Why Scott Shut Down His AI Persona, His Daily Routine, and When to Give Kids Money

0:01Welcome to Office Hours of Prop 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. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehours of PropGmedia.com. Again, that's officehours at PropGmedia.com. Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. Question number one. Our first question comes from Pygmy Nuthatch on Reddit. Pygmy Nuthatch. Why do they get these names? They say, I'd like to ask some questions about your Google persona.

0:35What were the original goals of the project? Do you have any future plans for PropG AI offerings? I was lucky enough to get to use the persona. It helped me with a complex career question. The tool or something similar could do a lot of good, though we all understand and respect the reasons you gave for ultimately deciding not to move forward with an expanded launch. Thanks. So just some background here. A former, I have students and then the best students, I asked to be my graduate student instructors. I usually have four or five because I usually have about 180 students. And I say, you're running the class.

1:06I'm just the talent. And then one of my graduate student instructors went on to go to work for Google about seven, eight years ago. She's been very successful there. And she contacted me about a year ago and said, we're doing a bunch of profiles where we crawl everyone's person's information or all of their IP and create a character AI for them such that people can ask them questions. And they were doing some in the health space, some in the business space, and then some of the academic space. And they asked me if I'd be interested. And I said, sure. And there was no commercial agreement, no money involved.

1:42But the impetus and the motivation was the following. I get between 20 and 30, that's conservative, outreaches a day from single mothers, from young men, from people in the mental health profession, from high school teachers, looking for help, advice, insight, basic questions, Where did you find this piece of information? Here's an idea. And I can't get to 1 % of them. So I thought, how could I come up with something that would say, hey, here's my character AI, ask it the same question, and there's an 80 % probability it'll get 80 % right. And so we started working on this thing about a year ago.

2:25And then in that time, things changed dramatically. And that is character AIs became a thing. and it was discovered that a lot of young people, minors were engaging these character AIs and starting to develop these, not even parasocial relationships, but in-depth relationships that oftentimes led to very dark places. And so when it came out, it was launched, I went on it and I just was so uncomfortable with the idea of contributing to the sequestration of young men from their parents, their mentors and their friends. And I thought, if I'm in any way giving a young man an excuse to spend less time pursuing offline relationships, then that is bad.

3:10And I don't want to engage in it. So it was up for about four hours. And the Twitter philosopher, I think his name's Naval, he said something that struck me. He's actually, I think, a venture capitalist, but I think of him as a philosopher. There's a few things I miss about Twitter, but he's one of them. I found his stuff was really interesting. he said that if you're having trouble making a decision the answer is usually no and i was just so uncertain and uneasy about this thing and it only been up four hours and i felt bad because the good people at google and they were good people i think the world of this woman and my interaction with the this team at google had been nothing but positive and i didn't they'd spent so much time on it and i just finally i said i'm just not fucking comfortable with this thing.

3:56And I called them and said, can you take it down? I just don't want to be part of the character AI dilemma right now until we figure out what the guardrails are and how to handle it. And so they took it down. Is there potential upside? Yeah. But the potential downside I think is unknown right now. And I'm very uncomfortable with character AIs. I don't think there should be, until there's age gating, I don't want to participate. And that is, I don't think anyone under the age of 18 should be in a synthetic relationship. And supposedly three quarters are already in some sort of synthetic relationship.

4:26So where was I? It started out as a good idea. I think my intentions were good or in the right place, but I was increasingly uncomfortable with the development and evolution of character AIs and decided to pull it down. Appreciate the question. Question number two also comes from Reddit. Radical Buy asks, Scott, what is your daily routine when you're not out on a book tour? Would love to see how the big dog spends his time. Well, I usually get up at about 4.45. I do a cold plunge, and then I take, I have a massive protein shake, including all sorts of greens and sheep oil, and also this serum that's mined from algae off the coast of Sri Lanka.

5:08None of this is true. None of this is true. So, all right. Let's start with a night. I'm usually doing something out with friends or with family or watching streaming media. The family goes to bed. Sometimes I used to have a drink. Now I don't do that anymore because this anti-alcohol movement has even me a bit freaked out and my 50-year-old liver, 60, can't handle, 61, can't handle alcohol the way my 30-year-old liver could. So I don't wanna, and also I think drinking alone is probably not a good idea. But I try to unwind at night. I watch streaming media. I let the dogs up on the couch with me.

5:47I like to write. I like to cruise the internet. Sometimes I take an edible. And I'm up to 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning. I'm a night person. That's where I get my best thinking done. They say that people who get up early in the morning are more productive and people who stay up late are more creative. So I can I'd like to think I'm creative. I can definitely confirm I'm not that productive. So I'm up till two or three in the morning. I usually get up around 10. I don't if I want to sleep in, I'll sleep until 1030. My assistant doesn't book anything before noon, which helps because I'm in London. So it's 7 a.m.

