The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Young QBs and T.O. Stories With Steve Mariucci, NYU Professor Scott Galloway on Everything. Plus, Fashion Advice With John Elliott.

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

Russillo is joined by NFL Network's Steve Mariucci to discuss the Chiefs' continued struggles, a crash course on the West Coast offense, the class of young NFL QBs, stories from his time coaching the 49ers, and much more (1:15). Then Ryen talks with professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, Scott Galloway about ... well, really everything: They discuss his time as a young "unremarkable" student, the changing accessibility of higher education, tips for acquiring wealth, becoming an entrepreneur, and much more (31:55). Finally Ryen is joined by renowned fashion designer John Elliott to discuss his journey of building his clothing brand, before they answer some fashion-focused listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:15:45). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Steve Mariucci, Scott Galloway, and John Elliott Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a different podcast. A bunch of different things came together the way they came together, and that's why we're going to give you a bunch of different things today. We'll be back, Hardcore Football, on Monday with Dilfer. We've got Danny Cannell next week as well. But today, the plan is we're going to talk with Steve Mariucci about today's young quarterbacks, the problems with the Chiefs, some of that West Coast influence.

But more importantly, we're getting Jim Drunkenmiller stories. All right? Second part of the podcast, Scott Galloway. This guy is a professor at NYU. He's an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He's very opinionated. Some of the stuff you might like, some of the stuff you might not like. I just really enjoy his podcast. And the highlight, perhaps, because it's kind of cool that this came

together the way it did, we're doing a fashion life advice. And that's with John Elliott, who's the founder of John Elliott Clothing. It's a very cool LA-based brand. I don't know that much about it until recently, and I've been a fan of it. And we ended up knowing each other. And there you go. Boom, he came on. We're going to answer some questions and hear his story. So very different. And we'll be hardcore two hours of football on Monday.

Enjoy. Steve Mariucci, longtime NFL coach and, of course, NFL Network, joins us. I want to get to a little story time with your coach a little bit later. But let's start with kind of the current day stuff. We just saw Kansas City again in a Monday night game. I know you'll spend a little story time with your coach a little bit later, but let's start with kind of the current day stuff. We just saw Kansas City again in a Monday night game. I know you'll spend a ton of time on NFL Network, but what do you see from a team that doesn't even look close to what they've looked like the last three years?

Andy Reid and I coached together at Green Bay. Mike Holmgren shoved us in this one room. We were young coaches. We were all young, grudent, and all kinds of young coaches on that staff. And Andy was coaching the tight ends and I was coaching the quarterbacks. He goes, you guys just share this office. And so we kind of grew up. We cut our teeth together learning this West Coast offense.

And then, of course, everybody goes their own way with this offense, depending on what your talent is on your team, your quarterback, how many receivers you have, you know, we all kind of tweak things. And every time I interview Andy, I go, Andy, I don't know you anymore. What is this offense? You guys are running. He's got the jet sweeps and the shuttle passes and the backward throws. And then we got all this stuff. And he goes, it's the same offense, which it's the same office. Ohch. It's the same offense.

Oh, my God. But he's got a quarterback that's a magic man. We've all seen it for a few years now. And then all of a sudden, that magic is just not happening for him as consistently. And that was a very necessary win the other night against the Giants, right? Man, I mean, it's 17 all in the fourth quarter, and I'm going, oh, my God, Andy, come on, you can't lose this game

because they already were in last in their division in a real tough division. But to me, they still have really good coaches and really good players, so if you're going to fix something, they're good enough to do that. Now, what do they have to fix? They have to fix their defense. They had given up over 27 points six times. It's hard to win. It's hard to keep outscoring teams all the time.

So that's why I think Patrick Mahomes keeps taking chances because he knows he has to score at least a 30-burger to win, right? And then an all-new offensive line, all new from that last year's team. And that doesn't just boom. They're good. I mean, they have to grow up together. They're a couple of freshmen and sophomores. And there's some youngsters.

And they'll get better as the time goes on. And then Patrick Mahomes has just turned it over way more than he ever has. And he's got to calm that down. And he will. He's very capable. And then Patrick Mahomes has just turned it over way more than he ever has, and he's got to calm that down. And he will. He's very capable. So they've got a lot of things. And anyway, they're human, right?

All of a sudden, we're realizing the Chiefs are, you know, if you play well against them and they fart around a little bit, they're human and you can beat them. Can I ask you kind of a nerdier question about the West Coast stuff? Because I know that I don't understand the variations. I didn't play the position. I wasn't coached by any of you guys, but I'm always interested in kind of learning how it evolves. Can you take me from learning about it with Holmgren and then how you decided to adapt it to like a Steve Young and the guys you had on the outside for San Francisco like how does that process work and and be as technical as you want

with it um because I don't think we ever get that stuff yeah I'd love to it's um it's 9 37 I got all day all right so we can just talk about this I won't do that to you, but go ahead. I didn't invent the West Coast offense, okay? He was at the 49ers, and he learned it from, well, Bill Walsh wasn't there. He worked for George Seifert, but the system was in place. He did work for Bill, too. And every team runs concepts of the West Coast offense. And the West Coast offense isn't just an offense. It's a way of doing things. The West Coast offense, when we learned it, it was, this is how you practice. This is how you install. This is how you eat, you meet,

you have days off. This is the routine that the west coast offense bill walsh who really got it from paul brown but he made it win super bowls when he took it his way right i mean paul brown really i guess invented the west coast offense and it's evolved into different things but um everybody runs concepts of it it's not as prevalent nowadays Ryan anymore because gosh way back in the day when you look at film Jerry Rice was down in a three-point stance the receivers were down there was two backs in the backfield most of the time and heck they were in split backs or brown or red they weren't an in high. They weren't in single back. So there was a fullback. Have you heard of a fullback? Some teams don't have, half the teams don't even have fullbacks. It's a dinosaur, right?

They're not even, you get about two fullbacks drafted each year. And there's, you know, they're just, people don't use fullbacks anymore. And so it's evolving into the shotgun, single back, sling it kind of thing, because rules say we should. And so the West Coast offense is, well, you might name things two and three jet and the numbering system and the flanker drive and the way you call plays may remain the same for Kansas City and everybody else. All these different wrinkles happen. Joe Montana or Steve Young never threw the ball out there horizontally on bubble screens. Didn't happen.

You didn't have it in your game. Pat Mahomes last week was 15 for 15 on passes that didn't go past the line of scrimmage. Did you hear what I said? Didn't go past the line of scrimmage. Did you hear what I said? Didn't go past the line of scrimmage. Why? Because you can do that now. When I coached and when Favre played, you couldn't do that.

You couldn't be blocking when the ball was in the air. You couldn't run those screens. Linemen couldn't be downfield at all. Now they have RPOs where the linemen are blocking a run or you throw the screen out there or the slant, and they're lenient with how far linemen can be downfield. The rules are much different. That means throw the darn ball more often and throw it horizontally,

which means more yards, more points, less interceptions. The rules have changed. The West Coast offense is here, but it's not as prevalent as it used to be because of the rule changes. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the 15 for 15 thing because I used to, when I was younger, you'd be like, all right, 60% for completion percentage. That's the line if you're below it. And now you could be last in the league at 60%. You could be last in the league at 60%. I mean, if you look at the Hall of Famers,

a lot of them, the Hall of Fame quarterbacks, a lot of them had just about as many interceptions as touchdowns, okay? Now, if your ratio, your TD interception ratio isn't like five to one, you're needy, okay? Because you just don't go back and throw the ball down the field in the coverage as often. You're always throwing it out in space and a lot safer passes. Is there a younger quarterback from this group?

And I don't want to feel like I'm leaving out everybody, but I think there's certainly, whether it's a Josh Allen, a Kyler Murray, Lamar, Herbert, maybe even Burrow, I know I could probably miss. Is there anyone that you watch every Sunday that you like better than the rest? No. I like a lot of them. I watch. My mindset is the league in good shape with quarterbacks

because I've been in football all my life, and the health of our league, the health of our sport really depends on having really good quarterbacks to watch and to enjoy. Right. And while the NFL is, you know, retiring a lot of its great quarterbacks, we just saw Drew Brees jump into the booth and, uh, you know, and Phillip Rivers has gone and, and, uh, soon it'll be Ben, He'll be gone. And Aaron Rodgers will play a little bit longer, but the great ones, the Mannings and all those guys, gone. Brady, he'll be there another three, four, five decades. I don't know, but it's good to know that our league is in good shape

with young superstars. The Patrick Mahomes is a superstar. Justin Herbert will be a superstar. And. Justin Herbert will be a superstar. And Lamar Jackson will be a superstar. Yes, he's running a different kind of offense. Who cares? He's fun to watch. People like watching what they do, right?

And so, and here's the difference. Our young quarterbacks coming up now are so much better equipped to play well in the NFL or even in college or even in high school than they were when Brett Favre was playing. Brett Favre was a quarterback for his dad and he would pitch the ball to running back and he'd lead the sweep around there. And, you know, he would throw the ball 10 times a game. And he never had seven on sevens.

And he never had. He'd lead 11 quarterback camps and quarterback coaches like tutors we had for geography class. I mean, these young quarterbacks are getting trained now at young ages. The Manning Academy, it's really good for the development of our young quarterbacks. So by the time they get to college, they've thrown a bazillion times in camps and in high school and in the summers. And then by the time they get to the NFL, they've they're pretty much ready to do this.

Now there's a learning curve. You're, you're seeing it with Justin Fields and, you know, you know, there's a learning curve because the game is new. The defenses can be new. But,

but believe me, they have a real headstart compared to the quarterbacks 10, 20, 30 years ago. Team loses. It's just a rule on Monday when you lost as a head coach, oh, these guys don't know what they're doing. They're not recalling the right plays. I think there's too much of that. Do you, though, do you see situations on a Sunday when you're at NFL Network and you guys are getting ready to do whatever you're doing? Do you have Sundays where you feel like an offensive play call staff is not doing the right stuff for the quarterback? You want me to second guess somebody.

I'm not doing this for the gut you thing. I honestly am like I want to be intelligent like how often it happens because we do it all the time. I honestly am like, I want to, you know, an intelligent, like how often it happens because we do it all the time. I imagine you obviously do it way less. The thing, first of all, there's nobody sitting at home on the couch that knows what the heck they're talking about. Okay. Because even, even if I called plays for 30 years, I don't know what the game plan is.

I don't know the talent level of all my players and who's gimpy and who's like, you know, and, and, you know, what, what I'm trying to set up for the next series or what, what, okay. Once in a while, we'll say, Hmm, he's going for it on fourth down. We see more of that now. Right. Um, so sometimes I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have, I just punt the ball down there. I got a good punter sticking on the five yard line, make them go the distance. Or a lot of guys are going for two when they're not, when the chart doesn't say go for two. So back in the day, I keep saying that, I don't know what that means, but that means you would pull out your two point chart in the fourth quarter. You wouldn't even have it out. Well, God, now guys are going for two after the first touchdown. It's like, what did you do that for?

