AI transcript
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0:01:20 podcast. Today’s number, $80. That’s the cost of Costco’s new emergency food
0:01:25 bucket, which includes freeze-dried meals that will last up to 25 years. True
0:01:28 story yet, I remember when I shot my first turkey. Boy, were the people at the
0:01:32 Costco frozen food section surprised.
0:01:46 Little team DadHumor, little Costco membership retail DadHumor, they’re
0:01:52 welcome to PropG Markets. What is going on today, Ed? I usually introduce you as
0:01:56 media analyst. Have we given that shit up? Media analysts, whatever that was?
0:02:01 Okay, I need to put this to rest once and for all. Our company is called
0:02:06 PropG Media, so we called me the analyst of PropG Media, and you keep on
0:02:10 thinking that I’m calling myself a media analyst. I’m the analyst of PropG.
0:02:13 Thanks for straightening that out. By the way, that category, that puts me into a
0:02:18 new employment category with much lower salary and no benefits. No more dental
0:02:24 for you. No more dental for you. All right, so we’re doing something different today.
0:02:27 We’ve got a fun one. Tell us what we’re doing. Yeah, we’re doing an “Ask Me
0:02:30 Anything” episode, so we’ll be going through our listener questions that we
0:02:34 received on Instagram and on Reddit and on YouTube. Thank you to everyone who
0:02:38 sent in questions. We’ll try to get through as many as we can. Are you ready to go,
0:02:43 Scott? Let’s light this candle. Okay, how did Scott and Ed meet? I don’t remember.
0:02:46 I don’t remember. You don’t remember? I remember very well. I know it was a
0:02:52 bathroom, but I primed to remember where. We’re off to a good start. Here’s the
0:02:57 ball through the RNC in Milwaukee. Oh my god, that’s my favorite stat. Grinder
0:03:02 crashing in Milwaukee during the RNC convention. I just fucking love that.
0:03:09 Anyways, go ahead. How did we meet? I’ll preface it with this. It was about four
0:03:15 years ago. I was in college, and I was feeling generally pretty lost about what
0:03:21 I wanted to do with my life. All of my friends were becoming bankers. All of
0:03:26 them were becoming consultants. And for whatever reason, I didn’t want to do it.
0:03:31 I was stewing over this for a while, and I decided to create a list of all the
0:03:37 people I most admire and whose careers I wanted to replicate. And I decided I’m
0:03:40 going to just create this list and see if I can go help any of these people. And
0:03:45 Scott was on that list. So at the time, I was a big fan of Pivot. I had been for a
0:03:52 while. One day I’m listening to Pivot, and Colin Scott say, “Please welcome Joanna
0:03:56 Coles, who is a friend of mine because she is the mother of my best friend and
0:04:02 roommate from the boarding school I went to in Massachusetts.” So I heard that. I
0:04:06 didn’t even listen to the interview, and I immediately put my phone down and
0:04:09 reached out to Joanna and said, “Can you please introduce me to Scott Galloway?”
0:04:14 Which she did. I connected with Scott over email, and then he offered to get on a
0:04:20 phone call with me. I think you’re on a beach in Mexico at the time. Yeah, and
0:04:25 he offered me an internship and the rest is history. In my mind, it was a total
0:04:31 no-brainer to reach out to you because I think this is the learning. I had already
0:04:36 done all of the mental work ahead of time that I needed to know that if there’s an
0:04:40 opportunity to meet Scott Galloway, I have to take it. I think that’s sort of my
0:04:45 takeaway. It’s like, I mean, 90% of your career battle is figuring out that
0:04:49 question. What do I want to do? That’s the hardest part. Once you figured that out,
0:04:54 it’s sort of autopilot. I knew I wanted to work with you. So yeah, that’s how
0:04:58 we met on a phone call, I guess. Yeah, thanks for that. Those were generous
0:05:02 words. It made me feel nice to hear you say that. I didn’t know some of that
0:05:06 stuff. You’re obviously privileged in the sense that you came with huge
0:05:11 credentials coming out of Princeton. And to be fair, you knew somebody, you’re not
0:05:16 a netbo hire, but you knew someone who I’m friends with. And some people, because
0:05:22 of the income of the household they grew up with, don’t have access to
0:05:27 friends who know people in positions to hire them. I remember growing up
0:05:31 thinking, all my friends, when they were playing at college, like, oh, my dad’s
0:05:35 friend is on the board of advisors for the University of Wisconsin. And I’m like,
0:05:40 my mom doesn’t know anybody. We have no contacts. But anyways, the lesson
0:05:45 here is that, or the lesson for me, in my approach to hiring. So Joanna Calls
0:05:51 called me and said, “I have someone you have to hire.” And I take Joanna very
0:05:55 seriously. She’s super smart. She’s built companies herself. She’s one of the few
0:05:57 people from the magazine industry. For those of you who don’t know Joanna Calls,
0:06:02 she was the chief content or creative officer for Hearst.
0:06:03 An editor-in-chief of Cosmo, too.
0:06:07 Yeah, editor-in-chief Cosmo, which at one point was the kind of biggest magazine
0:06:10 in the world. And she’s just a very impressive woman. She’s now, I think, the
0:06:14 co-owner of The Daily Bee. She’s taken that over, which is, in my opinion, going
0:06:19 to be like pushing a rock up the hill. “Best-elected, Joanna.” But she called me
0:06:25 and said in no uncertain terms, “I have someone you have to hire.” And
0:06:29 that’s the way I hire. If somebody I trust, who I think is really smart, is
0:06:36 willing to put, not their reputation, but put their full-throated endorsement
0:06:41 behind someone, I’ll hire them. Because here’s the thing. Interviews, for me, are
0:06:45 not worthless, but they’re almost worthless. The best interview I’ve ever had
0:06:49 was with someone at L2. She came in and she just blew my socks off. I’m like,
0:06:56 “This person is so smart, so composed, has such presence.” And everyone else is
0:07:00 like, “Okay, fine, let’s hire her.” Two days after she started, she went on
0:07:05 disability. And she refused to tell us what was wrong with her, because that
0:07:10 would be an invasion of her privacy. But she used to show up to the parties. And
0:07:14 it took us, like, nine months to figure out a way to fire. Like, just went on
0:07:18 disability and wouldn’t even tell us why she was on disability, but was well
0:07:22 enough to show up for any social thing we had. That was the best interview I’ve
0:07:26 ever had. I don’t remember doing the phone call with you, but I don’t need to
0:07:31 remember, because I was going to hire you, because someone I trust and respect
0:07:36 said, “I have to hire you.” She said, “This kid is so impressive.” She said, “He’s
0:07:41 friends with my son. We hang out with him. I don’t know if this
0:07:45 was true. Vacationed with you, and he’s just such an impressive young man. You
0:07:49 have to hire him.” So I knew I was hiring you when I got the phone with Joanna.
0:07:53 I can’t tell if that reflects well on me or well on Joanna.
0:07:58 Well, you’ve been a fucking disaster, so I call her and tell her. She owes me.
0:08:02 I’m like, “You owe me.” Yeah, 100%. No, that’s reference hires is, I think, the big
0:08:06 learning here. Moving on to a question for you. Scott, could you address the
0:08:11 rumors that you were, in fact, Joe Bruin, the UCLA mascot during your time at
0:08:16 UCLA? So that is a hundred percent true. This guy named Brady Cannell, who was the
0:08:21 president of my fraternity, was the Bruin Bearer and came up to me and said, “You
0:08:24 should be the Bruin Bearer.” I’m like, “What are you talking about?” And he said,
0:08:30 “The mascot at the football games is this giant bear in a Disney costume.” And so I
0:08:38 said, “Okay.” And so I tried out and I became the Bruin Bearer at UCLA in 1983. I
0:08:42 was a freshman and I traveled with the football team. I tried out for the
0:08:45 football team and ended up dancing around on the sidelines in a fucking costume.
0:08:49 And it was an interesting experience. I traveled with the football team for a
0:08:55 season and me and the other bear would get ridiculously fucking high and stay
0:08:59 out past the curfew. Can you believe it? I remember, we went to the
0:09:05 fiesta bowl in Arizona and we were playing against Miami. And so me and
0:09:10 Harry Hirschman, the other bear, we went out and as you do, when you’re 19 in
0:09:14 Arizona, we got ridiculously fucked up in a Mexican restaurant, ended up back at
0:09:18 our hotel with a couple women. And we just partied like four in the morning.
0:09:23 And then the next morning, I got a call from like the Dean of Spirit Squad or
0:09:27 whatever she was doing. And she came to our room with another guy, I guess for,
0:09:31 I don’t know, Gravitas and said, “I’m putting you on a plane home. You have
0:09:36 violated NCAA Athletic rules. You were not in bed by 10.” And I’m like, “Let me
0:09:43 get this. I don’t have to march around in a 140-degree fucking costume,
0:09:46 wildly hungover, and you’re pretending that’s a punishment?”
0:09:47 He said that.
0:09:51 Yeah, she was a lover. I was so hungover. I think I had to, I’m not exaggerating.
0:09:54 I think I had to excuse myself from distressing down in this meeting to go
0:09:59 throw up in the bathroom. I’m like, “I’m not throwing a football. I don’t need to
0:10:07 be, no one sees me. I’m in a hot box. I’m in this costume. I’m in Arizona. I’m
0:10:12 going to be in a fur-lined costume making dumb poses. It’s going to be, it’s
0:10:15 literally going to be 140 degrees in there.” And you’re acting as if that’s
0:10:19 a punishment. And her only comeback was you’re going to have to play for your
0:10:25 own flight home. And I’m like, “Well, okay.” And so it ended up that was all
0:10:29 like, “Oh, bullshit.” And they’re like, “Fuck, you get in the costume and get to
0:10:36 the Fiesta Bowl.” But yeah, I did that. I was Joe Bruin for a season of the Mighty
0:10:39 Bruins when we went to the Fiesta Bowl. Not something I talk a lot about,
0:10:43 although I used to, I used to try and get girls up to my room in the fraternity
0:10:46 to see the costume. I’d be like, “I’m the Bruin Bear. You want to see the costume?”
