Scott Galloway Discusses the Algebra of Happiness

that is already getting delightful reviews. I read it over the holiday weekend and found it to be a pleasant and enjoyable romp filled with all sorts of good advices. This is gonna be a stocking stuffer and a dad's and grads present for some time to come. I can babble for a long time explaining to you what's in our conversation, but rather than do that, I'm just gonna say, with no further ado, my conversation with Scott Galloway. Our special guest this week is our returning champion, our first

four time Masters in Business UH guests. You know him from his book The Four Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook and how They're Destroying the World. He is a professor at Marketing at n y U Stern School of Business. His latest book, The Algebra of Happiness, just came out to great reviews. Professor Scott Galloway, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks very great to be here, and you are a returning champion. You are our first four time guest at least here in the studio. And you are the first person I

think I've had on consecutive books. No, that's not true. I've had a few people for consecutive books. So let's start um with a little background. You wrote the four It was effectively a class you were giving at n YU looking at marketing and technology. Tell us about that. So the dirty seer great a business school is that the second year is mostly a racket to try and get double the tuition because you really just need the first year. And by the way, that's the same racket

with law school. You really only need the first two years to the third year is grav revenue for USMIL revenue. And my belief is that if we were honest, we would and focus on the kids economic security. We would teach four courses the second year, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, because to understand those four companies is to understand media. Retail, the economy, society, etcetera. So I teach a session of my class called the four. I do a video on

that class. I got a million views. Moon book. My most o the way, that's how I found you was the four Horseman of the Internet. Was one of your first videos? Like who is this guy? This is really fascinating stuff. Yeah that So I got one point one million views, approached by Penguin Portfolio random House, which rolls right off the tongue. Great, it's encouraging when you're when

you're publisher, can't get their name right. But anyways, the most popular car This is a last session and it's where I take a bunch of great research out there and some of my own personal observations and experience, and I tried to distill best practices around creating an arc, an arc of satisfaction into some algorithms and some equations. And it's called the Algebra Happiness. It's my most popular session. Did a video two million views. Boom, next book and

that next book is the Algebra of Happiness. So two million views? How many of those are people in the United States? How much of that is international? Who is watching a video called algebra of happiness. So I get this is weird. I get se mail and about eight percent of my audience is under the age of thirty five.

So I appealed to UM young males, and I write a lot of this through the lens of the you know the individual that is just inherently, you know, kind of wrong when they show up, and that is a white heterosexual male and that's me so but yeah, I find there's an audience out there. I have a cottage industry and coaching and counseling the sons of my friends who are entering the workforce. But yeah, that's it's meant

to be sort of okay. You think you come to business school for economic security, which you're really here for is to develop the skills and domain expertise such as can lead a rewarding life. And we go through these observations UM in the last class, and the kids seem to respond to it. So it's not about money. It's not about the pursuit of more. Although you talk about that UM in the book, there are some really pointing

quotes that that stayed with me. Um. Every wellthy person I know measures their net worth and frightening detail, this doesn't sound like happiness. How much happiness does money really buy? So there is a correlation between money and happiness. Middle income people are happier than lower income people. The affluent are happier than middle income. But that's a bad news. There is a correlation. We live in a capitalist society.

I believe that everyone has a responsibility to be economically sustained. A uh so bust. A move towards economic security is what I tell their kids. But once you get to economic security, housing, healthcare, I can absorb in economic shock, can take nice vacations, which, according to most data in most cities somewhere between a hundred and hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. I think in New York it's probably

closer to seven dollars a year. But once you get to that point, the correlation between money or incremental revenue moneies and happiness flatlines. So the key is at that point in your life, once you get to economic security, if you're fortunate to get there, the money. Additional money is the ink in your pen, and that is it can write different stories. It can make the current chapters burn brighter, but it's not your story. There's also a

myth that billionaires are less happy than millionaires. They're not, but they're no happier either. So there's a real skill to saying, at what point do you stop howling in the money storm and take pause and say, well, what gives me satisfaction? Why am I happy? Because more money won't give you more satisfaction. The terrible thing about a number is similar to what you know in that Great Star Wars episod where Luke Skywalker's trying it convinced Han

Solo to rescue Princess Leah. He says, if you do this, you'll get more money than you'd ever imagine, and Han Solo response, I don't know. I can imagine a lot of money. So if I said to you Berry, I said, all right, what were goals when you were twenty two or twenty five? You said, well, by now, I would probably hope that I had a good relationship with my wife, some economic security, some relevance professionally, and good health. And I'm going to guess that you have most are all

of those things, pretty much. But you you also know how much you're worth, or you know approximately how much you're worth, And it's pretty easy to imagine to five and ten x dot number. And this is you can't imagine ten x. You can imagine double, right, No, I can imagine tennant. You can imagine that you're a smart guy, you can imagine ten so, and that creates uh. You know, it's easy to stay on the spinning wheel and and

or the hamster wheel. And I think it's important that we have the discipline to say, Okay, I need to at some point stop howling the money storm. If I'm fortunate enough to have met you know, more than my basic needs, and figure out what really is meaningful to me.

That's interesting. I know that I've made a number of choices career wise where I've turned down more money that I knew was just going to be a miserable slog for what I think is a pretty reasonable lifestyle and a pretty I mean, I work a lot, but my wife calls me gainfully unemployed. I would be doing the same thing whether someone's paying me or not. So there are choices you can make to not take the bigger, higher paying but horrific, soul sucking job and and just

pursue something. I like to think we're making a difference in what we do that we're if we're not denting the universe like Steve Jobs. At least we're having a positive impact on people. Yeah, well, solgon reverse order. Steve Jobs denied his blood under oath so he could avoid child support payments um a court of a billion dollars. So you know we need more engaged fathers, not a better damn phone. But anyways, be that as a made So you brought up the notion of turning down money

to pursue stuff that you would enjoy more. Thinks there's a larger purpose. All that's important. However, However, I think some of the worst advice that kids get it stern. We invite two types of speakers. We have three speakers a week for luncheon speakers, and it's either super interesting

people are billionaires. We have decided that if you've aggregated a billion dollars, and you must be able to apply on almost anything including life spirituality, you know you're you're the master of all things because you've aggregated a billion dollars. And they end with what I think is some of the worst advice for most of the time, and that is they tell the kids all one thing, and what is that one thing? Follow your dream, follow your passion,

go for it. Such incredible bs because the guy I tell people, if someone tells you to follow their passion, your passion, it means they're already rich. And the guy on stage telling you that is probably made his money in iron or smelting, so not exactly a passionate. There

you go. So what I think are my advice to kids, when I say kids young adults is find something your job is gonna find your passion your job, find what you're good at, and then invest the requisite great perseverance, frustration, endurance around and the injustice that is called the workplace and become great at it. And the accouterments of being great at it, economic security, the respect to your colleagues, the camaraderie you develop with people in the agency of

greatness will make you passionate about whatever it is. But the problem with telling young people to follow their passion is what ends up happening is work gets hard. It does for everybody, and they think, well, maybe I'm not successful here. I don't love it, so it must not be my passion. I should move on. No, that's called work. You can't hate it. I hated investment banking, and I was no good at it, so that was a sign

to get out. But the idea that you know, jay Z followed his passion and as a billionaire, assume you are not jay Z. Assume that like most people, you're gonna have to find something you're good at, invest a ton of time, and become great at it. I have to reference a disclaimer you have fairly early in the book. You write, I have no academic credibility or credentials to indicate I should counsel people on how to live their lives. So why did you write this? So this is in

