The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - The Truth About the Entrepreneurship Boom, and and How to Manage Cash Flow as a Founder

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Scott Galloway explains why the solopreneur boom isn't actually distorting the jobs report, breaks down how founders can survive a brutal early cash flow crunch, and shares how he thinks about talking to his kids about complicated family 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. Plus, you can now call or text Scott a question at our new Office Hours hotline: ‪[phone]‬. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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capital involves substantial risk, including loss of capital invested. See disclosures and fund offering materials for more information. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Hello, mid-sized business. We see your big ambitions, but how do you achieve the wins you want when your technology is holding you back? SAP Grow is built to

grow with your business, no matter its size. With AI embedded at its core, working across every system, all ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow, AI Cloud, ERP for any size business. Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G. 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 OfficeHours of Propgmedia.com. Again, that's Office Hours of PropggyMedia.com. or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. Question number one comes from Cheddar Ben on Reddit.

You recently spoke about the explosion of single-person businesses. Are these businesses and gig work dramatically skewing the jobs report in a way that has never happened before? So, yes-ish. The jobs report is actually built from two different surveys. The headline number everyone reacts to is payrolls added X-J jobs. is derived from a survey of company payrolls. So by design, it only counts people on an employer's books. It doesn't count the self-employed or most gig workers at all.

That's why the boom in one-person businesses can't be inflating it. The second survey, the household survey, which asks people directly whether they're working, is the one that does capture solo businesses and gig work and what actually sets the unemployment rate. So in sum, the growth in single-person businesses isn't skewing the jobs number. it's showing up in a different survey, but it's leaving that headline payroll figure increasingly blind to how many Americans are really earning a living and how they're doing it.

So there was, now, quote unquote, the entrepreneurship boom. I'd call it a boomlet because some of it is misleading. There were almost 6 million new business applications last year, the most on record in the 20-plus years that the census has kept track. But it turns out the majority of these businesses are not expected to become companies that have an intention of hiring people and have any payroll.

So in other words, there's more people starting a food blog where they'll be the only employee as opposed to starting a restaurant where they might hire 10 or 20 people. Also, there's a romanticizing of entrepreneurship, and the number of people who self-identify as a CEO or a founder has exploded because people see those people as the new rock stars.

One in three U.S. adults say they plan to start a new business or side hustle in 2026, up 90s. from last year. What I would be interested to see is how much, I mean, I think about, I immediately go when I think of this to the creator economy and just how hard it is and how few people can make a sustainable living there. And I think these numbers hide how many people are using this as a side hustle, maybe to supplement income from another, in addition to another primary earner in the household, or because they enjoy it, or because it gives them flexibility. But I think the creator economy is slightly better. I mean, the long tail's better. So I was going to say it's like the NBA.

It's not. It's better than that. But when you look at how many views you need to garner to earn a decent living, you have to be exceptionally talented, working your ass off and get huge resonance across a bunch of platforms just to make and be thinking about content creation every day and be outstanding at it. In some, it's a hell of a lot easier to make a living being an insurance adjuster or an actuary than it is to be a creator. I find that the creator economy is romanticized, it's cool, but it's very misleading. And a lot of these jobs numbers hide what I think is sort of a deep underbelly. And that is there aren't nearly as many jobs being created by sustainable, enduring, well-paying job openings, if you will. I appreciate the question.

Question number two comes from Jeff from Honolulu. Hi, Prof. G. This is Jeff from Honolulu, Hawaii. I'm currently in my 16th year of naval service planning to close out my military career at the 20-year mark in 2030. My spouse is a talented nurse practitioner, and together we've launched a geriatric primary care practice in Hawaii. She delivers the medical care, and I manage the business operation. While Hawaii allows independent practice for nurse practitioners, the startup learning curve is brutal. Federal law limits Medicare reimbursement for nurse practitioners to just 85% of the physician rate. When you factor in Hawaii's high state taxes, general excise taxes, and a 20 to 30-day lag on insurance claims,

our accounts receivable are ballooning with thin margins. It's a massive cash-fliss squeeze for small but growing practice without deep corporate capital reserves. We are committed to filling a massive primary care deficit here in Hawaii and see every day the positive impact made on families providing, quality care for their elders, but I need to make this model sustainable before my final military transition. My question for you, when you were building your early companies like profit rural too, how did you survive those fragile early cash flow crunches and razor thin margins? What specific levers should a capital constraint startup pull to make it through this phase?

Thanks for your time and all you do on the pod. Yeah, thanks for the question. I think a lot of people, your question is going to resonate with a lot of people. We're going to have a very successful business and have huge cash flow problems. As a matter of fact, the faster you're growing, the more cash flow you need. So let me zoom out. The business you're in, I believe, I don't know if it's called senior care or nursing homes, has the highest success rate of any new business. I think restaurants, it's like 17% are around in five years. I think it's 94% for the sector you're in. So in your background, being in the service, the discipline you bring, it sounds like your wife has real domain expertise,

it sounds to me like you're in a good spot. Now, the problem is short-term cash flow. And while I'm not an expert on this, and I say this from a position of privilege, because I typically had some money to finance them myself, the first is an obvious one. Throw nickels around like their manhole covers. You just have to be all over everything all the time.