0:10:47 Do what? No.
0:10:49 It didn’t work a lot. Yeah, yeah.
0:10:50 It’s something to talk about.
0:10:54 It is something to talk about, yeah. So yes, true. I was the Bruin Bear in 1983.
0:10:58 Well, I did not know that. I feel like I know every dumb factoid about you.
0:10:59 I did not know that.
0:11:03 So next one, Ed, what does your portfolio look like?
0:11:11 So my portfolio is very simple. It’s all ETFs. So S&P 500 and then some wider
0:11:18 baskets to Russell 1000 Growth, Russell 1000 Value. Very simple, plain portfolio.
0:11:24 I don’t think about it. I basically don’t touch it. The reason I don’t think
0:11:29 about it is because I’m at a point in my career where worrying about stocks is
0:11:34 basically just a waste of time. The highest ROI investment I can make is just
0:11:39 being really, really good at my job. So to me, that means spending my time developing
0:11:44 writing skills, developing speaking skills, understanding markets, meeting
0:11:49 people, reading obsessively. That’s what I spend my time doing. So, you know, I
0:11:52 don’t really pay that much attention to the portfolio. I take, you want some more
0:11:59 tea, I take 5% of my income and put it in my 401k. Luckily for me, Scott offers a
0:12:06 5% contribution match. So in effect, that’s 10% of my income that’s being
0:12:12 invested to build an asset base. I plan to start cranking that number up over time.
0:12:17 But, you know, I live in New York and I spend a fortune on rent and food and
0:12:21 alcohol and experiences, all of these things that I want to spend money on.
0:12:28 So, for me, 5% makes a right amount of sense right now. But I think the idea is
0:12:33 that, you know, once I start making really, really highly meaningful income,
0:12:36 that’s when I’ll start being a little more strategic and a little bit more bold
0:12:41 with my investments. Maybe I’ll look at real estate, maybe venture, maybe private equity.
0:12:45 Those are all things I’m thinking about. But at this stage, just a plain
0:12:48 passive ETF portfolio, that’s what makes the most sense for me.
0:12:52 I’m just saying, I mean this sincerely, you’re so much smarter than I was at your age.
0:12:57 You’re investing in the right places. You’re taking a disciplined approach.
0:13:01 Even if you’re, you know, you’re going to be remarkably successful, but on the
0:13:08 options, you’re not. As long as you, you know, continue to figure out a way to get 10% of your
0:13:14 earnings into these ETFs. When you’re my age, regardless of whether you’re a baller or not,
0:13:18 and what you’ve achieved or not achieved economically, you’re going to be fine.
0:13:20 And I didn’t, I did not realize that when I was your age.
0:13:24 Who are your inspirations in and out of the business world?
0:13:30 Well, it sounds, it sounds, Pat, but I get a lot of inspiration from work.
0:13:35 I love surrounding myself with super intelligent creative young people. I get a lot of inspiration
0:13:39 from you guys. Same thing happened at L2. I’ve always been pretty good at surrounding myself
0:13:42 with young, smart people that have a different lens on the world.
0:13:48 I get a lot of just the, of inspiration from the people I work with. I don’t have,
0:13:54 I try to, I have a few people in my life that, or that I’ve tried to get to know a lot about
0:13:59 and they provide me with inspiration. I admire Muhammad Ali’s courage.
0:14:02 I feel like I’ve heard you say that you also admire, like,
0:14:06 I found this interesting how poetic he was. Is that right?
0:14:11 Well, the key to success is storytelling. And this is a guy who decided he was going to say,
0:14:18 “I am so pretty.” And he would do poetry at pre-boxing hearings, whatever you call him.
0:14:26 And he was just not afraid, very principled, decided that his principles around not going
0:14:31 to Vietnam were not an opinion. It was a principle and refused to go. And they stripped him of his
0:14:36 medals. They basically impoverished him. Obviously outstanding at what he did.
0:14:42 I just thought this, this guy was courageous. I mean, it sounds dumb, but I think of people
0:14:49 like Richard Simmons, who was outwardly gay before it was cool. And I remember this one moment, I was
0:14:54 at LaGuardia in the middle of winter, it must have been 20 degrees out. And this guy in front
0:14:58 of me at TSA takes off his trench coat and he’s wearing a sweater, except it’s not a sweater,
0:15:07 it’s back hair. And he has a sparkly tank top, short short dolphin shorts, K-Swiss and athletic
0:15:17 socks. And the whole airport stops and TSA stops and they go, “Richard.” They go, “Richard.” And he
0:15:22 cleared, made space around him, asked me to step back, which I did. And he stepped back and threw
0:15:32 his arms into the air and went, “Hello, LaGuardia.” No way. And the entire terminal stopped for a
0:15:41 moment and then erupted in applause. Wow. And I thought, “This guy is just so fucking unafraid.”
0:15:46 So like, have you ever been in a club or at a place and somebody gets on the table and starts
0:15:52 dancing and they’re dancing as if no one’s watching them? I’m like, “God, I want to live my life like
0:15:59 that. I want to be Richard Simmons, the bridge for me to get to that fearlessness as an embrace of
0:16:05 atheism. It just doesn’t matter if you make a fool of yourself or people don’t like you or you get
0:16:11 shamed or you do something stupid or you take a risk and you have public failure. You know,
0:16:17 it really doesn’t matter. What matters is while you’re here having an amazing life. And the only
0:16:23 way you’re going to have a truly amazing life, a life that’s better than the environment you are
0:16:29 born into and what logically the world would reward you with, is that if you have a little bit of
0:16:35 Richard Simmons and Muhammad Ali and you, and that is you are willing to risk public shaming,
0:16:41 you are willing to live out loud, and that you very early decide what is the difference between
0:16:46 an opinion and a principle. I mean, I just love that Richard Simmons story. Yeah. I tend to have
0:16:53 a similar view on the people who inspire me. I mean, I love people who really understand humanity
0:17:00 and for whom you can see that understanding through their work. I love comedians. I mean,
0:17:10 you know, my favorite person in high school was Louis C.K. It’s a little, I mean, he had his issues,
0:17:14 so it’s hard to say that now. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone deserves their heroes,
0:17:20 and I think it’s important that you masturbate in front of your coworkers. I mean, that’s a great
0:17:29 role model. Sorry, sorry. Okay, if I whip this out and just have a little bit of fun, just FYI,
0:17:33 that is not a part of the employee handbook here at just, you know, I’m sorry, go ahead.
0:17:37 You’re role models. The question was inspiration. I wouldn’t call him a role model, I call him
0:17:48 inspiration. Oh, he’s backtracking. Stay with us.
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0:21:32 Top non-economic books everyone should read. Do you have one?
0:21:36 I have a bunch but none of them are that profound. So like the books that really moved me,
0:21:42 I remember distinctly as a kid, my father has Mild Epilepsy, which he failed to inform me
0:21:47 of my mom and I started having fainting spells and it was really traumatic at the time. I’d be
0:21:53 in school and I’d see something unusual or a weird film or something and I would not feel
0:21:58 well and I’d get up and I’d pass out. And it was kind of, you know, at the time it was traumatic.
0:22:04 Like, you know, the Galway kid keeps passing out. And I read this book called The Great Brain
0:22:10 and it was a series of books about a kid living in I think, I don’t know, 1800s America.
0:22:14 And there’s a scene where these kids are in a lake and there’s a rush of water
0:22:20 or on a river and one of them drowns. And the kid, the protagonist, he says,
0:22:24 “Something happened to me that’s never happened to me.” And he says, “I fainted and I passed out.”
0:22:29 And I remember thinking it gave me such comfort to read that that happened to other kids
0:22:35 and to kill a mockingbird. I remember thinking I’d like to be like that guy,
0:22:40 the Atticus Finch kid. I remember thinking I would like to be like quiet and strong and not
0:22:46 necessarily like be a protector, not feel as if I have to always be like, like get in people’s
0:22:52 faces, just be quietly strong. Books had had a huge impact on me in high school where one,
0:22:57 the diary of Anne Frank and the Winds of War, I started reading about World War II and just the
0:23:04 amount of sacrifice that people had made, that kind of made America what it is today and the
0:23:10 freedoms we enjoy and what happened to Jews in Europe in World War II, that had a huge impact on
0:23:15 me. And then the other author that had a huge impact on me was Jonathan Irving. And he used to
0:23:23 just write these books about, that felt so real, but these people were just so fucking strange.
0:23:30 And they put people in the weirdest situation about it. Someone gets hit in the face of the
0:23:38 baseball and it changes their life or the story of a home for unwed mothers and it provided abortions
0:23:45 and this love story that takes place in this context about a wrestling coach whose mother is a,
0:23:49 I mean- That was my favorite growing up weirdly, world according to God.
0:23:53 But I felt like everyone thinks they’re a little bit weird. I think deep down we all think we’re
0:24:00 hiding some freak and maybe not all of us. I feel like I’m a weird kid. And that gave me comfort
0:24:06 that the whole world is weird, that you don’t need to feel strange or ashamed because you’re
0:24:11 unusual or think weird things, that the whole world is fucking weird and everyone’s pretending not to
0:24:17 be. But those books really moved me. Like they really made me feel something. I haven’t read a
0:24:24 non. The reality is in the last five years I’ve written almost as many books as I’ve read. I
0:24:29 read so much during the day that I don’t get relaxation from reading at night. What about
0:24:34 you Ed? What’s changed or what’s been seminal for you? I mean, the question, what should everyone
0:24:40 read? I personally think everyone should read the Odyssey. I just think if you want to understand
0:24:45 storytelling at a very fundamental level, that is the book that you have to start with.
