Prof G Markets: Ask Us Anything — Scott and Ed Answer Your Questions

Follow Prof G Markets: Apple Podcasts Spotify Scott and Ed answer listener-submitted questions about everything from how they met to their favorite non-business books. They give career advice and talk about the people who inspire them. Plus, Ed discusses how he allocates his investments and Scott confirms the truth behind a rumor from his college days. Finally, bear witness to the moment Scott first learned Ed has a girlfriend. Order "The Algebra of Wealth," out now Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Follow Scott on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram and X Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 0:56Scott Galloway?

  Today's number, $80. That's the cost of Costco's new emergency food bucket, which includes freeze-dried meals that will last up to 25 years. True story, Ed, I remember when I shot my first turkey. Boy, were the people at the Costco frozen food section surprised.

• 1:22Scott Galloway?

  Little team dad humor, little Costco membership retail dad humor there. Welcome to Prof G Markets. What is going on today, Ed? I usually introduce you as media analyst. Have we given that shit up? Media analyst, whatever that was?

• 1:37Ed Elson?

  Okay, I need to put this to rest once and for all. Our company is called Prof G Media. So we called me the analyst of Prof G Media. And you keep on thinking that I'm, I'm calling myself a media analyst. I'm the analyst of Prof G.

• 1:51Scott Galloway?

  Thanks for straightening that up. By the way, that category, that puts you into new employment category with much lower salary and no benefits. No more dental for you. No more dental for you. All right. So we're doing something different today. We've got a fun one. Tell us what we're doing.

• 2:06Ed Elson?

  Uh, yeah, we're doing an Ask Me Anything episode. So we'll be going through our listener questions that we received on Instagram and on Reddit and on YouTube. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions. We'll try to get through as many as we can. Are you ready to go, Scott?

• 2:19Scott Galloway?

  Let's light this candle. Okay, how did Scott and Ed meet? I don't remember. I don't remember.

• 2:24Ed Elson?

  You don't remember? I remember very well.

• 2:26Scott Galloway?

  I know it was a bathroom, but I primed to remember where. Ah, we'll have to a good start.

• 2:32Ed Elson?

  It was the bathroom of the RNC in Milwaukee.

• 2:36Scott Galloway?

  Oh, my God, that's my favorite stat grinder crashing in Milwaukee during the RNC convention. I just fucking love that. Anyways, go ahead. How did we meet?

• 2:48Ed Elson?

  It was about four years. I'll preface it with this. It was about four years ago. I was in college and I was feeling generally pretty lost about what I wanted to do with my life. All of my friends were becoming bankers. All of them were becoming consultants. And for whatever reason, I didn't want to do it. I was stewing over this for a while and I decided to create a list of all the people I most admire and whose careers I wanted to replicate. And I decided I'm going to just create this list and see if I can go help any of these people. And Scott was on that list. So at the time I was a big fan of Pivot. I had been for a while. One day I'm listening to Pivot and Corin Scott say, please welcome Joanna Coles,

• 3:34Ed Elson?

  who is a friend of mine because she is the mother of my best friend and roommate from the boarding school I went to in Massachusetts. So I heard that I didn't even listen to the interview. And I immediately put my phone down and reached out to Joanna and said, can you please introduce me to Scott Galloway? Which she did. I connected with Scott over email and then he offered to get on a phone call with me. I think you were on a beach in Mexico at the time. Yeah. And then, and he, he offered me an internship and the rest is history. In my mind, it was a total no brainer to reach out to you. Because I think this is the learning, I had already done all of the mental work ahead of time that I needed to know that if there's an opportunity to meet Scott Galloway, I have to take it.

• 4:20Ed Elson?

  And I think that's sort of my takeaway. It's like, I mean, 90% of your career battle is figuring out that question. What do I want to do? That's the hardest part. Once you figure that out, it's sort of autopilot. I knew I wanted to work with you. So yeah, that's how, that's how we met on a phone call, I guess.

• 4:37Scott Galloway?

  Yeah. Well, thanks for that. That was generous words and those, it made me feel nice to hear you say that. I didn't know some of that stuff. You're obviously privileged in the sense that you came with huge credentials coming out of Princeton. And to be fair, you knew somebody. You're not a Nepo hire, but you knew someone who I'm friends with. And some people, because of the, you know, the, the income of the household they grew up with, don't have access to friends who know people in positions to hire them. I remember, I remember growing up thinking like, all my friends were, when they were applying to college, like, oh, my dad's friend is on the Board of Advisors for the University of Wisconsin. And I'm like, my mom doesn't know anybody, like, we have no contacts.

• 5:19Scott Galloway?

  But anyways, the lesson here is that, or the lesson for me and my approach to hiring. So Joanna Coles called me and said, I have someone you have to hire. And I take Joanna very seriously. She's super smart, she's built companies herself. She's one of the few people from the magazine industry, for those of you don't know Joanna Coles, she was the chief content or creative officer for Hearst.