6:16where my team is back in New York. And then I get up. I have my quick hit of coffee. I try to have a breakfast. I try to work out. I have free weights and a rowing machine and this new thing called an amp, which is basically a tonal. So I try and get it some exercise. And then I basically start the day of podcasting. And between writing and podcasting and team meetings and editorial calls and interviews with media, I'm kind of going from about 11 or noon until about 8 or 9 p.m., at which point I kick off, sometimes go out to dinner. I go out a lot, sometimes go out and meet friends, do something with family.

6:56And then everyone's in bed by call at 11, 1130, and I'm up for another two and a half hours kind of doing my work, so to speak. So I keep very odd hours. And I don't, I'm struggling a little bit lately with, I don't want to call it anxiety, but just more fear, if you will. Is that anxiety? Maybe it's anxiety. I don't know. So I need to get outside more. That's one thing. That's probably the only thing I really don't like about London, but it makes me in many ways. It's just kind of a deal killer for me. I can't handle the fucking weather here. It's dark at 4 p.m. right now. So I don't go outside as much as I should, which is a really bad thing.

7:37all the things I preach to people about. It's like the copplers kids have no shoes. But anyways, mornings are basically kind of free time or sleep. 11 to 8, podcasting. 8 to 11, socialization. 11 to 2, that's my time, I guess. And then I hit, but I go to sleep very late. I keep very odd hours. By the way, I would not recommend this to anybody. I'm not saying it's the right way, it's just my way. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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10:20Welcome back. Our final question came from a listener who emailed us. Hey, Scott, Charles from Texas. Hi, Charles. I want your take on my inheritance strategy for my son. Instead of giving him a pile of money when he's 70, when he'll just spend it on knee injections, a firmer mattress, or some dick pills, I want to give him cash when it actually matters. Plan is 25K at 18 so he doesn't start adulthood broke, 100K at 30 so he can buy a house or start a business, and then 1 million at 40. After that, the gravy train stops. Dad retires from being the bank. What pitfalls should I watch for? And feel free to tell me if this whole plan is genius or just financial cosplay.

10:55Huge fan of everything you do. Thanks, Charles from Texas. So Fed data shows that U.S. inheritance recipients had a median age of around 49 to 50 at the time they received wealth transfers. And according to the Richmond Fed, at least half of people don't receive their first inheritance until after age 40. I would bet that's going to go up because people are living longer. And what people actually spend on, younger groups tend to spend a larger share on categories, including shelter, food away from home, transportation, and education, and overall consumer spending data confirms necessities dominate budgets when they're younger, which is why a lump sum for housing down payment or business seed capital can be more financially productive than inheriting money late for discretionary spending.

11:37So I don't think anyone's figured this out. I always go to, I'm thinking about the same thing. I always go to a couple of things. One, you want to give your, if you have the blessing of having some money to pass on. You want to give your kids enough money so they can do anything, but not enough money so they can do nothing. That's a Warren Buffett quote. And my approach is going to be, I learned this from Morgan Housel, I'm going to scale up or scale down my kids' efforts. And that is, I'm not sure I'm going to lock into, and I don't think there is a reason to create a suicide pact or something you have to stick to, because I think a lot of it depends on the kid.

12:14Now, what do I mean? So if my kid gets out of college at 22 and wants to be in nonprofit, I'm gonna give him money to try and, if he's a productive citizen and works hard and is in a low-paying industry, if he wants to be a high school math teacher, I'm gonna give him money. If my kid is not doing a whole lot of anything but partying and I keep seeing on his Instagram, he's in Ibiza or something. By the way, I don't have a problem. My boys are 15 and 18 right now. I'm not gonna give him dick. It's like, okay, boss, if you have enough time to just party all the time, you don't need my money. so i will likely not have a tried and true strategy i'll scale up or scale down when i pass away um that's a whole other that's a whole other thing i'll probably limit the distribution while they're under the age of 40 because i don't know if a lot of money under the age of 40 i think you meant under the age of 40 you know or maybe you put parameters around it they can use the money for education or a house, a primary residence, but for nothing else.

13:17I think about this a lot, and I still haven't figured out what to do. The only pushback I would give is I would not lock yourself in anything. Because if your kid's a great kid and wants to buy a house and is having a kid, you may want to pull some of that million dollars at 40 forward. But at the same time, if they're just living in your basement and not motivated, I don't think you want to give them any money. But again, I think this is a personal question. It's kind of up to you. I have friends who are wealthy and cut off their kids after college, just like, that's it. You're done. You're out.

13:54And it's my money, not your money. I'm rich. You're not rich. And then I have other friends whose kids have never flown commercially. Even when they're adults, they pay for their private air travel. So I would argue the former is probably much better than the latter. I think it's a personal decision. And anyways, long-winded way of saying, I don't know. My only advice is not to lock yourself into a construct. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email voice recording to officehoursofproptmedia.com. That's officehoursofproptmedia.com. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might featured in an upcoming episode.