0:24:53 It’s basically, aside from the religious texts, the most influential book in history, it invented
0:24:59 this idea of the hero’s journey, which is the template for pretty much every story in our society
0:25:06 today. The character in Odysseus is super interesting to me and probably my favorite
0:25:14 character. The context here, every hero in these stories in Homer has what’s known as an apathet,
0:25:18 which is basically like the adjective that’s attached to your name. It’s like being called
0:25:23 the incredible Hulk or whatever. So you have like swift-footed Achilles and earth-shaking
0:25:28 Poseidon, all these characters. The apathet for Odysseus, the one adjective that is used to
0:25:35 describe him, was this word, “polutrapos.” It’s a very weird word. It means “of many different ways,”
0:25:44 which basically is saying he was anything moment to moment. He would change his nature,
0:25:50 like another way you could say is like a man of twists and turns. It’s just such a unique,
0:25:56 that was his superpower, basically. His superpower was the ability to read situations,
0:26:04 read people’s emotions, and adjust his behavior to get along with people, to make things work,
0:26:11 depending on the context. I just think it says a lot about humanity, that of all of these heroes
0:26:17 with these different superpowers, strength and speed and lightning bolts. The one that we exalted
0:26:26 most was this word, “polutrapos,” this guy who would change his behaviors from context to context
0:26:32 to make things work. I like this next one. “Ed, do you plan on becoming like Scott when
0:26:36 you’re his age? In other words, are you planning to really lean into the erectile dysfunction?”
0:26:42 Okay. Do you plan on becoming like me when you’re my age?
0:26:42 No.
0:26:46 Fair enough. Let’s move on.
0:26:51 Well, no, actually, what I will say about this, because I do kind of get that question a lot,
0:26:59 like, “Oh, where is this going for you? What’s the trajectory?” The answer to that is,
0:27:05 “I don’t know, and I’m fine with that because I’m making good money, and I’m getting better at it,
0:27:09 and I’m enjoying it, and I think that if you’re ticking those three boxes,
0:27:14 you’re headed in the right direction, so you just got to enjoy it, see where it takes you.”
0:27:23 What I can say is that there are fundamental aspects of your life and your career that I do
0:27:25 want. I think that’s probably the way to think about it.
0:27:26 The plane.
0:27:37 So that’s one of them. You make a lot of money, and I think I have to be real with myself and
0:27:44 recognize that money is very important to me. I want to make a lot of money. I like nice things.
0:27:51 I like the freedom it gives you. That’s something for sure that I want. I also think that I like
0:27:57 that you make money doing something that you’re actually good at. It’s not like you bought
0:28:04 a bunch of crypto and it went to a million and you just ended up rich. You get to say that you
0:28:12 genuinely earned that money because of your talents and your hard work. Like I said, I love money,
0:28:19 but I think I love it even more when I’m 100% certain that I deserve it and it’s mine,
0:28:23 and that’s a big part of it. The third thing I’ll say, and this is the most important one
0:28:27 in my opinion and kind of related to the thing that you were saying about Richard Simmons,
0:28:36 I think that you in your career have figured out a way to express yourself fully, I think.
0:28:42 And to me, this is like the number one thing you need to do in life, and I think it’s actually
0:28:47 really surprisingly difficult to do because when I look at, I mean, I haven’t been around that long,
0:28:52 but when I look at my life, the times I’ve been least happy were the moments where for whatever
0:28:59 reason I felt kind of unable to express myself fully. And the times I’ve been most happy when
0:29:04 I felt motivated and confident to express myself. And I think it’s just so difficult to do because
0:29:10 there are just so many little things in life that can get in the way of that. I think the ability to
0:29:18 express yourself is a luxury that you have to work hard to achieve. And I think that you have
0:29:23 achieved that. You’re in a unique position where you’re not only empowered to express yourself,
0:29:29 but you’re economically incentivized to do so. Well, one, that’s kind and generous,
0:29:34 but a couple of things. One, then again, I’m not humble. I think I’m remarkably talented. 49%
0:29:38 of what you’re talking about has come from my talent. The other 51% was shit that wasn’t my fault,
0:29:44 being born in California in the ’60s, being born in America just got very, very lucky.
0:29:50 And the other thing is when you’re 26, you’re exactly right. You really don’t have any idea
0:29:55 where you’re going to be. It’s like you have your plan and then God laughs. And when I was 26,
0:30:00 I was a second year in business school. I had started a brand strategy firm in business school.
0:30:05 25, by the way. When I was 25, I had gone to Berk. I enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin
0:30:11 to go to business school. And I just switched to the high school of business because I’d fallen
0:30:15 in love with someone. And I said to her, she said, “We’re going to business school together.”
0:30:18 I’m like, “Yeah, I’m going to UT Austin.” And she said, “Well, I’m going to Berkeley.” And I said,
0:30:25 “Well, I’m going to Berkeley.” And I followed her to Berkeley. And coming out of Berkeley in the ’90s,
0:30:30 I ended up in tech. What if I’d come out of UT? Would I’ve ended up in energy? I doubt I would
0:30:38 have started an e-commerce company. I mean, your life is a function of fractions and inches
0:30:43 and small decisions and small things that happen outside your control and timing and missing or
0:30:49 getting a, you know, a subway to somewhere. So I was trying to reflect on just how fortunate I am.
0:30:53 You’re tracking right now in terms of your currency in the marketplace, the skills you’re
0:31:00 developing, the economic base. The most rewarding thing that will happen to you will be finding
0:31:06 someone to have to build something with and to have kids with. I didn’t figure that out until
0:31:10 I was in my 40s. But that has been the most hands down, the most rewarding thing.
0:31:16 By the way, this is a personal question for me. Why did you wait so long?
0:31:17 I loved being single.
0:31:22 But you went off to business. I mean, it sounds like you were down to drop everything for a
0:31:25 partner, pretty young.
0:31:31 Yeah. But Ed, here’s the thing. She was much hotter than me. She was much, much hotter than me.
0:31:39 No, look, I, I’ve been married before and I didn’t like it. And I was fine.
0:31:44 When I moved to New York, I was 34. I was making good money. I was single and I really liked it.
0:31:49 I liked being selfish. I liked doing my own thing. I liked going to St. Bart’s and
0:31:55 having brunch with fabulous people and going out and getting shitty drunk. And I just loved it.
0:31:59 And I didn’t think I would ever, I didn’t think I would ever have kids.
0:32:00 Really?
0:32:01 Yeah. I didn’t want kids.
0:32:02 Why?
0:32:04 I just couldn’t stand being around them. Have you been around kids?
0:32:07 I think you are awful.
0:32:09 I’ve always assumed I’ll feel differently about mine.
0:32:13 You’re 100% right. I, I still am not interested in other people’s kids.
0:32:18 God reaches in your soul with your kids. And by the way, it’s a slow, it’s not a switch.
0:32:23 It’s a dim. After you have kids, you know, it’s not, I wasn’t in love with my
0:32:26 sons when they were right when they were born. It’s really true what they say. You kind of fall
0:32:31 in love with them. And, but I wasn’t planning on it, but I fell in love with someone who said,
0:32:34 I want to have kids. And I said, well, I’m not getting married again.
0:32:37 And she called my bluff and said, I don’t need to be married to have kids.
0:32:41 And so we pulled the goalie and we’re like pregnant three minutes later.
0:32:47 But having kids, it started out something terrifying and upsetting. And I wasn’t excited
0:32:53 about it. And it’s ended up being like literally, you know, I would say 70 to 80% of the real reward
0:33:00 and feelings of satisfaction. I have stem from something around family. And I love work,
0:33:04 but work is, it’s a ton of fun. It’s almost like a hobby at this point, because I’m in
0:33:09 the privileged position. I’m not needing to do anything. But really, when I think about work
0:33:14 and you guys, I want to pay you really well, even overpay you and try and train you to develop some
0:33:19 economic security like you’re doing such that you can focus on your relationships and your family.
0:33:36 Because as you get older, that’s what it’s all about. We’ll be right back.
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0:35:32 We’re back with Prof. G. Markets. Scott, what’s in your wallet? What card gets used the most and why?
0:35:35 My amix black card because I’m trying to impress other people.
0:35:45 That’s right. Daddy throws down black. Hello. Hello, ladies. I pay $5,000 or maybe $7,500 a year
0:35:50 for a card that has no incremental benefits other than they took a visa and spray painted it black.
0:35:53 Is that right? There are no other benefits? Or you probably just don’t,
0:35:58 you can’t figure out how to use the points. I’m sure there are. I don’t use them.
0:36:05 Oh, my God. The benefits are so lame. They’re wine tasting in a hot air balloon in Napa Sonoma.
0:36:11 I was like, what am I, 80 fucking years old? It’s such lame shit and their travel agency
0:36:18 is so bad. It used to be good and now you’d much rather use Expedia. Expedia is 10 times better
0:36:25 than what amix offers in terms of travel services. They have their kind of amix benefits. They have
0:36:29 their late checkout thing, which occasionally I use it free room. I’m great, but I think you
0:36:35 get that with a platinum card. It is literally pure signaling. That is all it is. It is pure
0:36:42 signaling and I will do it until, until I’m dead. I will bury me with my Centurion card. I love that
0:36:46 thing. There’s some crazy stats. There used to be, I remember this a while ago, there were 10,000
0:36:51 black cards in America and 5,000 in Manhattan. I thought that was hilarious. Makes sense.
