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Welcome to the project pods office hours. This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. And last week's office hours, I answered your questions surrounding TikTok, the talks of culture of investment banking, and being an older dad, that hurts. I think my producer just called me old. You should see me naked. I look 58 and 7, 8.
The propaganda tool is off the table. I think it's going away, but they'll say, well, if we're definitely going to lose the propaganda tool, we don't want to lose a quarter of a trillion dollars. And I believe they will come to some sort of accommodation that makes the White House comfortable, and where bite dance gets to keep that quarter of a trillion dollars. I don't think your TikTok is going to go away. I think this will end up in an agreement. People should care about you.
And whoever your bosses are that are letting you work to the point of exhaustion, to where it's really impacting your mental and your physical health, then quite frankly, that's not B of A. It's those people's fault. Whoever is the VP that you're the VP's that you're reporting into, whoever runs your group, are not decent people.
You should look forward to having kids. It's never the right time. I find it's kind of never the right time to have kids. You just kind of kind of pull the goal and see what happens. You don't need to anguish over this. You're going to have to be in a relationship, to have kids with someone you like, to have a good job, 40 years old, and having a kid. That is the sweet spot.
Today, we'll answer your questions about luxury commerce, the rise of the remote husband and time management, the rise of the remote husband. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is that? Okay, here we go. First question.
Hi, Prof G. This is Toby from the UK, given your background in luxury and e-commerce, what do you think happens next in the luxury E-taylor space? The recent downfall of matches, fashion, sail a far fetch for a song, and with private activity said to be circling some of the remaining players, is luxury commerce of third party brands any longer a viable model?
What was it ever in the first place? Thanks for the podcast, your kind vulnerability and humor, and Melandina, and I'd love to take you for lunch when you're next in town. Thanks for the thoughtful question, Toby from the UK. So is the golden age of luxury commerce over so many experts think so some context.
With respect to some of the things you reference matches fashion was recently bought in December and then shut down by the Frazier group, although it was once worth over a billion dollars was sold for only 66 million because it routinely missed business targets and things worsened when new owners took over.
Brand partners left due to delayed payments and a firm endured harsh cost reduction strategies in December 2023. So just a few months ago, far fetch, which was a darling, another major player in luxury commerce barely escaped bankruptcy after creating a commerce group.
It's called coupang acquired the firm and propped it up with a $500 million bridge loan. Experts believe far fetch is financial struggles with like broader issues within the industry, including poor management decisions overstocking and a crowded market. I think what happened with luxury commerce basically happened to traditional retail back in the odds, and that is there were so big companies are slow.
So you had companies like William Sonoma or Sephora kind of taking their time not sure how they want to want to do approach some of the brand challenges of selling online they weren't set up for direct consumer fulfillment of sending things in one season two Z's and into that void slipped a much of ecommerce companies that started selling stuff to remember guilt.
G I L T that was after 2008 there was a tremendous inventory overload and a lot of these companies need cash quick so they sent their stuff I think even brands, you know luxury brands and their stuff to guilt. And they cleared it out for them got them cash fast and then when the economy came back they no longer needed to sell stuff on discount and recognize that was bad for the brand.
And then a lot of the brands themselves from William Sonoma before started going direct consumer even manufacturers brands like us they lot are built on websites and developed really strong direct to consumer ecommerce sites. The last holdouts were luxury Chanel did not have did not sell online I remember advising Chanel and them saying and our mess and the same thing we will never sell online.
And it's easy to register by purchase stuff on the back I'm saying of course you're going to sell online you're going to sell through every channel why why wouldn't you their view was that online was the septic tank and it was back to the brand they needed the full experience in the store and of course now they're all selling online and so that void that was temporarily filled by players including net a portet remember them has been that gap if you will have that void has been filled by the manufacturers brands themselves and and the bigger players.
The bigger players the really big players I still think that Amazon Amazon does have the luxury players but it does have aspirational brands on there and so the combination of the proprietary product catching up in terms of technology the capital and then one player the commands 50% market share of online purchases you essentially don't have a lot of room for under capitalized players or for players that don't have access to proprietary.