Well, they want to shake it up a little bit, right? And so there's just different things that are very criticizable that are part of their strategy. Sometimes guys want to be unorthodox and do something different that's predictable. And so I don't get into the shoulda, done. I do dislike this here's what i guess here's this sticks in my craw it's third now i just told you how the game is evolving into a shotgun right uh one back or no back kind of offense more times than not drives me nuts when it's third and one and the quarterback's in shotgun.

It's like, okay, you should have had a full back and get under the center to at least have the threat of a quarterback sneak, and then you get all your runs available to you that they have to defend instead of just defending one back on an inside zone. Or on the goal line. Goal line offense and short yardage offense, some of these teams, they really don't have emotional personnel with the two tight ends and get big and smash it up in there. And it's safer to be under the center.

Tom Brady, you know how good he is on quarterback sneak? He's the best. But when you're in shotgun, he's not the best. You don't have to defend it. And so that's one thing i second guess that all the time i hate that i'll go under the center and and have one back or two and then you have more runs available for short yards you go on perfect transition then do you stay in touch with mark edwards because he is one of my all-time favorites your fullback out of Notre Dame yeah

I don't stay in touch with him he's one of you you do you like talk to him is he like no I I loved him in college I loved him in the pros I don't know and look you're right the fullback endangered species list here I know I loved him they drafted him in 97 and he was one of those guys fullbacks they have to be they have to be a role player too you know they can't just be I'm a fullback give me a neck brace and I'm gonna you know block linebackers they've got to be able especially in the west coast offense when you um throw the ball the fullback Tom Rathman had a lot a lot of catches right you got to be able to catch you got to be able right? You've got to be able to catch. You've got to be able to block. Yes, you've got to be able to run.

You've got to be able to play special teams. I mean, because you're not on the field every snap. And so, yeah, Mark Edwards was a beauty. Hey, Mark, if you're watching this, give us a call. I'd like to catch up. He's a great guy. Did you remember anything from his draft? Did you guys have a draft meeting with him?

Heck no. My first draft in San Francisco, we only drafted three guys. Gray Clark, Stanford tight end who just passed away, rest his soul. Jim Druckenmiller from Virginia Tech quarterback 26th pick 28th by the way I remember Drunkenmiller because didn't he make the legendary draft tape where he was running through walls and wheel barreling brick

right and not the big tire flipping it over that was his 40 yard dash he flipped the tire and I love Drunk man give me a good Drunkenmiller story 40-yard dash. He flipped the time. And I love Druck, man. Druck? Give me a good Druck and Miller story. Druck? Hey,

so my first game, Druck, we play, I think, our first game. It was on the road. It was at Tampa. And since he's a rookie, the quarterbacks made him get a pizza for the plane. Idiot.

Well, he goes to Domino's or something. He goes in there and orders a, I don't know, a large pizza or whatever. Well, you don't have any control over how fast it's going to take in there, okay? Well, he's late for the plane, all right? So I'm in SFO going, all right, everybody on? No, your first round quarterback's not here yet. And Steve Young and those guys are laughing like, yeah, we had him go get a pizza.

Get out of here. We're leaving. Heck with him. We left him. We left him. He got to the airport with a pizza nobody was there to eat it so he ate the whole thing so then then so then he had to catch a flight he had to buy a flight you know some guys would have just went home and said hey they don't want me he he paid for a

flight like one way ticket i catch the next flight flight to Tampa and he got there. You think he got any grief? Oh my God. Did you want to punish him or did you know that it was Steve and those other guys fault? Like what, how do you handle that? I'm trying to think of what I did. I think he was humiliated to a point where I, I don't know. I might've find him, you know, probably find him, you know, but then Druck, I mean mean and he had just shown up because we were tight with a salary cap we couldn't sign him right away and so Steve ends up getting hurt and Druck had a start against the Rams Druck has Druck has the highest winning percentage for starters in the history of the National Football League, 102 years.

He's 1-0. He beat the Rams, man. And so, Kurt Reynolds, the SID, comes up when we're playing the Rams. He goes, Coach, just so you know, we've beaten the Rams. This is my first year. He goes, we've beaten the Rams 13 times in a row. I went, uh-oh, we got Druck playing quarterback, man, because our backup court, see, Steve got hurt.

He got a concussion at Tampa. And then Jeff Brom, who's coaching now, he got hurt too, our backup quarterback. So now it's Druck starting at the Rams over over in st louis and uh did he win darn right he won he threw uh two jet dino y shallow cross boom to jj stokes for a touchdown and then garrison hearst had a 25 yard touchdown run and we beat those guys for the 14th time in a row and that was draft that was drugs only I love that guy. And then we cut him eventually, right? But from our quarterback meetings,

we would call him at home. Druck, what are you doing? Hi, guys. What are you doing? I mean, he was so much fun. Everybody loved him. Everybody loved him. Hey, we need a pizza. Oh, I mean, he was so much fun. Everybody loved him. Everybody loved him. Hey, we need a pizza. Oh, I mean.

I just I remember because he and I are about the same age. And I remember being like, did you guys hear about this video that he made of him just breaking stuff around his house and flipping things over? And then they were like, all right, the Niners took him in the first round. And you're right. He played in one game. Did he throw? He threw for 500 yards against Nebraska. I mean, the guy was a beast.

I mean, he wasn't our kind of quarterback. He was a big, strong pocket guy. You know what I mean? Yeah. He needed a guy to run around like a crazed dog, like Steve Young, you know? And then eventually it was Jeff Garcia, who's that athletic, kind of mobile play out there quite a bit. No, it makes sense, too.

And it's also, as we're kind of talking about today's offense, is why so many teams are better equipped to do this, because they don't want a guy that doesn't look like Steve Young or Jeff Garcia, both really mobile guys. Um, let me, let me ask you about Steve. I got to know Steve, you know, whatever, casually, however I would work at ESPN as long as I did. What was it like to coach Steve Young? Steve Young's nuts. Okay. So I, my son, my son lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. So my wife and I went out there to visit them and our two grandsons last week. So every time I go out there, I walk around, it's three, four blocks,

and I film Steve Young's house. That's where he grew up. Steve, I'm at your house again. Look at this. I think they painted it. Look at this. And then I'd go to his high school. Hey, Steve, look at this. I think they painted it. And then, and then I'd go to his high school. Hey, Steve, there's a little wooden sign over there. Can you give the school some money so they can put another sign up or a scoreboard or something? I give him grief. And then he texts back. Oh, you know, that's where I learned how to ride a unicycle. And that's where I had a, you know, prom date or whatever. I mean, the guy's nuts. And he, he's a legend back there in Greenwich, Connecticut, man. I mean, he, he did it all. And so, um, and he lives right up the street here, you know, from me in Northern California. And he tries to stay busy with Monday

night football, the pregame stuff, but he's brilliant guys. The guy is like on a different planet. It's hard to hold a conversation with him. Steve, how are you doing today? Well, it's like, okay, okay. Enough, too much information. But when we would prepare for a game, okay. So he thinks it's no big deal. When I mentioned this, I think it's crazy. The offensive meeting room has boards, grease boards all the way around it. And all the game plan is written on the board. Okay. Two jet flanker drive with different formations and this play with different formations and personnel

groups. And this is a base. This is nickel. This is short yards, goal line, red zone, all that stuff. Everything's on the board. Saturday morning, we would come in for a review meeting. Me, offense coordinator, quarterback coach, and we would review it with the quarterback. It's pretty typical. And then if there's something that he felt was under practice, he would say, let's not do that this week.

I don't like that play. Or give it another week or whatever. He'd sit in the middle of the room in a chair with his hair all messed up and a t-shirt, same shirt he wore all week, and he would just go around the room without looking, and he would recite every play in order, everything that was written on the board, like it's a beautiful mind. It was like, you know, all right, we're going to run this run play from red, right. And I write and I write slot. That's right.

And we're going to run the next play. But, and he would not make a mistake. And we would be looking at each other like something wrong with this guy, man. I mean, who, who does this? Who memorizes the board? And he's got what it's called rote memory. I have no idea what that is. And, and, um, and he's just what it's called rote memory i have no idea what that is and and um and he's just he's brilliant brilliant never seen anything like it was he then because you know

sometimes i think football guys you know sometimes you just want hey look just tackle the guy in red all right we don't want you thinking too much you know rookie sometimes all that kind of stuff i mean steve young's a hall of famer he's great he's one of my favorite players to watch that era like it's it's the time in my life like i remember the 98 playoff game against the packers in the throw and to and the whole thing i remember exactly where i was i didn't root for the niners growing up for whatever reason i just really liked that team i remember being happy about it and was so pumped i was in this shitty apartment by myself in vermont being like yeah all right niners. They pull it off because it was just such an awesome game. But was he somebody you could bring to the sideline?

Clearly, you had that relationship, but was there ever a time where you're like, hey, man, we don't need you to think this much about this upcoming third and seven? What was that like? I'll tell you what it was like. Stick around. I got a picture on the wall. I want to show you. Don't go anywhere. We are holding as Steve Mariucci leaves his decorated office. Okay. You still with me? I'm still there.

Can you see this? Yeah, it's a picture of Steve Young autographed. He's putting his hand on your shoulder looking at you in the sideline, correct? Well, he's laughing at me. I don't know. Can you see this? Yeah, it's a picture of Steve Young autographed. He's putting his hand on your shoulder, looking at you in the sideline, correct? Well, he's laughing at me. I don't know what he's doing. And then you got Greg Knapp there. Greg Knapp, who just got hit on his bike. He got killed before the season started. He was coaching with the Jets. Anyway, so that's during a timeout, okay? Okay.

You say, well, why are you showing me that? There would be times I would you know you know some quarterbacks they all just state they they they they have an opinion they have too many opinions sometimes and they want this play or that play or you know but most of them are pretty darn good i remember on more than one occasion, we'd call timeout and it's third down and seven or eight, like you mentioned. And I go, all right, Steve, here's what we're thinking. It's either going to be this play or this play. What do you like? He goes, I don't care. Just call a play. I'll make it work. That's how he was. He didn't give a damn what you called. Just call a play, and if it's there, I'll take it. If not, I'll run.

I'll scramble. I'll improvise. Whatever that is, call a play. I mean, that's what he was. Now, I will tell you there was one play where that wasn't the case. I called a screen pass, backed up, like on a four-yard line, and he went back against the Raiders. And he went back, back, back, and he was into the end zone,

into the end zone, and he was getting blitzed. And he had to – this is why he goes, please don't ever call that play again from there. I go, okay, fine. Because he didn't want to – he's a smart guy he didn't want to take a sack because it's a safety he didn't want to throw it away intentional grunt because it's a safety it's a blitz so somebody's going to hold and it's going to be a safety and it's like i could still you know complete this ball and we could get tackled for a safety and that was a great

call man i would have fooled him but it went 99 But then he got hit, and he got flung into the goal post. As he comes back, he goes, please don't call that play anymore from down there. I go, okay, fine. But otherwise, he was like, not that he was indifferent. He just, you didn't even have to call timeout. It's just, just call a play. I'll make it work.

