The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Shein’s Alleged IP Theft, What Qualities Do You Look For When Hiring? and How to Make a Mid-Career Pivot

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Scott speaks about Shein’s design practices, specifically its alleged IP theft. He then discusses the qualities he looks for in hiring/promoting, and wraps up with advice to a listener looking to make a mid-career pivot.  Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Buy "The Algebra of Wealth," out now. Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Welcome to the ProfiteerPod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. Hey, Prof G. Hey, Scott and team. Hey, Scott. Hi, Prof G. Hey, Prof G.

Hey, Prof G. Hi, Professor G. In last week's Office Hours, we answered your questions about Airbnb's role in the housing affordability crisis, microplastics, and raising American kids in the UK. We need some sort of federal legislation or funding that encourages just more housing permits and more construction, because it has become so difficult to build housing in the U.S. that there's just a supply-demand imbalance. So let me get this. I've got plastic in my testicles. I mean, this question wins for the question I know the least about. My thinking is, and the rationalization for moving to the UK was that, what could we give our kids that would be amazing?

And the idea of letting them live in a foreign country for several years and experience a different culture, you know, I wish my parents could have done that for me. Today, we'll answer your questions about Sheen's design practices, qualities to look for when hiring, and how to pivot when you're a mid-career professional. So with that, first question. Hey, Prof G. I am a big fan of yours, writing in from the Mojave Desert. I know you recently defended Sheen because of how its low prices enable young people to buy apparel, and I've definitely ordered from Shein before. I know my sister has many times, and my 21-year-old nanny definitely has. Leaving aside the many environmental concerns of fast

fashion, are you at all concerned about the company's design practices? There's a lot of independent creators that are starting to call out Shein for copycatting its designs, like Cassie Ho at Blogilates and Popflex Active. Its pages are full of trendy pieces that are ripped off from other companies. And I've been a business journalist for over 10 years, and I know that getting justice over IP is notoriously difficult. I think I've covered one case where a fast fashion company was found liable for stealing a trademark textile pattern. And obviously, knockoffs are nothing new. But I'm kind of curious what you think about a $32 billion company

stealing creative ideas and IP from other companies. Is this simply capitalism at work? Do we need an IP reckoning? Does original creation hold no value in today's world? And that's a bummer, if true. Also, when are you coming back to Palm Springs? Let me know and I will show you all the hot spots. Oh, my gosh.

I'm coming now. Palm Springs. I was just there for Stagecoach. I have no interest in country music, but I heard that it's now the cool Coachella. And daddy likes to go where the young hot people go. So I went to Stagecoach for the first time. I stayed at Larry Ellison's summer home, which he has essentially turned into a total hotspot. What is the name of that fucking place? Beautiful hotel. Anyways,

had a great time. I love Palm Springs. If I lived in LA, I would consider getting a home there, but thanks for the great offer. And by the way, it sounds like you have a baby in the background and you have such a lovely voice. Anyways, I don't even know you and I like you. All right. So IP and IP theft or borrowing. So absolutely, what Sheehan is doing is finding other impressive designers that have gotten traction in the retail market and copying them, copycatting them, whatever you want to call it. So now do Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Old Navy, and essentially every other fashion company. And I remember being in board meetings, especially retailers, and they were very careful to say that it was inspired by. And almost every major selling product at a high-end or, you know, not even a high-end, a mid-brand or mid-tier apparel, fashion, furniture company, you're going to find that the

design was inspired by an artisan who at a much higher price point is doing something really incredibly creative. This has been an enormous source of frustration and debate across the artisan community for the last 30 or 40 years. And the reality is, correctly or incorrectly, it is very hard to impose that sort of IP protection around something. And to a certain extent, to a certain extent, I mean, walk down, I live in Soho, and if you walk down Canal, there's just no controlling the knockoffs. I can go 50 feet and get a Chanel bag, a Rolex watch, and an Hermes bag that actually doesn't look—that's actually pretty decent quality, at least from kind of a foot away, a certain amount of IP theft, whether it's people borrowing passwords from Netflix or a certain amount of people ripping off and producing Chanel bags, they're not dumb. They kind of know what's going on. And a certain amount of leakage, if you will, is actually good marketing for them.