• 5:42Ed Elson?

  And editor in chief of Cosmo, too.

• 5:44Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, editor in chief of Cosmo, which at one point was the kind of biggest magazine in the world. And she's just a very impressive woman. She's now, I think, the co-owner of The Daily Beast. She's taken that over, which is, in my opinion, gonna be like pushing a rock up a hill. But best of luck to Joanna. But she called me and said, in no uncertain terms, you have to, I have someone you have to hire. And that's the way I hire. If somebody I trust, who I think is really smart, is willing to put, not their reputation, but put their full-throated endorsement behind someone, I'll hire them. Because here's the thing, interviews for me are not worthless, but they're almost worthless. The best interview I've ever had was with someone at LT. She came in and she just blew my socks off.

• 6:29Scott Galloway?

  I'm like, this person is so smart, so composed, has such presence. And everyone else is like, okay, fine, let's hire her. Two days after she started, she went on disability. And she refused to tell us what was wrong with her, because that would be an invasion of her privacy. But she used to show up to the parties. And it took us like nine months to figure out a way to fire her. I just went on disability and wouldn't even tell us why she was on disability, but was well enough to show up for any social thing we had. That was the best interview I've ever had. I don't remember doing the phone call with you, but I don't need to remember because I was going to hire you because someone I trust and respect said, I have to hire you.

• 7:13Scott Galloway?

  She said, this kid is so impressive. She said, he's friends with my, he's good friends with my son. We hang out with him. We've, I don't know if this was true, vacationed with you. And he's just such an impressive young man. You have to hire him. So I knew I was hiring you when I got off the phone with Joanna.

• 7:30Ed Elson?

  I can't tell if that reflects well on me or well on Joanna.

• 7:33Scott Galloway?

  Well, you've been a fucking disaster. So I call her and tell her, and tell her, you know, she owes me. I'm like, you owe me.

• 7:39Ed Elson?

  Yeah, 100%.

• 7:40Scott Galloway?

  But no, that's, reference hires is, I think, the big learning here.

• 7:44Ed Elson?

  Moving on to a question for you, Scott, could you address the rumors that you were in fact Joe Bruin, the UCLA mascot during your time at UCLA?

• 7:52Scott Galloway?

  So that is 100% true. This guy named Brady Cannell, who was the president of my fraternity, was the Bruin bearer and came up to me and said, you should be the Bruin bearer. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he said, the mascot at the football games is this giant bear in a Disney costume. And so I said, okay. And so I tried out and I became the Bruin bearer at UCLA in 1983. I was a freshman and I traveled with the football team. I tried out for the football team and ended up dancing around on the sidelines in a fucking costume. And it was an interesting experience. I traveled with the football team for a season and me and the other bear would get ridiculously fucking high and stay out past the curfew.

• 8:36Scott Galloway?

  That's, can you believe, I remember we went to the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona and we were playing against Miami. And so me and Harry Hirschman, the other bear. We went out and as you do when you're 19 in Arizona, we got ridiculously fucked up at a Mexican restaurant, ended up back at our hotel with a couple of women and we just like partied like four in the morning. And then the next morning I got a call from like the dean of spirit squad or whatever she was doing. And she came to our room with another guy, I guess for, I don't know, gravitas and said, I'm putting you on a plane home. You have violated NCAA athletic rules. You were not in bed by 10. And I'm like,

• 9:17Scott Galloway?

  let me get this. I don't have to march around in 140 degree fucking costume wildly hung over and you're pretending that's a punishment?

• 9:27Ed Elson?

  You said that.

• 9:28Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, she was a love. I was so hung over. I think I had to, I'm not exaggerating. I think I had to excuse myself from distressing down in this meeting to go throw up in the bathroom. And like, I'm not throwing a football. I don't need to be, no one sees me. I'm in a hot box. I'm in this costume. I'm in Arizona. I'm gonna be in a fur line costume making dumb poses. It's gonna be, it's literally gonna be 140 degrees in there. And you're acting as if that's a punishment? And her only comeback was you're gonna have to play for your own flight home. And I'm like, well, okay. And so it ended up that was all like, all bullshit. And they're like, fuck you. Get in the costume and get to the Fiesta Bowl.

• 10:11Scott Galloway?

  But yeah, I did that. I was Joe Bruin for a season of the Mighty Bruins when we went to the Fiesta Bowl. Not something I talk a lot about, although I used to, I used to try and get girls up to my room in the fraternity to see the costume. I'd be like, I'm the Bruin Bear. You wanna see the costume?

• 10:27Ed Elson?

  Do what? No?

• 10:27Scott Galloway?

  Didn't work a lot. Yeah, yeah.

• 10:29Ed Elson?

  It's something to talk about.

