that a third of Delaware's tax revenue comes from these incorporation fees. I mean people ask you know why do all these companies incorporate in Delaware? The answer is that historically Delaware has been a very pro-business state. You have tax benefits, you know strong privacy laws. This is generally speaking throughout history, throughout corporate history,

this has been a good place to incorporate your company. And now we're seeing a reversal of that trend. People are now deciding, due to what happened with Elon, that Delaware is actually anti-business. And so I think to an extent, they don't really have a choice but to loosen up on these laws right now, because if they don't and if they just let companies leave the state, they're going to lose out on a ton of tax revenue. And when you look at the state, this entire state is really reliant on these relationships with these corporations. I don't like it.

You know, I don't like that we're seeing, once again, regulators bending the knee to billionaires. You know, critics are calling this the billionaire's bill, this decision to loosen the laws. seeing, once again, regulators bending the knee to billionaires. Critics are calling this the Billionaires Bill, this decision to loosen the laws. And they're right, because this is specifically designed to appease the billionaires, specifically designed to make the founders of these giant companies which hold all of the shares and all of the voting power, companies like Facebook, where you've got Mark Zuckerberg and all of the shares and all of the voting power, companies like Facebook, where you've got Mark Zuckerberg and all of his interests, and then of course companies like Tesla.

This is all to make them feel happier about being in Delaware. It's a trend that we keep on seeing, where regulators recognize the power of billionaires, they recognize how much we need them in terms of taxes. We're so reliant on these rich people and their ability to contribute to government revenue. And so they have to do it. So I don't blame them for doing it,

but is this a good thing? No, I don't think it's a very good thing. I don't think it's good that we are seeing a state basically rewriting their laws and rewriting their rules of equity to make the richest people in the world happy. Let's talk about Waymo. Waymo is currently operational in San Francisco

and LA and Phoenix, but next year it will be in DC. So they are scaling very quickly. Scott, your thoughts on Waymo. I bet if you surveyed Americans on, if you said, what comes to mind when you say autonomous driving, most common answer would be Tesla. And the reality is, and you brought this to my attention, Waymo is just miles ahead of Tesla.

Tesla doesn't look very close to a competent self-driving or autonomous vehicle. And I took a Waymo six months ago in LA and I was kind of blown away by it. I mean, they're up and running. They have 200,000 paid rides weekly across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. I love the idea of autonomous driving. I don't, I'm trying to think how elitist this is going to sound. I don't like the drivers. I don't want to make conversation. I assume they're gonna take me the wrong way, which is probably not very nice.

I get mad at them. What do you get angry about? I tend to get drivers who think they know the back roads and I'm like, it drives me fucking crazy. I don't want them to ask me about the temperature, if I want to stream my radio. I'm an awful person. I don't want to talk to anybody.

Does anyone ever recognize you when you get in the Uber? Like, Oh, you're that guy Scott Galloway and try to, try to spark a conversation. That has never happened to me in an Uber. So clearly they're not the target audience. So you can, you can rag on them as much as you want. Yeah. I'm wondering what my star rating is. Um, I do, I, my general approach to service is I'm not easy to deal with, but

I tip big that's my approach. So, which that's pretty obnoxious. I'm rich, I don't need to be kind. I'm pretty sure that's, yeah, that's definitionally a douche bag. Yeah, first word douche, last same bag. Should I write children's books? By the way, I kind of agree with you,

but I'm trying to work on that. I think I need to be better and more amenable to small talk. You're young. You're still in your mating years. Yeah, exactly. But just to focus on Waymo, as opposed to being antisocial, just some data. So Waymo completed more than 4 million paid rides last year.

That's more than 11,000 autonomous taxi rides every single day. And I just want to compare that to the competitors of Waymo. You mentioned Tesla, which I agree. I think when people say, they hear the word robotaxi, they think of Tesla. How many paid robotaxi rides did Tesla complete last year? Zero. You look at the other competitor, Zucs,

which is owned by Amazon. Last year, they completed, waitUX, which is owned by Amazon. Last year they completed, wait for it, zero paid rides. Cruise, which is owned by General Motors. They also completed zero rides last year. By the way, they also ended up shutting down that business entirely. In other words, this is one of the most important technologies of our time, or so a lot of people say, and Waymo is the only company in America that has figured it out. Tesla has been talking about it for 10 years.

They've shipped nothing. Meanwhile, Waymo is fully operational in three major metro areas. It's expanding across four more. I think they're even testing in Japan right now. So I think if you had to identify a sector where there is the greatest disparity between the market leader and the runner up, I think you would have to say that sector is autonomous vehicles and robotaxis and you'd have to pick Waymo. And you mentioned the branding point. I don't think Waymo gets enough credit for this. This is an incredible company.