Now, having said that, should IP protection be increased? I think you could argue that the final frontier of that or the next frontier is AI. And that is, a lot of people have found that, or lawyers have found that AI or chat GPT was producing articles that had lifted line for line, word for word articles from other major publications without compensating them for that. So am I worried about it? I don't think this is a new problem. I'm not saying it's wrong or right, but it's been going on across all sorts of apparel and fashion and furniture companies. And I realize it might be very frustrating for some artisans, but if you look at the brands that would be most likely to be ripped off and have their design stolen and have fast fashion at their runway shows. And then within 60 minutes, the photographs are sent to a design lab. They come

up with some sort of rendering of it, and then it's in the factory and it's on the shelves within six weeks. And I think that's what Zara is able to do. This is kind of the ecosystem and how it works. Now, at some point, are the designs absolutely so incredibly close that you probably have some sort of case? Yes, but it's very hard to enforce. Birkenstock pulled all of their products off of Amazon because they said that the IP theft was just so extraordinary and they didn't like the way they were treating their brand in terms of pricing and kind of using sort of mob policy techniques to enforce that they couldn't discount their products anywhere else unless the lowest price is on Amazon. In sum, a long-winded way of saying the ecosystem builds in a certain amount of IP theft, and I don't think Sheehan is doing anything that everyone from Pottery Barn and Old Navy and Zara haven't been doing

for decades now. Having said that, I think AI brings on a new set of dangers that we're probably going to have to be more thoughtful around. So is there additional IP protection needed? I don't know is the honest answer. I appreciate the question. Question number two. Hey, Scott. This is Bryant from Salt Lake City. I'm an avid follower and enjoy listening during my commute while walking the dog or doing whatever I'm doing around the house. My question for you is about leadership. I work in law enforcement and my department recently underwent a round of promotional testing for sergeant. My question for you is one, what qualities do you look for in people that wish to promote?

And two, how would you test for those qualities if any such test even exists? Thanks for all that you do. Keep the insightful content and crude jokes flowing. Oh, hey, Brian from Salt Lake City, and thanks for your service and what you do. I have no idea how you would distill leadership qualities into a test unless it's sort of a road thing where you have to have a certain baseline level of knowledge, but I would argue that's not a test is not going to be a great means of figuring out who to promote. I think it might be a baseline. You have to have a certain level of knowledge around key issues, but I don't think you use that as quote-unquote the fulcrum of the decider for who to promote. In terms of wanting

to get promoted, I think there's just a few basics if you see yourself as someone you want to be tapped as a leader and get promoted faster than your peers. One is you have to demonstrate excellence, and that is you just have to be very good at what you do and reflect a real interest and passion for law enforcement. Two, and it sounds real basic, show up. And that is 10 minutes earlier than anybody else, leave 10 minutes later. Be seen and get a reputation as the person that speaks well, that talks well of people behind their back. Listen, try and really promote other people's interests. The key to being successful, I think, is to develop allies along the way. And that is people will find out. I assume that everyone, I think it's just a good assumption

that, a safe assumption that everyone will hear eventually everything you say about them. So it's one thing to provide feedback, constructive feedback to people in a professional situation, but for the most part, you want to talk up your colleagues, you want to be there for them, and you finally want to act like an owner. And it's easy in a private setting or a private company to act like an owner. I can just tell when people are clearly acting like shareholders. The reason why in a private company you give or I've given shares to everybody in the company is you want them thinking about what's best for the business 24 by 7 because it directly motivates them because they see their compensation and well-being and ability to take care of their family directly tied to the well-being of the company. They start acting like owners. So how do you act like an owner? You represent the police force, you represent your specific civic domain, and you make a real effort to know that you're a spokesperson for not only our society, but that local municipality, that department, and you go out of the way to just try and enhance the brand, if you will, or the value of that department and that force. You speak well of people behind

their back. You go out of your way to try and help others. You demonstrate excellence. You're the guy that understands the exact code of the law, understands how to handle difficult situation, studies up on this stuff, takes it very seriously, shows a passion for law enforcement. I think a lot of it comes down to being in the right place in the right time. And also, also, it sounds like you're an ambitious young man, recognize that one of the virtues of getting ahead is patience. A lot of the most successful people in history, I would argue probably all of them at some point, they get passed over. They don't get promoted as quickly as they'd like.