a journey of personal discovery. We were talking about this off Mike. I struggle from what I would loosely call mild depression and issues with anger. And my sister summarized the problem perfectly a couple of years ago when I was speaking to her, she said, why are you so piste off all the time? And when I look at my blessings and I look at my mood, they don't

foot to one another. And I decided that I would do some research around what are the best practices around people who are able to take stock of their blessings and translate that to their mood and their satisfaction with their own life. And there's a tremendous amount of great research out there. There's best practices, there's worst practices, and I try and summarize them for the kids and turn

it into a class. But it's also been, you know, a great personal journey for me to try and figure out, Okay, how can I ensure that I take that again, my blessings foot to my mood so on that. There's a huge body of research about the positive power of gratitude. You discussed that in the book How how does one live a more grateful life? Well, they're supposedly tricks, and one of them is just writing them down. Suppose we write them down, they cement them. But I think there's

other things too. I think with especially with men, we have a problem communicating admiration and affection for other people. As young men, especially when I grew up in the seventies and eighties, affection meant one or two things. You were trying to have sex with that person, or you were a homosexual. And in the seventies or eighties, for a head of sexual man, both of those things were

considered either suspect or a bad thing. Right, So times have changed, and I think affection if you look at mammals, if you look at where we're happiest, if you look at what we're meant to do, we're pack animals and we're meant to touch each other. Now, unfortunately, because of just some outrageous and criminal behavior in the workplace, we've conflated masculinity with toxicity, and we've said affection in the

workplace is a bad thing. And I understand that, but I think men need to take back affection and be affectionate with their children, expressive affection to their friends. And the reality is it just doesn't take a ton of common sense to recognize and affection isn't welcome, but affection is a wonderful thing. And also just verbal admiration. Like Barry, I think you're an impressive guy. I think you have a really interesting career, and I love the fact that

you talk about your hobbies. You just seem like you just seem like a guy that would be a great mentor a great uncle, the guy people want to hang out with. Saying that most men, when they say that, feel as if they're giving up something. That admiration is a currency that when I say that that it somehow

takes that away from me, especially young men. So what I encourage people to do our young men is to say, look, one of the greatest things that can take you off track is that don't assume that people in your life are telepathic. Thinking loving thoughts about your friends and family doesn't make you a loving person. You have to express these things. And the greatest untapped resource in the world is the good things you feel about other people that

you don't articulate. We assume that people telepathically understand that we admire them, that we respect them, that we're fond of them. And I think the fastest way to increase your short term happiness is to find the courage too when you when you feel good things about other people, to express them. And quite frankly, it's a little bit embarrassing. You make yourself vulnerable. Sometimes it can even be off

putting to the other person. But on the whole, I think it's one of the greatest hacks to feeling more grateful and being more happy. It's just expressing all the good thoughts that run between your ears every day. So you're suggesting an individual can decide to be happy, can decide to be grateful can implement hacks in order to achieve that state. So I think there are best practices, and I don't think there's an equation, and I also don't I want to I want to be I wanna

disclose that. I think there are certain forms of depression and erosies that require outside intervention, but there are through and there is no one equation. So the title is a little bit misleading. One happiness is a sensation. We

were talking about conomen before. When I'm really talking about is the decisions and investments you make through the course of your life such that the ark or the narrative of your life is a little bit more satisfying, and the highs and lows that we all experience swing on a higher plane. I don't think there's any one equation. People have to find their own route. But there are best and worst practices. So the Harvard Grand Study, largest study of its kind on happiness, found worst and best

tracked Freman over seventy five years, over eighty years. And it's interesting started, I think in the twenties, and what which gives you sort of insight into the way we thought about people and what was important in the twenties we decided to track four hundred men, right like who shows about women's happiness? And no women, of course is

surprised by that. And we waited until we tracked them for eighty years or that scientists tracked them for eighty years everything they ate, what they did at work, all of their relationships, their sporting activity or lack thereof their media, and then queried them on a regular basis their levels of happiness and satisfaction. And then aggregated the largest data set on longitudinal happiness ever and then said, what are the best practices among the people who are happiest or

seem more satisfied? What are the worst practices among people who seem less satisfied? One and they had to swap out four principal scientists. So let's start with the worst practice, the one thing that was prevalent or consistent most often across the cohort with the lowest level of happiness. And he guesses alcohol. Alcohol, And that surprised me. And by the way, this is like what I call it, do what I say, not what I do. I love alcohol. I feel as if I've gotten more out of alcohol

than it's gotten out of me. A great Churchill quote. Although although you write in the book that in your twenties and thirties alcohol mess with you, Yeah it did, it did, And I'll come back to that. But basically, alcohol was seen in a lot of instances as ruining relationships,

taking people's health off track, careers coming undone. Uh. And when I when I look back when I first moved to New York in the eighties and I took a job with Morgan Stanley, every night, I'd go out and get pretty much, you know, drunk with other people that felt like they were successful, had a cool place downtown, and it had sort of the sort of call artificial relevance and fabulousness to it. And I found that over time I was less effective at work. I lost touch

with a lot of people. I was investing in relationships with my family, and I decided after two years of that that I was just going to dial it back. And the problem I find with young people is that their litmus tests or whether they have a problem with substances, as they say, am I addicted? Have I had an intervention? Am I living under a bridge? And if they have a job and they're well liked and they're doing well, they think I don't have a problem with substances, but

it's not that black and white. There are nuances here, and eight of substance abusers are functioning substance abusers. The better question is if I dialed down X, Y, and Z substances, whether it's trans fats, whether it's alcohol, whether it's pot, whether it's shopping, would I just be better at a bunch of things? And what I counsel my kids on or my students is take stock of every external substance and imagine you did a half two thirds more.

Because there's also I think this narrative it has to be zero or one. You either have to totally give it up or you don't have a problem. Everything in moderation. But for me it was something where I felt a lot healthier, a lot better on. But yeah, that's definitely the one thing they found happiness the best practice if there is a hack, and of course the students, I want to get to. The one thing is they found that the cohort that was happiest. It was pretty pretty straightforward.

It was based on the depth and number of meaningful relationships in their lives at work. Do you feel respect and admired and do you respect and admire other people? Amongst your friends, do you get a sense of camaraderie enjoy and do they sense camaraderie enjoy from you? And at home, amongst your family, do you feel an intense level of support and love? And just as importantly, do you know they feel that sense of love and joy

from you? In this sense? The Harvard Grant study burned through four principal sciences because they kept dying over the course of those eight years. Summarize this, you know, hundreds something paid report and it has the best opening line of any academic study to summarize the findings, and it's

the following, happiness is love, full stop. And that is the one thing we find across almost all these studies on happiness that it's the ability to invest in and maintain deep, meaningful relationships across your friends and at work and at home. Let's talk about those students. And I want to reference something in the book that I thought was fascinating. There's a chart, effectively that looks like a smile that shows where people in their life cycle are

happiness when they're young and when they're old. Tell us about that. Yeah, it's difficult This is just gore. It's gorgeous data because across all studies and across cutting across ethnic groups, uh income, cohorts, cultures, we found or they find something very similar, and that is people are generally happiest in the beginning and the ends of the lives.

And that is from zero to twenty five, it's the stuff of Disneyland, your first car, exploration of self, spilling into adulthood, football games, you know, just magic, right, and then kind of from twenty to forty five, that's what I call the life gets real phase, and that is you find that you're not going to have a fragrance named after, You're likely not going to be a senator, someone you love get sick and dies. Having children is stressful.