Okay, I'll end on this um what was the dynamic and i'll give you kind of my summary from the outside which is which is very far away i'm not working in sports i'm bartending i'm finishing up school and i remember being like all right jerry rice grew up with him he's still putting up these huge numbers and his to guy comes along and you're like, wait a minute. He has the catch in 98. He has the 20 catch game in 2000. And then I remember Jerry Rice Day. Yeah, that's right. And I remember like whatever people think of T.O. Now, I remember kind of the seeds being planted for because I remember seeing like some NFL

or it was an ESPN or CBS pregame show. It doesn't matter. They were doing kind of like a visit with this guy who just had 20 catches in a game. And he went to, I think, New York City and they were at a memorabilia shop, a sporting goods store or whatever. And he couldn't see, he didn't see any T.O. jerseys and he was pissed about it.

And now I've interviewed T.O. a bunch. We've had him in the studio, all these different things. What was that early dynamic like with T.O. who is playing on the other side of the greatest to ever do it, where you realize the special talent you have that I think eventually knew like, hey, I don't want to be in anyone's shadow. That's kind of how I saw it from the outside. I don't know if that's right or wrong.

So T.O. was drafted the year before I got there. He was a third rounder from Chattanooga, and he didn't start. He was the third receiver, third or fourth receiver because Jerry was the starter and JJ Stokes was the X. Okay. And, uh, so I think Tio had 30 catches or something, 30, some catches like that. So he got his feet wet as a rookie. So then I took the job. And so first game at Tampa, the game that Jim Druckenmiller missed, all right, or missed the flight, Jerry Rice blew his knee out. Well, Steve Young got hurt too in that game. My first game, Steve Young got a concussion at 12th play and Jerry Rice blew his knee out. And Jerry Rice blew his knee out.

Warren Sapp got both of those guys in the second quarter. And then Jerry was out for most of the year. All right. So T.O. took his place at Z as the starter. And then so J.J. Stokes and T.O. were the starters that whole year. And we won 11 games in a row after that. But that's when he really became a bona fide starter in the league when Jerry Rice got hurt. So then when Jerry came back on a Monday night and re-hurt his leg on a touchdown pass against Denver Broncos,

Steve Atwater blew him up on a touchdown catch. That was it for him. But then T.O. even said to me after the season, when we were starting the next year, when Jerry Rice was coming back, T.O. said this to me. I couldn't believe it. He said, Coach, Jerry was the starter. He's been for 15, 20 or whatever years, 700 years over there. put them back as the starter, and JJ was the starter, I'll go back to being the third receiver. And as the zebra guy, that's our third receiver. And we would have T.O. in the slot as our third receiver.

Nowadays, they have a little water bug kind of guy usually in the slot. We had T.O. in the slot. Talk about a mismatch with anybody. So I thought that was really good on his part to just offer that like hey i mean i'll go back to my role as the third guy i'm good friends with jj and jerry um what we did was and i really did appreciate that what we did was we started them at x and then when when we went to three receivers, JJ, then with the X, the T.O. went over to the, to the Z-word position. But anyway, so that's when Jerry Rice came back,

we had a pretty good darn offense. In fact, we were the only offense, right? We're the only offense ever in the Superbowl era to have the most gross pass yards, gross yards passing and most pass yards, gross yards passing, and most rushing yards, both, both in the same year. It's never happened before. I think it did happen like 1946 Bears. I'm not even counting that. But it was a pretty good offense with those guys all on the field. That's an awesome story.

And you know what? I loved watching those teams play. I don't know what it was about those late 90s, early 2000s. It was a lot of fun in your six years there. Let's do this again, Steve. I appreciate it, man. Hey, thanks for having me on. All right. Where am I looking? You're in your bedroom back there or what? I'm in Manhattan Beach. This is one of the bedrooms we don't use that much. Manhattan Beach. Well, go for a jog on the beach over there for me, okay? Run a mile for me, will you? I will.

You can see Steve every Sunday on NFL Networks, NFL Game Day Morning at 9 a.m. Eastern. Thanks a lot, Coach. Scott Galloway is an interesting guy. He's a professor of marketing at NYU Stern. He's a founder, entrepreneur. He's an author and he's a great podcast host, The Prof G Show, something I've been able to check out. And I got to admit,

Scott, I haven't been like a long time consumer, but the more I kept seeing you pop up in different stuff, I was like, man, I really, I really liked this guy. And as somebody who's done this a long time, your monologues on podcasts are really good that are not easy to do and i'm very impressed alcohol helps ryan that's the key that's the key start letting it go ray charles every great artist every great artist anyways uh thanks for having me absolutely i know you've told the story probably more times than you want to. So I'll try to summarize it. Not a great student, UCLA, MBA at Cal, a lot of, uh, assistance from the government. Where were you as you got your shit together as you explain? Um, and I kind of related to that because as I stayed in school longer, I was like, Hey, this actually isn't that hard if you do more stuff. Um, where did you grow

up and go to school? I don't know much about your background. Yeah, I'm from New England. So Massachusetts to Vermont. I went to UVM and then I stayed there for a long time. I bartended forever. I worked construction and then I got an on-air job with a minor league baseball team. Oh, cool. Yeah, you have a great voice.

So yeah, per your comments. So I'm the son of a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary, got into UCLA when they had a 74% admittance rate and I had to apply twice, and then rewarded at Morgan Stanley in their analyst program, and then somehow got into Cal. They, you know, the regents of the University of California took more. You know, I remember the head of admissions calling me and saying, you're not qualified, but you're a native son of California, so we're going to give you another chance. Where I got my shit together was really a function of my mom got sick and very close with my mom and came home when I was in graduate school, and she was really in a bad way. And I felt very helpless. I couldn't, we were in an HMO Kaiser, and it was decent healthcare, but I remember thinking we needed a second opinion. I didn't know what to do. I felt like they did discharge her from the hospital prematurely. And I just remember thinking, and it sounds very crass, I'm going to be rich.

I recognized at that moment that in a capitalist society, your life is more gentle and forgiving when you have money than when you don't. And we didn't have money and we didn't have any contacts. And I remember thinking that it felt very emasculating, quite frankly, that I just couldn't take care of my mom the way that I had felt that she had taken care of me. And so at that moment, I just got very motivated and started doing really well in school. And, you know, worked very hard. I was sitting there from the age of 25 to 45 or maybe 25 to 40. I don't remember much other than work. But where I got my shit together was kind of in my mid-20s as a function of wanting to do better for my family.

My family was just my mom. And, you know, I would say America, you know, the world isn't yours for the taking. It's yours for the trying. And I realized I wasn't trying that hard. And also one of the lessons I take away is that our system's kind of set up for two people or two cohorts. I still think education in the US is a transformative experience. It's not for everybody, but it still is a fantastic way to increase your selection state, your opportunities, you're less likely to have a heart attack, suffer from depression, commit suicide, and much more likely to be in Congress over the anchor of a TV show or a CEO if you do one thing, and that is you get a college degree.

And for me, it was transformative. But the two cohorts that have increasingly more access and kind of sequestering everybody else, and I'll stop talking in about 30 seconds, is the children of rich people. If you're from a top 1% income earning household, you're 77 times more likely to get into an elite university than anybody else. And also kids who are what I call freakishly remarkable and peak at the age of 17. And I can prove to every one of us that 99% of our children are not in the top 1%. And so I'm very passionate about trying to provide the same sort of access to unremarkable 17 and 18-year-olds like me at that age that I had. So to me, it's a real passion project. I just got off an email chain with the chancellors of UCLA and Berkeley, but it's something I'm really passionate about is trying to ensure that the drawbridge stays down for other unremarkable kids.

So how do you do that then? How do you pull it off? I think it's a few things. One, I think we have to acknowledge that not everyone's going to go to college, and I think we need more apprenticeships and more on-ramps into a middle-class lifestyle. I think companies also need to carve out a certain percentage of their jobs based on skills-based assessment instead of just relying on certification. So 10, 20, 40 percent. And Tesla and Apple are doing this. They've decided they're going to figure out a way to identify kids from not only non-elite the world, you're going to hire no single mothers. You're going to hire less people of color. You're going to hire fewer white kids from flyover states that didn't have any sort of economic opportunity and

maybe are in a small town that's really struggling. So I think one, apprenticeships. Two, a massive investment in our public schools where two-thirds of kids end up to dramatically expand freshman admission rates. We can grow Salesforce 40% a year, Facebook 30% a year, Google 22% a year, but we can't seem to grow our public universities freshman seats by more than 1% a year. And we also have to put more pressure on academics, including myself, and say, you are not a luxury brand. You are a public servant. And we need to stop this virus of self-aggrandizement and arrogance where we're excited to reject 90% of our applicants. That's tantamount to the head of a homeless shelter bragging that he or she turned away nine in ten people who shut up last night.

10 people who shut up last night. So I think it's a change in attitude among universities where professors and administrators need to pull their weight and use a mix of big and small tech to dramatically expand their productivity and their freshman seats. We need to fall back in love with the unremarkables and realize we're not Birkenbacks, but public servants. We need governments to step up and dramatically expand freshman seats and expand opportunities for kids who aren't going to go to college. But there's been a tremendous transfer of wealth from young people to old people the last 30 years. As a percentage of GDP, young people's wealth under the age of 40 has been cut in half. And so it's a multidimensional problem, calls on a lot of factors. But one of those things we need to do is just dramatically expand the honor ramps, both for freshmen class size and also for kids who don't end up in college. But I'm working on the university side. Specifically, I'm working with the chancellors of UCLA and Berkeley on a program to try and dramatically expand the number of freshmen seats such that when I applied to UCLA, it was 74% admissions rate. Do you know what it is now, Ryan? It's in the teens. It's 12%. I mean,

it's just, they don't have the capacity to let in unremarkable kids. You have to be this kid who has a patent and is building wells and captain your lacrosse team. We, UCLA got 120,000 applications. 60,000 of them were 4.0s. So for every kid that gets in, there's three kids that don't get in that had perfect grades. So can you imagine the stress that's, I don't know if you have kids or how old they are, but can you imagine the stress that's placing on households around America? Oh, you got a B, you're out, no UC for you. I mean, it's just gotten kind of out of control. And I think our priorities are screwed up. There's some second-order effects here.

I think universities have to be more tolerant of other political viewpoints. We've made huge progress being more tolerant of people who don't look like us or embracing them, I should say. We've become less tolerant of people who don't think like us. One and a half percent of Harvard's faculty identifies as conservative. So you have roughly 50 percent of state legislatures that are like, I'm just not going to fund this dogma and this viewpoint that wants to embarrass me or humiliate me on Twitter every day. Why would I fund that? So universities used to be a place where you could have provocative thought and say offensive things. That was the point. and say offensive things. That was the point. So I think there's a lot of things that we need to change on campus.

