Scott on Hotel Brands, Netflix’s Adolescence, and Theranos Takeaways

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1:08No hold music, no canned answers, no frustration. Visit sierra.ai to learn more. Welcome to Office Hours with Prof G, where we answer your questions on business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. Today, we've got two great listener questions, then after the break, we'll hit the Reddit hotline, pulling questions straight from Reddit. Want to be featured? Send a voice recording to officehoursofprofgmedia.com or post on the Scott Galloway subreddit. Let's get into it. First question. Hi, Prof G. Ray from San Jose here. Love the podcast and other teachings you provide.

1:46Speaking of teachings, I'm an adjunct professor here in the Bay Area. I teach entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering. You seem to know a thing or two about brands, and you often talk of your favorite hotels. My question is around branding stratification in the hotel industry. There are just so many brands owned by the top three hotel groups that it just seems a bit much. Is having so many brands a good thing for the market? Or does it add to consumer confusion and a hotel's inability to differentiate? Would love your take on the situation. Hope to meet you live one day. Thanks for all you do.

2:26Thanks, Ray. I love this question because my hobby is hotels. I know that sounds stupid. People say, what are your hobbies? I love hotels. I travel to hotels, not to cities. I get all of those surveys on Instagram or whatever, and if I see a cool new hotel, I'll travel to that. So I know a lot about hotels, or at least I think I do. Anyways, today there are more than 1 ,200 hotel brands worldwide. However, many of these brands are owned by conglomerates, the six largest hotel corporations, Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Wyndham, Accor, and Hyatt own more than 150 brands, and they operate nearly 40 ,000 properties.

3:01The industry hasn't always been this consolidated due to a series of major mergers and acquisitions. The number of large hotel groups was cut in half in the 90s. Nowadays, just 10 companies control over 65 % of hotel room supply. That's not even counting Airbnb, which I think has more rooms on its platform than any hotel company. Consolidation allows hotel companies to diversify their brand portfolios, access economies of scale, and centralized operations, all without sacrificing the perception of their flagship brands. Okay, so there's a couple things. I understand the notion that, okay, one brand, you get scale, one advertising campaign, one set of associations.

3:38What you need is scale on the back end, but in an era of weapons of mass diligence where people can find out that the best gym in a hotel in Berlin is the Soho House. And they can find that the coolest new hotel in Sao Paulo with the best restaurant is the Rosewood, or they can find that the coolest, kind of hippest place for a romantic getaway with really unusual architecture in Cabo is Las Ventanasal Paraiso, also a Rosewood property. You can find your exact brand. You no longer need to defer to the brand. What does that mean? It means that a series of niche brands have been able to evolve that sometimes have a back end that they can consolidate around reservation systems.

4:23Because basically, the hotel industry is the following. It's a wealthy person locally wants to own all the Four Seasons. Michael Dell in Hawaii owns all the Four Seasons. And the Four Seasons runs the flag, the standards, the service, the reservation system, and they take 8 % to 12 % top line. You think, well, that's not a lot. Actually, that is the best thing to do because that's high margin revenue and they aren't subject to the economic whims of our economy. So in 2008, basically, I think the Four Seasons of Midtown went bankrupt, but the Four Seasons out of Toronto, which only owns one of its hotels, I think it's flagship in Toronto, still gets that eight or 12%.

5:03And the guy who owns the thing has to hemorrhage money because the Four Seasons in their ownership partnership contract says, okay, you have to maintain a certain level of standards. You can't, you have to have, you know, three check-in people. You have to clean the room twice a day. And so even in bad economic times, these companies just, the flag itself is, which is a management company, doesn't take any capital risk, just prints money. And then they found this other kind of gangster way to make a shit ton of money. And that is they sell residences. So the almond will sell residences in Miami.

5:33And instead of call it 2000 bucks, a square foot, they can charge$4 ,000 because it's an Almond-branded residence. And then when the very wealthy person who wanted to be in an Almond residence isn't there, they put it back into the rental pool and Almond rents it out as a hotel room and they split the revenue. So they not only get a much bigger gross dollar volume for selling what is a$7 million condo, they get$14 million for it. They also get incremental recurring revenue from someone else who has sponsored and took all the capital risk. So if you can develop an amazing niche brand, you can do really well.

6:08And some amazing niche brands have developed specifically based on demographics. What do I mean by that? The fastest growing cohort in the world is the super wealthy. And the number of people who are worth more than$10 million has absolutely exploded globally. And so it used to be that the Four Seasons, the Manor and Orient on the Ritz-Carlton were sort of the high-end brands. And then a series of like massive, over-the-top, high-experience, exceptional location brands emerged and went super luxury, right? Rosewood, Almond, Cheval Blanc, Six Senses, the Okater Group, which includes my favorite hotel in the world, the Hotel Ducap.