What's interesting we don't like to talk about is that when we survey or when they survey people with kids and without kids, on average, the people without kids are actually happier, not that kids without kids. It is surprising. Now at the end of life, people consistently say, we have a hormone that releases that erases the bad times, and we feel more rewarding and more fulfilled having had kids, But during it they're less happy. It's stressful. Kids are stressful.

They put economic pressure on you. You know, one of my favorite things is, you know, kids ruin everything. Babies are awful, and they get less awful, but still it's kids are Kids are difficult. So you have and then you find it you face economic stress usually at some point in your life with the cycles, and you find you wake up oftentimes sometimes forty five and you're disappointed. We have a tendency to anchor off the most successful

person we know. We have a tendency to believe what college and our parents told us that we can be anything, which is this is why Facebook Instagram is so toxic. Well, it's especially toxic because again we have this wonderful competitiveness gene that ensures that the next generation will be taller, faster, smart, stronger, and by anchoring and aspiring off the most successful person we do that has a very positive evolutionary benefit, but

it also makes us feel bad about ourselves. And the thing about Instagram is that these people become somewhat relatable and along the Bhutan, who I think is going to go down? It's one of the more interesting thinkers, says Envy is a function of familiarity, so we don't envy the queen. We don't say, oh, I wish I were the queen. I wish I were rolling around in that carriage.

But on Instagram, you not only see what you're missing out on, you see it play out in real time amongst your friends, and it's kind of their success is shoved in your face, especially among young people who are unable to really to really modulate that. But forty five are usually is usually your least happiest time, and then something wonderful happens in your fifties and in your or younger if your soulful, and you start finding appreciation and

joy in places you didn't find it before. I used to serve when I was younger because I thought I was cool. Now I'm kind of fascinated by the idea I can be out there. I wouldn't even call it surfing anymore. It's me clean to a piece of fiberglass for dear life. But the fact that several thousand tons will emerge because of the geometry of the sand floor and the way the sun feels and the I mean, you just you're just joyous, right, these small things that

look like you called children become more joyous. You maybe take stock your blessings, maybe have a little bit of economic security. You realize life is finite. You appreciate your health, You find joy and things you'd never find joy in nature or art, and you get happier. And the cohort that is happiest would logically be the cohort that should be the least happy. And that's people who start to have their health fail, and that as seniors who are

consistently the happiest. So the advice here is simple, and your twenties and thirties among people who are having a tough time, and that is this is a this is a normal part of the journey, and the keys to

keep on keeping on the happiness waits for you. Let's let's roll back from the fifties, sixties and and later years to those thirties and forties you right the book, this is the time of your life where you have to make your bones, where you're gonna work hard, You're gonna put in a lot of hours, but you need to do that during those decades. So so the future

and happiness arises. Explain that. So I survey the kids again, the students about where how much money they expect to be making in ten, twenty, and thirty years, and nine plus percent of them expect to be in the top one.

So granted, this is selection bias because the second year of business school in New York, the average salary coming out of school is a D eighteen thousand, which is a lot of money that already the meeting across the already puts them in kind of percentile, and they expect to be in the n by the time they're thirty five or forty. And my observation, and I believe there's data back this up, is that if you expect to

be in the percentile, balance is a myth. And we all know somebody who's good looking, in great shape, has good relationships with their parents, donates time at the A s p c A, and has a food block. Assume you are not that person, unless you're smart enough to inherit a lot of money. If you expect to be in the top economic weight class, you should expect to do not much else other than focus on your career

in your twenties and thirties. And by the way, I want to acknowledge, that's not the road to happiness for everybody. A lot of people say, I'm not going to howl in the money storm. I'm gonna find a way to lower my burn and I'm not gonna let money dictate my happiness. We live in a capitalist society, and most of the people we know have decided that they want a certain level of economic securities and success, and it

has to be an honest conversation with yourself. In my twenties and thirties, I don't I don't know about you, Barry. I don't remember much else than working, and I want to be clear, I came at a price. I'm bald, I burned through my first marriage, and I'm not gonna totally advocate personal responsibility for those failures. But I think a lot of it was the fact that for two decades I was very focused on economic security and not

much else. So I think young people just have an honest I have to have an honest conversation because we're told when we're young, you can have it all. Well, I'm sorry, I'm not here with a message of hope. It's difficult to have it all and there everything is a trade off. So I have a lot of balance now as you do, because I didn't have very much when I was young, and that was a conscious decision I made, quite quite interesting. So we talked a bit

about technology. Let's get into some of the details about this, because your your previous book obviously um delved into some areas. You made some bold forecasts, some of which were incredibly pressing. In you said a year ahead of time, Hey, Amazon should buy Whole Foods, will give him a giant footprint, blah blah blah, and and they did. Were you at

all surprised by this whole Amazon HQ debacle? Well, so look, and I'm I'm boasting here, But at the beginning of two thousand and eighteen, I said, this isn't a contest, It's a count, and that is I've been on seven public company boards, a dozen private company boards, and I've been through four headquarter relocations, and in retrospect, it all came down to one thing, and that is where the CEO wanted to spend more time, where he was here, she was president of their golf club, or where his

next wife was living. When you are a fifty five year old man where a hundred billion dollars, it means that you have more options than anyone in the world, and you are the master of no so queering me. This a guy who is fifty five or D five billion dollars, Is he going to spend twelve minutes, much less twelve weeks in Indianapolis. Is the wealthiest man in the world going to decide to roll in Columbus, Ohio?

And this is the sophisticated analysis I did Bury. The bezos have four homes, one in Seattle, one in l A, one on the Upper east Side, and one in Calorama. D C. L A made no sense because they couldn't justify that, because geographically would make no sense to have a headquarters just down the coast. So I said on Fox, CNN and CNBC, this is all of rous. They have gamified this to extract a pound of flesh from municipal police, fire,

and school departments and transfer it to Amazon shareholders. They have absolutely no intention of going anywhere but d C in New York. And I was wrong. It was both right, You said DC or New York said DC or New York, and I was wrong. They picked both. This wasn't a contest, It was a conum. By the way, while I'm on a riff, you remember that terrible imagery that they are that kind of race baiting that Reagan engaged in the

image of a welfare mother. He had a welfare queen right, the cadillac an individual gaming the system right and taking our tax dollars for their own benefit. The mother of all welfare queens is Jeff Bezos because he never sells his stock, triggering a capital game, meaning he never ever leaks taxes, never pays taxes. So how does he finance

his lifestyle? Barry? He brows money at one and a half to two and a half percent against his stock at JP Morgan, and then sevent of every subsidy given to Amazon, whether they located a data center or a headquarter, goes into his pocket. So if you looked at our economy with twenty trillion dollars five trillion government six billion goes in the military or whatever is to social security, an outflow is to the wealthiest man in the world. Jeff Bezos is a is literally the mother of all

welfare queens, and Alexa is this a good thing? So let me push back on that little bit, because I I am no strangers to corporate welfare queens, and to me, the biggest defenders are the Walmarts and the McDonald's, the companies who have gains of the system, right, the ones who figured out how to charge, how to pay as little as they possibly can. And remember a couple of years ago, McDonald's literally had a Mick helpline so that they could get their employees on food stamps and aid

to dependent children. And when you look at the highest employers of government assistant on a state by state basis, it's invariably Walmart and and or McDonald's. Now, over the past five years, they've improved a lot. I can't blame Bezos for a not showing a profit by reinvesting their money. They purposefully are low profit company. No profits mean no taxes, and be if he chooses not to sell his stock again,

I can't push back too hard on that. But the point that, hey, you're the wealthiest man in the world, this is one of the highest market cap one of three biggest market cap companies in the world. Pay your fair share of tax that that nobody can argue with. So you said a lot there, And I think at the end of the day, we have to have greater

minimum wage. It hasn't kept pace with inflation and Walmart and all of these companies should be probably paying more money, and the government should be paying less to such that these people can survive. I acknowledge the point now, whether or not it's what is worse, having billions or tens of billions of dollars spread across longcome people or the working poor, or going out to the wealthiest man in the world. I would argue that the latter is worse.

