A conversation with Scott Galloway — from Fixable Live

0:27Adobe Acrobat Studio, so brand new. Support for this show comes from strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown? Or never wanted in the first place? Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying, but are they actually just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from strawberry.me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner. Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer. Episode 314. 314 is the area code covering St. Louis, Missouri. In 1914, World War I began and the world's first red and green traffic lights were installed in Cleveland.

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1:39Welcome to the 314th episode of The Prop 2 Pod. Daddy's vacation continues, so in place of our regular scheduled programming, We're sharing an episode of Fixable, a podcast from the TED Audio Collective that features a live conversation between yours truly and host Anne Morris and Francis Fry from the TED 2024 conference back in April. Anne is a CEO and bestselling author, and Francis Fry is a Harvard business professor on the Fixable podcast. They give you weekly episodes solving listeners' toughest work problems with meaningful and actionable insight in 30 minutes or less. The episode we're sharing today explores a lot of today's most pressing issues, including the loneliness epidemic, inclusion in the workplace, and personal success.

2:19So with that, here's Fixable Live, a conversation with yours truly, Scott Galloway. I'm self-conscious saying my name. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another week of Fixable. We have something really special for you today. A few weeks ago, Francis and I traveled to Vancouver to attend the TED conference. And while we were there, we taped a live episode of the show. Our very first live episode. Our first, but not the last. Oh, it's far from our last. It was too much fun. We had a really good time. And we had a special guest with us who we will introduce in just a minute. But we got to talk about some really interesting aspects of life and leadership and the world right now.

3:01Yes, I think we've covered DEI, masculinity, Gen Z in the workplace. The big three, baby. Yes, in a shocking turn of events, we also covered the power of emotions, something our listeners know I care a lot about. So today we're sharing part of that conversation with you, and hopefully we'll get to do another live show sooner rather than later, so stay tuned.

3:27Well, Scott Galloway, welcome to Fixable. Thanks for having me. And congratulations on your fabulous talk. Go on. Go on. I'm so desperate and addicted to your affirmations. So, Daddy, can I have some more? Yeah. For our listeners and for anyone who missed it, you really just killed it up there. So how this is going to work, this is actually our first live show, so thank you all for being part of this experiment. Anything can happen up here. And we're going to talk for a while, then we're going to do some direct live Q &A with the audience. So we want to start by saying nice things about you, Scott, if you'll indulge us.

4:11We are very big fans of yours, like most lesbians. Thanks for saying that. Yeah. Ladies who love ladies also love Scott Galloway. Oh, that's so nice. Thank you for that. And I want to come back to that with a serious point before this conversation is over. But let's start with who you are for the record. You're a professor at NYU Stern. You're a bestselling author. You have a new book dropping momentarily. The Algebra of Wealth, a Simple Formula for Financial Security. You're a founder, advisor to countless organizations. You've been on the board of some of our most iconic companies, including New York Times.

4:51You are a beloved podcaster, best known for Prof G and for co-hosting Pivot with celebrity, lesbian Kara Swisher. and your husband, father of two growing boys. Is there anything you want to add to that list? Any plot points we missed before we dive into this? No, I just want to say I'm really enjoying this podcast so far.

5:15Scott, as you play all of these various roles in the world, it seems like you are driven by a higher mission, a purpose, something bigger than yourself right now. Is that how you think about your work and how would you articulate your mission? It's not as noble As you're saying my first obligation is to me and my family I've been very driven by economic success And i'm not proud of that. I didn't grow up with a lot of money. So from day one. I had two goals I wanted to be rich and awesome Literally, that's what I wanted and then I got one of those things and And I got blessed at a fairly early point in my life with like, okay, I have some reasonable semblance of economic security.

6:02What do I want to do? And I decided I wanted to teach. The thing that's been really super rewarding is kind of falling into this topic of struggling young men. It's like, you know, you find something and it just resonates and you see the data and you think people aren't talking about it. And it was like putting on something that felt so comfortable for me because I was one of those men. Right. Right. Growing up, I didn't have a great deal of economic success. I didn't have a lot of romantic success. I thought if I faced the same incredibly well-resourced technology companies trying to convince me to have a reasonable facsimile of life behind a screen with algorithms, that I did need a job, I could trade crypto on Coinbase or trade stocks on Robinhood, that I did need to go out and take the risks of finding friends.

