The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - The Future of General Motors, How to Be a Good Manager, and Advice to a High School Senior

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Scott discusses GM’s outlook and then gives advice on transitioning into a management role in your company. He wraps up with more advice, to a high school senior gearing up for an exciting new chapter.  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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at netsuite.com slash Vox. Netsuite.com slash Vox. This week on The Gray Area, how are digital devices changing us? We've become more machine-like, and I think the exhibit A for that is how young people, for example, talk about their sex lives in machine-like

terms, performative terms, in ways that actually have shaped their understanding of what an intimate sexual relationship even should be, what it should look like, what it should feel like. Listen to The Grey Area with me, Sean Elling. New episodes every Monday, available everywhere. Welcome back to Office Hours with ProfG. 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, please email a voice recording to officehours at ProfGmedia.com. Again, that's officehours at ProfGmedia.com. So with that, first question. Hi, this is Stu O'Neill, and I am curious as to your thoughts on General Motors. I live in the Detroit area and have witnessed thousands of GM workers being laid off recently, coupled with GM's deeper commitment to entering F1 racing. Shankful timing, in my opinion. They

bet too much on EVs, it seems, and find themselves behind the eight ball. I'm curious as to your thoughts on the company. It seems to have lost its bearings, and maybe even bit of its soul, at least here in Detroit. Thanks. Love everything about the podcast. Steve from Detroit, thanks for the question. OK, so in November, GM announced plans to lay off over 1,000 employees globally,

with most of those job cuts affecting workers in Michigan. I would doubt, I would think as a percentage of their total workforce, that's actually not that, that's not that many. I think you'd rather be a General Motors right now than, I don't know, a media company. According to a GM spokesperson, these layoffs were made to optimize

for speed and excellence. Jesus Christ, can you get over the corporate speed? We're making less money, so we need to fire people. Like at some point, somebody in one of these companies is gonna start actually speaking or actually telling people the truth. This comes after a rough year for US automakers as they deal with slow growth in EV sales and consumer demand

that still lags behind pre-pandemic levels. Ford and Stellantis are among the other major car manufacturers that did major layoffs last year, letting go of 750 and 2,200 Michigan-based employees, respectively. The good news? GM recently overtook Ford as the second largest seller of EVs in the US.

Behind Tesla, last quarter, Ford reported an 8% annual decline in their EV sales while GM reported a 60% increase. GM chose to ease into the EV business slowly, opting to develop standardized battery pack technology before coming out with the new EV models. Because of this, GM can now tap into an economy of scale and use the batteries across many different models

all while being able to bring their manufacturing costs down. GM's cheapest model starts at $35,000 with a $7,500 tax credit while Ford's is 40,000 and does not qualify for any tax credit. So basically, I mean, it just makes sense, right? If you can put out a similar product at a lower price, you're gonna capture share. General Motors stock price is actually up 45%

in the last year, while close competitors, including Ford, Honda, and Nissan are on the road. So look, GM is doing pretty well. In the past year, Ford's down 17%, Honda down 7%, Nissan down 24%. So I would argue General Motors is actually doing pretty well. I just think it's easy to kind of shit on Detroit right now.

And I think these companies, while they leaned in too heavily to EVs trying to follow the leader, not acknowledging they didn't have access to the cheap capital that Tesla has so they couldn't play in traffic, and the fact that hybrids have surprised to the upside while EV has kind of surprised,

I think a little bit to the downside, but I would argue that General Motors is actually holding its own. Thanks for the question. Question number two. Hey Scott, I'm a 28 year old living in Southern California. I've been listening to your podcast for about two years now and your advice has been extremely influential on me.

