1074: Scott Galloway | Solving the Algebra of Wealth

Highlights

• 2024-11-22 16:41 These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more.

• 2024-11-22 21:42 Within 10 to 20 years, it’s going to be more than half. And unfortunately, our seniors, it’s a social good to make sure they’re not living in poverty, but it’s not an investment in the sense that it doesn’t pay off the same way that investments in infrastructure or space exploration or science or R and D investing in education. So when senior investment, or for that matter, government spending goes beyond a certain percentage of the gdp, your growth lowers and we become a less prosperous nation. And I’m convinced of being an ageist, and I am an ageist, and also I think biology is ageist. And economics, unfortunately have proven that seniors in the United States continue to vote themselves more and more money.

  • Note: we are taking care of them with our taxes, we are also paying rent to their houses, we are working for them in their companies. Baby boomers :D

• 2024-11-22 21:41 And I’m very transparent about my situation. I am blessed. I got lucky early. I’m also very good at what I do. Not a lot of modesty here, but I also am smart enough to recognize how lucky I got. But my dad just turned 94. He’s suffering. You know, they don’t even like to say the word dementia. But the bottom line is that 94, most people have some form of dementia and he can’t take care of himself. And he’s in an assisted living facility in San Diego. And it’s nice. It’s not Lux, but it’s nice. I have this wonderful woman who hangs out with him all day, call him his health aide. And then he’s been falling lately at night, so I have to have full time care at night. I’m spending $280,000 a year on my father’s care. And the question is what do you do if you’re the 99.99% of America that doesn’t have that kind of money?

• 2024-11-22 17:20 And when you get inactive and depressed, your brain kind of sends out a hormone or a message saying oh, it’s time to die.

• 2024-11-22 17:20 Supposedly for every additional year you work, your life expectancy actually goes up.

• 2024-11-22 17:20 My addiction and my need is really pathetic. I have an addiction and a need to. For the approval or affirmation of strangers.

• 2024-11-22 17:20 And it’s totally pathetic. But at least you’re in the right business, you know, I know it. So, yeah, I’m in media. I like, quote, unquote, thought leadership. And I enjoy catalyzing the conversation ideas, having people discuss them.

• 2024-11-22 17:21 I like being recognized on the street. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel affirmed.

• 2024-11-22 17:21 travel 180, 220 days a year. I have a remote podcast kit. I’ll be in Scotland on Friday, Captain Tib on Monday, Oslo on Wednesday, Munich on Thursday. I won’t miss a beat in terms of work because if you’re in the information economy and your work can be distilled down to zeros and ones, I can be anywhere.

• 2024-11-22 17:21 One in three relationships begin at work. So where are young people supposed to meet other people?

• 2024-11-22 17:21 I’m like, go into the office. That is a fantastic place for socialization training, finding colleagues, mentors, mates is the office.

• 2024-11-22 21:40 It was my priority. I didn’t want to save the whales. I didn’t want to be a good person. I didn’t want to find my passion. I wanted to make money so I could take care of my mom.

• 2024-11-22 21:40 Money creates so much stress in people’s lives. The majority of divorces aren’t reverse engineered infidelity or a lack of shared values. They reverse engineer to stress about money

• 2024-11-22 21:45 Men hate asking their friends for help because you’re supposed to be such a baller that you don’t need anybody’s help. You know what strengthens friendships? Asking people for help.

• 2024-11-22 21:46 Any opportunity to help someone who’s younger or your age or who’s struggling is a gift because they will remember it. If there is a job opening at your firm and you work at a good firm, you should be scouring your head for anyone you know who might be good at and benefit from that job, because that person will be forever grateful

• 2024-11-22 21:39 I’m a huge fan of physical fitness. I’ve worked out four times a week for 40 years. I get it. I’m trying to tone down my alcohol intake because I drink too much. And as you get older, my liver can’t process alcohol the way yours can.

• 2024-11-22 21:38 There’s a lot of research around this. And that is the bad news, is that money can absolutely Buy happiness.

• 2024-11-22 21:39 Middle income homes are happier than lower income. Upper income homes are happier than middle income. The resting blood pressure of a kid in a low income home is higher than the resting blood pressure of a kid in a middle income home. That’s the bad news. Money does buy happiness.

• 2024-11-22 21:44 We live in a capitalist society. It is amazing the things you can do with money. And then anything above that I give away. And I don’t do it because I’m a good person. I do it because it makes me feel strong, it makes me feel masculine, it makes me feel like I have higher character as opposed to just bitching about shit all day.

• 2024-11-22 21:45 If I talk about teen depression enough, I’ll give some money away. If I talk about vocational programming enough and how young men need more opportunity, I’ll give some money away. And that is just so rewarding because dying with whatever tens of millions versus tens of billions not going to get you anything. And along the way, spending it and giving it away is so much fun. So I just don’t understand this virus that infects America.