I don't think Jeff Bezos is doing anything wrong. I think the man in the mirror. The guilty party here is you and me who haven't elected officials who are smart enough to recognize that the markets have gone through

a fundamental shift. And when a company can become the third most valuable company in the world and is on its way to becoming the most valuable company on the world, when it can effectively pay no taxes because the markets don't demand profits or meaningful profits, we have an economic and taxation construct that no longer works for our society.

We can have a functioning economy when the most successful company in the world, Amazon pays one point four billion in taxes since two thousand and eight, and Walmart has paid sixty four billion. I'm not saying they've done anything wrong, but our economy can operate so even in France, and we immediately think that any idea from anywhere else is socialist or stupid. That we have we have a monopoly

on good ideas. But Frances basically said, look, we give up your tax lawyers are smarter than our tax authorities, so we're gonna tax you on your top line revenues. Brazil is doing the same thing. In Britain. Google registers about six billions sterling in business every year, and for the purposes of profitability and taxation, they report a fifty thou pound prof it every year on a product that's got to be on sick note ten billions or seven

and a half, right, what seven? So about seven point six billion, and they've decided what they report to the government that can be taxes fifty thou pounds. And it's expensive to do business in London, it's not that expensive. So we are in a system now where when you have the most successful company in the world not paying taxes, when you have companies that game the system and can avoid the avoid taxes by locating in the Isle of Jersey.

Apple's international headquarters is in a small, small island off the British coast. I mean this is this is arguably these companies are not only masters of technology or masters in business, or masters of tax avoidance. And we haven't elected elected officials that that acknowledge and will counter what is a regressive tax, and that is the most successful people, the most successful companies pay less taxes, and taxation is largely a zero sum game, which means the following small

and medium sized companies have to pay more. So we have basically said, all right, if you win the law and lower in middle income people affect. So this is we have. We have institutionalized a regressive corporate tax structure and and that's problematic. And to go to your point that Amazon headquarters search was a con today. Just today we learned that they're looking to take fifty or a hundred thousand space feet of space in Manhattan, regardless for offices.

Thing was just a nonsensus. They need to be at this location, they need to have access to the talents or whatever else is here. And the whole thing was just I think this reflects poorl I think this reflects that the board of Amazon and Jeff Bezos black character and code, because this was nothing but an elegant transfer of funds from municipal fire, police and school districts into

the shareholders pockets of Amazon shareholders. To their credit, Google and Apple are all both adding thousands of jobs in New York. Why we have three world class universities here. It's a fantastic place to do business. And you know what that comes at a cost. The worst poker players in the world build a Blasio and in Governor Cuomo, they were always coming here. They were always coming here. And even when they pulled out and said, oh we're

angry now, they're coming here. They're just doing it quietly. Because bottom line, the wealthiest man in the world doesn't need to commute to Ohio. He's not going to. So let's talk about a couple of our other favorite tech companies. UM I read something fascinating, actually emailed you the story about we Work and their new investment subsidiary that's gonna

buy the buildings that they're gonna sublet. Now, I haven't brought into we Work as a Ponzi scheme, although and I know you've said some harsh things about them, but the idea that they're going to invest in the buildings that they then sublet to themselves starts to smell like old cheese a little bit. Yeah, it's so Look, the most overvalued private company until about two months ago was Uber, and they were claiming that they were worth a hundred

and twenty billion dollars. Now they're not even worth six year seventy. This company could execute perfectly and still be cut in half in terms of any reasonable memo. Do you agree that they waited too long to go public and left so much value on the table because they got greedy or I think that they should have never gone public and the private markets are now more amenable to companies like this, And essentially here's a better prediction. Everyone talks about is Uber or Tests are going out

of business. I think the NASTACK and the NYC are going out of business. We'll come back to that roll roll back a sec. Uber which has thirty of forty billion in venture capital, How do they not go public? There's no exit for tons and tons of vcs who aren't looking for five percent a year for a million years their secondary markets. Now in the private markets, there's liquidity in the private markets and never used to be not dollars worth not a hundred. Yeah, they raised eight

that's a fair point. They probably can raise a billion. But there were secondary trades taking place, their secondary trades right now and in in stocks, and and you know you can buy shares in most private companies now with secondary there's liquidity. Now again the retail investor who loses, the retail investor now gets to buy stuff when it's totally overvalued. And there's no other source of that kind

of capital. But going back to the most now, the most overvalued private company in the world is we Work. Supposedly it's being valued at forty billion dollars. I think they did two billion in revenue and loss too. I mean this, and they have their own metrics. They call it, hey, that's margin there, and they call it community based EBITA.

So and if you do the analysis, and one guy, I think maybe even you're a Bloomberg did the analys and said, based on this valuation, the floor that we Work leases is now worth more than the building, the whole building, right. So, and you have you have a company sort of investing long, taking out ten year leases and then going short on its revenue because which and that's the value is there are being a demand around short term supply stops and they're in trouble, huge trouble.

And even again, if this company executes perfectly, it's not worth I mean, it's a Regius with I P a beer, Remember Regis, It's it's cooler. It's a great concept. They've built a great brand. You know, I think you and I could probably be a great brand around a two billion dollar business. If we're allowed to lose two billion dollars. This company is a train wreck in terms of evaluation. Really, what's gonna happen with the I P O? Will there be an IPO that It'll be really interesting to see

if we work and get out. I wonder if the marketplace is starting to exit the concentral hallucination between Unicorn status and all these B S words. I like to do a word cloud across every perspective and then lift a Nuber. You saw things like networking effect, flywheel effect, autonomous driving. First off, there's no evidence that autonomous driving will be either good nor bad for Uber and left. It just means they don't have to pay the drivers pay a little more for the car and they drive.

But quite frankly, their economic advantages they've figured out a way to find four million people who will work for below minimum wage. That's not a good thing. It's about what about four million cars for zero age? But who garners the economic value there? It'll be the engineers that create that technology. And why is that going to be Uber and not Google, which is the greatest concentration of i Q Ever, anyways, I think you could argue both ways.

What's going to happen there. What Uber has been able to figure out is a flywheel effect, and that is has launched a new business on this incredible platform, Uber eats, because there's real value in Uber. It's a global brand. It's typically the first in the last brand the global affluent interact with when they're in a foreign city. They've got tremendous data, they've got a fantastic brand, a culture of innovation. There's a lot of things they could do there.

So if they execute perfectly, they're only going to be worth what BMW is worth, which is around thirty billion dollars, or the stocks going to get cut in half. The company that could go to zero if they don't get acquired is Lift. There is no network effect there, there's no global brand, there's no flywheel effect. It's just a company hemorrhaging money. You don't think that there will be space in the in the market for a number two. To Uber is number one, I don't. Here's the thing

about so it's easy to talk down stocks. A company that I think is undervalued is Airbnb, because what you need with Airbnb is you need local you need local supply, you need apartments. In the same way with right hailing, you need local supply, you need drivers in Cleveland. But with right hailing, all you need is local demand, and that is you and I could start a right hailing company here in New York and create demand and supply. With Airbnb, you need local supply, but you need global demands.

