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0:01:13 Hey, I’m John Glenn Hill, host of a brand new show from Vox called Explain It To Me.
0:01:17 This week, the ethical murkiness of zoos.
0:01:21 Do we as humans feel like we deserve to just be able to walk around and see these animals?
0:01:23 Like, maybe we don’t deserve that.
0:01:27 Maybe there’s just some animals we don’t get to see.
0:01:29 To zoo, or not to zoo?
0:01:31 That’s this week on Explain It To Me.
0:01:34 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:41 Welcome to the PropG pods office hours.
0:01:43 This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business,
0:01:46 big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.
0:01:47 Hey, PropG.
0:01:48 Hey, Scott and team.
0:01:48 Hey, Scott.
0:01:49 Hi, PropG.
0:01:50 Hey, PropG.
0:01:50 Hey, PropG.
0:01:51 Hi, Professor G.
0:01:56 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours@propgmedia.com.
0:01:59 Again, that’s officehours@propgmedia.com.
0:02:02 So with that, first question.
0:02:02 Hi, PropG.
0:02:07 This is Mitch working tech in the Bay Area in Silicon Valley.
0:02:12 And I see a lot of different companies doing really great things in this area.
0:02:17 And one of them, which I invested in a few years ago, is 23andMe,
0:02:20 when I was trading at $10 a share.
0:02:24 I really believed in this promising technology and strong leadership.
0:02:29 However, now it’s not trading below $0.50 a share, which has been a tough bill to swallow.
0:02:33 I was wondering how this could happen to a company with such potential in a growing industry,
0:02:40 and what it says about the future of personal genomics and similar tech driven health care companies.
0:02:43 I’d also love to hear your thoughts on whether this space still holds promise,
0:02:47 or if there are any underlying challenges that investors might be overlooking.
0:02:53 Thanks for all your insights and books and fostering a thoughtful dialogue and so many important topics.
0:02:54 We all appreciate it.
0:02:55 Thanks, Mitch.
0:02:57 Thanks for the question and your transparency.
0:03:01 So first off, the first lesson is first and foremost, forgive yourself.
0:03:04 The second is think about diversification.
0:03:06 Now let’s talk about the business itself.
0:03:12 23andMe was founded in 2006 and is primarily recognized as a genetic testing company
0:03:17 that offers consumer insights into their ancestry and health risks and mailed in saliva samples.
0:03:19 It also operates as a data company.
0:03:23 The company has built a massive database of DNA from about 10 million people
0:03:26 who agreed to share their genetic information for research.
0:03:30 Beyond testing, 23andMe has ventured into the pharmaceutical industry developing its own drugs
0:03:33 based on findings from its genetic data.
0:03:37 So it was obviously very promising, but it’s struggling.
0:03:43 It’s gone from a 4.5 billion dollar equity valuation down to 200 million.
0:03:46 So its value is limited 98% from its peak.
0:03:51 And NASDAQ has said that the stock, which now trades below a dollar, could be delisted.
0:03:57 Now, C.O.N. Wajiki is trying to take 23andMe private at just 40 cents per share.
0:04:00 The company’s main revenue stream, consumer DNA testing, has fallen short,
0:04:05 raking in only about 220 million last year, far below expectations.
0:04:08 When you have a growth company that is investing at these kinds of levels
0:04:12 to create sort of a 10x better product, especially I would imagine around research
0:04:17 and genetics and healthcare and data, that is a capital hungry monster.
0:04:20 And if the company is growing 50, 60, 70% a year,
0:04:24 then eventually the revenues of top line will take care of itself.
0:04:27 And you’ll get to a point if you have, assuming you have positive gross margins,
0:04:28 where you start to make a lot of money.
0:04:33 The problem is, is that if you miss, typically what happens in a small business
0:04:36 is you miss on the top line, but you never miss on the expenses.
0:04:37 What do I mean by that?
0:04:41 Even though maybe your revenues came up 40 or 50% off plan,
0:04:43 you managed to spend what you plan to spend.
0:04:46 And that’s where growth companies get into huge trouble.
0:04:50 And that is if they don’t register the growth that the investment was expecting
0:04:52 or that justified the investment.
0:04:54 So all roads lead to the same place here.
0:04:57 They’re probably going to take this thing private and they are probably going to lay off,
0:05:01 I would imagine 50, 70, 80% of the workforce and focus.
0:05:05 I don’t think this company ever had any business being in drug discovery.
0:05:09 That is a decades long business that requires billions of dollars.
0:05:12 I think the average drug takes over a billion dollars to bring to market.
0:05:15 And also they just misestimated the demand for this.
0:05:16 The hack didn’t help.
0:05:17 I’ll give you a personal example.
0:05:22 I would never do 23andMe because I was a sperm donor in college.
0:05:26 I was getting back, called back three or four times a week for about a year,
0:05:31 which was very exciting for me because that was a lot of money back in 1985 or whenever it was.
0:05:35 I have somewhere between one and 7,000 children or at least biological children.
0:05:37 And with 23andMe, they can figure out it’s you.
0:05:41 You could also go to a website, submit your name, address.
0:05:42 They send you a certified letter.
0:05:46 If you send it back, an email goes out to your biological children with your contact information.
0:05:48 I would do it if I had 10 or less or I knew I had 10 or less,
0:05:50 but that’s the thing you don’t know because it was totally unregulated back then.
0:05:55 My mom made me stop doing this after about a year because she said,
0:05:58 “You realize your daughter could end up marrying her brother and not know it.”
0:06:00 And she forced me to stop.
0:06:03 Anyways, that’s my story and why I don’t use 23andMe.
0:06:05 But to bring this all back to 23andMe,
0:06:10 this was a tech company that required a massive amount of investment
0:06:12 and the growth basically petered out.
0:06:16 And as a result, it just can’t justify the current investment
0:06:19 and they’re going to have to totally recalibrate the company.
0:06:21 This happens a lot.
0:06:24 The question now when they take a private is, will they be able to cut costs?
0:06:30 Will they be able to pare it down such that this company has some hope of creating positive cash flow
0:06:35 or will they find another means or another adjacent business that offers some sort of growth?
0:06:38 But at 50 cents, the assumption is they’re going to go out of business.
0:06:40 This is some quick tax planning here.
0:06:43 If you were fortunate enough to have some other investments that worked out,
0:06:47 you may want to think by the end of the year of selling down this stock and registering
0:06:49 or taking the loss against any gains you might have.
0:06:54 So the kind of the silver lining here is you have a tax loss, which has some value.
0:07:00 If you invested 10,000 bucks and you’ve lost 95%, you have a $9,500 ride off when you sell the share.
0:07:05 So if a wait till a year where you have some gains and then take the loss or sooner,
0:07:11 if you want to get your capital out such that you can take advantage or offset your capital gain.
0:07:12 Thanks so much for the question.
0:07:15 Again, let me finish where I started.
0:07:16 Forgive yourself.
0:07:18 Question number two.
0:07:21 Hey, Prof. G, this is Colin from Leslie Marriott of Georgia.
0:07:23 Appreciate you taking my question.
0:07:29 I’m looking at some of the new policies laid out under the Harris Walls campaign
0:07:37 and the latest thing about taxing unrealized capital gains seems pretty insane to me.
0:07:41 I know I’m a social liberal, fiscal conservative.
0:07:44 I like to think of myself as an independent voter.
0:07:48 But to tax unrealized gains makes literally no sense to me.
0:07:55 And the fact that it’s people with 100 million or more seems to be the dividing line.
0:07:57 Even that doesn’t make sense to me.
0:08:07 Why if they’re trying to stop the Uber wealthy from leveraging their securities,
0:08:14 why would they not look at something like fees for loans against securities as collateral
0:08:22 as opposed to taxing something that hasn’t happened and can realize result in losses?
0:08:28 I would curious about your take on this and your thoughts on what levers they should really
0:08:33 be trying to pull instead of this or whether you agree with their stance.
0:08:34 Appreciate your answer.
0:08:35 Thanks.
0:08:36 Bye.
0:08:37 Thanks for this.
0:08:38 Yeah, it’s getting a lot of discussion.
0:08:40 So according to our website, our campaign supports parts of President Biden’s earlier
0:08:42 budget proposal, which didn’t get through Congress.
0:08:47 The reality is this tax would probably only affect a tiny percent of America’s wealthiest
0:08:50 people, those with over 100 million in wealth.
0:08:58 That’s about one in 10,000 people who aren’t paying at least a 25% tax rate on their income.
0:09:01 It mostly targets individuals with most of their wealth and tradable assets.
0:09:05 The reasoning is that it’s meant to fix a tax system where the super rich often pay lower
0:09:08 rates than middle class folks.
0:09:12 According to NBC News, the top 1% has 40% of their wealth tied up in unrealized capital
0:09:13 gains.
0:09:16 Also according to the Treasury Department, it will raise about 500 billion in tax revenue
0:09:17 over the next decade.
0:09:21 But the bottom line is this makes no fucking sense.
0:09:24 And okay, it’s worth talking about conceptually.
0:09:26 This is never going to happen.
0:09:29 There are both moderate Democrats and the entire Republican Party are just not going
0:09:31 to let this happen.
0:09:32 There’s real issues with this.
0:09:39 One, if you’re going to tax unrealized capital gains, then you get into the business of,
0:09:42 all right, you’re going to have to value all these assets in the near the year.
0:09:43 You’re going to have to do a mark.
0:09:48 Every year I spend the better part of a full day with the folks at Goldman who manage my
0:09:50 money trying to put a mark on my private investments.
0:09:52 How do you value those things?
0:09:56 It’s like, I have investments that I could value at X or 5X and I can make an argument
0:09:58 for either of those things.
0:10:05 So because the tax would be on a quote unquote number of value, now obviously the value of
0:10:10 the stock shoe hold can be easily marked or calibrated, which in my view would make private
0:10:12 assets much more attractive.
0:10:17 So all of a sudden you would be creating asset classes that are much more attractive than
0:10:18 other asset classes.
0:10:23 And then what happens if those assets go down in price, do you purposely mark them down?
0:10:25 It just makes no fucking sense.
0:10:30 And the over $100 million thing is just populist bullshit in my view.
0:10:32 I just don’t think there’s any way this can work.
0:10:38 And also one of the real benefits, I think, of thinking long term that I like is you should
0:10:42 buy assets and never trade them and hold onto them.
0:10:45 And one of the greatest wealth creators in history, and it sounds stupid and easy, but
0:10:54 it’s true or simple, is just the tax deferred structure of holding onto assets and not trading
0:10:55 them.
0:10:59 That is kind of the key to wealth building is buying shit and forgetting about it.
0:11:03 Like so many things that Democrats do, the intentions, the philosophy, the theory behind
0:11:08 it are absolutely right and that is rich people are not paying their fair share.
0:11:10 Let’s go to the 25 wealthiest people in America.
0:11:16 They pay somewhere between four and 8% tax rate because the loopholes in the tax code
0:11:17 are extraordinary.
0:11:21 Everyone’s focused on tax rates because that’s just a literally weapon of mass distraction.
0:11:26 The key is the tax code, which has gone from 400 pages to 4,000 over the last several decades
0:11:31 and those 3,600 pages are there simply to fuck the middle class by creating all sorts of loopholes
0:11:37 for corporations and wealthy individuals who are paying the lowest taxes since 1939, corporations,
0:11:41 and the wealthiest individuals who have seen their taxes plummet through all kinds of crazy
0:11:42 tax avoidance.
0:11:47 And one of those pieces of tax avoidance you referenced, and that is basically the strategy
0:11:49 is buy, borrow, and die.
0:11:50 What do I mean by that?
0:11:53 I own a bunch of Amazon and Apple stock.
0:11:54 I don’t sell it.
0:11:55 It keeps going up.
0:11:56 Tax deferred.
0:11:57 Well, what happens?
0:11:58 Maybe I need some money.
0:12:01 I can borrow against it at very low rates.
0:12:04 And then that money keeps compounding off the whole base because it doesn’t get taxed.
0:12:08 I don’t have to send 23 to 40 cents of it to Uncle Sam.
0:12:11 It keeps growing off a much bigger base.
0:12:12 And then I put it into a trust.
0:12:16 And then when I die, it transfers to my kids tax-free.
0:12:20 That is how the wealthy get even wealthier and build dynasties, which is bad for America.
0:12:22 So what is the way around that?
0:12:24 An alternative minimum tax.
0:12:29 And that is at the end of the year, if you’re a wealthy person, and I would lower it to say
0:12:35 anything over $10 million a year in income, you pay an alternative minimum tax of 40%
0:12:36 or maybe even 30.
0:12:41 And that is you say, look, we don’t care what loopholes you’ve been able to figure out.
0:12:43 You’re going to pay at least 30%.
0:12:45 You’re making a shit ton of money.
0:12:49 And whatever things have been slipped in by lobbying groups or the Republican Party to
0:12:53 give small business owners their first 10 million tax-free to create a donor advisor
0:12:56 fund where you actually haven’t given the money away yet, but you get to ride it off.
0:12:58 Yeah, we got to get rid of that shit.
0:12:59 Now, can you get rid of that shit?
0:13:00 Probably not.
0:13:04 So rather than trying to get rid of that shit, all right, let’s just have an AMT.
0:13:09 And that is people who make up a certain amount, have to pay at least X percentage.
0:13:14 In addition, your idea is a good one and that is if you borrow against your stocks, then
0:13:16 effectively you’re monetizing them.
0:13:21 So what I would suggest though is that maybe there’s a 2% tax on any money borrowed or
0:13:26 something like that that says, all right, it still incentivizes people to borrow money,
0:13:32 invest, buy shit, grow the economy, but instead of paying on a margin loan, 4%, 6%, they’re
0:13:35 paying 6% or 8% and it generates some tax revenue that way.
0:13:42 We have an alternative minimum tax, but trying to tax unrealized gains, good luck with that.
0:13:43 Thanks for the question.
0:13:45 We have one quick break before our final question.
0:13:50 Stay with us.
0:13:52 Support for PropG comes from Grammarly.
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0:14:46 Get more done with Grammarly.
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0:14:58 Back to school is an exciting time for families.
0:15:01 Your kids are getting a little older and might be ready for new responsibilities like getting
0:15:05 themselves to school or even carpooling to practice.
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0:15:36 I like this.
0:15:40 I encourage my kids to get out of the house, but I do like the idea of kind of knowing where
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0:16:03 When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met on the debate stage, it was obvious that these
0:16:06 were two very different people.
0:16:09 But JD Vance and Tim Walls actually have a lot in common.
0:16:11 They’re both white men from the Midwest.
0:16:13 They’re both family men and they were both in the service.
0:16:16 But they disagree on what it means to be a man.
0:16:18 Here’s my light pack.
0:16:22 Surround yourself with smart women and listen to them and you’ll do just fine.
0:16:31 Today Explained, every weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:16:33 Welcome back, question number three.
0:16:35 Hi PropG, this is Brendan from Hood River, Oregon.
0:16:39 I often think of wealth as the ability to spend your time doing the things you want
0:16:40 to do.
0:16:45 It’s fairly common to hire someone to maintain your yard, do your taxes, manage your investments,
0:16:47 or have a house cleaner come by once every few weeks.
0:16:52 But being in the high net worth space, I’m curious what services you use in your personal
0:16:54 life to free up you or your family’s time.
0:16:58 Big thanks to you and Ed for providing great entertainment for all of us listeners.
0:16:59 Hey, Brendan.
0:17:05 That’s a great question and their entire podcast sort of focused on productivity.
0:17:10 I think my approach to life and spending probably is not that relevant to a lot of people.
0:17:13 So I’ll start with trying to look at this through the lens of when I was younger, what
0:17:16 I did, when I didn’t have any money, and what I think you should do.
0:17:19 The first is I wouldn’t invest in single stocks.
0:17:23 I wouldn’t try and talk yourself or delude yourself into thinking you’re a better investor.
0:17:27 I would focus on your career and exercise in relationships and I would outsource all
0:17:31 investing and buy low-cost index funds and just not worry about it.
0:17:33 So that’s one thing.
0:17:34 Pre-cooked meals.
0:17:35 If you love cooking, then do it.
0:17:40 But if you don’t, try and find a routine around food you like that’s pre-cooked, pre-done if
0:17:42 you will, and it’s healthy.
0:17:46 I think it’s a great idea to get an app around working out and set a road schedule.
0:17:49 And I like doing intense 20 to 30 minute workouts.
0:17:53 I used to go to the gym and then I would spend an hour and a half there.
0:17:58 I’d probably only exercise for 20 minutes just kind of wandering around, futzing around.
0:18:02 By the time you get to the gym, change, all that shit, I like the idea of having an app
0:18:03 that is very intense.
0:18:07 I think the first kind of purchase I would make as a young person in terms of paying somebody
0:18:11 else would be pay them to clean your apartment unless you enjoy that kind of stuff.
0:18:12 Some people do.
0:18:15 But I think it’s important to feel for your own mental health like you live in a nice
0:18:16 clean space.
0:18:19 I think people should live in a small space when they’re young that’s inexpensive, that’s
0:18:23 near work so they can just use it almost like a hotel or just a bed.
0:18:25 I don’t believe in hanging out at home.
0:18:28 I got a lot of shit for saying this on TikTok.
0:18:33 But I think your time at home is inversely correlated to your success professionally
0:18:34 and personally.
0:18:35 I don’t think you want to be at home much.
0:18:39 Even at the age of 30, I think you want to be out of the house kind of 15, 16 hours a
0:18:40 day.
0:18:42 And then as you get older, what I find is really helpful.
0:18:48 I have an assistant who I pay very well, but there are assistants available in remote areas
0:18:49 Costa Rica, Mexico.
0:18:55 There’s a whole rising genre of outsourced PAs who can work two, four, if you needed
0:18:56 eight hours a day.
0:18:59 But essentially where I am in my life right now is that there are a small number of things
0:19:01 only I can do.
0:19:02 Only I can do.
0:19:06 I can record this podcast right now, but I don’t do the sound engineering.
0:19:07 I don’t do the special effects.
0:19:08 I don’t write the scripts.
0:19:09 I don’t contact the guests.
0:19:11 I don’t follow up with the guests.
0:19:13 I do none of this.
0:19:15 I don’t bill Vox.
0:19:16 I don’t get the numbers.
0:19:17 I don’t get the analytics.
0:19:21 What I am doing right now is the only thing I do for this podcast.
0:19:25 And that’s the way it should be because there is someone who is better than me at everything
0:19:27 else, but I am the best at this.
0:19:31 So what you want to do is take what you are best at and leverage it across as many things
0:19:34 as possible while outsourcing everything else.
0:19:39 But I love the way you’re thinking and again, I bet there are just a ton of sites that focus
0:19:45 on this, but I appreciate the question and wish you a ton of prosperity and free time.
0:19:51 And also, I think it’s really important on a regular basis to do nothing, to literally
0:19:52 do nothing.
0:19:54 I have times on the weekend and I plan them out.
0:19:57 My favorite thing is nothing.
0:19:58 And that’s fine.
0:20:00 Doing nothing is fine as long as it’s planned.
0:20:02 Thanks for the question.
0:20:03 That’s all for this episode.
0:20:08 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours@propgmedia.com.
0:20:21 Again, that’s officehours@propgmedia.com.
0:20:26 This episode is produced by Caroline Shager and Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer
0:20:28 and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:20:31 Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:20:36 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice as read by George Hahn.
0:20:38 And please follow our Prop G Markets Pod.
0:20:42 That’s right, the Prop G Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for the new episodes every
0:20:44 Monday and Thursday.

0:00:04 There’s over 500,000 small businesses in B.C. and no two are alike.
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0:00:36 Will the VP debate move the needle in what’s shaping up to be a neck-and-neck election?
0:00:40 You never know in advance what will be the thing that matters and the thing that doesn’t matter.
0:00:48 But Donald Trump will be almost 80 and J.D. Vance will be one cheeseburger away
0:00:50 from the presidency should they win.
0:00:55 I’m Preet Bharara and this week the Atlantic magazine’s David Frum joins me on my podcast
0:00:59 Stay Tuned with Preet to break down what happened at the debate.
0:01:01 The episode is out now.
0:01:04 Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:12 Hi everyone, I’m Brené Brown and I’d love to tell you about a new series that’s launching on
0:01:13 Unlocking Us.
0:01:17 I’m calling it the On My Heart and Mind podcast series.
0:01:20 It’s going to include conversations with some of my favorite writers on topics ranging from
0:01:25 revolutionary love and gun ownership to menopause and finding joy and grief.
0:01:28 The first episode is available now and I can’t wait for you to hear it.
0:01:32 All new episodes will drop on Wednesdays and you can get them as soon as they’re out by
0:01:35 following Unlocking Us on Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
0:01:39 Welcome to Raging Moderates.
0:01:40 I’m Scott Galloway.
0:01:41 And I’m Jessica Tarliff.
0:01:47 Jessica, we’re Raging Moderates with an emphasis on the term “Raging.”
0:01:50 Raging all the time, yes.
0:01:53 I mean, I don’t know if other people will think we’re Raging Moderates,
0:01:55 but we’re here to tell you why we are Raging Moderates.
0:01:58 What does the term “moderate” mean to you?
0:02:02 Moderate just means anything that’s around the center.
0:02:04 That’s what it is around the center of an issue.
0:02:08 A lot of people like to identify themselves as politically moderates.
0:02:11 So that’s kind of like the center left or the center right of each party.
0:02:16 But I think that it really comes down to how you’re feeling about a particular issue
0:02:21 at a particular time and that that’s what it means to be moderate.
0:02:24 Yeah, I like to think it means they’re not part of a cult.
0:02:26 And occasionally we can acknowledge the other side.
0:02:27 That works too, yeah.
0:02:29 And what are your objectives?
0:02:33 If this was a win, if this podcast gets huge traction,
0:02:35 what are you hoping to accomplish here?
0:02:39 I’m hoping to have a lot of really thoughtful conversations
0:02:42 about where society actually is.
0:02:46 And that maybe folks who are running for office or an elected office
0:02:49 will take note of the fact that the biggest voices,
0:02:53 the biggest coalition is actually around the center of these issues.
0:02:56 And that they’ll start acting accordingly and also to draw those lines
0:02:58 between what’s going on in the political sphere
0:03:00 and what’s going on in the real world.
0:03:01 Because it’s all intertwined.
0:03:04 And I mean, that’s really what you do so well.
0:03:07 Let’s talk about what’s happening in the business and in the markets
0:03:10 and how it’s all part of one big conversation.
0:03:12 I like that.
0:03:14 I mostly just want power.
0:03:21 I’m hoping that we aggregate so much influence up and down by that we basically become the ultimate
0:03:25 king and queen makers and that tomorrow belongs to us, Jessica.
0:03:28 Okay, let’s bust right into it.
0:03:30 In today’s episode of Raging Moderates,
0:03:32 we’ll be breaking down the latest polling,
0:03:35 our thoughts on the proposed economic policies,
0:03:39 and what to expect from the 90-minute debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
0:03:43 So with that, Jessica, we’ve officially entered the election season
0:03:45 and a block coming up between now and November 5th.
0:03:48 Can you walk us through how you’re thinking about the latest polling,
0:03:53 which essentially shows Harris and Trump are neck and neck?
0:03:57 Yeah, so there is, I mean, the first component of all of this is that
0:03:59 I’m fundamentally depressed that this is a neck and neck race.
0:04:02 I feel like every time Donald Trump’s on the ballot,
0:04:05 you just think, how is it possible that this could be close?
0:04:09 And yet it is, which is reflective of the general theme of why we’re here
0:04:13 to talk about the moderate middle and where the election is actually going to be won.
0:04:16 But it was a big polling weekend because the New York Times,
0:04:19 Seattle poll came out, everyone always goes bananas over it.
0:04:22 It’s actually, so it’s an A-plus quality poll,
0:04:26 and it’s been the most friendly to Trump consistently.
0:04:29 When we started seeing these results that he was winning,
0:04:33 upper teens of Black support, that he was doing well with Gen Z voters,
0:04:37 that Biden and now Harris were softer with female voters.
0:04:40 That was all coming out of the New York Times, Seattle poll.
0:04:43 So it’s obviously something that makes you sit up and listen.
0:04:44 And this was the same.
0:04:48 It was just like the July poll, similar margins,
0:04:50 same soft spots for Kamala Harris.
0:04:55 And you could see if you went on any social media over the weekend,
0:04:58 you could see all of the Democrats absolutely losing their mind.
0:05:01 The bedwetting has commenced again,
0:05:04 which is the end of Brat summer, I guess,
0:05:06 that we’re all a little less coconut-pilled,
0:05:10 but a little bit more realistic about the challenge in front of us.
0:05:16 Do you think, I’ve heard a lot of fears that polling doesn’t constantly underestimate Trump
0:05:19 because there’s a lot of closeted Trump voters.
0:05:22 Do you think that that still holds or that people are no longer embarrassed
0:05:25 about endorsing Trump and they’re no longer closeted?
0:05:28 I mean, he’s lost a lot of elections,
0:05:30 which I feel like people don’t talk about enough.
0:05:32 Like he won the big one.
0:05:34 He won in 2016.
0:05:39 But since then, he’s been a big drag on down ballot tickets,
0:05:42 obviously on his own ticket, losing in 2020.
0:05:48 And so I’m not willing to say yet that the 3 to 5% of Trump voters that were closeted,
0:05:52 which is what it was in 2016, that it could be that enormous.
0:05:56 I think there still are some what we consider kind of normal people
0:06:00 or people that we run into more who aren’t die-hard Trumpers
0:06:03 that are persuaded by a tax cut, for instance,
0:06:06 or might think he would be better for Israel.
0:06:07 And I want to talk about that.
0:06:10 There was a poll of Jewish voters that I found fascinating.
0:06:15 But in general, I feel like people are pretty much out there at this point.
0:06:23 And this election for Trump, when or lose, is kind of, it should be his last hurrah, right?
0:06:26 He should not be running on the top of the ticket.
0:06:30 If he loses again, he’ll be 82 years old at that point.
0:06:32 Or last thud, right?
0:06:33 Or last thud.
0:06:34 Well, that’s a hope.
0:06:36 I mean, he’ll still try to play kingmaker with other races.
0:06:40 But this is the crescendo moment of the Trump era.
0:06:43 And I think that people are out there for it.
0:06:47 It strikes me as it’s almost sort of comical that we do these national polls,
0:06:48 because quite frankly, they’re meaningless.
0:06:52 It really doesn’t matter what these, I mean, I guess they reflect momentum,
0:06:58 but all we really care about is the choice, the polls in what, five or six states.
0:07:03 And in those states, as far as I can tell, the majority of them, she is up.
0:07:05 And in some, she’s up by two, three points.
0:07:08 I mean, if you look at the national polls, okay, it’s neck and neck.
0:07:11 I wonder how much of this is the media wants to Jones up a closer race and
0:07:14 make it seem more heated and tighter than it is.
0:07:17 And I do think it’s tighter than I would have thought.
0:07:21 But that when you look at the swing states, or when you look at what is actually going to
0:07:24 decide this election, we should not report national polls.
0:07:25 It just doesn’t make any sense.
0:07:28 What does the picture look like across the swing states?
0:07:32 Well, first to the national poll, in defense of national polls.
0:07:36 They’re just a snapshot in time.
0:07:40 And I think that it is important to continually gauge yourself as you’re going along
0:07:42 and to look at those trend lines.
0:07:46 That’s why forecasts are so interesting to see where Biden was,
0:07:49 then what Harris has been able to do, how Trump is moving around.
0:07:51 And he is doing better than a lot of people expected.
0:07:55 And he’s coalescing the base in a way that we hadn’t expected,
0:08:00 necessarily considering the primaries and all of the Nikki Haley support that we were seeing.
0:08:02 So I think it is important and also to draw the contrast.
0:08:04 So we already talked a little bit at the New York Times poll,
0:08:09 but there was an ABC Washington Post poll, which is also an A+ pollster.
0:08:12 And they had Kamala Harris ahead by six with likely voters.
0:08:17 That contrast also important, registered voters versus likely voters.
0:08:21 It’s very different to have an opinion versus I have an opinion
0:08:22 and I’m actually going to go and vote.
0:08:25 But you’re totally right about the battleground states.
0:08:28 It’s all basically within the margin of error.
0:08:32 And something that came out in the last week or two that I think is really fascinating
0:08:36 is basically Trump is zeroing in on one strategy.
0:08:38 If you look at where he’s spending money on advertising,
0:08:40 he’s got one route that he’s heading towards.
0:08:42 And Kamala Harris is still spreading it out.
0:08:45 She needs the blue wall, but she’s interested in the Sun Belt.
0:08:49 They really think North Carolina is in play for them.
0:08:54 So it’s been fun to watch them go in their different directions,
0:08:57 see how they’re trying to achieve a win in those places.
0:09:00 But yeah, razor thin and it could be even thinner than 2020,
0:09:04 which we know took days to properly call.
0:09:08 And then months of litigation, though I won’t call it proper litigation,
0:09:12 whatever Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Alice were doing, certainly wasn’t proper.
0:09:15 But it went on for a long time.
0:09:23 And on the issues, so Harris is pulling much better on issues around bodily autonomy.
0:09:24 That’s not a shock.
0:09:28 54 to 39 on “democracy,” although that’s a loaded term.
0:09:31 It’s 50-45 for Harris.
0:09:35 On the economy, Trump is resoundly beating Harris, 55 to 42.
0:09:40 And on immigration, he’s also resoundingly beating her 53 to 43.
0:09:42 I understand the family planning.
0:09:46 This is more a reflection of how you feel about being pro-choice or pro-life.
0:09:50 The democracy one, it feels like a rabbit hole, we could go down.
0:09:54 Talk about whether or not you think that what do you think is going on?
0:09:58 Why do Americans trust more Trump on the economy and on immigration?
0:10:01 And what do you think both candidates need to do to try and either solidify
0:10:03 or chip away at that lead that Trump has?
0:10:10 Yeah, so it was strange to me to see this result on the economy from the New York Times
0:10:15 because the Fox voter analysis and the Fox poll had him between six and eight points
0:10:18 ahead on the economy, which means that he, Kamala’s basically,
0:10:24 have the lead that he had when he was running against Joe Biden, which is awesome to see.
0:10:28 And one thing that’s showing up in survey after survey is that people,
0:10:32 and this could be a bad thing, they don’t feel that they know Kamala as well.
0:10:34 So there’s a lot more room for her to grow.
0:10:35 Trump is basically at his ceiling.
0:10:39 No one says like, I don’t know where Donald Trump stands on the issues.