And I think as a society, we need to reinvest in higher ed. And I think as academics, we need to pull our weight and start teaching more kids and embrace technology. Everything we do has kind of one aim, and that is how do we reduce

our accountability and increase our compensation? Compensation for administrators and higher ed has exploded. There's this image that we're all these wonderful, nice people in cardigans giving pens to each other and watching PBS. We're capitalists too. We've adopted this luxury brand model where if we let in fewer and fewer people, we create artificial scarcity, massively explode tuition, and our endowments grow and we can pay ourselves more and it's, it's got to stop. I couldn't agree more with that last part. Whenever I've dug into the administrative costs and all this stuff, you're just like, and I have another guy on Josh Mitchell who I've talked with, you know, who had the debt trap book that came out recently that I thought was terrific. Um, and in my world of sports, it was like, okay, as soon as the TV money came in for college football, it didn't go to anyone else other than the schools and bigger staffs and bigger facilities and all

this stuff and you're just like okay and the ncaa would constantly just keep saying well there's not enough money to change it and to pay the players and that's a different topic altogether but it's a very similar process in that it's let's charge more to pay ourselves and that's pretty much it um and and you're in it and this is why i appreciate your point of view so much is that you're both allowing like hey here was my advantage growing up but also now this is the disadvantage that i'm seeing firsthand so what are some of the things that you see like you must i don't know if it's arguments i don't know if that many people want to argue with you scott but is your your boots on the ground to this as far as the entrance into

academia in a place like nyu and someone that is so detachment thinking that they know what the fuck they're talking about. Yeah, but look, I'm guilty of a lot of this. I rail on NYU, but I teach there because I like the prestige and the platform. I have tried to walk the walk. I've returned my compensation for the last decade so I can bite the hand that doesn't feed me. And I recognize a lot of academics aren't in a position to do that. But I've been railing against this fetishization of luxury for a while. But you brought up something interesting. And you're going to forget more about sports than I'm ever going to know. But I went to UCLA when Ed O'Bannon was there. sports and I'm never going to know, but I went to UCLA when Ed O'Bannon was there. And again, we find all these reasons, we call it purity, you know, oh, the purity of amateur sports and what ends up happening. You know, the white guy in his fifties makes $4 million a year, $7 million a year coaching the more ethnically diverse, but still older baby boomers at the nc2a in kansas make really good livings and the kid who's probably not is going to play a ball in europe for a couple years but never make any real

money no we want to maintain purity and not pay pay him or her it's just everything is just just extraordinary bullshit spread over a lens such that we can keep people in their 40s and 50s rich. And we use this notion of the purity of sports. Athletes, I believe, college athletes should absolutely get paid. The majority of them aren't going to find a way to make a living. But I mean, it just gets worse and worse as you peel back the onion. Harvard's endowment is now worth $50 billion. If you stacked Harvard's endowments in $100 bills, you'd get nearly, and if they'd have the same return this year, you'd have a stack of $100 bills that's practically to the Karman line. In other words, the Virgin orbital rocket would run

into the stack of $100 bills. And yet they're letting in 1,400 freshmen. They could let in 14,000. The head of the admissions department there said, we could have tripled our freshman class without sacrificing any quality. And I was like, well, boss, when you're sitting on an endowment that's the GDP of Costa Rica, why wouldn't you? So- Why do you think they won't? Back to the prestige, the luxury brand thing that you were talking about? Once you are in America, once you have a Harvard degree, once you have a Harvard degree, once you have a UCLA degree, you don't want anyone else in because it makes you feel better about yourself. It makes the degree on your wall more valuable. I mean, how many times have you heard

people at a cocktail party or say, I would never get in to UC San Diego if I applied now? And they say it with kind of glee and pride. And it's like, well, guess what, boss? That means your daughter's not getting in. This is not a good thing. This is not a good thing. And spring in households across America used to be a nervous but joyous time. Am I going to USC? Am I going to UCLA? Am I going to Berkeley? Or maybe I'm not a great student, but I'm a good student. So I'm going to go to a good school like UC Boulder. Now it's the season of despair. to go to a good school like UC Boulder. Now it's the season of despair. My kid played by the rules. My kid did really well, worked his or her ass off, had all those tiger mom moments when the whole house came crashing down because of that D because they didn't hand in their homework and they got their shit together, did what they were supposed to do. And the kid gets arbitraged down to a mediocre school who, by the way, is part of this corrupt cartel where we all raise prices in unison, such that the majority of American kids and households are paying a Mercedes price tag for a fucking Hyundai. And we've affected a transfer of $1.5 trillion in wealth from middle-class

households to the endowments and salaries of administrators and faculty because we're preying on the hopes and dreams and the expectation in America that you've failed as a parent if you don't get your kids to college. So I think it's a corrupt system. I think it's a morally flawed system. I am being reductive here. I do think some people have not lost the script. The University of California just announced they're going to try and expand freshman seats by 20,000 people. I'm going to make a pledge to that and get involved. But private universities, some of the universities, including mine at NYU, we've lost the script, Ryan. We're supposed to be

higher education. I'm really on a rant now. In my opinion, it's the tip of the spear of America. That's where presidents go. We found the vaccine at universities. We think through go. We found the vaccine at universities. We think through civil rights. We think through, this is America. There's few things we do other than maybe weapons and software better than higher ed in the US. We're also really good at superhero films, but we're really good at higher ed. So it's sort of higher ed, where higher ed goes, so goes America. And is this where America is supposed to be? That we identify the freakishly more remarkable and turn them into billionaires? I don't think so. I think America is supposed to be giving everyone a shot to be a millionaire. And unfortunately, higher ed has morphed from

being the greatest upward lubricant of mobility in the history of mankind to the enforcer of the caste system. Okay, you got rich parents? Fine, you can find your way into USC. Okay, you're freakishly remarkable? We'll let you in because we think you might be a billionaire. That's not what America's about. We don't need more Elon Musk. We just need more people named Ed who have good lives and good households

and raise their kids and are good spouses and good community members. It's just like this. It's become this weird hunger games where you live an incredible life or you die trying. I didn't eat breakfast. I'm in a shitty mood right now. Good. I'm going to keep pressing here. How did you become really rich? So, well, I'll give you a timeline. I've always been an entrepreneur. I mean, first off, let me just preface this. I'm not humble. I think I'm remarkably talented. I think I'm probably in the top 1% of talent globally. But here's the thing. The top 1% puts you in a room that's filled with the population of Germany. So I think I'm in the top. I would think I'm one of the 75 million most

talented people in the world. But I'm probably in the top 10,000 in terms of economic security. I've been very blessed that way. And a lot of it is just not my fault. I was born a white heterosexual male in California in 1964. What did that mean? It meant that I got to go to an amazing university and got incredible certification for free. My total tuition, undergrad and grad at UCLA and Berkeley, despite being very unremarkable, was $7,000 total for all seven years. It took me five years. I spent my fifth year at UCLA watching Planet of the Apes reruns and smoking a shit ton of marijuana. I came into professional age in the 90s when the internet was booming. And I had a shaved head, which meant I could raise a ton of money with my certification that I got access to for free. I could raise a ton of money in the Bay Area where there was more wealth created

between 1991 and 1999 than in all of Europe since World War II. So I got to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. I've had incredible opportunities because I live in America. I could fail and I have failed several times. I've had businesses go bankrupt. I've been divorced. The only person I knew loved me died kind of prematurely. But America is a fantastic place. It loves to forgive and give people second chances. And then in the 2000s, I started companies that were really good. I got lucky. I sold one for $30 million. I sold another for $160 million. And over the last seven, eight years, I've been investing and doubling down in tech companies, and my wealth has skyrocketed. And in the last 18 months, and this is the dirty secret of the pandemic, if you're in the top 1% or even the top 10%, you're living your best life. This is what the pandemic has meant for me. It's meant more time with kids, more times with Netflix, and my wealth has doubled.

And I'm like, actually, it's dangerous because this virus has not seen the full-throated capitalist response we're capable of. Within seven days of Pearl Harbor, we converted the largest Chrysler factory into a factory punching out M3 Bradley tanks, and that one factory punched out more tanks than the entire Third Reich during the entire war. liberty with selfishness. If Walmart stock had gone down 40%, if Amazon stock had been cut in half, if the NASDAQ had gone down 30%, when someone walked into a Walmart without a mask, we would have tased their ass and then had a conversation around their liberties. I don't think we've really fought this virus. I understand that people want to get back to work. I think there is a balance between living your life and some of the mandates. I get that. But I don't think we've really, really felt a sense of urgency. I think the people who control this nation, the shareholder class, it's kind of been stop, stop. It hurts so good. But back to your original question,

I got wealthy from the NASDAQ. I think I'm incredibly talented. And I also was born at exactly the right place at the right time. The analog I highlight is my roommate, my freshman year in the fraternity at UCLA, born a white male in 1964, but God reached into his soul and decided that he was gay. And he died alone of AIDS at the age of 32. Neither of those, my heterosexuality, his homosexuality, neither of those were our fault, our choice. So it's just impossible to look at where I am and not recognize that, you know, at the end of the day, I'm just really fucking lucky. And I'm not humble. I'm not humble. So I've amassed more wealth than I ever thought possible. I feel very fortunate, but it's been through entrepreneurship.

It's been through technology. It's been through working my ass off. It's been through resilience and breaking through failure. But more than anything, it's being, in my opinion, being born at the right place at the right time. I've made some jokes in the past where I think sometimes when I'll read about something or, and I'll feel like the guy wanted to be a founder more than he actually wanted to run a company. Was that the case when you felt like out of early tech, late nineties, early two thousands, and some of the stuff that you started up, like, was that part of the tech world as prominent as it is now? Or did guys kind of actually want to start companies to start companies? It was nothing like what it is now. Me, in the graduate class of Haas, the business school I graduated from in the 92, two of us were entrepreneurs out of the entire class. It was me and the second was my partner. I mean, no one started companies. I mean, very few people. It was really kind of a niche thing.

When I moved to New York in 2000 to start an e-commerce incubator, there were just no one even understood what options were. Employees were like, oh, this is a tech company. Isn't this cute? What are options? You want to pay me an option? It was difficult to find a law firm that could set a paperwork for her. There were no engineers.

I mean, so the ecosystem, people just don't remember what it was like. It's dramatically changed. In addition, we have this massive idolatry of innovators where the best and brightest are supposed to go start tech companies. And if you're really smart, you drop out of school. If you're really smart, you get an amazing job and you leave Bridgewater or Goldman Early to go start a website or a SaaS company. So just the emphasis and the hero worship of innovators is striking.

I'm an entrepreneur and people think, oh, it's because you're so talented. My entrepreneurship is a function of my deficiencies. I recognized, I was self-aware enough to realize at Morgan Stanley that I was not successful in big companies. And people say, oh, because you're such a maverick. No, it's not. It's because I was too fucking insecure. Every time people go into a conference room, I thought they must be talking about me. I resented people senior to me that I didn't think were as smart as me. And you know what? That's called work. Everyone has to put up with that bullshit. I was just not cut out. If you have the skills, people come to my office hours and I say, people, kids or my students, and they say, I'm thinking about starting a company.

I have an offer from Google. I have an offer from Amazon. I'm thinking about starting my company. I'm like, don't be an idiot. Got to work for Amazon. On a risk-adjusted basis, these platforms are incredible places to work. And if you can put up with the bullshit, if you can navigate the politics, if you can find mentors, if you can play well or nice with others, on a risk-adjusted basis, you're going to build a lot of wealth and a lot of credibility. I didn't have those skills.