Brand or distribution you know our mess just isn't going to distribute through a third party player unless it's a second hand thing so what you've seen is effectively everyone's been crowded out this goes to a broader issue in that I believe almost every industry is turning into an oligopoly and that if and when we finally decide we need to address our
problem is in terms of too much debt spending way too much money on the next generation's credit card to prop up our own prosperity from the kind of the incumbents I think one of the things we're going to do to
the economy maintain growth is essentially we're going to need to fertilize the entire economy every industry I don't care if it's farma chicken search social big tech cloud for God's sakes AI has created more shareholder value in the entire global auto industry in the last 90 days and what he notes the same old players they do this jazz hands and oh no it's called
anthropic call it Amazon oh no it's called open air call it Microsoft it's the same fucking players and despite their attempts to pretend that they're not a charge and it's not the same players it is the world is concentrating away too fast two companies alphabet and iOS control all handheld operating systems how on earth did that happen 95% of messaging in India is the same one that's dominating messaging a
Nigeria and dominate social media in the United States what's it called it's called meta meta of meta analysis that was right there anyways it's way too concentrated we absolutely need to break this up and you're seeing the same thing the luxury market as the bigger players have come in and taken back distribution or you have the really big players at the near luxury there just isn't room for these startups and now that they don't have access to cheap capital far
probably never made sense did net a port ever make any money I don't know I don't know if guilt it I don't know if these companies ever became profitable and this goes to a bigger issues an entrepreneur and how I've gotten rich I've always sold too early
what do I mean by that I sold my first company profit for I think evaluation of 28 or 33 million in 2002 10 years after I started it to dense to a Japanese ad agency it was doing well it was going to do better it has done better but the amount of risk the amount of capital they've had to take on
the fact that it's sort of a management run company not a shareholder run company where they keep giving themselves more shares and paying himself more money effectively I'm pretty sure that what I sold my shares for 22 years ago is more than those shares are worth now
and I wish I sold earlier red envelope instead I got emotionally involved in a battle with venture capitalist and I held on too long and went to zero what I always tell entrepreneurs is always sell some along the way I sold L2 in 2017 for 158 million was it doing really well yeah would I have made more money if I held on for another couple years given the boom probably
but when you're younger you need to bank a certain amount of money I have a base and it's worth losing some potential upside distinctive all the stories here about Mark Zuckerberg not accepting 10 billion dollars get to bust a move to financial security or some semblance of financial security absolutely as fast as you can I know one of the founders of net a portay
and they were smart they sold early they recognize sure could have gone public could have been a multi billion dollar company but I think they sold it for 350 million bucks which is real cabbage is that company worth that now I don't think so so I'm that guy I'm that board member telling people
to sell a bit early but back to your question luxury commerce is going to have all e-commerce is going to be manufacturers brands the brands itself and the thing about luxury is these brands are built over generations or the bigger the really really huge players that usually are named after river anyways thanks for the question question number two
hey prof g got a quick question on your thoughts on the rise of the remote husband much of you see in the articles lately there seems to be an upward trend where women are going into the office of the hospital maybe their partner in the law firm and their husband is staying at home and working remotely do you think there be any long term a short term positive and negatives on this with man work from home for example speaking personally I'm a fully remote senior software engineer
my partner goes to the office every day and find myself doing a lot of chores a lot of cleaning whatever I'm honest we are both a lot happier do you think I should stay fully remote or should I go and get back into the office earn more money in the short term so we can have that long term gain let me know what you think huge fan of your work love the eligible happiness and have been listening since the Amazon HQ 2 predictions from Dublin and Ireland
thanks for the question anonymous from Dublin by the way my son just went to Ireland and had the best time he just loved it there and he's not a drinking age I know it's not the beer but he absolutely loved it and I remember going to Ireland my father and thinking was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever been there's one of those father's son trips he was getting into his 70s and you get his passion his whole life was golf
and so I thought I'll take him to Ireland kind of the you know some of the better courses in the world anyways little walk down memory lane so a new trend is emerging the rise of the remote husband why is this happening men and women tend to specialize in different kinds of work according to the economist men are often found in industries including computer science engineering
while women dominate teaching and nursing jobs and although professions including law medicine of historically employed more men than women that's changing now more women than men enrolled in law school and medical school these industries were women are outpacing men typically require in person work on the other hand industries including coding technology architecture engineering and business jobs
that attract more men report high levels of remote work flexibility the McKinsey survey revealed that 38% of working men had the option to work remotely full time while only 30% of women have this option also about half of women survey reported that they cannot work remotely at all compared to 39% of men
so this is somewhat situational I don't think you said whether or not you have kids so in some in some I think remote work is an unbelievable unlock for certain cohorts there's some nuance here I'll start with my favorite topic me remote work and the comfort with remote work or a cultural shift and the acceptance of remote work has been an absolute game changer for me best years of my life COVID and I feel self conscious saying that but it was more time with never
conflicts more time with my kids and my stocks skyrocketing value and I used to I built a studio my tech guys genius drew he built an incredible remote studios and all my homes and he comes in via the cloud he sets them up basically such that if I'm doing a TV hit or talk and back then all of these companies are trying to keep people together so they were doing remote talks I made great money it was amazing for me again another transfer of prosperity and well being from poor people who had to load up
their diet coax and diabetes medication and head out into very dangerous environments driving an Uber or waiting on people who they had to remind to put up their mass back on but if you were an incumbent you already had some money and you could do remote work COVID was much less damaging on you than the rest of the population kind of the services population so what do I think I think they remote work is a tremendous unlock for caregivers and I would like to see a new classification of work or called the caregiver who is taking care of kids taking care of aging parents