They're absolutely killing it right now. And when you look at the competition, it just proves how difficult it is, both from a technological perspective and also from a regulatory perspective. This is the only autonomous company which is actually supported by regulators because they recognize, yeah, this thing is safe. They've tested it, they've proven that it works,

and now they can expand. The question I would put to you is they just raised a 5.6 billion, or last year, if they raised expand. The question I would put to you is they just raised a 5.6 billion or last year, they raised 5.6 billion, I think at a pre of 40 and a post of 45. So at 50, revenues of 50 to 75 million, that means they're trading somewhere between, I don't know, 70 and 90 times revenues. Would you invest in Waymo at 70 to 90 times revenues

right now? I haven't done the analysis on Waymo individually, but if the RoboTaxi market is as big as people say it is, if it warrants the multiples that we're seeing in Tesla, I mean, how else could you justify the valuation of Tesla right now if it isn't autonomous driving? Fair point. If we're comparing it with that, then yeah, I'd invest for sure. This feels like, if they can maintain this, this feels like a 2027 IPO that'll be pretty big. Let's talk about GameStop. GameStop is deciding to purchase Bitcoin.

They're adopting the same strategy that we saw with Michael Saylor at MicroStrategy. I'll just start off by pointing out that this really worries me because GameStop isn't the first to do this. There are other companies that are following suit. We've been over some of those companies in our episode with Josh Brown. This is becoming a thing now. A lot of these companies are buying Bitcoin and doing the same thing that Michael Saylor did. And why is that a problem? We've been friendly with Michael. I know you're friends with him.

I think we've been kind of nice, or at least we've gone a little bit easy on microstrategy. But I think it's getting to a point where this is becoming so popular among companies, not just GameStop, but dozens of other companies. I think we now need to be more candid about what MicroStrategy is doing. I think what they're doing is a Ponzi scheme. They're buying up Bitcoin and then they're using the Bitcoin as collateral to sell bonds. And then they're using the proceeds from the bonds that they sell to buy even more Bitcoin, which they again use to sell even more

bonds by using collateral again. So it's just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. You buy more Bitcoin, you sell more bonds. You buy more Bitcoin, you sell more bonds. That is a Ponzi scheme. You're using existing investors' money to pay out new investors. And it would be different if the bonds were secured by, you know, a productive asset, an asset that generates actual cash, but they're not. They're secured by an asset whose value

is entirely dependent on more investors entering the ecosystem. And that, to me, is definitionally a Ponzi scheme. But I just think that we've been so distracted by the astronomical returns that we've been seeing on these stocks. I mean, we just pointed out GameStop is way up this year and it increased even more when they announced this treasury strategy. MicroStrategy increased 600% in one year. It's so numerically compelling that I think what is happening is what so often happens with

Ponzi schemes that we're so excited by it, we turn a blind eye to what's really going on. I think a lot of other companies are now doing this. You've got GameStop, there's companies Semler, MetaPlanet, Kula. They're all public companies. You even now have the NASDAQ including MicroStrategy in the index fund, meaning we now have millions of dollars of retirement account money and pension fund money going into these things. And I think it's a Ponzi. And all it would take for the whole thing to come crashing down is for the price of

Bitcoin to drop. And you made that point to Michael. You said, what happens if Bitcoin goes to,, you know, $40,000, I think. And his response was, well, what happens if a meteor hits us tomorrow? Which is clearly a false comparison, because the chances of a meteor striking the earth are infinitely lower than the chances of the price of Bitcoin going down. So you know, I've been, you know, a little reticent to talk about this aggressively. Because, you know, I don't want to make an enemy out of anyone.

But it's getting to a point now, we're seeing so much adoption of this. GameStop, which is owned by so many retail investors, it is the retail stock. And now they're adopting this strategy. And as I just mentioned, they say say we're going to buy the Bitcoin, but first we're going to sell the bonds to do it. So it's the same strategy that we've seen. Uh, and to me, this is really concerning, but perhaps you have a different view. When I was, I moved to New York in 2000 and I didn't know anybody.

And almost right away I made good friends with a couple of guys and I said, Oh, you got to come to St. Parks for the holidays. I'm almost right away, I made good friends with a couple of guys and I said, oh, you gotta come to St. Parts for the holidays. I'm like, yeah, I'm down. And we knew enough people that knew enough people that had, were billionaires that own boats. And they would always have these crazy parties. And this one guy, who was always on the boat, kind of, he was this really handsome guy

with great fashion and like, I always had like the hottest women around him. His name was Andrew. And Andrew was rolling with all these billionaires. I remember seeing him or I had dinner with him in LA once and he rolled up in this like electric blue Ferrari and he was pitching me. He said, I have a fund. I try and find value stocks or something. I was barely listening. And he said, and I'm giving like 22% returns last year. And my bullshit, I didn't have much money back then, but I'm sort of like, yeah, this is way too exotic for me. But he had raised and he listed all these billionaires

and St. Barts that he had raised money from. And I knew most of these guys by name. And it ends up that what he was doing was taking money and then, and giving money back to previous investors on redemption, claiming they got 20% returns when he was using the money as his own personal kitty. That is a Ponzi scheme, taking investors' money to pretend you're giving returns back to older investors, hoping new investors will see these false returns and put in more money. And that's what Madoff did. I don't think it's fair to call this a Ponzi scheme. What I think this is, is a massively levered bet because at some point, so they're buying Bitcoin and then they're borrowing against that Bitcoin. So they're

levering up and then they're borrowing as much as they can on that. They're just massively levering. I'd agree with you if the underlying asset generate had any sort of cash yield. Maybe it's Ponzi scheme doesn't feel right because he's not actively defrauding people and going and saying, hey, I'm going to take your money and then we're going to put it over here.

