OpenAI Wants A Government Bailout

6 Jul 2026 · 1 h 6 min · 18 chapters

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In short

The episode argues that AI companies are facing a demand-and-profitability crisis, and that OpenAI is seeking a “government bailout” via a proposed 5% U.S. stake. It also covers Meta shifting to sell cloud/compute capacity, “Trump accounts” for child savings, and the IPO of Bending Spoons.

Guests/backgrounds

The episode features hosts Ed (Ed Zitron is referenced as a prior guest) and Scott (Prof G Markets). No other named guests appear in this transcript segment.

Key claims

OpenAI and Anthropic are portrayed as the only major “front-end” AI demand engines propping up hyperscalers’ infrastructure spending. Meta’s move to monetize excess AI compute is framed as evidence of overbuilding and weaker application-layer demand. OpenAI’s reported 5% stake proposal is framed as cronyism—socializing losses with taxpayers.

Notable examples

OpenAI revenue ($13B) vs spending ($34B) and Anthropic estimates (revenue $4.5B; spending $15.5B). Meta’s cloud shift; Chinese model adoption (DeepSeek) cited as taking traffic from ~30% to ~60% in six months. “Trump accounts” launch details ($1,000 initial; up to $5,000/year; income cap). Bending Spoons IPO: $1.68B raised, ~40% first-day jump to $40.50.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Lighthearted Banter and Jokes

0:30 to 1:47

Engage in humorous exchanges and dad jokes while introducing the hosts' dynamic.

“Botox, autobotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine.”

Lighthearted Banter and Jokes

1:53 to 6:39

Engage in humorous exchanges and dad jokes while introducing the hosts' dynamic.

“That's how much the citizens of Atlanta spent on OnlyFans last year, the most of any U.S.”

Recent Updates in AI

6:39 to 7:18

Discuss recent developments in the AI sector, focusing on OpenAI and Meta's shifts.

“I hope you have plenty of the well-resolved.”

Market Reactions and Strategic Moves

7:18 to 9:21

Explore market reactions to AI companies' strategies and the implications for investments.

“And then in the second piece of news, Meta is reportedly becoming a cloud provider.”

Cracks in AI Demand Narrative

9:21 to 13:59

Analyze the potential decline in AI demand and its impact on infrastructure and investments.

“He's basically saying this whole thing's crumbling.”

Meta's AI Strategy and Overbuilding

14:00 to 14:56

Learn about Meta's ambitious AI goals and the challenges they face in monetization.

“But basically, here are some quotes that executives at Meta said that told us roughly what they were thinking.”

The Back-End AI Business Model

14:56 to 18:19

Explore how companies are shifting focus from front-end AI to back-end infrastructure.

“We haven't done that yet because we think that we have a use for the compute.”

OpenAI's Financial Struggles and Proposed Bailout

18:19 to 19:56

Examine OpenAI's financial losses and their discussion of a government bailout.

“means the whole thing falls apart, which brings us to OpenAI and their recent news, which is that they have decided that the best bet is to go to the government for what seems to be something like a bailout.”

Market Implications and Competition from Chinese Models

19:56 to 22:20

Understand the impact of Chinese AI models on the market and OpenAI's pricing strategy.

“They're going to provide them with protection money and direct access to the White House.”

Critique of Corporate Bailouts and Economic Policies

22:20 to 28:08

Discuss the moral implications of bailing out tech companies and its consequences.

“that it has now sparked OpenAI to supposedly consider reducing their own prices.”
Show all 18 chapters

OpenAI's Systemic Growth Strategy

28:08 to 33:15

Exploring how OpenAI's growth strategy aims at becoming too big to fail.

“And it's like Sam Altman is trying to make the company as systemic as possible, such that eventually when things go wrong, we have no choice to bail them out.”

OpenAI's Systemic Growth Strategy

33:18 to 33:29

Exploring how OpenAI's growth strategy aims at becoming too big to fail.

“Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.”

The Launch of Trump Accounts

35:06 to 42:00

Discussion on the new government-backed investment accounts for children.

“As a reminder, this is a program that creates government-backed investment accounts for children.”

Wealth Redistribution and Corporate Taxes

42:00 to 47:51

Discussing the need for tax reform and the role of wealthy individuals in philanthropy.

“no longer believe not only in America, but in capitalism itself, this is probably not going to do it.”

Bending Spoons IPO Analysis

49:25 to 56:00

Analyzing Bending Spoons' IPO performance and business model.

“Bending spoons went public on the Nasdaq last week.”

AI Companies and Private Equity Strategies

56:00 to 1:00:48

Explore the intersection of AI and private equity, focusing on company strategies and labor practices.

“And then they're putting those software engineers into those companies.”

Investment Opportunities in European Tech

1:00:48 to 1:03:22

Discuss the potential for investment in European tech markets and the benefits of diversification.

“But we went on the Bending Spoons Reddit thread, where the engineers get together and they talk about their problems.”

Predictions on OpenAI's Future

1:03:22 to 1:06:04

Consider potential scenarios for OpenAI's future, including the possibility of a government bailout.

“We will see the minutes from the Federal Reserve's June meeting, and we'll also see earnings from Pepsi and from Delta.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:01Scott Galloway:This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling smart move another smart move getting help from one of state farm's 19 000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling just another way to save with the personal price plan prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state i get so many headaches every month it could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

1:00Botox, autobotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor.

1:10Scott Galloway:Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

1:45Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

1:52Scott Galloway:Today's number,$26.2 million. That's how much the citizens of Atlanta spent on OnlyFans last year, the most of any U.S. city. Ed, why did the Scarecrow win an award? Why? Because he was outstanding in his field.

2:18Scott Galloway:so in case you are we need to be caught up i'm going to tell dad jokes until michael symbolis the chief investment officer from jp morgan accepts our apology for offending him for telling a dirty joke on the episode he appeared i actually find the dad jokes funnier than the sex jokes. I'm sorry, we need to fix that. Why can't you hear a pterodactyl in the bathroom? Why is that? Because the pee is silent. Michael, accept our apology. Or don't. Release the dick jokes. Actually, that's my new position. I don't want him to accept it. I like this new direction. How are you, Ed? Doing very well. It's coming home.

2:54I don't know about that because that was a pretty shocking performance. This will come out on Monday and we're recording before Sunday night. So we'll see if England's still in the World Cup. But, yeah, the Congo performance was not great. Do they have to play in Mexico?