What is this payment? Look at the things that kill you, automated payments, do you need big office base? No, do you need, you know, just do everything you can to minimize expenditures. I just, whenever I started a business, I was all over every cost all day long, all day long. And don't fall into the trap of thinking that spending business makes a business. It's making money that makes a business.

And I've made that mistake over and over. I kept leasing big office space thinking somehow that made the business real. And then a couple times I had to give the office space back because I couldn't justify I ended up losing a shit ton of money, the form of the deposit. By the way, I think co-working is absolutely the way to go initially in a company, or if you can just work out of your home. Now, there are a lot of innovations around financing and managing cash flow. If you have a solid business, I think there's a lot of financial innovation startups.

I think SO-Fi might be one of them that will do what's called factoring, And that is if you can show them contracts and recurring revenue, they will give you a loan against those secured by those future cash flows. This is something I think you should use AI for. I would double check it with multiple LLMs in case it hallucinates and gives you bad information. But I would imagine if you have steady cash flows, you should be able to borrow against those cash flows. Or if you have contracts with people who move in or Medicare payments, the government is a slow payer, but it's a dependable payer. and you should be able to finance those cash flows. So, one, you're in a great business, I think.

Two, throw nickels around like their manhole covers. And three, investigate what financing or factoring options are out there to borrow against your, what feel like, fairly secure cash flows. Thanks, and good luck with the business. We'll be right back after a quick break. Support for the show comes from Vanguard. To all financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute. Capturing value in fixed income is not easy.

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Subject to Risk, Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter

most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. The first ever all-electric 26 Subaru Trail Seeker is the EV for the trail obsessed. With up to 444 kilometers on a full charge and DC fast charging from 10 to 80% in about 30 minutes in ideal conditions. Plus, ample ground clearance and symmetrical all-wheel drive make the 2026 Trail Seeker the most capable EV Subaru has ever built. Test drive it at your local Subaru dealer or visit Subaru.ca. Welcome back. Question number three comes from a listener text. Parent-child relationships are complex, messy, tough, and can be rewarding at any stage of life.

As a middle-aged man, I celebrated my elderly parent's 60th wedding anniversary recently with my wife and teenage son and daughter. If not for this party on my speech, I'm not sure my kids would have been exposed to the complexity of my relationship with their grandparents. You have shared openly how your parents have influenced your life on your podcast. Are there any specific strategies you have to teach, share about the complexities of these relationships with your kids? Thank you for all you do. Huh. I had what most people would describe my relationship with my father's complicated. It wasn't.

It was pretty simple. It wasn't that involved in my life. And I resented him for most of my adult life and then decided to forgive him and our relationship got much better. So it's actually a pretty simple relationship. The question is I don't talk a lot about it. My kids are 15 and 18. And to a certain extent, I kind of don't want to burden them with my bullshit of my baggage. And I don't, you know, what I try to do is model what I think is healthy behavior and just kind of be the dad that I would have liked my dad to have been.

And also, I feel like a land acknowledgement here. My dad was better to me than his dad was to him. Look, I think you can be open and honest and have discussions as they get more adult, but if your kids or anything like mine, they got their own shit and they're thinking about, you know, the hoodie they want and what girl or guy they like at high school. I don't know. I think, I think as your adult children ask you about your parents, you can be transparent about the struggles you've had or where the relationship is strained.

But I would see it through the context of maybe just, I don't know, just show them what a good parent-child relationship is. And I don't know if you need, I don't know if you need to share that with your children, your own trials and tribulations with your own parents. I think that you want to just show them what a healthy relationship and demonstrate what a healthy relationship is between the parent and the child. And also just benefit, you know, err on the side of generosity around your parents. A huge unlock for me was, and I don't know if you're struggling with this, but I used to approach relationships as sort of a transaction,

sort of a capitalist mindset, and measure what I was getting versus what I was giving. And when I measured that against my father, I thought, I'm a much better son to him than he is a father to me, and I used to resent it and go dark on him. And then I woke up and realized that the key to relationships is not keeping score, but outlining or identifying the kind of son, father,

husband, coworker you want to be, and just trying to live and acquit to that standard instead of keeping score because you'll naturally inflate your own contribution and diminish theirs. And also with your parents, just try and I don't know the situation, but most situations is your parents are highly imperfect, but they tried.

And also, they're going to be dead soon. And I just, I haven't heard many people say after their parents were gone, I'm angry, I forgive them. I should have given them a harder time. I think it mostly goes the other way. So I would really try and err on the side of generosity for your own sake. I just think it feels good to forgive and move on, if you will, and try and enjoy their relationship.

But in terms of communicating it to your children, let it happen organically. Let it be a pull, not a push, if they want to hear more about it. But the ultimate means of communicating what was good and bad about your relationship with your parents is just to demonstrate the good stuff and model the good behavior with your own kids. I appreciate the question. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to Office Hours of Propgimedia.com. Again, that's Office Hours of Proptigemedia.com. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit,

and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Jenaer. Camryka is our social producer, Brad Williams, is our editor. And Drew Burroughs is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropGPop and PropGMedia. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?

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