Pod Insights The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway Prof G Markets: The Demise of Bud Light, the Fed Pause, and Andreessen Horowitz’s London Office About this episode This week on Prof G Markets, Scott shares his thoughts on the latest decision from the Federal Reserve and how its rate hiking campaign has impacted his investing strategy. He then discusses why the UK Prime Minister is excited that Andreessen Horowitz is opening a London office. Finally, he explains how Bud Light should have handled its marketing controversy, and how drinking preferences are changing the beer market.
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Transcript 7,751 words · 11 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:18 Scott Galloway? This week's number 100. That's how many days a professor at the University of South Florida spent underwater setting a new world record. He was studying the effect of higher atmospheric pressure and its potential for slowing the aging process. When I get near water, I shrink by two inches.
1:45 Scott Galloway? Welcome to Prop G Markets. Today, we're discussing US interest rates, what Andreessen Horowitz's new London office means for the UK, and the top beer brand in America. Ed, I came up with that joke on my own.
1:58 Ed Elson? It's pretty good.
1:59 Scott Galloway? All right.
1:59 Ed Elson? I think we should keep it. How's the countryside?
2:02 Scott Galloway? It is lovely. I'm here in the Cotswolds, which is a place I've never been before. The British countryside is beautiful. It's spectacular here. I'm with a bunch of, I met something called Founder's Forum. A lot of founders, this guy named Brent Huberman, who's a lovely guy, and a lot of interesting people, kind of, you know, doing their thing, finding out what you do and if you can invest in their company, their new disruptive Jell-O making company, or whatever it is. They... It's nice to be around young people. Strange though, I feel very old here, so I may not come back again, but the British countryside is striking. It's gorgeous.
2:36 Ed Elson? Yeah, it's beautiful.
2:37 Scott Galloway? I want to go like, I don't know, shooting something or taking pictures of birds or taking long walks or something. I'm mostly thinking about running against a, running against Rick Scott for Senator in Florida, and I feel like any Democrat, I have to pretend that I'm actually, you know, down with gun ownership and have pictures of me killing, killing terrified fowl.
2:57 Ed Elson? Yeah, exactly.
2:59 Speaker 03 Anyways, let's talk about the news ad. Let's talk about the markets.
3:03 Ed Elson? Let's do it. Let's start with our weekly review of market vitals.
3:13 Ed Elson? The S and P gained and Bitcoin and Treasury yields fell. Shifting to the headlines. The FTC filed for a temporary restraining order to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The deal must be completed or dissolved by July 18th, and Microsoft will have to pay a $3 billion termination fee if it falls through. European Union regulators charged Google with violating antitrust laws. The EU accused the company of abusing its dominance in the market for ads on third-party websites. The US Department of Justice filed similar charges against the company in January. The Justice Department is investigating the PGA Tours merger with Liv Golf. We discussed that merger on last week's episode. The investigation
3:55 Ed Elson? could delay the transaction by more than a year. Mediterranean restaurant chain Carver went public, as we previewed on this show a few weeks ago. Shares popped more than 100% in its market debut. Thousands of subreddits went dark to protest Reddit's new API pricing model, which charges fees for third-party data access that can be used to train AI tools. The new model has also killed off third-party apps that avid Reddit users rely on to access the site. And finally, the Consumer Price Index showed inflation cooled to 4% in May. That's down from 4.9% the month before. Inflation is now less than half of what it was at its peak in June of last year. Scott, reactions?
