The Unemployment Spike Nobody's Talking About + Why the SpaceX IPO Doesn't Add Up

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0:37I'm Rabinard Sun, VP and head instructor at Peloton and host of Project Swagger. And this week, every step I take to lock in ahead of high stakes, high stress events. This is your performance toolkit. Follow Project Swagger now wherever you get your podcasts. Where do the negotiations with Iran stand? What can a deal actually look like? And does diplomacy still have a chance? I personally believe we will get an agreement. I think there's going to be an agreement forthcoming of one kind or another. I think the world needs that. I think we desperately need to calm things down. I'm Jake Sullivan.

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1:53subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. Question number one. Our first question comes from Cheddar Ben on Reddit. They say, hey, I was looking at the BLS report, and that's, I believe, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics report, and women, specifically women aged 25 to 34, had a very large unemployment jump year on year compared to any other group 25 plus. I'd like to hear your take on this data point. I haven't heard anybody speaking about it. Okay, so So what does the BLS data say? Women 25 to 34 had an employment rate or an unemployment rate of 5.3 % in January 2026, up from 4.5 % in January 2025.

2:32That's a 80 basis point or eight tenths of a percentage point jump. The largest year-over-year increase of any of the 25-plus age group for women. By comparison, men 25 to 34 rose only 0.3 % over the same period from 4.3 to 4.6. Women in other age groups moved modestly or even improved. Women 35 to 44, the unemployment rate actually ticked down there. The stress is concentrated in this cohort specifically and for women specifically. The most recent data in February of 2026 shows a pullback to 4.7 percent, which suggests January may have been a one-month spike rather than a sustained acceleration.

3:14The year-over-year trend is still real, but March data will be important to watch. So what's probably happening here is federal layoffs hit early career women hardest. So with federal employment, they have a probationary period. And those in their first year or recently promoted are disproportionately affected. And those tend to be disproportionately women. In some agencies, over 60 percent of probationary workers are women. That's exactly the career stage of a 25 to 34 year old. So some of this, quite frankly, is doge. That's the government. The largest employer in the U.S. has shed over 307 ,000 jobs in 2025.

3:54That's eight times more than 2024. and that has been especially hard on women and especially hard on young women in this cohort. Also, return to office mandates affected women disproportionately. Women aged 25 to 44 with children under five saw labor force participation fall nearly three percentage points between January and June of 2025 as remote flexibility disappeared. The 25 to 34 group is most likely to have toddlers, not school-age kids, making that inflexibility hardest to absorb. And then finally, child care has collapsed. Federal child care subsidies ended in September of 2024, forcing center closures and tuition hikes.

4:35Roughly 20 percent of child care workers are immigrants, a population also disrupted by deportations in 2025. For many women in this age group, the math of working simply stopped adding up. So just a couple observations or some nuance or takeaways from this data set. The first is that a lot of our, when we cut government spending, a lot of it, I believe we're cutting the wrong stuff a lot of times. And that is government spending should have a return on investment. And sometimes that return is social, right? Spending money, well, I was going to say spending money on the homeless doesn't have an economic return.

5:13It probably does in terms of, you know, supposedly in San Francisco, it costs$80 ,000 in social services or$80 ,000 per homeless person. And you think, well, it's probably less expensive than to build, you know, just to build low-income housing for people. In addition, I think that we probably need a gestalt or zeitgeist amongst corporate America. I think work from home is terrible for young people, but I do think work from home or remote work is an unlock for caregivers. and that is so many people are in the sandwich generation now taking care of both parents and children that I think a general viewpoint or a general approach for corporations should be that they should make accommodations or make a real effort to provide remote work opportunities and capabilities for people who are caregivers.

6:03And in the 90s when I was starting my firms, I didn't do it because I was a moral person or wanted to improve the world, but I used to have, I had a lot of single women, not single women, had a lot of mothers working for me. And they were really talented, certified, great education. But the ability to work from home two days a week and just come in Monday, Wednesday, Friday was a huge unlock for them. And a differentiator because Nestle or Levi Strauss or Clarks wouldn't let them do that. You had to be in the office every day. So providing remote work capability for people is, I think, a good investment.

6:38Investment in universal child care. One of the most secretive things for our economy was civil rights protections or protections for women in the workplace such that women could go to work and we could maintain our economic dominance. If we hadn't provided those sorts of protections, we'd be a second rate economic power to China. So I think actually a really solid investment in the United States would be universal child care such that it made sense economically for women to go to work. It has all sorts of second order positive effects. the daughters of women who work are more likely to make money later in life because they see their moms working.

7:11And that's not to say that being at home isn't great for the kids, but I see no evidence in the data that mothers working is bad for the kids. As a matter of fact, I see oftentimes the opposite. What's bad is when women are so economically strained or the pay is so shitty or they don't have access to childcare such that they don't have the option to work and add to the economy or develop their own skills such that if they get divorced later in life, They're totally economically fucked. So I see a lot of infrastructure investments around child care being very accretive to the economy and unlocking and unleashing this incredible workforce that participates because the majority of sandwich generation emotional labor or logistical labor, let's be honest, it falls to women.