So most entrepreneurs aren't entrepreneurs because of their talents. They're entrepreneurs because they just immigrated from South Korea and they don't have any choice but to open a dry cleaner. They're not getting offers from Goldman Sachs. And mine was kind of the same thing. I was self-aware enough to, big company, I'm not going to be successful. I don't have the emotional, I don't have the EQ to be successful in a big company. I need to be in charge. I need total visibility and transparency. I resent the notion that I'm not in charge or control. But I started with another guy,

my stalemate at Morgan Stanley. He's now vice chairman. We both ended up in similar places economically. I'm probably a little better off than he is, but he has endured a fraction of the stress I have endured. And a couple of times, you know, I kind of lost everything. When my, you know, in 2000 with the dot bomb implosion, I went from a 99 looking at jets to literally like, I remember in 2000 calling my accountant saying like, what am I worth? And he was like, well, let me think. I don't know. You're worth negative 2 million right now. And then in 2008, you know, building back and then getting crushed again in the recession because I wasn't diversified. Can you, by the way, maybe share with us, because I was listening to one of the pods recently where you kind of allowed yourself during a monologue to divert into this rage of the 2008 crash. What was the worst? Were you running a fund at that point?

Like, what was the ultimate, like, how am I going to get out of this moment? The thing that struck me was it was the first time I felt scared. And that is, even from a young age, I was a box boy at San Vicente Foods. I was a waiter. I used to go to this rich woman's house named Lillian Hellman and carry her up and down her stair. I could always make money. I used to park cars at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I could always make money and take care of myself. And when I moved to New York, worked at Morgan Stanley, I didn't have enough money for a deposit on an apartment. And I couldn't borrow from my mom. So I slept on friends' couches. I'm a social guy. You know, I always could dance between

the raindrops and always figure it out. And then in 2008, when I got run over by the recession, and again, I was not diversified. I went from, I was chairman, I think, of Red Envelope, the company I'd started. A bunch of ships, similar to what's happening now, got stuck 30 miles off of the Long Beach port because of a strike. We had a supply chain problem. We started spitting out the software gun at the warehouse, started spitting out the wrong address. And so we sent gifts to like 40,000 incorrect addresses, which if you think about the complexity and cost of what happens when you send gifts to 40,000 wrong addresses. and costs of what happens when you send gifts to 40,000 wrong addresses. And then a credit analyst at Wells Fargo, who's probably pretty prescient, said, we need to call in all credit lines because something bad is happening in the credit market. So we went from a stock trading at like eight bucks a share to chapter 11 in like what felt like six weeks, maybe it was eight weeks. So again, I went from, okay, finally I'm back again to, okay, I'm worth nothing again. And unfortunately, my son had the bad judgment.

My oldest son had the poor judgment to come screaming out of my girlfriend. And I remember at that time thinking, okay, it's one thing not to have money. It's another thing not to have money when you're 40 and you're responsible for another human being. You feel like I'm a fucking failure. And that's the first time I had ever felt that emotion that I had failed on a cosmic level as a father, because I was living in New York for the first time. I was kind of worried about money. My kid can't sleep on a couch. You know, my, my, my infant son needs a certain level of economic security. And the reality is we were

fine. We were fine, but it, it really fucked with me on what I'll call a mask. It messed with my masculinity. I felt like I had let down my family, my new son, myself. And the lesson from it is the following. Life isn't about what happens to you. Life is about how you respond to what happens to you. And nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. I wasn't the genius I thought I was in 1999 or 2007 when I thought I was worth tens of millions of dollars, nor was I the idiot that the market was telling me I was in 2000 and 2008. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. And you just have to cut yourself some slack when the market hits you hard. And you also have to rein in your horns and have some humility when you're killing it because you're not the genius nor the idiot the markets are telling you at that

moment. But that was kind of a, I would say that was arguably like my most, that was the first time in life where I'm like, I'm no longer a kid. I'm a 40 year old and I'm failing. That was very, that really fucked with me, quite frankly. You have been really critical of social media. And I want to tie this into the younger people that are listening to us, either college and then post-college and then full-grown adults that are just into sports as well. But I think some people would say, I mean, you're critics, but they say you're alarmist about it, that you make too big of a deal about how dangerous social media is. Is that the kind of response that you get? Because you're obviously very, very critical, not only where we're at, but where this is going. saying, come on, Scott, you know, Sheryl Sandberg's going to be the next president. Do you really want to say that she's a liar? You're just jealous. And I said four or five years ago that these companies, that there's trouble in Mudville. These companies are too powerful. I said three

years ago that Mark Zuckerberg was the most dangerous person on the planet. Again, people are like, that's unfair. I said two years ago that Sheryl Sandberg was terrible for women, that she was lipstick on cancer, got huge amounts of shit and was called a misogynist for that. for women, that she was lipstick on cancer, got huge amounts of shit and was called a misogynist for that. Quite frankly, I think the data supports all of my fears. Our discourse has become more coarse. Teen depression has skyrocketed since Facebook acquired Instagram. We now, one third of each party thinks the other party is their mortal enemy. We have, I think, tremendous epidemics in teen depression, weaponization of our elections, polarization of our society. We had a fucking insurrection organized on social media.

And the thing is, Facebook didn't cause the insurrection. Facebook didn't cause teen depression. Facebook didn't cause the insurrection. Facebook didn't cause teen depression. Facebook didn't create income inequality. It's just that social media makes everything everywhere a little bit shittier all the time. And I want to be clear. I think that big tech, I think we're net gainers from big tech. If I had a button and I could press it and big tech would evaporate, I wouldn't press the button. I own Apple and Amazon stock. Amazon is the biggest recruiter out of my class. We are net gainers from big tech. The problem is with the word net. We're net gainers from fossil fuels, but we still have emission standards. We're net

gainers from pesticides, but we still have an FDA. For some reason, we've decided to let these companies do whatever they want to let people advertising on their platform and paying rubles, to have extreme dieting sites suggested to a 15-year-old who is 5'7 and 105 pounds, to let YouTube suggest extreme right-wing white supremacist sites to young men. Two-thirds of extremist sites are suggested by the algorithms to these young men. So my sense is, yeah, everything we feared is coming to pass. And I think of all the regrets we're going to have in five years, 10 years, 20 years, whether it's, okay, we limited job growth by letting monopolies form and they put small companies out of business.

Trying to make money as a search engine, a social media company, or a tech company right now, or a tech hardware company. The fastest growing parts of our economy are controlled by monopolies or duopolies. We're going to regret not having a more competitive environment. We're going to regret having these companies interfere with our elections. But more than anything, we're going to look back on this era and we're going to think, how the hell did we let that happen to our kids? Can you imagine at the age of 15 seeing your full self 24 by 7?

Every stupid thing you said, every outfit that was too revealing, your physical abnormalities or awkwardness, constantly evaluated 24 by 7 in your face. And anyone who feels for whatever reason, the social need or reward to bully you or come after you. And this is especially harmful among young girls. Boys bully physically and verbally, girls bully relationally, and we put neutron bombs in their hands. I would rather give my kid at 16 a bottle of Jack Daniels and marijuana than a snap and Instagram account. And I think we're going to look back and say, how the hell did we let that happen to our kids? You have spent a lot of time, I know the algebra of wealth is something, the videos that pop up too that are like, there's just so many lines in

there that are hilarious because i think of my spending habits when i was younger and i didn't have any kind of income coming in but you were always kind of spending your income i'll never forget too like when i got one of my first decent deals with espn i told my father i was like hey you know finally i can start saving some money or whatever and he was like you haven't had money now for 10 years as an adult he's like you're not going to save a dime. He's like, you're going to get a nicer apartment. You're going to get a nicer car. You're going to step up from gap to gap black label or whatever. He nailed it. He knew exactly what I was going to do. And he was right. I loved one of your lines about being wealthy is not checking your Bitcoin position seven times a day.

When you talk to – I imagine there's probably some young students that want to pull you aside to go – I don't know if you have a goodwill hunting moment at NYU where somebody pulls you aside and wants to make that impression, but also wants to follow you around and wants to figure out the path to wealth. How different is it now for somebody who's younger going, of wealth. How different is it now for somebody who's younger going, okay, if I'm graduating and my number one priority is accumulating wealth, how different is that advice to what you went back through? Well, a lot of it is do as I say, not as I do, because like you, I just raised my standard of living to my salary. I think it's important. That's why I think equity or finding a job where there's sort of forced savings, either through equity grants or 401ks, you want to acknowledge,

you want to come out of the closet and say, I am an alcoholic. And when I say alcoholic, meaning that you're going to spend every current dollar you have. So force yourself to save. So put yourself in a position. Wealth isn't a function of what you earn. It's a function of what you save. And my dad, between his Social Security and Royal Navy pension, gets $52,000 a year, and he spends $40,000. He's rich. Having passive income greater than your burn is the definition of rich. I have a few friends who make $2 to $5 million a year as masters of the universe in investment banking or big-time lawyers. Between their ex-wife, their house in the Hamptons, their NetJets card, they spend it all. They're poor. So the algebra of wealth is, first and foremost, is focus. And that is find something you're good at and invest 10,000 hours in becoming great at it. And don't follow your passion. Follow your talent. Find something you're good at.

Become great at it. Because if you're great at something, you can make good money at it. And then live like a stoic for the first until you're 40. Try and save 10, 20, 30% of everything through forced savings or equity and bust a move to some sort of economic, some sort level of economic security. And then diversify, diversification. You don't need to be a hero. I bought Netflix at 12 bucks a share. It's at $540. Now that's a good news. The bad news is I sold it at 10 to take a tax loss, but it didn't kill me. I had red envelope stock go to zero, but it didn't kill me because by the time I was kind of, I'll call it 35, 40, I started diversifying. And even though I thought, oh my God, red envelope's going to the moon. I'm going to put it all here. I would say, no, I'm going to take a little bit of money and put it in Apple and then let the most powerful force in the universe take over. And that is time. That is the reason I live on the beach and I'm bragging now is because I bought Apple and Amazon in 2008 and I just ignored them. I still ignore them. And occasionally I look up, I'm like, oh,