0:36:56 Let’s get another question here. Scott, you’ve had some personal beef with Elon Musk. Could you
0:37:03 explain what happened? Oh, no, I don’t have beef with him. I don’t know him. We just report on him
0:37:09 a lot. He said a couple of things about me online, which I think were mean, but no. I’ve probably
0:37:13 been more hostile towards him than he’s towards me because I don’t think he thinks about me a whole
0:37:18 lot. If you’re going to talk about technology and society, you’re going to talk about Elon Musk.
0:37:22 He is probably one of the defining, if not the defining character of our age.
0:37:30 And there’s some things I really admire about him. I think his brain, his fearlessness, his
0:37:36 innovation, his understanding of technology, his embrace of just massive risks doubling down after
0:37:41 he sold PayPal to try and build a rocket and a car company. It’s basically like every eight-year-old’s
0:37:46 fantasy. Like I want to build a rocket and a car company. I think it’s just an inspiration on a lot
0:37:51 of levels. And then there’s some things about him that trigger me. I think being critical of other
0:37:56 people’s parenting is sort of off limits. But when he puts this out there and tweets about it and
0:38:01 puts this out there for personal consumption, I think he’s inviting review. He said to Jordan
0:38:07 Peterson talking about the woke mind virus that he lost his son to the woke mind virus and that
0:38:14 his daughter went through transition. The way he describes it is that his son is dead.
0:38:22 And it is so rattling for a father to hear another father describe their child that way.
0:38:29 And when I think about how many young men look up to this guy and that the model he’s portraying
0:38:33 is so antithetical to the notion of what it means to be a man, in my view, there are some basics
0:38:39 about being a real man. And the first is that you move to protection. Like you don’t need to
0:38:45 understand gay people. You don’t need to understand whoever it is, what’s going on. The moment someone
0:38:53 is threatened, your first instinct as a man should be to protect. And that ground zero of that
0:38:59 is your family. And to ever say that, regardless of what you might feel about kids going through
0:39:06 transition or but to say that publicly that your child is dead to you, I just find that that is
0:39:14 such a terrible role model. It’s just such a just such a awful example for young men. And so I have
0:39:19 this like really conflicted view of the guy. And I don’t know, I used to think he was going to be a
0:39:25 net positive for society. But I worry that we’re training an entire generation of young men to
0:39:32 be coarse, to abuse your power to not pay people the severance you own them to spread conspiracy
0:39:39 theories that someone might be gay such that they have to move their home to spread conspiracy theory
0:39:46 about a gay love triangle of the speaker’s husband who’s who’s assaulted. I mean, it’s so it’s so
0:39:54 homophobic. It’s so transphobic. It just it’s like it’s just like the last role model that young men
0:39:59 should be looking up to. And the thing that’s so tragic about it is there’s so many amazing
0:40:04 reasons to look up to this guy, right? So it’s not a beef. I don’t think he thinks about me. He did
0:40:10 reach out to me via friend once and say, I think Scott’s been unfair. I’d like to meet with him.
0:40:15 And I didn’t want to meet with him. And I said maybe as an excuse, I said maybe some time we’ll
0:40:22 all get together for drinks or something. But I just find him, it’s like you were talking about
0:40:27 the classics. I feel like it’s a Greek tragedy. I mean, he’s think about this, Ed. He’s a man who
0:40:31 has I think 12 kids now and he doesn’t live with any of them. And he lives with a loaded gun next
0:40:38 to his bed. I don’t know. I’m very I probably he probably lives rent free in my brain much more
0:40:44 than he should. But no, that’s that’s about it. Enough about Musk. Ed, what is your relationship
0:40:48 like with your parents and your siblings? Well, my relationship with my parents, my siblings are
0:40:55 pretty good, but they’re very different. My parents are not together. And I think that
0:41:04 my relationship with my parents has been fraught at times. I think that’s the case with everyone.
0:41:14 And I think the biggest realization that I think pretty much every kid has is a lot of people
0:41:20 talk about this. But the idea that your parents are people too. I think that was a big one for me.
0:41:30 And learning how to get along with them at a very human level. Yeah, I found an interesting thought
0:41:38 with my parents recently, or in the past few years, where, you know, I was thinking, I really
0:41:42 want to understand my parents and I want to get to know them at like a very personal level.
0:41:50 And the only way that I can do that fully is by being able to be vulnerable with them.
0:41:57 And they also need to be vulnerable with me. I think as a parent, that’s probably very difficult
0:42:02 to do because your instinct is to protect your child, I would assume. And you don’t really want
0:42:08 to show your child the vulnerable side of yourself because you don’t want to fuck them up for whatever
0:42:14 reason. But I realize that it’s just something that I want to know about my parents. I want to know
0:42:20 what are the biggest mistakes that they made? What things do they wish they’d done differently?
0:42:26 What are they embarrassed about? What are they insecure about? Just that I have some notes moving
0:42:34 forward. And anyway, I sort of said this to my parents, but I also said, but I recognize it’s
0:42:38 probably difficult for you. So what I’m going to try to do, and I’ve been trying to do this in
0:42:46 general, is signal as best as I can to you that I’m fine. I’m never going to, I’ll ask for your
0:42:51 advice on things, but I’m never going to come running to you in like a crisis and be like,
0:42:56 you need to help me. I’m drowning. Like, you need to figure something out for me. Because
0:43:02 what I want to do is get to a point where I can interact with you as a peer,
0:43:08 and where you feel that you can express things you’re concerned about without this feeling that
0:43:17 you’re kind of, you know, placing undeserved burden on your child. And I want you to understand
0:43:22 that I’m strong enough and I’m capable enough to hear what you have to say and be empathetic towards
0:43:27 it. I think it’s great you’re thinking that way, especially at your age. That’s a lot more
0:43:33 self-actualized than I was at your age. But just a couple of things. As a parent, like you said,
0:43:39 you kind of said, I would be scared to come to them in a crisis. Like, what I find is I really
0:43:45 want my kids to know if they ever get in trouble, if the bills get too much, if they have their
0:43:54 heart broken, that they can come home, that I am their hammock safety net, like no judgment,
0:44:00 anything goes wrong, I should be your first call. And I think they want to know that. I think,
0:44:04 I mean, you’re impressive enough where I don’t think they’re going to have trouble treating
0:44:11 as a peer, but I think especially dads really want, as a dad, I really want my kids to come
0:44:14 to advice. I think one of the most, I don’t call it disappointing, but frustrating things for me
0:44:20 is, and I realize it’s natural, is not exaggerating. I’ll get 30 or 40 emails today from young men
0:44:25 looking for advice. My kids never asked me for advice. And it’s sort of like, I wish they would.
0:44:30 I wish at some point they would say, dad, occasionally they ask me for stuff, but not
0:44:38 really. Well, that’s super young, I mean. About to be 14 and 17. But so I just, let me put it
0:44:43 this way, don’t in any way think that you are coming to your parents for advice or comfort
0:44:48 is a burden. It’s what they want. It’s what makes them feel important and close to you.
0:44:54 And also just try and make a habit of calling your mom as often as possible,
0:44:57 just to say hi and check in. I think moms need that more than anything.
0:45:03 But the way you’re thinking is the right way, realizing their life here or their time here is
0:45:12 finite and making an effort to get to know them. Okay, something more fun. You’re a young single.
0:45:17 I’m actually not single anymore. What? Ed Elson. I thought we were close.
0:45:22 Actually, it’s not true. I don’t want to be close. But I thought I would have known that.
0:45:26 Okay. The fans want to know, are you willing to go public with this relationship?
0:45:28 Well, what does that mean? Yeah.
0:45:31 How did you meet? Who is it? How long have you been dating?
0:45:34 So she clearly, she has poor vision and poor judgment.
0:45:39 What happened? How did Ed Elson find someone?
0:45:44 I’ve known her for a really long time. We went to college together. We were
0:45:50 very good friends and it was kind of, it was very sort of random and we kind of at one point
0:45:55 realized that we really liked each other, which was interesting having been friends for a really
0:46:01 long time. So how long have you guys been dating? Quote unquote? Three months, I want to say.
0:46:06 Ed’s got a girlfriend. This is very exciting. Our producer has a girlfriend. You have a girlfriend.
0:46:11 This is very, everyone’s, this is, this is good. Everyone’s hooking up. I’m glad.
0:46:16 I’ve got a kind of sappy lost question here. Scott, are you proud of Ed?
0:46:24 Am I proud of Ed? Proud. No, the prouds, the proud’s the wrong word. I’m not proud of Ed.
0:46:28 Look Ed, you’re a, you’re a nice kid to have on this because I think you’re going to be a good
0:46:33 role model for other young men. I think you, you, you equate yourself well. I think you’re
0:46:37 reserved. I think you’re kind. I think you’re smart. You work hard. You give good financial
0:46:42 advice. I think you’re a good role model for young men. I can, I can hopefully, you know,
0:46:47 I can be somewhat of a role model by boasting about my success. You’re going to be a more
0:46:50 effective role model though, because they’re going to relate to you. They’re going to see
0:46:55 how you’re behaving and the mistakes you make and the victories you have. So when we, when we
0:47:00 were doing this podcast, I was, I thought it was really important to have a young person. And I
0:47:03 think it’s, I think it’s nice. I think you’re setting a good example for other young men.
0:47:10 This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
0:47:14 Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our executive producer is Catherine Dillon.
0:47:17 Mia Silverio is our research lead and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:47:21 Thank you for listening to ProfG Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:47:24 We’ll be back with a fresh take on markets on Thursday.
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0:01:20 podcast. Today’s number, $80. That’s the cost of Costco’s new emergency food
0:01:25 bucket, which includes freeze-dried meals that will last up to 25 years. True
0:01:28 story yet, I remember when I shot my first turkey. Boy, were the people at the
0:01:32 Costco frozen food section surprised.
