The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Starting Businesses With Friends, Why We’re So Divided, and the Danger of Keeping Score in Relationships

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Scott Galloway weighs the risks and rewards of building businesses with friends, explains how technology and anxiety are fueling division, and opens up about the personal experiences that taught him why generosity is the key to healthier relationships. Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to [e-mail], or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you ever look back on something you posted on the internet and think, well, that was cringe? Yeah, I mean, I look back at that stuff and I'm just like, it's so emblematic of the era. And it's also just like, why did I think this would age well, like in the slightest? This week, unexplain it to me from Vox. What to do with your online regret? New episodes on Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to office hours of Provjee. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech entrepreneurship,

and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to Office Hours of Propton Media.com. Again, that's Office Hours of Propton Media.com. Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. First question. Our first question comes from silly emu 8312 on Reddit. They say, everyone always says, don't start a business with family and friends. What's your realistic opinion on this?

For context, I own some multi-family real estate with one of my oldest friends, and it's gone smoothly for over four years. Yeah, they say don't start businesses with the friends. I have always started businesses with friends. Although some of the businesses I've started, I've ended up becoming friends with the senior people in the company. But I have started businesses with friends. I started my first business with a good friend from business school. I started my business profit with my friendly Lotus. So I violated that rule. And so I think it's situational. I think family is a different follow-out. I'm not sure I'd ever want to work with my wife or my family because if things don't go well, it kind of ruins Thanksgiving. That's a lot of eggs in one basket. I know Michael and Cass Lazaro started coming to go, Buddy Media, and I'm like, a married couple who works together? Jesus Christ, that's, God, I can't imagine that. But I think starting a business with friends, I err on the side of, I think it's a good idea because one of the keys to partnerships is being generous. At some point, you're going to add more value to the business than your partner, and at some point, they're going

to add more value than you. The problem is you tend to inflate your own contribution and diminution theirs. And if you aren't generous with that person, you start complaining or bitching that you should be getting more and it creates tension. And you want to see a thriving small business go down the tubes really fast. It's when the partners start fighting. And sometimes people get therapists or coaches to help them negotiate stuff, which I think is a good idea. So I have a bias towards starting a business with a friend because you're naturally going to be, I think, a little bit more generous with each other. It makes the breakup part of because there's more emotion involved. But also at the outset, a general best practice is to outline what happens if this doesn't work

with us. Can one person buy the other out? Like kind of come up with that. the framework for, well, what happens if this isn't working? If one person wants to leave, if one person isn't happy with the other one, like, what are we going to have a board of advisors to help us make decisions or a board of directors? But sort of say, what do we do, maybe up front, if things get dicey or spicy with us? I don't think that's a bad idea. Having said that, I never did that. I just always kind of let the chips fall where they might. The same bias I have towards working with friends is working, is not working with family. And granted, I've never done that. Now, the reason most people work with family is because they inherited an amazing business.

I don't think Arthur Solsberger, the CEO of the New York Times, or the publisher wanted to work with family, but the thing is, he wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the fucking New York Times because he wasn't that talented a business person had he not been the nephew or the son or whatever it is. So occasionally, a family business oftentimes just gets you to letter L economically faster than working your ass off and going through ABCD, et cetera. So sometimes second generation family is involved with their business because it's, quite frankly, just a much better opportunity. And it's unfortunately, I think really can be really stressful for some of the people. I was thinking it's a good idea if you're going to go into the family business to go to work for an outside corporation and prove yourself there. And you have more respect when you go into the family business and you have better perspective, if you will, and also better life experience. I would just be worried to be in a business with my sister or I wouldn't have been a business with my dad. He was unemployed by the time he was 55 and my mom was a secretary, so I can't really relate to it. But I would just hate to have a bad day at work and not be getting along with my

partners and then have to go home and, like, eat with them or, like, see them at Thanksgiving. I think that would be especially tough. But again, it's all situational. Set up an agreement or general parameters around what happens if it's not working, maybe get a coach to help you work out problems if they pop up, try and be really generous with one another. I have a bias against working with family and a bias towards working with friends. But again, it's all situational. Very much appreciate the question. Question number two. Question number two comes from Wadi on Reddit. they say, we're becoming increasingly polarized as a society, especially when it comes to social and political matters. As a communicator in some of the largest stages in the world, both physical and digital,