0:10:43 Now, they may not really understand that what would happen if we had all of these tariffs
0:10:47 and that it’s attacks on the consumer or however his deportation force is going to work.
0:10:49 But she does have room to grow there.
0:10:54 But I think that people still fundamentally see him as a businessman,
0:10:56 whether he went bankrupt six times or not.
0:11:02 And they remember a time pre-COVID where they felt they had more money in their pocket
0:11:04 and grocery prices were down.
0:11:08 And it’s not sexy to create a bumper sticker that said,
0:11:09 “Best recovery in the G7.”
0:11:16 It still sucks when you go to the store and your items are more expensive.
0:11:19 And she’s been working really hard to address that.
0:11:23 I love that she actually calls out the prices of things in speeches and says,
0:11:26 “I know that your bread is 50% more than it used to be.”
0:11:34 But people are holding onto a bit of nostalgia about the Trump era in that specific way.
0:11:38 We’ll be right back.
0:11:46 Well, the economy was strong during his era.
0:11:51 And the interesting thing, there’s kind of a weird dynamic in the sense that
0:11:56 when the price of diapers goes up, you blame the administration.
0:11:59 When your salary goes up, you credit your own character and grit.
0:12:04 The fact that actually now wages are increasing faster than inflation,
0:12:08 which is a good thing, the administration gets no credit for it.
0:12:09 Because that’s because I’m awesome.
0:12:14 Whereas when gas prices or something else go up, by the way, I think it’s just hilarious
0:12:16 that anyone assumes the president has any control over gas prices.
0:12:21 But anyway, they blame the administration for prices going up.
0:12:25 And again, they don’t, they see their raises well-deserved.
0:12:25 I agree with you.
0:12:28 The thing I would hammer on, and I’m curious to get your thoughts.
0:12:34 I taught economics and I taught graduate micro-macro economics.
0:12:38 And one of the few things that all economists kind of agree on
0:12:41 is that tariffs are basically a tax on the consumer.
0:12:47 And his current line of thinking, and I don’t think the Democrats have done a very good job
0:12:51 of exploiting this, and it’s weird to be lecturing Republicans on this issue,
0:12:55 because they’re usually very much anti-tariff, is narrative is, look,
0:12:57 these people have taken advantage of us.
0:13:02 And to his credit, I do think he accurately highlighted the asymmetry in terms of a trade
0:13:05 relationship between the US and China during his administration.
0:13:08 I think he was right on that, but he’s saying all these firms,
0:13:10 all these countries are taking advantage of us.
0:13:15 We’re going to put in some instances a 100% tariff on their products.
0:13:17 And what will happen according to Donald Trump?
0:13:20 It’ll make our products more competitive.
0:13:22 There’s less competitive because theirs will be more expensive,
0:13:26 meaning more jobs will return to the US because we’ll be more competitive
0:13:30 relative to these foreign imports, which are now much more expensive.
0:13:34 What he leaves out is this key thing that happens every time.
0:13:38 And that is if we slap 100% tariff on Toyotas,
0:13:46 they turn around and go, okay, girlfriend, we’re putting 100% tariff on Escalades and Jeeps,
0:13:53 which makes our products much less appealing to consumers in China and Japan and South Korea,
0:13:57 which reduces demand for them, which reduces employment.
0:14:03 But what happens across all markets is the cost of cars for consumers, skyrockets.
0:14:06 And there are some instances where tariffs work.
0:14:11 If you’re China and you think it’s costing me 200 bucks a ton to produce steel,
0:14:16 I’m going to sell it for 100, put all the domestic suppliers and manufacturers
0:14:18 in the US of steel out of business so I can consolidate the market.
0:14:22 Okay, then you impose a tariff until there’s some sort of symmetry around trade.
0:14:26 I get it. If we’re outsourcing jobs because they have forced labor
0:14:31 and it doesn’t reflect the cost of doing business in the correct way, fine, a tariff.
0:14:36 But these unilateral tariffs and this hallucination that all of a sudden it will
0:14:43 bring jobs back to the US is so wrong and any economist worth their salt would recognize that.
0:14:47 It strikes me that the Democrats haven’t done a very good job so far, and I’m hoping to see that
0:14:53 in the debate, is it that she does a better job of saying tariffs or taxes be clear.
0:14:58 And this is a terrible idea and hugely inflationary. What are your thoughts?
0:15:02 I totally agree. I hope that they’re going to keep hammering.
0:15:06 They have a new line that Donald Trump’s going to cost you $3,900.
0:15:11 So they’ve calculated out the cost of these tariffs on the lives of an average American.
0:15:13 And we were talking about tariffs last week on the five.
0:15:18 And my colleague, Jesse Waters, said to me, “Well, why didn’t Biden and Harris extend
0:15:25 the Trump tariffs on China?” And I actually, I rarely admit that I’m wrong.
0:15:28 Well, Jesse admits that he’s wrong way less than I do.
0:15:32 But I did not think that they had extended them. And then when I went and read about it more,
0:15:36 so there was all of the usual stuff about how tough the tariffs had been,
0:15:42 especially for the US farming community. But there was an argument that was being made,
0:15:48 and it was all over Bloomberg, that it was still more effective to punish China,
0:15:52 even though there was some hurt to the American economy to send a message about it.
0:15:58 And I think that there is an angle at which Kamala could take or Democrats could take more
0:16:04 regularly about this, if Republicans are going to fall in line on the tariff front to say,
0:16:08 “We’re not talking about tariffs. We’re talking about sanctions.
0:16:12 And sanctions are something that you can use really, really effectively.”
0:16:16 Versus just hammering this tariff line, which, frankly, everybody knows is not going to,
0:16:21 as you said, have the outcome that he thinks, and is not a rationale for an entire set of
0:16:25 economic policies. He did a speech at the New York Economic Club last week,
0:16:27 and he’s rambling on about child care.
0:16:33 Look, child care is child care. It’s something, you have to have it. In this country,
0:16:37 you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kind of numbers
0:16:42 that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to,
0:16:46 but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business
0:16:51 with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.
0:16:55 Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about,
0:16:58 including child care, that it’s going to take care of. We’re going to have —
0:17:03 One of the more incoherent things that I’ve ever heard and everybody else as well,
0:17:05 people are struggling to understand what does this actually mean.
0:17:07 And he just keeps saying, “I’ll pay with tariffs. I’ll pay with tariffs.”
0:17:12 And what I think that he’s doing is he’s just trying to say, “For bad countries,
0:17:18 I’m going to find ways to sanction them in some way.” But he’s using the term “tariff” and said,
0:17:23 it’s kind of like, I don’t know if you’ve been following the Hannibal Lecter thread,
0:17:27 you know how he talks about Hannibal Lecter all the time. And it seems like he doesn’t
0:17:31 understand the difference between political asylum and actually being in a mental asylum.
0:17:39 So I think that these things are actually with Trump always like the most base thing
0:17:43 that they could possibly be. And I hope that she flips the script on it and talks about
0:17:49 how effective they have been in using economic sanctions versus penalizing the American public
0:17:54 with tariffs. So let’s talk a little bit about child care because I’m not sure
0:18:02 people really understand what are the policies on… So basically, Trump is saying,
0:18:07 “I’ll find a way to create additional revenues such that we have better child care because
0:18:11 child care is child care according to Trump.” And he was trying to give the notion that I think
0:18:17 it’s important, I’m in favor of it, and I’m going to raise the money for it we need by taxing these
0:18:22 nations with their asymmetric unfair trade relationship.
0:18:26 What is… Can you outline, because I don’t know the answer, what is sort of Harris’s plan
0:18:33 around child care? Yeah, well, the most important part of it is obviously the paid family leave
0:18:40 as the baseline for everything, bringing back the child tax credit, which cut poverty in America by
0:18:45 50%. It’s just astounding that that happened in a couple of years and something that people
0:18:48 are really hankering to bring. To poverty across children, right?
0:18:55 Yeah, child poverty, yes, no. And then there’s the stuff that comes in with
0:19:02 walls as well with the school lunches. We have universal 3K and pre-K. I’m treating
0:19:06 this as a bigger bubble of just raising children than just the child care front,
0:19:10 but they also want to have universal daycare, which is something that J.D. Vance, of course,
0:19:16 has railed against in some unearthed clip from 2021. It’s kind of amazing that he won his race
0:19:21 for Senate. There have been a lot of people that have been picking on Tim Ryan. Why were
0:19:27 you not going after him with all of these horrendous things that he’d said? Tim Ryan’s
0:19:32 team has defended him and said a lot of these clips are coming from us. We knew about this,
0:19:38 but he seems so utterly repellent. So universal daycare is a big part of it. And what I appreciate
0:19:44 about Democrats and what Kamala’s doing is she’s not afraid to say that we’re going to raise taxes
0:19:50 on some people who can afford to pay more taxes. She’s not looking for tariffs as the solution to
0:19:56 it. She’s like, this is good old fashioned. If you’re a billionaire, if you’re a multimillionaire,
0:19:59 not just like two, three, four, five million, they’re talking about people over 100 million,
0:20:04 200 million, your taxes are going to go up a bit. And I’m curious what you think about the
0:20:11 unrealized gains proposal, because that seems like a very, very bad idea that even Mark Cuban and
0:20:17 Ro Khanna are saying halt the brakes on that one. But it’s obviously part of her plan to pay for
0:20:21 all of this. Yeah, it’s funny. I thought I was going to bring it up because I thought it might be one,
0:20:24 I mean, so far we’re in violent agreement on everything. I thought it might be one place we
0:20:30 disagree. I think it’s essentially whether you agree with it philosophically, it doesn’t matter
0:20:35 because they don’t work. When France instituted its wealth tax, the wealthiest man in the world,
0:20:39 or the wealthiest man in Europe, Bernard Arnaud, what do you know, moves to Belgium.
0:20:43 Really wealthy people are incredibly, among the advantages they register,
0:20:47 one of them is they’re incredibly mobile. And what you have here, just, I don’t know if you’ve
0:20:51 heard about what’s going on in the UK, but they’re basically doing away with this non-dom tax
0:20:58 status, where if you have residency in Hong Kong and you live in Britain, you basically can pay
0:21:03 Hong Kong taxes, which is zero. And now they’re saying, sorry, after, I think after you’re here
0:21:08 of four years, you got to pay UK taxes. I actually think philosophically, that makes sense. If you
0:21:14 send your kids to school here and you enjoy the culture and the roads and the infrastructure and
0:21:20 police and fire of the UK, you should pay taxes. But what’s happened is that it looks like about
0:21:27 10,000 high net worth UK residents are leaving and that the purser or the treasury is actually
0:21:33 going to end up worse off than before the non-dom, because these individuals have so much money and
0:21:39 we’re bringing so much economic growth through the UK that quite frankly, tax advantage that’s
0:21:43 even unfair was probably the best thing to do for the economy. The other thing is, I just,
0:21:51 my mind goes into a tailspin trying to imagine, okay, if you’re going to assess someone’s wealth
0:21:56 over $100 million every year and then tax their unrealized gain, who is in charge of putting
0:22:01 that number on it? You can do it when they’re publicly traded stocks, but how do you assess
0:22:07 the value of real estate, of private partnerships? How do you assess the value of things? Does that
0:22:14 mean certain asset classes which are less easily assessed become more in vogue and people start
0:22:20 selling their stocks and buying real estate or private company assets? Who’s in charge of coming
0:22:25 up with that number? The way I would approach it is an AMT, an alternative minimum tax that says,
0:22:32 okay, if you’re worth $170 million, congratulations, you have an AMT and that is any income you have,
0:22:40 you have to pay a minimum 20% on regardless of the tricks of the trade. The other thing I would
0:22:46 like to see is an intra-country and intra-state agreement where if you’re Jeff Bezos and you’ve
0:22:51 aggregated $120 billion in wealth in Washington and you’ve taken advantage of the school system
0:22:55 there, the University of Washington, the Seattle Tacoma Airport, the culture, and then you piece
0:23:01 out to Florida to quote-unquote spend more time with your dad, that when you realize those gains,
0:23:06 whatever percentage of those gains were accreted in Washington state you have to pay Washington
0:23:11 state taxes on. I think you could do the same thing internationally when people move, but the
0:23:17 idea of taxing unrealized gains, I just think it’s going to create more problems than it solves.
0:23:23 What are your thoughts? Well, they’re not as elaborate as yours, which is good. I
0:23:30 agree with all of that, and it’s been interesting to see people as liberal as Congressman Ro Khanna,
0:23:34 who’s in the Bernie wing of the party, and then someone like a Mark Cuban or someone like you
0:23:41 advocate for basically the same thing. The part that I would add to it that I think really matters
0:23:46 with the kind of economic policies that she’s putting forward to, she basically has a founder
0:23:51 agenda. If you go to her website, we should note to everyone, her policy page is now completely
0:23:56 decked out, and you should go and take a look at it. And what they did that was really smart
0:24:03 is for each section, it then has a Project 2025 tab, so you could see what the Trump agenda would
0:24:10 do in contrast to what Kamala is trying to do. But she really wants to encourage startups and
0:24:15 entrepreneurs, and America has always been the best place to go and start a business,
0:24:21 to bring your innovative idea out there and to make a shit ton of money. And it kind of flies
0:24:26 in contrast to that idea that we want to give you the $50,000 deduction to get your small
0:24:31 business going, which is something economists on the right and the left think is such a good idea,
0:24:36 but oh, if you get to a hundred million, then you’re screwed, that it doesn’t really add up.
0:24:41 And that’s what Ro Khanna was talking about. He gave an interview, and he’s actually a surrogate
0:24:45 for the campaign, and he just said flat out, how are you going to tell people, because you got this
0:24:52 successful, that we’re going to start taxing was 28% of your unrealized gains, which is a massive
0:24:57 number. I feel like if it was like two or 3%, people would be like, okay, it’s kind of like a
0:25:04 normal liberal tax. So I think it’s not great for her startup world.
0:25:13 Yeah, I feel like, and I say this as a small business person, I feel that small businesses are,
0:25:18 they’re like puppies, everybody loves small businesses. It’s hard to, no one ever says
0:25:21 of small businesses are taking advantage of our economy and are treated unfairly.
0:25:27 And we romanticize small business. And as a result, and I benefited hugely from this,
0:25:32 I believe the tax code probably airs on the side of being too favorable towards small business.
0:25:38 One, it is very easy to shove through a crazy amount of expenses through your small business.
0:25:44 And because of an underfunded IRS, you cannot write off your life, but pretty close to it
0:25:48 when you have a small business. The tax advantages are enormous. There’s something called 1202,
0:25:54 which I took advantage of, where if you start a business, and it’s a secor, and you hold on to
0:26:00 the stock in that company for more than five years, if you sell it, the first 10 million
0:26:06 or 10 times your initial investment is tax-free. I didn’t even know that existed, and I’ve used it
0:26:11 twice with companies I’ve sold. To me, that kind of makes no sense. And their viewpoint will be,
0:26:15 will Scott, people like you wouldn’t start businesses unless we had these tax advantages.
0:26:19 I don’t know any entrepreneur that knew their tax status when they started a company. That’s not
0:26:24 why we start companies. In my view, and I hate to say this because I like the idea of more small
0:26:29 businesses, but the reality is there were more small business permits issued last year than I
0:26:35 think ever. And it doesn’t seem to be getting in the way of small businesses. And I feel like it’s
0:26:42 very populist. And I would like someone to get more serious about the deficit. What is this going
0:26:47 to cost us? And I think the best way to help small business would actually be more antitrust. It
0:26:53 breaks up these big monopolies, but I’m not sure. For example, I think the first thing you see,
0:26:57 the first result of this or the second result, more businesses start, $50,000 real money,
0:27:01 let’s start a business. You’re going to see more business failures because quite frankly,
0:27:05 one of the reasons that a business works is you have to talk people into giving you money.
0:27:11 And if all of a sudden anyone who starts a business gets a $50,000 tax credit, I just think
0:27:14 you’re going to have a lot of shitty businesses started. Now is that to say there won’t be winners
0:27:19 there? And I can feel people on the other side of this just right now just saying, “Oh my God,
0:27:24 you don’t like puppies. You don’t like small businesses.” No, I do, but the small business
0:27:29 environment in America is very strong. I don’t like giveaways like this. I think it should be,
0:27:32 I don’t want to say difficult to start a business, but I don’t think it should be,
0:27:38 I don’t think it should be easier. I think there’d be easier ways to get to this. The thing I really
0:27:45 don’t like about Harris’ economic policy is around housing. Whereas if you’re looking to buy
0:27:48 a house and I think if you’re a first-time buyer or whatever, you get $25,000. To me,
0:27:56 that is just massively inflationary. That just means starter homes everywhere go up by $25,000,
0:28:02 if not more, because you can borrow more against that. And I don’t understand how that helps.
0:28:07 I love her ideas around making it easier to issue more housing permits. Probably the reason
0:28:11 housing prices have gone up so much as we took housing permits out of the hands of local officials
0:28:16 and put them into the hands of homeowners who get very concerned with traffic once they have a home.
0:28:24 But I don’t see how giving $25,000 to new homeowners is anything but inflationary and
0:28:29 just going to do exactly the opposite of what they want to do. And that makes housing less
0:28:34 affordable. What are your thoughts? This is a tough one, because I feel like it’s a total
0:28:39 campaign season policy, right? And everyone wants the good feels. And they want to hear
0:28:45 all the right things about home ownership and how important it is to the quality of life
0:28:51 for everyday Americans, right? You have better schools, safer communities, more small businesses,
0:28:55 your favorite. Though, I guess you said there were going to be too many, but you want people that are
0:29:00 investing in their community and small businesses the way that they’re doing that. And so it sounds
0:29:05 really sexy to say, “I’m going to help you do this.” Now, everybody knows that just means the price
0:29:10 of houses are going to go up another $25,000, right? So if you’re buying a $400,000 house,
0:29:17 it’s going to be $425,000. And what will be interesting to see is what the banks are doing
0:29:21 with all of this, if it actually goes through as a policy. And I feel like it might be one that
0:29:29 falls by the wayside if and when she gets elected. But I agree with you on that. I think it’s also
0:29:34 one of them to kind of return to the point of being here in this kind of raging moderate middle
0:29:39 when you see how aggravated people have gotten about student debt relief even, which is something
0:29:44 that I think you can make even a stronger argument for helping people out with, maybe not wiping out
0:29:48 hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, but certainly for people who’ve had Pell grants,
0:29:56 people who were scammed 100% to get their money back. But folks who went to do something and took
0:30:01 on this big undertaking, maybe they wanted to go be a doctor and they don’t go to one of the medical
0:30:06 schools where Bloomberg is just going to wipe out your debt, that they should get a bit of help there.
0:30:12 I think that resonates better with the American public than getting just $25,000 towards you being
0:30:18 able to buy a house. I would push back a little bit and that is as someone who borrowed money,
0:30:24 as someone who’s deeply involved in education, I’ve just always had trouble with the idea of
0:30:27 two thirds of the Americans that didn’t have the opportunity to go to college bailing out the one
0:30:32 third that did. So let me be clear, I think if you’re going to go be a doctor in a rural community
0:30:35 or a low-income community or you’re going to go into nursing or teaching where you’re having a
0:30:39 tough time attracting people, some sort of federal programs to release student debt,
0:30:44 is important. I would like to see my school NYU and every other school be on the hook for
0:30:49 20%, 30%, 50% of bad debts. We stopped loaning $200,000 to philosophy majors who go on to be
0:30:54 baristas and then can’t pay this debt back. It should be dischargeable and bankruptcy.
0:31:00 But there’s something uncomfortable about, you could argue the third of the American public that
0:31:04 gets to go to college is arguably the most advantaged third. And there’s some really terrible
0:31:08 situations where me and my colleagues prey on people because we want to make more money.
0:31:16 And that needs to stop. But three quarters of a trillion dollar bailout with Biden proposed
0:31:21 of student debt to me. And the worst thing about what I hate about student debt relief
0:31:27 is it shrinks the tumor of student debt, but it doesn’t go after the cancer. And the cancer is
0:31:33 the following. We are just charging too much goddamn money. I think it sucks to be a grown-up,
0:31:37 and I think the people on the hook for student loans should be really angry at their university
0:31:44 and that we need to stop this torrent, this typhoon of cheap credit that keeps driving up
0:31:51 the cost of education. So I really don’t like student loan bailouts. And my sense is they were
0:31:57 found to be illegal. They were. Yeah. Well, there are ways around it. Are there? Yeah. There are,
0:32:01 I mean, there are policies, there are Department of Education policies, which is how the Biden
0:32:08 Harris administration has been able to give back so much that, that allow for it. But yes, I mean,
0:32:16 the Supreme Court gave it a big hell no to just wiping out people’s debts. I think as an extension
0:32:20 of what you were saying, though, you know, school, yes, it’s too expensive. And I have two little
0:32:27 kids with the beginnings of their 529s. And I just can’t really fathom how much money is going to
0:32:31 have to be in those accounts for them to be able to go to the $4 million. A million bucks. At this
0:32:34 point, at this point, you’re looking at a million bucks. That’s even worse than what my financial
0:32:39 advisor said. So. For both of them. Only a half a million each. Unless they come down while you
0:32:42 and then it’s more than that. Well, if the podcast really works out, then everything’s going to be
0:32:50 fine. There we go. You’re set. You’re done. After this one episode. But I feel like it’s time,
0:32:54 especially with if it’s going to be Kamala, the prosecutor, and if she’s going to talk about
0:32:59 things like price gouging, if she’s going to talk about her experience going after the big banks
0:33:05 in California, I wouldn’t mind some sort of policy platform about going after universities.
0:33:10 And especially these ones that are sitting on endowments that are, you know, being propped up
0:33:16 by investing groups, you know, that are doing their two and 20s or whatever it is. And they’re
0:33:20 sitting on billions of dollars and they’re not helping students out, maybe because they know
0:33:24 that the administration might do that in the end, or most likely because they don’t care.
0:33:29 And they’re like, well, you’re going to have a degree that says Harvard or whatever it is,
0:33:34 and now state schools are even, you know, for a regular person, astronomically expensive.
0:33:37 But I would love to see that. And I think that would be popular across the board. You know,
0:33:42 if you’re looking for a policy that everyone can glom onto, if you said, I’m going to go after the
0:33:47 universities that are that are stealing your money and giving you, in some cases, worthless
0:33:52 degrees, you’re going to end up like the barista that you were mentioning. You know, landslide.
0:33:56 Stay with us.
0:34:05 What are some of the other central points of her economic plan? I feel as if she hasn’t done a
0:34:13 great job so far. And it feels like quite frankly, a lot of giveaways. What about on the revenue side?
0:34:18 They’re going to raise taxes. There’s a wealth tax. What else are they planning to do?
0:34:21 Trump has said he’s going to tear off the shit out of everybody. And that’s going to raise a
0:34:25 ton of money. How is she planning to increase revenues other than a wealth tax?
0:34:33 It’s a lot of just investing in the communities and regular, like the corporate rate, I don’t
0:34:38 think we’ll go up further than it is. I think they’re toying with, and I need to get back on
0:34:43 the website, the individual rate for the top, you know, the top top. Now we’re getting into like
0:34:49 the tippy tippy tippy job versus the tippy tippy tippy top. But I think that they are, and this is
0:34:54 where she’s going to rely back on actually the good economic news out of the Biden Harris administration.
0:34:59 You know, she has to toe that line of like, this is what I think was really good that we did. This
0:35:04 is what I think wasn’t so great. And I would have advised differently. And we’ll see how she does that
0:35:09 at the debate. So before we wrap up here, we have to talk about the debate. It’s being held.
0:35:15 We’re, we’re taking on Monday. Give us, I’ll just be curious, just riff on what you think about this
0:35:20 debate, what you’re expecting, what you think each candidate needs to do and any predictions you might
0:35:28 have. So Trump needs to just act like a human. And that’s always been the bar for him. And he’s
0:35:34 failed a majority of the time, which, and I’m looking forward to that, there was the big fight
0:35:39 about whether the mikes would be muted or not. And Kamala’s team obviously wanted them un-muted,
0:35:45 so they could see people really coming after her, especially when you have the gender dynamic and
0:35:49 the size differential. A lot of people have been focusing on that because, you know, she’s quite
0:35:55 short. And he is, well, he was six four before he started shrinking. I’m not quite sure what he is
0:36:01 now, but he’s a big guy. So I think for her, and we touched on this a little bit earlier in the podcast,
0:36:06 a lot of people don’t feel that they know her, especially people who are in the battleground
0:36:13 state. So I think she’s going to do a decent amount of the bio stuff again, but not in like the
0:36:19 mamala way. And this was what my background is. And this is how I brought those skills to the
0:36:23 vice presidency, you know, Senate vice presidency, and now hopefully as presidency, and that I am
0:36:29 ready on day one. And there’s a new ad out focusing on foreign policy, where I actually
0:36:33 thought she was the strongest at the DNC in her speech. I thought it was incredible.
0:36:42 As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting
0:36:48 force in the world. She’s going to be using the contrast of all these folks that worked
0:36:54 in foreign policy, the generals, et cetera, for Trump, who are now saying, I can’t endorse him.
0:36:59 He’s absolutely out of his mind. We’re going to be less safe. She’s going to lean into what a
0:37:06 better force for good America will be if she is the next president. But I really hope and I don’t
0:37:12 think that we’ve talked about this yet in general, like she’s not playing identity politics at all,
0:37:18 which I think is part of why she’s resonating as well as she has and has gotten this to a neck and
0:37:23 neck race when Biden, you know, was on his way, I think, to a pretty resounding defeat. You know,
0:37:28 she never talks about being a woman. She never talks about being a person of color.
0:37:35 She’s just Kamala Harris. And I think that he, well, he would obviously love to be able to
0:37:40 be as misogynistic and sexist and potentially racist as possible, but watching her kind of
0:37:46 steer clear of those little potholes will be interesting. I hope she can keep that up.
0:37:52 And I hope that the moderators really push him on explaining things. This is probably one of the
0:38:01 biggest uphill battles that I have on the five is, you know, people treat Donald Trump’s presence,
0:38:05 the fact that he’s actually just out there standing in front of a podium or quote unquote
0:38:09 taking questions as the fact that he’s being transparent, but he’s not actually explaining
0:38:14 anything. And now the policy pages are such a wonderful encapsulation of this. So Kamala Harris
0:38:18 has all of our policies with the dropdowns that explain them. And Donald Trump just has a list
0:38:25 of his policies. And some of them are like deport everyone. Well, you know, how are you going to
0:38:31 go around and find 15 million people that you’re going to throw out of the country? So I hope that
0:38:38 he’s really pushed on detail because I think that she’s pretty wonky and will be able to handle that
0:38:44 well. But she just needs to reassure like tens of thousands of people that it’s going to be okay.
0:38:48 And Pennsylvania is really important for this. And it’s a topic for next week because I know you
0:38:53 have a ton to say about it. But I was reading about all of the ads that Trump is running in
0:39:01 Pennsylvania and how they’re directed at young men. She’s doing much worse with men than Biden did
0:39:06 in that New York Times, Sienna poll, especially white working class men. And he’s just hammering
0:39:11 that. And so it’ll be interesting to see if things like that come up as well.
0:39:16 So I believe that we’re a much more Luxus nation and that as individuals are much
0:39:24 more Luxus than we want to admit. And I think Luxus aesthetics, when people saw the Reagan-Carter
0:39:27 debate, when they watched on TV, they thought Reagan won. And when they listened to it, they thought
0:39:35 Carter won. And JFK let them put makeup on them. And anyone who watched it thought Kennedy won.
0:39:39 And anyone who listened to it thought Nixon won. I think Luxus are important. And I think
0:39:44 that plays huge advantage to her. She’s an attractive, non-white, young woman. I didn’t
0:39:47 know she was short. I’ve never met her. She actually, she looks kind of…
0:39:51 Yeah. I assume she’ll be wearing heels. But the fact that she also is wearing converse a lot,
0:39:54 she’s really like, she’s a little pistol. Yeah.
0:39:59 Really? I didn’t know that. I thought she was kind of average height, so to speak.
0:40:07 By the way, he claims he’s 6’3,215. John Elway is 6’3,215. And so John Elway and Donald Trump,
0:40:11 yeah, they’re mirror images of each other. Same diet I’ve heard, the Cheeseburgers diet.
0:40:12 Yeah, physically. Broken ice cream. Yeah.
0:40:23 Physically, yeah. So I think she wins just moment one on that count. I have a thesis here, and I
0:40:28 want you to, I want to get your reaction to it. And that is, and this plays into my bias that
0:40:32 young men are the only special interest group that have been totally ignored recently,
0:40:40 who are really struggling. And I think old men are going Trump, young women are going Harris.
0:40:44 I do think similar to just as the election will be won by a handful of states. I think the overlooked
0:40:51 crowd here that is sort of up for grabs is young men, because there’s a bit of a myth that young men
0:40:55 are all fucked up in the head, and their incels, and they’re angry, and they’re
0:40:59 attracted to the man of fear and Trump. And I think what some of the research shows
0:41:05 is that it’s not that they’re moving towards the Republican Party. Gen Z and millennial men
0:41:11 actually believe just as much in gender equality as their female counterparts.
0:41:15 They’re actually quite progressive around gender equality. I think what’s happening is they’re
0:41:19 not moving towards the Republican Party. I think they’re moving away from the Democratic Party.
0:41:23 And the thing that just blew my mind, Jess, was I went on the dnc.org website,
0:41:30 and it has this section that says who we serve. And it lists 16 demographic groups,
0:41:37 everyone from the disabled, to veterans, to immigrants, to the disabled, to Pacific Islanders,
0:41:44 to blacks, to women, rural Americans, farm, it just, by my calculations, they listed somewhere
0:41:53 between 70 and 80% of America. The only people they didn’t list were men. And when you are in this,
0:41:58 I think the Democratic Party is struggling with the same problem that the DEI apparatus at
0:42:05 universities is struggling with. And that is when you claim to be explicitly advocating and advancing
0:42:11 the interests of 75% of your population, you aren’t advantaging them, you’re discriminating
0:42:17 against the 25%. And I think that’s how a lot of young men feel. They just, quite frankly,
0:42:23 don’t feel seen by the Democratic Party. And I don’t think it would be hard to recapture them.