3:08Scott Galloway:Is the next game Mexico at Azteca? Yeah, Mexico Sunday. Yeah, it's going to be a tough one. Did you see Team USA? Team USA looks good. The scary part is the star of the U.S. team, Falaran, I think it's Balogun, received a controversial red card. Yeah, I saw. Do you see that? I think that's very anti-American. I don't know. And by the way, do you— discrimination against the Yanks. Do you know what Foller and Baligan and Scott Galloway have in common? Other than exceptional athletic skill. What's that? We're both anchor babies. His mother was seven months pregnant and the airline wouldn't let her fly.

3:45Scott Galloway:And so he was born in the US. That's why he's on Team USA. And Sylvia Levine and Tom Galloway, who met in Toronto at a dance. My mom was seven and a half months pregnant. Pretty sure they went wed. I think they've been lying to me about that.

4:03Scott Galloway:And it's too late to check now. And they decided they couldn't endure another winter. This is a true story. And my mom read in the Toronto Globe and Mail that the city with the best weather in North America was this city called San Diego. So they loaded up my mom's Austin Mini Metro, which is essentially a lawnmower with doors. I don't know if you've ever seen Mr. Bean. It's a go-kart. And seven and a half months pregnant, my mom and my dad traversed across the U.S. with no air conditioning in their car and landed in San Diego, and five weeks later, I was born. So had this ridiculous attempt to turn back the 14th Amendment been in place now, yours truly would not be an American citizen.

4:44Scott Galloway:So what I am asking is that the IRS recognize that I'm not a citizen as I want to move to Dubai and I want the$100 million in taxes me and my company have paid over the last decade. I want it back. According to you, fucking Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, I am not a citizen, meaning I'm not obligated to pay taxes in the United States. So anchor baby here, anchor baby, revoke my citizenship and tax status, please. I'm kind of a reverse anchor baby. I guess maybe I'm an anchor baby in Britain. American parents, go to the UK, born in the UK, come back here. Oh my God, we're housing an undocumented worker.

5:26Scott Galloway:Someone call ICE. Call them. Take me away. Oh my God, it's almost bonus time. I'm going to be like that bitch that called ICE on the roofers when they were done roofing her house and she didn't want to pay them so she called ICE. Literally December 30th, Merry Christmas, please meet Mr. Sanchez from ICE. I'm sorry, Ed. I love it. We were going to pay you a bonus but it just wouldn't be right. It just wouldn't be right. Get him out of here. Why does that make me happy? Why does that make me happy? I'm calling ice on Ed Hilsen. Oh, that's hilarious. That's good. That's good. That's hilarious. You can try it.

6:04Are you a citizen? Yeah, but I'm a citizen, so I've got the dual passport, so it's not really going to work out, but you could try it.

6:10Scott Galloway:Wait, so you weren't born here, so your parents applied for your citizenship? I don't really know what they did, but they're American. Oh, sure you don't, you little illegal immigrant. Well, everyone knows what's going on here. Everyone knows what's going on here. Okay. All right. Well, now that we've figured out our citizenship status, you will have it revoked, and I apparently am illegal currently. Shall we get into our three big stories? We've got a lot to talk about today. Let's get to the news. Stop bantering. Let's do it. Now is the time to cry. I hope you have plenty of the well-resolved.

6:50There were two strange updates in the AI world last week. First, OpenAI proposed giving the Trump administration a 5 % stake in the company. That stake would be worth roughly$43 billion. Sam Altman has reportedly argued that a government stake in the company would be the best way to sharing the upside of AI with the public. And there's a vision for other AI companies to potentially join in, essentially creating a sovereign wealth fund. And then in the second piece of news, Meta is reportedly becoming a cloud provider. The company is preparing to sell its excess AI computing capacity. That is a notable shift after spending billions to build out infrastructure that it previously said would be necessary for its own AI ambitions.

7:35Investors did welcome the news, though, sending Meta shares up nearly 9%, but the reaction wasn't nearly as positive elsewhere. Shares of neocloud companies like CoreWeave and Nebius fell roughly 12 % on the news. So, Scott, lots to get into in the AI department here. First, I'm just going to take my own little personal victory lap, because if you follow me on Twitter, you know that I actually bought Meta last week at$564. Here we are. The reason I bought is because I thought the stock was way undervalued, trading at 20 times earnings, S &P trading at 25 times. So that's pretty cheap relative to the rest of the market.

8:15And this is a player that obviously is positioned for AI if we do see an AI boom. Plus, the last time it traded that low was in 2022. And since then, revenues have grown more than 70%. Gross margins have increased 200 basis points. So the whole thing just looked very attractive. The market was very worried that Zuckerberg was investing all of this money into these data centers, but hadn't laid out a plan for how he was going to monetize those data centers. Well, now he's given us the answer and he's basically just going to do what AWS did and what the cloud providers do. We just rent out the chips and sell it to enterprises.

8:51Now, there is a lot of debate over whether this is actually bullish or bearish, because what we also know is that the plan was to use all of that compute to build their own AI products. And now they're saying, no, we're not going to do that anymore. We're going to sell it to someone else, and someone else is going to build the AI products, which begs this question, who's going to build the AI products? and why isn't meta down to do it if they're one of the most capitalized companies in the world and they are supposedly supposed to be a leader in ai that's the bearish question lots to get into your reactions this sent chills down my spine or i had real deja vu of 99 again

9:34Scott Galloway:because what do we have here essentially and i i i don't listen to markets unless i nor enjoy it unless I'm on it, but I did find that guy you had out, Ed Citron, he's very good. And I was fascinated by what he said. He's basically saying this whole thing's crumbling. That's my takeaway. And I was fascinated by, I mean, his basic thesis, and tell me if I have this right, is that all of the demand that trickles down to the trillions of dollars of CapEx and infrastructure and unbelievable valuations from construction firms to the chips guys is now basically down to demand being created by two players.

10:22Scott Galloway:And that is Anthropic and OpenAI are still growing, but Meta and XAI, who are planning to create demand themselves with their own customer base's needs for AI products, have basically said, oh, we overestimated the front end demand we could create. So we're going to lease out our infrastructure. So all of a sudden, it looks like we've gone from another unbelievable pivot from a crisis of supply to a crisis of front end demand. And probably the strongest evidence of that, of the kind of demand shock, if you will, is OpenAI delaying their IPO. In this market, you would think even if they'd lost some momentum they would be jonesing to get out.

11:11Scott Galloway:And I mean, it looks as if, so what did we have? We had Grok has 5 % market share, Cloud S14, ChatGPT 49, Gemini 20, and Llama had 2.1. And I don't think it was the market saying, okay, we like the revenue that these guys are going to pick up. It's actually a drop in the bucket for these guys. I think what the market was saying is this is a CapEx race that is going to be a loser. And we like that Meta's beginning to look more like Apple and they're not, they're basically getting out early of these CapEx wars. And this all feels very 99 to me. And that is you had, so we knew the internet was going to be huge.