But what is happening is that the value of the asset is dependent on other investors entering the ecosystem. And the difference is that those investors are anonymous because it's just people who buy Bitcoin. The whole thing is predicated on in the same way that your friend was taking other people's money and then paying it out to someone else. This is the same system. It just, it has more people in, in the chain is what I would say. More points of contact, basically. He's making a hugely levered bet on an asset and people have decided it's a

legitimate asset class because it's people think it's a store of value. What you're saying is ultimately over time, I think, an asset really isn't an asset unless it's producing some sort of underlying cash flows, that it's not a security, but. I think we can call it an asset. I don't think it's a security. I think we can call it an asset,

but that dynamic that I described, this thing no longer works if people don't keep coming in. The whole thing is predicated on that. So as soon as that stops, as soon as new investors don't keep coming in. The whole thing is predicated on that. So as soon as that stops, as soon as new investors don't enter, the whole thing collapses. My sense of this is pretty simple. This is, you're gonna get huge returns

if Bitcoin goes up, because he's levered the shit out of the Bitcoin he's bought, and it's gonna go way down because he's levered the shit out of the Bitcoin. But he's not taking money and falsely claiming returns. But he makes the argument that the whole thing is protected because it's a bond. But I think he picks and chooses different parts of this financial play such that he can say things like, well, what if a meteor

strikes us tomorrow? And by saying, oh, it's a bond, you're protected. But then in certain occasions, not pointing out that actually it's a convertible and, you know, this is going to convert to equity and you could very well lose all your money. If Bitcoin goes up tomorrow, but then crashes the next day, yeah, you're equity now. You're wiped out. Some people are now owning it in their portfolios,

and they didn't even sign up for it, because it's now part of the NASDAQ. And this is why I'm being aggressive now and not before. It reminds me of 2008 in a lot of ways, where so many more companies and institutions are buying into it, I think, because they look at the numbers, look how much it's gone up. And that's the part that concerns me, which is why I want to flag it.

The notion that people are diving too aggressively into the deep end of a pool in a market that is overvalued and then massively levering up, leverages how smart people go broke. Right. And, and as we've discussed on this show, we're big believers that the U S market has become too expensive and it makes sense to delever or perhaps exit. And also to, to be fair, everyone thought Bitcoin was a hedge against markets.

It's not, it's ended up being much more correlated to the markets than anyone had anticipated. And the, the Bitcoin maximalists or whatever the term is would claim that, Oh, this is the perfect hedge against, against other assets. Well, actually, no, it's pretty tightly correlated. If the market, if the market pukes tomorrow, there's, you know, 70, 80, 90% chance of Bitcoin goes down. So I think your, your argument is buyer beware because this is a levered bet that's levered to a market

that's already bubble-ish. This is like the pop here could be really, really loud. And Michael did say that you have to be able to survive this volatility. This volatility is massive. The one thing he said that I really liked was he said, you know, fire is dangerous, but if you put fire in a car, it can move the car. I thought that was very sexy the way he said that.

It was very sexy. Look, he's really, he's an amazing salesman. He has great analogies, but at one moment he compares, he compares it to real estate and he says, this is like buying real estate in Manhattan. And the next moment he's comparing it to commodities. And the next moment he's comparing it to real estate and he says this is like buying real estate in Manhattan and the next moment he's comparing it to commodities and the next moment he's comparing it to Henry Ford and the fire that fueled the car. These are all very different arguments that he's picking and choosing.

I think you're a little jelly. I think you're a little jelly. Okay, what I can guarantee the comments are going to say Ed is jealous of him for sure. I will meet you in the comment section. We'll see what people say. Yeah, we'll meet in the comments section. And I can tell you what the comments will say based on who owns Bitcoin and who doesn't.

Exactly. Are we just going to be 50-50? We'll be right back after the break with a look at an activist play at Lyft. If you're enjoying the show so far and you haven't subscribed, be sure to give Proffesure Market a follow wherever you get your podcasts. Support for the show comes from the Fundrise Flagship Fund. Real estate investing is boring.

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Next on my to-do list, pick up dress for Friday's fundraiser. All right, okay, all right. Where are my keys? Oh, in my pocket. Let's go. First, pick up dress, then prepare for that big presentation. Walk dog, three, four. Exhale, one, two, three, four. Who knew a driver's seat could give such a good massage? Wow, this is so nice. Oops, that was my exit. Oh well, that's fine. I've got time. After the meeting, I gotta remember to schedule flights for our girls' trip, but that's for later. Sun on my skin, wind in my hair, I feel good.