• 10:30Scott Galloway?

  It is something to talk about. Yeah. So yes, true. I was the Bruin Bear in 1983.

• 10:35Ed Elson?

  Wow. I did not know that. I feel like I know every dumb factoid about you. I did not know that.

• 10:40Scott Galloway?

  So next one. Ed, what does your portfolio look like?

• 10:43Ed Elson?

  So my portfolio is very simple. It's all ETFs. So S and P 500 and then some wider baskets to Russell 1000 Growth, Russell 1000 Value.

• 10:56Ed Elson?

  Very simple, plain portfolio. I don't think about it. I basically don't touch it. The reason I don't think about it is because I'm at a point in my career where worrying about stocks is basically just a waste of time. The highest ROI investment I can make is just being really, really good at my job. So to me, that means spending my time developing writing skills, developing speaking skills, understanding markets, meeting people, reading obsessively. That's what I spend my time doing. So, you know, I don't really pay that much attention to the portfolio. I take, if you want some more detail, I take 5% of my income and put it in my 401k. Luckily for me, Scott offers a 5% contribution match.

• 11:42Ed Elson?

  So in effect, that's 10% of my income that's being invested to build an asset base. I plan to start cranking that number up over time, but, you know, I live in New York and I spend a fortune on rent and on food and alcohol and experiences, all of these things that I want to spend money on. So for me, 5% makes a right amount of sense right now. But I think the idea is that, you know, once I start making really, really highly meaningful income, that's when I'll start being a little more strategic and a little bit more bold with my investments. Maybe I'll look at real estate, maybe venture, maybe private equity. Those are all things I'm thinking about, but at this stage,

• 12:24Ed Elson?

  just a plain passive ETF portfolio, that's what makes the most sense for me.

• 12:28Scott Galloway?

  I mean, I'm just saying, I think that you're, I mean this sincerely, you're so much smarter than I was at your age. You're investing in the right places, you're taking a disciplined approach, even if you're you know, you're going to be remarkably successful, but on the off chance you're not, as long as you, you know, continue to figure out a way to get 10% of your earnings into these ETFs. When you're my age, regardless of whether you're a baller or not, and what you've achieved or not achieved economically, you're going to be fine. And I did, I did not realize that when I was your age.

• 13:01Ed Elson?

  Who are your inspirations in and out of the business world?

• 13:04Scott Galloway?

  Well, it sounds, it sounds.

• 13:08Scott Galloway?

  Pat, but I get a lot of inspiration from work. I love surrounding myself with super intelligent, creative young people. I get a lot of inspiration from you guys. Same thing happened at LT. I've always been pretty good at surrounding myself with young, smart people that have a different lens on the world. I get a lot of just the inspiration from the people I work with. I don't have, I try to, I have a few people in my life that, or that I've tried to get to know a lot about and they provide me with inspiration. I admire Muhammad Ali's courage.

• 13:40Ed Elson?

  I feel like I've heard you say that you also admire, like, I found it interesting how poetic he was. Is that right?

• 13:47Scott Galloway?

  Well, the key to success is storytelling. And this was a guy who decided he was gonna say, "I am so pretty." And he would do poetry at pre-boxing hearings, whatever you call them. And he was just not afraid, very principled, decided that his principles around not going to Vietnam were not an opinion, it was a principle, and refused to go. And they stripped him of his medals, they basically impoverished him, obviously outstanding at what he did. Just thought this guy was courageous. I mean, it sounds dumb, but I think of people like Richard Simmons, who was outwardly gay before it was cool.

• 14:27Scott Galloway?

  And I remember this one moment, I was at LaGuardia in the middle of winter, it must have been 20 degrees out, and this guy in front of me at TSA takes off his trench coat and he's wearing a sweater, except it's not a sweater, it's back hair. And he has like a sparkly tank top, short, short dolphin shorts, K-Swiss and athletic socks. And the whole airport stops and TSA stops and they go, "Richard." They go, "Richard." And he cleared, made space around them, asked me to step back, which I did. And he stepped back and threw his arms into the air and went, "Hello, LaGuardia."

• 15:07Ed Elson?

  No way.

• 15:09Scott Galloway?

  And the entire terminal stopped for a moment and then erupted in applause.

• 15:16Ed Elson?

  Wow.

• 15:17Scott Galloway?

  And I thought, "This guy is just so fucking unafraid." It's like, have you ever been at a club or at a place and somebody gets on the table and starts dancing? And they're dancing as if no one's watching them? I'm like, God, I want to live my life like that. I want to be Richard Simmons. The bridge for me to get to that fearlessness is an embrace of atheism. It just doesn't matter. If you make a fool of yourself, or people don't like you, or you get shamed, or you do something stupid, or you take a risk, and you have public failure. You know, it really doesn't matter. What matters is while you're here, having an amazing life. And the only way you're going to have a truly amazing life,

• 16:01Scott Galloway?

  a life that's better than the environment you were born into, and what logically the world would reward you with, is that if you have a little bit of Richard Simmons and Muhammad Ali in you, and that is, you are willing to risk public shaming, you are willing to live out loud, and that you very early decide what is the difference between an opinion and a principle.