12:01Scott Galloway:People were confident of that, but the front end guys, the application layer, the pets.com, the Amazon.coms, the Utoys, it was clear that they weren't going to be able to create the kind of revenue in the short term that justified their valuations. So everyone thought, wait, let's go to B2B. So we went from OpenAI to B2B Anthropic, which was big in the enterprise, right? And then we found out there was companies, you don't remember this, like Internet Capital Group, which was supposed to be a marketplace so Pepsi could buy sugar. And then what everyone realized was it was just total bullshit, that it was much easier to pick up the phone or just send the facts.

12:35Scott Galloway:And the B2B guys collapsed. And then I thought, well, hold on. Okay, B2C and B2B, maybe we can't pick the winners, but the internet's huge. We need infrastructure investment. So people threw in the hat on trying to pick which front end or which B2B application of the layer was going to be huge. And they invested in infrastructure and they invested in Cisco, right? They invested in fiber. And then Cisco from 99 to 2001 lost 92 % of its market capitalization. And that sort of feels like what's happening here is the front end is stressed. It's not creating the demand originally anticipated. So we went from open AI to wait.

13:14Scott Galloway:Anthropic is B2B. That's where it's at. Now we're starting to see what is a token nausea. People are saying you're spending too much in the enterprise on this shit. You need to scale it back. And I think the next shoe to drop is going to be in the infrastructure layer. And what people don't, and that's not to say the technology is not amazing. That's not to say these companies won't be great companies that'll be around in 20 or 30 years. Amazon lost 90 % of its value in a 24 month period. It's obviously recovered then in some. The internet has lived up to the hype, but they went through incredible volatility because the initial is, I mean, it's gone from not what can AI do to will AI pay?

13:53Scott Galloway:And right now, it seems to me, we're starting to see real cracks in the wall in the narrative. Just to go to what Meta and Mark Zuckerberg had previously said about these hundreds of billions of dollars that they were investing and spending on building all of these data centers, which again, the market didn't like because they didn't have a clear answer to the question of how are you going to monetize them. But basically, here are some quotes that executives at Meta said that told us roughly what they were thinking. So Zuckerberg said in 2024, quote, quote, our goal with Meta AI is to build the world's leading AI service, both in quality and usage.

14:30So the idea was, we're going to build our own AI stuff. In 2025, the CFO said, when she was asked about the ROI question, she said, quote, even with the capacity that we're bringing online in 2025, we are having a hard time meeting the demand that teams have for compute resources across the company, i.e. we are building all of these AI products, and we can barely keep up with the demand for our own teams within the company. Then, this is the most important quote, when asked if he would ever just start a cloud business, which he's now doing as of last week, Zuckerberg said this year, quote, We haven't done that yet because we think that we have a use for the compute.

15:11Obviously, if we get to a point where we feel that we have overbuilt, then that is an option that we have, and that is partially what gives us confidence in investing in building this out. Well, they've now done the thing that they said that they would only do if they felt that they had, quote, overbuilt. So the question is, have they overbuilt? And I think that it would be a very, very reasonable answer to say, yes, they have, because look at what they're now doing. So I think that you're right in pointing out the difference between the front end of AI, i.e. using ChatGPT, using Claude, etc., and the back end, which is building the infrastructure, building the data centers.

15:52Meta clearly tried to build a front-end AI business. They tried to do Lama, as you said, 2 % market share. Clearly, it didn't work. So now they're shifting to the back end. They say, we're not going to build those products. We're going to sell stuff to other companies. We're going to build the products. XAI, similar position. They tried to build a front-end business. mostly hasn't worked. Grok has like 5 % market share. They're shifting to the back end. They're shifting more focus on building the data centers, which they are now renting out to other companies that they should really be competing with.

16:28And so now most companies are basically deciding building the front end is a bad business. Better to build the back end, build the infrastructure and sell it to the front end AI businesses. So then the question becomes, okay, who are these front-end AI businesses that they're selling to, that supposedly is a good business they've invested hundreds of billions of dollars into. And the answer is there are two companies. It's Anthropic and it's OpenAI, and that's basically it. And when we look at our estimates, those two companies alone account for between 60 to 80 % of the AI revenues for Amazon, for Google, and for Microsoft.

17:06And according to the information, those two companies alone make up half of the entire revenue backlog of the hyperscalers, i.e. the big tech companies, meaning that the back-end infrastructure business only works if OpenAI and Anthropic continue to pay all this money and keep this whole thing afloat, which then begs the question, do you think they'll keep actually paying? And this is where the financials are so important, which were leaked by Ed Zitrin, who we had on. And we learned that OpenAI made$13 billion in revenue last year. OK, great. But they spent$34 billion. So their operating loss was$21 billion.

17:47Anthropic, we don't know the financials, but we at Prof. G have done some estimates that we know that they made$4.5 billion in revenue last year. Based on our estimates, they probably spent around$15.5 billion. That's an$11 billion operating loss, meaning the front-end AI business only works if the VCs continue to subsidize it to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. And by the way, if the hyperscalers continue to subsidize it. But if they stop doing that, then suddenly this business of building front-end AI doesn't work anymore, which means the business of selling the back-end doesn't work anymore, which basically means the whole thing falls apart, which brings us to OpenAI and their recent news, which is that they have decided that the best bet is to go to the government for what seems to be something like a bailout.

18:37And that is, according to the Financial Times, they've discussed giving a 5 % stake to the U.S. government. And so it seems as though instead of Silicon Valley subsidizing those losses, maybe now just the taxpayers will. And maybe that's the plan. And maybe that's a good idea. Because that's what the banks did in 2008. And it didn't work for some of them, but it worked out for most of them. And so you have to think, maybe they see this collapsing. And that's why they go to the government. But either way, both of these pieces of news in the same week, that's very, very bearish, in my view, and seems to indicate that this is a growing bubble that is nearing a point of maybe not collapse, but certainly massive course correction.

19:28Scott Galloway:OpenAI, I predicted this six months ago, that the biggest bailout in corporate history was about to happen. And it was going to be the bailout of Nadella, Altman, Dario Amadei, and it would be dressed up as investment or growth. It's not. It's a bailout. If the government were to take a 5 % stake in OpenAI, great. They're going to favor OpenAI. They're going to over-regulate their competitors and under-regulate open AI. They're going to provide them with protection money and direct access to the White House. It's not even socialism, it's cronyism. It's like, you know, when things are really good, we want to capture all the gains ourselves.