I still ignore them. And occasionally I look up and I'm like, oh, okay. Apple's up 16X and Amazon's up 12X. The power of time, anyone over the age of 40 will tell you, time's going to go a five stocks in the S&P 500 since the beginning of the Dow and you didn't touch them for 10 years, no one has ever lost money. So it's focus, it's stoicism, saving more than you spend, it's diversification, and then it's letting time take over. So the good news is I absolutely know how to get you rich. The bad news is the answer is slowly. And we all think we're going to kill it and have the big payday. I hope you're right. But just in case, just in case, chart a path towards financial security. Figure out a way that you're going to have a million bucks by the age of 50, no matter what happens. And if you start at 22, the path is pretty visible. It's okay, I'm going to save a hundred bucks a month for the first year, then 150 bucks a month. And by the time I'm 25, I'm going to be saving a thousand bucks a month. And by the time I'm 30, I'm going

to be saving, you know, you can get there. You can absolutely get there and don't do what I did and assume I'm so fucking talented that at some time it'll start raining money when I sell a company or I take it public. That is a really dangerous strategy. So I think there's absolutely a way to get there. I think a lot about it. I think it's important to have a code of values. My values are capitalism. I work hard. I value money. I like spending it. I like making it. I like competition. I think capitalism is wonderful. Stoicism, until basically the age of 40, I didn't really spend money. I just saved almost everything. I didn't really need it, and I just worked all the time, and I tried to be fairly unemotional about it. And then finally, atheism for me is really motivating. I think at some point I'll look into my son's eyes and know that our relationship is coming to an end and it's very empowering for me. I care less about making mistakes. I'm more aggressive. I'm more forthcoming with my emotions, with people I care about. I take more risks. I'm

not afraid of public failure, which is key to being an entrepreneur because I realized we're all going to be dead soon. So you have to have a code. There's an algebra of wealth, and then there's a set of code. Everybody needs a code. What are the things that guide you and kind of set your path, if you will? Before we finish up, I got two things here. here. One is, I don't know if it ends up making you unpopular when you point this out, because I appreciate how much you have shared with us like, hey, these are the advantages I had,

and I'm not going to deny them because it's real. So we don't even have to debate it. But now as we've shifted to present day, you've brought this up that younger men, the numbers are telling you, younger men right now, the odds don't seem to be in their favor. Is that fair, the way you presented it? men are failing. And no one's favorite special interest group, no one looks at young men and thinks they're oppressed. But the reality is, if you look at the numbers, young men are struggling and failing. When we were talking about college, in the next five years, for every one male graduate of college, there will be two female graduates. They're more prone to addiction, higher incarceration rates, higher overdose rates.

In addition, you think, well, that's not a big deal. If women finally have their opportunity to get more college degrees, good for them. Seven in 10 high school valedictorians are girls, so they deserve to get in. The problem is there are some really pretty big second order effects here. And that is the scariest stat I saw this year was that in 2008, Pew does this study on youth. The number of men under the age of 30 who had never had sex was 8%. And people hear the term sex and their brain goes to different places. Think of it as a key step to establishing a long-term relationship. It was 8% in 2008.

8% of men under the age of 30 were virgins. In 2019, it was 28%. It's probably one in three now. So when you walk down the avenue that is America, there's two women for every one man that have a college degree and a third of the men under the age of 30 have never had sex. And you think, well, okay, why is that bad? It's bad because the most violent, unstable societies in the world produce too many of one cohort, and that is young, lonely, broke men. And we are producing too many of them. And the reality is women mate horizontally and up, and men mate horizontally and down. Women with college degrees

aren't interested in mating with men without college degrees. So we're creating a generation of loneliness, and we're creating a generation of men where the top 10% get to engage in Porsche polygamy. They're having 80% of the sex and the bottom 50% in terms of attractiveness of men have absolutely no mating opportunities. And I think that's bad for society. So I would argue, and I spent a lot of time coaching young men, I would argue that young men, almost more than any group, even more Latin men attend college now proportionally versus white men. A lot more women, girls, and I say girls, 17-year-old boys and girls are attending college than men and double the number of graduates. So I think there is an emerging crisis around a cohort that is failing, and that is young men. cohort that is failing and that is young men. All right. Final thought here because I announced to the show this week that we were having you on and they said, hey, make sure you give him shit for his shirts off selfies that he

posted. And I went through him. I went through him. I said, give him shit. I'm like, we might have him on again next week. So props to you for also making sure people realize that you probably had sex at some point in your life for those shirts those shirts off shared with us. What's the secret, man?

I mean, other than testosterone, um, look, uh, there is a lesson here. So I put your, uh, Ryan's being generous. I put a, uh, for my 57th birthday yesterday, I put a bunch of pictures of me shirtless through the years. Like 90% of that shit is narcissism, right? I'm proud of my body and I want to show it off. And, but 10% of it, there is some rational. I think that working out is key to the species.

I think you need to be strong. I think you need to walk into any room and be able to think one of two things. I could either kill and eat everybody in this room or I could outrun them. And we are, as a species, we are happiest in motion and surrounded by others. You are meant to play sports. You are meant to sweat. You are meant to lift heavy weights and run long distances, both in the real world and in your mind. It is key to success. You are not renting your body. It is not a loner. Working out, you know, people ask me what my secret is, my fitness secret. It's easy.

I've worked out four times a week for the last 40 years. It has been my antidepressant. It has been a ballast for my life. And one of the first things I do when I coach kids is I say, how often do you work out? I am shocked what a fucking hot mess some of these young people are. I'm like, are you kidding? Look at you. And it's not genetics. I'm not saying you need to be ripped. I'm not saying you need to be skinny. You need to be a stronger version of yourself physically and mentally. And one of the first things I do is I find four to six hours, whether it's trading Coinbase or porn or Twitter, and I'm like, we're going to turn this shit off and you are going to work out three or four times a week and you are going to get strong. Because I'll tell you,

if you feel strong or the strongest version of you, everything gets better. Everything gets better. You're more secure. You're more kind. You're less depressed. So I think exercise is a gift from God, and it's something I have done my entire life. And I think it's just an absolutely wonderful thing. I think on the far left, we on the woke have gone crazy with this body positivity bullshit. The fashion industrial complex wanted us to be anorexic. Now they want us to be diabetic. On the right, they politicize masking. On the left, we politicize obesity. You need to be in good shape. If you have money, there is no reason you shouldn't be a stronger version of yourself. It is the most rewarding thing you can do that is within your control. How about that for a message on a Friday?

His name is Scott Galloway, the Prof G Podcast. You're going to enjoy it. And I really appreciated the time, man. So thanks for making this for us. Thanks, Ryan. Congrats on your success. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am

liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required you never know what's going to happen when you're just sitting in bed trying to fall asleep and you're scrolling and then instagram's like maybe riscilla will like this hoodie and um i'm embarrassed to admit it but i think i think we all know that's where it's at and then i remember i saw this one i was like i think i really like that and then i forgot what it was and i was mad i didn't screen grab it and then it magically found me it found me months later and forgot what it was and I was mad. I didn't screen grab it. And then it magically found me. It found me months later. And it was, it was a hoodie from John Elliott, which I think is some of the coolest clothing out. This is a little different. It's not normally

what we do, but the founder, John joins us now. And I hit him up and made a joke about one of the pieces of clothing. And he hit me right back up and said he knew about the show. So we're going to talk a little bit about him and we're going to do some life advice at the end. So good morning, man. Thanks for doing this. Hey, absolute pleasure to be on. It's an honor. Thank you. Thank you for obviously supporting the brand and thanks for the invite. Happy to be here. Okay. So when did you know?

Because I don't know. I'm out of my depths on this one, on the fashion side of things, although I have a million questions because I don't understand everything about it. Some of us like our clothes, some of us don't like our clothes. As a young kid, what were you like? I mean, I was obsessed with the NBA. I was young.

My formidable years were really informed by skateboarding, the Fab Five, Michael Jordan. Then fast forward into teenage years, Allen Iverson burst onto the scene, still playing baseball. Delano DeShields has interesting style up in Montreal. And these were guys that were on my wall. And these were guys that were on my wall. I saw guys who... I grew up in San Francisco.

Guys who had signed shoe deals with large skateboard companies, break off and start their own companies. And next thing you know, these guys are doing better than how they were doing signed to the big corporations. And it just kind of a light bulb went on off for me super early that, um, that's, you know, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to start my own fashion apparel company. So how does that start? How do you go from, Hey, this is something I want to do. Like you went and worked somewhere else first, correct? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I, I mean, from a really

early age, um, I knew that like, this is what I was most interested in. In fact, I think my favorite athlete when I was really young was Bo Jackson. I felt like Nike, although the Bo campaigns were obviously incredible and very memorable and left an impact on culture, and very memorable and left an impact on culture. I felt like he was kind of never, you know, he played, he played in the NFL and the MLB. And to me, that was like, you know, he should be at the same level as Jordan. So I think when I was eight, I started sketching sneakers and my mom was like, yeah, you should send them to Nike. And so I sent them a bunch of designs and,

you know, eight year old scribble and Nike actually replied. And I saved that letter. And that was kind of like, Oh my God, like if Nike would actually spend the time to, to write back to me, then I just started to like, become really curious about what my point of view and what my kind of, you know, what my world would look like in this big industry. So yeah, I found my favorite store in San Francisco, went and begged them for a job. It was mostly for the discount. And that was in my early 20s. And that's how I started. So how did the John Elliott brand begin? I mean, it has to probably go back to the discount. When you're in your early 20s,

you're going out all the time, five nights a week, you want to look good, trying to meet girls. You end up just consuming so much. And so I moved from San Francisco to New York. You have to pack up everything you own. And you realize how much of your disposable income, even with a nice discount, you've wasted on stuff that you've worn one or two, two, three times max. And this is before social media era. So now I'm sure there's guys who you buy something that's probably super flashy. You post it on the gram. Like, you're like, dude, can I wear that again? So it was kind of this idea of like, trying to build a timeless look, trying to build something that felt like a uniform, something that really stood out. Like when I, you know, moved from New York to LA a year later,

and I whittled the, you know, my wardrobe down even further and made that edit, that's when the light bulb clicked. Okay, there's a proposition here for my version of a modern uniform. And it was completely unbranded, completely no artwork. And when of explained my vision to either like cohorts in the industry or family and friends, everyone was like, you're insane. You're crazy. Like, don't do that. And that was kind of like, okay, yeah, this is good. I didn't really respect what you had to say anyway, so I'm definitely going to do it. So I'm definitely going to do it.

It's it's it. Look, I know that there's there's a lot of differences in both of our paths, but there's a commonality in every person that does something that's a little bit different. And there's actually something I'm working on. And it was amazing when I started off how many people I would tell. Now, granted, I'm slinging draft beers to people going, I'd like to host a talk show. I'd like to see myself doing that. And people were like, what are you talking about? It's almost over for you. You didn't go to school for it. You didn't do any of these things. I'm like, nah, I think I could do that. I think I could do that.

And I remember a couple of younger guys being like, that'd be awesome. And they were the worst guys to listen to because they just liked me because I was an older, cool guy. And then the older people, which I will tell you is a consistent theme throughout, is there's kind of this weird, I don't want this younger person to succeed at something that I was too afraid to ever try. So even though it's great to talk to people, it's also kind of a waste of time when you really decide that you know what you're going to do, because there's going to be more people that tell you not to do it, either because they actually care about you and they think the odds are against you. But the larger group is the group that's like, I actually don't want to see you succeed at something rare because I never took the chance.