0:42:28 I think they are very much pro-life. A lot of them have more progressive inclinations,
0:42:32 a lot of them are turned off by Trump. But I think at a minimum, they need to say, all right,
0:42:37 what are you doing to help my community that is killing themselves at four times the rate,
0:42:43 is addicted at three times the rate, is less likely to go to college, is having trouble finding a
0:42:48 mate, because women are dating older, quite frankly, is it okay? I just feel like a little
0:42:55 bit of something, a recognition of the problem, vocational programming, expanded freshman seats,
0:43:01 national service, even taking a victory lap around the Infrastructure Act, which supposedly the 70%
0:43:04 of the jobs are going to be for men without college degrees, but they don’t want to talk
0:43:08 about it because they’re worried it’ll ruffle the feathers of the far left. What do you think
0:43:14 about the idea of young men being the swing voters up for grabs here? I like it. I mean,
0:43:19 it’s a great headline, and it’ll get you a lot of buzz, which we’re always looking for in life.
0:43:25 But I think it’s also, I think it’s true, and I actually think it’s even more
0:43:30 base than what you’re saying. I think that if you said, we don’t think that you’re bad,
0:43:35 that it would be enough. Yeah, we don’t think you’re toxic.
0:43:43 I don’t fundamentally think that you’re broken because you’re a white dude. And it’s been
0:43:52 interesting with my friends, we all have little kids, and a lot of them who had sons were worried
0:44:00 about what culture is going to be like for them. These are going to be kids who have enough who go
0:44:04 to great schools, either a good private school or a great public school that they’re zoned for
0:44:12 or are on their way to college. They’re going to be raised in loving households with dads that
0:44:16 support their moms, all the good things. They’re going to be pro-choice. They’re going to care
0:44:20 about the climate. They’re going to think that there are too many guns on the street and that
0:44:26 school shootings are one of the most important stains on American culture that there is,
0:44:32 but they’re not going to be spoken to as equals. They’re going to have to do double the work,
0:44:40 triple the work to be a “allye” in the right way. And I don’t know if you remember this t-shirt that
0:44:47 was going around that you would see the future as female. And I’ve seen less of it lately, but it
0:44:53 really did see- What about books called The End of Men? Yeah, well, that too, as the corollary
0:44:59 to the t-shirt, like buy my t-shirt and then buy this book. And I do think, I don’t know if you’re
0:45:08 following that horrendous trial in France about the 70-year-old woman whose husband led dozens of
0:45:16 men come and rape his wife, drug her. And I think it’s really interesting in context with the default
0:45:22 position that men are so bad. Obviously, that is the most extreme case in the entire world. But
0:45:27 when you hear about things like that, and you’re not going to hear about a woman that did something
0:45:35 like that, maybe there’s some apparition example of it, but you look at things like that and you see
0:45:39 it just being pumped into the culture that men are the ones that are capable of these kinds
0:45:45 of things, right? Like men are the ones that would be doing the bad things. I think it permeates
0:45:52 further than it should. Yeah, I think it’s a big opportunity. So just as we wrap up here,
0:45:59 who do you think, regarding the debate, who do you think wins and why? What do you think the
0:46:03 narrative will be? Make a prediction. Who wins and why? And then I’ll give you my thoughts.
0:46:09 I think Kamala wins, because I think that she has, since she’s taken over the nomination,
0:46:15 understood the task at hand, which is to message to these raging moderates,
0:46:23 these swing state voters, to make her somebody that is hopeful, joyful, and progressive in the
0:46:30 progress sense of the word, not in the liberal sense of the word, and that she will contextualize
0:46:35 a vision for America that’s more palatable to the widest swath of people. But for Trump supporters,
0:46:41 he will do fine, but she’s the one who has a ceiling that can continue to grow. And we know
0:46:46 that he caps out about where he is right now. I like it. I hope you’re right. My prediction
0:46:52 is that he wins by virtue of the fact that I think expectations have been set so high for her and so
0:46:59 low for him. And also, I think that coronation, not competition, I don’t think she’s battle tested.
0:47:05 I think when you have candidates go through the primary process, they are quick on their feet.
0:47:11 They know how to deflect criticism. They know how to see a weak point and go after it. I don’t
0:47:16 think she’s out of practice. Anyways, we shall see. Well, I hope you’re wrong in the nicest possible
0:47:22 way. I hope I’m wrong as well. I mean, that’s sincerely. Anyways, that’s all for the inaugural
0:47:28 episode of Raging Moderates. We’re raging, Jess. We’re raging. Raging. Our producer. Raging. Our
0:47:33 producer is Caroline Shagren and Drew Burroughs is our technical director. You can find Raging
0:47:39 Moderates on the ProfG pod every Tuesday. Please subscribe. We will see you next week. Thanks,
0:47:46 everybody, for tuning in. Have a great rest of the week, Jess. Thank you, you too.
0:47:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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0:01:09 >> Today’s number, $10 million.
0:01:11 That’s how much the US Open Signature Grey Goose Drink,
0:01:13 The Honey Deuce, brought in last year.
0:01:15 True story, Ed, I’ve been having all these podcasters,
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0:01:24 So I’ve decided to take action and I am no longer listening to podcasts.
0:01:34 [MUSIC]
0:01:36 >> Welcome to PropG Markets.
0:01:42 Today, we’re discussing Golden Passports and podcasting mega deals.
0:01:43 Hello, daddy.
0:01:46 Someone’s about to get sexier.
0:01:49 That’s right, bring me the mega, bring me the deal.
0:01:53 But first, but first, here with the news,
0:01:56 is PropG analyst Ed Elson.
0:01:57 Ed, what’s the good word?
0:01:59 >> I’m doing very well. How are you, Scott?
0:02:01 >> I’m doing great. Is everyone really happy to have me back?
0:02:02 >> Elated.
0:02:04 >> Yeah, sounds it.
0:02:05 So I take August off and
0:02:09 I’m Catherine and I are actually getting some work done this weekend and she’s like,
0:02:11 all the kids are gone.
0:02:12 So what did you do this summer?
0:02:13 Where did you go?
0:02:14 >> I didn’t go anywhere this summer.
0:02:16 I was just in New York.
0:02:19 >> We talked about this, your grandfather passed away.
0:02:19 >> Yeah.
0:02:20 >> That’s a buzzkill. Fuck that.
0:02:24 >> All right, Claire, Claire, what did you do?
0:02:25 >> I went to Copenhagen.
0:02:26 >> It’s Copenhagen.
0:02:28 You clearly don’t smoke enough pot.
0:02:30 It’s Pocahagen.
0:02:32 >> Well, I have a Chicago accent, so.
0:02:33 >> It’s beautiful in the summer, isn’t it?
0:02:35 >> Yeah, it is. It’s gorgeous.
0:02:36 And I went to Maine as well.
0:02:38 >> That doesn’t sound that interesting.
0:02:40 Allison, what about Allison, our associate producer?
0:02:42 Allison, where did you go on August?
0:02:46 >> I went to San Francisco and then drove to Yosemite and did some hiking.
0:02:47 >> Oh, how millennial.
0:02:52 >> Would you do like some crazy, crazy new fangled, okay, what’s in Yosemite?
0:02:53 Who are you with?
0:02:55 >> It was just me and my boyfriend.
0:02:57 >> God, healthy relationship Yosemite, fuck that.
0:03:00 Let’s get back to the fucked up world of technology.
0:03:02 Ed, bring the dysfunction.
0:03:05 Let’s get back to the markets.
0:03:07 >> Let’s start with our weekly review of market vitals.
0:03:13 [MUSIC]
0:03:19 The S&P 500 declined, with Nvidia’s 10% single day drop dealing a blow to the larger market.
0:03:24 The dollar slumped, Bitcoin sank, and the yield on tenure treasuries fell.
0:03:25 Shifting to the headlines.
0:03:29 The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority decided not to launch an in-depth
0:03:33 investigation into Microsoft’s hiring of inflection employees.
0:03:36 The CMA said that while the hiring does count as a merger,
0:03:40 it didn’t find evidence the merger would substantially lessen competition.
0:03:45 President Biden is preparing to block Japanese-based Nippon Steel’s attempt
0:03:46 to acquire US Steel.
0:03:51 US Steel’s CEO said that if the nearly $15 billion deal doesn’t go through,
0:03:54 the company will likely have to move its headquarters out of Pittsburgh
0:03:56 and lay off thousands of employees.
0:04:00 And finally, Andreessen Horowitz has closed its Miami office
0:04:02 just two years after opening its doors.
0:04:05 While the company signed a five-year lease for the office,
0:04:09 the firm shut it down because employees weren’t utilizing the space enough.
0:04:14 Scott, your thoughts starting with this decision on Microsoft and inflection?
0:04:19 >> I move to minds here because it’s clearly, well, when it feels like,
0:04:23 it feels like Microsoft/OpenAI are just running away with it.
0:04:30 Both the decision by Apple, Nvidia, and I think it’s Microsoft to fund the most
0:04:34 recent round for OpenAI, and I read that it has about a 70% market share.
0:04:36 It feels as literally they’re just running away with it.
0:04:41 So it strikes me that Microsoft should be under a pretty well-lit microscope
0:04:44 right now in terms of acquisitions.
0:04:48 At the same time, I think it also buttresses the notion that OpenAI and
0:04:53 Microsoft are running away with it because inflection, I think their argument was,
0:04:54 we’re fucked, we don’t have the scale here.
0:04:58 So I don’t know what to do in a situation like this.
0:05:02 We have a company that probably couldn’t compete, but this is just an aqua hire.
0:05:05 And I had Reid Hoffman on the podcast, I guess he’s one of the founders of
0:05:07 inflection and he claimed that it was still a company.
0:05:11 But this feels, again, and you’ve sort of been out in front of this,
0:05:16 a bit uncomfortable that one company seems to be just, they came in and
0:05:20 basically took their heart and their lungs and their liver.
0:05:24 They took the top employees and then claimed that it was a legitimate deal.
0:05:26 It just felt so weird from the beginning.
0:05:27 What are your thoughts?
0:05:28 >> Yeah, I agree.
0:05:30 I mean, we should just go over the context again for
0:05:36 people who may not remember, inflection is this AI company that has been working on
0:05:40 a chatbot similar to chatGBT and the idea is that it’s going to be more kind of
0:05:42 human, more personal.
0:05:49 And a year ago, they raised $1.3 billion and that round was led by Microsoft.
0:05:51 So this was a big deal.
0:05:56 The CEO was this guy Mustafa Suleyman who started Google DeepMind,
0:06:00 which is one of the leading AI companies back in the day.
0:06:03 This was supposed to be a big company.
0:06:08 And then a few months ago, something strange happened where Mustafa announced
0:06:13 he was leaving the company and so was the co-founder and so were half of the employees.
0:06:16 And where did they say that they were going to go instead?
0:06:20 Microsoft and now Mustafa Suleyman who was the co-founder and CEO of this
0:06:23 AI startup is now the CEO of Microsoft AI.
0:06:26 So as you say, the whole thing is very weird.
0:06:28 We’ve talked about it on this podcast before.
0:06:33 I found it very suspicious and so did the regulators in the UK.
0:06:38 So they launched this investigation and they have decided this was fine.
0:06:42 So first of all, they said, quote, our investigation has found that the transfer
0:06:46 of employees coupled with other tactical arrangements mean that two enterprises
0:06:47 are no longer distinct.
0:06:52 As such, the transaction does qualify as a merger under UK law and the CMA has
0:06:53 the jurisdiction to review it.
0:06:56 So that’s the first thing you’re saying is this was a merger.
0:07:00 They may pretend it’s an investment or a partnership, but it was basically an acquisition.
0:07:05 Second thing they said, however, quote, inflection is not a strong competitor to
0:07:09 the consumer chatbots Microsoft has developed directly, i.e. co-pilot and
0:07:12 in partnership with open AI, i.e. chat to BT.
0:07:14 And on this basis, we cleared the transaction.
0:07:21 So the argument they’re making is that inflection is or was a weak company.
0:07:27 And therefore, by taking them out of the competitive landscape, competition wasn’t harmed.
0:07:33 My view on this and I’d like to get your perspective is that that’s ridiculous
0:07:36 because inflection barely even had a chance to try.
0:07:38 I mean, it was the company was two years old.
0:07:41 This thing was destined to succeed.
0:07:45 And it feels that what actually happens is that Microsoft has got in there super
0:07:47 early and they nipped it in the bud.
0:07:51 And it feels like the precedent we’re setting here is that big tech is actually
0:07:55 allowed to suppress competition, crush competition.
0:07:59 It can do that as much as it wants so long as the competition is small.
0:08:04 So long as they do it early enough, such that that competition can’t grow into something bigger.
0:08:04 It’s an interesting take.
0:08:08 My take ever, my guess was it was actually the opposite.
0:08:13 And that is Reed, who is the founder, I think Reed would, if Reed believed
0:08:19 inflection had a shot of becoming a real player in the AI space, that he would have,
0:08:24 for a lot of reasons, love to have another feather in his cap, more diversification.
0:08:28 He’s already making a bunch of money on the Microsoft board or involved there.
0:08:33 I don’t think my sense is, and this is more disturbing in my view,
0:08:38 is that he has real insight into Microsoft, their assets, and the power and
0:08:42 progress of open AI and Microsoft’s co-pilot.
0:08:47 And then he really understands very well the progress to date of inflection, and
0:08:53 basically went to the team at inflection and goes, I know the competition,
0:08:58 the number one player really well in their assets and the lead, and I know what we have, and guys, we’re fucked.
0:09:02 And because I’m on the board of Microsoft, I’m going to get us a golden parachute.
0:09:04 I’m going to find great jobs for you guys.
0:09:06 We’re going to pivot to something else.
0:09:08 You’re going to get a little bit of money.
0:09:14 But I have seen the enemy, and the enemy has 10 Panzer tanks, and we’re here with a squirt gun.
0:09:18 So my sense is, he basically, what this says to me is that Reed Halfman,
0:09:21 one of the most talented people in technology, one of the most insightful
0:09:27 people who has near perfect symmetry of information on a startup in this space,
0:09:30 that has all the assets that any startup could ask for.
0:09:34 And then the leading player has said, a startup with everything it needs,
0:09:40 has no fucking chance against the leader right now, that they’re just running away with it.
0:09:45 And the best we can do is to have peace with dignity or to have somewhat of an honorable death.
0:09:50 We need to euthanize this thing now, or it’s going to get embarrassing and awful for all of us.
0:09:52 So I can see why they didn’t block this deal.
0:09:55 This company, I believe, didn’t have any shot.
0:09:55 So what are you going to do?
0:09:57 Just let it die a slow death.
0:10:06 But what I think it should say to the DOJ is, okay, you have a monopoly player emerging
0:10:13 that is going to be the most powerful player very early in what is the emerging technology globally.
0:10:14 Is that a good idea?
0:10:18 So this, to me, was more disturbing, but for other reasons.
0:10:20 I don’t think these guys, I don’t think these guys had a shot.
0:10:23 I think that’s what Reed decided or discerned.
0:10:27 I think that’s a fair reading, but it’s interesting that both of those readings lead to the same place.
0:10:29 Which is there is not enough competition.
0:10:35 So whether or not you agree with this specific ruling, overall, the theme remains the same,
0:10:39 which is these other companies can’t really compete with the big dogs.
0:10:47 And in one way or another, Microsoft is finding a way to totally squeeze out the rest of the competition in this space.
0:10:56 Speaking of blocking deals, any thoughts on this US Steel story and Biden’s decision blocking that deal
0:10:59 where Nikon Steel wanted to buy US Steel?
0:11:03 This is a mix of xenophobia, ego, and pandering the unions.
0:11:04 This is stupid.
0:11:08 If they were making air filtration systems or airbags, they’d let the deal go through.
0:11:13 But because Steel, for some reason, is seen as Pittsburgh and the part of America,
0:11:14 we need Steel to build buildings.
0:11:15 They want to get in the way of it.
0:11:18 I’m sure unions are trying to convince them that this is a bad idea.
0:11:20 This deal should absolutely go through.
0:11:24 The Japanese have better technology.
0:11:27 This is an industry that is consolidating mostly around China,
0:11:29 who produces 54% of global steel output.
0:11:33 The US and Japan produce four and 5%, respectively.
0:11:35 They need their each small players.
0:11:36 They need to bulk up.
0:11:39 This gets shareholders not a great outcome, but a decent outcome.
0:11:42 It gets them additional capital.
0:11:44 This is the basis of trade comparative advantage.
0:11:47 I mean, you’re talking about an ally.
0:11:52 We have aircraft carriers stationed off the coast of Japan to provide defense for them.
0:12:00 They are about as, other than the UK and maybe Canada, I can’t think of a stronger ally.
0:12:00 Well, maybe Mexico.
0:12:01 We have a lot of strong allies.
0:12:03 It’s great to be American, Ed.
0:12:04 It’s great to be American.
0:12:06 But they’re a fantastic ally.
0:12:12 And if the shareholders here and the people who run the company think we need to be a 9% player
0:12:16 to compete against the 54% player, this makes all the sense in the world.
0:12:21 And if this were any other category that wasn’t machoed up or tightly associated with
0:12:24 brand US, it would sail through.
0:12:29 This is politically driven, ego driven and pure xenophobia.
0:12:33 I don’t like it, Ed.
0:12:33 I don’t like it.
0:12:36 Yeah, I 100% agree with you.
0:12:41 It feels like a lot of it is to do with the fact that this company is called US Steel as well.
0:12:46 It’s this old, iconic American industrial company.
0:12:52 By the way, it was founded by Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan, Charles Schwab and a bunch of other
0:12:55 sort of iconic old American industrialists.
0:12:57 And I think you’re exactly right.
0:13:01 It’s one of these political stories where it just isn’t a good look for one of the
0:13:06 oldest industrial companies in America to be sold to the Japanese.
0:13:09 That’s the kind of story that a voter will observe.
0:13:12 And at first glance, they’re going to say, “Oh, our country’s going to shit.”
0:13:14 But you look at the business case for this.
0:13:17 US Steel is shutting down steel mills.
0:13:19 They are laying off thousands of workers.
0:13:22 According to the CEO, if this deal doesn’t go through,
0:13:24 they’re going to have to shut down even more plants.
0:13:28 So if you keep this company under the current management,
0:13:32 it doesn’t actually work out that well for the unions or for our economy.
0:13:37 There’s not really any rational business case that you could make that this deal should be
0:13:38 blocked.
0:13:41 But again, this is a fun political story to jump onto.
0:13:42 And I think you’re exactly right.
0:13:48 Finally, this Miami office update.
0:13:49 Why does this make me happy yet?
0:13:50 Yeah, exactly.
0:13:52 Why does this make me happy?
0:13:53 I love it.
0:13:56 California is unbearable.
0:13:58 We can’t stand it here.
0:14:00 We’re sick of government mismanagement.
0:14:02 We’re going to Miami, and they go to Miami, and they’re all coming back.
0:14:08 My favorite is, who’s the, I don’t know, what’s the best way to describe him?
0:14:09 Self-hating douchebag.
0:14:09 I forget his name.
0:14:11 I’m going to guess you’re talking about Keith.
0:14:11 Oh, that’s right.
0:14:14 This is a very prominent VC.
0:14:16 His name’s Keith Reboy, who is one of the leaders of this.
0:14:19 We’re moving to Miami movement in the tech community.
0:14:20 Oh, here’s a good quote from him.
0:14:22 He complained in 2020 after moving them.
0:14:25 They’re complaining that San Francisco was, quote,
0:14:27 just so massively improperly run and managed.
0:14:29 It’s impossible to stay.
0:14:31 It’s impossible to stay there, Ed.
0:14:37 And four years later, Rebois has moved back to SF part-time and is renovating his house there,
0:14:38 he supposedly said.
0:14:39 Now, this is what’s happened.
0:14:44 He moved down there to recognize a capital gain at a lower tax rate and established residency,
0:14:48 and he’s figured out that his consensual hallucination, that a state that doesn’t
0:14:51 have a world-class engineering department, can ever be a player in tech.
0:14:55 He has figured that out probably painfully and quickly.
0:14:58 And now he’s pretending to be back in San Francisco renovating his house.
0:14:59 How’s it going, Keith?
0:15:01 How are you picking out curtains right now?
0:15:02 How’s it going?
0:15:04 Maybe a little soapstone in the kitchen.
0:15:06 Yeah, I bet he’s renovating his house,
0:15:09 and that’s why he’s spending more time back in the Bay Area.
0:15:13 There is a bit of a boomerang that a lot of people went to these low-tax states.
0:15:14 I think it’s important that these states compete.
0:15:21 And just as New York has, if you live in the city of New York, as you do,
0:15:26 I’m sure you see it every day, you can pay up to 13% in additional state and city taxes.
0:15:28 And the thing about Manhattan is it’s worth it.
0:15:34 And I think Chicago or Illinois is really going to suffer because I’m not sure that’s
0:15:35 worth the additional taxation.
0:15:40 But I think Manhattan is definitely worth it, or I would offer that it is if you can afford it,
0:15:45 that all of these VCs who moved out, a lot of them are moving back because they realize,
0:15:51 to California’s credit, there’s something about the alchemy of innovation, capital.
0:15:55 I would say one in three kids from my class, and this is NYU,
0:15:59 just get on a plane and head to the Bay Area because I think that is where that is where
0:16:06 shit is happening. That’s where innovation, and it’s still happening. It’s not like all,
0:16:10 and California has its problems. A lot of people say it’s ungovernable, a lot of people are angry,
0:16:14 and I can see why, at the homeless problem and crime in San Francisco.
0:16:20 But despite all these issues, the positives continue to outweigh the negatives, and you’re
0:16:27 starting to see prominent people or very successful VCs and Keith Rebois move back to San Francisco.
0:16:31 Yeah. Just a great stat here. Startups in San Francisco in the second quarter of this year
0:16:39 raised $19 billion. Startups in Miami in the same quarter raised half a billion dollars.
0:16:43 So there is a giant, giant golf, and I’m trying to think about why,
0:16:49 because this makes me super happy as well. I’m trying to think about why that is,
0:16:56 because it’s not that I have a problem with people moving somewhere else, and I have an issue with
0:17:03 tech pros moving to Miami. That’s fine. I think the issue is just how loud they were about this
0:17:08 whole thing. It’s just the idea that they turned this whole thing into this political story about
0:17:13 how liberals are ruining the economy. They’re ruining our lives. They’re ruining our culture.
0:17:18 Everyone is moving to Miami. That’s where everything’s happening. That’s where the money is,
0:17:25 and it just wasn’t true at all. So it’s not surprising to me that Andreessen is
0:17:30 packing up the Miami office because it feels like it just reflects a reality that we all
0:17:35 kind of sensed and kind of knew, but we weren’t really allowed to say for some very strange
0:17:40 reason. We were kind of bullied out of saying, actually, I think California’s probably doing fine.
0:17:48 On a more meta level, so I’m a resident of Florida. I’ve participated in some roundtables
0:17:51 around, okay, what does Florida need to do to maintain economic growth other than being a tax
0:18:01 haven or a retirement home? And my view is if you want to tap into the economy that’s probably,
0:18:04 or the part of the economy that we don’t know about a year or two years, but in 10 years,
0:18:11 as Josh Brown said, there’s an optimal default setting of optimism. Is technology
0:18:16 is going to continue to eat the planet and account for a greater share of GDP? What is
0:18:24 ground zero for that? Is it good governance? Is it warmer weather? What is it? The ground zero
0:18:29 for any tech company that ever hopes to be worth more than $10 billion that I can see,
0:18:34 is that every one of them is started within a bike ride of a world-class engineering university.
0:18:42 And it’s just no accident that the valley is smack in between, in San Francisco, smack in
0:18:47 between Berkeley and Stanford, two of the finest technical universities on the planet.
0:18:54 And quite frankly, Florida just doesn’t have it. And if you were to really be focused on
0:18:58 sustaining the economic growth that Florida has registered over the last two decades,
0:19:03 I think the best thing they could do, and if you wanted to be a hero in Florida, I actually
0:19:07 spoke to one of these individuals who has the resources to do this, it would be to do what
0:19:11 Paul Allen did at the University of Washington. He funded with, I think, $300 million a world-class
0:19:17 engineering university at UW. I mean, this is how ecosystems get started in technology.
0:19:23 Also, I would argue Miami, I think probably it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback,
0:19:29 but I think going kind of all in on crypto gave it a little bit of a sketchy feel.
0:19:33 You’re telling me the path to prosperity isn’t Miami coin?
0:19:36 Yeah, remember that? They had a coin. I love that.
0:19:40 A state-sponsored cryptocurrency won’t produce.
0:19:43 Enduring innovation. Florida is going to be fine, but it’s not,
0:19:49 it’s still an amazing state that offers a ton of, you know, it has a ton of upside.
0:19:53 But these individuals, I just wish they were more honest. I wish I’d say
0:19:57 I have an unrealized gain, so I’m going to move to Florida. I like it there. The people are hot.
0:20:01 It’s a great place to live. I’m going to move there just long enough to establish
0:20:07 residencies so I can be taxed a lower rate. And then I’m going to slink back to the Bay Area where
0:20:13 people make real cabbage and where there’s an ecosystem where every other foot, there’s a
0:20:18 really interesting startup trying to raise capital. And none of them want to say this.
0:20:22 They all want to blame, they all want to blame the primary reason that they’re successful
0:20:28 and have registered their blessings. And that is the US government and specifically
0:20:33 the ecosystem in California that continues to churn out these incredible companies.
0:20:37 Anyways, enough of that. I still love Miami though. Still love Miami. Oh,
0:20:41 you should see Daddy at the Faena. He goes into that place called the living room with the porcelain
0:20:50 cheetah and he buys drinks for everybody. Hola! Hola, yes. We’ll be right back after the break
0:20:58 with a look at Golden Visas.
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0:21:48 at night? Well, apparently very well on some of the most innovative sleep technology out there.
0:21:53 Aid Sleep is revolutionizing the way we sleep with what they call the pod. You can add the pod
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0:22:15 to try out the new pod? What do you think, Ed? Tell us about your experience with the pod.
0:22:24 I love it, Scott. It’s great. It tracks my sleep, my heart rate, and the best part is that it cools
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0:23:51 We’re back with ProfG Markets. JP Morgan is deploying a private banking team
0:23:55 to Dubai to capture the wealth of an influx of millionaires moving to the Middle East.
0:23:59 The United Arab Emirates has become the country of choice for the ultra-wealthy,
0:24:04 with more millionaires expected to relocate there this year than anywhere else in the world.
0:24:08 Other wealth managers such as UBS, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC
0:24:13 have also identified the Gulf as a growth region. Scott, what is going on here?
0:24:19 Why are we seeing this influx of millionaires moving to Dubai and other areas in the Middle East?
0:24:26 I mean, essentially, it’s economic opportunity. I went to Riyadh to a conference. I’ve been to
0:24:32 Dubai several times. What’s inspiring about these places is you meet a lot of entrepreneurs from
0:24:37 Europe and Asia. Basically, there’s just more economic opportunity now in the Gulf. Then you
0:24:43 couple that with very low taxes, if not zero taxes. It’s actually more attractive, I think,
0:24:47 for European citizens because if they move there, US taxes will follow you wherever you
0:24:51 go the rest of your life. You’ll always pay US federal taxes unless you turn in your passport,
0:24:55 which I don’t recommend you do. But I think if you’re a German or a Spanish citizen and you go
0:25:00 to Dubai, you literally pay zero taxes. If you’re a small business entrepreneur building websites or
0:25:06 you have an interior decorating firm or whatever it is, the economy there is just booming. You
0:25:11 not only have more upside, you have much lower taxes, and they’re very straightforward. It’s
0:25:17 like you play by our rules. That’s the downside. You don’t want to get caught with edibles.
0:25:17 Drinking.
0:25:21 Speaking for a friend. Oh, no, you can drink in Dubai. Riyadh, it’s-
0:25:24 You can drink at the Chip Rihanna. You probably can’t drink anywhere else. I don’t know.
0:25:33 My friend, you can drink anywhere in Dubai and catch the eye of a lovely woman from Russia who
0:25:40 is very interested in you. Again, speaking for a friend. No, Dubai is actually quite liberal.
0:25:48 And well-run. It just represents opportunity and more economic security for young people,
0:25:52 so it doesn’t surprise me. What’s surprising is that people used to move to a different city or
0:25:57 whatever. The fact that there’s these international relocations now, I do have a couple friends
0:26:05 who’ve relocated to the Middle East, Dubai. So my friends who’ve already made it are relocating
0:26:09 to Portugal to become taxpats and just hang out in Keshkais and live nice lives with their kids.
0:26:13 My friends who are kind of in their 30s and on the upswing and have a small business
0:26:18 are moving to Dubai to try and make more money. Sort of similar. I mean, I kind of did the same
0:26:23 thing. I moved to Florida thinking, okay, it’ll be a better quality of life. I’m massively going to
0:26:29 cut my burn by 40% and I’m going to reinvest my 13% a year in my top line from tax savings and
0:26:34 investments. But what you see as young people are becoming bolder. More people have passports,
0:26:38 more people are less intimidated by moving and they feel like they can stay in better touch with
0:26:43 their family with FaceTime. They’re just not as intimidated. And Emirates has now kind of opened
0:26:48 up the region. I mean, flying 14 hours on Emirates is like flying two or three hours on American
0:26:54 Airlines, right? It’s just about the same level of trauma to your system. It’s such a pleasant way
0:27:00 to fly that I think it’s really interesting. I think these, there’s just some core investments,
0:27:04 just as we were talking about how powerful an investment in a university can be. I think one
0:27:10 of the best investments the UAE made was in Emirates Airlines. It just sets this tone that,
0:27:14 wow, this is an amazing country. And I don’t mind going there because getting there is just so easy
0:27:20 and so nice and the airport is so, by the way, one of the best meals I’ve ever had is at the Doha
0:27:27 Airport. You don’t usually think about, I got a facial and an amazing meal at the airport in Doha.
0:27:31 That’s not, that’s not typically, by the way, go to an airport if you really want to,
0:27:38 if you really want to be radiant and, you know, in, in, in help with the pores and look younger,
0:27:44 go to an airport for a great, a great cosmetic treatment. Anyways, I think it’s interesting
0:27:47 and I really, have you been to Dubai? No, I haven’t. Yeah, it’s sort of like Vegas
0:27:52 without the charm. I don’t, I don’t love Dubai, but it’s impressive what they have built there.