20:08Scott Galloway:But when things are bad, we want to socialize the losses. That's not capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down is cronyism. And that's what's being offered here. It's also evidence that things are, there's something wrong in Mudville. And then just as the great flippening was the reversal of fortunes in from the massive leakage of momentum from open AI to anthropic, we've seen another incredible flippening, but this is one is geographic. And that is free Chinese models went from 30 % of AI traffic to 60 % in six months. The dominant AI models are now imports. I mean, this is the thing that rocked the automobile industry was a product called the Honda Civic.

20:56Scott Galloway:That was sort of a slow moving train wreck over 10 years. This has been 10 weeks. GPU rates are collapsing. The hyperscalers built$300 billion of infrastructure for customers who are switching to DeepSeek for free. The way to describe this historically is this is the fiber overbuild of 1999. The Chinese model problem is like another problem on top of all of their other problems because, I mean, as you pointed out, a lot of these large companies are now switching. I can go through a list of some of them who have switched to Chinese models. Coinbase is now using Kimi. Cursor's using Kimi. Shopify's using Quen.

21:37Airbnb is using Quinn. Siemens is using DeepSeek. Microsoft is now apparently testing DeepSeek. And the reason they're all doing this is because the Chinese models are way cheaper. And we talked about why is that the case. Some say it's because Chinese have cheaper energy and that might be part of it. But also it seems that they're kind of just stealing the models from the U.S. companies through this process of distillation.

22:02Scott Galloway:I don't think the Chinese would do that, Ed. They hate stealing IP. It's not their game. Yeah, that's probably what's happening. And unless you can do something to stop that, then this train's going to keep running here and the Chinese models are going to continue to take up market share. And the real problem is the fact that it has now sparked OpenAI to supposedly consider reducing their own prices. And if you're a company that's making$13 billion and spending$34 billion, and you're going to decide that actually we're going to reduce the revenue number because we're being priced out by other companies that are offering not just comparable products, but literally equal products.

22:45I mean, studies have been done. These models are perfectly good on a variety of different metrics. That basically means that OpenAI's business is in big, big trouble. And again, they can say that they're giving the stake to the U.S. government because they want the American people to all share in the upside. But what they're really saying is, we want the American people to all share in the downside. Because right now, the business is currently all downside. You haven't figured out a way to make this product profitable. You haven't figured out a way to sell this product without spending literally like billions and billions of dollars on sales and marketing, almost$6 billion dollars.

23:29They could have bought Super Bowl ads for a decade, every single Super Bowl ad for literally a decade. Like, this is a business that clearly hasn't proven itself, and they're already going to government and saying, you guys support us. What I can't tell, though, is whether that, I mean, clearly I'm bearish after hearing about the meta news, but now i'm wondering okay if the government just bails them out then maybe it will work out like i don't know if i should be if we should necessarily be betting events against companies that are literally going to be subsidized by the full force on the balance sheet of the u.s government i don't know if that's actually what's going to happen here and i don't think it's fair and i think it's honestly reprehensible and i can't believe that we can't learn from our mistakes in the past and continue to do the same thing over and over and over again.

24:25And I know it's going to create hatred of these companies among the American people, i.e. the taxpayers who are going to pay for all of this. But part of me thinks maybe that works, just getting bailed out. And maybe that means that they can figure out a way to reach profitability if they can just continue to have their losses subsidized by someone who's way richer than them. It started off with Silicon Valley, then it went to big tech, like companies like Microsoft, and now it's going to literally the U.S. government. I mean, maybe that's a winning strategy. I don't know. This is a common theme in America, and that is my generation or the incumbents, if you

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25:03Scott Galloway:will, it's not old versus young. It's not rich versus poor. It's incumbents versus entrants. But the incumbents who are sitting on top of a company recently valued at$875 billion, it's OK. If they go to$100 billion, they're still going to be worth twice what Ford is worth. They're still going to be one of the 100 most valuable companies in the world. Companies trading at$875 billion shouldn't get bailouts. Now, you could argue that if Ford goes from$10 billion to zero and has to lay off a couple million people and middle class jobs are lost in the Midwest, okay, maybe that's at least a feasible argument for government intervention having societal implications or a positive or justification.

25:43Scott Galloway:organization, OpenAI and Anthropic, burn baby burn. If all of a sudden NVIDIA goes from being worth more than the entire German and Spanish stock market to just being worth what the French stock market is worth, okay. There's absolutely no justification for me to whip out your credit card and run up our deficit such that the current owners, the private owners of Anthropic and OpenAI shares can maintain their gains. This isn't about an existential crisis where you think we would lose millions of jobs and the very existence of this category and losing this game. This is about keeping the incumbents rich.

26:27And that is basically a curse or a virus that infects America.

26:33Scott Galloway:I have two college degrees and a bunch of homes. I'm going to make it harder for everybody else to get one such that the value of my current assets go up. No, that's not the way America is supposed to work. And the idea that we're even talking about this for companies that are, if Anthropic were in Europe, it was founded five years ago, it would be one of the four most valuable companies in Europe right now. What company that's one of the 20 most valuable companies in Europe has any discussion of a bailout? The plane is running at Mach 3 and doing just fine. Why do the pilots need to bail out?

27:09Scott Galloway:Why do we need to pay for these things? These things, say they lose 80 % of their value. Amazon lost 92 % of its value. We didn't bail them out. That's fine. That's part of capitalism. So the fact that this is even being discussed, in my opinion, is Sam Altman saying, I have no fidelity to capitalism. I did this weird fucking deal with TPG and other private equity firms that guaranteed them a 16 % or 17 % pick. All that does is start to crush the previous rounds of investors because those numbers will start to add up pretty fast. But my God, if they lose 80 % of their value, so you're saying it's only worth as much as the entire U.S.

27:50Scott Galloway:auto industry? But it's almost like they want to be systemic. They want to be. It's like they open AI has is essentially like a zombie child that was formed by all of the big tech companies that have become systemic to the stock market. And it's like Sam Altman is trying to make the company as systemic as possible, such that eventually when things go wrong, we have no choice to bail them out. It seems like this is almost all part of the design that he wants to be too big to fail. He wants for the U.S. government to own a 5 % stake in it so that if anything ever goes wrong, why wouldn't the U.S.

28:32government figure out a way to bail them out? And it's almost like none of this growth is organic. Like, give ChatGBT its credit. On a user basis, that was organic growth. People loved the product and they started using it. But they haven't figured out how to monetize it in a realistic or sustainable way. And so all of the growth that we've seen from the valuations, from the circular deals, now going to the government, all of that is basically a setup where they are artificially growing this thing and they're trying to make it so big and so core and such a part of our lives such that by the time the business truly does flounder, we'll have no choice but to say, hey, we need this thing.