So thank you. Like I said, I'm 28 years old. My friends and I have found some early success in our careers, all making about $250,000 a year or more, and also enjoying our jobs at the same time, which I think makes us pretty lucky. I listen to your podcast, so I'm pretty bought into the notion that this is a lot of luck, timing, and privilege. I would say coming out of college,

my approach was to listen, learn, assume that others had the answers over me and kind of take those things that they're doing well and try to apply it to my own work style. I'd say now it's a bit of a transitional period where I'm seeing myself move into leadership roles, people are looking to me for answers, and I'm also reading the direction of the team in a lot of instances actually. So my question to you is this, what advice would you give to a 28 year old in this transitional period in a corporate role? How do you strike the balance between humility

and open-mindedness while also being decisive and steady while leading a team? It's a really exciting time in my career. I'm looking forward to the transition next steps and I appreciate you listening. Thanks. Okay, Lyle from California. First, I want you to do the following.

I want you to take pause and realize that at the age of 28, at the age of 28, you're in the 98th, somewhere between the 98th and the 99th percentile of income earning households. My brother, you are killing it. So I hope you take the time as I did not do and have not done until I was in my 40s and 50s to register your blessings and your achievements

and not only feel good about yourself, but realize just how incredibly fortunate you must be to be in that position about how many moons have lined up. Anyways, you're talking about transitioning from being an employee to being a manager or a leader. And the mistake I made as a young man when I was your age, I thought, okay, I'm smart and I'm a nice person, which means I'll be a good manager.

That is not true at all. That's like saying I'm smart and I'm a good person, which would make me a good nuclear submariner. I mean, this is management is its own skill that requires its own focus, attention and practice. Generally speaking, I find the best managers of the following, they demonstrate excellence. On a regular basis, they're willing to roll up their sleeves and do something within that group and they're the best at it.

I just think people want to follow excellence and also you hold people accountable. Let's work on your objectives for the year or what do you think? I asked my employees to basically do a business plan with metrics and then you hold them accountable. Are you hitting the number of site visits if that's their metric? Are you hitting the number of calls or whatever it might be that you need to,

or meetings you need to set up for the corporate development team? Are you increasing quality control? Whatever it might be, what gets measured gets done. Work with each of your employees to set up a series of reasonable, but somewhat aggressive goals and then hold them accountable. Don't be mean. Don't, you know, you're not going to berate people.

You want to publicly praise, privately provide feedback, but you don't need to like everyone in your company, but you need to be able to look left and look right and say, I get it. And when people aren't held accountable and you create a culture mediocrity, people that you're high performers stop working as hard because they don't see an incentive to do it. When the guy left or right of them isn't working as hard or isn't as good and it's getting similar types

of compensation. So number two, hold your team accountable. And then three, and I didn't learn this till later in life, demonstrate empathy. What do I mean by that? I'm not saying being nice or a pushover. I'm saying, try and understand their specific objectives and what is important to them in a professional setting. What do I mean by that? I assumed

everybody like me wanted to be awesome and rich. That's it. Everybody wants to do what I want to do right now. Some people want more flexibility. Some people want to coach Little League. Some people want to see their name in lights. I found out that some people loved some sort of public praise. So I would, on a regular basis,

when we got an inbound inquiry from the media company, I'd say, I'm going to hand you over to our analyst Colin who understands this better than me. And that was so rewarding to them. Some people want to manage others, figure out a way to put them in charge of something where they manage other people. Try and figure out what is important to that person

and then demonstrate that you heard them and you are making an effort. You are making an effort to provide them with what is important to them. Loyalty is a function of appreciation. The key to a great company in in my view, is retention, specifically retaining the few employees that really drive a lot of value.

And loyalty is a function of appreciation. So how do you appreciate them? There's economic appreciation, which is obviously very important, but there's also psychological appreciation. And that is, I get you, and I know what's important to you, and I'm gonna try and provide that because I understand I'm invested in your success.

One, you demonstrate excellence. Two, you hold people accountable. You're a player coach manager. Pull up the chair next to them. Show them how to be better at their jobs. And three, demonstrate empathy specifically. Show a willingness to learn what is important to them and then foot your actions against what is important to them. We have one quick break before our final question.

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I was waiting for it. There we go. Shop Skims, Mens and more at skims.com and in Skims stores. Let them know we sent you. After you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. Welcome back. question number three.