Turn the music up. Your all new Nissan Murano is more than just a tool to get you where you're going. It's a refuge from life's hustle and bustle. It's a place to relax, to reset, in the spaces between items on your to-do lists. Oh wait, I got a message. Could you pick up wine for dinner tonight? Yep, I'm on it. I mean, that's totally fine by me.

Play Celebrity Memoir Book Club. I'm Claire Parker. And I'm Ashley Hamilton. And this is Celebrity Memoir Book Club. Support for this podcast comes from Vanta. Trust isn't just earned, it's demanded. Whether you're a startup founder navigating your first audit or a seasoned security professional scaling your GRC program,

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and they're also calling for the removal of Lyft's dual-class share structure, and they've proposed new candidates for the board. The stock rose more than 2% on that news, but it is still down more than a third over the past year. I would first like to point out, Scott, which is what an unserious activist play this is, because they're asking to reorganize the shareholder structure and get rid of the dual-class shares. Dual-class shares exist so that this doesn't happen. They exist so that founders can protect themselves from these activists coming in and trying to change the company.

So I don't think this is going to go through. I don't think they're going to get what they want here. Maybe have a different view, but it does raise an important question, which is what can Lyft do to revive itself? It is performing very poorly. It's down around 85% since and when public and you were once an activist investor. And from my understanding, you also know, uh, the CEO of Lyft as well. You're friendly with him. an activist investor, and from my understanding, you also know the CEO of Lyft as well,

you're friendly with him. So what is your reaction to this activist play? And perhaps if you were the activist yourself, how would you approach this company strategically? So your first point, Siraywin, it's almost comical that they've called for them to declassify their share structure. Good luck with that.

Now, I think what they'd wanna do is show up and say, we have a huge stake here and we want to help you. The thing about activism that I learned is that typically when you go into a board of a company, you find out that you're not as smart as you think, and they're not as dumb as you'd hoped. And I don't do a hostile plays anymore because what I find you want to do is you want to show up with a big stake and say we're here to help we're smart people and

We want to be assets and help you brainstorm and maybe even provide more capital provide introductions brainstorm strategically I find that just more a much more effective way to try and build shareholder value. And activism, and one of the reasons I was drawn to it is a suit of my personality. It attracts a disproportionate number of assholes. Because, and they come out guns blazing. And what they fail to realize is that the people

they're trying to embarrass publicly with their poison pen letters, unless it's really egregious, are humans and will circle the wagons and defend it even if your points are right. So my approach around this stuff evolved to, okay, we're big shareholders. We want to work with you. Our default kind of operating system is to be great shareholders and great partners. But if in a year or two years, you're either stonewalling us or just making stupid decisions, we're going to go gangster on you.

Uh, but we're here to help. We're, we're, we're going to try and get along. I find that's a more effective, what I call a forceful yet dignified approach to this. Now Lyft is an example of a number two that has not been able to establish differentiation and it has been a shitty place because Dara has made some really deaf moves around acquisition of food delivery. He's just done a really good job and they've kind of run away with it. And since the IPO Lyft has lost 85% of its value while Uber shares are up

nearly 80%, a year today Lyft is down 11%, Uber's up 18%. Uber trades at 3.6 times sales and Lyft trades just at 0.9, half its historical average. So this company is struggling. It doesn't have the scale and it doesn't really have a niche to kind of focus on and, and sort of send a brand identity. And the example I would use is a car pulls up and has an Uber light, And then I see a turn off at Uber light and it's a lift light. So, okay.

If there's no differentiation in driver or equipment and that means, okay. And Uber's got scale. That means the only thing Lyft can do is compete on price. And if you're hiring the same driver in the same cars, how do you compete on price? That's just a, that's just a downward spiral. You don't have the scale. So Lyft needs to find a strategy. You know, we're going to have to find a strategy. We're going to have to find a strategy. And if you're hiring the same driver in the same cars, how do you compete on price? That's just a downward spiral. You don't have the scale.

So Lyft needs to find a strategy. What should they do? I would not circle the wagons. I would invite these guys in. I don't know how much of the company they bought, but I find the best thing to do on an incumbent board is to say, the best way to shut up an activist is just to put them on your board.

Just say, come on in, the water's fine. And put them on your board. If they've purchased a lot of shares and then they have to shut up an activist is just to put them on your board, just say, come on in the water is fine. And put them on your board if they've purchased a lot of shares and then they have to shut up because of reg D or, you know, insider disclosure rules, see if they have good ideas, listen to them and, and get them kind of on your side, if you will. So that's how it, how it handled the activists. The tougher problem is what the fuck does Lyft do? And my view is they have really two choices here.

The first is to pursue a sale. And I could see a big automobile company thinking, all right, we wanna go vertical and we wanna have an offering. That we're Tata Motors, we wanna have Range Rovers and Jaguars everywhere, or we feel like we're going to take our production cars that aren't selling.