7:54And as evolved as we'd like to think we are, there's still that burden disproportionately falls to women. So making an investment in an infrastructure around childcare, ensuring a certain level of minimum wage, encouraging corporations to have remote work, I think is just not only the right thing to do, I think it's a smart thing to do for our economy. Thanks for the question. Question number two comes from Jimmy, who emailed us. Hey, longtime listener of the pod, I've always felt that emotions should be left out of investing, and it seems like you take a similar approach. With that in mind, here's a big IPO coming up this summer that I'm curious about.

8:29Do you plan on investing in SpaceX when it goes public? Okay, so just some data. SpaceX is targeting a June-July 2026 IPO, raising$75 billion at a $1.8 trillion valuation, according to Bloomberg. It'd be the largest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco's$29 billion raise in 2019. From our Profit G Markets newsletter, SpaceX generated $8 billion in profits in 2025 off of roughly$16 billion in revenues, and analysts expect sales to increase 25 % this year. A$2 trillion valuation would imply a 125 times price-to-sales multiple, Not price to earnings, price to sales. So, no, I'm not planning to invest.

9:13I think SpaceX has the largest moats of any business in the world right now. I think they're responsible for 80 to 90 % of the launch capacity right now. Two-thirds of the lowest satellites are controlled by SpaceX. And its Falcon Heavy rocket can put material into space for one-fifth the cost, or sometimes one-sixth, of its closest competitor. It's just an incredible company with incredible moats. It is absolutely not worth this valuation. The only way I would invest is if I had access to the IPO and then I traded out on the first trade, which I will not get access to the IPO because the investment banks, I don't know, I just don't see getting on the friends and family list of SpaceX.

9:53So if you were to get into the IPO somehow, I think you'd want out after the first trade because as amazing as this company is, it is not anywhere near worth, nor can I think of a company worth 125 times price to sales. So my prediction will be this will get a tick up at the IPO because people will be excited about it. And then one to three years later, it'll be trading in half what it went out at, maybe even less. It's just this just doesn't make any sense. To give you a sense for just how crazy this valuation is, when Google went public, it was growing 240 percent a year and it was trading at 10 times sales.

10:26This company is growing at 20, 20 percent a year and trading at 120 times sales. So when Google went public, it had 10 times the growth and was trading at one-tenth the price to sales of SpaceX, which just gives you a sense for how outrageous this valuation is. And the definition or a definition of intelligence is the ability to hold two thoughts in your mind at once. And is this an incredible company with some of the biggest moats in the history of business? Yes. Or is it overvalued? Yes. And we can hold both those thoughts in our mind at the same time. R. Yoda on this is my colleague, NYU Stern, Aswath Damodaran, and his take is the following.

11:00They made the decision already that SpaceX is a great buy. Now they're looking for some way that they can justify that, and this pricing sounds like that exposed rationalization. In other words, investors have already decided they want SpaceX and are now working backwards to justify the price. Not a lot of obvious comparables here, which is the problem in itself. Wall Street can't agree on what to compare SpaceX to. They're cycling through Boeing, AT &T, Palantir, GE, Vernova, Vertiv, none of which actually fit. When bankers can't find a peer, it usually means the valuation has no anchor, and this one doesn't appear to have an anchor.

11:34There are some red flags here. IPOs, on average, underperformed the broader market in the one to three years after the listing. SpaceX's valuation went from$350 billion in May of 2025 to$800 billion in December of 2025, to$1.25 trillion to February 2026, and it's targeting a$1.8 trillion valuation at the IPO, roughly 5x in under a year. Saudi Aramco, the previous record IPO, popped on day one and then spent years trading below its IPO price. Plus, Musk has advertised retail access, reserving 30 % for retail investors. You know, sounds like he's a man of the people, but it could be read as selling to the most emotionally invested buyers, fans, not analysts.

12:12So in sum, yes, I want to give people a chance to invest. I think it's because he thinks they're the only ones stupid enough to buy at this valuation. So no, I will not be investing at SpaceX. Thanks for the question. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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16:08Welcome back. Question number three. Hi Scott, I'm Rob, an aspiring documentarian based in Brooklyn. I've been listening to notes on being a man on my commute to work and it's had an immediate effect. I found myself more patient on the subway and generally just more aware of how I show up at home. But it's your reflections on friendship that really connected. I too have been very lucky with friendships. I'm still close with many of my childhood friends. I captain a football team each week and have been a best man at three weddings. But for my 40th birthday, I want to track down some friends who meant a lot to me growing up, but who I lost touch with, to see how they're doing, and if we can still show up for each other.

16:48Given your reflections in your book, your story about Charlie and Carson have really stayed with me. How do you go about revisiting those old relationships respectfully, especially when life might not have gone to plan for some of your old friends? In any case, just wanted to say thanks. Your work's had a real impact. Oh, what a nice message. Thank you, Rob. And look, The fact that you've been a best man at three weddings means that a lot of people think of you as a good man that they want. You know, being a best man, they're not asking you to show up for them. I think a lot of times when you ask someone to be your best man, it's them saying to you that I think of you as my closest friend.