• 16:24Ed Elson?

  I mean, I just love that Richard Simmons story. Yeah, I tend to have a similar view on the people who inspire me. I mean, I love people who really understand humanity, and you, for whom you can see that understanding through their work. I love comedians. I mean, you know, my favorite person in high school was Louis C.K. It's a little, I mean, he had his issues, so it's hard to say that now.

• 16:52Scott Galloway?

  There's nothing wrong with that. Everyone deserves their heroes. And I'm, I think it's important that you masturbate in front of your coworkers. I mean, I mean, that's a great role model. Sorry, sorry. Okay if I whip this out and just have a little bit of fun? Just FYI, that is not a part of the employee handbook here, Ed, just so you know. I'm sorry, go ahead. Your role models.

• 17:15Ed Elson?

  The question was inspiration. I wouldn't call him a role model, I'd call him inspiration.

• 17:18Scott Galloway?

  Ooh, he's backtracking.

• 17:24Ed Elson?

  Stay with us.

• 17:34Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Built. Most of us work hard to earn our keep, but usually there's no one around to hand you a cookie when you successfully pay your monthly housing bill. No one except Built, that is. Built has expanded from their original Rent a Rewards program, and they have a lot more going on for members now. For example, members can earn points on mortgage payments, too. Every housing payment gets you points that get you a lot more than baked goods, such as flights with top travel partners, including United and Hyatt, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and much, much more. Here's another benefit of Built membership. You also get access to what they call a neighborhood concierge. You can make restaurant reservations, book fitness classes, and find new local spots, all while rewarding you at more than 45,000 merchant partners. It's simple.

• 18:16Scott Galloway?

  Being a renter and now owning a home feels a lot better with Built. You can download the Built app and join the membership for where you live at joinbuilt.com/profg. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com/profg. Use our link so they know we sent you.

• 18:35Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Upwork. Trying to scale your business? At some point, you're probably going to hit a point where you need some help. Sometimes the best way to break through that is bringing in the right talent at the right time. Upwork can help. Upwork is a one-stop platform where you can find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across more than 125 categories. Whether you need specialized skills for a single project or extra support to keep up with demand, it's easy to connect with experienced professionals, review their work, and find the right fit. You can move faster without taking on the commitment of full-time hires. And for businesses that need the very best talent, Upwork Business Plus provides access to the top 1% of freelancers on the platform. AI-powered matching connects you with qualified candidates in under six hours, cutting down the time spent searching. Upwork also takes care of contracts,

• 19:20Scott Galloway?

  payments, and other administrative tasks, so you can spend less time managing logistics and more time focused on what's next. Visit upwork.com/profg right now and post your job for free. That's upwork.com/profg to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com/profg. Upwork.com/profg.

• 19:45Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Vanta. As AI adoption grows, so does your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but your team isn't getting any bigger. Most compliance tools promise automation, but you're really stuck doing all the work by hand, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently. The regentech trust platform is built to scale with you, not slow you down. With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round, cutting your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools including Claude or Cursor. Want proof?

• 20:30Scott Galloway?

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• 20:58Scott Galloway?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. Top non-economic books everyone should read. Do you have one? I have a bunch, but none of them are that profound. So the books that really moved me, I remember distinctly as a kid. My father has mild epilepsy, which he failed to inform me or my mom. And I started having fainting spells, and it was really traumatic at the time. I'd be in school and I'd see something unusual or a weird film or something, and I would not feel well, and I'd get up and I'd pass out. And it was kind of, you know, at the time, it was traumatic. You know, the Galloway kid keeps passing out. And I read this book called The Great Brain, and it was a series of books about a kid living in, I think, I don't know, 1800s America.

• 21:43Scott Galloway?

  And there's a scene where these kids are in a lake and there's a rush of water or in a river, and one of them drowns. And the kid, the protagonist, he says, "Something happened to me that's never happened to me." And he says, "I fainted and I passed out." And I remember thinking, it gave me such comfort to read that that happened to other kids. And to kill a mockingbird, I remember thinking I'd like to be like that guy, the Atticus Finch character. I remember thinking I would like to be like quiet and strong and not necessarily like be a protector, not feel as if I have to always be like, like get in people's faces, just be quietly strong. Books had had a huge impact on me in high school were one,

• 22:25Scott Galloway?