0:27:59 Also, the, it’s, it’s kind of part of a trend around passports to become the newest luxury item
0:28:06 where people are starting to buy passports, so they kind of have a go bag. I had to jump through
0:28:12 all sorts of hoops to get a tech visa here, a tech talent visa, which isn’t easy at my age,
0:28:18 given I don’t know how to turn on my phone. So I got a five-year visa, but these places,
0:28:24 you can basically, you know, buy, buy citizenship. Let me, let me ask you this, if you felt,
0:28:30 so you make a certain amount of money, if, if you felt you could make the same money,
0:28:35 have the same or lower cost of living as you do in New York, but save 30% of taxes,
0:28:38 would you consider moving to Dubai? I would certainly consider it, yeah,
0:28:42 but I think I’d need to be making a lot of money such that I can be kind of,
0:28:48 at the very, very tip top of the hierarchy in Dubai. I think it wouldn’t be very, when you say
0:28:52 it’s not, America is a terrible place to be, poor and a wonderful place to be rich. I’ll bet
0:28:59 that’s even more true in Dubai. So I would have to think about that. But like on this golden visa
0:29:07 point, you mentioned, this is similar to you establishing residency in Florida.
0:29:12 It’s different because anyone can do that. And the difference that we’re seeing here in the
0:29:16 trend that we’re seeing around the world, you mentioned Portugal. Portugal is one of the
0:29:22 biggest countries for this golden, these golden visas. And now it’s becoming the UAE.
0:29:29 And basically what a golden visa is, is it says if you pay, you get to come and live here.
0:29:37 So in the UAE, the rule is if you buy a property worth at least two million dirhams,
0:29:46 which is around half a million US dollars, you get a visa. And this is the case in many countries,
0:29:53 actually over 80 countries today offer golden visas. Some of them offer golden passports,
0:29:57 which means that you can literally just pay to become a citizen. And at the moment,
0:30:06 demand for golden visas is up 15% in 2024. So this is a new phenomenon. I mean,
0:30:13 I’m sure this has existed in various forms throughout history, governments trying to
0:30:18 adjust their policy to attract wealthy foreigners. We’ve talked a lot about how the UK has done that
0:30:24 for a really long time. But golden visas specifically and golden passports are on the rise.
0:30:31 And I look at this trend. And to me, it’s concerning, just the idea that we are moving
0:30:36 to like a pay to play citizenship model, where it doesn’t actually really matter what your
0:30:39 nationality is. It doesn’t really matter if you know anything about the culture,
0:30:44 you’re not taking like a nationality test, you’re literally just paying money. And there’s okay,
0:30:48 come in here and now if you live in the UAE, as you mentioned, you pay very little in taxes. No,
0:30:55 you pay zero in taxes in the UAE. There’s no income tax, no inheritance tax, no estate tax.
0:31:00 And now everyone’s moving there and they’re just paying for it. So are you concerned about this
0:31:05 in the same way that I am, that we are just letting people pay to live wherever they want?
0:31:10 I’m not. Just as I think it’s good that Texas competes with California and that California
0:31:15 will have to get a shit together and offer its taxpayers better value at some point.
0:31:21 So in 2024, the UAE will attract the most millionaires followed by the US, Singapore and Canada.
0:31:26 On the flip side, China, the UK and India will lose the most. I think that competition is really
0:31:32 important. I think that nations competing against each other to attract people is really important.
0:31:40 I think that China will probably have to keep a check on somewhat of a check on human rights or
0:31:44 the way they treat people because I read some crazy stuff that two thirds of millionaires in China
0:31:48 have either left or are planning to leave. Right. In China and Russia, all the rich people are
0:31:51 leaving. Yeah. Supposedly the thing that’s really going to fuck the Russian economy is just the
0:31:59 brain drain. And so ensuring that your citizens are happy, otherwise they’re just going to
0:32:04 peace out, I think that’s a good thing. I think that competition, I think it’ll inspire the UK
0:32:10 to try and figure out. And it’s not only low taxes. And we were talking about this before.
0:32:15 I don’t think New York has any plans to lower its tax rate and it doesn’t need to because it offers
0:32:23 an amalgamation or an alchemy of culture, grid and opportunity that’s worth it. And I think
0:32:28 companies and countries that don’t make it worth it, that have a mix of high taxes and low opportunity
0:32:34 and low human rights or low modest or mediocre freedoms, people are just going to leave and
0:32:39 go somewhere else. It is a bit disturbing that millionaires get to do whatever they want and
0:32:45 buy citizenship. But it’s the financialization of everything. Welcome to the real world that
0:32:51 everything is about money increasingly. And it’ll create a more competitive environment.
0:32:57 But I think on the whole, countries competing against each other for its quote unquote most
0:33:01 productive citizens or its wealthiest citizens, I think that is primarily a good thing.
0:33:09 But it’s competition to serve such a small amount of people. I’ll just give an example
0:33:16 of where this is happening, which is the UK. You mentioned the UK is at the bottom of that list.
0:33:23 It’s seeing the greatest outflows of millionaires. And the reason behind that is that as we’ve
0:33:29 discussed before, the UK used to be sort of a tax haven for wealthy foreigners because of this
0:33:36 thing that we talked about called the non-dom status. It’s a tax classification for wealthy
0:33:42 foreigners who are living in the UK. And it basically exempts them from a certain amount of
0:33:47 taxes. And we can go into the details on what exactly those exemptions are. But the point is
0:33:50 wealthy foreigners live in the UK and they love it there because they get to enjoy all the nice
0:33:57 things. And also they get to pay less in taxes than regular UK citizens as a percentage of their
0:34:04 income. So the UK government has recently decided to scrap that. So non-doms or wealthy foreigners
0:34:10 will now be taxed the same as everyone else. And when that happened, as I’m sure you heard
0:34:14 from a lot of people in London, a lot of wealthy foreigners were like, oh, this is terrible,
0:34:22 we’re moving. This doesn’t work for us anymore. My instinct when I heard those rumors was that
0:34:29 it was kind of similar to Miami. It’s kind of bullshit. They’re saying, oh, this is terrible
0:34:33 because they just want to put up a stink and maybe get that tax policy reversed. But ultimately,
0:34:39 they want to keep going to 5 Hartford Street and running into you at Maison Estelle, etc., etc.
0:34:46 But then I saw the data, which is that the UK is expected to lose 10,000 millionaires this year,
0:34:50 which is the highest number ever. And this new economic analysis came out,
0:34:54 saying that because of the amount of non-doms that are leaving, the Treasury is expected to
0:35:00 actually lose tax revenues, expected to lose one billion pounds. And this whole thing was
0:35:05 supposed to increase revenues, but everyone’s actually leaving. And apparently, if we look
0:35:11 at the data, they’re literally moving to the Middle East. So how are governments supposed to
0:35:17 thread the needle here? Because it’s not that Britain’s implementing unfair tax policy. It’s
0:35:23 very fair, very moderate tax policy. But it’s just that somewhere else, the tax policy is
0:35:30 just preferential to rich people. So is it just a race to the bottom of
0:35:35 who can cater to the rich as much as possible? So a lot there. The first is I want to acknowledge
0:35:40 that I like your mentality in the sense that, okay, when the data changes, I change my mind.
0:35:46 And I have the same view as you. I have a close friend here in the UK, total baller does really
0:35:51 well and has residency in a low tax domain. And then when you heard about the non-dom thing,
0:35:57 he started covectioning that I’m leaving. This is going to be a huge hit to me. And I’m like,
0:36:01 “Boss, your kids are in school here. You love it here. You’re not going anywhere.”
0:36:07 And I was right on this specific instance. But for people who don’t have kids, for people who it’s,
0:36:14 you know, savings of tens of millions of dollars, the data you just put forward is really stark.
0:36:19 And the fact of the matter is if this tax policy meant to increase the treasury is actually going
0:36:23 to diminish it, then it was the wrong policy regardless of what you think of the morals of
0:36:28 it. So what needs to happen? I think that in general, you need a few things to happen. The
0:36:34 first is I think there has to be a tax policy that is a multilateral trade agreement. And the US
0:36:39 has to lead it because the US is the only one that has kind of the firepower to say, unless you
0:36:43 cooperate, we’re not going to give you access to the dollar. We’re not going to give you access to
0:36:50 CFIUS or not CFIUS, whatever the credit card trade. I mean, the US can kind of impose a sanction on
0:36:56 anybody and it kicks the shit out of it. The US can put almost any country, if not out of business,
0:37:01 it can make them much less wealthy if it wants to. And they flex that same muscle. You had a lot
0:37:07 of US corporations doing reverse mergers and relocating the corporate headquarters such that
0:37:12 they could not pay American taxes. So Janet Yellen and the president said, “No, we’re going to
0:37:18 implement a 15% AMT minimum tax that regardless of where your ‘headquarters’ are, you need to pay at
0:37:22 least a 15% corporate tax.” And then they forced everyone else, including Ireland, that was saying,
0:37:27 we’ll do it for eight to do that. Otherwise, we’re going to put you out of business. We’re going to
0:37:31 start with a tariff order. And UAE. Right. So you’re going to have to have, I think, some sort of
0:37:38 intercontinental or multilateral agreement around taxation. In addition, as a general rule,
0:37:46 the philosophy I would implement around taxation is the following. If you’re Jeff Bezos and you’ve
0:37:52 aggregated $160 billion in wealth in Washington as a function of the great junior colleges there,
0:37:58 the great public schools, the University of Washington, the Seattle Tacoma airport, the
0:38:04 unique culture of innovation there, and then you decide to peace out for Florida to “spend more
0:38:10 time with dad.” And you’re not going to give back to the infrastructure you’ve leveraged to become
0:38:16 one of the wealthiest men in the world. Boss, that dog just won’t hunt. The amount, the accretion
0:38:22 of wealth needs to be the taxes you pay on it, need to be based on where you accreted and built
0:38:27 that wealth. It’s the same bullshit all these VCs who claim that they hate San Francisco is pulling
0:38:32 but on an international scale. Galloway 2024, new tax policy. You heard it here first. Now,
0:38:36 but I need to be president of the world. Yeah, exactly. General consulate of the solar system.
0:38:48 We’ll be right back after the break with a look at a few mega deals in podcasting.
0:38:58 When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met on the debate stage, it was
0:39:03 obvious that these were two very different people. But JD Vance and Tim Walls actually
0:39:08 have a lot in common. They’re both white men from the Midwest, they’re both family men,
0:39:12 and they were both in the service. But they disagree on what it means to be a man.
0:39:17 I heard my light pack. Surround yourself with smart women and listen to them and you’ll do just
0:39:21 fine. Today explained. Every weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:39:30 This week on ProfG Markets, we speak with Lena Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
0:39:34 We discuss ongoing antitrust cases, how to measure consumer harm,
0:39:40 and her take on monopolies in big tech. We went through, you know, a 20-year period where the
0:39:47 Big Five technology companies, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon collectively made
0:39:53 over 800 acquisitions and not a single one of which was challenged at the time. And now there are
0:39:59 lawsuits kind of retroactively identifying that some of those were missed opportunities and
0:40:03 failing to stop those deals had a really negative impact on the market.
0:40:08 You can find that conversation and many others exclusively on the ProfG Markets podcast.
0:40:19 We’re back with ProfG Markets. Podcasting deals are back and bigger than ever. Over the summer,
0:40:24 Alex Cooper of the Cole Her Daddy podcast signed a three-year contract with SiriusXM
0:40:31 for $125 million, jumping ship from Spotify. Meanwhile, Travis Kelsey and Dax Shepard
0:40:36 struck deals with Wundry for $100 million and $80 million, respectively,
0:40:47 and Joe Rogan renewed his contract for $250 million. Scott, 2024 might be the year of the podcast.
0:40:51 What are your reactions to these new podcast deals?
0:40:55 My reaction is fourfold. The first is Shama. The second is Lama. The third and fourth are
0:41:03 Ding and Dong. We’re rich, Ed. We’re rich. Boom. We’re each going to have a Ferrari or more likely.
0:41:05 I’m going to have two Ferraris. Yeah.
0:41:10 Then I’m going to buy you a Toyota with leather seats.
0:41:12 I’m going to be renting a Ferrari from you. There you go.
0:41:20 I think a lot about this. This is super exciting. A few things are going on here. One,
0:41:26 podcasting is one of the few growing ad-supported mediums. The key there is ad-supported because
0:41:32 the trend around all media has been to go behind a wall, whether it’s New York Times or Netflix or
0:41:40 HBO or the Financial Times. The best content is basically going subscription and ad-free.
0:41:46 Now, what does that mean? It means that if you’re Pepsi or Lexus, you’re becoming increasingly
0:41:51 desperate to find content that people will endure while they pelt you with the Lexus
0:41:55 September to Remember event. By the way, eating the clam chowder at the Lexus
0:41:59 September to Remember event wasn’t a good idea, Ed. It wasn’t a good idea.
0:42:10 Anyways, that makes me happy. Back to our program. If you have a vehicle, a media vehicle,
0:42:15 such as the one that the two of us are on right now, that people are willing to endure ads on,
0:42:21 that asset becomes more and more valuable because there are few and few of them. This is why you’ve
0:42:26 seen an explosion in the value of sports franchises because they can garner TV rights or sell their
0:42:32 TV rights and people are still willing to endure ads in live sports. They’re not willing to endure
0:42:38 ads in original scripted drama anymore, but they are willing to endure ads so far in audio,
0:42:45 specifically podcasts. You have seen a dramatic uptick this year. We’ve seen it in our numbers
0:42:54 in advertising. What you see is a few of the bigger players, Sirius, Spotify, Wondry, who has
0:43:02 Amazon, iHeartRadio, Vox, who we distribute our podcasts through, they are paying up because
0:43:09 their valuations, if they can show growth in an ad-supported medium, that creates a lot of
0:43:15 shareholder value. Podcasting has also evolved. It used to be celebrities. The era of sign up the
0:43:23 Obamas and Prince Harry and Meghan and pay them $10 million for them to do nothing, that’s over.
0:43:28 But these folks who are proven commodities, who have big audiences that are growing,
0:43:34 that ring the register with advertisers, they’re getting bigger and bigger deals. Now,
0:43:38 these deals are probably a bit misleading because let’s break it down.
0:43:42 Armchair Expert, $80 million. That’s Dax Shepherd’s podcast.
0:43:47 That’s Dax, yeah. But let’s assume it’s four years. That’s $20 million a year. I bet there are revenue
0:43:58 guarantees in there. They all want a headline number that’s really big, but I would bet that
0:44:03 the folks at Armchair Expert gave Wondery a business plan and they said, “Fine, we believe you,
0:44:08 and you need to hit these numbers. And if you do and you continue to grow 20 or 30% a year,
0:44:12 you’re going to get $80 million total over four years.” This is, I got to be honest,
0:44:17 this is really exciting for us. We’re peaking at the right moment. The property enterprise,
0:44:24 markets, conversations, this pod is growing in 20, 30% quarter on quarter. The other pod pivot
0:44:32 is a juggernaut, and our deal with Vox is up in May. So we’re out there positioning ourselves,
0:44:35 and my guess is we’ll probably end up staying with Vox because we like working with them so much.
0:44:40 But oh my gosh, it’s going to cost you, folks. It’s going to cost you.
0:44:46 Yeah. So this is the ultimate question. What is a multi-year contract with Scott Galloway
0:44:49 and Ed Elson? What is that going to be worth in 2024?
0:44:57 All the chickens ale and sea alice that daddy wants. I don’t know. I’ve done a bunch of deals
0:45:02 directly with firms. Money’s meaningful to me right now. It’s not profound.
0:45:04 I’m going to call it profound for me, but let’s keep going.
0:45:10 And in terms of a number, I haven’t thought about a number.
0:45:11 Yeah, you have.
0:45:12 I haven’t thought about a number I’m willing to share.
0:45:18 I basically like to just, I’m building a pool at my new house. I’d like to fill it with cocaine.
0:45:24 And I don’t know how much that would cost. I don’t know how much that would cost.
0:45:27 And I also want to be married under the four or five times to people from Eastern Europe.
0:45:29 I’m curious what that would cost.
0:45:32 Yeah, you got to factor all of this in.
0:45:36 No, this is going to take some real money. Plus, I need a scrotum lift.
0:45:38 I’m getting more and more Botox all the time.
0:45:42 I have it. Look, it’s not cheap. It ain’t me.
0:45:43 It’s not cheap.
0:45:45 It’s not cheap. I got to pay you guys.
0:45:48 You got to get a scrotum lift at the Doha airport.
0:45:50 Yeah, best facial I’ve had.
0:45:54 Well, just on this point of subscriptions versus ads.
0:46:00 So you’re pointing out that ad spend is increasing on podcasts and here’s some data.
0:46:05 Ad spend increased 22% this year according to one research report on all podcasts.
0:46:10 Spotify says 2024 will be the company’s biggest year for podcasting.
0:46:16 And on a separate note regarding subscriptions, 62% of consumers who use streaming services
0:46:21 report subscription fatigue and that’s up from 46% in 2020.
0:46:26 So ads are kind of becoming king again, certainly the podcast world.
0:46:31 And you made this point that listeners are willing to endure them.
0:46:39 And that is something that we should zero in on because ads are increasingly dominating
0:46:48 this space in 2021 ads took up an average of 7.5% of total podcast show minutes across all podcasts.
0:46:49 And today that number is 11%.
0:46:52 So it’s grown very significantly.
0:46:56 We are hearing more and more ads in our podcasts.
0:47:00 Our listeners, I’m sure will be feeling this too.
0:47:03 We are definitely not bucking that trend.
0:47:09 And there might be a concern soon that podcasts similar to TV are just too ad heavy.
0:47:11 It just becomes insufferable.
0:47:13 So where do you stand on that issue?
0:47:16 Are you concerned at all about just ad fatigue?
0:47:19 So about four years ago, every three months, we would have a conversation,
0:47:23 a serious conversation around taking property and pivot behind a paywall
0:47:27 and putting the no mercy, no mouse newsletter there and just saying a hundred bucks a year
0:47:27 for all of it.
0:47:29 And there’s something that’s very attractive about it.
0:47:35 No ads, focus on the content, have a customer base that is really into it.
0:47:37 Sam Harris is sort of forged this model.
0:47:43 I think Sam Harris probably has three or 400,000 subscribers paying a hundred bucks
0:47:44 to the math.
0:47:45 He’s making a shit ton of money.
0:47:46 He’s very happy.
0:47:51 He doesn’t have to go to the lowest common denominator or read an ad about for some
0:47:53 crypto platform or whatever.
0:47:56 So it was really attractive.
0:47:59 But we were smart enough to figure out, I thought, you know what?
0:48:03 I do think that these advertisers are going to need places and everything is,
0:48:08 we’re going to go, the market is never, the market never finds a balance.
0:48:11 And my subscription is just was the right move 10 years ago.
0:48:14 It’s not any longer because there’s still too many advertisers that need to reach people.
0:48:16 And that number, 23% growth.
0:48:19 I think that means podcasts are growing faster than Alphabet right now.
0:48:24 I mean, that is 23% other than Metta and TikTok.
0:48:28 I think that means podcasts are the fastest growing ad supported medium in the world right now.
0:48:32 And so everyone has their greed glands going and their checkbooks out.
0:48:36 At some point, we’ll hit a limit in terms of ad fatigue.
0:48:40 The thing that’ll happen, that’ll ruin it, if you will, or not ruin it, but change it,
0:48:42 is right now, it’s pretty easy to skip an ad.
0:48:47 At some point, advertisers are going to start tracking ads listened to.
0:48:53 And that that will probably change or force podcasts to reduce the number of ads,
0:48:56 such that people don’t immediately get fatigued and start skipping everything.
0:49:00 Also, what’s different or unique about this medium is the host readover.
0:49:02 We read all our ads.
0:49:08 And it’s been shown that when I say I have a Hastens bed, is that what it’s called?
0:49:08 Hastens?
0:49:09 Hastens.
0:49:09 Hastens.
0:49:10 Anyways.
0:49:10 Hastens.
0:49:12 Hastens, Hastens.
0:49:13 Hastens, Hostens.
0:49:13 Hostens, Hastens.
0:49:15 They’re nice expensive beds.
0:49:16 Yeah, it’s a $12,000 mattress.
0:49:20 Anyways, they’re an advertiser and they were kind enough to invite this into their store
0:49:22 to try a mattress.
0:49:24 And I’m like, I’m not going to go into some strange store and lay down.
0:49:26 Like, that’s supposed to be a feature.
0:49:29 Anyways, it ends up, which I never do.
0:49:32 I think I spilled some rum in my bed or something.
0:49:37 And for the first time, I took the cover sheet off and I see a Hastens logo.
0:49:41 And I’m like, oh my God, I buy this Swiss bitch of a mattress or whatever.
0:49:44 It’s a Northern European mattress that has like–
0:49:45 Swedish.
0:49:47 Gnomes with freakishly small hands sewing this thing.
0:49:49 And it is a great mattress.
0:49:54 But in the next ad read, I will say I have this mattress and I love it.
0:49:55 And the advertiser loves that.
0:49:57 And so do listeners.
0:50:02 The host readover is much more effective because people, when they hear the continuity of your
0:50:06 voice, if they’re on your pod, it means they sort of trust you and they’re sort of interested.
0:50:08 But this is a medium.
0:50:11 The ad market needs a place to find consumers.
0:50:16 This medium is going faster than anything but all but the strongest digital platforms right now.
0:50:18 And people are breaking out their checkbooks.
0:50:21 It’s a great time to be in podcasting.
0:50:25 I’m manifesting a $60 million deal next year.
0:50:26 That’s what I want.
0:50:27 You know what’s funny you said this?
0:50:28 Yep.
0:50:33 I went on, I’m fascinated by ChatGBT and Claude and AI in general.
0:50:36 I went on and I uploaded our numbers.
0:50:39 I uploaded our downloads, our numbers, our revenues.
0:50:42 This is the guy who said, I haven’t thought about it.
0:50:45 I just want to be happy, Ed.
0:50:45 Go ahead.
0:50:47 I just want to make other people happy.
0:50:48 I just want to be healthy.
0:50:51 You know, I’m rich in terms of the number of people who love me, Ed.
0:50:53 That’s how I count well, Ed.
0:50:56 Three different AI assistants to help them think about it even more.
0:50:57 Shut the fuck up.
0:51:03 Anyway, so I uploaded all the data I had on our pods and I said,
0:51:04 please look at all these different deals.
0:51:07 These are the potential partners.
0:51:08 This is when our deal is up.
0:51:10 Please provide me a range of a likely size of a deal.
0:51:15 And both of them came back with nearly the same number,
0:51:16 which I thought was really interesting.
0:51:22 And after the deal is done, I will disclose what AI projected we were going to get
0:51:23 and what we actually got.
0:51:24 But it’s going to be very interesting.
0:51:25 I hope it’s big.
0:51:26 I really hope it’s big.
0:51:27 Let’s take a look at the week ahead.
0:51:31 We’ll see the consumer price and producer price indices for August.
0:51:35 And we’ll also see earnings from Oracle, Adobe and Kroger.
0:51:36 Do you have any predictions for us, Scott?
0:51:39 So it feels as if the worm has turned against big tech.
0:51:42 The CEO of Telegram being arrested in France,
0:51:45 Twitter being banned in Brazil,
0:51:49 Google being found guilty by a court of monopoly maintenance,
0:51:55 the DOJ sending a warning letter or firing a flare across the bow of NVIDIA.
0:51:58 Apparently that wasn’t true, by the way, the NVIDIA subpoena.
0:52:00 That’s what NVIDIA said.
0:52:03 NVIDIA saying they didn’t hear from them.
0:52:06 And then later today, though, didn’t they say that they’ve been in touch or something?
0:52:08 I know they initiated an investigation.
0:52:10 The whole thing is very weird.
0:52:12 But I mean, they’re certainly investigating NVIDIA.
0:52:14 So I think what you’re saying still remains true.
0:52:17 Look, don’t get in the way of my narrative with data and truth, all right?
0:52:20 Anyways, I think the worm has turned against big tech.
0:52:24 And this bullshit that, oh, the screams of free speech.
0:52:27 So news alert, crime is not speech.
0:52:34 If Ed, if you and me owned a hotel and we knew that there was trafficking
0:52:38 and there was child abuse taking place and illegal drugs being sold,
0:52:40 and the authorities contacted us and said,
0:52:42 “We know this is going on there and we need your help.”
0:52:44 And we stuck up the middle finger and said,
0:52:47 “No, it’s free speech. We would be in a world of hurt.”
0:52:49 Crime is not speech.
0:52:53 And people have had it with these folks believing what everyone has been telling them,
0:52:59 from the stock market to a fawning media to bought-off senators and commerce people,
0:53:02 that somehow they are not subject to the same standards of decency
0:53:06 or care for the commonwealth as every other company and every other individual.
0:53:07 So my prediction is the following.
0:53:11 In the next six months, you are going to see a high-profile tech executive
0:53:15 when he or she lands in their favorite vacation spot, cuffed.
0:53:18 The world has had it with these guys.
0:53:22 And we’re going to start to see more local enforcement agencies say,
0:53:24 “Well, if you’re in any other industry, we’re going to arrest you.
0:53:26 So guess what? We’re arresting you.”
0:53:32 This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
0:53:33 Our associate producer is Alison Weiss.
0:53:35 Our executive producer is Catherine Dillon.
0:53:37 Mia Silverio is our research lead.
0:53:39 And Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:53:42 Thank you for listening to Prof2Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:53:46 Join us on Thursday for our conversation with Lynn Alden, only on Prof2Markets.
0:53:55 [MUSIC]
0:54:11 You held me in kind, reunion, as the wall turns
0:54:19 and the dark lights in love.
0:54:29 [MUSIC]

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0:00:37 Hey, I’m Jon Collin Hill, host of a brand new show from Vox called Explain It To Me.
0:00:40 This week, the ethical murkiness of zoos.
0:00:46 Do we as humans feel like we deserve to just be able to walk around and see these animals?
0:00:48 Maybe we don’t deserve that.
0:00:51 Maybe there’s just some animals we don’t get to see.
0:00:53 To zoo or not to zoo?
0:00:55 That’s this week on Explain It To Me.
0:01:02 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:07 Scott, what would be your advice to someone who wanted to start a company with a family member?
0:01:12 First, first word that came into my mind was don’t.
0:01:17 Look, I just think it’s situational.
0:01:21 It’s it’s so much of resting on the family dynamic.
0:01:28 I mean, I always thought I would never want to leave my kids a lot of money and I wouldn’t
0:01:31 want to work with my kids because I enjoy my relationship so much with them that I’d
0:01:36 hate if we didn’t get along professionally that it could put strain on the relationship
0:01:37 itself.
0:01:40 But at the same time, I also love the idea of building something that I could give to my
0:01:46 kids that they could that they could enjoy and build and family businesses.
0:01:50 A lot of people, you know, there’s a lot of family businesses and for a lot of people,
0:01:52 I think they’re very rewarding.
0:01:53 I just think it’s situational.
0:01:58 If two brothers get together and they have an idea for something, I get it.
0:02:03 I would think, and maybe this is because I’m not very close with my family, I was close
0:02:08 with my mother, but I hate having that many eggs in one basket.
0:02:13 It’s just the idea of adding another potential point of dysfunction where you start a business
0:02:15 together and it doesn’t work.
0:02:16 I just think it’d be devastating.
0:02:22 Like, if I started a business with my son and it didn’t work, right, and it put tension
0:02:26 on the relationship, that would be heartbreaking for me.
0:02:31 So what I would suggest is that if you are thinking about a business with a family member
0:02:36 that you immediately have an informal board of directors and that is someone outside of
0:02:42 the family that you both trust that can serve as a fiduciary for kind of coaching you around
0:02:48 issues, because it’s one thing if your business goes bad, but to strain a relationship in
0:02:51 a family, I think it would just be devastating.
0:02:56 I knew one of the nephews and nieces, one of the privileged jerks of the Bronfman family,
0:03:01 and I remember I had to share with them in the Hamptons, and this person was shitposting
0:03:03 Edgar because he’d lost so much money.
0:03:06 I’m confused why a Bronfman was in a sharehouse.
0:03:07 Yeah.
0:03:08 Sorry, go ahead.
0:03:09 He was in a sharehouse.
0:03:10 Yeah.
0:03:11 Yeah.
0:03:12 He had hot friends.
0:03:17 Anyways, but I remember her just talking so much shit about Edgar because he bought
0:03:21 some company and turned $8 billion of their fortune into a billion.
0:03:22 I don’t know.
0:03:26 It just feels, and then, you know, my entire insight into a family business is succession
0:03:31 and they all look fucked up and like they hate each other, so my general instinct is
0:03:38 I don’t want to say never, but I think you’re better off doing it with friends because I’m
0:03:41 still close with my initial business partner.
0:03:42 No, it’s not true.
0:03:44 We’re still friends, but we’re not close.
0:03:47 We just had a different approach to business over time, and while we’re still friends,
0:03:49 I invest in his companies.
0:03:53 I know I could count on him for anything, and he knows he could count on me.
0:03:57 But if we were like brothers, and there was sort of that what I’ll call easing back from
0:04:03 the relationship, I think it would put a strain on our brotherhood, and I just, I think family’s
0:04:04 so precious.
0:04:13 My initial inclination is tread carefully around that.
0:04:15 Welcome to First Time Founders.
0:04:20 Since COVID-19, the dynamics of the workplace have significantly shifted.
0:04:24 Nearly half of Americans today feel unsatisfied with their jobs, and more than half feel they
0:04:27 are lacking in professional growth.
0:04:29 Companies meanwhile have done little to address this.
0:04:35 83% of companies say developing leaders is important, but only 5% have actually developed
0:04:37 leadership programs.
0:04:41 My next guest, while at business school, came up with an idea to address the problem, an
0:04:45 online platform for group-based leadership development and coaching.
0:04:49 And to get this idea off the ground, she tapped a veteran, her co-founder as a former partner
0:04:54 at Goldman Sachs, a current board member of Amazon and PepsiCo, and also happens to be
0:04:56 her mother.
0:05:01 After launching in 2020, the mother daughter duo went on to raise $4 million in funding
0:05:05 from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, and now works with over a dozen Fortune 500
0:05:08 companies to support their emerging leaders.
0:05:15 This is my conversation with Jordan Taylor and Edith Cooper, the co-founders of Medley.
0:05:17 Jordan and Edith, thank you for joining.
0:05:19 Thanks for having us.
0:05:24 So you are definitely the first mother daughter duo that we’ve had on the program.
0:05:29 We’ll get into that relationship in a bit, but let’s just start with the company.
0:05:33 Jordan, what is Medley and what inspired you to start this company?
0:05:36 Medley is an enterprise group coaching platform.
0:05:37 So what does that mean?
0:05:43 We work with large companies to design, launch, and scale group-based coaching programs, solving
0:05:47 for connectivity in addition to leadership development.
0:05:52 And our participants are usually people in their 20s, 30s who are really looking to figure
0:05:57 out their careers and how they want to lead and influence others.