6:49I could find them on Reddit or Discord. that I did need to endure the rejection and start working out and have a plan such that I could be attractive to women and endure the rejection that is inevitably part of mating. I just could have been one of these guys. I relate to these young men. It's like, thereby the grace of God goes I. So I can speak to it, I think, with some relevance. And I just saw a tremendous opportunity. there's so many advocates for so many groups and because people who look like me have had so much advantage for so long there's a lack of empathy despite the data for how just how much young men are struggling that they're paying for the sins of the advantage that I had and my dad had but if you look at the stats three times as likely to kill themselves 12 times as likely to be incarcerated in the US, they're going to have two to one female to male college grads.

7:44It's also really bad, in my view, for women, because women, if we're going to have an honest conversation around mating, at least in the hetero world, women mate socioeconomically horizontally and up, men horizontally and down. And the pool of men who are horizontal and up is shrinking. And some of that is a huge victory because women are doing really well. And we should do nothing to get in the way of that. The thing I saw was that there was this unproductive conversation because of this void filled by what I call the manosphere, where it was just thinly veiled misogyny. It starts offline. They highlight the problems, and then they talk about being fit and taking control.

8:22And then it just comes off the rails, and they start talking about women as if they're property and that you need to show off your masculinity by getting things. Yeah, it's a slippery slide. And then, oh, and take my crypto university course. So I thought there was a an opportunity for okay. How do we start talking about an aspirational vision for masculinity? That says empathy is not a zero-sum game gay marriage did not hurt heteronormative marriage civil rights not hurt white people So being an advocate for young men who are facing real issues is in no way Anti-women this is when a man has failed is when he starts blaming women or he starts blaming immigrants Then you know we've lost him and that he has given up on a truly modern form of masculinity.

9:04So I just, I saw an opportunity. It felt good. And it resonated with the marketplace. And it just kind of come organically. Let's talk about DEI for a second. Sure. Just to get the crowd warmed up. We'll go to the easiest stuff first. Yeah, yeah. It seems like DEI at its best, and we get pulled into a lot of these conversations. It seems like this work at its best really is about making workplaces fair and inclusive for everyone on the payroll. And one of the things that I think we get stuck on, and Prince, I want to get you in here, is that there should be just tremendous room for common ground here.

9:45Not only because the goals are shared, but when you actually do get it right, everybody wins. How do we talk about it or do this work in a way that really does bring more people into it? Professor? We wrote an op-ed for the New York Times with our colleague, Carrie Elkins, that said, you know, the mistake that the critics of DEI get is it works. Like all of the progress you were talking about, it all happened because people understood the demographic tendencies associated with success. They didn't want to have outcome-based success. I've never met a DEI program that wants her to be outcome-based.

10:24It's all equal access. We've been having unequal access. To me, I think there is all of this common ground. But I don't think that that's what's behind the desire to tear it down. I think the desire to tear it down has much more to do with misogyny and much more to do with racism. We always want to step over race. Always want to step over race and get to someone else. And it's the stain on this country. We have never stopped and confronted what our issues are with race. So I find there to be simmering misogyny and racism and I don't find it any more complicated than that. And I adore people who want to go towards the socioeconomic.

11:09I grew up poor as well. But please stop stepping over race to get there. It's the wrong thing to do. I mean, one of the things that I get stuck on is when we actually get into the trenches of doing this and roll up your sleeves and do the work of trying to make organizations better, there is real progress you can make within the constraints of changing organizations. I mean, there's a famous statistic that 70 % of change efforts fail. So, great. So, DEI is tracking roughly to that 70%. But you don't throw out the goals of the work. You learn from the 30 % that is working. And it feels like there's just an absence of grace and an absence of charity and compassion around this conversation right now that feels like it's not that there's something else going on.

12:05And just back to where we started, to me, it's the opportunity cost that is so painful because you speak to young men in crisis. And when this work is done well, they are brought into the fold and given opportunity that they didn't have before. And so I think the frustration that we are both feeling right now is that we're getting so distracted by the conversation about DEI that we're stopped putting energy into actually making progress on it. I think there's so much nuance here. I think it's such an interesting. I love the word you use, grace. that we shouldn't be afraid to talk about this and you say something not elegant or I say something not elegant and that person is canceled or that we shame them and we get virtue points for shaming them.