Maybe that'd be bad for the brand. I'd have to think about it, but we want to go vertical and have, you know, have, be in ride hailing. The other thing, I mean, they either got to do a sale or they've got to find a niche. So for example, I love Wheelie. That's a ride hailing service here in London. And it's basically there's Uber, Uber black, and then there's Uber lux and wheelie is Uber super lux.

Beautiful brand new S classes, suited driver, super clean. Other cars look brand new. It's just a different level. And they've gone after that niche. And I'm sure they charge more and it's worth it. And it's aspirational and I hardly ever use Uber in London. Now I use, I use Wheelie and I thought, okay, what does Lyft offer? And Lyft does have a luxury offering that looks better than Uber.

And that might not be the niche, but Lyft has to find a niche and be known as the ride hailing company that has a certain and be known as the ride hailing company that has a certain type of car or the ride hailing company that specializes in, you know, I don't know, helping people with special needs or I don't know what it is. So the dog friendly ride hailing, they're going to have to find a niche and own it and build out from there. Cause all they are now is the subscale number two and every day they are losing share.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, Lyft did $6 billion in revenue, a little less last year. Uber did 44 billion. They had almost 800 million in free cashflow. Uber had almost 7 billion. This is a true David and Goliath situation that has only been getting worse. But to your point, you know, Lyft trading at 0.9 times sales, its market cap is lower than

its revenue. It's around $5 billion in market cap. It used to be around $25 billion in market cap. It certainly feels cheap from an acquisition perspective. You know, you make the point that they should be listening to offers. I just wonder if people are, or companies are making offers, and if there are any companies you think would be best suited to make an offer to Lyft. Because it certainly looks like a really, really good acquisition target right now. The team put together some ideas, merge with DoorDash. That wouldn't be a merger. They, that would be a sale because DoorDash has an $80 billion market cap.

So they would buy them DoorDash. The stock is up 36%. So they kind of have cheap stock to go shopping with and they're, they're trading at eight times sales. So I don't know if it'd be a creative because I don't know how profitable or unprofitable lift is a be because I don't know how profitable or unprofitable Lyft is. Be acquired by Amazon, be acquired by Google or Waymo. I'm not sure.

I would bet quite frankly, a lot of these potential acquirers, I don't doubt there's some people who think, we'll buy Lyft, but call us when it gets down to 2 billion. Yeah, you know, it's because this company just has, it just continues to 2 billion. Because this company just has, it just continues to go down. And I think the only way they're gonna prompt someone into buying is it gets so damn cheap

or the banker calls and says, we do have a credible offer, speak now or forever hold your peace. Because when a company is just consistently going down, there's no penalty to waiting, because you believe, okay, and this isn't cheap. What's the market cap about 5 billion? So they would claim we need a premium.

So you gotta come up with seven or $8 billion here. And if you're, let's say, say you're GM, right? And you think, oh, I'm gonna get into this. Market cap of 47 billion. Do you really want to take like a 15% dilution to acquire a money losing number two ride-hailing company? I mean, that's the kind of thing that- They are now profitable now, but only just, yeah.

So breakeven. So Ford, Ford has a 39 billion. I mean, those guys can't do it. I used to think that was probably a good idea. I don't think they can do it. It would have to be, I know what's going on here. They have a banker. They've reached out to all of these people. They're not dumb.

They know how challenging this is for them. They're ready. They've got their best dress on and they're trying and they wanna get someone to take them home from the dance or put a ring on it. And my guess is everyone's like, why wouldn't we wait another six months when it goes down another 15%? So he has to find a strategy. He has to find some type of growth. Even if it's a smaller acquisition of a hundred million to a billion, to say we have something that differentiates us or gives us a pulse here. We'll be right back after the break with a look at Gen Z unemployment. If you're enjoying the show so far, hit follow and leave us a review on Proficy Markets. Hey, I'm Josh Muccio, host of The Pitch, a Vox Media podcast where startup founders

pitch real ideas to real investors. I'm an entrepreneur myself. I know and love entrepreneurs. So I know a good pitch and a good product, especially if it'll make an entrepreneur's life easier. So let me tell you about a good product called Mercury, the banking service that can simplify your business finances. I've been a Mercury customer since 2022. From the beginning, it was just so clearly built for startups. Like there's all these different features in there, but also they don't overcomplicate it. Here's your balance. Here are your recent transactions. Here you can pay someone,

or you can receive money. These days, I use Mercury for everything, like managing contractors, bill pay, expense tracking, creating credit cards for my employees. It's all in Mercury. Mercury, banking that does more. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column NA, and Evolve Bank and Trust, members FDIC. Today, explained here with Eric Levitt, senior correspondent at Vox.com, to talk about the 2024 election. That can't be right. Eric, I thought we were done with that.com, to talk about the 2024 election.

