Talking to a Radicalized Parent, How AI Will Disrupt Higher Ed, and Sending Your Kid Off to School

0:27Adobe Acrobat Studio, so brand new. Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded, so you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you, like tea time you. Mmm. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. So did you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. Mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. What do walking 10 ,000 steps every day, eating five servings of fruits and veggies, and getting eight hours of sleep have in common?

1:08They're all healthy choices. But do all healthier choices really pay off? With prescription plans from CVS Caremark, they do. Their plan designs give your members more choice, which gives your members more ways to get on, stay on, and manage their meds. And that helps your business control your costs. because healthier members are better for business. Go to cmk.co slash access to learn more about helping your members stay adherent. That's cmk.co slash ACCESS.

1:43Welcome to Office Hours with Prof G. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. Just a reminder, you can now catch Office Hours every Monday and Friday. That's two episodes a week. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehoursofproftymedia.com. Again, that's officehoursofproftymedia.com. Or post your question on the Scott Gallery subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. First question. Our first question comes from Snarky Spice on Reddit.

2:15They ask, Hey, Scott, my dad and I have always been really close. You recently discovered YouTube for the first time, and it's actually the one who turned me on to your podcast. We even met you at ted. No, that's nice over time though. He stopped listening to your pod or any others and has been hooked on the all-in podcast My dad is a lifelong liberal a philanthropist and very caring person But since listening to that podcast he's been shocked by some of the things he started saying russian talking points and whatnot It feels like his worldview is changing And it has been painful to watch as a daughter How can I respectfully talk to him about the dangers of that kind of media influence?

2:50without sounding condescending or pushing him further away. And as a father of sons, how do you go about talking to them about media literacy? Thanks for all you do, Amy. I can't speak specifically to the All In Pod. I've never listened to it. I know they have a following. I know that all of them are very successful. And then the podcast moderator, who's, I forget his name, is less successful. And they've gone, my understanding against from everything else, they've gone totally red pill. But that's their right. And that's kind of your dad's right. I would say that trying to browbeat your dad, my son popped up the other day.

3:27I mean, you are where you spend your time, unfortunately. And my son, I remember on my way to get sushi, my 13-year-old or then 13-year-old son said, Dad, when did they take their land away? And he was obviously referring to the Israel-Palestine conflict. And Amil, I wanted to go, well, that's not actually accurate. But the fastest way, I think to get your family members to sort of seize up or cement their views or their weird views is to come at them. And what I would suggest is what I said to my son as I just started asking more about it. And then my older son a few years ago was talking about Andrew Tate.

3:59And he didn't say he specifically liked him, but he was sort of defending him. And I said, what is it about Andrew Tate that appeals to people your age? And what do you like or not like about him? And what attributes do you think are positive or negative? I just ask a series of questions and try and get them to their own conclusions. With respect to your dad, I think just having civil conversations around their views or what have you, that hurts, losing people to the all red pill podcast. Yeah, I don't think there's a whole hell of a lot you can do. And I think it might be a learning experience for you.

4:33Ask him to listen to a pod you like, you listen to a pod he likes, and then discuss it. But yeah, I have heard that those guys are basically Sergey Lavrov and kind of parroting Russian talking points. But look, that's your dad's right, that's their right. And I would suggest you just try and engage him with other content. But I can tell you what doesn't work is a dad is coming at someone angry or in an obstinate. I think from the left, who are especially bad at lecturing people and asking them to sign up for an orthodoxy and focusing on social virtue instead of what actually impacts the material and psychological well-being of actual Americans.

5:15I think the Democrats are just awful at that. So I would just engage them in conversation, try and separate the person from the politics a little bit. I just don't even talk to my father-in-law about politics. I don't need to hear why he thinks Trump is great. I don't want to dislike the man, and I would end up disliking him. And where I live or have a home in Florida, I would say a good 40, maybe 50 % of my friends are Trump supporters. And I have one friend that I grew up with my whole, I mean, I'm a really close friend who's like gone total fucking red pill. He puts out these videos every day, like calling Governor Newsom, Governor Newsom and talking about, you know, that Biden should have been arrested.

5:56And I'm like, Jesus Christ, this guy has literally lost his shit. But I just ignore it all because I value the friendship. And if you don't separate the person from the politics, you're going to lose 50 % of your relationships. And one of the terrible things about how polarized we've become and, quite frankly, just how what a fucking narcissist Trump is and how he needs to be in the news every day, even if it's deploying the National Guard for no reason, in my view, that's just not helping. But what I would say is try not to give into it and inject politics into your relationships because you kind of immediately sequester yourself from 50 % of the population.