0:06:02 The idea for Medley was actually inspired by a course that I took in my last semester
0:06:03 at Harvard Business School.
0:06:09 It was called Authentic Leadership Development, and the class took place in small groups.
0:06:14 So you’re sitting with six people in a room for two hours every single week.
0:06:16 It was completely transformative.
0:06:21 I learned so much about myself, about other people, how to engage with them.
0:06:24 My perspective was expanding.
0:06:29 And after I did some digging, I realized that these small groups were actually everywhere.
0:06:34 They were in a lot of different spaces, whether it was AA or Weight Watchers or religious
0:06:40 constructs, even with executives, organizations like YPO existed and had a huge success.
0:06:45 And so as I was thinking, okay, how could we build something where more people can access
0:06:53 this meaningful growth experience? I had been keeping my mother in the loop and from the
0:06:58 lens of thinking about exploring this idea, I think there’s something in groups.
0:07:00 Not sure what the business is.
0:07:08 She had retired from Goldman Sachs about six months prior to one of these pivotal conversations.
0:07:13 And she thought she was going to retire, join a couple of boards, spend a lot of time outside
0:07:16 and with friends.
0:07:20 And she actually called me after one of those updates and said, “Jordan, I think we should
0:07:22 be building Medley together.”
0:07:23 Oh, wow.
0:07:24 Yeah.
0:07:25 Okay.
0:07:29 So I think, did she know what it would be like to build a startup from scratch?
0:07:30 No.
0:07:34 To be fair, neither did I.
0:07:38 But I think that’s just been a highlight of the experience that I’m sure we’ll delve
0:07:39 more into.
0:07:40 Yeah.
0:07:44 We’ve been really working on the business together for the past five years.
0:07:48 My next question for you, Edith, was going to be how did Jordan convince you, but it
0:07:50 sounds like you didn’t need much convincing.
0:07:56 No, I really didn’t because what she was focused on was something that had always mattered
0:08:01 deeply to me as a business person, as a leader, and quite frankly, as a human.
0:08:09 I had the good fortune and shall we say, persistence to have worked in financial services for more
0:08:11 than three decades.
0:08:16 And my last job at Goldman Sachs was running human capital management, otherwise known
0:08:17 as HR.
0:08:20 That was an interesting time at Goldman.
0:08:26 And it became very clear to me then, probably because it was my full-time gig, but it always
0:08:34 been clear that my job, our job as colleagues, as leaders, as people were to create an environment
0:08:38 where people can really thrive, not just a certain type of person who can morph themselves
0:08:43 into the mold of what had been successful before, but for a broad group of people who
0:08:46 brought many talents to the organization.
0:08:51 And so as Jordan and I were talking about the significance of learning how to show up
0:08:57 for yourself in the context of others, that’s how I think about groups and groups performance.
0:09:01 It seemed like it was something that was so important and I wanted to join.
0:09:07 And I also wanted an opportunity to work closely with Jordan.
0:09:15 I’d been her mom since day one, but I saw the evolution of her approach to business
0:09:19 and to commerce, and I thought I could learn a lot.
0:09:21 And I certainly have.
0:09:24 How do these group lessons work?
0:09:25 Is there a leader?
0:09:28 Do people, is it sort of like a seminar?
0:09:29 How does it work?
0:09:33 So your methodology works, it is pretty far from a seminar.
0:09:36 So we have coaches who lead every group session.
0:09:40 So from a participant standpoint, the first thing you do is you fill out our matching
0:09:44 questionnaire and we match you to a group of other leaders who are experiencing similar
0:09:49 challenges and are in a similar place in their careers and leadership journeys.
0:09:54 The groups meet over the course of eight sessions, over the course of four to eight months.
0:10:01 So they’re working with the same coach throughout, but it is very different and far from a typical
0:10:02 training.
0:10:06 You know, when you think about the training that you might have at your company, you might
0:10:10 think of sitting in a big room, watching a big screen or watching a Zoom lesson.
0:10:11 Yeah, a presentation.
0:10:12 Yeah.
0:10:14 No, this is incredibly interactive.
0:10:19 Our coaches are really going deep with people and our style really does incorporate the
0:10:23 personal and the professional because it’s so clear now that there’s just a blending
0:10:28 that is a result of the world that we live in.
0:10:34 Edith, do you think that what you’re providing now is missing based on your experience, you
0:10:39 know, you’ve worked at Goldman Sachs, you’ve also been on the boards of Etsy and Slack,
0:10:44 you now sit on the boards of Amazon and PepsiCo, do you feel like what you’re providing with
0:10:49 Medley is missing from large enterprises such as the ones you’ve worked at?
0:10:53 I think that if you were to talk to most organizations, certainly the ones I’ve been
0:10:58 involved in, and you asked what really makes a difference to the culture, at some point
0:11:02 they would say cultural values and they could name them and they would say managers are
0:11:05 important, leadership is important.
0:11:10 But I would say historically, when you said, okay, what does that mean?
0:11:14 You’d get a lot of different types of answers.
0:11:16 Some people would say, oh, there’s a lot of soft skills.
0:11:22 You have to, you know, be approachable, accessible, et cetera, but what I’m seeing now, what we’re
0:11:29 seeing is that what we used to think about as soft skills, listening, reacting, interpreting,
0:11:32 understanding, are not actually soft at all.
0:11:36 They are actually quite challenging.
0:11:37 They’re hard.
0:11:42 And so what Medley does is it creates opportunities for people to show up in these small groups
0:11:47 of six to eight people with a professional coach to really put to practice how they show
0:11:53 up as individual for the benefit of themselves, but also the benefit of the group.
0:11:54 What is a group?
0:11:55 A group is a team.
0:11:57 What is an organization?
0:11:59 A bunch of different teams.
0:12:05 And so it’s been very, very exciting and rewarding to see the impact that we’ve made on the
0:12:07 employees experience.
0:12:12 We’ve worked very hard to make sure that Medley is integrated into the overall talent framework
0:12:15 and we’re excited about the forward.
0:12:17 And by the way, I totally agree with that.
0:12:22 My experience, my professional experience so far is that most of work is soft skills.
0:12:26 Granted, I’m in a kind of niche industry, but it’s all you’re just working with people.
0:12:28 So you’ve got to get along with people.
0:12:31 And if you do that, my view is that you will succeed.
0:12:37 But I’m wondering, you know, having been basically global head of HR at Goldman, do you think
0:12:43 that soft skills have historically been undervalued or underrated or soft skills kind of making
0:12:45 a comeback at this point?
0:12:49 People are showing up at work today as humans.
0:12:54 They are not as excited about leaving who they are behind.
0:13:01 They want to be able to see leadership and be themselves authentic.
0:13:08 And they want to be able to talk about not just what’s going on in the day-to-day workplace,
0:13:11 but what’s going on everywhere else.
0:13:17 And that’s hard if you don’t actually take the time to be intentional to learn how to
0:13:24 listen to people, to figure out who is talking and who’s not talking, to think about how
0:13:28 to respond when you disagree with someone.
0:13:32 And an environment like this where the pace of change is extraordinary, there’s a lot
0:13:37 going on in the world that presents interesting opportunities, but there are a lot of challenges.
0:13:39 You’ve got to be able to do that.
0:13:40 Those are not soft skills.
0:13:47 Historically, if you are a deep subject matter expert, and it is probably still true in certain
0:13:48 organizations, you can get a long way.
0:13:54 You really can, deep, deep, deep understanding of your craft, whatever organization you work
0:13:55 in.
0:14:00 But what happens is over time, as you get better and better and better, what do you get?
0:14:06 More responsibility, and it’s more responsibility for other human beings.
0:14:12 And so medley is an opportunity to give people the space to learn what that should feel like
0:14:14 and how you should action it.
0:14:16 And it’s a completely different job, right?
0:14:22 When you’re a manager of a team, that’s not the same as just being really good at being
0:14:23 a great programmer.
0:14:28 But it’s strange that we have this system where if you get better at your vertical in
0:14:31 a way, then you get more responsibility of the people, but I guess you don’t get taught
0:14:34 how to manage people.
0:14:37 I mean, if you could solve this problem, I would love this.
0:14:44 I would love it if I could myself be an incredibly good listener, work well with people, and
0:14:46 I could make everyone at my company be the same way.
0:14:49 That would be a dream.
0:14:52 But it seems very difficult to do.
0:15:00 And I could imagine walking into one of these group coaching sessions, and you know, someone
0:15:05 tells me you got to get better at listening, and I’m like, okay, sure, how do you actually
0:15:06 implement this?
0:15:12 How do you actually coach this stuff, which to me feels like more of an inherent trait
0:15:13 in people?
0:15:18 You know, I think certainly if the session was designed and you showed up and it said,
0:15:23 all right, your growth area is listening, just listen better, would not be incredibly
0:15:25 effective.
0:15:31 That said, if you shift the frame and really do accept that listening can be a skill you
0:15:35 can practice, a group is an incredibly powerful space to practice that.
0:15:40 Because imagine if you’re working with a coach one-on-one, the coach can relay back,
0:15:44 you know, I’ve heard in your feedback that sometimes you come across like you’re not
0:15:45 paying attention.
0:15:46 Great.
0:15:52 If you’re in a group of eight other people, and the coach is actually saying, Edith, how
0:15:56 do you respond to what Ed just shared, it’s putting you on the spot.
0:16:01 It’s creating that space for you in a pretty low-risk environment to actively listen and
0:16:02 to practice.
0:16:07 And so, you know, in a group session, there is active role-playing where we will do and
0:16:14 practice listening or communicating, navigating conflict, those types of skills that are incredibly,
0:16:16 incredibly difficult.
0:16:21 I will also add that where we are from a technology standpoint presents a pretty exciting opportunity
0:16:26 to make these skills much more tangible for people and actually build upon them in a way
0:16:28 that people can measure and understand.
0:16:32 And that’s something that we’re spending a lot of time on now, is how do we take these
0:16:39 skills like listening, giving feedback, influential communication, inclusive leadership, how do
0:16:45 we take these skills and really make them measurable and understandable for both individuals
0:16:47 and for companies?
0:17:10 I’ll be right back.
0:17:14 When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met on the debate stage, it was obvious that these
0:17:16 were two very different people.
0:17:19 But JD Vance and Tim Walls actually have a lot in common.
0:17:21 They’re both white men from the Midwest.
0:17:24 They’re both family men, and they were both in the service.
0:17:27 But they disagree on what it means to be a man.
0:17:28 Here’s my light pack.
0:17:32 Surround yourself with smart women and listen to them, and you’ll do just fine.
0:17:35 Today Explained, every weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:17:50 We’re back with First Time Founders.
0:17:55 When I look at your resume, so you worked in consulting, you worked at Boston Consulting
0:17:56 Group.
0:17:58 You were a chief of staff and a successful startup.
0:18:00 You went to Harvard Business School.
0:18:03 You have kind of the perfect founder resume.
0:18:05 Did you always know you wanted to start a company?
0:18:06 I did not.
0:18:13 I think my experience at Mike, which is the startup that I worked at prior to business
0:18:18 school, really started to spark that interest.
0:18:24 I was excited by the amount of ownership that you can have in building a business.
0:18:28 I was excited by the genuine and authentic sense of teaming that you have with people
0:18:32 who are all in it, trying to do something crazy with each other.
0:18:39 After I’d graduated, I did have a strong instinct of wanting to build a company, but I do want
0:18:41 to go back to something you said.
0:18:47 On paper, I think I do have a resume that can scream entrepreneur, but Edith and I are
0:18:50 a very atypical founding team.
0:18:56 Firstly, we’re mother-daughter, secondly, we’re both black women, third, we don’t come
0:18:58 from a technical background.
0:19:04 Although, for the business that we’re in, I will say our technical skills are quite
0:19:07 relevant, just different.
0:19:12 It’s been interesting for us as we’ve built the business, grown the business, built a
0:19:17 team, engaged with investors, engaged with enterprise-level customers, figuring out our
0:19:23 own style, and actually figuring out how we can use our difference to our advantage.
0:19:30 You launched in 2020, as I mentioned, you raised this $4 million round, you’re partnering
0:19:32 with Fortune 500 companies.
0:19:36 Take us through just the trajectory of the company so far.
0:19:39 What have been some of the highlights, maybe some of the challenges?
0:19:42 How has the company changed over the last four years?
0:19:44 We’ve had two big pivots.
0:19:51 The first pivot was our original plan was to launch in April of 2020 as an in-person
0:19:55 membership community for people looking to invest in their personal and professional
0:19:56 growth.
0:20:01 If you can imagine a worse business to launch in April of 2020, where you bring people together
0:20:08 in small groups, in small groups, closed environment, in a physical space, Medley’s
0:20:11 pretty much it, the first iteration.
0:20:17 We remember vividly in March, we had the coaches lined up, we were putting finishing touches
0:20:23 on the office space for the space that we just signed, and we had to completely pivot
0:20:25 to an online model.
0:20:31 We had no idea if we could replicate that sense of connection, that impact, the dynamics
0:20:33 with the coaches.
0:20:34 We had no idea.
0:20:41 And so we ended up regrouping, doing some online testing, and launching Medley as a primarily
0:20:45 online community in August of 2020.
0:20:51 We then spent a couple of years building with individuals who recognized the need and who
0:20:55 were excited to invest in their own leadership development.
0:20:59 We had members from, I believe, 20 different countries around the world.
0:21:02 We got a great amount of traction.
0:21:08 And then towards the end of ’22, we actually were getting market pull from organizations.
0:21:11 So people were going back to their companies saying, “I participated in this thing called
0:21:12 Medley.”
0:21:15 I think other people here could benefit from it.
0:21:20 And then we’d get emails from people in the talent side of organizations saying, “Hey,
0:21:22 we’d like to learn more.”
0:21:28 And so it became really obvious at the beginning of last year that this was the huge opportunity
0:21:29 for Medley.
0:21:36 It was in helping large organizations connect and grow their emerging leaders, and help
0:21:41 solve for a few combining challenges that they’re experiencing right now.
0:21:49 It’s been very exciting, although a challenging time to build a company, most definitely,
0:21:51 but we definitely have enjoyed it.
0:21:54 So why don’t I add a couple of challenges?
0:22:01 Pivoting is exciting, but it’s also hard because you’ve invested in building the apparatus
0:22:04 to support an in-person model.
0:22:10 You incur the expenses associated with that, and then you don’t need it anymore.
0:22:19 This challenge, the fundraising environment can be challenging.
0:22:27 We were well-positioned in our seed round with a terrific group of investors.
0:22:40 We were marching towards the next raise in, was it the spring of last year, SVB, problematic.
0:22:46 Just say some of the people that we were in serious conversations with were very distracted.
0:22:48 That’s challenging.
0:22:57 Fitting your business into the expectations of a certain type of funding can work, but
0:23:02 it could also be challenging when the expectations shift.
0:23:10 So when you move from growth at any cost with profitability not being important to an environment
0:23:19 where people are focused on profitable growth and positive cash flow, could be a challenge
0:23:20 for us.
0:23:27 It’s been a real opportunity because our business has really grown as we’ve bought on more companies.
0:23:32 So therefore, that has swung back the other way, but I think the lesson that we’ve learned
0:23:39 throughout all of this is that you have to be very focused on your customer.
0:23:46 Make sure that you understand the value proposition that you’re offering, and then be prepared
0:23:52 to take in all that you learn from testing to adapt along the way.
0:23:57 You often say we’re flying the plane and we’re changing the windows at the same time.
0:24:05 Maybe that’s not a very nice analogy, but nevertheless, you’ve got to be able to adapt.
0:24:10 I have to say, that’s one of the things that I’ve had to really get used to because when
0:24:15 you work in a large enterprise in financial services historically, you have quarter to
0:24:18 quarter earnings.
0:24:23 These are tremendous amount of focus on risk and risk management, and just give it a go
0:24:25 and hopefully it works out.
0:24:31 But when you’re building something in a new category, you have to be willing to try things
0:24:34 and some of those things will not work.
0:24:35 Very different.
0:24:38 Yeah, I’m sure a huge mindset shift for you.
0:24:43 I do want to shift to the mother-daughter dynamic.
0:24:45 We’ll start with you, Edith.
0:24:50 What is it like starting a company and running a company with your daughter?
0:24:53 What have been some of your main takeaways?
0:24:58 I think that in the first instance, I got what I signed up for.
0:25:07 I have always, always believed that the future is in the hands and in the minds of those
0:25:13 that are coming up through schools, arriving in the workplace, et cetera, and I’ve gotten
0:25:14 all of that.
0:25:19 We had a different way of thinking through opportunities.
0:25:26 Our team is in the same genre and it’s just been an incredible experience.
0:25:34 It’s a very trusting experience because we’re related and I therefore don’t have the, “Okay,
0:25:37 well, what’s happening with this person and is she thinking this and the other?”
0:25:40 There’s that inherent trust.
0:25:50 I think that the challenges, though, are that in some ways, it feels like work is getting
0:25:54 put before our life.
0:26:00 For example, Jordan calls me Edith and every now and then, outside of the workplace, she’ll
0:26:01 say, “Hey, Edith.”
0:26:02 I’m like, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
0:26:03 This is a mom moment.”
0:26:04 Oh, so you switch.
0:26:05 She switches.
0:26:10 And that’s important from our colleagues’ perspective.
0:26:16 So that’s been kind of interesting and then the only other thing that I would add is that
0:26:23 I have worked in large organizations and been responsible with incredible colleagues for
0:26:29 many, many people, big budgets, big opportunities, big challenges.
0:26:34 Although I always prided myself in not being the decision maker, I always wanted everyone
0:26:39 to own it and would step in when I needed to.
0:26:45 At the end of the day, people knew that I was the decision maker and I was accountable,
0:26:46 too.
0:26:51 But working with Jordan, when we first got started, I didn’t want that dynamic.
0:26:52 She’s the CEO.
0:26:56 Jordan is the CEO of Medley and I am the co-founder.
0:27:01 And so there were many circumstances in the first months where we would be in meetings
0:27:04 and I wouldn’t really say much.
0:27:07 And I remember that meeting, Jordan, when we walked out and you’re like, “Why didn’t
0:27:08 you say anything?”
0:27:09 I was like, “Well, you’re the CEO.”
0:27:11 I was like, “Yeah, but you know the topic.”
0:27:13 Can you just jump on in there?
0:27:19 And so it’s been really great because I didn’t want to be the over-the-top boss lady.
0:27:22 We’re peers in this context.
0:27:25 We’re running this business and building this business together with our colleagues
0:27:26 at Medley.
0:27:31 And so that’s been a bit of an adjustment to know that we are coming at things.
0:27:34 There are some different angles and there are going to be moments where I’m going to
0:27:36 take the lead and that is the right way.
0:27:39 It’s kind of like what it’s like in any organization actually.
0:27:44 But here, I was more sensitive to it than I had been if she were not my daughter.
0:27:47 I can imagine it’s way more sensitive.
0:27:49 I would imagine it’s more difficult.
0:27:51 What’s the experience been like for you, Jordan, as the daughter?
0:27:54 It’s been incredibly meaningful.
0:27:59 Even just from the standpoint of growing up, my mom worked a ton.
0:28:06 She had very high-powered jobs and 10 a.m. on Tuesday, I was at school.
0:28:10 She was at work and we would reconnect when she came home from the office.
0:28:15 Now we start most of our days talking to each other.
0:28:21 And it is a highlight when at 7.30 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., I get a call.
0:28:22 Are you awake?
0:28:23 How are you doing?
0:28:24 I still have bad habits.
0:28:31 I start super early and I still kid myself and say, “You don’t have to answer me right
0:28:36 away at 6.30 a.m.,” so I work it on that, but that’s a hard one to break.
0:28:41 But I will say sometimes it’s work and sometimes it’s not.
0:28:47 And I have learned so much from getting to work with her.
0:28:50 How to engage with people, how to listen to people.
0:28:53 A lot of the skills we’ve been talking about earlier.
0:28:58 My mind is often blown and sometimes I leave the meeting and I’m like, “How did you even
0:28:59 see that?
0:29:03 How did you know that this person was thinking X, Y, Z to tee this up?”
0:29:05 It’s absolutely incredible.
0:29:09 So from a professional standpoint, I’ve learned a lot.
0:29:14 And I will say also from a personal standpoint, I’ve learned a lot by getting to see my mother
0:29:21 in a working environment and see how she handles stress from work that I’m very, very close
0:29:27 to and juggles it from priorities and it’s constantly prioritizing.
0:29:34 And I think I will echo the challenge that she shared around creating space for work
0:29:37 and life.
0:29:41 That is always difficult.
0:29:49 We have built up enough trust now that if I say, “I need mom mode or I need work mode,”
0:29:50 we’re able to switch between them.
0:29:51 Is that what you say?
0:29:52 Mom mode, please?
0:29:53 Yeah.
0:29:58 Can we just put Medley on pause for a second and talk about X, Y, Z?
0:30:03 So all in all, it’s really enhanced our ability to communicate and we’ve gotten to know each
0:30:06 other in a very different way.
0:30:12 It’s a very unique experience and I’m excited for the future as we continue to grow the
0:30:17 business and both of our roles continue to evolve to continue to learn.
0:30:21 The co-founder relationship is a very stressful and fraught one.
0:30:29 I’m very close and then the mother and child relationship is very close, trusting, loving
0:30:32 and also pretty fraught and stressful.
0:30:38 Has there ever been a moment where the pressure of work has put a strain on your personal
0:30:41 relationship in a negative way at all?
0:30:42 No.
0:30:43 I’m getting a shaking of the head.
0:30:44 Do you agree, Jordan?
0:30:45 No, no, yeah.
0:30:46 I don’t think so.
0:30:47 It’s not great.
0:30:48 She’s like no.
0:30:49 She’s aggressively saying no.
0:30:50 No, it’s perfect.
0:30:51 Go, Jordan.
0:30:52 Exactly.
0:30:53 Sorry.
0:30:54 Go ahead, Edith.
0:30:55 Your own’s with no.
0:30:56 No.
0:31:00 I just, first of all, we want to let it go there.
0:31:02 And it’s not that we agree on everything.
0:31:13 I think we’re very conscious of being respectful of each other’s opinions, taking into consideration
0:31:20 the opinions of other people on the medley team, and I honestly cannot think of a single
0:31:27 time where it’s gotten so challenging that I would sit and talk to my other two children
0:31:32 or my husband about, you know, oh my gosh, you know, this is just out of control because
0:31:33 we talk about it.
0:31:40 See, that’s the thing about being a related mother, daughter team is that we really do
0:31:45 even when we’re not agreeing on something, believe that we have the same goal.
0:31:49 Yeah, I think that we work it through.
0:31:50 What do you think?
0:31:52 I would absolutely agree with that.
0:31:56 And it doesn’t mean, as Edith said, that we don’t disagree about things, that there
0:32:02 aren’t moments of challenge or tension in any healthy relationship, you’re encountering
0:32:03 all those things, right?
0:32:10 You’re encountering joy, you’re encountering affection, you’re encountering disagreement.
0:32:15 But we do really have each other’s best interests at heart, and I think that’s important for
0:32:19 any relationship period, but especially a co-founder relationship, if you have that
0:32:26 level of trust, and you know the other person is, you don’t have any worries about the other
0:32:33 person’s intentions, you’re able to communicate and navigate three different challenges, and
0:32:37 it’s really been a highlight of building the company, has been getting to work, to work
0:32:39 with Edith, work with my mom.
0:32:47 So it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses, but we know each other so much better.
0:32:52 We know like a third dimension of how we exist and how we operate, which is really fun.
0:32:59 It sounds like you both went into this kind of unusually skilled at the separation of
0:33:07 work and life and making strategic decisions and separating that from your emotions and
0:33:14 you describe, you call Edith in certain situations, mom in certain situations.
0:33:17 Did you know this going into, or has this been a training program?
0:33:18 How did you figure this all out?
0:33:19 There’s a playbook.
0:33:20 There’s no playbook.
0:33:25 There’s no playbook for someone like myself who worked in large institutions previously
0:33:33 for 35 years to roll up into an organization where it’s Jordan and myself sitting in a
0:33:38 two-seater because we didn’t want to spend the money on a three-seater in a shared workspace,
0:33:40 but you pay attention and you learn as you go.
0:33:46 We were looking for our first analyst as an example, and there were so many things going
0:33:47 on.
0:33:51 It was really super early days, and Jordan looked at me, she said, “This was calling
0:33:52 me mom.
0:33:53 There’s only the two of us.”
0:33:59 And she says, “Mom, you ran HR for 35,000 person organization.
0:34:02 You must know how to find candidates on LinkedIn.”
0:34:05 And I’m like, “Uh, that would be a no.”
0:34:10 I said, “I could call somebody who can help me figure out candidates on LinkedIn.
0:34:17 I’m willing to give it a go,” but there were those moments of, “Oh, oh, yeah.
0:34:24 You actually weren’t operating yourself personally every aspect of all of the roles for the last,
0:34:31 I don’t know, 15, 20 years,” but we moved forward and we sit together and we figure
0:34:37 out how to leverage the platform or any other platforms and et cetera, et cetera, but there’s
0:34:40 a lot of that because what do I know?
0:34:48 I know a lot about the things that I’ve experienced, as does Jordan, but I really respect that
0:34:56 there’s much in this construct of standing up medley from ground zero in a new category,
0:35:01 working together as a mother, daughter, co-founder team.
0:35:07 There’s as much that we have to learn and there is no playbook for that.
0:35:10 There’s no playbook.
0:35:17 That’s one of the things we have most in common is our voracious need to try to learn as much
0:35:19 as we can in every context.
0:35:26 We both fundamentally believe we can learn from any situation and from any person.
0:35:31 That shared value has enabled us to work through these types of things and build up that muscle
0:35:33 of communicating with each other.
0:35:38 For myself, I take my growth as a founder, as a CEO, really seriously.
0:35:45 I have had a coach, I’ve been in a group, a group of other founders, I have a therapist,
0:35:50 I take my exercise, sleep, all that stuff pretty seriously and so does Edith.
0:35:57 She does not miss a workout, let me tell you, every day, she doesn’t mess around.
0:36:02 I think that has been a huge enabler for us because it’s not as though we showed up on
0:36:06 day one and then just said, “Okay, let’s see what happens.”
0:36:11 It actually was a super intentional process for both of us to always be trying to learn,
0:36:15 to share feedback with each other, to invest in ourselves and invest in each other.
0:36:22 But this concept of there is no playbook is, I think, becoming the norm, not just for founders,
0:36:27 but for any organization that wants to be relevant today and into the future.
0:36:29 What is the playbook?
0:36:33 What is the playbook when a new drug changes the consumer appetite?
0:36:39 What is the playbook when technology that has been around for decades explodes into this
0:36:43 new incredible world of machine learning and AI?
0:36:49 What is the playbook for next year, let alone for the next 10 years?
0:36:57 And so I think that much of our experiences are similar to what we are talking with the
0:37:02 organizations that we’re working with about.
0:37:08 When you think about what it takes to really build sustainably important organizations,
0:37:13 you’ve got to really have a culture that enables people to connect how they operate,
0:37:17 how they interact, all those things that we were talking about with respect to listening,
0:37:21 communicating, et cetera, to the ultimate goal.
0:37:28 So if everybody walked out of the room and says, “I feel really heard and I feel included,”
0:37:32 but you have no idea what you’re supposed to be delivering and how you’re supposed
0:37:35 to deliver it, that’s not the point of all of this.
0:37:41 The point of all of this is to really appreciate the fact that in any kind of a business environment
0:37:48 where the playbook may be known today and not, you’ve got to have intellectual versatility
0:37:55 to operate and to engage in a very meaningful and steady, quick way.
0:38:01 And that’s what’s super exciting for me about sort of reinventing myself into a founder.
0:38:16 We’ll be right back.
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0:39:54 This is an unexpected question.
0:39:56 So good job.
0:40:06 I think it’s something that I knew, but I would say it’s been accelerated to the top
0:40:14 of my consciousness, and that is, you have to be present.
0:40:18 I think throughout the years, I have three children, Jordan’s the oldest, I have two
0:40:19 boys.
0:40:28 As Jordan described, a pretty intense professional existence, and as time went by and I got more
0:40:35 ownership of my schedule, et cetera, I would show up from Mars, it seems, sometimes.
0:40:43 My longest trip was from New Zealand to Providence, Rhode Island to see my Sunplay soccer.
0:40:53 But I would say that sometimes I was there, and I could have been more present.
0:40:56 But I was doing the best I could, and I was giving myself high marks.
0:40:57 I just shared this story.
0:40:58 It wasn’t that incredible.
0:41:00 I traveled all the way around the world.
0:41:06 But I do think that I’ve learned, particularly because we have to be very deliberate about
0:41:14 the separation of work and our lives, that when Jordan says, “Oh, can I just talk to
0:41:19 you about a few things that are not …” That is focused time.
0:41:21 That is really focused time.
0:41:32 And when I hear, “I’m not having a good morning,” I have to really respect that in a different
0:41:33 way.
0:41:35 I’m kind of a, “Let’s go.
0:41:37 Let’s push through.”
0:41:43 And I think that’s a good lesson for motherhood, that you want to have that relationship where
0:41:52 when someone, when your child says, “I’m struggling with something that you don’t try to fix it,
0:41:55 because I’m a fixer.”
0:42:02 And so that I’ve learned a lot with working with Jordan in Medley, that when she asks
0:42:11 me a question about life or work, she’s actually most of the time not asking me for the answer.
0:42:14 She’s asking for an opportunity to talk it through.
0:42:19 In fact, just the other day, you’re like, “Listen, listen, I just want to talk it through.
0:42:20 I’m not asking you to do it.
0:42:23 I just want to …” Because I’m like, “Okay, I got this.”
0:42:24 She’s like, “No, you don’t.
0:42:25 I need to talk.”
0:42:29 I’ve been studying this for a long time.
0:42:31 So that was a really interesting question.
0:42:37 And I’ll add, we’re expecting our first child in the fall, and we’re having a girl.
0:42:39 So this will be really funny.
0:42:42 I don’t think she can work in the business quite yet, but just give her a couple of years
0:42:44 and it’ll be a three-generation business.
0:42:51 And I will say the thing that I’m trying to embrace entering this huge life transition
0:42:55 is just the unpredictability of everything.
0:43:02 I mean, I have gotten so much more comfortable with both ambiguity, so looking into the
0:43:06 future and not knowing exactly what it’s going to look like.
0:43:12 And also just the lack of control that we really have over things.
0:43:15 You don’t think that you start a fundraised process and then Silicon Valley Bank is going
0:43:16 to collapse.