4:36 Scott Galloway? The 4% number is a victory for the US, and it's a victory for Chairman Powell. Our inflation in the US is lower than I think any Western country or one of the lowest. So I think that's the definition of leadership is sticking, kind of sticking to the right course, regardless of the second guessing and the pushback. So I feel really good about that number. And the target is 2%, but you know, 4% is a long way from wherever it was, 7% or 8%, just what feels like a few months ago. Thousands of subreddit went dark to protest Reddit's new API pricing model. The market has pivoted from a desire for growth to a desire for profits. Now ideally have both, but it used to be growth at any cost, even if it meant losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
5:19 Scott Galloway? That has totally flipped and now companies, even software companies are valued on a multiple of cash flow. So they have to make more money and I see it as fairly straight. The thing that really popped out to me, Ed, was Kava popping 100% in its market debut. I mean, that is, that might be the starting gun for the IPO market. And maybe I'm missing something here, but it was priced and it doubled? That is striking for a restaurant company. Now, what does it say? Does it say the IPO market is back or does it just say that this thing was terribly mispriced? Or that people are looking for consumer companies that are a little bit more stable? They kind of take advantage of the main street economy?
6:04 Scott Galloway? There was a really interesting view from the Apollo CEO where he said, we might be entering the non-recession recession. And what he meant by that was that asset prices might take a hit, real estate and stocks, but the vast majority of that is owned by the top 1%, meaning that wages and employment will be fine. And I wonder if Kava is the beneficiary of the belief that in fact a recession, even if it quote unquote comes, isn't going to hurt its customer. The Justice Department and the PGA?
6:32 Scott Galloway? You know, the Justice Department probably should have moved in on the PGA before this. These companies are monopolies. I've never understood how they maintain. I mean, there was a law that I guess exonerated Major League Baseball, I guess, from competition. But it strikes me, there's a ton of monopoly abuse or monopoly-like abuse in professional sports. I don't know how politically motivated this is. I think it's actually good for golf. I mean, would have been good if there were two competitors. I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe it's better if there's two of them and they're competing against each other. That was probably healthy. It took athletes. Pay up, which I think is a good thing. I mean, athlete pay just went down with Liv purchasing the PGA, and let's be honest, it's kind of a creeping takeover.
7:16 Scott Galloway? That creates fewer buyers for your services. So if you're a golfer, you now have one bidder versus two. So I'll be interested to see how this unfolds, but my initial reaction is the Justice Department should look at it. EU regulators charging Google with violating antitrust laws. The EU has been out in front on regulation. It's no news that Google is a monopoly when it comes to digital advertising to both the buyer, the seller, and the market maker. It's very hard to convince a company or to break up a company that's not domiciled in your region. So I don't know if it matters for the broader company. What they could do is decide that they're guilty of antitrust and prohibit them from operating in the European
7:59 Scott Galloway? markets or start finding the shit out of them. But the larger question is, are we seeing the peak? Are we at peak of big tech? When big tech starts to bump up against 30% of the market cap of the entire S and P, when Apple's hitting $3 trillion, when you have so much regulatory scrutiny, when consumers are realizing that their kid is addicted to their phone and that these apps don't have their best interests at heart and they aren't connecting the world. Have we in fact maybe hit peak big tech? And we'll see. But the EU has been a leader around this stuff, and I say more power to them. And around the temporary restraining order to block Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard. What's interesting is the market doesn't seem to care. The market seems to not like
8:43 Scott Galloway? the acquisition. And despite the $3 billion exit fee, the market has taken Microsoft's stock up. It appears that the market believes that A, either Microsoft was about to overpay, or it just doesn't care. It just feels like the core business is so strong. So to me, that's makes for good news, but I don't think it's actually that important for Microsoft or for Activision. Activision will go down in value. But this to me is not, you know, not a big deal. What are your thoughts, Ed?
9:07 Ed Elson? You covered everything. Let's see, I mean, Carver, I think, is pretty interesting because we've been talking about, we said that Instacart would probably be the IPO that would jumpstart the IPO market. What I'd be interested to see is how much retail interest was pouring into Carver when Carver went public. As you said, there's this idea that it may have been mispriced, but also they could have just miscalculated just how much retail interest there is. What we've been seeing over the past few months is that retail investing is basically coming back and people thought that it was dead all of last year. So I wonder if Carver is sort of the green light on retail investors getting back in the market and it's possible that it is with a 2X on the debut.