The majority of people coming into Cleveland are from Scandinavia and Cape Town and all all manner of sitason around the world, so they have extraordinary moat around their business. But ride hailing has very few moats, low entry, a lot of local players. It's a price war. They convinced the consumer that twenty dollars worth of service is worth fourteen dollars. They're not afraid to go after each other. They have a decent amount of cheap capital. This is

going to get very ugly. So Lift I think that's either Lift gets maybe bought at some point, but you can imagine Lift going to zero. There's real value in Uber, real value, maybe even twenty or thirty billion dollars in value, but at sixty that I have a difficult time making the argument for how this company in any way justifies that type of job. We have been speaking with Professor

Scott Galloway of n y U Stern. If you enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and come back for the podcast extras, where we keep the tapes rolling and continue discussing all things technology and happiness related. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Be sure to check out my daily column. You can find that on Bloomberg dot com. Follow me on Twitter at rit Halts. I'm Barry Reholts.

You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast, Scott, Thanks so much for doing this. I have to tell you I I plowed through the book over the holiday weekend. I found it like just a fun fast read. It was literally sitting on the beach out in the Hampton's and I really enjoyed it. Um, I'm shocked at how revealing you are in the book. You you basically say here, I'm naked, warts and all. Um,

that's a challenging thing to do. Yeah. What I found, though, Barry, is that when you when you when you're authentic and you try and be open about like I'm very good at talking about my victories. I can do pretty well so talking about my shortcomings and some of the things that I've struggled with. What you find is there's a lot of people out there, some that you know very well, some strangers, and they reach out and you find out

other people struggle with stuff. See. See, I would be horror so I happen to know what a deep, dark, depraved person I am on the inside, and I would be really mostly braved. I would be that deep, but you're just mostly depraved. The depravity has depths, That's what I was refining to But I would be sort of afraid for people to so I I personally think I've come a long way, but I think people would be shocked to know the sort of screw up I was in my twenties. You mentioned, first of all, I know

what to do with myself. The functional families are the ones who don't know. Barry, maybe in my twenties, I don't know what to do with myself. If you grow up on Long Island and you're a Jewish male and you're don't you know, you don't have a purpose, well you go to law school. That pretty much the lead in the aimless That's exactly right. And so by the time I got out of law school, I knew two things.

I knew I was fascinated by the intellectual debate surrounding jurisprudence, and I knew for sure I did not want to be a lawyer. But it took me. But it's a

great education, fantastic education. Arguably, I've made the claim that law school is superior education to business school because at least the way business school used to be taught, it would fill people's heads with how business should be run, whereas law school teaches you how to think and and so, you know, I was a screw up in my twenties, and even in my early thirties. It took me till I was you know, my wife kicked me in the button said, figure out what the hell you're gonna do

and go do it. You're sort of I don't kid yourself, you're still a screw up. Yeah, don't sell your short right, You're you're quite We're all trying to figure out the kids are. You're putting one step, one ft in front of the other and then hopefully along the way making small investments and relationships. And one of the you know we talked about there's a finance show or a business show. You we talked about the magic of compound interest. Put

a thousand dollars a month, a quarter, a year. When you're a young person, you wake up and you have, you know, a couple hundred ground you're older. The same is true of relationships. There's evidence that small investments when you're a younger person that are consistent a quick text message, a call, uh, you know, a note saying hey, I'm sorry I heard about this, or congratulating people, finding time

for the reunion, finding time for weddings. You wake up and when you've made those little investments, you find that you have a lot of meaningful relationships, or that you wake up in that meaning that relationships is more meaningful. And so just as we tell young people to be disciplined amount making short term investments or small investments as

they're young. I think all of us can start away, uh, start right away, and start making little investments across a broader set of relationships, and then I think you do wake up one day and think, Wow, there's a lot more in this bank than I'd ever imagined. That that does compound interest applies to relationships. Most people want asked what is the singular relationship, singular relationship in their life, Most say or across their mom. Really, and when you

think of out at why is that? Some of it's instinctual, but a lot of it is that your mom is the premier investor. She began making little investments in you every day from a very very early point, and you end up with a relationship that is singular when you're older. And I think that's a lesson in the importance of not only investing and saving early, but making an effort to make small, tiny, regular investments in relationships from a young age. I'm going to tell you something that you

did for me unknowingly. You write about giving your mom a good death in the book, and it's actually very touching story. And how you explain how significant that is to you personally. So my mom is fairly healthy, but she's eighty three. You don't live forever. Oblivion beckons and early. And it was something that wasn't actually from the book, it ended up in the book. It was from No Malice from your website Mercy No Malice, And basically you talked about that. Maybe it was in the original post

about um your mom and it my mom is. There's two problems with my mom. She's giant pay in the neck and I'm just like but no, no, but even worse, I'm just like her. I used to I used to jokingly tell my wife, you know, I was born into a wealthy family. Just the wrong family took me home. I really should have been you know, royalty. The wrong family took me home. And she goes, I've met your mother.

There's no way the wrong family took you home. And the fact that I'm her clone, and so I get to be irritated by all her habits that I have in spades your your post on that last year sort of softens how I interact with her for the better. Yeah. Look, everyone has I don't wanna call love hate, but you know, she installed all the buttons. Not only does you know how to push your buttons to make you crazy, she's the one who installed that. And just look at how

your wife treats her parents. You're just like, how come you're so impatient with them? But anyways, for me, there's a lot of research and a lot of literature out there on the reward or lack their have a raising kids. I don't think what we talk a lot about because it's I guess it's scary is the reward of giving someone a good exit. And I recognize them doing a lot of virtue signaling here, but I was in a position. By the way, signaling is just an ad hominem attack

against people you don't like. Hold that aside. I'll so I don't like myself. No, no, I mean when people accuse you of virtue signaling, they're not attacking your idea. They're saying, oh, you're just we're gonna own the liver. It's imposter syndrome where I think I sound like a better person than I am and I want to acknowledge. We can talk about hold me barry. Anyways, I was in a position and a lot of people aren't. But my mom was a lot of my life, raised me

alone on a secretary salary. But it's not a sob story. We had a nice life. There's a lot of discipline and a lot of love in my household. And I decided I had the resources and I had the flexibility to take uh some time off and I moved in with her. I asked her what when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I said, what's on your bucket list? Right, That's what a son does, right. Instead, I only have one thing on my bucket list, and I said what's

that and said, I want to die at home. I'm like, okay, we can make that happen. It's not gonna be easy, but I can figure that out. I moved in with her. So I moved into the Dell web Active Living seniors community and summerly Nevada. And during the day I would manage my mom's healthcare and we watched Jeopardy and look at old photos. And to night I'd go downtown to the strip, get drunk, com party with strippers. It was a very unusual, yet very rewarding part of my life,

and I will cherish that. I'm most proud I think of my children, my professional or modest professional success and also just giving my mom the right exit. And I'm blessed because a lot of people can't do that. But what I say to people is, if you're in a if you're in a position to help your parents exit me more dignified. And I'm not talking about it's the right thing and you're a good person. It's very rewarding.