0:43:20 You don’t think you’re going to launch an in-person community and then COVID-19 happens.
0:43:24 You just don’t think that’s going to happen, but that’s life, right?
0:43:26 Life is pretty unpredictable.
0:43:32 And I’ve built up a lot of confidence, my ability to just navigate unexpected situations.
0:43:38 And I think that will help me in parenting because from what I can tell and seeing my
0:43:43 friends and even seeing, you know, in my family with my siblings and my cousins, you don’t
0:43:47 know what the child’s going to be like, you don’t know what life’s going to give you.
0:43:52 And part of that is part of the fun, I would say.
0:43:53 So I’m looking forward to that.
0:43:57 Do you have any like hold boundaries, like, you know, don’t text me at this time or anything
0:43:59 like that?
0:44:10 I try not to engage and in fact, I don’t actually engage with Jordan about work on Sunday afternoon
0:44:11 at four o’clock.
0:44:18 That was a really bad habit I had because the cadence of the week gets started, I get
0:44:22 myself organized and, you know, I’ve done that for 35 years.
0:44:24 So it was a hard thing to break.
0:44:29 And it was very disruptive actually to Jordan and her husband and, and quite frankly, everyone
0:44:30 around me.
0:44:34 So, you know, and for me, that’s a hard rule.
0:44:39 We were choking earlier about the 630 text.
0:44:40 I don’t really do that that often.
0:44:42 I get up sometimes at five o’clock in the morning.
0:44:47 I don’t do that because that’s a drag, you know, you get up whatever time you get up,
0:44:50 you see this text, you’re like, don’t even have your mind, right?
0:44:57 You got to like, you know, so that’s a pretty hard rule to look if I’ve got something that
0:45:00 really needs to have a conversation.
0:45:05 I don’t put it in a text at seven in the morning, you know, say, Hey, give me a call when you
0:45:06 can.
0:45:11 And the other thing I think is very important in this conversation about first time founders
0:45:16 is that people are watching you, whether you have three people, 10 people, 20 people,
0:45:22 whatever the number is, people do care about the balance that they have in their lives
0:45:27 more every, every year.
0:45:30 And I think that’s really important and it matters.
0:45:37 And so therefore, you know, I, I can get pretty intense, Jordan can get pretty intense and
0:45:43 quite frankly, most of the people on our team can, but I really have watched very closely
0:45:50 how Jordan has been very clear and respectful of people and their lives.
0:45:55 And so that when someone is on holiday and hasn’t been on holiday and is really delivered,
0:46:02 she will literally say, okay, anything that’s going, you know, to this person, you know,
0:46:06 is going to go into an inbox, I’ll be watching the inbox just so you know.
0:46:08 And that’s different from the Goldman style.
0:46:14 Oh, perhaps. Yes. But you know, the interesting question is, what is it like?
0:46:18 I haven’t been in Goldman for, you know, six years now almost.
0:46:20 What is it like now, perhaps?
0:46:26 And there were moments then where, you know, there was no working for investment banking
0:46:31 on Saturdays and whatever the case may be, but all of this is in response to the reality
0:46:38 of who’s showing up and people show up wanting to be human beings with work being part of
0:46:40 their existence, not their only existence.
0:46:46 I’m going to shift to a quick lightning round here about organizational management, which
0:46:47 I feel like you both are experts here.
0:46:52 I’m just going to throw you some questions and we’ll get your hot takes on some of these.
0:46:54 So we’ll start with Edith.
0:46:57 How can companies make meetings more productive?
0:47:00 Make sure there’s a clear agenda.
0:47:04 Hope people accountable for doing the work before they come to the meeting.
0:47:11 And as participants in the meeting, keep it concise, not my specialty.
0:47:18 So I’ll work on that and pay attention to who talks and who doesn’t talk.
0:47:20 Clear follow-ups to conclude.
0:47:24 Jordan, is remote work overrated or underrated?
0:47:26 Personally overrated.
0:47:32 But flexibility, I will say, is really what’s valued from what we’re seeing in terms of
0:47:33 remote work.
0:47:34 That’s a really concise answer.
0:47:35 That’s good.
0:47:37 Let me see what I can do.
0:47:38 Let’s go.
0:47:39 She’s learning from the master, right?
0:47:45 Edith, what is the best way to measure employee success at a company?
0:47:51 The productivity of the company, not just in terms of the bottom line, but in terms of
0:47:58 what the reputation of the company is and how they deliver that profitability.
0:48:00 That’s employee success, right?
0:48:03 That doesn’t happen without employees being successful.
0:48:08 Jordan, when it comes to decision-making, do you prefer using your instincts or data?
0:48:09 Data.
0:48:15 But Edith prefers instincts, so we are a great match in that regard.
0:48:16 Okay.
0:48:17 Why are you pro-data?
0:48:19 Why is Edith pro-instincts?
0:48:28 I think for me, data is more my natural approach, although at this point, I’ve really been working
0:48:29 on this.
0:48:34 I do try to make decisions based off of instinct more.
0:48:40 The way I describe instinct is that it’s actually a cumulation of your experiences.
0:48:46 Instincts are informed by data, but I think to start, my natural inclination is, well,
0:48:50 I want to understand and get all the information, but when you’re running a startup and over
0:48:54 the past five years I’ve learned, you really can get all the information, so you have to
0:48:55 use both.
0:49:00 Edith, how important is DEI, and do you think it’s something that every company should
0:49:02 be implementing?
0:49:10 Every company that wants to be a relevant company needs to invest in their people and
0:49:16 create environments where everyone can thrive, and that’s everyone.
0:49:22 That’s people who are part of the majority, people who are from different schools, from
0:49:25 different languages, cultures, etc.
0:49:29 Many people have asked me, particularly in the last year, what’s going to happen with
0:49:30 DEI?
0:49:31 Is it going to be over forever?
0:49:32 I don’t know.
0:49:33 Do you want to be an excellent company?
0:49:37 If you want to be an excellent company, you continue to do the work.
0:49:39 You can call it what you want.
0:49:40 You have to do the work.
0:49:46 Do you think it’s been politicized in a way that’s been destructive to organizations?
0:49:56 I think that it has certainly been politicized, and I don’t think it has been particularly
0:49:59 productive.
0:50:07 I don’t think it’s been as disruptive as people might think, because strong organizations
0:50:13 with strong cultures understand how important it is to extract excellence.
0:50:15 People ask me, “What should we call it?”
0:50:21 I said, “Why don’t you just call it excellence,” because that’s what it means to have a truly
0:50:26 diverse organization from a number of different perspectives.
0:50:33 All the organizations that I’ve worked with and continue to talk to, they’re moving forward
0:50:36 because they want to be great.
0:50:42 To be great, you have to have the diversity of experience, perspectives, culture, sexual
0:50:43 orientation.
0:50:47 The list will just continue to get longer and longer.
0:50:49 What an exciting opportunity.
0:50:55 Jordan, this one came to me because we were discussing the idea of bringing a full self
0:50:58 to work.
0:51:04 Is there space for political opinions in the workplace, and should leaders be taking
0:51:07 up political opinions if they choose?
0:51:11 It really depends on the company and their culture and their values.
0:51:16 For some companies who have made statements that they do not want to engage in the political
0:51:21 dynamic, those companies are going to attract people who want to work in those environments.
0:51:25 On the flip side, companies where leaders really are taking a stand or voicing their
0:51:31 opinion in whichever direction, the same thing is happening.
0:51:34 People are going to be drawn to working at those companies because that’s a value that
0:51:37 they care about.
0:51:43 Finally, I think that there needs to be a way for leaders to acknowledge what’s happening
0:51:48 in the world and give space for employees who are probably processing in some way or
0:51:49 the other.
0:51:54 That’s what we try to do internally at Medley is really just giving space for people.
0:52:00 I do think that we’re just going to see some real self-selection in terms of employees,
0:52:03 and they’ll vote by going where they want to work.
0:52:08 Real questions from me, and thank you both for being generous with your time.
0:52:11 Edith, actually, we’ll start with Jordan.
0:52:13 Some advice to our listeners.
0:52:18 We have a lot of female listeners on the show.
0:52:21 Scott seems to think we don’t, but we do.
0:52:25 Do you have any advice on how to be a good daughter?
0:52:31 I will say as you grow up and as you encounter different experiences, embrace the fact that
0:52:34 your relationship with your mom might change.
0:52:35 That can be exciting.
0:52:36 It can be a good opportunity.
0:52:37 Are you a dad?
0:52:38 Yes.
0:52:39 You’re right.
0:52:43 Or you’re a dad with your parents.
0:52:49 Embrace this fact that your relationship with your parents likely will change over time.
0:52:53 I think accepting that can really enable new types of relationships to build with your
0:52:54 parents.
0:52:56 Edith, any advice on how to be a good mother?
0:53:06 Not to get a little syrupy here, but love unconditionally because it’s a ride.
0:53:14 If you make that the core of your relationship, it becomes multi-dimensional.
0:53:23 It becomes positive reinforcement, feedback, direction, and just some good hugs from time
0:53:24 to time.
0:53:26 It’ll all be okay.
0:53:33 But if you start with that center and you develop trust of caring, anything that comes
0:53:39 your way, you’ll be able to navigate and things will come your way.
0:53:40 I love that.
0:53:44 Jordan Taylor and Edith Cooper are the co-founders of Medley, a group coaching platform.
0:53:45 Thank you very much both for joining me.
0:53:48 Thanks for having us.
0:53:55 Our producer is Claire Miller, our associate producer is Alison Weiss, and our engineer
0:53:56 is Benjamin Spencer.
0:53:59 Catherine Dillon is our executive producer.
0:54:02 Thank you for listening to First Time Founders from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:54:05 Tune in tomorrow for Prodigy Markets.
0:54:15 [Music]
0:54:22 [Music]
0:54:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:03 Support for Prop G comes from better health. Kids are always learning and
0:00:08 growing, but as adults sometimes we lose that curiosity. Your back-to-school era
0:00:12 can come at any age. Therapy can help you reconnect with your sense of wonder.
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0:00:19 entirely online and designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your
0:00:22 schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a
0:00:27 licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge.
0:00:32 Rediscover your curiosity with better help. Visit betterhelp.com/profg
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0:00:45 Support for Prop G comes from NerdWallet. Starting your credit card search with
0:00:49 NerdWallet, smart. Using their tools to finally find the card that works for you,
0:00:54 even smarter, you can filter for the features you care about. Access the latest
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0:01:23 Compare, Incorporated, NMLS 1617539. I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No
0:01:33 Malice. Grief is the receipt for love. Grief and love, as read by George Hahn.
0:01:45 Since the recovery of six hostages bodies in Gaza, I’ve been pondering grief. As
0:01:51 others have said, grief is the price we pay for love, a testament to the depth
0:01:56 of our connection. It isn’t just about losing a loved one, it’s about losing
0:02:04 what they represented to our family, community, and nation.
0:02:10 We share 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, including our capacity to
0:02:18 grieve. Scientists have observed mourning in various species, cats, dogs, dolphins,
0:02:24 and primates. Natalia, a chimp in a Spanish zoo, carried the body of her
0:02:34 deceased infant for months. That’s grief, raw and undeniable. Anthropologists argue
0:02:40 that the anticipation of grief is key to attachment. Our fear of losing a child
0:02:46 drives us to ensure their well-being. We cooperate and treat each other well to
0:02:52 avoid the pain of loss. Paradoxically, mourning also brings us together and
0:02:58 fosters community. On a larger scale, many wars end when the collective grief
0:03:05 becomes unbearable, highlighting grief’s power to both divide and unite.
0:03:11 This capacity for mourning is deeply personal. When our Vishla Zoe passed, our
0:03:16 other dog, Gangster, retreated to his crate for days. More disturbingly, our
0:03:21 youngest son began making his bed and following every parental instruction, a
0:03:28 clear sign of distress. Burial rituals predate civilization and aren’t limited
0:03:35 to Homo sapiens. In Spain, researchers found a 430,000-year-old Neanderthal
0:03:42 burial site. The earliest known human burial, roughly 100,000 years old, was
0:03:48 discovered in Kavza, Israel, where archaeologists unearthed 15 skeletons,
0:03:55 seven adults, and eight children. A 12-year-old boy lay in a rectangular grave,
0:04:02 arms folded, with deer horns placed on his chest. The care taken speaks volumes
0:04:10 about the love felt for this child. From Mesopotamia to Rome, Egypt to China,
0:04:15 burial rites have been integral to preserving human dignity and fostering
0:04:21 community. Even today, actor Nicholas Cage has constructed a pyramid mausoleum
0:04:27 in New Orleans, his iconic performance in Leaving Las Vegas perhaps granting him
0:04:34 some eccentric latitude. Our empirical understanding of grief comes largely
0:04:38 from George Bonanno, a clinical psychologist who challenged the
0:04:43 traditional Kubler-Ross model. Instead of five stages that are understood to be
0:04:50 universal, Bonanno identified four distinct trajectories, resilience,
0:04:59 recovery, chronic dysfunction, and delayed grief or trauma. Resilience,
0:05:04 by far the most common, is a trait Bonanno argues we’re hardwired for.
0:05:09 It’s messy, hence his phrase “coping ugly.”
0:05:13 Mo Gaudet, former Chief Business Officer at Google’s
0:05:19 Ex-Development, shared his process for grieving his son’s death.
0:05:24 One, grieve fully, allowing all emotions.
0:05:30 Two, research and accept the finality of death,
0:05:36 committed acceptance. And three, take a leap of faith,
0:05:40 believing in something beyond the physical.
0:05:46 Mo’s approach, while idiosyncratic, reflects the universal human experience of
0:05:53 seeking meaning beyond death. Mo explained, quote, “acceptance means
0:05:57 understanding that this is your new baseline.
0:06:00 I will never receive another hug from my son.
0:06:06 I will not hear his voice on the phone or see him play music ever again.
0:06:12 That’s my new baseline. I will stop pretending otherwise.
0:06:16 Committed means I can still improve my own life
0:06:21 and the lives of those around me.”
0:06:29 The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has caused immense grief on both sides.
0:06:35 Israel’s trauma on October 7 likely had a wider and deeper impact than 9/11 did in
0:06:40 the U.S., given the relative size of the populations.
0:06:44 The recent recovery of six hostages bodies from Gaza’s tunnels
0:06:49 sparked the first general strike in Israel since the war began.
0:06:53 Tens of thousands are demanding a ceasefire and the return
0:06:57 of remaining hostages. This outpouring of grief might be a
0:07:02 turning point, illustrating how grief can both drive us to war
0:07:09 and compel us to seek peace. Note, I’m skeptical.
0:07:12 Packing my son for his return to boarding school earlier this week
0:07:18 was emotional. Putting away his size 10 new balance shoes,
0:07:23 cologne, and first razor, I thought again about a different darker parental
0:07:30 pain. The anguish of Hirsch Goldberg Pollan’s parents.
0:07:34 Seeing them speak at the Democratic National Convention when Hirsch was
0:07:39 reportedly still alive made the abstract parade of death
0:07:48 painfully real. As Stalin cynically noted, quote, “One death is a tragedy.
0:07:54 A million deaths is a statistic,” unquote.
0:08:01 Arlington National Cemetery with over 400,000 graves is a microcosm of American
0:08:06 history. It conducts about 150 funerals weekly
0:08:11 with the third U.S. infantry regiment guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier
0:08:18 24/7/365. From civil war soldiers to freed slaves,
0:08:23 astronauts to Supreme Court justices, Arlington honors a diverse array of
0:08:28 Americans who’ve shaped our nation. It’s not just a cemetery, but a place
0:08:33 of healing for families of the fallen. A testament to national
0:08:38 gratitude and respect. During the Civil War, the Union seized
0:08:43 an estate belonging to Confederate General Robert E. Lee,
0:08:47 building a cemetery there for thousands of soldiers killed by forces
0:08:52 under Lee’s command. Arlington was also the site of Freedman’s
0:08:58 Village, a refugee camp for former slaves that evolved into a thriving
0:09:03 community. Section 27 holds the graves of an
0:09:09 estimated 3,000 Black Americans who escaped slavery.
0:09:14 President John F. Kennedy rests there, honored by an eternal flame.
0:09:17 General George C. Marshall, Winston Churchill’s
0:09:22 organizer of victory in World War II, lies nearby.
0:09:26 Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy,
0:09:30 and Ira Hayes, a Native American from the Acomel
0:09:36 Awodam tribe, who was one of the six Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima,
0:09:41 also call Arlington their final home.
0:09:45 The Veterans Health Administration serves nine million veterans
0:09:52 across 1,300 facilities. Arlington, in its way, is a health facility
0:09:58 for grieving families. The resources and ceremony committed to it
0:10:05 comfort those who’ve lost loved ones. It’s 355 million Americans
0:10:09 saying to military families, “We recognize your loss.
0:10:15 Your sacrifice has meaning, and we care.”
0:10:21 By custom and law, Arlington is off limits for political content.
0:10:25 Yet, during a ceremony marking the anniversary of an attack
0:10:30 that killed 13 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the Trump campaign
0:10:37 saw an opportunity for content. When stopped, they became abusive.
0:10:42 Trump advisor Chris Lasavita later posted footage of the event,
0:10:47 hoping to “trigger the hacks” in the army.
0:10:51 This desecration of Section 60 poured salt on
0:10:58 open wounds. As Ben Kessling, a former Marine officer, wrote,
0:11:03 “Section 60 is one of the most sacred places for this generation of troops.
0:11:08 It is where those who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
0:11:12 Those graves are visited not by tourists looking for historical figures,
0:11:17 but by mothers and fathers visiting their fallen son or daughter.
0:11:24 In Section 60, wounds are still raw.”
0:11:27 Trump’s actions dishonored not just those who served,
0:11:32 but America itself. The man who called U.S. troops killed in
0:11:38 combat “losers” and “suckers” has found a new low.
0:11:43 His disrespect for America and for those who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice
0:11:48 in its defense is increasingly common. However,
0:11:51 this specific behavior at Arlington is unique
0:11:58 in its callousness. Grief is the price we pay for love.
0:12:02 Our grief testifies to the depth of our connections,
0:12:08 to individuals, communities, and nations. There’s a word for Trump’s actions at
0:12:15 Arlington. Desecration.
0:12:20 Life is so rich.
0:12:22 you
0:12:24 you
0:12:27 (gentle music)
0:12:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:05 Support for this episode comes from The Current. The Current podcast is back with an exciting
0:00:09 new season featuring marketing executives from the world’s most influential brands.
0:00:13 Tune in to hear what’s driving conversation in the fast-moving world of digital advertising.
0:00:17 The unique insights from brands is diverse as Hilton, Instacart, Moderna, Major League
0:00:22 Soccer, and more. And in this presidential election season, The Current explores when
0:00:26 a national political advertiser like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and
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0:01:23 Episode 315, 315 is the area code covering the North Central area of New York State. In
0:01:29 1915, the iconic Contour Coca-Cola bottle was patented. True story, I watched a documentary
0:01:33 on cocaine the other night and I’ve decided that from this point forward, I’ll do a little
0:01:38 blow before I watch anything. That’s right, my new viewing partner, White Girl Interrupted.
0:01:51 Go, go, go!
0:01:56 Welcome to the 315th episode of the PROPHETY pod. In today’s episode, we speak with Simon
0:02:01 Sinek, an international speaker and bestselling author of the books Start With Why, The Infinite
0:02:07 Game, and Find Your Why. I become friends with Simon. He’s one of my, like, speaking
0:02:12 thought leaders slash, I don’t know, friends, if you will. I met Simon or spent some time
0:02:17 with him at Summit at Sea, which I went on, I guess it was more than a year ago now, and
0:02:20 I had one of those moments with him that I will remember for the rest of my life. He
0:02:26 was in London and we were eating at Grangers, which is lovely, which is lovely. And when
0:02:30 I’m out in London, it’s usually twice a day, sometimes as much as five, sometimes as little
0:02:35 as zero. Someone will come up to me and say something nice. And someone locked eyes on
0:02:39 me, came over and I’m like, “Here it comes.” And they came up and said, “Your work is
0:02:43 just so meaningful. Thank you so much.” And I said, “Oh, that’s really nice of you.”
0:02:47 And he shook Simon’s hand and kind of laughed, but he would meant it for Simon, not for me.
0:02:52 And it was one of those moments where I realized what a fucking narcissist I am. Anyway, Simon,
0:02:57 and it happened again during the same lunch before Simon. He has a huge following and obviously
0:03:03 his content really resonates with people. All right, what’s happening? I’m back from the long
0:03:11 holiday. I take most of August off. I got a little distracted and that is my podcast partner on the
0:03:15 other podcast. I have another podcast if you didn’t know called Pivot. And it’s with this
0:03:20 little lady named Kara Swisher and we were invited to the Democratic National Convention.
0:03:26 So, got my ass to Chicago, interrupted my holiday only to find out my security clearance had not
0:03:30 been cleared. I mean, they let in, what’s that guy’s name? Charlie Kirk. They let in like every
0:03:35 Joey Bagadona influencer in the world. It’s like, if you had, I don’t know, over 800 followers on
0:03:40 Instagram, they let you in. But I found out when I landed there that my badge, my security clearance,
0:03:46 had not been approved. So, I immediately took to whatever it was, some social to bitch about it.
0:03:52 And the conjecture was why are you not being allowed into the United Arena? I started going
0:03:57 over my history. I have never been arrested, released a dog. I was held up at, I was imprisoned
0:04:01 at the Nobu Chicago waiting to get into the DNC. Generally, I found the DNC, I thought it was very
0:04:07 well orchestrated. Too long. Too long. It should be three days not four days. Generally, like a great
0:04:13 vibe. I went to the one in 1996. I’ve always been a bit of a political junkie. And I went knowing
0:04:18 nobody and I met this guy and we ended up sharing a room so we could, I was so broke when he was
0:04:23 broke too when we were both there, total tourists. And I think we lied about our names to get into
0:04:27 a bunch of parties. I got to see Al Gore dance at one of the parties. That was kind of the highlight.
0:04:33 Anyways, but I was at the Democratic Convention. What was it? I guess that was 28 years ago when
0:04:38 Clinton was renominated for his second term. I spent time in New York. By the way, New York’s
0:04:42 on fire. It’s just on fire. I don’t care what anyone says. I think New York right now is in a golden age.
0:04:47 That’s about it. I’m mostly just talking about, oh, I went to Nat Tuckett. That was wonderful.
0:04:51 Anyone who’s been there, it’s basically a sandbar in the middle of the Atlantic. It’s
0:04:56 absolutely gorgeous. The thing I love about it is my kids can roam free and get into trouble.
0:05:01 Although it’s such a bummer they keep finding all these great whites everywhere around there. So
0:05:07 I’m just a total mess when my kids go into the water. And then I ended with an idea to speaking
0:05:14 in Brazil. Oh my God, beef, beautiful people. And what I think is arguably the best hotel in the
0:05:21 world right now, the Rosewood, Sao Paulo, what is not to like about Brazil? Seriously. I mean,
0:05:25 it’s just such an amazing, I think it’s probably my favorite place to go, right? It’s actually
0:05:29 my favorite place to go. Yeah, that’s outside of the US. I absolutely love it there. And I went to
0:05:34 the XP conference, which had 50,000 people. It made me want to buy stock in Brazil or buy,
0:05:40 I don’t know, the ETF on the Bolsa or whatever. I think it’s such an impressive culture and people
0:05:46 work hard and love to play hard. The people and the dress there, I was especially impressed with
0:05:52 the dress. Now, granted, I saw a pretty limited slice between the Rosewood and the Soho since
0:05:56 Sao Paulo, but it really is an impressive culture and had a wonderful time there. Just so fucking
0:06:00 far. Is there anything you can do about that, Brazil? Just a little too far. And speaking of
0:06:06 which, on the 11-hour flight yesterday, which leaves at 4 p.m., which makes no fucking sense,
0:06:11 I totally loaded up on movies. I watched “The League” or “The Syndicate of Un-Gentlemanly Warfare,”
0:06:15 which is a Guy Ritchie film. I enjoy his films because they’re so beautiful. And he has beautiful
0:06:22 men and beautiful clothes. And then I watched, oh my God, “Saltburn.” Jesus Christ. I had to
0:06:28 stop it because it was just like too much for me. It was like a little too much for the dog to
0:06:33 handle. I just kind of put my head in between the pillows and was like, “Calm down, take me to
0:06:39 a park with a bunch of tennis balls.” Anyways, an outstanding, what do I call it, outstanding?
0:06:44 Great. Hovering between great and outstanding. But Jesus Christ, that shits a lot. And a real twist
0:06:50 at the end, kind of like a crime game level twist that I did not see coming. I did not see coming.
0:06:54 I can usually guess everything that’s happening in the movie. I’m the kind of jerk that in the
0:06:58 movie leans over to my partner and says, “Oh, you know, the butler did it or whatever.” But yeah,
0:07:03 I did not see that one coming. And then I watched “Napoleon.” “Napoleon” because I like war films.
0:07:08 I thought it was pretty interesting. I did not realize that Napoleon was so obsessed with Josephine.
0:07:12 I thought it was interesting. I would not want to live in France in late 19th century. It seemed
0:07:18 like a pretty violent place where everybody would have their time in the sun and then they cut their
0:07:25 heads off. But I love warfare. I’m interested in war history. Napoleon’s Bonaparte or Napoleon’s
0:07:30 Waterloo, if you will, or him venturing into Russia, started with 400,000 troops, returned
0:07:37 with 40,000, was exiled once, then came back. And his troops really embraced him and then exiled
0:07:41 twice. I just thought it was, I thought it was fascinating. Was it a great film? No. Ridley Scott
0:07:46 is just fun to watch because he gets so much, such big budgets. And the cinematography was so
0:07:50 incredible. And Joaquin Phoenix is obviously a fantastic character. Anyway, those are my
0:07:56 three films. So in order, salt burn, I would definitely see but brace yourself. Napoleon,
0:08:03 if you like war history and the League of Ungently Warfare, I’d say pass or wait till it’s
0:08:07 on Netflix or it’s already on Netflix. I just thought it was just okay. All right, enough about
0:08:13 our travels. We have some news to share here at PropG. Starting next week, we are launching another
0:08:19 podcast called “Raging Moderates.” It’s a PropG podcast co-hosted with our favorite political
0:08:25 gangster and rising star, Jessica Tarlov. If you don’t know Jessica, she is a co-host on the five,
0:08:29 Fox’s weeknight news program and plays a key role in special coverage for the networks.
0:08:35 Everything’s so polarizing. I think it myself is kind of, I don’t know, squarely in the middle.
0:08:38 And I love the term “Raging Moderates.” I said leading up to the election and if it works, maybe
0:08:43 after. Let’s try and explore all views of this using data. Essentially for business reasons,
0:08:48 we should not be doing politics because you just turn off people. Advertisers don’t like it,
0:08:52 but I can help it. I’m interested in it. I think it touches on everything, society, technology,
0:08:56 the economy. And I think it’s, if you want to understand America, if you want to understand
0:09:02 our economy, you need to have some basic rooting in politics. Plus, I just think it’ll be fun.
0:09:08 Anyways, so with that, we hope you enjoy “Raging Moderates.” Love that title. Love that. I came
0:09:13 up with that. I came up with that. A weekly podcast from the PropG universe. New episodes will be
0:09:20 right here on the feed every Tuesday to resist is futile. We’re fucking AOL in the 90s. You stick
0:09:30 your hand into a cereal box and you’re going to get the dog. We’ll be right back for our conversation
0:09:39 with Simon Sinek. Support for PropG comes from Netsuite. There’s no sure far way to predict what’s
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0:11:26 Visit Betterment.com to get started. Investing involves risk. Performance is not guaranteed.
0:11:35 Support for Prop G comes from Mint Mobile. If you’re serious about keeping your budget in
0:11:40 check, your monthly expenses are one of the first places to look. And one thing a lot of us over
0:11:45 pay for is our phones, especially between all the hidden fees and other nonsense phone companies
0:11:51 throw at you, which is why Mint Mobile is doing things differently. When you switch to Mint Mobile,
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0:12:51 Welcome back. Here’s our conversation with Simon Sinek, an international speaker and best-selling
0:12:55 author of the books Start With Why, The Infinite Game, and Find Your Why.
0:13:00 Simon, where does this podcast find you? I am back home in Los Angeles.
0:13:06 So, let’s bust right into it. You describe yourself as an unshakable optimist, and I’m
0:13:11 a naturally pessimistic person. So, I’m curious, how do you maintain your optimism,
0:13:14 especially in challenging times, and what advice would you give to someone
0:13:19 who tends to be, like myself, kind of see the glasses half empty, if you will?
0:13:26 So, optimism doesn’t mean I’m naive nor blind, and it’s not blind positivity. It’s not looking at
0:13:32 a broken world and be like, “Everything’s fine. That’s not how I am. I’m quite cynical a lot of
0:13:37 the time.” But I generally believe that the world tends toward good, and I believe that even if we’re
0:13:42 in darkness, that if we come together and work together, we will get through this, and we will
0:13:46 come out better than we went in. So, it’s the undying belief that there’s a light at the end of the
0:13:52 tunnel. And you’re sort of known as the leadership guy or the why guy, I guess. Break down for you,
0:13:56 what is the definition or the key to effective leadership?
0:14:01 I think leadership is an incredibly misunderstood subject. I shouldn’t really
0:14:09 have to write books about it. I visited rural Kenya recently and met some people who we would
0:14:16 describe as poor. And one of the mamas, she organized a women’s empowerment group where
0:14:19 they sort of help each other out, and she was telling us how she does it and how she
0:14:24 overcomes some of the challenges. And literally, she was telling me stuff that I’ve written about.
0:14:29 In other words, she’s a brilliant natural leader, and she doesn’t do it out of some sort of
0:14:33 philosophical construct. She does it because it’s practical and it works. And if people are
0:14:38 seen and heard and taken care of and feel like they can trust each other, they’ll take risks,
0:14:43 they’ll open up, they help each other. For me, leadership is the awesome responsibility to see
0:14:48 those around us rise. And what we can do when we’re in a position of leadership, whether it’s
0:14:52 formal or informal, rank does not mean that you’re a leader. It just means you have authority.