It's more about them that it is your idea. Yeah. I mean, I would like to specify that, like, you know, my dad and my brother were the two biggest, you know, forces behind me going for it. And they they pushed me. forces behind me going for it. And they push me. But yeah, when you're first starting out, and you have this grandiose vision of what you can achieve, and you're set on doing it, and then you get a couple months into your journey, that's when shit gets real, and you get really tested. And all of a sudden, you're making decisions on what you can really tested and, you know, all of a sudden you're making decisions on what you can eat and, uh, you know, like putting money aside for gas, you know, that's when you start listening

to Meek Mill and talking to yourself crazy. Like you're, you know, an inmate, like, you know, I got this kind of shit. Like that's, that's when stuff like, you know, you really kind of have to have some tough conversations with yourself and stay committed. Okay. Then how does it go from, I would say in a very short amount of time, I don't know, I don't know what the timelines of these things are from, okay, we're doing t-shirts, we're doing jeans, we're doing hoodies, we're doing timeless. We want a higher end version of kind of the, just throw something on deal. And now all of a sudden you're invited to fashion week or you go, I don't know how fashion week works to feel free. How does that transition happen from the inspiration,

the product to holy shit, we're a big deal already. That's a, I mean, that's a great question. And it's kind of, it happens and you don't even totally realize it's happening as it's going. But, you know, we start, I started the brand with my best friend from high school. I moved to LA to take a gig working wholesale. And I had this idea of what I wanted to do. So I asked him if I could stay with him for a couple weeks. The couple weeks turned into a year. And I was just banking every paycheck that I had. So we started the company with $30,000. And when I told people who were working downtown and manufacturing how much money they had,

people were basically like, you could go and set that money on fire in a driveway and just have a nice night. And that would be a better use of those funds than trying to start your own thing. So I would say that we started with a very, very limited set of materials. It was denim, jersey for t-shirts, and French terry for sweatshirts and sweatpants.

And I listened to an interview that Jim Rome had done with Bernard Hopkins, a boxer. And he was talking about his experience in prison and how he would make himself a grilled cheese sandwich every day, steal a piece of bread in the morning, cheese at lunch, bread at night, put it in a shoe box with tinfoil, warm it up when lights went down, boom, that got him through each day. And Rome talked about how that was fascinating. He was like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Inmates, they innovate with nothing. And so I started to like look into this idea of prison innovation. And I was like, look, man,

I'm not getting emails from jerks in corporate America right now. Like I'm doing this on my own terms. All I have to do is innovate with these three materials. And I think it really pushed me to kind of create, you know, honestly things that were not available in the marketplace at that time. So it was a new approach to sweatpants, a new approach to create, honestly, things that were not available in the marketplace at that time. So it was a new approach to sweatpants, a new approach to sweatshirts,

thinking about how to make t-shirts that would layer with this uniform. And that innovation that came from just this limited set of resources and materials forced a really new flavor in the fashion industry. And all of a sudden, the gatekeepers in New York, they really were interested in the story. And they're really interested in the approach, this untrained approach. And they got excited. And so, yeah, by season two, we were in eight stores around the country. One of them was in Cleveland, Ohio. And I remember I got a call from this guy who texted me first and he said he was LeBron James' stylist. And I was like, sure, who's this person playing a prank on me? Like, sure. Like, okay, Yeah. Right. And I took the call and he was like, um, he was like, yeah, basically,

um, you know, the NBA all-star weekend is coinciding with, uh, with, you know, New York fashion week, you know, basically like at the same time in February. And I think it was back in like 2012 or 13, you know, you guys should think about doing a fashion show. And at that time I was sitting in my late grandmother's Honda Accord from 1989. You know, we had like no money and I was like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Let's do it. Do you think you can get me up to Nike? Let's, I want, I want to try to see if we could like, you know, have Nike's walk on the runway and, um, and basically just willed our way. And like it was, you know, after that we won GQ Best New Menswear Designer. And it was just like, it was like the rocket ship just took off.

But it was, you know, obviously there was like, I think good ideas and a tremendous amount of hard work, you know, driving around downtown LA and manufacturing myself. But it was really, I think, due to an original approach. Okay. Let's get back to the LeBron part of it. Cause I've seen your Instagram page where it

clearly like there's some kind of relationship there is, is he your guy? Like how often is their contact there? Cause I could tell he would like your stuff, obviously. Yeah, no, I mean, LeBron is, you know, he's, uh, he's a friend. He's an amazing, uh, he's been an amazing person in my life. Um, you know, we, we collaborated on, um, a shoe for him called the icon. Um, and it was kind of like his, uh, first like off court shoe, uh, that, uh, basically, um, you know, I got tasked to do. That was my second Nike collaboration. And yeah, I've been to China with LeBron twice.

Getting to see what that reaction is like in China is just, it's monumental. He, you know, when we opened our first flagship store on Melrose Avenue, he came for the opening event. He's changed my life. He's been an incredible friend. I think he's definitely a fan of the brand. I'm obviously humbled to even say that I know him.

He's a fan of what we do. Yeah. Right. I don't want to make it weird or like, yeah, have you shown me text exchanges and stuff? It's very clear that he's a fan of the brand and that you guys work on stuff. The next level up before we get to the fashion advice questions here is Kanye. Did he just show up? Like how did, how did the Kanye connection happen with what you guys are doing? Kanye kind of took a liking to what we were doing, the approach, early on. Kanye is a genius on so many levels, but he saw what we were doing, and I think he saw the approach and there was obviously a, it sparked his interest. I remember, you know, we were very early in the brand and I walked into a store in Soho and it was like raining and the salesperson knew who I was. It was like one of the first times someone had like recognized me and he seemed really

nervous talking to me. And I was like, bro, like, what's your deal? You know, like I'm running like this tiny company. Why do you care? And I like go walking down the stairs into like this kind of lowered like pit area where they have like footwear and bags and whatnot. And I'm trying not to slip

because it was raining outside on these marble steps. And I look up and I understood instantly why this guy, you know, couldn't speak. There's Kanye West. And he's like, sit down. And I'm like, oh shit. So we sat there and talked and he wanted to know what jacket I was wearing.

I introduced myself. He had heard of the brand. We kind of stayed in contact. And then the next time I saw him, I was at Equinox in Soho and I was on a treadmill and he was getting on a stationary bike and he waved me over. He was like, hey, come over. Like, let's, you know, let's work out together.

And I said, wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about like the one on Prince Street? Yes. Yeah. Right. So. OK. You know it.

Yeah. That's the one I go to when I'm there all the time. Yeah. So shout out to some of the trainers. But anyway, when I, I just want to know, wait a minute, Kanye's like, what are you doing? Chest and buys today? Or what are you doing? Like, what's that like? I knew this was going to be like right up your alley. No, I mean, I was just trying to get some cardio in, you know, I think it was, um, probably my second fashion week. Um, and obviously nerves are high, so you got to get a workout for me. You got to get a workout morning workout and get the blood flowing. And, um, yeah,

Kanye walked in and next thing you know, we rode the stationary bike for probably like two hours and just people filtering in and out, you know, just a line of people that come and talk to them. And, uh, and yeah, next thing you know, kind of, uh, I invited him to my show. He told me what he was working on. Um, I had no idea if he was actually going to show up and, uh, and yeah, like, uh, you know, day of the show, like five minutes before the show is about to start, get a text, say, Hey, Kanye's on his way. And, uh, that was another kind of like life-changing moment. Kanye, another amazing person, amazing human, uh, one of just the most brilliant people that

I've ever been around the way he thinks how, how ahead of people he is, how fast he is. Um, he's just, I mean, yeah, there's, you know, people like Kanye and LeBron, they, you don't get to that level by accident. There's a true genius, um, in both of them.

He had six, eight, two 60 helps too. I mean, absolutely. Yeah. No, but when you mix that with,

with, I think, you know, you know, uh think Josh Smith was 6'8", 262. Not an ambassador of the brand, apparently. How about that? Oh, man. I should take shots at Josh Smith. He had a good playoff game. Okay. Let's get to some of the emails because you are a busy guy. You've got a lot of stuff going on in your life. And so I don't want to take up more of your time. We could do a long one.

I mean, I have so many questions about Fashion Week. I'll just bug you. I'll just bug you a couple months from now here. Yeah, we can do it again. We'll figure it out. Okay, so let's do... I have... I think we have four pretty good ones here. Let's go.

Some decent variety. Okay, here we go. Fashion life advice. How to dress when you're a dad. 33, 6'3", 250. Hair's going, so it's been buzzed. Big biker. No pun intended.

No idea what I can bench. All right, we got it. Okay. Been working from home since March of 2020. Wardrobe's been Lululemon ABC pants, plain t-shirts, the odd flannel or shorts, depending on the season. We have a toddler and are through the hells of sleep training, teething, and potty training. I look in the mirror now

and feel disappointed in myself. Growing up, it felt like my dad had a style when he dressed. Not a style in the sense of being hip, but style that came from busting his butt, running his own business, raising four kids, and not giving a shit about people's opinions. Just wore stuff that seemed to fit together, minus the stuff that he wore that was from baseball tournaments he played in that stuff's actually kind of vintage

now so you might want to try to see if that's still around uh but it just worked how do i find some stuff that works for me i've never been one to drop hundreds of thousands on a new wardrobe i don't want to roll around in a three-piece suit um i do feel i do feel like i like pants and a t-shirt or selling myself short. My wife dresses way better than me and I feel too proud to admit I pull us down when we go out. So look, not looking to walk a runway, but it'd be nice to meet up with buddies, go out with my wife, or even when I go to the school pickup and not feel like a slob. I mean, I think the first thing for someone like that is, look, if you've been in your house for that amount of time, you gotta,

you gotta be, get yourself excited about going out. You know, I think all that applies to all of us. So, um, and the first thing is going to be comfort. I would suggest, um, keeping the Lululemon and, uh, you know, whatever else, like really keep that for your house and get yourself some new stuff when you're going to step out. You know, I think fit is key, making sure that you don't have something that you're not going to feel comfortable in, in terms of fit.

So I, I would tend to stay on the baggier side for bottoms. If you're into biking, that to me was the most interesting thing in that kind of email, you know, chase your curiosities there, you know, that space. I'm not sure if he's referencing like, you know, chase your curiosities there. You know, that space, I'm not sure if he's referencing like, you know, hogs like Harley's or if he's,

you know, a road biker, not sure. I think he meant road bike. I don't think there's any gang affiliation with this. Okay. So then, you know, like, uh, what's the most aspirational, um, you know, road bike, is it, you know, I, I'm not an aficionado, but splurge there, see what they got. Maybe that's the thing that you're interested in. Find the pinnacle of the road bike and spend some money on stuff there because that's what you're most interested in. But make sure that the rest of what you're packaging it up with fits well and you're comfortable in it. But yeah, ditch the synthetic fabrics that you're living in in your house and get yourself excited to step out. Yeah, the athleisure wear comfort level that a lot of us have gone to, and I'll admit that I have as well.

I mean, you just went the last year and a half and you go, am I going to throw on shorts again? But the thing is your aau shorts are like all timer and you want to talk about lounging and feeling good if you want to wear the lining in them too um you guys hit it out of the park with those hey i appreciate that i i really do and look i mean i think there's a a way to mix that in tastefully that is going to be like a pillar of your wardrobe forever. And especially now coming out of the pandemic, I think it's more acceptable than ever. I think if you think back like 20 years ago to think that you could wear, you know, sweatpants to a meeting in person, I think people would have said you're out of your mind.