9:50 Scott Galloway? There you go.
9:52 Ed Elson? We'll be right back after the break with a look at the Fed's rate hike course.
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12:22 Ed Elson? We're back with Prof G Markets. For the first time in 15 months, Fed Chair Jerome Powell decided not to raise interest rates. The Fed has instead chosen to hold rates steady, but signaled it will raise them again next month if inflation doesn't come down further. This decision comes after the release of mixed economic data. On the one hand, inflation appears to be slowing. On the other hand, the job market is still very hot. U.S. employers added nearly 350,000 jobs in May, and the unemployment rate still remains near historic lows. Despite the pause, policymakers expect two additional quarter-point increases this year, and that would lift the Fed funds rate to a target range between 5.5% and 5.75%.
13:04 Ed Elson? Scott, the market had priced in a pause this month, and Jay Powell delivered. Was that the right move?
13:10 Scott Galloway? I think so. I'm just heartened that there's really bright...
13:16 Scott Galloway? High-character people like Chairman Powell to handle this shit. It's really interesting because if you go one level down, if you go to like the president or representatives or the senate, we get a lot of crazies. When it comes to the Treasury Secretary or the head of the Fed, it's as if everyone says, okay, playtime is over, we need an adult. And even the president, as partisan they are, they usually leave that person in place. Some of it's because they have longer, they're appointed for longer tenures. But I think what they're saying is, okay, there's partisan politics, there's even laws, and then there's the economy, and this shit's for real. We need to have really thoughtful people who don't scare that easily. So you're right, the market was expecting a pause, and everything's heading his way.
14:01 Ed Elson? Yeah, I mean, you point out that he's one of the non-crazies. It's, I think that's just a function of the fact that the Fed Chair isn't democratically elected, the Fed Chair is appointed by the president. But something we were talking about a couple of weeks ago relating to interest rates is just this general sea change for investors. Two years ago, you'd get a 0.5% yield on a two-year Treasury. And just across the economy, there was basically a near-zero incentive to go into any fixed income investments. And today, a two-year Treasury gets you 4.7%. You can get a one-year bond from Apple yielding 4.8%. And then you compare that to the S and P last year, which, accounting for dividend payments, returned negative 21%.
14:45 Ed Elson? So for the first time in more than a decade, it's like bonds are the new stocks. From an investing perspective, what are some of the main macro effects that you're seeing as a result of non-zero interest rate environment? And have any of those effects in particular surprised you?
15:02 Scott Galloway? The obvious one is what happened to Silicon Valley Bank. I don't think anyone saw that coming. And I don't know if that was a function of the massive interest rate acceleration or banking in a handheld world where you can get all of your capital out in about three minutes. The impact on the economy might be when corporations and homeowners have to roll and refinance. I have a 2.375% mortgage on my home in Florida. I'm going to have to refinance it at about, I think, five and a half or 6%, which will increase my mortgage by, you know, 50% plus. That's, that's the same boat a lot of people are in and will likely reduce their spend across other categories. The shit you worry about is usually not the stuff that gets you.
15:47 Scott Galloway? It's the stuff you're not worried about. And everyone's talking about the implosion of commercial real estate. And my guess is that's turning into another thing like this illusory recession that if we talk about it enough, banks will plan for it, entrepreneurs will step in with ideas for repurposing. As a consumer, I had one of those moments where I have never owned a bond. I've just always been in stocks because A, when I was younger, I had a much more aggressive risk profile and I want to own, I wanted to own investments that could double in value theoretically in six months. And the idea of owning a bond just seemed so boring and lame to me. And then over the last 10 years, as the idea of steady cash flow and diversifying or de-risking sounded good, you didn't get paid for it. I've been on boards. I remember I was on the board of Urban Outfitters and we had a bunch of cash.
16:31 Scott Galloway? So we were doing stock buybacks and someone said, we can borrow money at like two or two and a half percent. I'm like, well, just borrow money then. I had some money. I had a big win recently and the money got wired in, I don't know when it was, last week. And I immediately thought, oh, I need to put it to work in something. I need to start figuring this out. And my guy who handles my account called me and goes, well, right now we just have it in, I think it was this treasury or six month treasury account and it's yielding 5.4%. And I'm like, really? I'm getting 5.4% in what appears to be fairly risk-free securities? He said, yeah. And I said, what was it last year? And he said, I think it was like 60 basis points or 30 basis points.
17:13 Scott Galloway? So what it did for me was I immediately didn't feel a need to go out and try and find investments in stocks. So I would think. You know, credit feels undervalued right now and stocks probably feel overvalued. Now, I don't know what that, when, you know, stocks generally do really well in a low interest rate environment because bonds aren't as appealing. Now that bonds are really appealing, does that mean stocks are going to come down? I don't know. I don't know, but it has changed my, it absolutely has changed my kind of investment complexion. For the first time, I own bonds, I own six month treasuries. If someone had said to me, you're going to own six month T bills, I would have said, okay, that means I have prostate cancer and I'm on a cruise. I mean, that just means, um, not that there's anything wrong with either of those things,
17:57 Scott Galloway? uh, but I own six month treasuries and I like the idea of being more patient and opportunistic around if and when, you know, shit gets real and I can swoop in and buy a Gulfstream for, for a dollar down. You know, it's fun to have cash. I never have cash. I've never, I always thought, put money to work. That's always been my mantra. Put it to work, get it to work right away. Yeah. In a company, a small company, investment, something, a stock. And this time I'm like, well, let's just wait till something really fun comes along.
18:35 Ed Elson? The UK is facing difficult economic conditions with sluggish GDP growth and inflation at eight percent. But Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently found reason for optimism with the opening of a new business in London, venture firm Andreessen Horowitz's first international office. The firm's new UK outpost will focus on crypto startups, a bet that the British government will offer kind of regulation than the US. Prime Minister Sunak described the new office as, quote, "another huge vote of confidence in the UK." He later added, quote, "As we cement the UK's place as a science and tech superpower, we must embrace new innovations like Web three powered by blockchain technology." That's why I'm thrilled world-leading investor Andreessen Horowitz has decided to open their
19:20 Ed Elson? first international office in the UK. So Scott, a big deal for Andreessen Horowitz. Apparently a pretty big deal for the Prime Minister, too.
19:30 Scott Galloway? The way I would summarize this is the incredible shrinking United Kingdom. Can you imagine the president or President Biden announcing and making a big deal around, I don't know, NASPERS or I don't know who the biggest hedge fund in Europe is, opening a headquarters in? New York, he wouldn't care. He wouldn't. I mean, it just strikes me when I read it, it made me just feel sort of bummed about the United Kingdom, that this is, this is the best they can talk about. This is their, this is their lead story. Hey, a VC is moving here. I mean, I'd be curious to know, maybe you know this, like, how many employees, how many people are actually moving here? What is it, 50 or 100?
20:12 Ed Elson? Well, so for one, I mean, Andreessen Horowitz has around 500 employees. So I don't know, assume like 10% of them move. That's 50 people that he's celebrating. But yeah, I agree.
20:22 Scott Galloway? So why didn't we get an announcement when I opened L2 in London? We had as many people here, Prime Minister.
20:28 Ed Elson? Exactly. Well, I think, I think the main thing that we, you mentioned that the UK's economic situation is, is bad. It's really bad. I mean, 8.7% inflation, that's one of the highest in Europe. Plus, you've got really low unemployment, wages still rising. It's sort of the worst of both worlds when it comes to inflation. And then the other thing that I saw recently is that the yields on short-term gilts, and that's the UK's equivalent of a treasury, the yields on those gilts have exploded in the past few months. In other words, investors are pricing in the fact that interest rates will have to keep rising. And I don't know if you remember in September, we discussed those gilt yields after Liz Truss announced her mini budget, which was basically an economic
21:10 Ed Elson? disaster. It tanked the, the UK economy and sent yields soaring. So currently, the yield on short-term gilts is higher than they were in September. So it's just a disaster. And then you look at the UK more generally, since the pandemic, the UK's economy, its GDP has shrunk 0.5%. It's the only major economy in Europe to do that. Tech investment is down almost 60%. And there's this crazy stat about the IPO market. Seven of 10 UK IPOs in the past decade have lost money. That is, the stock is now trading below the IPO issuance price. So yeah, you have, you have an economy that's basically burying its own grave. And then the Prime Minister comes out and proudly announces that this VC firm with a pretty
21:54 Ed Elson? ubiquitous reputation for backing some of the biggest grifts of all time, is opening an office in London. And then he calls it a huge vote of confidence. I agreed. I can't think of a smaller and worse vote of confidence than this.
22:07 Scott Galloway? In addition, Andreessen Horowitz is raising, or has raised about $8 billion across four, get this, crypto funds. And so I would imagine, just as the UK had a massive inflow of capital after they passed very strong private property laws, it basically said, are you a Russian oligarch with billions? This is your new home. We, we love you. Welcome to London. And to be fair, I think it's been great for London. I've been coming to London one to four times a year for 50 years. You know, I used to come here as a little boy, and it's gone through a multi-trillion dollar facelift over the last 50 years. And I'm not sure it's been because of British innovation.
22:52 Scott Galloway? I think the innovation has been creating a great culture, an amazing city, really strong education system. So I guess you could argue that's innovation. You know, billionaires have kind of two things in common, or one thing in common. They own homes in New York and London. And they bring their money in because their money is safe in London. It's kind of out of the reach of people. And also, it has good food here and, and a nice environment, a progressive culture. But is there really any underlying innovation here? And again, this feels a little bit like, what was that book, Butler to the World, you know, UK? And that is, they've said, oh, regulation got you down in the US? Come to London, wink, wink. We'll be more hands off.
23:34 Ed Elson? Yeah, no, exactly. And that's what we wrote about last year when we were talking about, you wrote that post, wash for no mercy, no malice. And yeah, London has it all. It's got lax financial regulation. It's got the lowest corporate tax rate in the G7. They have pretty aggressive tax credits, protections on, on trusts. We brought up this historical example, which is that in the 1700s, the king introduced this law called the non-domestic tax system, which basically said that anyone living in the UK who's quote unquote, real home is abroad, doesn't have to pay taxes. And that still exists today. And the, the prime minister's wife is a non-dom. She, she, she recently had to revoke that status because
24:18 Ed Elson? there was so much controversy over it. But she's the heiress of an Indian billionaire whose real home was in India, never had to pay taxes. So yeah, I think that's exactly what's, I think that's exactly what's going on here. The only thing that I would offer that I'd like to get your take on is You know, the Mayor Suarez of Miami, he sort of did this play and it kind of worked. He said, you know, bring low regulation here, low taxes, bring in all the tech, bring in all the crypto people and people moved there and it did sort of jumpstart the economy. So do you think that it's reasonable for Rishi Sunak to be basically doing the same play?
24:58 Scott Galloway? Yeah, look, trying to attract companies and capital, good for him. It just strikes me that the crypto bro movement in Miami has probably backfired on the Miami brand because it just comes across as sketchy. It just, there's a certain kind of bro-y, like just like too much or too little testosterone feel to all of it. And I don't think of the long run, it might've been a short-term kind of sugar high. I think when all said and done, crypto, Jesus fucking Christ, can we just stop talking about crypto? Let's like talk about a market that's bigger, like pastel lampshades or something. It just, I'm just, who cares? Who cares?
25:42 Ed Elson? Yeah, I don't know if you saw, but on the, on the door of 10 Downing Street, the comms department installed all these other zeros and ones to be like a binary code message where now the tech hub. What do you think of that as a parliamentary comm strategy?
26:01 Scott Galloway? I don't know, feels a little bit gimmicky. And, you know, whatever, I can't see, again, I can't see the White House, you know, putting, putting windmills in its front lawn or papier-mache windmills to say we're the new renewable capital. Maybe, who knows?
26:18 Ed Elson? We'll be right back after the break with a look at the American beer market.
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28:13 Ed Elson? We're back with Prof G Markets. It's official. Bud Light is no longer America's number one beer, a title that's held since 2001. This story began after transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a promotional video that revealed a personalized can that Bud Light had sent her. That video quickly went viral, and conservatives called for a boycott against Bud Light for working with a trans person. In the following weeks, the brewer put two marketing executives on leave and said it would stick to sports and music marketing in the future. But that attempt to wade out of the controversy garnered criticism from the left that the company should have stood by its spokesperson and the LGBTQ+ community.
28:54 Ed Elson? Since the controversy, sales have declined dramatically, down 24% year over year. Two months ago, Bud Light was the best-selling beer in the US with 10% market share. Today, that number is 7%. It is now second to the new bestseller, Modelo Especial. Meanwhile, shares in the parent company, Anheuser-Busch, have fallen roughly 15% since the video was posted, and that's compared to the S&P 500, which gained 7% during the same period. Scott, what's your initial reaction to this?
29:25 Scott Galloway? I was disappointed. I was really discouraged. It kind of indicates something ugly about America, that just because a transgender influencer does a promotional video, that offends you so much, and you have such a disdain for this community that you decide to stop buying the beer? It just, it's just, you know, I just felt really like heavy when I, when I read this. I thought, that's really where we are as a nation? What's funny is the number one beer Modelo is actually owned by AB and BEV in all markets outside of the US. In the US, it's owned by Constellation Brands. But what it also indicates is that Bud Light has a lot of substitutes.
30:07 Scott Galloway? And this is pulse marketing, but I wonder if a lot of people stopped drinking, not so much because they're anti-trans, at least I hope not. But they just don't want to be involved with anything that is politicized one way or the other. They don't care. You know, CNN's ratings down 60%. You think, oh my God, how could they have fucked up so badly? People were looking for an excuse to stop watching cable news. Beer is on, is built on a really weak foundation now, because for the past 10-plus years, people have been moving away from beer to spirits. I can validate this, Ed. I can validate this. Christ, even gin is making a comeback. And so, when you have a ton of substitutes, when people are sort of looking for a reason
30:51 Scott Galloway? to switch beverage altogether, and then you have a community, or you have the US, which is just so politicized right now, and seems to be so angry. The whole thing kind of bummed me out. From an investment standpoint, I thought I'm going to look at AB and BEV because I think it's been over punished. They have such a diversified portfolio. I just wonder if this stock might be kind of oversold. So anyways, I've been looking at AB and BEV and trying to understand its valuation and its prospects.
31:17 Ed Elson? Yeah. I mean, when I originally saw that AB and BEV owns Modello, I didn't understand the full context which you brought up, which is that actually they only own the non-US business of Modello. My initial reaction was this boycott is going to be useless because they're just redirecting dollars to the same place. That's not the case. But it does bring up an interesting conversation, which is that AB and BEV owns countless other beer brands like Stella Artois, Michelob Ultra, Natty Light. They own all these beers. So it feels like to do an effective boycott of this brand is difficult because you need to know the laundry list of brands that AB and BEV owns.
31:55 Scott Galloway? You need to stop drinking beer.
31:56 Ed Elson? Yeah, exactly. So I guess the question is like, you know, how consequential will this boycott actually be in the long term? Do you think that the conservatives who are upset about this will care about this enough to keep to keep that laundry list front of mind?
32:13 Scott Galloway? No, they'll move on to the next hateful weirdness. But the thing is, a decline in market share from 10 to 7% in CPG is a meltdown. I mean, that's a total meltdown. So will it rebound? I don't know. But this is, you know, this is a five-car alarm. When you're a CPG company, you lose 30% of your share.
32:34 Ed Elson? One thing that I would, that I wanted to get your take on is, as a brand person, was it a mistake to have a transgender person promote the brand? Do brand managers and brand executives need to take into account the fact that, you know, we need to advocate for these people who are marginalized and discriminated against and treated horribly as we've seen from this whole pushback? Or do brand executives need to say, okay, well, despite that, my job is to make the company money, so I just need to never touch anything like this? You know, technically, it was one of the biggest branding failures of the year.
33:18 Ed Elson? It's horrible to say that because, you know, they did nothing wrong.
33:23 Scott Galloway? So if the question is, did they make a mistake using a transgender influencer for any of their marketing, I would argue the mistake was not standing behind her. And that is to not include transgender members of the transgender community in influencer marketing because you're worried about the politicization. You know, I hate to say it, you need to make that judgment call. And I can understand someone saying, you know what, we just, it's too hot right now. We're not going to do it. We're not in the business of advancing the rights of transgender people. And whatever that says about us, it says about us, but we're just not, we don't want to, we don't want to touch it. I could understand that decision. Where they fucked up, and I know that people from ABM Bev, and they're really good people and really smart, it's a really well-run company.
34:06 Scott Galloway? Where they fucked up is believing that if they backed away from it or apologized, it would mean anything to the crazies. It doesn't. The crazies aren't there to try and change your behavior. The grazies are there to find reasons to flex their hate muscles. And this was an opportunity for ABM Bev to say, we stand behind our brothers and sisters across the entire spectrum. Full stop. We welcome anyone into our community that enjoys Bud Light and we enjoyed the video and more power to your sister. That's what they should have said. It's not, it's not the crisis that fucks you. It's how you handle it.
34:46 Ed Elson? And then what do you think about the beer category as a whole? I mean, you mentioned gins on the way up, hard seltzer is also on the way up. The total US beer volume last year declined 3%. And then there's also this demographic trend, which is that young people don't actually like drinking that much now. Gen Z drinks 20% less alcohol per capita than millennials did at their age. The share of college-age adults who don't drink has grown from 20% to 28% in the past two decades. It feels like beer is on the way out.
35:19 Scott Galloway? I don't know what the trends are. Across drinks. What I do see is a trend, and of course, I know everything about young people and consumption and drug abuse, because I just came back from Summit at Sea.
35:28 Ed Elson? Can you describe what you what you observed at Summits at Sea?
35:32 Scott Galloway? Well, Summit at Sea is basically the way to think of it as a learning man, and that is, it's they take over a ship, a Virgin cruise ship, and all day long, they have people speaking on all manner of subjects, usually AI, of course. Oh, we're all dead. The robots are taking over. Give me a fucking break. And then at night, we go see DJs and do drugs and drink and meet new people, and everyone's very friendly. Lot of hugging, lot of hugging, and have dinner with random strangers who used to own a social media influencer agency are now pivoting into executive coaching. So we need to produce more executives to give all these young people jobs. But I couldn't get over the number of people who have altered their intake from alcohol to drugs. And I'm not talking about meth
36:15 Scott Galloway? or even MDMA or Molly. It was the kind of the combo, the peanut butter and chocolate combo I saw was chocolate mushrooms, and then you kind of nurse a drink. And I can speak from experience that mushroom chocolates is in fact, a good high. I three people offered offered me mushroom chocolates. The third time I said yes. And then I went back to my cabin, I got even less social, and watched that video of those rhesus monkeys attacking a box of Cheetos. And I watched that video like 85 times, and it was wonderful. It was wonderful. And I thought to myself, okay, okay, I'm thinking a lot more about my health. I've always been fairly strong. I've always been fairly fit. Now I need to like, figure
36:59 Scott Galloway? out my diet and my alcohol consumption. And my weak point is I drink too much alcohol. And all of these studies are coming out saying, okay, alcohol just is really not good for you.