0:14:57 But if you’re in a position of formal or informal leadership, that you look to the left and look
0:15:01 to the right and say, “What can I do to support?” You’ve often talked about the distinction between
0:15:05 natural born leaders and leadership developed as a skill, and you’ve said that you think it can be
0:15:10 developed. If someone is young, I think I want to have developed those leadership skills. What are
0:15:17 some exercises for doing that? I mean, first of all, I don’t believe leaders are born. I think that
0:15:21 some people have an education when they’re younger. They have a coach, they have a parent,
0:15:26 they have a guardian, somebody in their life, a teacher who does something right. They model
0:15:30 some themselves after that person, and they seem to learn it younger, or they have some trials and
0:15:35 tribulations, and they learn to overcome and rely on other people, whatever it is. But even
0:15:40 some of the great leaders that we admire, if you look back, whether it’s Steve Jobs or Mahatma Gandhi,
0:15:45 you see that they were learning and they didn’t get it right a lot of the time, especially when
0:15:50 they were younger. They learned those skills. For me, fundamentally, the single best thing
0:15:58 a young person can do is really learn to be a friend, learn to put away a device, and learn how
0:16:04 to engage with another human being, learn how to be there for someone, learn how to accept help
0:16:09 when it’s offered, learn how to ask for help, and all of these pretty fundamental things about
0:16:15 adolescence. When we’re very, very young, the only thing we want or need is the approval of our
0:16:19 parents. Look, daddy, look what I made. Watch me jump over the step, and then we give them positive
0:16:23 reinforcement, and all that serotonin flows, and it feels really good. And literally, nobody else
0:16:29 matters except mom and dad’s approval. That’s it. When we reach adolescence and all the hormones
0:16:36 start flowing, we make this change, this conversion where we now crave the approval of our friends
0:16:43 and our peers. Very stressful for us, very frustrating for our parents who are watching
0:16:48 us change. Really essential for a human being to learn to acculturate for the wider group outside
0:16:53 of their immediate family. And so it should be natural that we learn to ask for help from friends
0:16:58 and learn to give help to our friends. So to be a great leader, learn friendship.
0:17:03 You’ve equated it to being a parent that is leadership. What did you mean by that?
0:17:09 Well, you don’t get to choose your kids, but you love your kids and you want to raise them to be
0:17:14 the best that they can be. You don’t often get to choose your team if you’re promoted into position
0:17:22 of leadership, but you still get to celebrate them and try your best to help raise them to be the
0:17:27 best that they can be. And there are a lot of similarities and a lot of things that you can
0:17:32 learn about leadership you can learn from parenting books. For example, affirming a child’s feelings.
0:17:36 You know, dad, I’m sad. No, you’re not. It’s fine. It’s good. What do you have to be sad about? Your
0:17:43 life is great. That’s bad parenting. You want to affirm the kids feelings. Same at work, you know,
0:17:47 to talk people out of their feelings makes them feel unseen and unheard. Good leadership overlaps
0:17:52 a lot with good parenting because it’s interaction with other human beings working to see them build
0:17:57 confidence and be the best that they can be. And sometimes we have to be patient to let them try
0:18:02 again. What do you think the biggest mistake that leaders or managers make? I mean, you mean you
0:18:07 talk about management versus leaders. Nobody wakes up in the morning to be managed. Nobody says,
0:18:12 “I’d like to be managed, please.” But we would all like to be led. And I think what you’re doing is
0:18:16 highlighting the problem. A lot of leaders act like managers. You can manage a process, you can
0:18:21 manage a company, but you can’t manage people. You can lead people. And I think when we start
0:18:29 managing people as if they are a process, things start to break down. And I think another very,
0:18:35 very, very common mistake that newly minted leaders make is they believe that their intelligence
0:18:41 or capacity or their ability to give answers to every question is what gives them their credibility
0:18:46 to lead. And so you’ll see a lot of leaders lying, hiding and faking. They won’t admit if they don’t
0:18:50 know something. They won’t say, “I don’t know.” They won’t ask for help because they fear that
0:18:55 undermines their credibility, which is completely false. We get a lot of questions about mentorship.
0:18:59 So I’ll turn the question to you. What advice would you give someone who’s looking for a mentor?
0:19:05 How do they go about finding a mentor? So when my career was just sort of getting going,
0:19:12 I was introduced to this guy named Ron Bruder. Ron, a very, very accomplished entrepreneur,
0:19:18 really successful. And he was charming and lovely and super helpful and wonderful in our meeting.
0:19:24 And about a week or two later, I called Ron, who’s a very busy man, and he took my call.
0:19:29 And a few weeks later, I called him again. I needed some advice. And he took my call again.
0:19:34 And at some point, we went out for lunch. And eventually, this sort of mentor-mentee relationship
0:19:40 evolved. And I thought of him as my mentor. And I remember we became quite close. And I remember
0:19:45 I was leaving his house one day, and I used the M word for the first time. And I put my arm around
0:19:49 him as I was saying goodbye. And I said, “You know, Ron, I’m glad you’re my mentor.” And he said
0:19:55 something back I didn’t expect. He said, “And I’m glad you’re mine.” And this is what I think
0:20:01 great mentor relationships are, which is it’s both of us are mentors and both of us are mentees.
0:20:05 Somebody who’s had more experience is still learning about the world from somebody who’s
0:20:09 asking for help. However, I think they do evolve like friendships. I don’t think you can go up
0:20:13 to some random person and say, “Will you be my mentor?” Just as you can’t go up to some random
0:20:18 person on the street and say, “Will you be my friend?” It’s a relationship. And for me, the
0:20:23 definition of a mentor is someone who always has time for you. And it can’t be one-sided. You
0:20:26 can’t simply just because someone’s accomplished and you’re not, you can’t just go up to them
0:20:31 and think they’re an asshole because they don’t want to mentor you, just like you can’t think
0:20:34 someone’s an asshole because they don’t want to be your friend. It’s a relationship. And there’s
0:20:39 a lot of sacrifice that comes with it. What I love about mentorship is a mentor is not a champion.
0:20:46 I think people mistake them. Like in a company, you can have champions who can go to bat for you
0:20:50 and put in a good word for you. You can get that promotion. And the best mentors are not in your
0:20:55 chain of command. They’re either outside of your department or even better outside of the company.
0:20:59 And the only thing they care about is you and your growth. And there’s nothing they can do to
0:21:05 interact, intervene. It’s a very pure relationship where you both learn, you both give, and you
0:21:10 show up for each other. Yeah, it’s interesting. I really have had a lot of mentors, but I’ve
0:21:15 never ever asked anyone to be my mentor. I’ve asked for help. Or I said, “Can we grab coffee?”
0:21:19 And like you said, the relationship, the relationship evolves.
0:21:25 Talk about the tension between self-actualization and putting a group’s needs first. You write
0:21:29 a lot about this. Does that tie into what you’ve spoken about regarding leadership?
0:21:39 I mean, you’re hitting a nerve for me. Mas loves hierarchy of needs. That’s self-actualizations
0:21:47 at the top. Mas left me with a bit of a mistake, which is if you look at the hierarchy of needs,
0:21:51 at the bottom, the most basic need he articulates as food and shelter.
0:22:02 And the third rung up is relationships. Now, I’ve never heard of anybody dying by suicide
0:22:06 because they were hungry. I’ve heard of people dying by suicide because they were lonely.
0:22:11 In other words, it seems to be inconsistent with reality that food and shelter would come
0:22:19 number one, but not entirely. Basically, being human is a paradox. Every moment of every single day,
0:22:23 you and I are both individuals, we’re ourselves, but we’re also members of groups. We’re members
0:22:30 of teams, churches, families, whatever it is. And we are confronted with little and big decisions
0:22:34 on a regular basis. Do I put myself first at the sacrifice of one of the groups? Or do I put
0:22:39 the group first at the sacrifice of myself? And people debate this. You always put yourself first
0:22:42 because you can’t help the group unless you’re healthy. You always put the group first because
0:22:45 they won’t be there for you unless you take care of them. And the answer is you’re both right
0:22:50 and you’re both wrong. It’s a paradox, and it’s difficult, and it’s messy. And so Mas love only
0:22:57 considered us as individuals. As individuals, if we lived like great white sharks, 100% correct,
0:23:03 number one would be food and shelter. But as members of groups, it’s different,
0:23:08 and there’s new ones. And so it’s this constant battle between the two. And the thought of living
0:23:13 an entire life to get to the top of a pyramid called self-actualization, where we look down at all
0:23:21 the unactualized people, seems antisocial versus shared actualization, which is raising the team,
0:23:28 raising the company, raising the society, raising the nation. That to me seems more pro-social.
0:23:35 And so good leaders, I think, are doing that. They recognize the paradox. They struggle with
0:23:42 the paradox. But at the same time, they work tirelessly to bring the group that we all rise
0:23:45 together to share an actualization, that we all are working to something bigger than ourselves.
0:23:52 I saw you on the Diary of CEO podcast, and you spoke about people struggling to make friends.
0:23:57 Can you say more about why you think modern society makes it so difficult for people to
0:24:04 develop deep, meaningful relationships? I mean, there’s a host of reasons. No one reason
0:24:09 is the reason. I mean, it’s easy to blame cell phones and social media, and they definitely
0:24:13 play a role, and I think they definitely exaggerate it. I don’t think they’re the sole cause.
0:24:17 Parenting is a big part of it as well. I mean, you and I have gone to restaurants,
0:24:23 and you look over to the table next door, and the parents have slapped an iPhone or an iPad in front
0:24:28 of their little children because they don’t want noisy kids at dinner. They could have brought
0:24:34 colored pencils, and so parenting is a large part of it as well. You see this in education
0:24:38 reform. You talk to teachers or superintendents. They’re all in favor of education reform. Even
0:24:43 the students are up for it. It’s the parents who are often the most resistant because I want you
0:24:49 to reform education, but just don’t experiment on my kids. Cell phones are the same. Schools
0:24:53 want to get rid of them. It’s the parents who are put pressure to say absolutely not, you may not.
0:25:04 I think it’s dramatically exaggerated by the devices, but I also think it’s the
0:25:11 whole thing. Our society, and this goes back a few decades, we’ve over-indexed on rugged
0:25:18 individualism, where it’s all about you, your strength, and we don’t value as much team
0:25:25 celebration, team effort. We did this, not I did this. I don’t know if you ever saw Elizabeth
0:25:32 Gilbert’s TED Talk, but it was magical, and it was hugely helpful to me. She talks about the concept
0:25:40 of genius, and then the pre-renaissance. A genius was a daemon, a spirit that lived in the walls,
0:25:47 and if you did something great, people would say of you, you had your genius. Your genius was with
0:25:51 you, so you couldn’t take full credit for your accomplishments. If you failed, people would say,
0:25:56 “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess your genius wasn’t with you.” You couldn’t take full credit, but you never
0:26:01 had to beat yourself up if it didn’t go so well either. At some point in the renaissance,
0:26:07 having your genius became being the genius. Now, if you accomplish something great, people said of
0:26:12 you, “You are a genius, and now you’re labeled and straddled with that stress for the rest of your
0:26:17 life, and the fear of not being the genius anymore becomes part of the identity, which I think is
0:26:23 part of the failure.” But I think what we’ve done is it’s all part of the package of this over-indexing
0:26:29 on this rugged individualism, especially in America, where we’ve heroized CEOs, and we’ve heroized these
0:26:34 individuals who none of them accomplished their stuff by themselves, but we don’t celebrate the
0:26:41 team, the group, as much. I think it’s acidal. I think it’s part of one of the unfortunate side
0:26:49 effects of Jack Welch and Milton Friedman economics of the ’80s and ’90s, which we’re trying to undo
0:26:55 over the course of these years. Yeah, I think it’s also not uniquely American phenomena, but American
0:27:00 phenomenon. That is, we like to think we live in a meritocracy, and anyone can be anything,
0:27:06 and that’s a very nice aspirational bumper sticker. But if you believe that, the dark side of that is,
0:27:11 well, if it’s truly a meritocracy, and anyone could do anything, then if you don’t end up wealthy,
0:27:16 and in a position of influence, you fucked up. I mean, I know you know this, and I know this.
0:27:20 A lot of our success is not our fault. At the same time, when we screw up, a lot of that is not
0:27:25 your fault. But it feels very American to put pressure on people that if you don’t end up in a
0:27:35 certain position, it’s on you, brother. I completely agree. I mean, I’ve always tried to live with the
0:27:50 formula, the notion that success is the zero sum of effort, talent, and luck. And you want to
0:27:55 get keep those things somewhat, they’re imperfect, and they sort of go like this, but at some point,
0:28:02 they lead to one. So for example, if you win the lottery, no effort, no talent, pure luck, not
0:28:08 stable. If you work really, really hard, but you’ve got no talent, you had no luck, you’re
0:28:12 not going to succeed either. And it’s just really frustrating. And if you have talent that you don’t
0:28:17 capitalize on, again, and so I think you and I both recognize that we’ve tried to steer in our
0:28:23 careers in a direction where we’re more likely to do better than not. Like if I’m really good at math,
0:28:29 I should probably point myself in a direction where math is needed. And if I’m, you know,
0:28:35 maybe not be a football player if I have no athletic ability, no matter what my dreams are,
0:28:39 you know, so we try and point ourselves, we have an unfair advantage because of our natural gifts,
0:28:45 work hard and hope that things work out, you know, you cross your fingers a little bit and
0:28:52 it happens. I’m not the most disciplined person in the world. I have seriously bad ADHD, which means
0:28:57 I struggle to read books. People think I’m really well read. I’m not. I’ve written more books than
0:29:04 I’ve read. And yet I found ways to navigate these things rather than make them bowls and chains.
0:29:10 My sense is you also have a pretty authentic voice, but it’s not easy to manage. I’ve mostly
0:29:16 been able to screen out feedback from social media, mostly, but some of it gets so angry and so
0:29:21 vile. Sometimes it’s difficult to screen out. What do you do to manage and try and maintain
0:29:27 that authenticity without, you know, getting upset all the time and all the shit we get online?
0:29:32 Yeah, I work very hard not to be political. Like I don’t give to candidates. I don’t endorse
0:29:38 candidates. I won’t go to fundraisers. I believe in bipartisanship. So I’ve spoken at Republican
0:29:42 congressional off-sites. I’ve spoken to Democratic congressional off-sites and I give them the same
0:29:48 message because I want unity. So if I preached bipartisanship and picked aside publicly,
0:29:55 then I’d be full of it. So one part is, is I believe that the work that we do is bigger than
0:30:01 politics. And so I try and play at that level. And who I vote for is my business, registered
0:30:07 independent. And I also, in terms of like, because the overwhelming pressure, especially when anything
0:30:13 happens socially, the overwhelming pressure from friends and fans alike to weigh in, it is sometimes
0:30:21 well, high stress, high pressure. My rule has always been that I will, that I will only say
0:30:25 something publicly if I believe that I can be additive. And if it takes me a week to come up
0:30:31 with something that’s additive, then I’m going to wait a week. And it’s very hard to resist the
0:30:40 pressure, but I don’t want to simply add to noise simply because a certain base wants me to join
0:30:46 their side. My rule is it has to be additive. It has to be additive. And by the way, sometimes
0:30:52 I have nothing to say that’s additive. And so I will sometimes be conspicuously quiet. I only
0:30:59 want to contribute, not just, not just virtue signal. It’s funny. I actually thought about you
0:31:04 because in an unusual context, when all these videos emerge, JD Van saying that the world is
0:31:12 being run by these lonely, hateful people without children who have cats. I’m one of them. I thought
0:31:18 of you. I thought, Simon has never been married. It doesn’t have kids. I know you really value
0:31:22 your relationship with your nieces and nephews. And my sense of you is you have a lot of friends
0:31:28 and a good support network. Do you get lonely? Do you feel like you’re judged sometimes for not
0:31:33 going the traditional route in terms of relationships and kids? 100%. So those are two
0:31:42 different questions. I’ll deal with the second one first. So I have a friend who was in a very,
0:31:51 very dysfunctional 16-year relationship. He had, it was just chaotic and dysfunctional. And she’s
0:31:55 been out of it for a few years, but she’ll freely admit that she probably should have been in it
0:31:59 for a year. And she always felt that she could fix him and save him. I don’t know what it was,
0:32:05 16 years of a committed monogamous relationship. I’ve never been married.
0:32:13 My longest relationship was three years. And the world judges me. When I go on dates, like,
0:32:18 women will say to me, “What’s wrong with you?” Some of my friendships are better and closer and
0:32:24 more loving than a lot of marriages or monogamous relationships. And certainly, the life that I
0:32:28 live and the friends that I have are better than that relationship. But why is it that society
0:32:33 says that she’s healthier and I’m unhealthy or she’s correct and there’s something wrong with me?
0:32:38 When people say, “Why haven’t you been married?” I might say, “Isn’t it obvious I haven’t met the
0:32:44 right person yet?” Like, “Isn’t that obvious?” For whatever reasons, I think we’re starting,
0:32:49 we’re in a time now where people are becoming more open to different types of relationships,
0:32:55 that people can be in union without a marriage, raise a family without the marriage. And society,
0:33:00 for the most part, says, “So long as you’re good parents and so long as you’re doing right by each
0:33:05 other and the kids, have at it.” You don’t necessarily need the religious or the legal
0:33:11 document to have the family. And society is more open to that than it used to be. And so,
0:33:19 I’m hoping that society starts to recognize that having fulfilling friendships, having fulfilling
0:33:23 relationships, and by the way, many people would say that the only difference between a close
0:33:27 friendship and a marriage is you can have sex with your spouse. But it turns out you can do
0:33:33 that with friends too. You can be very fulfilled. So, I think you’re right. I absolutely have been
0:33:40 judged my whole life. And the older I get, the judgment is even harsher. And yes, like any human
0:33:45 being, I get lonely. I get lonely. People in relationships get lonely. But yes, of course,
0:33:52 I get lonely. But this is why I love my niece and nephew so much, is because I don’t have my own
0:34:01 kids. They have a little bit of my DNA. And I get to give love to these aspiring magical little kids,
0:34:05 not a little anymore. And I get to impart everything that I’ve learned and who I am
0:34:10 in a way that a parent can’t. I can get away with stuff as an uncle that a parent can’t,
0:34:16 which I know contributes to their lives. And I love that. And they’re both at camp right now,
0:34:20 and I miss them desperately. You know this. You know this. When you had kids that profoundly
0:34:28 changed everything about the way you viewed your life. And I see how you bring your son
0:34:31 with you. So, I’ve just been watching your Instagram and how you bring your son on your
0:34:35 business trip. And you bring your son to games. And you know, you’re trying to give him the
0:34:42 craziest experiences that he can have. And what an amazing thing that, like it’s an amazing thing
0:34:48 to live an amazing life. It’s even more amazing to share it. And define amazing however you want.
0:34:52 But to go on an adventure with a person, I find vastly more fulfilling than going on an adventure
0:35:02 alone. We’ll be right back. Support for PropG comes from LinkedIn. As a B2B marketer,
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0:37:03 I’ve gotten to know you a little bit. And what’s interesting is we’re, we’re actually quite similar
0:37:08 in terms of our profession. And I think I’ve achieved you more so, but achieved certain levels
0:37:12 of success and thought leadership, whatever the hell you want to call it. But what really struck
0:37:17 me was one of the major differences on the, on the front end, I think people say, oh, they’re
0:37:22 similar doing the same thing the same way. You’re really about kind of ideas and impacting people.
0:37:27 And whenever I start to talk about business or we share business ideas or talk about money,
0:37:32 your eyes glaze over. And for me, and I’m not, I’m, I’m not proud of this.
0:37:37 Money is like right up there for me or business or like building successful business that I can
0:37:43 monetize. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve got much better at sharing it. But you’re, you really are
0:37:48 about the ideas. I’m more about the ideas for me are really interesting and I love it. But it’s
0:37:54 a means to, I want to build a robust business. And, and I thought was just so we’re built much
0:37:59 differently that way. Any thoughts? I mean, you’re right. You, you like the money and the success
0:38:05 and the ideas are the means to that. And I’m the opposite, which is I like the ideas and the
0:38:12 business, if the ideas are good, then the business will follow as for me, the, the, the value that
0:38:17 other people put on, on the things that I put out in the world are proof that the, the ideas have
0:38:22 value. Jesus, I sound awful. I, we’ve got to cut this out. That’s like, your rap is so much better
0:38:28 than mine. And then that, that is such a better way. Did you know, no, I, and I’ll tell you why
0:38:37 I disagree with you is you’re honest. Like if, like if investment banks took their stupid purpose
0:38:41 statements down about how they want to help the world or share something or build economies,
0:38:47 which is complete nonsense. And if CEOs of a lot of companies simply said, look,
0:38:53 we’re just here to make cash. I want to get rich. I want the people around me to get rich.
0:38:58 These shareholders want to get rich. We’re going to help them get rich. And we’re going to try and
0:39:03 make a great product for you in order to get rich. I had actually be, that’s what they’re doing.
0:39:07 We all know that’s what they’re doing. They’re just lying to us and saying that other things are
0:39:14 more important. And so the honesty, quite frankly, means that I know what I’m getting and I know how
0:39:20 to invest. And I know how to, I know what level of trust or what barriers or what to believe.
0:39:25 And so, because right now it’s so hard to know what to believe because everybody’s bullshitting us.
0:39:32 And so I find your attitude so refreshing. And you and I are tortured by different things.
0:39:38 And we’re tortured by the, probably the thing that we put second. Like I’m, I’m tortured
0:39:43 that I’m not good at the structure stuff. And like, and you, you sort of say, you know,
0:39:46 you’re more successful than me in terms of this thought leadership, which I don’t even see.
0:39:54 I mean, you’re, you’re, your game is so good. And I, I’m like, I, even though when we first met,
0:40:02 we, I remember when we first met and I was like, okay, it’s kind of a little bit grumpy,
0:40:09 definitely pessimistic where I’m optimistic. I like him. I respect his work, friendship, maybe,
0:40:13 right? And the more I’ve gotten to know you, and we don’t know each other well, but we’ve
0:40:19 hung out a couple of times. I really, I really love spending time with you because I see us as
0:40:25 yin and yang. And I see us as, as actually trying to do the same thing. You have a bigger heart than
0:40:31 you give yourself credit. And you’re, you have a lot more warmth and kindness than you give yourself
0:40:36 credit. I’m probably better at the shit that I beat myself up about them, you know, than I
0:40:41 realize or that I give myself credit for. And you and I make each other uncomfortable because my
0:40:45 strengths are your weaknesses and your weakness, and your strengths are my weaknesses. And that’s
0:40:52 the discomfort, which is spending time with you just reminds me what I suck at. And I’m sort of
0:40:56 having a minor love affair with you and your work. Like when I see you pop up on my Instagram,
0:41:00 constantly, by the way, well done. To resist this futile. I’m AOL in the 90s.
0:41:06 Constantly. Whatever your algorithm, you nailed it. Like I, I actually had to mute you just for
0:41:14 a week just to have a breath. You know, your stuff is getting better. You’re clearer. And I just,
0:41:20 I sit quietly and go, fuck, that’s good. I love how we turn my interviews into me, but back to you.
0:41:25 Well, I’ll share something about me and I, I want, I want you to respond. You said something that was
0:41:29 really interesting. And that is you’re kind of a function of what’s tortured you. I grew up with
0:41:36 real economic anxiety. So it’s just a, it’s a ghost and a demon or, you know, a monkey on my
0:41:41 back. I just can’t shake. I’m always thinking about money. I’m very, very worried about being poor
0:41:47 again. And it’s hugely motivating, but also anxiety driven. And that is sort of my,
0:41:52 I don’t know if it’s my cross to bear, but it plays too big a role in my life.
0:41:57 What do you think it, it tortures you and where does it come from?
0:42:04 So what I know about the concept of why this, which is this thing, this deep seated inspiring
0:42:08 thing inside all of us, one of the things that I’ve learned about it is the thing you give to
0:42:11 the world, the thing you have, that gives you valuing in the world and to your friends and your
0:42:17 relationships is also the thing you need the most. And so it makes perfect sense to me in this balanced
0:42:22 equation of this thing you crave is this thing you fear, you know, that makes perfect sense to
0:42:28 me and that you grew up without means you’re afraid of having going back there. My torture is
0:42:37 I really, really bad ADHD in a time where it was never diagnosed. You know, I was just considered
0:42:43 a hyperactive. My parents, by modern standards, did a lot of the wrong things. I don’t fault them
0:42:50 for it. There was no, there was no, you know, they, they did the best they could with a hyperactive
0:42:55 kid who couldn’t focus and didn’t do schoolwork. I mean, what are you supposed to do? Do your
0:43:00 homework and I didn’t do it. And I’m like, I don’t, you know, and so, you know, I, I’m, I really
0:43:07 struggle to build structure and business is nothing more than structure. That’s what it is. And I
0:43:13 carry like when I talk to people who are brilliant operators and some of my, some CEO, entrepreneur
0:43:17 friends who just, I watch the structures that they’ve built. Now, are they operating, you know,
0:43:22 are they changing the world? Are they contributing to society? No. But my goodness, they built these
0:43:27 remarkable, and I get so insecure because for them it comes so easily. And for me, I really struggle
0:43:34 with it. And I’m to the point where I just stay quiet in those meetings when people like talk about
0:43:39 finance in front of me and they use all the financing jargon or an investment jargon and
0:43:43 they just assume I know it all because I’m at a point in my career where I guess others do.
0:43:49 I literally just have to go quiet out of sheer embarrassment. And so I carry a lot of discomfort
0:43:59 that I really don’t understand money. I don’t understand it. I’m not good at it. And any money
0:44:09 that I’ve made was an accident. And I see people who are contributing to society less work less
0:44:15 hard on the work that they do. And I see them make way more. And I’m not mad at that, but it
0:44:22 makes me feel like, come on, fucker, like up your game, you know. And I feel insecure in the worst
0:44:27 of times. And the best of times, I surround myself with people who are really good at it.
0:44:35 I ask advice, I’ve called you for things that are probably remedial, but to me, they’re advanced.
0:44:40 And just learn to get over the discomfort of asking for help
0:44:43 from people who I fear will judge me because they know so much more than I do.
0:44:48 Yeah, I think what you just described, though, having a lack of financial literacy,
0:44:58 I think you’re describing 97% of America. And I want to be clear. I’ve been wealthy three times.
0:45:02 And the reason why it’s been three times is because twice I lost it all because I was not
0:45:09 financially smart. I could have held on to my wealth. And instead, I was bought into this kind
0:45:16 of VC, fomented zeitgeist of go all in on something. And if you really, if you persevere and never
0:45:20 give up, I should have given up. I should have sold my stock or diversified. Instead, I was going
0:45:27 like 120% in on things. And then some things out of your control, some things in my control,
0:45:32 I just screwed up. But, you know, when the dot bomb implosion happened, I got broke again.
0:45:35 When the great financial recession came along, because I hadn’t been smarter and diversified,
0:45:40 I got broke again. And I think some of the, I hear some embarrassment or self-consciousness
0:45:45 in your voice, I think it’s especially prevalent among men, because they assume if you’re successful,
0:45:51 that you’re not really successful in America as a man, unless you’re financially extraordinarily
0:45:57 successful, and that you just accidentally wake up and get money, right? We’re supposed to be
0:46:01 you know, we’re supposed to wake up and accidentally have, you know, a five o’clock
0:46:06 shadow, a deep voice, a desire to procreate and be just really good at money. Otherwise,
0:46:10 we’re really not men. Do you think that in America, I wonder if one of the things that
0:46:17 creates loneliness among men is that we’re not, we’re so evaluated now, I think women are so
0:46:22 disproportionately evaluated on their aesthetics, but at the same time, men are so disproportionately
0:46:27 evaluated on their professional and financial viability. Do you think it creates more separation
0:46:30 and loneliness that men don’t have these kind of conversations or they feel embarrassed to have
0:46:36 these conversations? That’s such a good question, right? You know, sort of, as you talked about,
0:46:42 which is, you know, what are people posting on Instagram? All social media is marketing. And
0:46:46 if you’re not marketing, you’re not using it, right? Like, whether you’re marketing yourself or
0:46:50 something, it’s, that’s just what it is. All social media is marketing. And so, it’s fun to watch,
0:46:55 as you said, sort of how people market themselves. So, how women market themselves tends to skew
0:47:02 beauty, you know, and how men market themselves tends to skew wealth, you know, standing in front
0:47:08 of the Ferrari, the rented Ferrari. And I think you’re, I think you’re right. And just like we,
0:47:12 and there’s a, and to your point, there’s a lot of conversation about the dangers of social media
0:47:20 for women about creating unrealistic expectations of beauty, especially for young girls, and that
0:47:25 there’s no conversation about the unhealthiness of social media creating unhealthy expectations
0:47:30 for young men and boys. We don’t have that conversation at all. I think you’re 100% right.
0:47:38 And you and I have both talked about this, you know, the dangers of a lonely man, you know, you,
0:47:44 you know, show me, go to the Middle East with, you know, 25% unemployment in a shame-based society,
0:47:48 you’re a virgin and you’re living at home, you know, show me, show me somebody who’s committed
0:47:53 a mass homicide. And I’ll show you somebody that’s generally a lonely man.
0:48:00 Just as we wrap up here, I’ve had this whole wrap about if there’s one enduring skill that you’d
0:48:05 want to accrete to your children, it would be storytelling. That is the key to success across
0:48:10 almost every industry or real success. At the end of the day, you and I make a living storytelling.
0:48:15 And you’re, you’re outstanding at it. You know, I’m one of the, I don’t know,
0:48:19 30 million people that saw your kind of TED Talk that sort of, I don’t know if it made you famous,
0:48:23 but definitely took you to a new level without trying to be trying to be as
0:48:30 immodest as possible. What have you done? And what are your practices and hacks such that you can
0:48:36 maintain sort of your elite, you know, elite athlete status as a storyteller?
0:48:42 Thank you for that. Can I tell a story? I’ll be here all week, try the veal.
0:48:46 It was a former Undersecretary of Defense who was giving a speech at a large conference,
0:48:51 1,000 people, whatever. And while he’s giving his remarks, he takes a sip of from his coffee
0:48:56 that he’s holding in the Styrofoam cup and he smiles and he interrupts his own presentation.
0:49:01 And he says, you know, last year I spoke at this exact same conference, except last year I was
0:49:06 still the Undersecretary. And last year they flew me here business class. There was somebody waiting
0:49:10 for me at the airport to take me to the hotel. I got to the hotel. Somebody had already checked
0:49:13 me in. They just gave me my key. I came down in the morning. There was somebody waiting for me
0:49:18 in the lobby. They brought me to the same venue. They took me in the back entrance. They took me
0:49:23 into the green room and they handed me a cup of coffee and a beautiful ceramic cup. He says,
0:49:27 “I’m no longer the Undersecretary. I flew her coach. I took a taxi to the hotel. I checked
0:49:31 myself in. This morning I came down and took another taxi to the venue. I came through the front
0:49:36 entrance, found my way backstage. And when I asked somebody, “Do you have any coffee?” They pointed
0:49:41 to the coffee machine in the corner and I poured myself a cup of coffee in this year’s Styrofoam
0:49:46 cup. He says, “The lesson is the ceramic cup was never meant for me. I deserve a Styrofoam cup.”