0:01:46 Little team DadHumor, little Costco membership retail DadHumor, they’re
0:01:52 welcome to PropG Markets. What is going on today, Ed? I usually introduce you as
0:01:56 media analyst. Have we given that shit up? Media analysts, whatever that was?
0:02:01 Okay, I need to put this to rest once and for all. Our company is called
0:02:06 PropG Media, so we called me the analyst of PropG Media, and you keep on
0:02:10 thinking that I’m calling myself a media analyst. I’m the analyst of PropG.
0:02:13 Thanks for straightening that out. By the way, that category, that puts me into a
0:02:18 new employment category with much lower salary and no benefits. No more dental
0:02:24 for you. No more dental for you. All right, so we’re doing something different today.
0:02:27 We’ve got a fun one. Tell us what we’re doing. Yeah, we’re doing an “Ask Me
0:02:30 Anything” episode, so we’ll be going through our listener questions that we
0:02:34 received on Instagram and on Reddit and on YouTube. Thank you to everyone who
0:02:38 sent in questions. We’ll try to get through as many as we can. Are you ready to go,
0:02:43 Scott? Let’s light this candle. Okay, how did Scott and Ed meet? I don’t remember.
0:02:46 I don’t remember. You don’t remember? I remember very well. I know it was a
0:02:52 bathroom, but I primed to remember where. We’re off to a good start. Here’s the
0:02:57 ball through the RNC in Milwaukee. Oh my god, that’s my favorite stat. Grinder
0:03:02 crashing in Milwaukee during the RNC convention. I just fucking love that.
0:03:09 Anyways, go ahead. How did we meet? I’ll preface it with this. It was about four
0:03:15 years ago. I was in college, and I was feeling generally pretty lost about what
0:03:21 I wanted to do with my life. All of my friends were becoming bankers. All of
0:03:26 them were becoming consultants. And for whatever reason, I didn’t want to do it.
0:03:31 I was stewing over this for a while, and I decided to create a list of all the
0:03:37 people I most admire and whose careers I wanted to replicate. And I decided I’m
0:03:40 going to just create this list and see if I can go help any of these people. And
0:03:45 Scott was on that list. So at the time, I was a big fan of Pivot. I had been for a
0:03:52 while. One day I’m listening to Pivot, and Colin Scott say, “Please welcome Joanna
0:03:56 Coles, who is a friend of mine because she is the mother of my best friend and
0:04:02 roommate from the boarding school I went to in Massachusetts.” So I heard that. I
0:04:06 didn’t even listen to the interview, and I immediately put my phone down and
0:04:09 reached out to Joanna and said, “Can you please introduce me to Scott Galloway?”
0:04:14 Which she did. I connected with Scott over email, and then he offered to get on a
0:04:20 phone call with me. I think you’re on a beach in Mexico at the time. Yeah, and
0:04:25 he offered me an internship and the rest is history. In my mind, it was a total
0:04:31 no-brainer to reach out to you because I think this is the learning. I had already
0:04:36 done all of the mental work ahead of time that I needed to know that if there’s an
0:04:40 opportunity to meet Scott Galloway, I have to take it. I think that’s sort of my
0:04:45 takeaway. It’s like, I mean, 90% of your career battle is figuring out that
0:04:49 question. What do I want to do? That’s the hardest part. Once you figured that out,
0:04:54 it’s sort of autopilot. I knew I wanted to work with you. So yeah, that’s how
0:04:58 we met on a phone call, I guess. Yeah, thanks for that. Those were generous
0:05:02 words. It made me feel nice to hear you say that. I didn’t know some of that
0:05:06 stuff. You’re obviously privileged in the sense that you came with huge
0:05:11 credentials coming out of Princeton. And to be fair, you knew somebody, you’re not
0:05:16 a netbo hire, but you knew someone who I’m friends with. And some people, because
0:05:22 of the income of the household they grew up with, don’t have access to
0:05:27 friends who know people in positions to hire them. I remember growing up
0:05:31 thinking, all my friends, when they were playing at college, like, oh, my dad’s
0:05:35 friend is on the board of advisors for the University of Wisconsin. And I’m like,
0:05:40 my mom doesn’t know anybody. We have no contacts. But anyways, the lesson
0:05:45 here is that, or the lesson for me, in my approach to hiring. So Joanna Calls
0:05:51 called me and said, “I have someone you have to hire.” And I take Joanna very
0:05:55 seriously. She’s super smart. She’s built companies herself. She’s one of the few
0:05:57 people from the magazine industry. For those of you who don’t know Joanna Calls,
0:06:02 she was the chief content or creative officer for Hearst.
0:06:03 An editor-in-chief of Cosmo, too.
0:06:07 Yeah, editor-in-chief Cosmo, which at one point was the kind of biggest magazine
0:06:10 in the world. And she’s just a very impressive woman. She’s now, I think, the
0:06:14 co-owner of The Daily Bee. She’s taken that over, which is, in my opinion, going
0:06:19 to be like pushing a rock up the hill. “Best-elected, Joanna.” But she called me
0:06:25 and said in no uncertain terms, “I have someone you have to hire.” And
0:06:29 that’s the way I hire. If somebody I trust, who I think is really smart, is
0:06:36 willing to put, not their reputation, but put their full-throated endorsement
0:06:41 behind someone, I’ll hire them. Because here’s the thing. Interviews, for me, are
0:06:45 not worthless, but they’re almost worthless. The best interview I’ve ever had
0:06:49 was with someone at L2. She came in and she just blew my socks off. I’m like,
0:06:56 “This person is so smart, so composed, has such presence.” And everyone else is
0:07:00 like, “Okay, fine, let’s hire her.” Two days after she started, she went on
0:07:05 disability. And she refused to tell us what was wrong with her, because that
0:07:10 would be an invasion of her privacy. But she used to show up to the parties. And
0:07:14 it took us, like, nine months to figure out a way to fire. Like, just went on
0:07:18 disability and wouldn’t even tell us why she was on disability, but was well
0:07:22 enough to show up for any social thing we had. That was the best interview I’ve
0:07:26 ever had. I don’t remember doing the phone call with you, but I don’t need to
0:07:31 remember, because I was going to hire you, because someone I trust and respect
0:07:36 said, “I have to hire you.” She said, “This kid is so impressive.” She said, “He’s
0:07:41 friends with my son. We hang out with him. I don’t know if this
0:07:45 was true. Vacationed with you, and he’s just such an impressive young man. You
0:07:49 have to hire him.” So I knew I was hiring you when I got the phone with Joanna.
0:07:53 I can’t tell if that reflects well on me or well on Joanna.
0:07:58 Well, you’ve been a fucking disaster, so I call her and tell her. She owes me.
0:08:02 I’m like, “You owe me.” Yeah, 100%. No, that’s reference hires is, I think, the big
0:08:06 learning here. Moving on to a question for you. Scott, could you address the
0:08:11 rumors that you were, in fact, Joe Bruin, the UCLA mascot during your time at
0:08:16 UCLA? So that is a hundred percent true. This guy named Brady Cannell, who was the
0:08:21 president of my fraternity, was the Bruin Bearer and came up to me and said, “You
0:08:24 should be the Bruin Bearer.” I’m like, “What are you talking about?” And he said,
0:08:30 “The mascot at the football games is this giant bear in a Disney costume.” And so I
0:08:38 said, “Okay.” And so I tried out and I became the Bruin Bearer at UCLA in 1983. I
0:08:42 was a freshman and I traveled with the football team. I tried out for the
0:08:45 football team and ended up dancing around on the sidelines in a fucking costume.
0:08:49 And it was an interesting experience. I traveled with the football team for a
0:08:55 season and me and the other bear would get ridiculously fucking high and stay
0:08:59 out past the curfew. Can you believe it? I remember, we went to the
0:09:05 fiesta bowl in Arizona and we were playing against Miami. And so me and
0:09:10 Harry Hirschman, the other bear, we went out and as you do, when you’re 19 in
0:09:14 Arizona, we got ridiculously fucked up in a Mexican restaurant, ended up back at
0:09:18 our hotel with a couple women. And we just partied like four in the morning.
0:09:23 And then the next morning, I got a call from like the Dean of Spirit Squad or
0:09:27 whatever she was doing. And she came to our room with another guy, I guess for,
0:09:31 I don’t know, Gravitas and said, “I’m putting you on a plane home. You have
0:09:36 violated NCAA Athletic rules. You were not in bed by 10.” And I’m like, “Let me
0:09:43 get this. I don’t have to march around in a 140-degree fucking costume,
0:09:46 wildly hungover, and you’re pretending that’s a punishment?”
0:09:47 He said that.
0:09:51 Yeah, she was a lover. I was so hungover. I think I had to, I’m not exaggerating.
0:09:54 I think I had to excuse myself from distressing down in this meeting to go
0:09:59 throw up in the bathroom. I’m like, “I’m not throwing a football. I don’t need to
0:10:07 be, no one sees me. I’m in a hot box. I’m in this costume. I’m in Arizona. I’m
0:10:12 going to be in a fur-lined costume making dumb poses. It’s going to be, it’s
0:10:15 literally going to be 140 degrees in there.” And you’re acting as if that’s
0:10:19 a punishment. And her only comeback was you’re going to have to play for your
0:10:25 own flight home. And I’m like, “Well, okay.” And so it ended up that was all
0:10:29 like, “Oh, bullshit.” And they’re like, “Fuck, you get in the costume and get to
0:10:36 the Fiesta Bowl.” But yeah, I did that. I was Joe Bruin for a season of the Mighty
0:10:39 Bruins when we went to the Fiesta Bowl. Not something I talk a lot about,
0:10:43 although I used to, I used to try and get girls up to my room in the fraternity
0:10:46 to see the costume. I’d be like, “I’m the Bruin Bear. You want to see the costume?”
0:10:47 Do what? No.