It was she and I really nothing went unsaid, and it was it was a nice it was just a very rewarding opportunity, and it's something that I'll cherish the rest of my life. I found that to be really inspirational in something that was UM was really in true sting in the book. UM. Let's talk a little bit about some other things from the book that I thought was was fascinating. While you're young, get credentials and get yourself to a city. Sure, explain so we live in

a cast system. We like to think it's a meritocracy. Us is very much and increasingly become a cassist and explain what that cast system is. It's simple, it's where you went to college and that is show me two things. I can tell you how much someone is going to make within fairly type band based on two things. Where they're certified, Where they're credentialed in terms of the college they went to and their zip code. Show me someone who has an engineering degree from Dartmouth who lives in

New York or San Francisco. I'm gonna show you someone who's making a d fifty k a year by the time the thirties. Show me someone who's a high school dropout living in Little Rock, Little Rock. That person is likely if they're making fort k by the time they're thirty. We live in a cast system. Get certified, and I recognize that college isn't always the right thing for everybody. I don't care if it's a Class three driver's license and asthetitions license or a member a union card. You

have to get credential. Also, while you're young, get to a city. Two thirds of the economic growth is going to happen in the top twenty cities in America over the next twenty to thirty years. It gets harder and harder to be in a city when you get older and start collecting dogs and kids. So get there while you're young. But people constantly come up to me and say, my son's thinking about dropping out of college. Maybe it's the next Steve Jobs. And I assume your kid is

not Steve Jobs. And we have these very well publicized examples of college dropouts going on to do well, and that is three of them, that Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs. How many of tell me about the rest of the fortune one thousand top one people in those companies. How many of those dropped out of college have very few and most have graduate degrees increasingly fear but almost all of them have college trees. Now the problem is is the man in the mirror tests academics.

We have become drunk on exclusivity. We no longer see ourselves as public servants. We see ourselves as luxury brands. And we brag about the fact that the people that apply to n Y You don't get in, which is tantamount to a housing or a homeless shelter, bragging that they turned away of the people who showed up to sleep there that night. That is not a good thing. You and I both went to remarkable schools. They gave us remarkable opportunities, and we've talked about this. Both you

and I were remarkably unremarkable. And if we hadn't had the generosity of New York and California taxpayers, respectively pick us up by the scruff of our neck and fling us forward into opportunity. You and neither you nor I would be here right now. So let's talk about that a set because it touches on both the credentials and your mom. I love this story from the book You've Gotten. You had gotten rejected by U c l A. And your mother kicks you in the button says, reapply. I

just got rejected three months ago. It doesn't matter. Reapply, you write to them. I'm a native son of California, raised by an immigrant single mother who is a secretary. If you don't let me in, I'm going to be installing shelving for the rest of my life. And my parents both dropped out of school and we're taking out of school when they were thirteen to work for their families in London, in in in Glasgow, and they came here and I either I could either live at home and go to U c l A. Or I wasn't

going to college. We just didn't have the money for that. And people say, well, that the world is your oyster. You can do anything. In America. No, it wasn't. I didn't know. I didn't have that confidence. We didn't have money. There was just I just I find that the downside of a meritocracy and capitalism is that we assume anybody can be anything, and if you're not successful, you're a loser. You screwed up, because we live in a society supposedly

where anyone could do anything. And my dad, he was well meaning, but not what i'd call, you know, a very worldly guy, said you don't need college. I'm gutting. I'm getting you a job at stalling shelving, which, by the way, was gonna be eighteen bucks an hour, which seems like a lot of money to me and could fulfill my dream of getting or trans am, which was the only goal I had at the age of At the age of eighteen, and my mom said, you need to appeal to U. C. L A. You have to

go to college. She was smart enough, and the truth has a nice ring to it. I literally said, I'm you're letting me in or I'm installing shelving. And I remember the day they called me at home and this woman said, you're a sub standard student, but you don't test well, but your native stunt of California, and we're gonna let you in. And I rewarded them with a two point two seven g p A from U c l A. And then they took another chance, tell me and let me into grad school at Berkeley. How did

you get into Berkeley with media into grades? Uh? So, my my only saving grace is I'm an idiot savant with standardized tests. Yeah, so whereas my wife would say, you're half of that. So I'm just an idiot when it comes to that's the head. But so I was able to get into grad school. How did you get into Berkeley from U c l A with bad grades and bead tests? Again generosity of a woman named fran Hill. You know, I had some positive attributes. I had finagled

my way into Morgan Stanley. I had offered from several investment banks. I interview, Well, I took a job with Morgan Stanley because I heard they didn't check transcripts and I lied about my grades. I heard they didn't drug it was a room, or they don't check trans whips. Yeah, well they didn't back then, and then a kid and then a kid had found out they found out a kid was accused of insider trading, had never graduated from

the University of Illinois, and they started checking everybody transcripts. Anyways, that was the benefit of an analog age is that, uh, you show it with stuff like that. And they also I heard they didn't drug tests, which ended up being a live But anyways, I went to Morgan Stanley. I was involved in a lot of activities. I was an athlete to u c l A. So I had some pause of stuff. But I remember them calling me and saying, we we love your application, but we think there's an air.

It says that your GPS two point two seven, which keep in mind, is not easy to do because if you get less than two point oh, you get academic probation and then you go subject to dismissal. So you gotta get a bunch of d's and then you got to get above at two point oh to reset the clock for two more semesters. So I came perilously close.

I would sleep walking through life like a lot of twenty two year olds, uh to not getting into you know, getting kicked out of u c l A. But again, Berkeley took a chance on me, got my act together I think like you, I was a bit of a late bloomer, and you know, start it an upward spiral. But if it hadn't been for the generosity and vision of California taxpayers and the reasons of you, see, Berkeley will graduate more kids from low income households this year

than the entire IVY League combined. Seven of the seven of the ten universities with the greatest income diversity are all University or University of California schools. But in general, I would argue that universities in the US have lost the script see themselves as luxury brands. We need to massively increase the number of seats. We need to tax endowments if they don't grow their seats faster than inflation. Stanford has tripled, that has tripled the number of applicants.

They haven't increased their freshman seats hardly at all. That is, in my opinion, a crime. The head of admissions at Harvard says, we could have doubled our freshman class without sacrificing any quality with a thirty eight billion dollar endowment. Well, Boston, why aren't you doing that? This has literally become we have to get to a point where we're more like Canada, where more kids have access to the greatest, the greatest lubricant for upward mobility in the world, and that is

higher education. And speaking of lubricants, the high education, you've made a number of gifts to both Berkeley and n Y. You tell us what motivated that? Is that just gratitude and giving back, you know, I just that was an easy one for me. That was just an easy one. I got really lucky, and uh, you know, I just

want that that was just easy. It's if it hadn't been for Unfortunately, college is a lot more expensive now, and that was just an obvious nod to to again California taxpayers and the jewel of California, the University of California. So that was just an overdue nod to, uh, to the University of California. So so let's talk about luck because it's a really I don't want to call it a theme, but it's a thread that runs through the book, and it's worth exploring a little bit. You reference how

incredibly lucky you've been. I've had numerous people sitting their seats and that seat where you are, and they've all said billionaires, Nobel laureates, um masters in business. We have all said, you know, but for a lucky break here, or the way the bull bounced there, I wouldn't be here today. Well, look, it's easy to credit your character and your grit for your successes and the markets for your failures. I have no such delusions. And it's not

a humble bragg It really isn't. And it can be tiny switches in your DNA or the way you're born. My we I think I've talked about this with you, my freshman roommate in the fraternity. To be born in n a white heterosexual male in the greatest United States, in the United States, the greatest country in the world, and in California, which was about to experience the greatest increase in value. And yet there was more value creating a seven mile radius of Sfo from nine than all

of Europe since World War Two. And I would just happen to be at the right place at the right time, luckiest person in the world. Right a white guy, heterosexual, we had advantages that other people did not have, and that's unfair. But the reality was I was all of those things, and so I got very lucky. There was one other question. I wanted to get to um before some of our fear of head questions, and I have variations of our favorite questions. All Right, you mentioned that

you were selling assets, you were moving to cash. Have you still are you still in that stupid I was a reaction and I was angry about Trump's selection, and I got advice from you always be in the market. We can't time the markets. And also at the motorants told me the same thing. I went back in the markets, and I thank god I did. It's been an unbelievable right up. I do think there are certain canarias in

the coal mine, though. I think when modestly talented twenty five year olds are getting a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year because they know how, they know python, when midtown or downtown real estate and bad, you know, kind of marginal areas is getting fifty or sixty bucks to square foot. You know, just I see mediocre restaurants you can't get reservations at. There's a certain I feel like we're late cycles like that, we're ready, we're due.