0:49:54 I’ve tried to remember that. That it’s okay to enjoy the ceramic cups. It’s okay to
0:50:01 think about the ceramic cups. One ceramic cups. But at the end of the day, remember that it’s not
0:50:06 being given to me. It’s giving to the position I held in this moment. And when I move on,
0:50:11 they’ll just give it to the next person. It was never meant for me. And I think what that does
0:50:17 are two things. It reminds me where I come from, what I’m entitled to, and it also helps me live
0:50:23 in absolute gratitude. That anything that I get, all the ceramic cups I get to enjoy, I am grateful
0:50:29 for every one of them and think I deserve none of them. And so when you ask me sort of like what
0:50:36 helps me stay true as a storyteller, I think it’s very simple, which is I don’t view myself as an
0:50:41 expert. I view myself as a student. I generally think of myself as an idiot. I’m just more comfortable
0:50:49 with the idea of admitting it these days. And I really like learning. And so the stories I tell
0:50:54 are not actually for your benefit. The stories I tell are to help me make sense of the world.
0:51:00 And the stories I tell help me understand complex things. And if I’m going to explain something
0:51:04 to you, the best way I know how to do it is by telling the story that helped me understand it.
0:51:10 Last question. In five years, kind of first things that come to your mind,
0:51:16 if you’re sitting here in five years and the following one or two things that happened to you,
0:51:20 and that was success, what are those things? What boxes are you still looking to check?
0:51:31 I’m very sorry. I can’t answer the question. I’m living proof that having a plan means nothing.
0:51:37 My entire career was, I would never want to be a public speaker. I never wanted to write a single
0:51:43 book, let alone five. Like nothing I’ve done in my career was in the plan. My plan was thrown out
0:51:51 ages ago. I had one. It didn’t go that way. And so to me, the folly of a plan, it’s like
0:51:58 planning how many miles, it’s like planning which highway you’re going to take and how many miles
0:52:03 you want to drive per day, but not knowing the destination. It’s like figuring out these way
0:52:07 points. Like in three days, what city will you be at if you’re driving across countries? Like,
0:52:13 which direction am I going in? And my focus tends to be so far over the horizon to a
0:52:20 vision, an unrealizable idealistic vision, and the path that I take, I’m agnostic.
0:52:25 And so you’re asking me to tell you what the way point will be. I could tell you something,
0:52:33 and I can guarantee you it won’t happen. So I’m just trying to find the most efficient and fun path
0:52:39 to that crazy, far away place that I know I’ll never get to. And that’s
0:52:42 unnerving and more fun.
0:52:47 Wasn’t it Eisenhower that said plans are useless, but planning is invaluable?
0:52:56 And I think that’s true. I believe in backup plans. I believe in alternative routes. Like if
0:53:02 this one’s blocked, I’m going to go that direction for my career. I believe in going slowly in the
0:53:06 right direction versus speeding off in the wrong direction. So when companies talk about growth at
0:53:14 all costs, I’m like, for what reason? And I’m okay knowing that other people are driving faster
0:53:19 than me, because I know at some point they’ll hit a road. Not that I’m in competing against them.
0:53:23 I just know this from experience. When I was young in my career, I used to go to a guy.
0:53:29 He was very successful. He did similar things as me. He made a ton of money. I made none.
0:53:34 And he would say stupid shit like, I’m not getting out of bed for more than $25,000.
0:53:39 I won’t even get out of bed. And I was like, oh, shit, I do stuff for free all the time because
0:53:44 I really want to talk to somebody or meet somebody or sounds like fun. And he basically
0:53:49 spent most of the time I went to him for advice calling me stupid. Well, I can guarantee you’ve
0:53:55 never heard of him. And my career has faster passed him. And it’s not a competition and
0:54:02 there’s no gloating. For me, the lesson is I’d rather play the slow, steady game than the fast
0:54:08 game where I can show off to everybody. And understand how I think about my career. No
0:54:12 matter how much success I have, however you want to define it, I always think I’m still at the
0:54:17 tip of the iceberg because there’s so much more work to do. And I think focusing on what’s beneath
0:54:21 the ocean, I think keeps you humble and keeps you focused on all the work that has to be done.
0:54:25 But you’re asking me to tell you how much iceberg is going to be above the ocean and I couldn’t
0:54:30 tell you. Simon Sinek is an international speaker and bestselling author of the books,
0:54:37 Start With Why, The Infinite Game and Finder Why. He’s also the founder of The Optimism Company,
0:54:41 which provides programs for leadership development. He joins us from his home in Los
0:54:46 Angeles. Simon, I always enjoy spending time with you. We are so, you’re the most different person
0:54:51 I know that is the same person. And I think that’s what I enjoy so much about spending time with
0:54:57 you is we’re so similar from an exterior standpoint. And you just come at stuff from such a different
0:55:02 perspective as was me and it really illuminates. You just pointed something out to me that
0:55:07 it was sort of puncturing and that is sometimes I think when I’m advising people and I draw my own
0:55:12 experiences in, I think sometimes I’m boasting rather than just helping and I want to be more
0:55:18 cognizant of that. Anyways, brother, it’s always great to speak to you and congrats on everything.
0:55:24 Thanks. And I’m loving getting to know you. I really am. You know, you snuck up on me.
0:55:29 Go on. Like when I see your shit everywhere, legit, I smile like a proud parent. I’m like,
0:55:36 yeah, man, go, you know. And I just, I’m really, I can’t wait to come back to London and spend
0:55:38 more time with you, but properly. I appreciate that.
0:55:55 Out of happiness. I’ve been thinking a lot about grief. This was a rough weekend for me as I’m
0:56:03 sure it was for a lot of people. The news of the hostages being murdered by Hamas in Gaza, specifically
0:56:11 the story of a 23-year-old American Israeli Hirsch Goldberg, Pauline, who was wounded and
0:56:17 abducted by Hamas during the Nova Music Festival Massacre. He was held hostage for almost 11 months
0:56:23 until his body was recovered from Rafa in the Gaza Strip on the 31st of August, 2024. And I’ve
0:56:30 been thinking a lot about why that specific situation has inspired so much collective grieving,
0:56:38 given there’s spent so much death and destruction, both obviously among those killed on October 7th
0:56:43 and those taken hostage, but also so much grief and so much death and destruction
0:56:52 registered by people in Gaza. Why is this young man’s death so rattling? And I think it’s for a
0:57:01 few reasons. One, you can relate to it or they put a face on it. I saw the parents speak at the
0:57:08 Democratic National Convention and just seeing the grief, just so, just the just profound sadness and
0:57:15 anxiety on their parents’ faces. Any parent just looks at them and immediately kind of understands
0:57:20 or comes close to that horror and it puts a face on it. Whereas when we see news,
0:57:25 it just seems somewhat a little bit remote or distant, if you will. So I think it’s putting a
0:57:31 face on it. The story of parents obviously is very a gripping one. If you’re a parent, you just feel
0:57:42 such immense sadness. And I think what it does though, it informs your life. And that is what
0:57:46 you hoped for. And what I’ve tried to do last night, I was a real funk to try and get out of it,
0:57:53 was I thought, okay, the reason I have these fears, the reason I’m so worried about grieving is one,
0:57:57 anthropologically, it makes me a better father. It makes me think about protecting them. I’ve already
0:58:04 called my son today. It does make you a better, it does attach you to them. That fear of potentially
0:58:07 experiencing that grief, putting a face on it obviously from a current standpoint.
0:58:14 But also, as I think about this, it really is a function of the blessings you have. The
0:58:18 grief you feel is because you were put in a position where you were able to attach to others
0:58:22 and you were able to experience what is the most important thing in life and that is deep and
0:58:28 meaningful relationships. And some, I hope all of you listening out there, I would wish for all
0:58:33 of you a lot of joy and deep and meaningful relationships that don’t register grief, but
0:58:38 present the possibility of grief, which is nothing again, but receipts for love and means that you
0:58:44 have people in your life that you care a great deal about. This episode was produced by Caroline
0:58:48 Shagren. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burroughs is our technical
0:58:53 director. Thank you for listening to the PropG Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will
0:58:58 catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice as read by George Hahn. And please follow our
0:59:02 PropG Markets Pod. That’s right, the PropG Markets Pod, wherever you get your pods for the new
0:59:17 episodes every Monday and Thursday. Woohoo! Ka-ching! Mo money! Light up the rail. I want some Bolivian
0:59:23 marching powder. Where’s the, where’s the Dom Peragnon? I want some channel. I want for some bursace.

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0:00:41 – I’m Anu Subramanian from Vox Media.
0:00:43 While I see them all around the city,
0:00:46 I’ve never ridden in an autonomous vehicle myself.
0:00:48 I do have some questions about the tech.
0:00:49 You may as well.
0:00:51 – Hello, from Waymo.
0:00:54 This experience may feel futuristic.
0:00:55 – This is so cool.
0:00:58 – Vox and Waymo teamed up for an in-depth study
0:01:00 about AV perception.
0:01:02 And what they found was that as people learned more
0:01:04 about Waymo, their interest in choosing one
0:01:07 over a human-driven vehicle almost doubled.
0:01:09 – Person approaching.
0:01:13 – Waymo can see 360 degrees and up to 300 meters away,
0:01:15 which helps it obey traffic laws
0:01:17 and get you where you’re going safely.
0:01:19 Swiss Re found that compared to human drivers,
0:01:23 Waymo reported 100% fewer injury claims
0:01:26 and 76% fewer property damage claims.
0:01:30 And speaking of safety, folks identifying as LGBTQIA
0:01:33 and non-binary showed the highest interest in AVs
0:01:35 and women showed the greatest increase in interest
0:01:36 after learning more.
0:01:40 – Arriving shortly at your destination.
0:01:43 – So that actually felt totally normal.
0:01:45 AVs are here and the more you know,
0:01:47 the more exciting this tech becomes.
0:01:49 You can learn more about Waymo,
0:01:51 the world’s most experienced driver,
0:01:53 by heading to Waymo.com.
0:01:56 – Welcome to the PropG Pods Office Hours.
0:01:58 This is the part of the show where we answer your questions
0:01:59 about business, big tech, entrepreneurship,
0:02:01 and whatever else is on your mind.
0:02:02 – Hey, PropG.
0:02:03 – Hey, Scott and team.
0:02:04 – Hey, Scott.
0:02:04 – Hi, PropG.
0:02:05 – Hey, PropG.
0:02:06 – Hey, PropG.
0:02:07 – Hi, Professor G.
0:02:08 – If you’d like to submit a question,
0:02:09 please email a voice recording
0:02:11 to officehours@propgmedia.com.
0:02:14 Again, that’s officehours@propgmedia.com.
0:02:16 So with that, first question.
0:02:19 – Hi, PropG, long time listener,
0:02:22 dating back to the we crashed days.
0:02:25 Anyway, I’m Ruth, I’m from the Bay Area, San Francisco,
0:02:27 and originally from New Zealand.
0:02:31 My question relates to the conversation you have often
0:02:33 about Tesla not reaching its milestone
0:02:38 in regard to self-driving autonomous cars.
0:02:41 My question is, why isn’t there more discussion
0:02:44 about what Waymo has already achieved?
0:02:47 I get that Alphabet isn’t a car company,
0:02:49 but if you look at the streets of San Francisco,
0:02:52 it seems now that every fifth car is a Waymo.
0:02:55 So why aren’t we saying that Waymo’s cracked it
0:02:57 and that they have the potential,
0:03:01 should they wish to go into business with Jaguar
0:03:05 and sell autonomous cars?
0:03:06 – That’s very interesting.
0:03:08 I had trouble focusing on your question
0:03:09 ’cause you have such a lovely voice,
0:03:12 but a shrimp on the bottom, oh, wait, that’s Australia.
0:03:15 Anyway, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat announced
0:03:18 that Alphabet is investing an additional $5 million
0:03:21 into its self-driving car unit, Waymo.
0:03:23 Porat said in the company’s Q2 earnings call,
0:03:25 this new round of funding will enable Waymo
0:03:26 to continue to build the world’s leading autonomous
0:03:27 driving company.
0:03:29 This announcement follows Waymo’s
0:03:31 second city-wide expansion in San Francisco.
0:03:34 Just in June, Waymo removed its wait list
0:03:36 and opened Waymo rides to all San Francisco users.
0:03:37 What are the numbers?
0:03:40 Waymo currently provides 50,000 paid trips weekly
0:03:42 in San Francisco and Phoenix
0:03:44 and has completed two million trips to date.
0:03:46 Waymo’s unit within Alphabet generated
0:03:49 365 million in revenue in Q2 of this year.
0:03:51 That’s up 28% year on year,
0:03:53 but incurred losses of 1.1 billion
0:03:55 up from 813 million the previous year.
0:03:57 Some context on what the rest of the industry looks like.
0:04:00 General Motors autonomous vehicle unit, Cruise,
0:04:02 recently announced it’s indefinitely
0:04:04 delaying the production of the Origin,
0:04:07 which is a self-driving shuttle meant for city use.
0:04:08 This came after Cruise lost its permit
0:04:09 to operate in San Francisco
0:04:11 due to an incident with a pedestrian.
0:04:14 When they say incident, meaning it ran over a pedestrian
0:04:16 and I think like a bull backed up behind it
0:04:18 to make sure to finish the job.
0:04:20 Also Bloomberg reported that Tesla is delaying the launch
0:04:22 of their RoboTaxi by two months.
0:04:24 I think self-driving, it’s not quite up there
0:04:26 with this consensual hallucination of headsets
0:04:29 in terms of shitty business decisions,
0:04:31 but on a cost basis, this or a shareholder basis,
0:04:35 this has probably been a disaster for these companies.
0:04:37 And because GM just doesn’t have access
0:04:38 to the type of cheap capital
0:04:40 where they can keep losing billions of dollars,
0:04:42 their adventures in self-driving,
0:04:43 I would imagine, come to an end.
0:04:44 They just don’t have the money.
0:04:46 And Waymo, the reason why this gets so much attention
0:04:48 is Elon Musk.
0:04:49 And that is he has been,
0:04:51 investors or shareholders of Tesla
0:04:54 are literally like a person on the corner
0:04:57 trying to get home or get to a dinner or whatever.
0:05:00 And they’ve been waiting for their taxi for 11 years.
0:05:02 I think he started talking about self-driving.
0:05:05 According to Elon Musk, it’s always kind of many on him
0:05:07 and like next year, this year, next year, and it never is.
0:05:09 Tomorrow is never today.
0:05:12 Anyways, self-driving has been a gigantic head fake.
0:05:14 It kind of falls under the line of what Bill Gates said
0:05:15 that things that are supposed to take three years,
0:05:16 take 10 years.
0:05:18 This is definitely taking 10 years.
0:05:20 The other thing I don’t buy around Tesla
0:05:22 and the excitement is that how would Tesla,
0:05:24 and this goes to your question,
0:05:27 be able to capture even assuming that self-driving gets here
0:05:28 at some point, it gets ubiquity
0:05:30 that everyone is thinking it’s gonna get.
0:05:34 How does Tesla control self-driving to the extent
0:05:35 that it captures the margin?
0:05:37 I don’t get it here ’cause it seems like Waymo,
0:05:39 to your point, is in the lead.
0:05:41 It doesn’t get nearly the attention.
0:05:42 It probably deserves one.
0:05:43 They made a tactical mistake
0:05:46 and that is they started in San Francisco.
0:05:50 In San Francisco, while having a ton of innovative companies,
0:05:52 the population in the zeitgeist here
0:05:56 is very suspicious of corporations and big tech.
0:05:59 I bet they get a lot less pushback in Phoenix
0:06:00 where people are just like,
0:06:02 “You know, on my way to the,”
0:06:03 I don’t know, “What are they doing?”
0:06:05 Phoenix, I love Arizona.
0:06:07 My dad lived there, beautiful sunsets.
0:06:09 Anyways, it’s coming.
0:06:10 I always thought it should happen in airplanes
0:06:15 ’cause about 80 or 90% of air crash disasters
0:06:17 or air disasters are pilot error
0:06:19 and that it seems to me you’d want a computer up there
0:06:22 but that won’t happen because people need to see some old guy
0:06:24 with thick gray hair who just makes you feel safe
0:06:26 and have them come on the intercom
0:06:28 and say, “Folks, just a little light chop.
0:06:29 “Nothing to worry about.
0:06:30 “Please make sure your seatbelts are fast.”
0:06:33 And anyways, that makes me feel better.
0:06:35 Self-driving, it’ll be here at some point.
0:06:37 It’s not gonna nearly live up to the hype,
0:06:39 I don’t think, around the economics of it.
0:06:42 Tesla is using it as a weapon of mass distraction.
0:06:44 Google has probably spent more money than they would like
0:06:46 but they’re sort of all in here.
0:06:47 I don’t know.
0:06:48 I mean, the only thing I would say
0:06:50 about Waymo not getting as much attention
0:06:54 is that the founders of Alphabet aren’t tweeting
0:06:59 about their ketamine or calling their daughter dead to them
0:07:00 because she went through transition
0:07:03 or saying ridiculous things or launching rockets into space.
0:07:05 I mean, must just get so much attention around
0:07:09 anything he does and Tesla Bulls are looking for an excuse
0:07:12 to justify how this car company,
0:07:15 which should trade at 15, 20 times earnings
0:07:17 is trading at 100 times earnings.
0:07:18 Anyways, start with me under in question,
0:07:20 but love your voice.
0:07:22 Go New Zealand, start a podcast.
0:07:23 Start a podcast.
0:07:25 Question number two.
0:07:28 – Hey, Prof. G, I’m John from Portland, Oregon.
0:07:30 I recently started listening to your pod
0:07:33 and I really appreciate the practical insights
0:07:36 you give on business, marketing, and life,
0:07:37 particularly the insights you give
0:07:40 around raising two young boys.
0:07:42 I’m a father of two little boys myself.
0:07:45 Curran, who’s 10 and Towns, who’s eight.
0:07:48 Both of them love sports, especially soccer.
0:07:50 Recently, we’ve been watching a lot
0:07:52 of the Summer Olympics together
0:07:54 and while we were watching the games,
0:07:58 a new Nike ad titled “Winning isn’t for Everyone” came on.
0:08:00 Now, as a father, I’ve tried to instill the values
0:08:04 of empathy, respect, and kindness to my boys.
0:08:06 When they compete on the soccer field,
0:08:08 I have them focus on their effort,
0:08:11 not the outcome of the match or other people’s opinions.
0:08:15 However, the messaging I watched them soak in from Nike
0:08:17 was the complete opposite of this.
0:08:20 Now, my charitable assumption is that Nike
0:08:22 was trying to communicate how difficult it is
0:08:25 to be the best at something.
0:08:28 However, what they described to me was not greatness,
0:08:30 but an immature, anxious individual
0:08:32 bent on power and dominance.
0:08:35 But my question to you is, as a father,
0:08:37 who’s trying to instill empathy, kindness,
0:08:40 and generosity into his boys,
0:08:43 how would you address this ad by Nike to them?
0:08:46 Do you think the ad missed the mark?
0:08:48 And what are alternative messages
0:08:50 Nike could have communicated about competing
0:08:52 at the highest level?
0:08:55 Thanks again for all the insights in the pod.
0:08:56 If you’re ever in Portland, Oregon,
0:08:59 I’d love to buy you a drink.
0:09:00 – First off, John from Portland.
0:09:02 Thanks for the thoughtful question and congratulations.
0:09:05 I believe that when I am at the end,
0:09:08 I’m gonna look back and the days I’m gonna miss,
0:09:11 the salad days, if I get to go to something called Heaven,
0:09:13 which I won’t and I’m fairly certain
0:09:16 that doesn’t exist, another talk show,
0:09:19 is that Heaven for me would have been going back
0:09:21 to my house where I had young kids.
0:09:25 I just think the noise, the chaos,
0:09:28 I remember my son coming into our bedroom
0:09:31 with a basket of his cars, almost like an offering
0:09:33 that if you let me come in bed with you,
0:09:35 you can have these cars.
0:09:39 And just these moments of like, I just felt so,
0:09:40 I don’t know, like I had a purpose,
0:09:44 like I was working for a reason and these,
0:09:45 I mean, really God does reach into your soul
0:09:48 and turn on a switch, you never knew it existed.
0:09:50 But anyways, congratulations.
0:09:51 I hope you have the presence.
0:09:54 I did mostly to realize these are the salad days
0:09:56 and what you look back on is the happiest time in your life.
0:09:58 Not that you’re not gonna be happy the rest of your life,
0:10:03 but for young kids at home, boys, oh, I’m jealous.
0:10:05 My boys are now about to be 14 and 17.
0:10:08 My 17 year old is into his own thing, that’s great.
0:10:11 My 13, about to be 14, still hugs me,
0:10:13 still wants to hang out with me, which is nice,
0:10:14 but you’re in the sweet spot.
0:10:16 Anyways, back to your question.
0:10:19 So Nike’s gotten kicked literally in the nuts
0:10:21 for the last, last five years at stock,
0:10:21 it’s been cut in half.
0:10:23 It’s gone from being the premier marketer
0:10:25 to sort of what I think is probably
0:10:27 an activist target at this point.
0:10:28 I actually love this ad.
0:10:31 And that is, I think that there is a balance
0:10:34 between kids having a certain amount of empathy
0:10:36 and especially boys having a little bit
0:10:38 of what I’ll call a killer instinct.
0:10:40 And I realize how obnoxious that sounds,
0:10:42 but they sort of, everyone gets a trophy.
0:10:45 Zeitgeist that I think has developed in athletics
0:10:46 has gone a little bit too far.
0:10:50 I do think there’s something to success
0:10:53 and competitiveness that the Nike brand embodies
0:10:56 that I think is actually healthy for young people.
0:11:00 And I mean, when you think about branding,
0:11:02 Nike and Adidas have much different positionings,
0:11:04 but they both work.
0:11:08 Adidas is the joy of sport and it’s more track and field.
0:11:10 It’s more, I would argue, their premier sport right now
0:11:12 that defines them is probably football,
0:11:15 or as you Americans call it, soccer, a team sport.
0:11:18 It’s competing, it’s greatness in the agency of others.
0:11:21 It’s a little more socialist, a little bit more European.
0:11:25 Nike is Michael Jordan, individual achievement.
0:11:28 And the statement that summarizes the Nike brand for me
0:11:30 is you didn’t win silver, you lost gold.
0:11:33 And I think there’s, I kind of like that positioning
0:11:36 and the ad you’re talking about, I actually really like.
0:11:38 It’s like, I’m not there to be on a team.
0:11:39 I’m there to be a monster.
0:11:41 And I think a little bit of that,
0:11:43 especially among young boys, among young girls too,
0:11:47 I think competitiveness is built into our species
0:11:49 because it’s important, it’s key to innovation
0:11:52 and moving the world forward.
0:11:54 I’m competitive with the other members
0:11:56 of the marketing faculty and NYU Stern
0:11:57 and I think that’s a good thing.
0:11:59 And I also realize that competition and cooperation
0:12:02 are sort of this gangster wanting to achieve
0:12:04 for yourself individually and being,
0:12:06 having some of that competitive spirit
0:12:08 and some of that monster inside of you
0:12:11 in conjunction with cooperation and winning
0:12:15 and then having empathy for people who maybe can compete.
0:12:16 I think that’s a nice positioning.
0:12:20 And I think Nike has basically accurately perceived
0:12:22 that everything’s got a little bit too far
0:12:26 in terms of competition has become less quote unquote,
0:12:27 competitive.
0:12:29 I think there’s room for both.
0:12:31 So I kind of like the ad
0:12:33 and I don’t think there’s anything wrong
0:12:35 with building a little bit of that killer instinct
0:12:39 into your son’s DNA.
0:12:41 Does that mean they can’t have empathy?
0:12:43 Does that mean they shouldn’t cooperate?
0:12:46 No, but I like having a little bit of grit,
0:12:48 a little bit of, a little bit of like,
0:12:51 I don’t know, killer instinct in them.
0:12:53 But again, thank you for the question.
0:12:55 And isn’t it wonderful?
0:12:57 What a blessing to be a father of boys.
0:13:00 We have one quick break before our final question.
0:13:00 Stay with us.
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0:16:08 Welcome back, question number three.
0:16:10 Hey, Prof. G. This is Nick coming in from Chicago.
0:16:13 Long time listener to the podcast.
0:16:15 I just read through your new book, The Algebra of Wealth.
0:16:18 I thought there were a lot of great insights from you in there.
0:16:22 One insight I particularly loved was following your talents,
0:16:25 not your passions, and how you should follow what skills
0:16:30 and talents you find in your early 20s and to your 30s,
0:16:34 and act on those that separate you from what you’re doing.
0:16:36 Act on those that separate you.
0:16:39 My question is, what happens when the skills and talents
0:16:41 that you find you have are not aligned
0:16:44 to high-income earning careers?
0:16:47 In my particular case, I’ve worked in education
0:16:48 for over the last five years.
0:16:49 I really enjoy it.
0:16:53 I think the interpersonal skills and mentoring of young people
0:16:55 is something I’m really good at.
0:16:57 The problem is I don’t see it aligning
0:17:00 with the highest salary in the long term.
0:17:02 So if the goal is financial security,
0:17:05 which I want as much as anyone else,
0:17:09 how would you frame aligning your talents and skills?
0:17:10 An industry is like education
0:17:13 that don’t particularly pay as well as others.
0:17:14 Thank you, Prof. Chi.
0:17:16 I really appreciate you and your work.
0:17:17 – Oh, this is a tough one.
0:17:20 If you’re the best at anything,
0:17:22 you’ll generally find a pretty good way to make a living.
0:17:23 I have a friend who’s now a principal
0:17:25 of a junior high school.
0:17:27 He’s a protocol friend.
0:17:28 I haven’t talked to him in a long time.
0:17:31 He started out actually in investment banking.
0:17:33 His name is Ed Hayek.
0:17:35 He’s this tall, handsome guy.
0:17:37 And he like me started investment banking.
0:17:39 He didn’t like it, ended up in education.
0:17:41 I got, he made a lot of money and now he’s principal.
0:17:42 I think of a junior high somewhere
0:17:44 or high school about to retire.
0:17:46 But my guess is he’s made a pretty decent living
0:17:47 for himself.
0:17:48 You’re not going to be a millionaire
0:17:50 or multimillionaire in education.
0:17:53 I mean, it’s very kind of situational dependent.
0:17:56 I think some school districts have pretty good ways
0:17:58 of helping teachers get wealthy slowly.
0:18:01 And that is usually a pretty good retirement plans.
0:18:03 But you have to assess whether or not
0:18:05 the psychic income compensates
0:18:07 for the lack of financial income
0:18:08 that you might get in another industry.
0:18:11 In terms of teaching, if you’re a good teacher,
0:18:13 you can translate those skills to a lot of different things.
0:18:16 Whether it’s going back and getting an MBA,
0:18:18 you sound pretty young and becoming a consultant.
0:18:19 I’m a teacher.
0:18:22 My gangster competence is the gangster competence
0:18:24 in our economy that you’d likely have.
0:18:26 And that’s an ability to communicate
0:18:29 and capture the attention of individuals in a classroom.
0:18:31 I think anyone who can keep the attention
0:18:33 of a 15 year old for an hour,
0:18:35 talking about history or math or biology
0:18:37 or whatever it is you teach,
0:18:40 can probably be a pretty decent consultant,
0:18:44 probably be someone who’s in communications.
0:18:47 But at the end of the day, you’re a storyteller.
0:18:49 And can you translate those skills to something else?
0:18:51 Sure.
0:18:53 But I would have just an open and honest conversation
0:18:55 around what your income expectations are,
0:18:57 where potentially in a school district,
0:18:58 you could make good money.
0:19:00 Also, I don’t know if you have an interest in teaching
0:19:02 in college, but I decided to teach at NYU.
0:19:04 I decided, okay, I thought at the time,
0:19:06 I’m done economically, what do I wanna do in my life?
0:19:10 I thought I wanna teach and join the faculty at NYU.
0:19:13 My first year, I made $12,000 as an adjunct professor
0:19:15 ’cause universities have decided that in order to pay
0:19:18 this really inefficient, unproductive corrupt guild
0:19:20 called tenure, they need to draft people
0:19:23 who want dream of teaching at college
0:19:25 and pay them much less than market.
0:19:26 And that’s like I said, is market.
0:19:29 But adjuncts, clinical faculty.
0:19:30 But I was very good at it.
0:19:32 I was arrogant, whatever, I’m good at it.
0:19:35 And I put more and more butts and more and more seats
0:19:38 and colleges are a business.
0:19:40 And slowly, but surely, I got to the point
0:19:42 where I think I was making probably the benefits,
0:19:44 housing, matching pension, all that shit.
0:19:47 I was probably making around 300 grand a year.
0:19:50 I say was seven years ago.
0:19:54 Virtue signaling alert, I gave back all of my compensation
0:19:57 for the previous 15 years such that I could continue
0:19:59 to bite the hand that feeds me as I’m doing now.
0:20:02 Anyways, the best at anything usually figures out a way
0:20:04 to make a good living.
0:20:05 So I think this involves some soul searching,
0:20:08 some discussions with people you trust
0:20:10 and open an honest relationship with your partner
0:20:11 to get alignment.
0:20:13 And also, I don’t know if you’ve thought about an MBA
0:20:17 or graduate school, but graduate schools love teachers
0:20:19 as they should as they demonstrate a lot of skills
0:20:21 and a lot of concern for the commonwealth.
0:20:23 I’m sorry, I can’t be more prescriptive here.
0:20:26 I appreciate the question.
0:20:27 That’s all for this episode.
0:20:28 If you’d like to submit a question,
0:20:29 please email a voice recording
0:20:31 to officehours@proptimedia.com.
0:20:34 Again, that’s officehours@proptimedia.com.
0:20:46 This episode was produced by Caroline Shagren.
0:20:49 Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer
0:20:51 and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:20:52 Thank you for listening to The Property Pod
0:20:54 from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:20:57 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice
0:20:58 as read by George Hahn.
0:21:01 And please follow our Property Markets pod
0:21:03 wherever you get your pods for new episodes
0:21:05 every Monday and Thursday.