0:10:49 It didn’t work a lot. Yeah, yeah.
0:10:50 It’s something to talk about.
0:10:54 It is something to talk about, yeah. So yes, true. I was the Bruin Bear in 1983.
0:10:58 Well, I did not know that. I feel like I know every dumb factoid about you.
0:10:59 I did not know that.
0:11:03 So next one, Ed, what does your portfolio look like?
0:11:11 So my portfolio is very simple. It’s all ETFs. So S&P 500 and then some wider
0:11:18 baskets to Russell 1000 Growth, Russell 1000 Value. Very simple, plain portfolio.
0:11:24 I don’t think about it. I basically don’t touch it. The reason I don’t think
0:11:29 about it is because I’m at a point in my career where worrying about stocks is
0:11:34 basically just a waste of time. The highest ROI investment I can make is just
0:11:39 being really, really good at my job. So to me, that means spending my time developing
0:11:44 writing skills, developing speaking skills, understanding markets, meeting
0:11:49 people, reading obsessively. That’s what I spend my time doing. So, you know, I
0:11:52 don’t really pay that much attention to the portfolio. I take, you want some more
0:11:59 tea, I take 5% of my income and put it in my 401k. Luckily for me, Scott offers a
0:12:06 5% contribution match. So in effect, that’s 10% of my income that’s being
0:12:12 invested to build an asset base. I plan to start cranking that number up over time.
0:12:17 But, you know, I live in New York and I spend a fortune on rent and food and
0:12:21 alcohol and experiences, all of these things that I want to spend money on.
0:12:28 So, for me, 5% makes a right amount of sense right now. But I think the idea is
0:12:33 that, you know, once I start making really, really highly meaningful income,
0:12:36 that’s when I’ll start being a little more strategic and a little bit more bold
0:12:41 with my investments. Maybe I’ll look at real estate, maybe venture, maybe private equity.
0:12:45 Those are all things I’m thinking about. But at this stage, just a plain
0:12:48 passive ETF portfolio, that’s what makes the most sense for me.
0:12:52 I’m just saying, I mean this sincerely, you’re so much smarter than I was at your age.
0:12:57 You’re investing in the right places. You’re taking a disciplined approach.
0:13:01 Even if you’re, you know, you’re going to be remarkably successful, but on the
0:13:08 options, you’re not. As long as you, you know, continue to figure out a way to get 10% of your
0:13:14 earnings into these ETFs. When you’re my age, regardless of whether you’re a baller or not,
0:13:18 and what you’ve achieved or not achieved economically, you’re going to be fine.
0:13:20 And I didn’t, I did not realize that when I was your age.
0:13:24 Who are your inspirations in and out of the business world?
0:13:30 Well, it sounds, it sounds, Pat, but I get a lot of inspiration from work.
0:13:35 I love surrounding myself with super intelligent creative young people. I get a lot of inspiration
0:13:39 from you guys. Same thing happened at L2. I’ve always been pretty good at surrounding myself
0:13:42 with young, smart people that have a different lens on the world.
0:13:48 I get a lot of just the, of inspiration from the people I work with. I don’t have,
0:13:54 I try to, I have a few people in my life that, or that I’ve tried to get to know a lot about
0:13:59 and they provide me with inspiration. I admire Muhammad Ali’s courage.
0:14:02 I feel like I’ve heard you say that you also admire, like,
0:14:06 I found this interesting how poetic he was. Is that right?
0:14:11 Well, the key to success is storytelling. And this is a guy who decided he was going to say,
0:14:18 “I am so pretty.” And he would do poetry at pre-boxing hearings, whatever you call him.
0:14:26 And he was just not afraid, very principled, decided that his principles around not going
0:14:31 to Vietnam were not an opinion. It was a principle and refused to go. And they stripped him of his
0:14:36 medals. They basically impoverished him. Obviously outstanding at what he did.
0:14:42 I just thought this, this guy was courageous. I mean, it sounds dumb, but I think of people
0:14:49 like Richard Simmons, who was outwardly gay before it was cool. And I remember this one moment, I was
0:14:54 at LaGuardia in the middle of winter, it must have been 20 degrees out. And this guy in front
0:14:58 of me at TSA takes off his trench coat and he’s wearing a sweater, except it’s not a sweater,
0:15:07 it’s back hair. And he has a sparkly tank top, short short dolphin shorts, K-Swiss and athletic
0:15:17 socks. And the whole airport stops and TSA stops and they go, “Richard.” They go, “Richard.” And he
0:15:22 cleared, made space around him, asked me to step back, which I did. And he stepped back and threw
0:15:32 his arms into the air and went, “Hello, LaGuardia.” No way. And the entire terminal stopped for a
0:15:41 moment and then erupted in applause. Wow. And I thought, “This guy is just so fucking unafraid.”
0:15:46 So like, have you ever been in a club or at a place and somebody gets on the table and starts
0:15:52 dancing and they’re dancing as if no one’s watching them? I’m like, “God, I want to live my life like
0:15:59 that. I want to be Richard Simmons, the bridge for me to get to that fearlessness as an embrace of
0:16:05 atheism. It just doesn’t matter if you make a fool of yourself or people don’t like you or you get
0:16:11 shamed or you do something stupid or you take a risk and you have public failure. You know,
0:16:17 it really doesn’t matter. What matters is while you’re here having an amazing life. And the only
0:16:23 way you’re going to have a truly amazing life, a life that’s better than the environment you are
0:16:29 born into and what logically the world would reward you with, is that if you have a little bit of
0:16:35 Richard Simmons and Muhammad Ali and you, and that is you are willing to risk public shaming,
0:16:41 you are willing to live out loud, and that you very early decide what is the difference between
0:16:46 an opinion and a principle. I mean, I just love that Richard Simmons story. Yeah. I tend to have
0:16:53 a similar view on the people who inspire me. I mean, I love people who really understand humanity
0:17:00 and for whom you can see that understanding through their work. I love comedians. I mean,
0:17:10 you know, my favorite person in high school was Louis C.K. It’s a little, I mean, he had his issues,
0:17:14 so it’s hard to say that now. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone deserves their heroes,
0:17:20 and I think it’s important that you masturbate in front of your coworkers. I mean, that’s a great
0:17:29 role model. Sorry, sorry. Okay, if I whip this out and just have a little bit of fun, just FYI,
0:17:33 that is not a part of the employee handbook here at just, you know, I’m sorry, go ahead.
0:17:37 You’re role models. The question was inspiration. I wouldn’t call him a role model, I call him
0:17:48 inspiration. Oh, he’s backtracking. Stay with us.
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0:19:47 So, I’m on this job listing site and I get a message from a recruiter for a small shipping
0:19:54 company. The recruiter said all I needed to do was send $500 to cover mandatory software training
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0:20:27 take to help protect yourself. You should never give out any what we call PII in the industry,
0:20:32 personal identifying information, which includes everything from your mailing address, your social
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0:21:27 by visiting www.bax.com/safesquadhq We’re back with Prof. G. Markets.
0:21:32 Top non-economic books everyone should read. Do you have one?
0:21:36 I have a bunch but none of them are that profound. So like the books that really moved me,
0:21:42 I remember distinctly as a kid, my father has Mild Epilepsy, which he failed to inform me
0:21:47 of my mom and I started having fainting spells and it was really traumatic at the time. I’d be
0:21:53 in school and I’d see something unusual or a weird film or something and I would not feel
0:21:58 well and I’d get up and I’d pass out. And it was kind of, you know, at the time it was traumatic.
0:22:04 Like, you know, the Galway kid keeps passing out. And I read this book called The Great Brain
0:22:10 and it was a series of books about a kid living in I think, I don’t know, 1800s America.
0:22:14 And there’s a scene where these kids are in a lake and there’s a rush of water
0:22:20 or on a river and one of them drowns. And the kid, the protagonist, he says,
0:22:24 “Something happened to me that’s never happened to me.” And he says, “I fainted and I passed out.”
0:22:29 And I remember thinking it gave me such comfort to read that that happened to other kids
0:22:35 and to kill a mockingbird. I remember thinking I’d like to be like that guy,
0:22:40 the Atticus Finch kid. I remember thinking I would like to be like quiet and strong and not
0:22:46 necessarily like be a protector, not feel as if I have to always be like, like get in people’s
0:22:52 faces, just be quietly strong. Books had had a huge impact on me in high school where one,
0:22:57 the diary of Anne Frank and the Winds of War, I started reading about World War II and just the
0:23:04 amount of sacrifice that people had made, that kind of made America what it is today and the
0:23:10 freedoms we enjoy and what happened to Jews in Europe in World War II, that had a huge impact on
0:23:15 me. And then the other author that had a huge impact on me was Jonathan Irving. And he used to
0:23:23 just write these books about, that felt so real, but these people were just so fucking strange.
0:23:30 And they put people in the weirdest situation about it. Someone gets hit in the face of the
0:23:38 baseball and it changes their life or the story of a home for unwed mothers and it provided abortions
0:23:45 and this love story that takes place in this context about a wrestling coach whose mother is a,
0:23:49 I mean- That was my favorite growing up weirdly, world according to God.
0:23:53 But I felt like everyone thinks they’re a little bit weird. I think deep down we all think we’re
0:24:00 hiding some freak and maybe not all of us. I feel like I’m a weird kid. And that gave me comfort
0:24:06 that the whole world is weird, that you don’t need to feel strange or ashamed because you’re
0:24:11 unusual or think weird things, that the whole world is fucking weird and everyone’s pretending not to
0:24:17 be. But those books really moved me. Like they really made me feel something. I haven’t read a
0:24:24 non. The reality is in the last five years I’ve written almost as many books as I’ve read. I
0:24:29 read so much during the day that I don’t get relaxation from reading at night. What about
0:24:34 you Ed? What’s changed or what’s been seminal for you? I mean, the question, what should everyone
0:24:40 read? I personally think everyone should read the Odyssey. I just think if you want to understand
0:24:45 storytelling at a very fundamental level, that is the book that you have to start with.