• 2024-11-22 21:51 n a country, there’s too much money, which in a capital city translates to power in our economy. So I think a lot about this virus of hoarding. And I decided, I made a concerted effort at 2017, that I was not going to increase my wealth, my net worth anymore. I was either going to spend it or give it away. I think that’s the right decision.

• 2024-11-22 21:52 I made that decision seven years ago. And these are high class problems. The majority of the people will never have this problem. But I think as a general zeitgeist in our society, we want to say, why does anyone need to be worth more than this? And I don’t mean to go all Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren.

• 2024-11-22 21:52 I don’t like class warfare, but if someone isn’t going to be any happier having more than $10 million a year in income, why are we taxing it at a lower rate than someone making 50,000? So I think our tax system needs to reflect what Kahneman called loss aversion theory, and that is the pain of making very little money is so much greater than the incremental joy of making a lot versus a super a lot.

• 2024-11-22 21:49 But the reality is people who switch jobs every two, three, five years over the long term tend to make more money because we have this phenomena where we tend to see people through the lens of when they came into the company

• 2024-11-22 21:49 my editor in chief, a kid named Jason Stavers, I’ve been working with Jason for 30 years. I have trouble forgetting that Jason is not some 22 year old out of Yale that I can pay $60,000 to, that he went to law school, that he was a partner at a law firm, that he’s incredibly bright and that he has unbelievable opportunities elsewhere. And we have a tendency to be drawn to the unknown and strangers. This happens a lot on boards.

• 2024-11-22 21:49 So I’d give them equity and say, we’re going to sell this company for a lot of money and we’re going to be awesome and rich

• 2024-11-22 21:50 Pay them well. Loyalty is a function of appreciation

• 2024-11-22 21:50 And my superpower is storytelling. That’s how I make my living. But my core competence is I’ve been able to find and retain really talented people. I churn through a lot of people. A lot of people come in and wash out one year, two years, fine, we’re generous with them, we let them go. Anyone who survives longer than that, I create long term incentive plan

• 2024-11-22 21:53 I mutualize almost everything I do. I sign a long term podcasting contract for whatever, 10 million bucks. I tell everyone, if you’re here in one, two, four years, you’re going to get 4% of this. Because if I’m successful, I’m always going to make More money than you. I’m the star here, let’s be honest.

• 2024-11-22 21:52 And this is exactly what I mean by that. And I am very talented and going to do super well, which means you’re going to do really well. I want you to be economically secure. I want you to make money for you and your family.

• 2024-11-22 18:38 Because the number one source of retention at a company, I would have never guessed this is not compensation.

• 2024-11-22 21:46 It was the middle of the day. It was sunny out. She was sitting with another woman and another man and without the benefit of alcohol. I approached her, which was very difficult for me. And I teach my sons to approach people. Or I said, I need you to talk to someone, a stranger, or I’m not letting you back in the house. Easy for my oldest son, not easy for my youngest. But I think it’s important that people have the ability talk to the person in front of you and in back of you on the line at Starbucks.

• 2024-11-22 20:39 I think if you want to be a truly great storyteller, the basics, like, if you want to be a great athlete, you have to have a certain level of fitness. I think the basics of fitness around storytelling probably begin with writing.

• 2024-11-22 21:47 The trick is to realize how small time and irrelevant you really are and realize that the only people who actually give a crap about you are the two little kids that you’re ignoring by working all day. And that is the best way to get over yourself.

• 2024-11-22 21:48 Most marriages and relationships dissolve or end up in fights because of money. So free of the pressure to earn because you’ve earned enough money now we can choose how we live

• 2024-11-22 21:47 I don’t want economic security because I want to keep working. Fine. Economic security doesn’t mean you don’t work. It just means you work without as much stress.

• 2024-11-22 21:47 I should speak for myself. People perform better, though, when they don’t have worries looming over them. The reason for work goes from necessity to fulfillment and purpose. And I’ve realized that this has happened to me over the past few years. Right?

• 2024-11-22 21:47 Of course I need to work, but I don’t need to work because otherwise I cannot eat. I need to work because it keeps me sane. It keeps me feeling good. It keeps me feeling on track. That’s a much more comfortable place to be in.

• 2024-11-22 21:48 For the sake of clarity. I do not care about being rich for the sake of status. The problem is I do care about it because it’s the only way to live in the United States. If I lived in Germany, for example, and I had healthcare and I didn’t have to worry about education costs, I’d be way less motivated and frankly, probably a lot happier because my workload would be one fifth of what it is right now

• 2024-11-22 21:39 Scott in his book wrote, squander money and you can earn it back. Squander time and it’s gone forever. That hit hard because I cannot help but think, man, I squandered a lot of time in my 20s and 30s.