29:16We're all in this together. Let's bail them out. It feels like that is the direction that they are taking, that they want to become as systemic as humanly possible. And it's like, it's honestly gross. I just can't. that seeing that headline and i bet trump is down because he basically will do anything for anyone who shows up to the white house and kisses his ass this is what we've seen time and time again

29:43Scott Galloway:it's more than just showing up to the white house what is it 93 percent of gdp growth 75 percent of earnings growth come down to these firms continued spend so just as we have convinced ourselves it make sense to spend$7 trillion on government spending with$5 trillion in receipts just to keep the good times and the sugar high coming. Trump does not want the economy to slow down, especially going into the midterms. So he will potentially be open to the notion of doing whatever's required, including pulling out your credit card to keep the music playing. But this is no different. Corporations, Mitt Romney tried to tell us corporations are people.

30:22Scott Galloway:I don't think that's true. I think the corporations, you let your thoroughbreds run, the idea is they pay their taxes, and then you try and fund a Navy and parks and snap payments and unemployment insurance for actual people. But this really is no different than, say, someone is worth$100 million, and they really like being worth$100 million, and they're really good friends with Trump, and they're really good for their community, and they spend a lot of money everywhere. I'm like, oh no, my business is shit. And I need the government to invest in my business and give me government contracts and also maybe put some of my competitors out of business, maybe give me government-backed loans such that I'm not worth just 25 million.

31:05Scott Galloway:Is that a good use of the government's money? So if OpenAI or Anthropic lost 75 % of their market cap, they'd only be worth as much as Uber or Adobe or Charles Schwatt or Amgen. But because this run-up, this sugar high has been fueled by this new technology and the unbelievable expectations there, this would be the absolute worst thing for our economy that we could do is to decide that these thoroughbreds that are amazing companies and worth a ton of money need to be propped up. It would be absolutely no different than picking the wealthiest hundred Americans and saying, we're going to use the credit card and the debt capacity of future generations to make sure you maintain that you continue to be the top 100 wealthiest people in the world.

31:54Scott Galloway:And to a certain extent, that's what we've been doing by weaponizing housing, by weaponizing or sequestering degrees to college. Again, yet another transfer to the already super fucking wealthy.

32:10We'll be right back after the break. And if you're enjoying the show so far, send it to a friend and please follow us on YouTube and Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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35:06We're back with Prof G Markets. The Trump accounts are officially live. As a reminder, this is a program that creates government-backed investment accounts for children. Babies born between 2025 and 2028 will receive a one-time$1 ,000 contribution funded by the government to help kickstart long-term savings. Michael and Susan Dell started a separate initiative for children born between 2016 and 2024, the kids who don't qualify for the federal contribution. They are providing a$250 deposit for families living in zip codes with median incomes of$150 ,000 or less. So, Scott, these accounts have officially launched.

35:49How do they work? As I said, if you're born between 2025 and 2028, you get$1 ,000 immediate into your investment account. It will be funded by the Treasury Department. This is a pilot program. If they decide it works, then maybe they'll continue it. Every account can then receive a contribution of up to$5 ,000 per year tax deferred. The money can only be invested in a qualified index fund that uses no leverage and that charges no annual fee of more than 0.1%. And then when you turn 18, it converts into a traditional IRA and it basically functions just like a retirement account. This, I think I've said it before, is the best thing the administration has done by a mile, in my opinion.

36:35I actually support this 100%. I hate that they're calling it Trump accounts and that Trump had to put his fingers on this thing because now I feel like it's been politicized and people don't want this to succeed. But it really started with Brad Gersner coming up with this thing, pushing it through to the White House, going to the White House, getting Trump to agree to it. Probably had to say that it had to be called a Trump account for the thing to even happen in the first place. Then Michael Dell comes and gets involved. There are some caveats that we can get into, but big picture, huge fan of this thing.

37:07I think this is exactly what we should be doing and what we should be using government money on.

37:12Scott Galloway:Yeah, I agree with you. I really like this in concept. A friend of mine in Los Angeles, Alex von Furstenberg, was a big fan of this. And there's been a lot of different iterations. I personally would have gone bigger. I would have gone$7 ,000, which would be, I think,$40 billion a year. And I would infantilize and I would hold it. I would force people to be in these low-cost index funds until they're 65. and essentially position it like the Chinese do, go kind of 50-year plans. I think in 30 years, what you could say is, if you gave every baby$7 ,000, by the time they're 65, based on historically market returns, they end up with a million bucks.

37:48Scott Galloway:And then in 30 years, I would announce that we're 30 years away from not needing social security. And I think interest rates would go down and this would start to pay for itself. I think we need another way to leverage the marketplace and compounding to replace the out-of-control social spending, entitlement spending that is dragging our economy down and putting too much tax on young people. Having said that, I would have gone bigger and bolder with this. Having said that, I think this is a good idea. I think the Dells should be applauded, not mocked for them doing this. Ray Dalio is doing something similar.

38:20Scott Galloway:What I don't like is the notion that we have to count on the kindness of strangers, including the Dells who are good people, but also happen to be awarded a piece of TikTok. I think that probably Elon Musk may have said, hey, I have an idea. Lean on the NASDAQ 100 and the SEC to include me and the NASDAQ 100 prematurely, unlike any other company in history. And I think I might give, you know,$10 billion,$100 billion in baby bonds. I just, I don't like depending, to me, this feels like a government program that the government should finance that's about long-term thinking and reducing entitlements over time, as opposed to just sort of this giveaway and we're depending upon the generosity of billionaires like the Dells and the Dalios of the world.

39:08Scott Galloway:So, but again, I moved to my glass half empty pessimism. On the whole, I think this is a really good idea. I like the fact there's a income cap on it. I like the fact that it's leveraging, you know, the greatest, as Einstein was credited with saying, but actually didn't say, the greatest force in the universe, and that's compound interest. So I agree with you. I think generally speaking, it's a really good idea. Yeah, just to go through what that money will become, that first$1 ,000, if we assume 10 % annual growth, which is the S &P's average over the past several decades, by age 18, that will be worth$5 ,500.

39:45But if you contribute$1 ,000 a year, then it will be worth$50 ,000 by the time you're 18. And if you contribute to the maximum$5 ,000 a year, it'll be worth a quarter of a million by the time you're 18. So, I mean, it's just hard to argue with the numbers there. That would be amazing. The problem, and I found myself violently agreeing with you again, is that a lot of people seem to see this and see the Dell's contribution, which is spectacular. Take nothing away from them. They seem to see this as the catch-all solution to the problem of inequality in America. That instead of taxing people and instead of going in some direction close to a billionaire tax, we can get into what actually is the right solution.