0:24:53 It’s basically, aside from the religious texts, the most influential book in history, it invented
0:24:59 this idea of the hero’s journey, which is the template for pretty much every story in our society
0:25:06 today. The character in Odysseus is super interesting to me and probably my favorite
0:25:14 character. The context here, every hero in these stories in Homer has what’s known as an apathet,
0:25:18 which is basically like the adjective that’s attached to your name. It’s like being called
0:25:23 the incredible Hulk or whatever. So you have like swift-footed Achilles and earth-shaking
0:25:28 Poseidon, all these characters. The apathet for Odysseus, the one adjective that is used to
0:25:35 describe him, was this word, “polutrapos.” It’s a very weird word. It means “of many different ways,”
0:25:44 which basically is saying he was anything moment to moment. He would change his nature,
0:25:50 like another way you could say is like a man of twists and turns. It’s just such a unique,
0:25:56 that was his superpower, basically. His superpower was the ability to read situations,
0:26:04 read people’s emotions, and adjust his behavior to get along with people, to make things work,
0:26:11 depending on the context. I just think it says a lot about humanity, that of all of these heroes
0:26:17 with these different superpowers, strength and speed and lightning bolts. The one that we exalted
0:26:26 most was this word, “polutrapos,” this guy who would change his behaviors from context to context
0:26:32 to make things work. I like this next one. “Ed, do you plan on becoming like Scott when
0:26:36 you’re his age? In other words, are you planning to really lean into the erectile dysfunction?”
0:26:42 Okay. Do you plan on becoming like me when you’re my age?
0:26:42 No.
0:26:46 Fair enough. Let’s move on.
0:26:51 Well, no, actually, what I will say about this, because I do kind of get that question a lot,
0:26:59 like, “Oh, where is this going for you? What’s the trajectory?” The answer to that is,
0:27:05 “I don’t know, and I’m fine with that because I’m making good money, and I’m getting better at it,
0:27:09 and I’m enjoying it, and I think that if you’re ticking those three boxes,
0:27:14 you’re headed in the right direction, so you just got to enjoy it, see where it takes you.”
0:27:23 What I can say is that there are fundamental aspects of your life and your career that I do
0:27:25 want. I think that’s probably the way to think about it.
0:27:26 The plane.
0:27:37 So that’s one of them. You make a lot of money, and I think I have to be real with myself and
0:27:44 recognize that money is very important to me. I want to make a lot of money. I like nice things.
0:27:51 I like the freedom it gives you. That’s something for sure that I want. I also think that I like
0:27:57 that you make money doing something that you’re actually good at. It’s not like you bought
0:28:04 a bunch of crypto and it went to a million and you just ended up rich. You get to say that you
0:28:12 genuinely earned that money because of your talents and your hard work. Like I said, I love money,
0:28:19 but I think I love it even more when I’m 100% certain that I deserve it and it’s mine,
0:28:23 and that’s a big part of it. The third thing I’ll say, and this is the most important one
0:28:27 in my opinion and kind of related to the thing that you were saying about Richard Simmons,
0:28:36 I think that you in your career have figured out a way to express yourself fully, I think.
0:28:42 And to me, this is like the number one thing you need to do in life, and I think it’s actually
0:28:47 really surprisingly difficult to do because when I look at, I mean, I haven’t been around that long,
0:28:52 but when I look at my life, the times I’ve been least happy were the moments where for whatever
0:28:59 reason I felt kind of unable to express myself fully. And the times I’ve been most happy when
0:29:04 I felt motivated and confident to express myself. And I think it’s just so difficult to do because
0:29:10 there are just so many little things in life that can get in the way of that. I think the ability to
0:29:18 express yourself is a luxury that you have to work hard to achieve. And I think that you have
0:29:23 achieved that. You’re in a unique position where you’re not only empowered to express yourself,
0:29:29 but you’re economically incentivized to do so. Well, one, that’s kind and generous,
0:29:34 but a couple of things. One, then again, I’m not humble. I think I’m remarkably talented. 49%
0:29:38 of what you’re talking about has come from my talent. The other 51% was shit that wasn’t my fault,
0:29:44 being born in California in the ’60s, being born in America just got very, very lucky.
0:29:50 And the other thing is when you’re 26, you’re exactly right. You really don’t have any idea
0:29:55 where you’re going to be. It’s like you have your plan and then God laughs. And when I was 26,
0:30:00 I was a second year in business school. I had started a brand strategy firm in business school.
0:30:05 25, by the way. When I was 25, I had gone to Berk. I enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin
0:30:11 to go to business school. And I just switched to the high school of business because I’d fallen
0:30:15 in love with someone. And I said to her, she said, “We’re going to business school together.”
0:30:18 I’m like, “Yeah, I’m going to UT Austin.” And she said, “Well, I’m going to Berkeley.” And I said,
0:30:25 “Well, I’m going to Berkeley.” And I followed her to Berkeley. And coming out of Berkeley in the ’90s,
0:30:30 I ended up in tech. What if I’d come out of UT? Would I’ve ended up in energy? I doubt I would
0:30:38 have started an e-commerce company. I mean, your life is a function of fractions and inches
0:30:43 and small decisions and small things that happen outside your control and timing and missing or
0:30:49 getting a, you know, a subway to somewhere. So I was trying to reflect on just how fortunate I am.
0:30:53 You’re tracking right now in terms of your currency in the marketplace, the skills you’re
0:31:00 developing, the economic base. The most rewarding thing that will happen to you will be finding
0:31:06 someone to have to build something with and to have kids with. I didn’t figure that out until
0:31:10 I was in my 40s. But that has been the most hands down, the most rewarding thing.
0:31:16 By the way, this is a personal question for me. Why did you wait so long?
0:31:17 I loved being single.
0:31:22 But you went off to business. I mean, it sounds like you were down to drop everything for a
0:31:25 partner, pretty young.
0:31:31 Yeah. But Ed, here’s the thing. She was much hotter than me. She was much, much hotter than me.
0:31:39 No, look, I, I’ve been married before and I didn’t like it. And I was fine.
0:31:44 When I moved to New York, I was 34. I was making good money. I was single and I really liked it.
0:31:49 I liked being selfish. I liked doing my own thing. I liked going to St. Bart’s and
0:31:55 having brunch with fabulous people and going out and getting shitty drunk. And I just loved it.
0:31:59 And I didn’t think I would ever, I didn’t think I would ever have kids.
0:32:00 Really?
0:32:01 Yeah. I didn’t want kids.
0:32:02 Why?
0:32:04 I just couldn’t stand being around them. Have you been around kids?
0:32:07 I think you are awful.
0:32:09 I’ve always assumed I’ll feel differently about mine.
0:32:13 You’re 100% right. I, I still am not interested in other people’s kids.
0:32:18 God reaches in your soul with your kids. And by the way, it’s a slow, it’s not a switch.
0:32:23 It’s a dim. After you have kids, you know, it’s not, I wasn’t in love with my
0:32:26 sons when they were right when they were born. It’s really true what they say. You kind of fall
0:32:31 in love with them. And, but I wasn’t planning on it, but I fell in love with someone who said,
0:32:34 I want to have kids. And I said, well, I’m not getting married again.
0:32:37 And she called my bluff and said, I don’t need to be married to have kids.
0:32:41 And so we pulled the goalie and we’re like pregnant three minutes later.
0:32:47 But having kids, it started out something terrifying and upsetting. And I wasn’t excited
0:32:53 about it. And it’s ended up being like literally, you know, I would say 70 to 80% of the real reward
0:33:00 and feelings of satisfaction. I have stem from something around family. And I love work,
0:33:04 but work is, it’s a ton of fun. It’s almost like a hobby at this point, because I’m in
0:33:09 the privileged position. I’m not needing to do anything. But really, when I think about work
0:33:14 and you guys, I want to pay you really well, even overpay you and try and train you to develop some
0:33:19 economic security like you’re doing such that you can focus on your relationships and your family.
0:33:36 Because as you get older, that’s what it’s all about. We’ll be right back.
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0:35:32 We’re back with Prof. G. Markets. Scott, what’s in your wallet? What card gets used the most and why?
0:35:35 My amix black card because I’m trying to impress other people.
0:35:45 That’s right. Daddy throws down black. Hello. Hello, ladies. I pay $5,000 or maybe $7,500 a year
0:35:50 for a card that has no incremental benefits other than they took a visa and spray painted it black.
0:35:53 Is that right? There are no other benefits? Or you probably just don’t,
0:35:58 you can’t figure out how to use the points. I’m sure there are. I don’t use them.
0:36:05 Oh, my God. The benefits are so lame. They’re wine tasting in a hot air balloon in Napa Sonoma.
0:36:11 I was like, what am I, 80 fucking years old? It’s such lame shit and their travel agency
0:36:18 is so bad. It used to be good and now you’d much rather use Expedia. Expedia is 10 times better
0:36:25 than what amix offers in terms of travel services. They have their kind of amix benefits. They have
0:36:29 their late checkout thing, which occasionally I use it free room. I’m great, but I think you
0:36:35 get that with a platinum card. It is literally pure signaling. That is all it is. It is pure
0:36:42 signaling and I will do it until, until I’m dead. I will bury me with my Centurion card. I love that
0:36:46 thing. There’s some crazy stats. There used to be, I remember this a while ago, there were 10,000
0:36:51 black cards in America and 5,000 in Manhattan. I thought that was hilarious. Makes sense.