what is the most important thing you think regular people can do to try to facilitate better conversations on these and other topics? We're going to need a bigger boat. So a lot of our polarization is a function. It's multidimensional, one, gerrymandering. They must love their job so much that they're willing to pass all these Byzantine laws, the gerrymandar every district. So if you look at all the congressional districts, they've been, they're like a fucking jigsaw puzzle to what we end up with is an electoral system with the election, isn't the general election, it's the primary. And in every primary, the people that turn out on the left are unions and crazy fucking hippies from the 60s and the people that turn out on the right are MAGA or people who believe that, you know, vaccines are terrible and that, you know, everyone should be able to carry an error 15 to their third grade class. So we just keep sending more crazier and crazier extremists to Washington who don't represent the three middle quintuctions. which is, you know, 60% of America. So we're divided politically. More than anything, though, I don't think it was divided personally as the people who are trying to divide us, specifically technology that sees a profit incentive and polarizing us. Why? Because as soon as we figure out your politics, send you far left, far right, and then make you more sensitive and inspired and tickle

your sensors when, you know, AOC destroys Ted Cruz. But if you're someone else, Ted Cruz destroys AOC, creates more comments, keeps you engaged, enragedment equals engagement, which equals more Nissan ads, which equals more shareholder values. So these algorithms have a vested interest in dividing us and elevating content. It's divisive because it gets the most engagement. And also, I think generally speaking, people are anxious, they feel more economically anxious and more likely to be angry at one another. So we're divided politically, we're divided technologically online, where we're spending more and more time in an environment that divides us. If you go out in the real world, this is the shame about AI. If AI were crawling the real world, it'd be a much better place because people in general are

lovely. I live, or did live in Delray Beach, which was kind of a purple district, and I had a lot of friends that were Republicans. And well, isn't that big of me? Is that big? Smell me. I have friends who are repos. What a, what a progressive, like new age man. Anyway, you got to separate the person of the politics, in my view. And they're generally, most people find are generally good people, just getting up, love their kids, want to make a good living and like their country. But the problem is online is convinced us that our neighbor is the problem. And also, we've taken on ideology's identity. What do I mean by that? This is actually from George Connallin, and that is the danger of taking on a religion or political philosophy as your ideology is it becomes your identity. Or when you let it become your identity and you start judging other people on it, it's because you personally feel affronted or offended when someone questions your ideology. Because it's not questioning your ideology. It's not saying, oh, no, you are wrong about this. It's saying, you're wrong. So I just think it's dangerous to attach your political ideology to yourself as an identity. So I quote unquote, identify as a center-left. I'm a right of center-left Democrat,

but it's not my identity. And I don't want it to be. And I don't want to, I'm trying really hard not to immediately kind of check up and think someone's an idiot because they start with their Republican talking points. And I have found it has unlocked a lot of relationships for me. It just have an easier time, and I don't want to be that judgmental. So we're divided technologically. We're divided electorally. And we're also, I think, anxious and looking for people to blame, especially young people who get radicalized online and then are served up content that says, you're not to blame.

Immigrants who are to blame for your economic problems and winter blame for your romantic problems. So I think there's a lot of factors of play dividing us some solutions. One, turn down the heat. Personally, just be trying to show more grace. Don't engage in online. I don't respond to comments anymore. I just don't. I don't get in people's face. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm a fucking old man now. I can show a little bit more grace and just be occasionally takes them to hit. If someone says something stupid or mean about me, I just let it go. It's okay. I'm going to be fine. Turn down the heat. When you see something you like or someone says something you like, try and show more grace, put more good vibes out there, compliment people, be nice to them. Vote for moderates. Just sort of take down the heat. Vote for antitrust to break up big tech. Also, mandatory national service, I think, would go a long way. I think that we need to raise a generation. of young people that love America more than they love their Republican or Democratic Party

and see that people from different ethnic income, sexual orientation, backgrounds, different communities are wonderful and that they share more in common than their differences and that they find they have an easier time identifying with the flag than identifying with the political party. Israel and Singapore, lowest levels of young adult depression, and they both have national service. Singapore, the most religiously diverse nation in the world. And the leader there appreciately saw the opportunity or the danger of ethnic violence. So we said everyone's got to serve in the army together and see what wonderful people live here in Singapore, regardless of their ethnicity or the religion. Thanks so much for the question. We'll be right back after a quick

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Aria Ten-10 asks, hello. I've heard you mentioned keeping scorecards and relationships, friendships. My question is how and why you decided to stop keeping scorecards and what helped change your mindset. Especially in modern times, we tend to default to approaching relationships with a more transactional mindset. And I really want to break out of this. So curious to hear more about your journey. Thanks for the question, yeah. This was specific or situational or had to do with one relationship.

And that is the relationship with my father. When I was eight years old, my mom came home. My mom just disappeared for a couple weeks. And my dad didn't tell me why. It was the 70s. You know, I remember being on the couch watching the Partridge family. It's like, my mom's going out for two weeks and I just started sobbing on control. And my dad's like, what's wrong?