40:39But instead of taxation, we rely on voluntary philanthropy. We tell rich people, we're not going to take your money, but please, please, pretty please, will you invest billions of dollars into these child investment accounts? And to be fair, some people have. The Dells have done it. Ray Dalio did it. He committed$75 million to kids in Connecticut. Brad Gerstner's done it. He's committed$250 to every child under five in Indiana. That's great. However, we were also told that this was going to create a landslide of donations, Brad came on the show and he said, you watch, everyone's going to do this.

41:21I said, is Zuckerberg going to do it? He said, yep, Zuckerberg's going to do it. So far, only six individual donors are on record having committed to the Trump accounts. It's Dell, it's Dalio, it's Gerstner, it's Harold Hamm, it's Nicki Minaj, and then it's an anonymous donor in San Francisco. Elon has not given anything. Zuckerberg hasn't given anything. Bezos hasn't given anything. I mean, if you were to put Elon, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos together, and they gave away 5 % of their wealth, they could fund this program for nearly two decades. And they haven't done it. And so I'm completely with you.

41:56If we're thinking that this is the solution, that this is how we're going to redistribute the wealth, this is how we're going to get the money back into the hands of the American people so that we don't see this crisis of faith in the American system so that young people no longer believe not only in America, but in capitalism itself, this is probably not going to do it. Unless we see some waterfall and everyone starts investing in these Trump accounts, then, yeah, let's not wait on Elon Musk to suddenly, like, find the charitable bone in his body and give it all back to the children. What we've seen so far is he doesn't really want to give much away at all.

42:35Scott Galloway:Depending on the kindness of strangers to fund the well-being of our kids when they get older is a little bit like thinking, oh, Sheryl Sandberg wrote a book on gender equality. She couldn't come up with a business model that results in teen girls cutting themselves. This is the government. We elect people. And by the way, this just wouldn't be that hard to fund. Here's an idea. The top tax rate is 37%. You make over a million dollars a year. There's no capital gains deduction that goes to 20 % or 22.8. It's 37%. Oh, and by the way, that 37 % tax rate is alternative minimum tax. We had that brilliant woman, Ray Madoff, on our podcast.

43:13Scott Galloway:She blew my mind with the following stat and the framing. Everybody thinks the biggest expenditure is entitlements at$1.5 trillion Social Security. I think Medicaid's 1.2. The military is now 1.5. Our interest on our debt's$1 trillion. She said, no. The biggest expenditure is a$2.3 trillion expenditure, and it's the following. It's the money we give back to corporations and wealthy people in the form of tax loopholes. And it just blew my mind what a genius framing that is. And that is we don't need to raise tax rates. We just need to enforce them. And the government should be giving every kid$7 ,000 and then infantilize them and say, nope, can't touch it till you're 65.

43:55Scott Galloway:And by the way, within 20 or 30 years, the debt in the bond markets are going to go, wow, in a few decades, which will go fast. They will no longer need Social Security. And you're going to see interest rates go down on everyone's credit card bill, auto loan, everyone's mortgage will go down, and this thing will pay for itself. But we need to—but you know what this feels like, Ed? It feels like the mayor of Bogota donates the land, but we need Pablo Escobar to pay for the grass and the nets. No. If it's a civic stadium and it's good for the people, it's the government's responsibility to tax everyone equally.

44:34Scott Galloway:And then not for podcasters to say a good billionaire, bad billionaire. I'm sick of like waiting on their better angels. I don't think I don't care if they're good or bad people. I just want them to pay their fucking taxes. And then we elect people who decide what to do with the money. Plus, the new argument from a lot of these guys is that philanthropy in general is bullshit, and that the truest form of philanthropy is starting a company that's super valuable. Like, just to quote Musk, he said, quote, SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and the Boring Company are philanthropy. If you say philanthropy is love of humanity, they are philanthropy.

45:12There was a Twitter account that made this ridiculous post. They said that McKenzie Scott's donations were, quote, making the world a worse place.

45:20Scott Galloway:He said that. Well, he responded, yes. So he co-signed that statement because they've got it in their heads that Mackenzie Scott is woke, liberal, the rest of it. And they've said that the billions of dollars that she has given away is making the world a worse place. So, I mean, if they really want us to count on them to, as you say, find their better angels redistribute the immense wealth that they have accumulated over the years and give it back, they're not doing a very good job of selling us that they are actually going to do that. Because so far, all we've seen is that it's not just that if you give your money to the government, it's waste, fraud, and abuse.

46:02They're saying that if you give money to a non-profit or a foundation or a charity, it's waste, fraud, and abuse. Because the charities are now woke. And the charities are libtards. So this is the problem. It's like, at a certain point, I'm sorry, but I have to assume that if you're worth a trillion dollars and you can barely find it within yourself to give back a fraction of a percentage of your net worth, I don't believe that you have any interest in the Commonwealth or the well-being of anyone. And now you're arguing that the companies that you built are the philanthropy, that you've now done your part.

46:40So you can no longer make the argument, and I keep on hearing people make it, people who support, really who are just against wealth taxes and against billionaire taxes in all forms. They say, this is the way to do it, voluntary philanthropy. Stop making that argument because no one believes it. No one thinks that these people are actually going to go through with it. Apart from a handful of great guys like Dale and Dalio and Gerstner, they are in the minority, at least so far.

47:11Scott Galloway:You're being a little bit unfair. It's not like they're cutting off aid to HIV positive mothers such that hundreds of children—oh, wait, never mind. Never mind. I hate that I'm laughing at it. Let me be very harsh right now and invite a lawsuit that'll be dismissed in court. The thing that will mark this era is that the world's wealthiest man is killing the world's poorest children. So folks, if you're waiting on the better angels of these people to show up, and that's what our government is dependent upon, don't hold your fucking breath. Tax them, and then elect good people who come up with systemic ways to address these issues.

47:51We'll be right back. And for even more markets content, sign up for our newsletter at profgmarkets.com.

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49:24We're back with Prof G Markets. Bending spoons went public on the Nasdaq last week. Oh, did it? Did it now? And it is off to a strong start. It raised$1.68 billion in its U.S. debut and shares jumped 40 % on their first day of trade and closing at$40.50. sense. The Italian company has built its business by acquiring underperforming software companies, cutting staff and improving profitability. Its portfolio includes well-known brands such as Vimeo and AOL. Not really sure how well-known those companies are anymore. Either way, many have compared its strategy to private equity companies. But most importantly, Scott, you called this one last week.

50:07You said you were expecting a very strong first day pop, the strongest we've seen, stronger than SpaceX, which indeed it was. Let's play the clip.