6:49They came in at the very, they out-luxuried luxury and they started charging $1 ,500,$2 ,000,$5 ,000 a night, recognizing there are some people who have become totally price insensitive. And if they want to take their family somewhere on their limited time off, they have much more money than time, they will pay$5 ,000 a night or$7 ,000 or$8 ,000 a night to stay at the six senses in Thailand. And they are exceptional experiences. Down towards the middle end, it's all about scale and cost and offering people a good value. And it's about scale at the back end. So these big kind of conglomerates that have multiple brands, they use the same back end, they use some of the same service and headquarters and infrastructure, and they will buy some of these brands.

7:35I think actually IHT purchased the almond. I'm not sure. Is that right? I can't remember. But anyways, I think that you're actually seeing, I don't want to call it fragmentation of brands, but you can now support a single brand because of the weapons of mass discovery. The thing that is dictating and shaping the global travel industry right now, Instagram. I did my 50th birthday in Scotland, 60, and everyone there was complaining that Scotland had been overrun. Why? Because supposedly they invited 20 or 30 very, very influential Instagrammers, influencers to Scotland two summers before, and they went apeshit.

8:18Scotland is like a giant Instagram orgy. It is spectacularly beautiful. And everyone saw all over the world that Scotland's amazing, and they thought, it's cool, I've been there. And they just said the place is just overrun, and they can't handle it. At the same time, some of those same influencers started mocking Mykonos and Ibiza and saying, look at this$40 Cosmopolitan, or look at how shitty this club is that I just paid$4 ,000 for a table. And supposedly, supposedly, Mykonos and Ibiza saw a serious decline in revenue last summer. Again, all brought to you by Instagram. But if you're at the pool at the Hotel Du Cap and you Instagram at the Hotel Du Cap doesn't need the scale of brand because their brand is singular and it stands out.

9:03And quite frankly, at the high end, it's sort of all about Instagram. But that's a thoughtful question. Anytime you want to talk hotels, come to the dog. Come to the dog. Best hotel in Istanbul. I wouldn't do the Four Seasons or the Mandarin Oriental on the Posphorus. I would do the Solo House there, which is actually the old American embassy. Best hotel in Paris. Used to be the Plaza Attene for me. Now it's the Cheval Blanc. Oh my God, that shit is genius. If you're, again, if you're on a little bit of a budget, I like the Hoxana. There's a lot of really interesting, really interesting kind of little boutique hotels.

9:40Favorite hotel in Mexico? Because you asked. I love the Rosewood Mayakoba. You feel like an alligator is going to come out and grab you? That's all I have. That's all I have. Question number two. Hey, Prof G. Anyone who is familiar with you knows how interested you are in modern adolescence and specifically what it's like for young men to grow up in a modern world with social media and lack of in-person connections. You mentioned on a recent podcast that you really enjoyed the Netflix show Adolescence. I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on what was so impactful for you with that show and what you think it demonstrated with respect to your views on masculinity, adolescence, and the effect of the modern world on young people.

10:23Thanks so much for all the insight and content that you provide. Cheers. I'm not sure I have a great take on this. I had trouble watching that show. I just, as the father of boys, it just, I'm not exaggerating. After I watched the first episode, every episode from that point forward, I had a drink before it because I wanted to watch it. I'm super interested in the domain. I thought it was so powerful. And it just rattled me to the core. Like at the end of the day, I think we, with our boys really early, have to treat them to be, tell them that being a boy, being a man, your transition to being a man is all about, you know, we talk a lot about being a provider in a capitalist society.

11:07I talk a lot about being a procreator. I think it's important you initiate contact with someone while making them feel safe, such that you can have children and being risk aggressive. But I think with boys, we really have to play up the third leg of the stool of masculinity, and that is you're a protector. And I've just been struck by how many women have told me that in New York they don't feel safe. They don't feel safe on the subway. And it just sort of breaks my heart that when you hear women say that if they're walking down the street and a group of guys is coming towards them, they sometimes cross the street.

11:41and I'd like to think, and I have this aspirational view of masculinity, but I haven't lived that life, that if a woman or someone who feels physically threatened immediately would look just the way you look, who are the most masculine role models, cops and fire people? You go to those people when you need protection. And it just, it just breaks my heart that we're not, that people in our society don't look to men for protection, that they're scared of men. And I think what I took away is at a very early age, we got to first off acknowledge that masculinity and being a boy is a wonderful thing and to embrace it.

12:19But to really bring home the notion that your evolution from boyhood to manhood is around protection and very much so ground zero for protection for any boy is protection of girls and women. And I think a lot of men feel this way. I know I felt this way when I was very young. I felt very protective of my mother. But also just it's just heartbreaking that you see this kid and it's what's fascinating about the program is it's not a whodunit, you know, who did it, but it's an exploration of why they did it. And it made me think a lot about fathering and how important it is to really understand what your kid's up to and his views on girls and violence and misogyny.

13:07And more than anything, the thing that came to me was, you know, as parents, and are you letting the internet raise your kid? Because the thing is, If you're, you know, a lot of people, their nannies or other people or their school raises their kid, right? My son's at Wellington College, this wonderful school. I know the school really well. I'm in contact with the people there. I've sat in on classes. I've spoken there. I have a pretty decent idea who is raising my kid. Whenever we've had a nanny or someone who spends a lot of time with our kid because my partner is working, we know that person really well.