0:36:56 Let’s get another question here. Scott, you’ve had some personal beef with Elon Musk. Could you
0:37:03 explain what happened? Oh, no, I don’t have beef with him. I don’t know him. We just report on him
0:37:09 a lot. He said a couple of things about me online, which I think were mean, but no. I’ve probably
0:37:13 been more hostile towards him than he’s towards me because I don’t think he thinks about me a whole
0:37:18 lot. If you’re going to talk about technology and society, you’re going to talk about Elon Musk.
0:37:22 He is probably one of the defining, if not the defining character of our age.
0:37:30 And there’s some things I really admire about him. I think his brain, his fearlessness, his
0:37:36 innovation, his understanding of technology, his embrace of just massive risks doubling down after
0:37:41 he sold PayPal to try and build a rocket and a car company. It’s basically like every eight-year-old’s
0:37:46 fantasy. Like I want to build a rocket and a car company. I think it’s just an inspiration on a lot
0:37:51 of levels. And then there’s some things about him that trigger me. I think being critical of other
0:37:56 people’s parenting is sort of off limits. But when he puts this out there and tweets about it and
0:38:01 puts this out there for personal consumption, I think he’s inviting review. He said to Jordan
0:38:07 Peterson talking about the woke mind virus that he lost his son to the woke mind virus and that
0:38:14 his daughter went through transition. The way he describes it is that his son is dead.
0:38:22 And it is so rattling for a father to hear another father describe their child that way.
0:38:29 And when I think about how many young men look up to this guy and that the model he’s portraying
0:38:33 is so antithetical to the notion of what it means to be a man, in my view, there are some basics
0:38:39 about being a real man. And the first is that you move to protection. Like you don’t need to
0:38:45 understand gay people. You don’t need to understand whoever it is, what’s going on. The moment someone
0:38:53 is threatened, your first instinct as a man should be to protect. And that ground zero of that
0:38:59 is your family. And to ever say that, regardless of what you might feel about kids going through
0:39:06 transition or but to say that publicly that your child is dead to you, I just find that that is
0:39:14 such a terrible role model. It’s just such a just such a awful example for young men. And so I have
0:39:19 this like really conflicted view of the guy. And I don’t know, I used to think he was going to be a
0:39:25 net positive for society. But I worry that we’re training an entire generation of young men to
0:39:32 be coarse, to abuse your power to not pay people the severance you own them to spread conspiracy
0:39:39 theories that someone might be gay such that they have to move their home to spread conspiracy theory
0:39:46 about a gay love triangle of the speaker’s husband who’s who’s assaulted. I mean, it’s so it’s so
0:39:54 homophobic. It’s so transphobic. It just it’s like it’s just like the last role model that young men
0:39:59 should be looking up to. And the thing that’s so tragic about it is there’s so many amazing
0:40:04 reasons to look up to this guy, right? So it’s not a beef. I don’t think he thinks about me. He did
0:40:10 reach out to me via friend once and say, I think Scott’s been unfair. I’d like to meet with him.
0:40:15 And I didn’t want to meet with him. And I said maybe as an excuse, I said maybe some time we’ll
0:40:22 all get together for drinks or something. But I just find him, it’s like you were talking about
0:40:27 the classics. I feel like it’s a Greek tragedy. I mean, he’s think about this, Ed. He’s a man who
0:40:31 has I think 12 kids now and he doesn’t live with any of them. And he lives with a loaded gun next
0:40:38 to his bed. I don’t know. I’m very I probably he probably lives rent free in my brain much more
0:40:44 than he should. But no, that’s that’s about it. Enough about Musk. Ed, what is your relationship
0:40:48 like with your parents and your siblings? Well, my relationship with my parents, my siblings are
0:40:55 pretty good, but they’re very different. My parents are not together. And I think that
0:41:04 my relationship with my parents has been fraught at times. I think that’s the case with everyone.
0:41:14 And I think the biggest realization that I think pretty much every kid has is a lot of people
0:41:20 talk about this. But the idea that your parents are people too. I think that was a big one for me.
0:41:30 And learning how to get along with them at a very human level. Yeah, I found an interesting thought
0:41:38 with my parents recently, or in the past few years, where, you know, I was thinking, I really
0:41:42 want to understand my parents and I want to get to know them at like a very personal level.
0:41:50 And the only way that I can do that fully is by being able to be vulnerable with them.
0:41:57 And they also need to be vulnerable with me. I think as a parent, that’s probably very difficult
0:42:02 to do because your instinct is to protect your child, I would assume. And you don’t really want
0:42:08 to show your child the vulnerable side of yourself because you don’t want to fuck them up for whatever
0:42:14 reason. But I realize that it’s just something that I want to know about my parents. I want to know
0:42:20 what are the biggest mistakes that they made? What things do they wish they’d done differently?
0:42:26 What are they embarrassed about? What are they insecure about? Just that I have some notes moving
0:42:34 forward. And anyway, I sort of said this to my parents, but I also said, but I recognize it’s
0:42:38 probably difficult for you. So what I’m going to try to do, and I’ve been trying to do this in
0:42:46 general, is signal as best as I can to you that I’m fine. I’m never going to, I’ll ask for your
0:42:51 advice on things, but I’m never going to come running to you in like a crisis and be like,
0:42:56 you need to help me. I’m drowning. Like, you need to figure something out for me. Because
0:43:02 what I want to do is get to a point where I can interact with you as a peer,
0:43:08 and where you feel that you can express things you’re concerned about without this feeling that
0:43:17 you’re kind of, you know, placing undeserved burden on your child. And I want you to understand
0:43:22 that I’m strong enough and I’m capable enough to hear what you have to say and be empathetic towards
0:43:27 it. I think it’s great you’re thinking that way, especially at your age. That’s a lot more
0:43:33 self-actualized than I was at your age. But just a couple of things. As a parent, like you said,
0:43:39 you kind of said, I would be scared to come to them in a crisis. Like, what I find is I really
0:43:45 want my kids to know if they ever get in trouble, if the bills get too much, if they have their
0:43:54 heart broken, that they can come home, that I am their hammock safety net, like no judgment,
0:44:00 anything goes wrong, I should be your first call. And I think they want to know that. I think,
0:44:04 I mean, you’re impressive enough where I don’t think they’re going to have trouble treating
0:44:11 as a peer, but I think especially dads really want, as a dad, I really want my kids to come
0:44:14 to advice. I think one of the most, I don’t call it disappointing, but frustrating things for me
0:44:20 is, and I realize it’s natural, is not exaggerating. I’ll get 30 or 40 emails today from young men
0:44:25 looking for advice. My kids never asked me for advice. And it’s sort of like, I wish they would.
0:44:30 I wish at some point they would say, dad, occasionally they ask me for stuff, but not
0:44:38 really. Well, that’s super young, I mean. About to be 14 and 17. But so I just, let me put it
0:44:43 this way, don’t in any way think that you are coming to your parents for advice or comfort
0:44:48 is a burden. It’s what they want. It’s what makes them feel important and close to you.
0:44:54 And also just try and make a habit of calling your mom as often as possible,
0:44:57 just to say hi and check in. I think moms need that more than anything.
0:45:03 But the way you’re thinking is the right way, realizing their life here or their time here is
0:45:12 finite and making an effort to get to know them. Okay, something more fun. You’re a young single.
0:45:17 I’m actually not single anymore. What? Ed Elson. I thought we were close.
0:45:22 Actually, it’s not true. I don’t want to be close. But I thought I would have known that.
0:45:26 Okay. The fans want to know, are you willing to go public with this relationship?
0:45:28 Well, what does that mean? Yeah.
0:45:31 How did you meet? Who is it? How long have you been dating?
0:45:34 So she clearly, she has poor vision and poor judgment.
0:45:39 What happened? How did Ed Elson find someone?
0:45:44 I’ve known her for a really long time. We went to college together. We were
0:45:50 very good friends and it was kind of, it was very sort of random and we kind of at one point
0:45:55 realized that we really liked each other, which was interesting having been friends for a really
0:46:01 long time. So how long have you guys been dating? Quote unquote? Three months, I want to say.
0:46:06 Ed’s got a girlfriend. This is very exciting. Our producer has a girlfriend. You have a girlfriend.
0:46:11 This is very, everyone’s, this is, this is good. Everyone’s hooking up. I’m glad.
0:46:16 I’ve got a kind of sappy lost question here. Scott, are you proud of Ed?
0:46:24 Am I proud of Ed? Proud. No, the prouds, the proud’s the wrong word. I’m not proud of Ed.
0:46:28 Look Ed, you’re a, you’re a nice kid to have on this because I think you’re going to be a good
0:46:33 role model for other young men. I think you, you, you equate yourself well. I think you’re
0:46:37 reserved. I think you’re kind. I think you’re smart. You work hard. You give good financial
0:46:42 advice. I think you’re a good role model for young men. I can, I can hopefully, you know,
0:46:47 I can be somewhat of a role model by boasting about my success. You’re going to be a more
0:46:50 effective role model though, because they’re going to relate to you. They’re going to see
0:46:55 how you’re behaving and the mistakes you make and the victories you have. So when we, when we
0:47:00 were doing this podcast, I was, I thought it was really important to have a young person. And I
0:47:03 think it’s, I think it’s nice. I think you’re setting a good example for other young men.
0:47:10 This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
0:47:14 Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our executive producer is Catherine Dillon.
0:47:17 Mia Silverio is our research lead and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:47:21 Thank you for listening to ProfG Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:47:24 We’ll be back with a fresh take on markets on Thursday.
0:47:26 [Music]
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0:47:56 [Music]
0:47:59 ♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪
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Scott and Ed answer listener-submitted questions about everything from how they met to their favorite non-business books. They give career advice and talk about the people who inspire them. Plus, Ed discusses how he allocates his investments and Scott confirms the truth behind a rumor from his college days. Finally, bear witness to the moment Scott first learned Ed has a girlfriend.
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