I'm like, where's mom? Where's mom? I'm like, it's the first time I ever saw my dad, and my dad, I remember it's the first time I ever saw my dad, like, fear in his eyes. Like, he didn't know what to do and had a handle an eight-year-old like sobbing on controlably on his couch. I think that's when he decided that my mom should come get me. And a few days later, my mom showed up and said, pack your stuff, we're leaving.

This wasn't exactly Bray Browne, Astaire Perel, like child care, and said, you know, we've got to be out of here in 15 minutes. And I'm like, 15 minutes. I can't pack my, it's just like, we need to get out of here. Your dad's going to be home soon. I don't know if she was kidnapping me or just didn't want to see my dad. I don't know what the fuck. What's going on? Anyways, eight years old.

And as is often the case, well, because my mom was saying care of me, I had had a tendency to sanctify her and demonize my dad. And my dad didn't make our lives very nice. He was so extraordinarily cheap that we struggled economically. And that is as soon as my parents split, my dad went on to be upper middle class. And my mom and I immediately dove to the lower middle class, which was hard. And it wasn't it was hard on me. Kids don't really need a lot of money. I was able, you know, 35 cents an Abba Zabababar and a Schwinn bike, and you kind of got everything

you need. We didn't have streaming media or iPhones. But it was very hard on my mom. And when you're the only child, especially I think the only boy, that's probably only girls. You just absorbed their anxiety. I remember my mom like coming home. And my mom was like on the floor sobbing because the vacuum cleaner broke. And I'm like, well, we can get a fix.

And she's like, we don't have the money to get it fixed. And it was like, you're fucking nine years old. And you're like, okay, what can I do to get a paper route to get the vacuum fix? So that economic anxiety that was a direct result of my dad being such a bastard, quite frankly, because he could have helped us, made me resent him. And it stuck with me. And as I got older, again, in college, I had no money, constantly stressed, constantly broke. dad could have helped me and the bottom line is he didn't. And so I was resented him for that.

And now having said that, my dad was a kick in the ass. My dad was a ton of fun, funny, nice, smart. He did love me. He would make an effort. He'd be in town and he would take me to movies and stuff. So he did try. And when my mom passed away, I kind of, I think my resentment towards him grew and I would go months and I think one time a year without speaking to him. And he didn't really know what was going on, but didn't have the presence to try and figure it out. And then I just sort of decided that I wanted to have my father my life and that I decided to focus on the good things. And rather than having a scorecard and thinking, okay, he did X amount, he gave me X amount of love. I'm only going to give him X amount of love. I said, well, what kind of son do I want to be? And the reality is I wanted to be a loving, generous son. And I was going to hold myself to that

standard and just put away the scorecard. And that was such an enormous unlock for me because I think about what kind of boss do I want to be. If I pay someone more than they're earning, I don't, I used to think younger, that pisses me off. They worked here for a year. I paid them a shit ton of money. and they added no fucking value. I hate that person. Now it's like if you are a boss and people get more out of working for you than maybe you get out of them or you pay them above market, that's a win. That's a victory. If you're a better spouse to your, if it is really hard for your spouse to figure out ways to be as good to you as you are to them, that's a win. That's the whole fucking shooting match. That's what it means to have kids. I hope at some point my kids level up what I've done for them. It's going to take a while.

I've invested a lot of my kids. I always tell them your negative surplus value. So approaching relationships from the mindset of always wanting to have surplus value and say, okay, what kind of boyfriend do I want to be? What kind of son do I want to be? What kind of employer do I want to be? What kind of investor do I want. I used to get mad at CEOs of companies I invested and lost money. Now I'm like, no, I want to be a magnanimous, generous, supportive person. I've been on the board of a lot of companies I'm investing in where they fucked up and lost all my money and I try to be now. It's no problem. You're going to get back up. This is great. I went into the size wide open. Well done. Let me help you raise money for your next thing. That's the kind of I want to be.

and I wasn't always that way. So decide what kind of person in every relationship, what kind of role do you want to play, and then hold yourself to that standard and put away the scorecard. Because the scorecard is incorrect, it's not accurate, and you'll always be unhappy. Now having said that, don't be a dormant.

I shed relationships all the time. On a regular basis, I decide I'm just not getting a lot out of this relationship, and I do a slow fade. Is that wrong? Well, that's what I do. But just decide what kind of person you want to be in the relationship and hold yourself to that standard and just don't measure.

Put the measuring stick in the, in the scorecard away. You're just going to be much happier. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to Office Hours of Proptoimedia.com. That's Office Hours of Proptoimedia.com. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit. I've got a subreddit. I've got a subreddit. I like that. And we just might feature it in an upcoming episode. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our associate producer is Laura Denaire. is our social producer. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG

pod from PropG Media.