  The Diary of Anne Frank and The Winds of War. I started reading about World War II and I just the amount of sacrifice that people had made that, you know, that kind of made America what it is today and the freedoms we enjoy and what happened to Jews in Europe in World War II, that had a huge impact on me. And then the other author that had a huge impact on me was Jonathan Irving. And he used to just write these books about, that was felt so real, but these people were just so fucking strange. And, you know, they put people in the weirdest situation about, you know, somebody gets hit in the face with a baseball and it changes their life, or the story of a, of a home for unwed

• 23:08Scott Galloway?

  mothers and it provided abortions and this love story that takes place in this context about a wrestling coach whose mother is a sad, I mean.

• 23:18Ed Elson?

  That was my, that was my favorite growing up weirdly while according to God.

• 23:22Scott Galloway?

  But I felt like everyone thinks they're a little bit weird. I think deep down, we all think, we all think we're hiding some freak and that we're, maybe not all of us. I felt like I'm a weird kid. And that gave me comfort that the whole world is weird, that you don't need to feel strange or shamed because you're unusual or think weird things, that the whole world is fucking weird and everyone's pretending not to be. But those, those books really moved me, like they really made me feel something. I haven't read a non, the reality is, in the last five years, I've written almost as many books as I've, as I've, I've read. I read a lot. I read so much during the day that I don't get relaxation from reading at night. What about you, Ed? What's changed or what's been seminal for you?

• 24:04Ed Elson?

  Um, I mean, question, what should everyone read? I personally think everyone should read The Odyssey. Um, I just think if you want to understand storytelling at a very fundamental level, that is the book that you have to start with. It's basically. Aside from the religious texts, the most influential book in history, it invented this idea of the hero's journey, which is the template for pretty much every story in our society today. The character in Odysseus is super interesting to me and probably my favorite character. The context here, every hero in these stories in Homer has what's known as an epithet, which is basically like the adjective that's attached

• 24:49Ed Elson?

  to your name. It's like being called the Incredible Hulk or whatever. So you have like swift-footed Achilles and earth-shaking Poseidon, all these characters. The epithet for Odysseus, the one adjective that is used to describe him, was this word, "polutrapos." It's a very weird word. It means of many different ways, which basically is saying he was anything, moment to moment. He would change his nature. Like, another way you could say it's like a man of twists and turns. And it's just such a unique, that was his superpower, basically. His superpower was the ability to read situations, read people's

• 25:30Ed Elson?

  emotions, and adjust his behavior to get along with people, to make things work, depending on the context. And I just think it says a lot about humanity that, you know, of all of these heroes with these different superpowers, you know, strength and speed and lightning bolts, the one that we exalted most was this word, "polutrapos," this guy who would change his behaviors from context to context to make things work.

• 26:01Scott Galloway?

  I like this next one. Ed, do you plan on becoming like Scott when you're his age? In other words, are you planning to really lean into the erectile dysfunction?

• 26:12Scott Galloway?

  Okay, do you plan on becoming like me when you're my age?

• 26:15Ed Elson?

  No.

• 26:17Scott Galloway?

  Fair enough. Let's move on.

• 26:18Ed Elson?

  Well, no, actually, what I will say about this, because I do kind of get that question a lot like, oh, where is, where is this going for you? Like, what's the trajectory? And the answer to that is, I don't know. And I'm fine with that because I'm making good money and I'm getting better at it and I'm enjoying it. And I think that if you're ticking those three boxes, you're headed in the right direction. So you've just got to sort of enjoy it, see where it takes you. What I can say is that there are fundamental aspects of your life and your career that I, that I do want. I think that's probably the way to think about it.

• 26:58Scott Galloway?

  The plan?

• 27:00Ed Elson?

  So that's one of them.

• 27:04Ed Elson?

  You make a lot of money and I think I have to be real with myself and recognize that money is very important to me. I want to make a lot of money. I like nice things. I like the freedom it gives you. That's, that's something for sure that I want. I also think that I like that you make money doing something that you're actually good at. Like, it's not like you bought a bunch of crypto and it went to a million and like you just ended up rich. Like you, you get to say that you genuinely earned that money because of your talents and your hard work.

• 27:42Ed Elson?

  And, you know, like I said, I, I love money, but I think I love it even more when I'm 100% certain that I deserve it and it's mine. And that's a big part of it. Third thing I'll say, and this is the most important one, in my opinion, and kind of related to the thing you were saying about Richard Simmons. I think that you, in your career, have figured out a way to express yourself fully, I think.

• 28:10Ed Elson?

  And to me, this is like the number one thing you need to do in life. And I think it's actually really surprisingly difficult to do because when I look at, I mean, I haven't been around that long, but when I look at my life, the times I've been least happy were the moments where, for whatever reason, I felt kind of unable to express myself fully. And the times I've been most happier when I felt motivated and confident to express myself. And I think it's just so difficult to do because there are just so many little things in life that can get in the way of that. I think the ability to express yourself is a luxury that you have to work hard to achieve. And I think that you have achieved that.