12:51Because first off, I'm the beneficiary of affirmative action. I got Pell Grants. I had unfair advantage. Me too. Raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. Our household income was never over$40 ,000. And so I feel passionate about that. And also if you're born, And this is wonderful. In America, I believe now, you have more advantage or less disadvantage if you're born gay or if you're born non-white than if you're born poor. And it didn't used to be that way. The academic gap, achievement gap in 1960 was double between black and white, then between rich and poor. And now it has flipped.

13:31And there's this wonderful progress that it's not as tightly correlated any longer about race or sexual orientation. So my view is, all right, do we need to recalibrate what it means, the criteria for who we advantage or disadvantage? And where I think we can come together is that about 70 % of those criteria overlap. But if you're from a non-white family where there's two parents and mom is a baller at her law firm and making a shit of money, that kid has a greater likelihood of attending college than some white kid from Appalachia. So I think we can come together and say, look, the key is to recognize some people have disadvantage through no fault of their own, but also recognize that things have changed.

14:23I don't know how much time you spend with DEI professionals or DEI parts of organizations. They're amongst the most compassionate people, big tent people. They care about socioeconomic. They care about veterans. They care about race. They care about gender. So this straw man of DEI cares only about this, and they will somehow advantage. And by the way, I've never seen these groups advantaged. I've just seen the disadvantages closed for attempting to do it. But DEI is big tent, and what you're arguing for is big tent. That's the part that I genuinely don't understand, is we seem to agree, and yet we want to tear down the very thing that in its absence, it's going to be hard to take care of people that are disadvantaged.

15:16They say it's for big tent reasons, but literally they've not spent any time with any of the DEI professionals I've spent time with, which is at almost every large company in the world. So I don't understand the vitriol behind it, which is why I think there's something cruel behind it. I don't think it's a—it doesn't feel logical to me. Well, I think you have to discern between—so, for example, where I think some people have made the mistake is they like the attention, they get accolades from people, and then they decide that they're going to go after all DEI without understanding nuance. I think DEI still has relevance in corporations.

15:52I don't think corporations have come as far as campuses. You know, when there's, what is it? There's more CEOs named John than females. I think women just caught up to John. Just caught up to John? So what that says is, all right, but if you look at people under the age of 30, women have made huge progress on almost every level. Sometimes they're actually superseding them because they're getting more educational attainment. But something happens. What I think the data reflects is once you decide to leverage your ovaries, wham, the corporate world doesn't like you. Once a woman decides to have kids, she goes to 77 cents on the dollar.

16:28That means there is neither equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes. I think DEI still has a place in corporations. I would argue, Professor, that at most universities, we have done a pretty good job. Again, I go back to UC, that I think it's going to be a more productive conversation where we can all agree on getting to a similar place where there's more support universal around alumni and faculty where it's based on income as opposed to based on visible characteristics. I also think it does harm to people of color when their classmates sometimes often question if and why they're there.

17:07I think that they pay the price for that. So I think it requires a lot of nuance.

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20:04Let's talk about those young people graduating, going into the workforce. There's a lot of chatter about Gen Z at work and we got a lot of great questions about what do I do with my Gen Z employees. Do you find that this is truly a different generation? I mean, to me, it feels like they just have the courage to ask for things that the rest of us - We should have asked for. Should have asked for. It's a double-edged sword. For the most part, they're a superior generation. Evolution works. They're more facile with technology. They understand the world better. They're more civic minded. They're most social minded.

20:41They're also, I find, more emotionally fragile. and that because of over-parenting, helicopter parenting, which I'm capable of, because of social media, because we clear out the obstacles for them, by the time they get to college, they have a bit of a princess in the peace syndrome. And that is the first time they get their heart broken, the first time they get a C, the first time they face some sort of injustice, they have real issues. I think they're too emotionally fragile. I love what the dean or the chancellor of Michigan State put up, the banner on freshman orientation. She put up a banner that said, if words offend you, call your parents and tell them you're not ready for college.

21:23I used to get so many emails from department heads about microaggressions. I thought, isn't the point that we're supposed to turn them into warriors? That they're supposed to really... By the way, the - Let me just interrupt for something. So how do organizations do that? Because there are all these companies and teams absorbing this generation. How do leaders build resilience in a very practical, this is a show called Fixable. So in a very practical way, how do leaders of teams with Gen Z team members build resilience in this newest generation in the workforce? Well, I think you're going to forget more about this than I'm going to know.