And the only thing I can guarantee you in any organization is injustice. And that occasionally is someone will get promoted over you sooner and faster. But typically the arc of promotions bends towards justice and over the medium and the long-term, good people get their due, if you will. But anyways, I just

want to wrap up by saying, appreciate your service. And the fact you're even asking these questions and thinking about it means you're probably tracking. So anyways, Brian from Salt Lake City, well done. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us. Welcome back, question number three. Hi, Scott. This is Kelly in New York. I know most of your advice is for young people starting out in their careers, but I have a question that's a little bit different. I am a mid-career entertainment professional, meaning I'm an out-of-work TV producer, and frankly, my career is basically over. I worked for 20 years and built up an amazing reputation. I have tons of contacts and experience in my field. But guess what?

Between the strikes, the Hollywood and news contraction, and business moving overseas and TikTok, all my contacts are out of work. And my so-called skills are not necessarily translating to the real world. I'm sure there are many other listeners who have the same predicament, who are listening to your podcast and in the same boat. I'd love to know what your advice is for us not starting out professionals who've already sunk costs into the business.

Thanks. Hi, Kelly, from New York. I think so many people are in your position. You have an industry that went through, first off, the industry has too great an inflow of human capital. And that is so many people want to be in that industry that the industry is able to pay people less than people of that talent. And other industries, because there's someone who will be an associate producer for almost no money. In addition, with every 17-year-old in the nation spending less and less time watching television, cable TV, and going to the movies and spending it all on TikTok, where there's 850 million creators who don't need health insurance or don't ask for it and are willing to make $10,000 or $12,000 a year to create what is probably pretty decent content in addition to their main hustle, there's just huge pressure. So anyways, I'm not telling you anything you don't know or

haven't experienced. What to do? If you have been successful, and it sounds like you have been, I would try and write down the series or the attributes that have made you successful. So if you're incredibly organized and know how to bring together a disparate group of people to create an environment and production and focus on details and logistics and create a mood and a vibe. Okay, Salesforce is probably going to spend a couple hundred million dollars this year on events, on production. You know, anything live requires production talent. If you think about it, entertainment is essentially trying to build a story that captivates people's attention in this medium of film or television. And there's a lot of different, I think, industries where they're trying to capture people's attention across a different medium, whether it's a corporate gathering, whether it's an environment inside of a store, you know, kind of store design or what have you.

So start workshopping. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. comms, video production, content strategy, product management, program management, reach out, can we grab a coffee, and sort of get on it and just get back into the ecosystem, if you will. Also, Kelly, look into whether or not there are, I don't want to call them support groups because that sounds sort of weak, but groups of people to get together to talk about what they're going to do next, people in a similar situation. There was an organization that's probably still around in New York called Second Act. And it was for former finance professionals getting together to talk about their second act. And these were ballers.

My close friend and someone who was on my board, who was one of the heads, I believe, or co-heads of private equity at Citigroup, was part of this group. And it was all these former CEOs and total ballers in the corporate world trying to figure out what to do next. So it either been laid off or quit their job. And it's really helpful to get in a room of people and just talk about stuff and be mutually supportive of each other and bounce ideas off of one another. So see if there's, I'd be shocked if there aren't several groups like that that popped up in both New York and Los Angeles because of the just extraordinary disruption taking place in the industry. But again, it's just so helpful to hear from other people.

One, you recognize that it's happening everywhere. And two, again, it's hard to read the label from inside of the bottle. It's just nice having a group of people to brainstorm with. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehoursofprofitingmedia.com. Again, that's officehoursofprofitingmedia.com. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin.

Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropGee pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our PropGee Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.