50:17Scott Galloway:The best performing one-day IPO, the biggest pop of a tech company of an IPO in June is not SpaceX at 22%. There's a company being taken out by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. I think it's pricing next week sometime. Bending spoons, my prediction, the biggest first day pop of a tech company is going to be this little-known company out of Italy that has found all these orphaned brands that are great businesses. Ladies, watch the shoulders. Hello, ladies. Hello. Surrender to the dog. This deserves a little celebration. That's right. That's right. On audio, I think you know what he's doing. He's again taking the shirt off and rubbing the belly.

51:05For some reason, that's the celebration. Oh, my God, Ed, my nipples are hard. My nipples are hard, Ed. Reflections. How did you come up with this prophetic prediction?

51:15Scott Galloway:I don't think the greatest engineer in the world is, or the greatest designers in the world is Johnny Ivory, Elon Musk. I think the greatest engineers in the world are J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. I think you just know when they're taking a company out, it's going to get at least a 20 % pop because, A, they make more money. They get their green shoe. They get their fees. every institution in the world wants in on this IPO. As a result, they do business with these companies. They get a free gift with purchase. Another way of saying this is the IPO game has become totally rigged, but it's legal.

51:49Scott Galloway:And also then they get to manage the money. And so they use AI, an incredible marketing team of people. Some of the brightest people at JP Morgan and Goldman working in high net worth. They call these people. They build an unbelievable book. They go back to the CEO and say, look, this is a once-in-a-lifetime branding event. And even though you risk some additional dilution that you wouldn't have had to have taken if you priced it to perfection, to be able to say your stock's up 20 % or is up 40 % as Benning Spoons was yesterday is worth the additional dilution. So there's all these stars and moons that line up around engineering a first-day pop of this sort.

52:27Scott Galloway:I thought this one was going to beat SpaceX because I thought the story was good. If you look at the PE, it's actually trading at a relatively modest PE. If you look at the revenue per employee, it was actually greater than meta. And I personally wanted to pimp this stock a little bit because I'm just so sick of talking about American AI companies. And I like their model. And they have a great narrative. They say that they get something like 400 ,000 applications for jobs and they hire, you know, eight people or, you know, a small point. They say they're the most selective company in the world.

53:04Scott Galloway:Some of that is spin because basically what they do with these companies is they replace a 40-year-old making$300 ,000 a year with a 25-year-old who I'm sure is very bright making$140 ,000 a year. And they essentially, like a private equity shop, clean up the back end. A lot of these companies probably overspent. But it's essentially, it kind of reminds me of the old WPP model pioneered by Martin Sorrell. And that is their ability to maintain this valuation and increase it will be their ability to find good companies trading at X, X multiple of EBITDA, and then present it to the market and get 1.3X in the marketplace.

53:43Scott Galloway:And that's what Martin Sorrell did by taking out key man risk. A little bit of synergy on the back end, not as much here. but he would basically buy these key man risk ad agencies for eight times EBITDA and then turn around to the market and he would get 12 times. It was essentially a market arbitrage or consolidation arbitrage. So it's a little bit of WPP, a little bit of private equity. I thought the small float, the excitement coming out of the SpaceX IPO and just what felt like an insanely cheap valuation was going to handily beat the 20%. And it was up, I think, 40%. It's checked back a little bit today.

54:20Scott Galloway:But I thought this was a really interesting company, neat business model, kind of beloved brands, but forgotten a little bit. Sort of the Berkshire halfway of beloved, but forgotten brands, if you will. I just liked it. You kind of sound like you own it. Do you own it? Yes, I do. Okay. I do. I didn't get as much as I wanted, though, to be honest. So there's the investor disclosure. Just to be clear, I haven't really taken a look at the stock, and I'm not recommending it, and I'm not buying it, but Scott owns it. So take that information as you will. I'm not buying more at this price. I think it's great.

54:59Scott Galloway:Moving forward, their challenge will be to show that this model is scalable. and to their credit, I do think that, I think there are a ton. I think the list of companies that are, didn't become Airbnb or didn't become Meta, but are good companies is really long. And 88 % of their revenue is recurring. Anyway, I was really excited. I felt like this one was getting no attention and was a good company. And I kind of stumbled onto it just before it can. What I don't want this segment to be is a stock pumping segment where we're encouraging people to go buy it. That's not why I'm interested in this company.

55:41And I don't think that's why you're interested. I just want to be clear to anyone listening, like, that's not the interesting thing. And I'm not, no one's recommending this. But I think what is interesting about this company is the model. And they've said that the idea is, quote, to be a hybrid between a private equity firm and Google. And I think it's kind of, I kind of like it because they're taking this sort of creative novel strategy where they're basically, they have their own software engineers and they're going up and they're buying these companies as a private equity firm would. And then they're putting those software engineers into those companies.

56:23And so that's sort of the Google meets KKR or Blackstone thing. and it's interesting because they're kind of it's the same thing that the private equity firms would do back in the day where they say you know what we're going to do is we're going to find these unloved companies and we're going to find synergies in between them and what that was basically latin for is we're going to go in and we're going to fire as many people as is physically possible and that is basically what they're doing but they're doing it with like an ai thing it's sort of like oh we're going to use ai and we're going to streamline everything and that's a great story but in reality what they're mostly doing is firing people and crucially leveraging cheap labor in europe and that is they pay their software engineers around 75 000 a year the average software engineer google makes around 150 to 200 000 a year at met it's a little bit higher they can do that because they're italian company they can go in italy and hire these smart people and not pay them that much and, you know, do what you will with that information.

57:25You could say that, you know, like that, and I'd understand a lot of people don't like private equity firms and the fact that they just kind of go in, find these companies, gut the companies, you know, lay off all the employees and then figure out a way to fatten the bottom line. But it's a great thing for shareholders and that's kind of what they're doing. And so I think it's a good bet for those reasons, but I'm sure that they're going to get a lot of heat as well when people start to kind of realize like what it is exactly that they're doing. And that is the same thing that private equity does, the same thing that consulting firms do.

57:58They go in, they make a pitch, and then ultimately it comes down to fire as many people as possible. It's basically what they're doing.

58:04Scott Galloway:They will call it efficiency, but they're operating in the same revenue per employee a little bit better than meta. Look, I don't, I think that's capitalism. I'm not. Agreed. I'm not. I think your ability to lay off people and create revenue and margin creates more profitability and opportunity to start new companies that creates higher paying jobs. So I'm all about whatever you want to call it, creative destruction or what have you. But this company felt like at seven to eight times revenues, it felt like a buy. Now it's at 10 to 12 because of the run up yesterday. I checked back a little bit.

58:37Scott Galloway:I don't want to say it feels fully valued right now, but they're going to have to show their thesis or demonstrate their thesis that with a public currency and a list of a ton of companies like this, they can go out and kind of wash, rinse, and repeat. But in sum, I thought this was, I thought this company's business model execution and opportunity set, or TAM for lack of a better term, was not reflected and that there was so much attention given to SpaceX that people kind of overlooked this company. And also just to be blunt. When JP Morgan and Goldman take something out now, they engineer a 20 % plus pop.