• 28:51Ed Elson?

  You're in a unique position where you're not only empowered to express yourself, but you're economically incentivized to do so.

• 28:59Scott Galloway?

  Well, one, that's kind and generous, but a couple of things. One, and again, I'm not humble. I think I'm remarkably talented. Forty nine percent of what you're talking about, it comes from my talent. The other fifty one percent was shit that wasn't my fault. Being born in California in the sixties, being born in America, you know, just got very, very lucky. And the other thing is when you're twenty six, you're exactly right. You just, you really don't have any idea where you're going to be. It's like you have your plan and then God laughs. And when I was twenty six, I was a second year in business school. I had started a brand strategy firm in business school.

• 29:33Ed Elson?

  Twenty five, by the way.

• 29:34Scott Galloway?

  When I was twenty five, I had gone to Berkeley. I enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin to go to business school. And I just switched to the hot school of business because I'd fallen in love with someone. And I said to her, she said, we're going to business school together. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to UT Austin. And she said, well, I'm going to Berkeley. And I said, well, I'm going to Berkeley. And I followed her to Berkeley. And coming out of Berkeley in the nineties, I ended up in tech. What if I'd come out of UT? Would I have ended up in energy? I doubt I would have started an e-commerce company. I mean, I just, your life has, your life is a function of fractions and inches and small decisions and small things that happen outside your control and timing and missing or getting a.

• 30:17Scott Galloway?

  You know, a subway to somewhere. So I was trying to reflect on just how fortunate I am. You're tracking right now in terms of your currency in the marketplace, the skills you're developing, the economic base. The most rewarding thing that will happen to you will be finding someone to have, to build something with and to have kids with. I didn't figure that out until I was in my 40s, but that has been the most, hands down, the most rewarding thing.

• 30:43Ed Elson?

  By the way, this is a personal question for me. Why, why did you wait so long?

• 30:48Scott Galloway?

  I loved being single.

• 30:50Ed Elson?

  But you went off to business? I mean, it sounds like you were, you were down to drop everything for, for a partner, pretty young.

• 30:57Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, but Ed, here's the thing. She was much hotter than me. She was much, much hotter than me.

• 31:06Scott Galloway?

  No, like I, I've been married before and I didn't like it and I was fine. When I moved to New York, I was 34, I was making good money. I was single and I really liked it. I liked being selfish. I liked doing my own thing. I liked going to St. Bart's and having brunch with fabulous people and going out and getting shitty drunk. And I just loved it. And I didn't think I would ever, I didn't think I would ever have kids.

• 31:32Ed Elson?

  Really?

• 31:32Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I didn't want kids.

• 31:34Ed Elson?

  Why?

• 31:34Scott Galloway?

  I just couldn't stand being around them. Have you been around kids? I think they were awful.

• 31:40Ed Elson?

  Always assumed I'll feel differently about mine, but.

• 31:43Scott Galloway?

  You're a hundred percent right. I, I still am not interested in other people's kids. God reaches into your soul with your kids. And by the way, it's a slow, it's not a switch, it's a dim. After you have kids, you know, it's not, I wasn't in love with my sons when they were, when they were born. It's really true what they say. You kind of fall in love with them. And, but I wasn't planning on it, but I fell in love with someone who said, I want to have kids. And I said, well, I'm not getting married again. And she called my bluff and said, I don't need to be married to have kids. And so we pulled the goalie and we're like pregnant three minutes later. But having kids, it started out something terrifying and upsetting and I wasn't excited about it and it's ended up being like literally, you know, I would say 70 to 80% of the real

• 32:25Scott Galloway?

  reward and feelings of satisfaction I have stem from something around family. And I love work, but work is, it's a ton of fun. It's almost like a hobby at this point because I'm in a privileged position of not needing to do anything. But really, when I think about work and you guys, I want to pay you really well, even overpay you and try and train you to develop some economic security like you're doing, such that you can focus on your relationships and your family. Because that's, as you get older, that's what it's all about.

• 32:57Ed Elson?

  We'll be right back.

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• 34:05Scott Galloway?

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• 35:17Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. Scott, what's in your wallet? What card gets used the most and why?

• 35:22Scott Galloway?

  My Amex Black card because I'm trying to impress other people. That's right, Daddy Throws Down Black. Hello. Hello, ladies. I mean, literally, I pay $5,000 a week, maybe $7,500 a year for a card that has no incremental benefits, other than they took a Visa and spray painted it black.

• 35:40Ed Elson?

  Is that right? They know of the benefits? Or you probably just don't, you can't figure out how to use the points?

• 35:46Scott Galloway?