17:23So it's them giving you something. And the fact that you would have three people say you're their closest friend means you're just quite frankly very good at friendship, if you will. So well done. I don't know if I have any striking insight. I think, look, I'm good at friends. And I ping people. I try to be very expressive about how when good things happen, I try to always be available for advice with old friends. I'm in a position of privilege, and that is a lot of old friends reach out to me because I've, quite frankly, I've got a touch of fame recently. And if they read my book or they hear about me, they reach out.

17:57And it's an excuse for us to get together. And so what is it? Ping them on a social media platform. Hey, I was thinking about you. Let me know when you're in town. Let's grab a beer. My roommate, my junior year in college, he and I have reconnected. We've sort of off and on be friends, but we reconnected. And I just got a nice message from my first roommate in New York, who was this all-star, all-American water polo player. We lived together in New York when we first graduated from UCLA. We both worked for investment banks. I'm going to reach out to him and get together. So while I'm bragging about friends, I just went to Coachella, this music festival.

18:31I went with my buddy, Mike Baruch, who I've known since UCLA. And then we needed a band just in, or we needed access to the festival. I wasn't going to go, but my friends wanted to go. And we called my friend who has one of the most successful ticketing agencies in LA. And it's a guy named Brent Seals. And Brent and I were friends in high school. We were both raised by single mothers. So we always kind of had that bond. And we used to go to movies with our friend Dario, who was an assistant manager at, I think, the UA Cinema in Westwood and used to get us movie tickets for free. Anyways, my point is, I go to Coachella and I'm with a friend of, you know, 40 years and 42 years, which is just in itself really rewarding.

19:10So yeah, I don't, I don't know if there's a lot here other than just reaching out and saying, Hey, I'd love to get together and just see what you're up to. This is what's going on with me and describe your life in short detail. And then say, now your turn and say, you know, next time we're around, let's get together. Something I also planning on doing. This guy who was in the fraternity next door to me, a Lambda Chi, a guy named Paul King, was like one of these impossibly nice and impossibly handsome dudes. All the Lambda Kis, not all of them, a lot of them ended up in commercial real estate in Orange County because they're just incredibly likable guys selling office space to people.

19:43And he and I reconnected. I think you read one of my books and we've had a really nice exchange via email. And he and I are thinking about trying to pull together sort of a reunion of people who graduated from UCLA and kind of 86 to 88. And so I'm going to do that or I'm, Paul may not know it yet, but I'm planning to do it. And he's going to be the co-host because he's the, he's, he's, he and I are very similar if I were much more handsome and likable. But I think it's not a bad idea sometimes to get a bunch of people together from different groups. And yeah, that's the insight. So, okay. Yeah.

20:16Reconnect. That's not that insightful. What I do think is fun is to try and get a bunch of people together for an event and kill 10, 20, 50, you know, birds with one stone, and invite some people that, you know, one of those people you thought, okay, we liked each other, we were friendly, but we weren't necessarily friends, or we were friends when we last touched, and get everyone in a room and, you know, rent a restaurant and just make sure there's alcohol and have at it. But I find reconnecting really rewarding and interesting. And also, one of the wonderful things that happens as you get older is all the bullshit, the competitiveness.

20:52I mean, we were such fucking idiots in college. We saw people from USC weren't like, weren't nice and we wouldn't want to be friends with them. There was even some of that bullshit intra fraternity. And that is, I had a lot of friends in other fraternities, but we weren't, you were supposed to be close with the guys in your fraternity, not that close with guys outside of your fraternity. And then you'd lose touch with people for whatever reason. But as you get older, you just become more benign, more human, more of a man, and you just celebrate each other's success. You want to be happy for each other, and you have this bond that you share this incredible experience as a younger person.

21:27Anyway, it's also a chance for repair. It's also a chance with people for whatever reason. You were friends at one point, but not in others. Hopefully, time has healed that wound, and you can get back together and just be friends again. Even if you're not going to be close friends, it's just fun to see what people are up to and look at pictures of each other's kids. talk about, you know, reminisce what happened to this person and also reflect on, oftentimes when I get together with people, we reflect on the people we've lost. I'm at that age now where if you're in a fraternity with 120 people, there's like a, you know, a half a dozen guys who passed, you know, from weird stuff.

22:04Anyway, text, how are you? Love to get together. What's going on with you? This is what's going on with me. If you're really organized, find someone cooler than yourself or more popular than yourself to organize a reunion with or some sort of reunion. And in general, just be open to this wonderful thing that happens to you when you get older. And that is, you're just generally happy for each other and you want to celebrate each other's success. But again, the fact you're even thinking this way means that you've kind of got this figured out. Thanks for the kind words. That's all for this episode.

22:35If 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, post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Genere. Kami Rieke is our social producer. Brad Williams is our editor. And Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG pod from PropG Media.