So here's the interesting thing. Coming out of a financial crisis, you tend to have a longer, more modest This is Ryn Horton Roths research. You have a longer but more modest um economic expansion. So here we are. The procession ended technically two thousand, it's nine years later. It's a pretty long run. Is the longest ever? I mean this is kind of yours. It's pretty close to it. I mean you could you could go through earlier periods and post war wear two periods and find it. Although there

were a lot of small recessions late fifties, early sixties. Um, so we're the problem is it's such an artificial period with FED stimulus etcetera, etcetera. It's it's if it's the longest one, it's the longest one with an asterisk. Although when you look around the world, Australia went more than twenty five years without a recession in the boom period of China's growth, So that's kind of interesting, isn't all this?

Basically our generation has gotten really smart. I'm just on the tail of the baby boom, as in our generation just perfectly gamed the system and figured out a way to elect officials and basically said we want the greatest transfer and wealth ever occurred ever registered in history to

be from every other cohort two baby boomers. So basically, big tech is a vessel of the transfer of wealth from the entire world to the US and then to the coast, and everything from social security to artificially suppressing interest rates with drive ups asset values, to social security, to mortgage tax deduction to capital gains, there's nothing but a giant transfer of wealth from every cohort to baby boomers. From the future pulled back listen. So I would argue,

I would art, you're technically not a baby boomer. You're sort of in the valley between the Boomers and the gen X. Like to me, the baby Boomers ended in nineteen nine. If you were born in the sixties, you're just so. My sister was born in sixty four. I'm I get two and a half years on you. You don't really feel like a baby boomer. That's a whole different Like I don't relate to the boomers. I kind of look at them as skans, but I also look

at Gen X, which is totally different than than me. Um. But I think the Boomers are the worst generation, and I think history will bear that out. The greatest generation absolutely and everything in my view. We talked about there's a one on I go on Fox once a week because I like to go behind enemy lines and they can't. By the way, I love watching you on that because they don't know what the hell to do with you.

You're clearly a capitalist. They you just sold L two to Gardner last year, You've sold how many companies have gone public or have been purchased? Three four? Yeah, I'm three four and two. Okay, So that's a great track record. Really, you're listen, you know, that's what's great about America's guys like making survive. I'd be in some sort of prison if I If you're a venture capitalist, you're gonna make a hundred investments you're looking for the one home run.

Three four and two is a great track record for stop and think about how many startups fell most of One of my questions of success is really resilience. There's a lot to that. You keep mentioning grit um, but they don't know how to deal with you because you're you are a capitalist. But you talk about empathy and about um helping others and about things beyond mirror money, and they're perplexed by it. Well, it's it's so that

they had this. It was hilarious. They had this Socialism Versus Capitalism week on Fox and guess what capitalism won? And so they invited me on, and for some reason they always introduced me as a socialists. And I like those guys, Stuart Varney and Nick Neil Cavuto. I think they're really really intelligent, interesting guys, and they're generous to me,

and they're nice to me. I actually I really like the people over there, despite being a sort of a you know, the spinning up hate on a regular basis, other than the hate based business model, they're fantastic. But I'm writing, and I'm going to need your help on this. I'm writing an article for The Economist, or I'm claimed to be writing an article, and they on on capitalism and socialism is nothing but okay, the means of production controlled by the state and divvied up by and the

spoils divvied up. Tariffs are socialists of artificially suppressing interest rates are socialist's competitive telling. Telling an air conditioning company to locate in Michigan is socialist. Child labor laws are socialist. Capital game ends, tax cuts socialists. So you me and the president walk into a bar. Two of us are capitalists. The president of a socialist and they have the entire reimbursing farmers who supported him against Chinese tasks. How is

that social? I mean, we're really going up script now. But you look at the initially thought, Okay, I'm a fan of actually going after China for unfair trade. I believe that we have this unbelievable ecosystem where the greatest universities into the world, train some incredible human talent, and then concert with incredible financial system, we create innovation that's just unparalleled. The Chinese then steal it and then cell bactist for thirty cents in the dollar. So I am

all for a trade war. But here's the problem. One, we could have done it with partners, and two the Chinese sinking twenty and thirty year increments. They are willing to shut down towns and say, uh, sorry, you need to relocate. The tariffs are bad. We don't care relocate. It is what it is. A farmer goes out of business and MSNBC is out there and the president is trying to bail them out. We just don't have It's like fight, it's going to war with Russia. You can

have better tanks, you can have better officers. Their willingness to endure suffering is just gonna It's just gonna end badly for whoever invades him. And I think the same is true of this trade war unfortunately. So normally around now, I would go to my favorite questions, but you've done them so many times I had to come up with some nuance variations on them. So so let's um, let's speed around this. So alright, So normally around now, I asked what the first car you own? But I'm gonna

ask what's the next car you're gonna buy. You know, you're a car guy. So I'm in the midst of a midlife crisis that I think I'm going to grow out of in about thirty or forty years. So I'm buy the car. It's cheaper than I got. Okay, that's right. So I have a gl five fifty. I have a truck right now, I merseaches, that's an amazing car. I're all up, bits of baby. I look so German and

so interesting in that car. Most of them like cars cars, so I mean they you know, they just designed it, and when you look at it, you can't unless they're side by side. You can't even test a fantastic change. I have the Model X, the Tesla. I don't like electric. I like, I just don't like the feel of it. I like an internal combustion engine. It's a great car. I don't enjoy. I don't like. But by the way, go on YouTube watch the videos of the Model exploding

with Ferraris and Lamborghin. It is a superior car. But Elon Musk called the cave diver trying to save young people's lives a pedophile. And I went on CNBC the next day and I announced I was selling it. So I have to sell the thing, right And by the way, the depreciation on those bad words enormous. So I said, okay, I gotta get another car. And you, I merely waged in and said, and I'm thinking I want to get a range over because I'm all about signaling my worth as a man and as a mate. So I need

to find some ridiculously over problem. But you have the g Wagon, so I would picture you in the h the g Wagon, Oh, I thought, stupid car, that's what I thought you were talking about. Oh, so you have the longer longer you, I immediately assumed you went g wagon. No, no, no, I'm in secure, but I'm not pathetic. That's what I'm back against. I missed the that's literally like, okay, it's a German military view. I need to find a way to spend more money than owning a Hummer. It's like

I own at the AMG version of it. It's like ridiculous. So so the g L. I'm asking you a question. You know me pretty well. What's my next car? Pick it? Pick it? So what's my next So you're you're a dual city. Yeah right, yeah to me, I don't see how you don't have a nine eleven convertible down Dude, I can't fit in a Porsche. I'm six three. I have buddies with six six. By the way, I am not a problem. I am not a problem. I do not fit in a Porsche. I'd have an elbow out

each window. That is a ridiculous car. It's a beautiful car. I don't think it's beautiful. It's just a very fast and good handling car. Eleven. You want a pretty car, go buy a Bentley go By. And I'm not asking mar guy. Um alright, So then what is what is the big dog rolling? Come on, so I have an M six convertible that's M sex. Now let me just explain it ridiculous. Let me just explain. I'm also a cheap s ob, so I won't go out and spend

a hundred. That's called not having kids. You don't have kids, have kids. I have, I have a house. I have five cars in a boat. But hold that aside. I bought this car off of lease from Indianapolis Christine condition, and I paid less the guy that used to serve through the recycler when you're a teenager, No, well to look at car? Sure a right enough for you? Back to me, what car do I buy? Serry sell a car?