  I'm sure there are. I don't use them. Oh my God, the benefits are so lame. They're like wine tasting in a hot air balloon in Nap or Sonoma. I was like, what am I, 80 fucking years old? I mean, it is, it's such, it's such lame shit and their travel agency is so bad. It used to be good and now you'd much rather use Expedia. Expedia is 10 times better than what Amex offers in terms of travel services. They have their... Kind of Amex benefits. They have their late checkout thing, which occasionally I use, their free room upgrade, but I think you get that with a platinum card. It is literally pure signaling. That is all it is. It is pure signaling and I will do it

• 36:27Scott Galloway?

  until, until I'm dead. I will bury me with my Centurion card. I love that thing. There's some crazy stats. There used to be, I remember this a while ago, there were 10,000 Black Hearts in America and 5,000 of them were in Manhattan. I thought that was hilarious.

• 36:41Ed Elson?

  Makes sense. Let's get another question here. Scott, you've had some personal beef with Elon Musk. Could you explain what happened?

• 36:48Scott Galloway?

  Oh, no, I don't have beef with him. I don't know him. We just report on him a lot. He's, he's said a couple of things about me online, which I think were mean, but no. Let me put it this way, I've probably been more hostile towards him than he's towards me because I don't think he thinks about me a whole lot. If you're going to talk about technology and society, you're going to talk about Elon Musk. He is probably one of the defining, if not the defining, character of our age. And there's some things I really admire about him. I think his brain, his fearlessness, his innovation, his understanding of technology, his embrace of just massive risks, doubling down after he sold PayPal to try and build a rocket in a car company. It's basically like every eight-year-old's

• 37:31Scott Galloway?

  fantasy. Like, I want to build a rocket in a car company. I think he's just an inspiration on a lot of levels. And then there's some things about him that trigger me. I think being critical of other people's parenting is sort of off limits. But when he puts this out there and tweets about it and puts this out there for personal consumption, I think he's inviting review. He said to Jordan Peterson, talking about the woke mind virus, that he lost his son to the woke mind virus and that his daughter went through transition, that his, he did, the way he describes it is that his son is dead. And it is so rattling for a father to hear another father describe their child that way.

• 38:13Scott Galloway?

  And when I think about how many young men look up to this guy, and that the model he's portraying is so antithetical to the notion of what it means to be a man. In my view, there are some basics about being a real man. And the first is that you move to protection. Like, you don't need to understand gay people. You don't need to understand whoever it is, what's going on. The moment someone is threatened, your first instinct as a man should be to protect. And that ground zero of that is your family. And to ever say that, regardless of what you might feel about kids going through transition, or, but to say that publicly, that your child is dead to you? I just find that that is such a terrible role model.

• 38:58Scott Galloway?

  It's just such a awful example for young men. And so I have this, like, really conflicted view of the guy. And I don't know, I used to think he was going to be a net positive for society. But I worry that we're training an entire generation of young men to be coarse, to abuse your power, to not pay people the severance you own them, to spread conspiracy theories that someone might be gay, such that they have to move their home, to spread conspiracy theory about a gay love triangle of the speaker's husband who's assaulted. I mean, it's so homophobic. It's so transphobic.

• 39:40Scott Galloway?

  It's just like the last role model that young men should be looking up to. And the thing that's so tragic about it is there's so many amazing reasons to look up to this guy, right? So it's not a beef. I don't think he thinks about me. He did reach out to me via a friend once and say, I think Scott's been unfair. I'd like to meet with him. And I didn't want to meet with him. And I said, maybe, as an excuse, I said, maybe sometime we'll all get together for drinks or something. But I just find him...

• 40:11Scott Galloway?

  It's like you were talking about the classics. I feel like it's a Greek tragedy. I mean, just think about this, Ed. He's a man who has, I think, 12 kids now, and he doesn't live with any of them. And he lives with a loaded gun next to his bed. I don't know. I'm very, I probably, he probably lives rent free in my brain much more than he should. But no, that's, that's about it. Enough about Musk. Ed, what is your relationship like with your parents and your siblings?

• 40:36Ed Elson?

  Well, my relationship with my parents, my siblings are pretty good, but they're very different.

• 40:41Ed Elson?

  My parents are not together, and I think that

• 40:47Ed Elson?

  my relationship with my parents has been fraught at times. I think that's the case with everyone, and I think

• 40:57Ed Elson?

  the biggest realization that I think pretty much every kid has is, and a lot of people talk about this, but the idea that your parents are people too. I think that was a big one for me. And learning how to

• 41:14Ed Elson?

  get along with them at a very human level. Yeah, I've had an interesting thought with my parents recently, or in the past few years, where, you know, I was thinking, I really want to understand my parents, and I want to get to know them at like a very personal level. And the only way that I can do that fully is by being able to be vulnerable with them, and they also need to be vulnerable with me. I think as a parent, that's probably very difficult to do because your instinct is to protect your child, I would assume. And you don't really want to show your child the vulnerable side of yourself because you don't want to fuck them up for whatever reason.

• 41:59Ed Elson?

  But I realize that it's just something that I want to know about my parents. Like, I want to know what are the biggest mistakes that they made? You know, what things do they wish they'd done differently? What are they embarrassed about? What are they insecure about? Just that I have some notes, you know, moving forward. And anyway, I sort of said this to my parents. But I also said, but I recognize it's probably difficult for you. So what I'm going to try to do, and I've been trying to do this in general, is signal as best as I can to you that I'm fine. I'm never gonna, I'll ask for your advice on things, but I'm never gonna come running to you

• 42:39Ed Elson?

  in like a crisis and be like, you need to help me. I'm drowning. Like, you need to figure something out for me. Because what I wanna do is get to a point where I can interact with you as a peer, and where you feel that you can express things you're concerned about without this feeling that you're kind of, you know, placing undeserved burden on your, on your child. And I want you to understand that I'm strong enough and I'm capable enough to hear what you have to say and be empathetic towards it.

• 43:13Scott Galloway?

  I think it's great you're thinking that way, especially at your age. That's a lot more self actualized than I was at your age. But just a couple of things, as a parent, like you said, you've kind of said, I would, I would be scared to come to them in a crisis. Like, what I find is, I really want my kids to know, if they ever get in trouble, if they ever, if the bills get too much, if they have their heart broken, that they can come home, that I am their, I am their hammock, safety net. Like, no judgment. Anything goes wrong, I should be your first call. Yeah, and I think they wanna know that. I think, I mean, you're, you're impressive enough where I don't, I don't think they're gonna have trouble treating as a peer, but I

• 43:55Scott Galloway?

  think, I think especially dads really want, as a dad, I really want my kids to come to advice. I think one of the most, like, I don't wanna call it disappointing, but frustrating things for me is, and I realize it's natural, is I'm not exaggerating, I'll get thirty or forty emails today from young men looking for advice. My kids never ask me for advice. And it's sort of like, I wish they would. I wish at some point, they would, they would like say, Dad, you know, occasionally they ask me for stuff, but not really.

• 44:21Ed Elson?

  Well, they're super young. I mean.

• 44:22Scott Galloway?

  Oh, like, they're about to be fourteen and seventeen. But, so I just, let me put it this way. Don't, don't in any way think that you are coming to your parents for advice or comfort is a burden. It's what they want. It's what makes them feel important and close to you. And also just try and make a habit of calling your mom as often as possible, just to say hi and check in. I think moms need that more than anything. But you're, the way you're thinking is the right way, realizing their life here, or their time here is finite, and making an effort to get to know them. Okay, something more fun. You're a young. Single.

• 45:02Ed Elson?

  I'm actually not single anymore.

• 45:03Scott Galloway?

  What? Ed Elson?

• 45:06Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Scott Galloway?

  I thought we were close. Actually, it's not true. I don't want to be close. But I thought I would have known that. Okay. The fans want to know, are you willing to go public with this relationship?

• 45:16Ed Elson?

  Well, what does that, what does that mean? Yeah.

• 45:18Scott Galloway?

  How did you meet? Who is it? How long have you been dating? So she clearly she has poor vision and poor judgment. What happened? How did Ed Elson find someone?

• 45:29Ed Elson?

  I've known her for a really long time. We went to college together. We were very good friends and it was kind of, it was very sort of random. And we kind of, at one point, realized that we really liked each other, which was interesting, having been friends for a really long time.

• 45:46Scott Galloway?

  So how long have you guys been dating? Quote, unquote?

• 45:49Ed Elson?

  Three months, I want to say.

• 45:51Scott Galloway?

  Ed's got a girlfriend. This is very exciting. Our producer has a girlfriend. You have a girlfriend. This is very, everyone's, this is, this is good. Everyone's hooking up. I'm glad.

• 46:03Ed Elson?

  I got a kind of soppy last question here. Scott, are you proud of Ed?

• 46:07Scott Galloway?

  Am I proud of Ed? Proud? No, the proud's, proud's the wrong word. I'm not proud of Ed. Yeah, you look at, you're a, you're a nice kid to have on this because I think you're going to be a good role model for other young men. I think you, you, you equate yourself well. I think you're reserved. I think you're kind. I think you're smart. You work hard. You give good financial advice. I think you're a good role model for young men. I can, I can hopefully, you know, I can be somewhat of a role model by boasting about my success. You're going to be a more effective role model though, because they're going to relate to you. They're going to see how you're behaving and the mistakes you make and the victories you have. So when we, when we were doing this podcast, I was, I thought it was really important to have a young person. And I think it's, I think it's nice.

• 46:51Scott Galloway?

  I think you're setting a good example for other young men.

• 46:56Ed Elson?

  This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our executive producer is Catherine Dillon. Mia Silverio is our research lead and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We'll be back with a fresh take on markets on Thursday.

• 47:50Speaker 05

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