That can't be right. Eric, I thought we were done with that. I feel like I'm Pacino in three. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Why are we talking about the 2024 election again? The reason why we're still looking back is that it takes a while after an election to get all of the most high quality data on what exactly happened. So the full picture is starting to just come into view now.

And you wrote a piece about the full picture for Vox recently, and it did bonkers business on the internet. What did it say? What struck a chord? Yeah, so this was my interview with David Shore of Blue Rose Research. He's one of the biggest sort of democratic data gurus in the party. And basically, the big picture headline takeaways are... On today, explained.

You'll have to go listen to them there. Find the show wherever you listen to shows, bro. If you've been online this week, you've probably seen an unending flood of those beautiful animated Studio Ghibli style images of everything from happy families being together to beloved cartoon characters committing unspeakable acts of violence against each other. That, my friends, is the AI world we live in, and it's not going to get less complicated. That is what we are talking about this week on The Vergecast, along with the future of robot vacuums, what's happening with car tariffs,

and everything else going on in the AI world. All that on The Vergecast, wherever you get podcasts. We're back with Profit Tree Markets. Recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reveals a concerning trend for college graduates. Securing a job is becoming increasingly difficult. Since September 2022, the unemployment rate for college grads has surged by 30%, outpacing the overall unemployment rate increase of 18% for all other workers. Not only are more graduates struggling to find work, but hiring rates for jobs requiring a college degree have also slowed more than those for other

roles. So, Scott, what do you make of this shift and what advice would you give to college graduates who are trying to navigate this? To a certain extent, what came out of COVID was the jobs that had a little bit more purchase were either, you know, you understand AI or you slipstream into the right parts of the growth economy or you're a plumber. You know, I think vocational jobs are actually doing quite well, right? You can't, AI can't give you a massage or install energy-efficient HVAC heaters.

Supply is outpacing demand for computer scientists. Jobs posted for software development roles are down 30% from pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, the number of students majoring in computer science has jumped 40% in the past five years. There was this, whenever something becomes conventional wisdom, it's no longer wisdom. And the conventional wisdom is just go into computer science and you're going to be fine. It does appear that this is kind of AI is sort of claiming its first victims and it's sort of information age workers that are expensive, but not that experienced yet. And the macro data kind of glosses over these struggles.

US job openings remain historically strong, 7.7 million open roles as of January, 2025, led by education and health services, business and trade. And overall unemployment is at 4.1%. Spain's unemployment rate is 11, Canada's nearly seven. So our unemployment is still at historic lows. But the reason this gets a lot of attention is that we've spent 20 or 30 years just reporting on,

literally for the last 20 or 30 years almost, except for some moments around recession, but in non-recessionary times which we're in right now, if you got a college degree, you got a job. You might have to not take the job you wanted. You might have to take a job for less, but you got a job. Now there are generally, it appears to be people who are having real trouble finding anything.

And so that makes the news. But if you pull back the lens, the job market is still pretty strong. I think there's pockets. I wouldn't wanna be coming out of school right now looking to go into work and consulting. I gotta think consultants are thinking, do we really need new people

when we can make every person here 10, 20, 40% more productive in the next three years using AI? So I think a lot of the traditional roles that undergrads from good institutions or even MBAs thought they could just slipstream into are those are the jobs that are being hurt the most. But I wouldn't be surprised if they reconfigure, reestablish different curriculum tools and these kids are fine.

Or put another way, I still think it's a good idea to go to college. What I hope, you know, and this is my rant about college is that they start putting schools on the hook for some of that bad student debt such that they don't aren't as promiscuous and intoxicated around issuing debt to a kid who's going to get a philosophy degree and not be able to find work. So you know, the kid you really feel for is the kid

who borrowed $100,000 to get through school and gets out. I mean, some of the majors of my school at NYU are just so fucking ridiculous. You know, gender studies and the, the, you know, the important discussion of the politics of styrofoam. It's just, they get to make up their own majors. And I'm like, who would hire you at that? Anyway, so cheap credit I think is really hurt and

the promiscuity of issuing debt to some of these kids, I think is setting them up, them up for failure, but I, I still think these kids are going to be much better off than non-college educated kids. I think we should be clear on the scale of the problem. So, I mean, yes, the unemployment rate has

increased by 30% from previous number, but the actual number among college-educated people is still not that high. It's 2.6%. So like this, you know, college grads are fine right now. But I think what is more important is the trend, and the trend is that jobs that generally require a college degree are compared to other jobs in decline. So these are jobs like sales managers and administrators and analysts and programmers, the jobs that require, generally speaking,

some level of skill and knowledge and experience and an understanding of how to organize and manage other people. Those are the jobs in decline. Why is that happening? I think you said it, it's technology. I mean, there's AI, there's generative AI, but even just the more primitive technologies like CRM management and data analytics platforms. The reality is that today, most cognitive tasks

that we used to delegate to college-educated kids can now be delegated to a computer. And that does leave young people with a very important question, which I would like to pose to you, which is what should we try to be good at? I mean, you brought up computer science. Exactly right. Ten years ago, everyone was telling us computers are taking over, so you need to understand how to program a computer. Half of us became coders. And what do you know, coding jobs are now down 30%

since before the pandemic. I mean, it's almost as if the computer science degree has turned into that gender studies philosophy degree you just made the comparison. It's like people are going out there, they learned how to become a software engineer, and they're realizing, oh wait, AI can do the job for me. So we're left with that question once again. What are we supposed to be good at?