13:43We have a really good sense of who's raising our kid. But I don't know who's raising my 14-year-old because he spends a lot of time on the internet. And I'd like to think, oh, I'm smart. I'll figure it out. No, I haven't figured it out. I absolutely haven't figured it out. He spends way too much time on his phone. And anyone who says, oh, well, that's bad parenting, you don't have kids. They get their homework. If they can't be on their phone, they're ostracized from their peer group because that's how they communicate with each other. But I wonder if we're, as parents, I think it's a really good question is who's raising your kid?

14:16and this story is just so rattling because it's clear that these good people just didn't know what influences were raising their kids. So what to do about it? No kid should be on social media under the age of 16. And by the way, my 14-year-old is. So do as I say, not as I do, but I think we need federal legislation because there's this isolation effect. If you take your kid off of social media at 14 or 15, he gets more, he or she gets more depressed because all their friends are socializing. So unless it's a collective band, it doesn't work. And I think there needs to be education at a very young age that's a bit, I don't even call it sexist, but identifies it says boys are stronger than girls.

14:58And your default as you evolve to a man is protection. And ground zero of that protection should be that males who are born with superior bone structure and muscle fiber and also are just prone to be more physical and more violent, that your muscle memory, your instinct needs to be around protection, specifically protection of girls and women. But I don't want to pretend that I garnered some incredible insight from it. I just found it incredibly rattling. And the one thing I would just, it struck me as like, I just kept asking myself, who is raising our sons? Do we really know who is raising our sons?

15:41Are we raising our sons? Are schools raising our sons? Or are algorithms that don't have our best interests at raising our sons? Thanks for the question. We have one quick break, and when we're back, we're diving into the depths of Reddit.

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17:32Welcome back. We asked and Reddit delivered. Let's bust right into it.

17:42our reddit question today comes from ethan rabb they say or he says hi scott did you ever meet elizabeth holmes what was your impression of her were you offered a chance to invest in theranos and if so did you see through it or get caught up in the hype more broadly what's your take on the fake it till you make it founder philosophy okay a lot there i'll come back to whether i know or not I didn't see it. I remember the cover of Time showing her with a vial, and she was, I think, the youngest billionaire or the youngest female billionaire at that point. There is a very strong gestalt in the Valley of raise as much money as you can, become a hype machine.

18:23I mean, take it till you make it. How many times has Elon Musk lied to us about when autonomous driving? I mean, autonomous driving is a year away. I think he said in 2017. I mean, there's just no getting around it. Your ability to tell a story that verges on exaggeration, embellishment, adjectives, maybe even crosses the line at some point into fraud. I mean, the difference between storytelling and fraud sometimes, quite frankly, is your performance. So I think in the Valley, there's unfortunately this gestalt that says exaggerate, get cheap capital, and then pull the future forward with your capital.

18:58Now, having said that, when you start lying about your numbers as that, I think it was a Nikola, Nikola, the guy who put a truck on a slanted hill and said that it was a motor driving the car, you know, that guy deserves to go to jail. but I believe if Adam Newman's board was not Japanese or driven by Masayoshi Son and was worried about a loss of face of saying, I got fooled, and his board went after him, I think there's a good chance Adam Newman would be in prison. And with Elizabeth Holmes, yeah, she lied to her investors. Her investors were sophisticated. No retail investor lost money. and there was never really any health ramifications.

19:43It wasn't like anyone was taking an HIV test and got false results and as a result was hurt. So should she have been punished, fired, and maybe sentenced to prison? Yes. But what bothered me about the whole situation is she was sentenced to 10 years. And I just find only two or 3 % of unicorns are founded by women. And it struck me that, okay, yet we seem to find one to put in prison for 10 years. So why? She's very unlikable. And I think that there's a weirdness in our society, a misogyny, where a woman taking the position and taking on male attributes who ends up to be full of shit, we dislike that person more than a guy who's exaggerating or even lying.

20:30And I think she paid the price. And someone in her family, I won't say who, reached out to me and asked if I would openly advocate for a prison sentence, and I didn't respond. I'm not going to get involved in that. But I wonder, had Adam Newman's board been angry and gone after him, if things would have turned different for him? And there's something that bothers me about a founder who ends up spending 10 years in prison is one of the 2 % that has ovaries. There's just something uncomfortable there. The fake it till you make it, never lie about your numbers, never lie to consumers that you're serving at that moment.

21:14But let's be honest, you have to paint a vision. I don't have an answer for you. I think it's gone too far. and what I have generally found, generally found is that the way I serve on a, or I've served on a bunch of public company boards, that the people, the managers in public companies, at least traditionally, that with the most respect were the ones that under-promised and over-delivered. Having said that though, in private companies and startups, I mean, I can tell you how many business plans I see of people raising money and their ability, you know, and I would say 90 % of them probably aren't going to hit those numbers.

21:50Anyways, that's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at proptomedia.com. Again, that's officehours at proptomedia.com. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, not a sponsor, not a sponsor or an advertiser, just post your questions on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it on our next Reddit hotline segment. What a thrill.

22:26This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our intern is Dan Chalon. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

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