22:09I am somewhat cynical about a corporation's role. What I have found is, generally speaking, for-profit companies are so good in America at making money, they should be trusted to do nothing else. I don't think social media is going to protect our children. I don't think they give a flying fuck about your kids. Let me put it this way. I think they're amoral. I don't think they're bad people. I think they're amoral. I think their job is to make money and they will make a series of incremental decisions on the path to hell such that they can become rich. And America to be rich is to be loved. It's to be respected, admired, have a broader selection set of mates, give your kids health care.

22:43So you will make incremental decisions that end up hurting other people that maybe aren't in your neighborhood. We need laws. We need laws that said we're going to sue your company if you discriminate. We're going to sue your company if you send a 14-year-old girl who's having suicidal ideation an email saying here's some images on suicide. we thought you might like. The email includes images of nooses, pills, and razors. That happened in the UK. This notion that we're going to call on CEOs better angels and that they're going to become social engineers, you want to be a good company. You want to be good in the community.

23:18But I think we need less virtue signaling from companies and less expectations from them, and we need more laws. I just don't trust companies to figure this shit out. I trust them to put out Instagram saying, Black Lives Matter. Okay. What does that mean? Or to stand up and say, I recognize we're on hallow grounds of Native American. Okay, you're going to give it back? If not, shut the fuck up. So I think we need more laws, but I'm a bit cynical about companies as this whole Bono Red agents of change. I think their job is to provide people with economic security and I think it's our job to have laws to ensure that if you are Making less money because of your gender or your sexual orientation that we hit that company really hard in court I mean really hard and create an algebra of deterrence.

24:13It says accidentally unwittingly if you're paying this group less We're gonna really hit you so hard such that you put in place the practices to ensure it does not happen again But I think we fetishize these corporations and their leaders so much that we expect their better angels to show up. And every new... Sam Altman, the hushed tones. I'm worried about AI. Yeah, we should think about that. I've seen what this can do. I'm really concerned. We've had 40 congressional hearings on child safety online. We've had zero laws. But we think Sam Altman's going to be different? We can't trust these people.

24:51We can trust them to do what they're good at, which is make money. So I find a lot of these initiatives quite frankly are virtue signaling and aren't that effective. I think we need laws All right, so I'm gonna go to the audience for questions. Yeah, we're gonna go around So this is our last question and then we're gonna bring in our fabulous TED audience This is my serious question about your lesbian fan club And this is my theory of the case. All right, one of the gifts of being queer and There are many there are many for the record but you have more freedom to stand in front of the list of human attributes that the world has labeled masculine and feminine and decide what's going to work for you.

25:33Yeah. You are fiercely competitive. You have lots of protector energy. You're also very willing to cry in public, for example. Right. You seem to have given yourself this same freedom, which in my experience is quite rare. You're being generous. As lesbians, we applaud you. Game recognizes game. But what made that possible for you? Yeah. I never thought that crying would be such an attribute. I didn't cry from the age of 29 to 44. I didn't cry when my mother died. I didn't cry when I got divorced. I didn't cry when my company went chapter 11 for 15 years. I didn't cry. I forgot how And my biggest fear I think about death a lot.

26:21It's actually quite empowering. My biggest fear is I'm at the end And I struggle with anger and depression, which means I'm in the past too much. I have trouble forgiving myself I did made a couple mistakes on stage today. I'm gonna beat myself up all fucking night tonight I won't be able to forgive myself. I'll feel good I'll go online and I know I can tell by the vibe that I'll get a bunch of nice compliments. I'm too addicted to other people's affirmation It's really pathetic. Oh, you're human Scott. No anyways human for God's sakes I'm 59 at some point. I'll just need me But my fear is I'm so stuck in the past and I'm so in the future all the time because I'm successful and to be successful You have to be constantly thinking about the future that I'm never actually here and you get to the end of your life and you think, okay, unbelievable prosperity, people that love me, that I loved immensely, was never there, never there.

27:11And one of the ways that I have discovered I can slow down and be in the moment is to really lean into my emotions. When I find something funny, I force myself to laugh out loud. I have a weird, unattractive laugh, but it informs what I find interesting. When I'm inspired by something, I stop, and I think why does this move me I'm much more emotive if I see a guy who looks cool I'll go up to him I say I just think you look so fucking cool boss and it puts me in the moment and it makes me it's like okay I'm finally living my life because I can register those emotions so my advice to people especially men is if you aren't leaning into your emotions if you aren't inspired, if you're not laughing, if you're not just loving the shit out of sex and communicating how much you're enjoying it, if you're not crying, you're not really here.