and maybe even taking care of their own mental or physical health who does make the kind of money where they can be close to work I think a special accommodation
investment should be made such as those people can work remotely now here's the nuance here it's a fucking disaster for young people why especially men they need the socialization what happens when you pull kids out of school they come off the tracks they need the socialization what happens when you sequester a dog what are they tell you when you have a dog you take it to the dog
you take it to the dog park to socialize it will guess what you know you're not young men and young women aren't puppies but they're adolescents and they need socialization when I went into Morgan Stanley at the age of 22 I absolutely needed to do that I needed to learn how to get up at a certain time every morning I had some of that because it was an athlete but put on a tie look presentable I used to get pulled out of meetings all the time it was a wonderful thing
and my boss would say don't say that or don't be a fucking idiot or occasionally might say do more of this you need the socialization you need to learn how to read a room you're also going to make fantastic friends you might even find a mentor and your 38% more likely to be promoted when you're in the office
why is that the decider always has three candidates for promotion and he or she will make that decision based on who they have the best relationship with and relationships are a function of proximity so the person they've had coffee with the person they see physically working really hard the person they see that's a good culture carrier the person they see who dresses well and works out which reflects discipline and if you think I'm fat shaming well okay fuck me so that's the bottom line it reflects discipline to be in good shape it reflects
a certain level of attention to detail to look presentable every day reflects a certain amount of discipline to get in the goddamn office so it's a conversation with your spouse right what are the trade-offs here because there is a trade-off you will lose some professional trajectory you will lose some opportunity to develop relationships that will pay off later in life by being remote having said that I get that it's a creative especially with kids especially if you're a caregiver especially if you're managing issues around your own health
the be clear my brother you can have it all you just can't have it all at once thanks to the question we have one quick break before our final question stay with us support for this episode of Proph G comes from mint mobile there are two types of people in this world monthly budget people and people are surprised and terrified to see how much they spend every month
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and I'm calling for you to your thoughts on you juggle multiple demanding roles of father professor author public speaker and many more in each role you masterfully lend effective storytelling with rigorous data analysis making your points
go to relatable and memorable it's clear you've invested much time in refining your torch and while you're being very open about the algebra for wealth and how to go about it and curious how do you manage your energy and time to perform so well across these capacities all the best for your new book.
Thanks so much people under the impression of much more productive and I work a lot harder than I do so I'll come back to that but first Singapore I think Singapore is just an incredible inspiration just a model anyways so I do juggle a lot but the reality is people are constantly come up to me and say how do you produce all this content and I love your sketches and I love your content and you must work around the clock and I know
greatness is in the agency of others what I am good at is finding and retaining really talented people in the way you do that is it loyalty is a function of appreciation and you try and be thoughtful about what they want from the career you try and coach them sometimes that's giving them
called tough love but most of the time especially young people watering them putting them on a path for economic security trying to show that you have a vested interest in their success and that your success is directly connected to their success and vice versa but if you can do these things and build a team you can just get incredible leverage so I think we do five podcasts a week we're doing a book about every 18 months will do three million speaking fees this year with presentations that are very red.
And deep we have a really strong production team we have you know to tech people video people editors so the key is finding leverage on your time now that's not possible for all people what you want is obviously you have to go you have to be in the part of your career when you're a younger person is your providing leverage to someone else or to another entity or you're using a platform for greater leverage called JP Morgan or Google but once you get to a point
where if you're going to be an entrepreneur where you have a little bit of capital what you really want to be focused on and I think this is true even if you're not an entrepreneur is trying to zero in on what can I do really well and then trying to outsource almost everything else in the very basic is at some point you probably decide OK it's not worth it for me to spend four hours cleaning my apartment on a Sunday I'm going to get someone to clean my apartment and I'm going to focus on self care working out or maybe a little bit of additional work whatever it might be and then at your job once you get to a point of view and I'm going to do it.
Once you get to a point of I don't know emotional or financial security I have eliminated the should bucket what do I mean by that life is three buckets it seems you have to do if general catalyst who backed my company section if they want to talk about if they want me to come talk to their entrepreneurs this year so their company is a portfolio come is I have to do that they're good to me they've invest a lot of money in me I have to do that there's things I want to do I want to walk around so I want to go to equinox lady
and work out and then there's things you should do and you spend most of your life doing should right I should I should go to my friends daughters wedding I should go to this networking event I should write an article for this to try to make a small investment well I've got to a point now where I've eliminated the should bucket I just think to myself OK so something I need to do or I have to do or something I want to do and then I eliminate everything else I have someone else dress me or at least pick out my clothes I have someone else
plan my diet I have someone else managing my calendar sending up everything I haven't planned travel in years that's a position of luxury but to a certain extent as soon as possible you want to be begin taking as much off your plate as possible once you identify something you are really good at and then double down on that one thing and then when you get really good you'll start making more money and then what are you going to do you're going to reinvest in people who provide leverage
to you people think it's me producing this content property media is 14 people it's 14 people and we get leverage on that books speaking podcasts greatness is in the agency of others that's all for this episode if you'd like to submit a question please email a voice recording to office hours of property media com again that's office hours of property media com
this episode is produced by Caroline Chagrin Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burrows is our technical director thank you for listening to the property pod from the Fox Media Podcast Network we will catch you on Saturday for no mercy no malice as read by George Han and please follow our property markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday