Is Scott Friends with Tech CEOs?, Who Should Run in 2028, and Overcoming Rejection

Scott reveals whether he gets pushback from tech CEOs, weighs in on who should run in 2028, and explains why the ability to mourn and move on has been key to his success. Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to [email protected], or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit. 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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• 1:34Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to Office Hours with 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 officehourswithpropgmedia.com. Again, that's officehourswithpropgmedia.com. Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just might feature it in our next episode.

• 1:56Scott Galloway?

  First question. Our first question comes from B Duran 5 on Instagram. They say, "Do you ever get heat for your views from biz heads?"

• 2:06Scott Galloway?

  Not really. The few times I've gotten really severe pushback, it hasn't been where you'd expect it. I'd say the people I have had the most critical views on have been big tech executives. And generally speaking, they're very respectful. And what they want to do, their response when you are critical of them is, "Hey Scott, I'd love to meet the next time. We're in town. Let's have lunch." And I almost always say, "No, I don't want to know them. I have no desire to understand how charming someone is who's figured out a business model to convince young people to start cutting themselves. I have no desire to hear someone's vision for the future of ride hailing. I find these people, up close and personal, boring and they don't drink, so I have no interest in getting to know them. I do get some pushback that says, "Well, you're talking openly about our firm. You

• 2:48Scott Galloway?

  have a responsibility to hear our side." No, I don't. I'm not a fucking journalist. I don't have any responsibility to hang out with a bunch of people to brighten up the room by leaving it. The times I've gotten pushback, kind of unusual. I wrote a blog post about three years ago, talking about how corrupt higher education was, and then saying that there were a lot of universities that were sort of in the kill zone or on a ventilator because they did not have the capital to survive a drop in enrollments. They were too dependent upon foreign students with weak grades. And their admissions rates were so high that it was clearly more like adult daycare. And as soon as they hit a bump in the road, they were going to go out of business. And I called it the nitroglycerin cocktail of, and I had a framework. It got written up in the Journal of Higher Education.

• 3:33Scott Galloway?

  I received three cease and desist letters from universities. It's just funny that the people who would come after me most aggressively would be other academics. But in terms of big tech, they're smarter than that. They're nice to you. "Oh, I love your stuff. Would you like to get together? By the way, would you ever consider speaking at one of our events, for which I'm sure they would pay me my full freight?" I don't do that. Sometimes I do take their advertising. We take advertising from Apple and I think from Alphabet. But generally speaking, the CEOs of these companies got there because they're very, very charming. And they can co-opt you. I just meant- I met Bezos recently. He's incredibly charming and likeable. I talked to Ted Sarandos

• 4:17Scott Galloway?

  on Saturday morning, the CEO of Netflix, who I just think is a wonderful guy. And this is the problem, and this is why I purposely avoid meeting with or having open communications with them, is they co-opt you because they're charming people and you stop speaking your mind. So I've gotten pushback in places I didn't expect it. I've gotten a lot of pushback from VCs, and I couldn't figure out why. And then I looked at their portfolio, and their portfolio is basically a septic tank of shit. And I have called out or said one of their companies is overvalued, and they decide that's a crime against humanity, and then start shitposting me online. I've also received some online pushback from Elon Musk. He's called me out a few times, but that's fine. That's probably a symbol that

• 5:00Scott Galloway?

  I'm doing something well. But in general, big tech executives and the executives of companies are very good at what I'll call winning you over, or polite pushback. They don't come after you. They just don't do that. So my pushback has been in places I didn't expect it. It's online. I don't know how much of it is bots. I would say the most pushback I receive is from bots being controlled by the GRU, because they've been pro-Ukraine, or from the CCP who just want to create agita and dissent wherever there is. If you go onto your feed whenever you say anything political, the really incendiary vile shit

• 5:40Scott Galloway?

  is usually DogMom112 with 22 followers. We have created the most porous propaganda machine in the world that our adversaries can weaponize. But on the whole, I don't get, I wouldn't say I got a ton of, a ton of pushback. I get some, and some criticism that's fair. But no, big tech executives, they're more about trying to co-opt you, win you over, and then create a series of incentives such that you just kind of keep quiet, if you will. Thanks for the thoughtful question.

• 6:12Scott Galloway?

  Question number two also comes from Instagram. They say, who is someone that you would like to see run for president in 28? Almost all of them. I would not like to see Vice President Harris run again. I don't, while I think she did, she was handed a difficult situation. I do not think she is a talented candidate. Also, I think if a woman runs for a third time and loses on the Democratic ticket, we're not going to have a female Democratic president for 50 years. Anyways, who do I, I think there's, I think we have an incredibly strong bench. I'm a big fan of Governor Shapiro and Newsom. I think Secretary Buttigieg is fantastic. I think Governor Whitmer is fantastic. I think Governor Moore is fantastic.

• 6:54Scott Galloway?

  I'm a big fan of Senators Murphy, Senators Bennett. There's always someone, quite frankly, you haven't thought of before, who would be fantastic. And I'm giving money and time to all of them because I have a habit of picking people who don't win. I'm the guy in my fraternity that had a Dukakis or a Mondale poster in his window when all my friends would basically walk by my room and go, pussy Reagan's a stud. No joke. I supported Dukakis in 92. Six years, when was it? The last one, five years ago, I supported Michael, Senator Michael Bennett for president. So I'm not great at backing the right horse, if you will.

• 7:36Scott Galloway?

  So what I'm going to do this time is just try and bring a bunch of oxygen and attention to who I think are a series of just outstanding candidates. And if you look back on who is usually leading in the polls at this moment, they almost always win. Just let me give you some Republicans who are number one, who are the most likely person to get captured the Republican nomination at this point in the cycle. Here's three of them, different cycles. Rudy Giuliani, right? America's mayor was the leading candidate for the Republican nomination at this point. Herman Cain, remember him, like 7771, ended up dying of COVID.

• 8:15Scott Galloway?

  And then my favorite Fred Thompson from Law and Order was the leading presidential candidate at this point in the election cycle. So being at the top right now isn't necessarily a good thing. And typically, it's somebody, if I had to bet on somebody, it would be TBD. And that is, nobody had heard of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama at this point. But I think we have a fantastic bench. I think we have some wonderful candidates. I think if you let the primary process run its course, don't have a coronation, but a competition, which really is, or was President Biden's mistake and his sycophants who stuck their head up their ass, not even in the sand, and pretended that he wasn't too fucking old, which I said early on, quite frankly, and then people would email me and say, Scott,

• 8:58Scott Galloway?

  you don't understand the assignment. You're gonna get Trump elected. Well, okay, let's take our hands off our eyes and ears. Anyways, enough of my patting myself on the back. If you were to let the primary process run, it's an incredible process because it not only picks the right person, it picks the right person for the moment. It is not easy to go to Iowa and pretend to like fried Snickers. It is not easy to listen to a bunch of old people, the villages in Florida, and hear about their concerns and their, and them drone on. It is not easy to basically go around and lie all the fucking time. And that's unfortunately what most politicians have to do, based on the audience they're in front of, who just wants handouts. That's one of the things I hate about the Democratic Party is their solution is to promise people more money. Well, okay. Well, then who's

• 9:42Scott Galloway?

  gonna pay for all this shit? Anyway, not why you're here. But I think the primary process of the electoral process is an outstanding means of maturing a great candidate for the moment. So I would love to see Nikki Haley run. I think Glenn Youngkin, not just Democrats. I'd love to see some moderates run. I think J.D. Vance is a fucking weirdo and a sycophant. By the way, boss, how did it work out for his last VP when he sent people with nooses and zip ties hunting for them? Yeah, that's gotta be fun. I think Ron DeSantis is reasonable, and I'm gonna get a lot of pushback from my Democratic brothers and sisters, but I feel like Governor DeSantis is someone I could work with. He seems very data-driven, served his country. Is he who I will vote for, who I will give money to? Absolutely not, but he seems reasonable.

• 10:27Scott Galloway?

  So I'm hoping, I think Ambassador Haley or Governor Haley is a reasonable person. I'm hoping we can move back to this weird thing called reasonable or a reasonable middle. But I'm gonna get very involved with my time, treasure, and talent to bring a lot of attention and oxygen to the great bench that the Democratic Party has right now, and then one or two leaders emerge and pull out ahead. I'm gonna get as involved as I can to be very supportive of one and try and restore kind of democracy, rule of law, competitive markets to the US. In sum, I'm gonna do my best to make America, America again.

• 11:05Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back after a quick break.

• 11:15Scott Galloway?

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• 12:00Scott Galloway?

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• 12:18Scott Galloway?

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• 13:29Scott Galloway?

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• 14:38Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Our final question comes from Smith Patel on LinkedIn. Which personal habit or mindset has helped you most in your professional success and why? I talked about it before, and that is, I don't know if I played with the wrong toys or the right toys, but I wasn't afraid to ask Maureen Burke to the prom, even though she was much, much hotter than me. She said no. I wasn't afraid to run for sophomore, junior, and senior class presidents, and I lost all three times. And based on my track record, I went for senior or student body president, where I went on to wait for it, lose. It's an ability to mourn and move on. That's my superpower. I'm not afraid of public failure. I'm not afraid of taking risks.

• 15:19Scott Galloway?

  The majority of my businesses have not worked. The majority of women I have asked out have said no. The majority of my relationships, when I have been like head over heels in love, they have not returned my affection. Is that true? Maybe that's not true. Anyways, I've been very lucky with women. Anyway. But I've had more businesses fail than succeed. I've absolutely had way more schools reject me than admit me. I can't tell you how many jobs I've applied for, but I have the ability to get shot in the fucking face. And then, a little bit like Wolverine, I heal and I get up and I try again. That is my superpower.

• 15:59Scott Galloway?

  One of my weaknesses that I'm trying to work on is I have a really gross habit of feeling sorry for myself, where, you know, I have a day where I do a bunch of podcasts, or I feel like things don't work out, or I'm frustrated, or my work sucks, or someone is unkind to me, whatever it is, and I feel sorry for myself, and I think, oh, woe is me. And the way I solve that is I don't own art or wine. I've always thought, I didn't grow up with any money. And what I saw amongst my friends when they started making a shit ton of money, specifically I hung around a lot of really wealthy guys in the early 2000s who were in their 30s, made a shit ton of money and thought that it was them, not recognizing

• 16:41Scott Galloway?

  there was this anomaly of 2 and 20, the compensation structure of hedge funds, who were making millions, sometimes tens of millions. And I noticed the first thing they did was they started ordering really expensive wine and buying art. I have never done either of those things. I don't, wine tops out at 20 bucks a bottle for me. I'd rather have a beer. I don't really own any art, because I think you're, or at least for me, I'd be trying to pretend that I'm something I'm not. But I do have one piece of art that I spent a decent amount of money on, and it's a photo of Otto Frank in his attic. Otto Frank was the father of Anne Frank, and it's a photo of him after he returned to the attic they hid out in in Amsterdam. And the brief backstory is Otto, his wife, and their two daughters, Margot and Anne,

• 17:26Scott Galloway?

  who would of course go on to write, have her diaries published. They were betrayed in 1944. They were living up there in the attic with another family. The family was sent to Auschwitz, where Otto was separated from his wife. His wife was murdered, and ultimately, his daughters Margot and Anne were shipped to Bergen-Belsen, where they died, both of them died of typhus, just months before liberation. And there's this picture of him standing in the attic. And I purposely placed this photo outside my bedroom. And my practice is the following, for resetting my perspective, resetting my mood. The last thing I do every day is I look at this photo for 10 seconds.

• 18:09Scott Galloway?

  I'm about to open my bedroom door, I stop and I look at Otto, and I look at the photo for 10 seconds. And I try to imagine what's going through his mind. And then when I wake up in the morning, I come out, I stop for 10 seconds, and I look at Otto. And I imagine just, like, where does he go from here after experience? What have he experienced? And at that moment, something really wonderful happens to me. Right away, I'm washed over with a truth. What is that truth? That I may have some inconveniences in my life, but I have no problems. So my superpower is that I'm able to mourn and move on and I'm not afraid of public failure. And where I'm trying to address my weakness, my Achilles heel,

• 18:53Scott Galloway?

  is feeling sorry for myself by recognizing that compared to everybody else, compared to so many people in history, my worst days are better than most people's best days.

• 19:10Scott Galloway?

  That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to [email protected]. That's [email protected]. 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.

• 19:27Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Janer. Kami Rieck is our social producer. Brad Williams is our editor and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from Prop G Media.

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