59:12Scott Galloway:They do. And by the way, it's not illegal. Is it rigged? Is it unfair? Is it a transfer of wealth from retail investors who don't get much access to institutions? Yeah, it is. I'll leave it there. it's not a great place to leave it but that is that is certainly what is happening and i think that we have done a good job of making that clear just how rigged that ipo game really is a lot of people try to sort of paper over what's really happening but that is what's happening they don't usually let these ipos fail um and they price it such that it will get that pop i think when we about like, I mean, now that I know you own it, I'm going to just do a little bit of jabbing at the company.

59:59You mean like you do it my emotions?

1:00:04I think what their advantage is, I don't think of this as an AI company. I think of this as basically a private equity company. And their advantage is they're in Europe. They know how to operate. They know how to fire people. And they know how to get really top talent at really low prices. And that last piece is crucial because what they're doing is they're buying these people businesses that are run. Basically, the product is dependent on how good your engineers are. I mean, these are mostly software businesses that have gotten crushed after the SaaSpocalypse, which if you thought that the pain that we're seeing in the public markets is bad, just go wait till you see what the pain in the private markets looks like, which spells opportunity.

1:00:45They're taking advantage of that. And then they're also leveraging these engineers. But we went on the Bending Spoons Reddit thread, where the engineers get together and they talk about their problems. And to be fair, Reddit is a very negative place in general. But here was something that we saw, quote, a friend of mine worked four years at Google. Then she got a job at Bending Spoons when she moved to Amsterdam and was fired after eight months because she was not working, quote, hard enough. You have to be autistic and probably have no life in order to resist working for them. Not even Anthropic, who pays top of the market, is this crazy?

1:01:20And then someone followed up and got like 300 upvotes. Quote, they don't even pay that well. So that's kind of their advantage.

1:01:28Scott Galloway:You know who likes that environment, that culture? Shareholders. Yes. And here's the thing. You brought up something, a couple important things. One of the reasons I like this and I tried to find shares was that the word I didn't learn as a younger man and the reason I've been rich three times, which means I've gone broke twice, the reason I've gone broke twice is that I didn't understand the power of diversification. And it's easy to become concentrated without even knowing it. Prof G Media is essentially an American company talking about American tech. We get a lot of advertisers from AI. I am over-invested in technology stocks.

1:02:07Scott Galloway:I am so concentrated and non-divested accidentally. Think, well, I'll buy some S &P funds. Well, okay, 40 % of the S &P is in 10 companies now, all related to AI. So one of the reasons I like this company as a personal investment is I want to invest more in Europe. People have basically given up on Europe. Investors have basically given up on Europe. And that's when you buy. And two, I want diversification out of anything American and tech-related because winter is coming, as Daenerys and every other person from Game of Thrones said. And then also the labor arbitrage. What do you think a talented senior product manager costs in San Francisco versus Milan?

1:02:49Scott Galloway:Especially after AI, exactly. It's not like it's child labor. I would imagine that in Milan, if you're making 120 ,000 euros, actually Milan's gone up a lot in price, But I would imagine for 120 ,000 euros in Milan, you can probably have a reasonable lifestyle. In San Francisco, you're still living with your parents. So the market is just a gorgeous thing. It is, Europe's been left for dead. And that's the reason why I think it's an economic opportunity. And I'm spending a lot of time looking at European stocks right now. Let's take a look at the week ahead. We will see the minutes from the Federal Reserve's June meeting, and we'll also see earnings from Pepsi and from Delta.

1:03:36Scott, any predictions?

1:03:37Scott Galloway:No, I'm just going to stand on my bending spoons one. I can't do much better than that. I'm going to bask in the glory of that. Oh, no, I do have a prediction. I think that Team England is going to beat Mexico in penalty kicks. Once again, this is coming out after, because we're not at Sunday night yet. So we'll find out. So just make sure you're down to do that. You might be humiliated on the day it comes out. Oh, like I don't get humiliated every day? Did you just say Reddit? Have you seen my subreddit? Oh, my God. You're so mean. I don't even go on my subreddit anymore. It's like, God, he's so old.

1:04:14Scott Galloway:God, he's fucking lame. Jesus. What's wrong with his face? I mean, it's just like, so rough. You can't read the Reddit. The Reddit people are. They're rough. We love you, but you're also a little bit unwell. That's a little bit of the problem. Oh, my God. It is rough. So, okay, make the prediction then. England wins? I'm not scared of humiliation. You want to know what my safe word during sex is, speaking of humiliation? Not particularly, but tell me. My safe word is maybe.

1:04:49Scott Galloway:This has been a good show. Anyways, penalty, Team England wins in penalties. at the Azteca Stadium, which, by the way, Mexico I don't think has ever lost at. They've never had a goal scored against them? Is that what you told me? That's what I heard the commentators say, but now I'm kind of like... I think they've lost twice, but only twice in their history. It's going to be an amazing game. It's going to be an amazing game, but I'm predicting Team England wins in a penalty shootout. Or maybe I should just predict that Team England wins. How's that? I mean, it depends how bold you want to be. It's just the pole, eh?

1:05:23Scott Galloway:I'm going to say Team England. Less upside in that. It's not a very bold one. Where do they go? Should we go to the game? Where do they go? Actually, I can't afford that. We should go to the game. Yeah, you can. Come on. Where do they go? Where do they go? I'm not sure. If they end up in New York, New Jersey. Oh, they go to Miami. How much fun would that be? It would be good. Everyone loves to roll with a dog in Miami. It would be good. I would like that. Yeah. My prediction. well i had previously made a prediction that if the ai bubble pops it will be because open ai implodes that was about a year ago i think oh it'll pop before that it'll pop well before that well no i hold i hold to that i hold to the open ai implosion my new thinking on open ai two paths for open ai either it implodes or it gets a bailout those are the two paths so that's my prediction There you go.

1:06:51Lifetimes

1:06:57You help me In kind reunion As the world turns And the dark flies

1:07:47We'll see you next time.

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1:08:34So I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

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From the publisher

Scott Galloway and Ed Elson unpack reports that Meta is launching a cloud business and explain why they see it as a bearish signal. They also discuss why they don’t think there’s any justification for a government bailout of OpenAI. Then, they break down why the new Trump accounts are a step in the right direction, but argue that reducing inequality shouldn't depend on the generosity of billionaires. Finally, Scott explains the investment thesis behind his bullish call on the Bending Spoons IPO and why he decided to invest in the company.

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