6:32Anyways, a long-winded way of saying try and separate the person from the politics. Engage your dad in discussions around this stuff. But I wouldn't. I'd be very careful not to lecture at him. And at the end of the day, he's a grown man who gets to make his own decisions around this stuff. Thanks for the question. Our second question comes from KCBH711. They say, Hey, Prop G, you said college is overpriced and outdated. How does AI fit into the future of higher education? Do you think it is a final nail in the coffin or a way to reinvent it? Yeah, it's overpriced. But the problem is it's still the ticket for a lot of people.

7:10I continue to hear adults at parties whisper, oh, they don't need, you know, our kids aren't going to need college anymore. Meanwhile, they're paying college consultants$30 ,000 to try and get their kids into Brown. These people are so full of shit. Oh, it doesn't matter. You don't need college. It's because they're worried little Bobby is not going to get into a good school. So the lie we tell ourselves is that people don't need college anymore. Yeah, a lot of people, two-thirds of young kids aren't not going to get a traditional liberal arts education. But it still is a great, I don't know, great on-ramp into a better life.

7:43There's just no getting around it. I think you're going to make on average double. A college grad is going to make double what someone with a high school degree only is going to make. And someone from elite college, I think it's even more dramatic. So there's bullshit around people don't need college anymore. There's a lie we tell ourselves when our kids don't end up with the opportunity or the desire to go to college. And I want to be clear, it's not for everybody. There's a lot of great jobs in the real economy. I donate a lot of money to vocational programming for young adults because the real economy has a lot of interesting jobs out there.

8:14in the trades that you started 60, 70, 80, 100. You may get 100 grand a year by the time you're 25 installing energy efficient HVAC or repairing EVs or, God, I can't imagine how much money they're going to pay you if you get the skills to be on specialty construction for a nuclear power plant. Anyway, there's a lot of opportunities, non-college opportunities, but I think that the best thing, one of the best things we could do in terms of reform for college is, one, revoke the tax status or tax-free status of universities that have over a billion dollars in endowment if they don't expand their freshman class faster than population growth.

8:47This artificial scarcity bullshit mindset is really creating a lot of manufactured stress among America's middle class. I got into UCLA when they had a 76 % admissions rate. I was one of the 24 % that was rejected initially, and then I appealed and I got in. And this year, the acceptance rate is 9%. So if you don't expand your freshman class faster than population growth. You're no longer a public servant. You're a Chanel bag. You lose your tax-free status. Schools should be on the hook for 10, 20, 50 % of bad debt such that they stop doling out a shit ton of cheap credit to kids who they know are not going to be able to pay it back.

9:23So your question about AI, I think AI will help people learn faster and will up the bar, but I don't think it's going to replace creativity, strategy, you know, I think it might hurt salaries. So investment banking and consulting are going to dramatically reduce their hiring because the initial entry-level people are basically doing the work that AI can do or AI can do the work that they can do right now. But the top bankers, the top consultants are able to sit down with people and kind of emphasize the right points and sort of understand, can kind of see the matrix, if you will, of a company and have the credibility to say to the CEO, no, this is a stupid idea.

10:02You should be doing this. So I think it's going to enhance education, make it more efficient, but I don't see it replacing education because at the end of the day, what we do at NYU or other schools, we don't educate, we certify. And that is the real value add in the reason people pay our students$212 ,000 and the reason my kids pay us$300 ,000 in tuition over four years is that what we're doing is we're certifying. The admissions process is so arduous. We do credit checks. And above, I said it's so fucking exclusionary and rejectionist. We do interviews. It's basically the higher ed is the outsourced HR department for the corporate world.

10:41And that is we make sure the kids aren't mentally ill. We make sure the kids can play with others. The kids have to do group projects. The kids at NYU have to go to Barcelona for the semester and show that they can survive without their parents. you know that they can do basic math that they can show up for class wearing shoes you know just all this shit that basically says all right this is an adult that will succeed in the corporate world and so the corporate world is willing to pay a 40 50 60 percent premium because of the incredible screening we've done and some higher ed's primary value add has already happened by orientation that was a mouthful thanks for the question we'll be right back after a quick break

11:49Thank you. Do that with the all-new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio. Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me. We resolve queries fast. We work 24-7 and we're helpful, knowledgeable, and empathetic. We're built to be the voice of the brands we serve. Sierra is the platform for building better, more human customer experiences with AI. No hold music, no generic answers, no frustration. Visit sierra.ai to learn more.

12:30Support for this show comes from Indeed. Indeed Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash Vox Business. Just go to Indeed.com slash Vox Business right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Vox Business. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring? Indeed is all you need.

13:18welcome back our final question also comes from reddit mango 279 mango 279 jesus christ prop g how are you feeling about your son leaving for college soon it's tough it's it's very strange it's um on the one hand my purpose for the first four years of my life was trying to get rich and so i could take care of myself my mother and be a baller That was my purpose. I'm not proud of that, but that's the honest truth. My purpose the last 10 years, 15 years is I want to raise good men. And no matter where I am in the world, at the same time I call my kids, I spend a ton of garbage time or just like nonchalant time with my kids.