What are the kinds of skills that we should be learning? What should we be focusing on if we want to be productive, and we want to get rich and we want to provide real economic value in this country? And so I would pose that question to you, Scott, what would be your advice in 2025? It's a really thoughtful question. I'm not sure I have a silver bullet here.

What I would say is I would divide it or segment it into two cohorts. And that is 10 to maybe 20%, although half of kids think they know what they want to do, but they're just reading headlines. A minority, but a significant group of kids are like, I am passionate about computer science, or I'm just really good at it. I understand it. I'm good at it. I pick up on it. I get A's in this course. I'm into it. Doesn't matter what the trends are, you go into that.

Because if you're great at computer science, you're gonna get a job. If you're just a standout programmer, even if they're firing computer systems engineers, if you're great at it, you'll figure out a way to stand out and find work. If you think, oh, I'm just fantastic at biology, boom, I could be great at this, go into it

and ignore what the trends are because you don't know where the world is gonna go. Now for the rest who are thinking, I just wanna be an economic animal, I think sort of the universal or the most athletic degrees are, take a decent amount of, if you can, of, I think you really benefit from finance and economics courses.

I think you absolutely benefit from the sciences courses because if you have an understanding, a preliminary understanding of chemistry or biology, you kind of understand a little bit of everything that is the building blocks of life. Business mimics biology. I mean, even the little kind of courses I took on astronomy or astrophysics, you start to go, wow, that you see that in everything. Um, also I wish I had taken more English.

Uh, communication is the gangster skill that I think will endure. So your ability to write well, if you can develop that skill, you can more easily develop a skill around all communications mediums. I think that, you know, one of the reasons I write so much is I want to be a great speaker. I want to be great on podcasts. And I think it all starts with your ability to write well.

So I would wish I'd taken more English, more biology, an understanding of history, I think is really important. Uh, an understanding of history, I think is really important. And also try and be in this isn't a class, try and be as social as possible. Because a, it's an unbelievable opportunity to develop friendships and relationships. And at Google, when they put out a job opening, they get 200 CVs in minutes and they shut it down. And then they invite in 20 people. And 70% of the time, the person who gets the job

is someone who has a friend at the firm that is advocating for them. And so what is the easiest way or the likely, the way you're gonna improve your odds the most of having getting a job is having a lot of friends. How did you get a job, Ed? You had a best friend whose mom knew me and they love you. They, literally Joanna Coles called me and said,

you'd be stupid not to hire this kid. That's what she said. She'd be like, she, I think her words were, I am not getting off this phone until you commit, until you promise. I really owe my life to Johanna Coles. That you are hiring my son's friend, Ed Elson. I'm like, and I said, well, what does he want to do?

She's like, it doesn't matter, you fool. And what a legend. Yeah, but it works, right? So I get the sense, you know, I mean, you've got a lot of flaws, but I get the sense. I get the sense you have really good relationships. You take your friendships seriously. And that's how you got this job, is you got someone in your life who just really cares for you and basically told his mom, help Ed get a job.

Or Ed said he knows this guy or likes this guy, can you call him? I heard you know him. You want to get a job, you got to be good, learn the basics. I like the sciences, I like communication and storytelling, but the way you get a great job and the way you change the trajectory of your professional career is relationships. And while you're in college, it is a great opportunity to establish a lot of really like great deep meaningful relationships.

It's so interesting because a lot of the skills that you mentioned there are kind of the skills that you're supposed to be accumulating from a liberal arts education. 100%. And this is the, I mean, liberal arts degrees have been in decline and people have been saying, what's the point of these liberal arts degrees?

But it is, it does, it's starting to feel that now that we've almost overindexed so hard on the hard sciences and on the computer sciences, that suddenly the economy is seeming to kind of reshift and we're starting to see more emphasis on the soft skills, the ability to communicate, to tell a story, to, you know, have a strong sense of history. I mean, maybe I'm being biased because I got a liberal arts education. But there was this interesting quote by this guy, Amjad Massad, who was the CEO of Replet, which is this big software company. And he was talking about this new trend of vibe coding.