Dear Professor G, I love your podcasts and I've definitely learned a lot from them. My mom always sends them to me when she thinks I would be interested in the topic, so I usually listen to them during my workouts. I'm currently a senior in high school in Boca Raton, Florida. My choice of major is media management

and my dream school just deferred me. Although I understand that's not rejection, it was still very upsetting. And I'm doing everything I currently can to get accepted in NaBrow. What is your advice for a senior in high school like me pursuing a career in media management? And does the choice of college matter? I would like to remain in Florida as I love the beach and staying close to my family. If you can also provide feedback on the best ways to land a good internship in this field since unfortunately I am not an epo baby and don't have any prior experience other than my usage with my own devices and the content I help create

in my current job. Respectfully, Chloe Shapiro. Okay, Chloe. So first off, you're gonna do really well. I mean, you're clearly very articulate, you're clearly very organized, you're clearly very intelligent. So for the time being,

I'm gonna sideline the internship and professional. It's great that you think you know what you wanna do. And I'm not suggesting everybody needs to, at some point have a plan. You have a plan and you should foot your internships and your efforts against that plan. Most likely, you're gonna end up in something totally different.

At the age of 15, I thought it was gonna be an athlete to make a living. At the age of 19, I thought I was gonna be an athlete to make a living. At the age of 19, I thought it was gonna be a pediatrician. At the age of 22, I had no fucking idea what I was gonna do. At the age of 23, I thought I was gonna be investment banker. At the age of 25, again, I had no idea what I wanted to do

because none of those things had worked out. And at the age of 27, I thought I might be a healthcare consultant. I'd accepted a job with a company called APM, a healthcare consulting firm. And I thought, Jesus Christ, I don I might be a healthcare consultant. I'd accepted a job with a company called APM, a healthcare consulting firm. And I thought, Jesus Christ, I don't want to go back into the corporate world. I started a brand strategy firm, ended up in academia, ended up advising hedge funds. You just don't know, but you're doing exactly the right thing.

You're thinking about it and you're trying to find the right platforms. College is a platform. Two, forgive yourself. I got rejected from the University of Indiana. I really wanted to, I really, my only, my dream was to go to UCLA and I got rejected when they had a 76% admissions rate. I ultimately ended up getting in, but here's where you want to go. You want to go to college. It's an amazing experience. And what I would suggest is, and I don't know the exact situation you're in, but be open to other schools.

You're gonna have a great time. You're gonna learn a lot. The brand matters. I'm not gonna lie. The prestige of the school does attract a certain level of employer or a different level of employer. But what I would suggest is not getting into a school

while at the time seems devastating. Trust me on this. When you're a little bit older, you're not gonna be upset about not getting in. You're gonna be upset about how upset you were. So if there's time, apply to other schools. Obviously keep trying, demonstrating your ambition and your want for that school, right, following up.

But recognize, if you don't get into that one school, as long as you get into a school and you go, you're gonna have a great time and you're gonna do really well. In terms as long as you get into a school and you go, you're gonna have a great time and you're gonna do really well. In terms of getting internships, it's a numbers game. It's reaching out to people, it's trying to be innovative, sending them voice recordings, sending them videos,

whatever it might be, using AI to develop a media strategy for a company and sending it to them with your own spin on it and saying, hi, I'm Chloe Shapiro, I'll work for you. I want an internship and just being very aggressive, very persistent and willing to endure rejection. But let me just finish where I started. You are doing exactly what you should be doing.

I apologize on behalf of the corrupt cartel called Higher Education that creates anxiety. I have been through it and I'm about to go through with my kids, but it caused me a tremendous amount of anxiety. Everyone listening to this podcast, Chloe, isn't thinking, oh, poor Chloe, she didn't get into the school she wanted early decision. They're thinking, I would really like to be an impressive young woman about to start college

living in Boca Raton. Best to you and yours, Chloe. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, email a voice recording to officehours at profgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours at profgmedia.com. This episode is produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our intern is Dan Shalom. Drew Burrows is our technical director.

It's so nice to see Drew again. So nice to see Drew. He comes over to my house, he sets everything up, he's this nice presence. Thank you for listening to the ProfG 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 ProfG Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.