14:01My kids are at the point where they're kind of like, I don't want to say they're sick of hanging out with me, but I'm kind of always pretty available to them. And I think they'll remember that when they're older. I think they'll remember what an effort I made. And I try also really hard to model good behavior. And sometimes I fail, I get angry a lot. Or, you know, I have to remember I'm their dad, not their friend. I had this image that we would be great buddies and they'd be really into World War II history and CrossFit. And what you find out is if you want to be a good dad, one, you're not their friend, you're their dad.

14:30And you got to do the hard work early on. You got to have the hard conversations. You got to say, this is unacceptable. No, you're not going out with your friends tonight because you were disrespectful to your mother. You know, you got to do the hard worker. And some, you have to be an asshole such that they don't grow up to be huge assholes. So that is my purpose, is trying to be a good dad. But I still feel this kind of,

14:52this weirdness, sadness, and not failure, but I always had this image that I would do all these amazing things with my kid that would be so instructional, so many life lessons. And I feel like I kind of never got there. Like I wanted to build something with my kids, you know, renovate a car, or I wanted to have kind of these weekly things with my kids where we went over our family history, or I wanted to have a kindness practice, or, you know, and I feel like the most I've done is I managed to get through all eight seasons of Game of Thrones with them. You know, know, it's just, I felt like I know I'm a good dad, but I felt like I really wanted to be a great dad and I just never quite got there.

15:37And now it's too late. Now my boys are just into their own things and their own friends. And I've missed my window of opportunity to kind of be the great dad that I was wanting to be. So I feel a little bit of like, shame's not the wrong word, but disappointment that I spent so much time virtue signaling and talking about being a dad. And I feel like I know I'm a good dad, but I feel like I missed the opportunity to be a great dad and now it's too late. So I have that kind of pit of sadness. And I don't know how much of that is on a self-reflection or just the fact that I'm prone to depression and see everything as a glass half empty.

16:09I'm excited about the idea of trying to get my kids to launch, to have my oldest leave the house healthy, happy. You know, I've got him working out. I know he likes himself. I know he feels loved, but I want to get my kids to launch. That's my purpose. I want my kids to go into the world secure, happy, like themselves, find interesting things, add value, love their country, find a mate. And I think we're tracking to get them to launch. So that feels good. The really hard part is I got talked into boarding school for my oldest. I think it's been really good for him. It's kind of been a fucking disaster for me.

16:53I really hate not having my sons in the same house with me. I have my youngest, but I don't have my oldest. And even if I didn't see him that day, just knowing he was upstairs, just hearing him around, hearing him on the phone, gave me a lot of comfort. And I feel as if I'm always a little bit lost when I'm home and both my sons aren't home. He comes home. It was told to me that he would be home all weekend. He's not. He's home Saturday morning till Sunday afternoon. It was the right thing to do. he's a bit of a not a loner but he's very confident and he loves boarding school he's doing really well he's thriving i can see him kind of evolving into a man so it's the right decision for him but it's i don't know and so it's the right i should stop there it's the right decision but the idea one of the reasons we're moving back to the u.s one i'm so fucking freaked out about this slow burn into fascism i want to be back on the ground but two uh it looks as if my oldest is going to go to college in the u.s and i don't want to be more than a kind of a two-hour plane ride i mean talking about the dog wagging the dale tail here i'm literally reconfiguring my life not reconfiguring my life but wherever i end up living it'll be somewhere that's close enough such that my son can come home the weekend should he desire to but yeah i'm sad about it i'm sad the wrong word a mix of pride a mix of melancholy um i mean i can't tell you it was literally just yesterday my son would come in and like crawl into bed with me and then pop up and say, dad, let's make a plan.

18:21And then all of a sudden he was this like tall gangly 17 year old, you know, who is nice to me, but is, you know, definitely not that impressed with me and definitely doesn't want to make a plan for the day with me. I don't know where it went. It just goes, you know, they say this, it goes so fast. It goes so crazy fast. Um, so yeah, I'm a little bit, um, I feel good about his leaving the nest and he's doing well, but there's just no getting around it. I'm really sad that this is it. And I know that 90 % of the time I've spent with my kids or my oldest has already happened. So yeah, I'm sad that my son is living for college.

19:03That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at propgmedia.com. That's officehours at propgmedia.com. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.

19:23This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

19:43PDF spaces is all you need. Do hours of research in an instant. With key insights from an AI assistant. Take a template with a click. Now your preso looks super slick. Close that deal. Yeah, you won. Do that. Doing that. Did that. Done. Now you can do that. Do that. With Acrobat. Now you can do that. Do that with the all-new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio. With LPL Financial, we provide the services to help push you forward. When it comes to your finances, your business, your future, the only question should be, what if you could?

20:41that did that done now you can do that do that with acrobat now you can do that do that with the all-new acrobat it's time to do your best work with the all-new adobe acrobat studio