But now I think if you have a pair of sweatpants that actually fits well, and you could dress, you know, dress up with a sweater or with, um, you know, something that's like, you know, a oversized button up, like it's not out of the question. You could put it together in a way that is sensible. You know, my one thing advice is like, don't wear high tops with sweat pants, the bulky high top with a kind of slim fit cuff, I think is a really tough look. That's just a personal pet peeve. We can probably move on to the next one.

Sorry. That's a little rant. Yeah, because I would also push back on some of our young guys being like, this doesn't mean go out and buy sweatpants and wear them to your next interview either. It would just be that, you know, sweatpants are definitely more. Sweatpants used to mean you were out of work and that's definitely not the case now all right um you had given up yeah right right and now i i mean now you can

pull it off but you better be in if you're going to show up to a meeting they better want something from you not the other way around if you're wearing sweatpants that's that's a bit of a rule there uh that we just came up with. Agreed. This is a really interesting one. I like this. Okay, 511215. Late last year, my mom, a costume and wardrobe in the movie industry, 20 years, seems just 30 plus years.

Myself, artist and graphic designer collaborated on a jacket I did. She wanted to have artwork I did made into fabric. She then created a patterned soda jacket. I get compliments everywhere I go when I wear it. Men and women express interest in wearing one like it, which is good news because I'd like to go the genderless route with sizing for different body types. Branding wise, I've got some knowledge from my background in terms of logo, website, etc.

We may even have a connection who lives down the street from my mother to produce on a larger scale than just her. My question is, beyond logo, website, trying to blast your shit on social media and bugging your friends to share it, what are good early moves for getting it off the ground? Advisable sources of funding, thoughts on trying to go genderless and environmentally responsible. I want to be a part of a better standard of business, a better business person whose goals extend beyond merely profits, but also into setting an example of how responsible practice can be a viable business. Any advice would be appreciated. That's a lot.

I would say narrow the scope down a little bit. Like, you know, you don't need to solve every issue all at once. I think, you know, the fact that you have something that makes you feel good, that you get compliments on that showcases your creativity um when you're when you're out that's that's your spark so i would say make another jacket for yourself and uh start to share it and you know chase your curiosities but don't worry about uh you know the i think the sustainability sustainability aspect of fashion is like an incredibly important element of where the industry needs to go. But when you're first starting out, you don't even

truly have a business plan yet. And you've like kind of been struck with this spark of creativity. Don't give yourself reasons to not get going. Like just go. That's what I would say. So there's a lot there that feel like barriers to entry. I would say just continue to create. I think you clearly have some resources between your family and the people around you that would give you kind of a headstart, almost over a lot of people.

And that's amazing. So chase that, continue to create and see what happens. But don't get hung up in like these existential questions that could keep you up at night and take you away from your focus. Good answer. I like that. Narrow the focus at first. But I like that he was thinking about all these different things.

I imagine when you're just as a designer, you drive around and you think of things constantly. And then maybe you bring it back to your manufacturers. I mean, there's got to be a line where they go, hey, John, somebody's going to wear this, man. Somebody's actually going to wear this. You can definitely, you can go crazy. I mean, I'll never forget. I was driving down La Cienega and this guy just like, it was like unreal the way this guy cut me off. It was like, he just didn't like give a fuck. And, um, he was driving a Bentley and he had like the,

you know, license plate rap that said like, uh, something yacht club. And I was like, Oh my God, this guy fucking has a yacht as well. This guy is a member of a fucking yacht club. And I was like, Oh my God, this guy fucking has a yacht as well. This guy is a member of a fucking yacht club. And it was like, so hysterical to me that this guy just, this is the way he lived his life that, um, I just, you know, I literally getting cut off in traffic turned into this idea of like, huh, I, you know, what is the pinnacle of luxury? It's like watching water. Like that is the pinnacle of luxury? It's like watching water. Like that is the pinnacle of like what we all strive to do when we're on vacation, just sit there and watch water. Like, you know, so I came up with this imaginary yacht club and I,

you know, basically did a whole collection with all these like bouncy silks and, um, kind of reflective fabrics and whatnot. And it was a runway smash. Um, it didn't sell very well, but, uh, yeah, that was definitely a time where, you know, you can take a real life instance and build a world around it. And, um, in that particular case, it wasn't terribly commercial, but you know, I learned from it. I enjoyed that part of the story as much as any of this, just cause it's so different. Like I would hope people that are listening to this appreciate it. Be like, wow,

that's how that guy got to all these different places. All right. So another email here is from, uh, this one says nephew Kyle and it says how to make an America was fucking awesome. There's no, there's no Kyle.

Do you want to get in here? That wasn't me. That was awesome. But that was not me. Was, do you want to get in here? That wasn't me. That was awesome. But that was not me. Was that about you? I didn't watch that show. You know, I, I watched the first episode of that show and I, I realized that it was going to be too close to what I wanted to do, that it was going to set expectations for

me and my roadmap. And I, it was like, uh, it was like warning signs started to go off in my head. Like, yo, you need to turn this off because if, if you even let this Hollywood version of what your actual journey is going to be like set expectations for how your experience is going to go, then you're fucked. So I didn't watch it. By the way, you're right. There was something that came out and everybody's like, have you watched this yet? And I had worked on something that was going to be similar. And I go, I can't watch it. I also remember once a 311 VHS that I had in college where they were walking around in the street and they asked this guy that was like a street performer.

I don't know if he was part of an HOA, if you get my drift, but they were like, what do you listen to 311? He goes, I don't listen to anything. They're like, you're a musician and you don't listen to anything. And he was like, no, why would I do that? He's like, I don't want, I make my own music. So I don't know. Some similarities there. We're all, we're all thinking upstairs. Kyle, did you have any questions? Are you going to have something here? Cause I know that you'd like maybe step your game up a little bit, you're on the you're on the thick double c side you know i can't fit in some of the jeans myself you know so i'm not i'm not judging but go ahead kyle so the first guy was like his stats are pretty close to mine minus the balding and i'm

not as old as him so that's that's kind of good here let me ask you about this big fan of harley davidson love their love harley davidson like the like the button-up shirts and all that stuff Here, let me ask you about this. Big fan of Harley Davidson. Love Harley Davidson. Like the button-up shirts and all that stuff. Is that weird if I don't ride motorcycles? Seems like it's pretty bad for the life expectancy. Is that weird? Should I find something else? Also, can I fit in your stuff?

You got 2X. First, to answer the last question, we do have 2X. Go check out the website. Would appreciate that. And then, you know, Harley-Davidson is... No, it's not weird at all. Because if you think about it, Harley-Davidson is such an incredible brand.

I guarantee you they sell more pencils and t-shirts and mugs than they sell bikes. But people buy that because they have, you know, it's like the Oakland Raiders. Um, it's same kind of brand. It stands for something. It signifies an attitude. So, um, you know, if that's what you're into, then, um, no, I think that's, um, you know, that's, that's, that's all good. I'm basically just getting tired of saying no. When dudes ask me, if you you ride i think i might just start to lie and i just need to know the specs of the my imaginary bike but uh i'd rather just get

you a bike to keep to keep this kyle thing going like that part of v where where kent is like part of a weekend gang and they were like we'll save it for later brothers um i would i i want all this to happen so let's focus on the bike and keep wearing the shirt. So Rudy, did you have a question? Because I know Rudy's got a little European thing going on. No, actually, I want to circle back on something he said before.

So I just bought a pair of the Nike Blazer mid 77s, which I'm obsessed with. But John, you're telling me that I can't wear those with like the jogger sweatpants. And that's kind of what I've been rocking. So what am I supposed to do?

Is that not a good look? Look, you're headed on a good path. All you got to do is just switch it out for some low tops. I think, you know, the balance of if you think about it, the taper in the leg, and then it expands back out. For me personally, someone who spends a lot of time doing this, I think the lower profile shoe is probably a smarter way to go. But that's just my two cents. We're talking like a sneaker? What are we talking for when you say that? I think like a court shoe. So something like a common project or a vintage Nike. You could even, if you wanted to, go like... I wouldn't suggest Vans because like

that is kind of puts you in mall territory, but something in like that, that shape. Okay, fair. So what do I do with my Nike Blazers? I just bought these things. I thought I was cool. Are they out? That's where you need. That's where, no, no, that's where you need to grab a pair of denim.

That's perfect. Okay. That's perfect for jeans. I think that works with cargo pants, anything oversized with pockets you're good there good okay see now we're warmed up guys are letting it fly uh what are some other things you see from okay what's your stance on over 40 and you're like hey dude you're kind of older now because i have some stuff that's definitely younger people don't seem to think i'm as old as i am which i'm not quite sure if that's a compliment or an insult um depends on the week i guess but there's an la thing too where i've noticed i go these guys are

60 and they're just in like they're 25 years old so it's way more acceptable here northeast you get punched in the face but it's it seems like the boundaries are being pushed of how old you can be to wearing younger stuff. Where are you with that evolvement lately? I think having a strong sense of personal interest as far as knowing yourself, knowing your body type clearly and what fits proportionately will work for you. That's how you start. And then I think, you know, dressing smart is always a safe play. I think, you know, not exactly like going full tailoring, but, you know, if you look like classic 60s, like almost like

Ivy League kind of like approach, mixing that with more modern sportswear. So if you're mixing that with an oversized button-up mix with basketball shorts in the warmer months in LA, that's going to work. I think taking your personality, but thinking that, okay, I'm going to push it through a smarter lens is a very timeless play. So I think any trend is super dangerous unless you're like an A-list celebrity and that's just what you do and you have a stylist that's just filtering you new stuff on a weekly basis. But if you're, you know, just a regular guy like myself, then I think, you know, trying to play it smart, play it like a little classic

and timeless, that's something that, you know, you'll see photos of yourself in 10 years and you're not going to regret. John, I can't thank you enough for this, man. It was cool to kind of have

this fast forward relationship where we hit each other up. You got back to me. You wanted to come on. You knew who Kyle was. So that made everybody's day. And more importantly, though, for anybody that does their own thing. And I said this with a guy that I'm involved with in some athletic year that I'm really excited about.

But to thread that needle of cool is really delicate. It's like, hey, is this cool? And then it's like, it just sort of has to become it. And sometimes it's not even up to you, you know? And, and you did that in a very short amount of time, uh, really, really well. So I'm happy for, even though again, we just kind of got to meet each other here. So congrats to everything, man. Well, I really appreciate you having me on. I know we just got to know each other. I've been a fan of the podcast for a long time, so I feel like I know all you guys well. I just

really appreciate you guys inviting me on and yeah, hope to do it again. That's John Elliott. I hope you enjoyed this today because it was a little different. I know we're all kind of proud of it, but again, the way the scheduling worked out, this is how we had to have these three things in because we still have a bunch of taped ones that we haven't even used

yet. So there you go. Please subscribe. Rate and review. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Steve. Deal for Connell next week. Outro Music