And this is this trend that is becoming very big in Silicon Valley, where engineers are basically just prompting AI to build the code for them. And you now have very reputable, even computer science professors who are teaching people how to vibe code, because they recognize this might be the future of coding. You don't need to have a really perfect understanding of computer science. You can basically use AI to just push the ball down the line. And he was making the case for Vibe coding,

this guy, Amjad Masad. And he even said that he doesn't think people should be learning to code anymore. In the upcase, like, you know, what Dario just said recently, all code will be AI- up case like you know what Dario just said recently all code will be AI generated you know I assume this optimization path we're on where agents are going to get better and better and better you know the answer would be different the answer would be no it would be a waste of time to to learn learn how to code. I would say learn how to think learn

how to break down problems right learn how to how to communicate clearly, you know, with, you know, as you would with humans, but also with machines. That to me is like a glowing endorsement of, of liberal arts. Um, but I'm curious to get your take. The best programmers understand logic and they're almost like internal construction managers. They know they're great project managers. And also someone's going to have to give these LLM prompts.

So, and build the system. So there's still going to be a need for them. It's just like anything else that, that, that gets digitized. When technology comes into a sector, it usually takes the top 10% and they earn three times as much in the bottom 90 make lesser or aren't there. And that I think that's happening in that field. The correlate or the resonance here is day after tomorrow, I'm headed to the US with my oldest son for a college tour.

And we've been thinking about, you know, there's an opportunity set of 100 colleges and we're going to seven of them in five days. And we've been thinking a lot about it. And I said, all right, what are your criteria? And he's like, you know, I want a place with a great biology department. That's what he came up with because he's really interested in biology

and he has some real aptitude for it. And he said, what are your criteria? I'm like, I just want, you know, a small number of things. I want you to go somewhere where I think you're just going to have an amazing time because I had an amazing time in college. And if I could give my kids anything, I'm going to, I just want them to have the same amazing time I had. I want you to learn about yourself. I want you to learn about others.

I would love for you to acquire some skills, specifically some skills around storytelling communication, but more than anything, more than anything, what I would hope for you is that you experience, enjoy, endure a ton of relationships. I just want you at basketball games and classes with 400 people on campus all day long, tutoring people, getting tutored, hanging out, drinking with friends, playing ultimate frisbee, playing intramural sports.

I just want you bumping off people all day long and creating just a raft of relationships and friendships. That's, that's what I'm looking for. And so we're going to all these kinds of land grant schools that are big public schools with football teams and, and intramurals and fraternities and sororities.

I don't know if we'll do that, but tons of student clubs where they just feel like, quite frankly, like college. And I think a lot of parents feel this way. I think a lot of, if you've looked at the applications trends, this Southern schools are booming. And quite frankly, it's like how collegey and how fun do they sound?

We want our kid to go have fun. Like schools like Wake Forest are booming. Their applications are booming. SMU, Vanderbilt is now more difficult to get into than many Ivy League colleges. Cause a lot of parents and kids have said, I want my kid to have a college experience, full stop. I mean, if I were to summarize your advice there, it's to get as good an understanding as possible

of other people. And yourself. Right. And the only way that you could do that is through meeting other people and establishing relationships with them. And I do think that is actually great advice because it makes you nimble in any situation economically.

I mean, the biggest realization for me coming out of college was I thought these companies that I heard about were these big sort of amorphous conglomerate brands that have all these rules and definitions for, you know, this is what, these are the skills that you must learn and this is the type of person you must be. In fact, it's all just groups of people. And your ability to get hired is, as you say,

a function of whether the person in charge of the hiring decision likes you and wants to work with you. And that was honestly a really eye-opening experience for me is realizing that life and work is literally just interacting with people. So if you can be really good at that, then I think you'll be fine. That's the key. It's like anything else.

It's, it's, you gotta be good. Being intelligent, being hardworking, that's table stakes in this economy. The differentiator is the depth and number of relationships you have. Let's take a look at the week ahead. We'll see the unemployment rate for March and US reciprocal tariffs are set to go into effect Tuesday on what Trump is calling Liberation Day. Scott, any predictions for me? It's not so much as a prediction, but an observation. An observation, we have this clown car called the cabinet right now.

And I just think this is going to start to hit the economy. Strategy is two questions or one key question. What can we do that's really hard? And the biggest mistake people make in strategy is that they think they're punching a speed bag and people aren't going to punch. And every nation we have levied tariffs against, they have levied reciprocal tariffs, they have punched back. And some are getting really smart. You in Canada, I love this, have decided to pick products

where they're gonna put especially onerous disproportionate tariffs on products that originate from red states. And the whole world is sort of deciding now, including our allies, that they have this common enemy called this clown fucking car called the United States. And there's just no way that that doesn't begin to hit our economy.

So I, and it's dangerous to make predictions about the economy. I just don't see there's any way that this doesn't impact us in the back half of the year. I don't, I think he has dug himself too deep. And if even, even if he were to say tariffs drop, just kidding. Nations are reconfiguring their supply chain and it's going to start to show up in Q3 and Q4 numbers in some. I'll just say, I think we're headed for recession in back half of the year. This episode was produced by clan M Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.

Our associate producer is Alison Weiss, Mia Silverio is our research lead. Isabella Kintzel is our research associate. Drew Burrows is our technical director and Catherine Dillon is our executive producer. Thank you for listening to ProfG Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Join us for a fresh take on Markets on Thursday. In kind reunion As the world turns And the blood flies In love