Masters in business? What car do I guess? See irustrated professor angry range rover HSC sport is that's what I should do? Is? Now understand rangerovers are wildly overpriced. Right. They lease out terribly, they purchased terribly. They're not known for their for their mechanical range. But if you want to sit the yeah, that's your SA. I think that's the way to go. Even though I can give you a million reasons why no one should buy that car, but the signaling to show your worthiness to take care

of Sara. You get me, even though you should be in some cute little sports car. I don't see you in a Baily or anything. Um So in the book, I discovered a fast anything about one of your mentors. Your mentor taught the exact same class in marketing and branding that you teach. My class is based on David Acker's course Father and Modern Branding. I didn't know what I wanted to do. As we referenced before, business school is mostly for the elite in the aimless. It's people

who want out of the profession they're in. I knew I didn't know what I wanted to do. Just knew I didn't want to go back to investment banking. Took this second year class of David Acker. You talked about the importance of yellow and how intangible has created more shareholder value than any other any other system or construct in history. He really kind of identified and encapsulated the brand era and I thought, this is what I want

to do with my life. And I went to him and said, I'm starting a consulting firm based on your principles called Profit. I'd like you to join. You said, no way, I'm not interested in working with you your second year student. But long story short, and profit ultimately was sold, was it? Yeah, we grew up to four hundred people. It's still around today. I think it's about five hundred people now. Sold it to den Sue tremendously rewarding. Ultimately,

David did join as vice chairman. But you know, what do you want when you go to school. You want to find someone who inspires you and sets you off on a career that is rewarding personally and economically. And I got that from David Ocker. So around now, I asked the book question, tell me about your favorite books. But we've done that already, So I'm gonna ask you a different book, different book question. Tell me about a book that changed the direction of your life. It's weird.

He just died. Actually, I read my first kind of real novel was in high school, and it's not that dramatic. I read a book by Herman Wook called The Winds of War and just learning about and just learning about World War two and the you know what, it was probably the kind of the defining conflict of our century and what different groups from learning about the Holocaust. It just sort of got me thinking about things I had never thought about and sort of changed, got me interested

in history, got me inntertioned in war history. So that for me was sort of my you know, kind of first adult book, if you will. So you are an open book and you reveal yourself warts and I'm an open book very but tell us something we don't know about, Scott Galloway, Uh is there anything we don't know about? Pretty much learn all out there. I was the bruined bear mascot. In my sophomore year at UCL I won

most Comical in Junior high school. In junior high school, junior high school most Comical, I didn't know they voted for that. And Steve Martin. That's I'm aging myself. I got Steve Wait wait wait, and since then I haven't had a single award. Wait Steve Martin. You know they do. Remember in high school and junior high they would do like you know, and just to give you with the age I went to high school, I got Steve Martin.

That was like my thing in the high school poll. Oh, so most likely to be like Steve Martin, not not? You went to school with Steve Martin. No, no, I think is a decade for sure. Um, so tell us what you do for fun outside of class, outside of occasionally holding onto a fiberglasses Pretty pretty boring, not that interesting. Uh, you know, time with kids, a lot of Netflix. Um, what are you watching on Netflix? Oh, my new favorite show is I'm like everyone else, I'm obsessed with a

Game of Thrones. I think Veep is the best written show on TV. The new show that I love is Fleabag, which you may or may not have heard of. The person who wrote Fleabag wrote something else. I'm trying to remember what it was. I haven't started Fleabag. It's outstanding. And also killing Eve is really wonderful. Really. Yeah, So every Thursday night I do the same thing. I commute between her and Florida. I go home, I take a iron, I come back, I put my kids to bad I

vape with my wife. I'm finally confident enough to say that. And then we watched television. So I think the key I think the defining art form of this age is television. No, we are in the golden age of television. I'm going to give you three recommendations for it. One of them I don't know if you're gonna like you like sci fi at all? Lay it on the Expanse, the Expanse. Where's that? So the Expanse TV. It's either Netflix or Amazon. So the Expanse takes place in the not too distant future.

You have three political powers. You have Earth, you have Mars, and then you have the belts out where the miners are out pulling stuff off. Anyway, fashioning science fiction really kind of interest? Watch the terror I don't. I watched Black Mirror and oh I love Ridley Scott one of the best. Um Black Mirror and Electric Dreams is another. But the two comments I want to share with you, Um, have you started seeing on Netflix? I'm sorry, I haven't.

Is that great? It's so picture if I had a sum up in thirty seconds, female comedy writer married with a little girl, picture of female version of Curb Your Enthusiasm not as nasty but more of a sitcom funny, very very good. And the new one I just started the new one I just started watching with Christine Applegate dead to Me. That's good, that really really And so along those lines, watched Ricky Gervais's new series already went

through fantat that's life something like that. Fabulous. Um, all right, our last two questions and the problem I can't ask you the advice you'd give a millennial, because your whole book is advice to millennials. What advice do you wish you got when you got out of college that nobody told you it's gonna everything's gonna be okay? I was insecure.

I yeah. But in the book there they've survey seniors on what piece of advice they would give themselves to their younger selves, and consistently it comes back and it's sort of the same advice. Uh, they wish there one wish and they advised themselves as they wish they'd been less hard on themselves. Go ease you in yourself and that is Look life, you're gonna screw up and bring forgiveness. I mean, one of the keys of long term relationships

is forgiveness. It's difficult to maintain a long term relationship unless you assume the other person who's going to occasionally screw up, and you need to bring forgiveness to the relationship. And you also need to bring that to yourself and be a little at because in the moment it seems like a big deal. But if you again the one piece of advice yours would give themselves, they wish they hadn't been so hard on themselves. So it's gonna be

you know, it's gonna be okay, quite fascinating. Scott Galloway, This has been absolutely delightful. And you sold the range Rover and I sold the right and hsc be sure to get with the upgraded UM package that stops and does the lean of ones warning UM. And I'm not a fan of that car, but that's got your name written all over it. You know a dog. We have been speaking with n y U Stern School of Business

Professor Scott Galloway, author of The Algebra of Happiness. If you enjoy this conversation, well look up an intro down an Inch on Apple, iTunes, um Overcast, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever finder podcasts are sold, and you can see any of the previous UH two and fifty or so conversations we've had over the past five years. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast

at Bloomberg dot net. Be sure and hits the like button UH that you might see on whatever site you're on. Give us a review. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack crew that helps put this podcast together each week. Medina Parwana is my task master slash producer. UH Michael Boyle is our booker. Michael bat Nick is our head of research. Atika val Brunn is our project director. I'm Barry Rihults. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Take taking to s