37:09 Ed Elson? Terrible.
37:10 Scott Galloway? And, and I like the idea of moving to edibles, THC edibles, or even mushroom chocolate, and drastically reducing my intake of alcohol. And I wonder if that's a healthier way to go. And it struck me that these young, very informed, very kind of information age millennials and Gen Zs, that's where they appear to be moving. They still drink, but they'll have one or two drinks, not five, and they'll chase it with mushroom chocolate or edibles. So I think the whole category of drinks is probably, as you referenced, probably going to see some structural decline.
37:50 Speaker 05 What is your drink of choice? And what do you think it says about you?
37:54 Speaker 03 Um, I like kombucha. Um, yeah, and I think it just gives like a false perception that I'm like very granola.
38:01 Speaker 06 Honestly, I don't really drink that much, but...
38:04 Speaker 07 Uh, mine's a cider or like a twisted tea.
38:07 Speaker 08 Um, I don't drink, so I don't, yeah, I wouldn't know.
38:10 Speaker 05 All good.
38:10 Speaker 08 I hate beer. It tastes like piss.
38:12 Speaker 06 Mine, I'd probably have to say is like a hazy juicy IPA. I usually get either a vodka sour.
38:19 Speaker 03 Espresso martini. I'm a Corona with a lime kinda guy.
38:24 Speaker 08 And like if I'm going out, maybe like a margarita. Yeah. Um, and I don't know, like what it says about me, I'd probably just say like, I like to stay like crisp and hydrated. You know? Refreshed.
38:39 Speaker 05 No, I love to hydrate with a margarita. Me, I got same, same.
38:44 Speaker 08 Freshing. Some of them, yeah, and then like the flavors, passion fruit sometimes, they taste good.
38:49 Speaker 05 Passion fruit margarita, chef's kiss.
38:52 Speaker 06 I definitely scurry away from it because it's just nasty to me, kind of.
38:56 Speaker 05 Same.
38:57 Speaker 06 Don't lie. Um, but if I do, it's gonna be a Stella.
39:00 Speaker 05 Artois. It's like artisanal and you can be like, artois, I'll have an artois.
39:06 Speaker 03 Beer makes me like feel very like puffy the next day, you know? As opposed like I could have like a few margaritas or like mojitos or something a little light and uh, and feel, feel a little nicer and like maybe eat a little better and everything like that.
39:20 Speaker 05 Yeah, aging, man. It's crazy.
39:23 Speaker 03 Crazy. It's honestly crazy. I used to love beer. Uh, Natty Daddies, those like big old cans. Yeah, I could probably slug like two or three of those back in my heyday.
39:33 Speaker 09 Me, I'm a Heineken man. I like, I drink two Heineken a day. I mean, after work, go home, eat, sleep, and do the same thing again.
39:43 Speaker 05 And what about Bud Light? Is not so good?
39:45 Speaker 09 I think Bud Light is good. Bud Light is more light for the ladies one night.
39:50 Speaker 05 What do you think of, when you think of like someone who drinks Bud Light, like who is that in your mind?
39:54 Speaker 07 That's like your creepy uncle.
39:57 Speaker 05 My stepdad.
40:02 Speaker 07 He loves Bud Light, man. I don't know.
40:05 Speaker 08 Midwest jeans, maybe a flannel shirt. Hairy jeans, shotgun in the back.
40:13 Speaker 06 I know that that voice of people, like the voices of people who are choosing to not like drink the beer, definitely has a huge weight, I think, on America, especially right now, because Target took down a lot of their Pride stuff and Starbucks is starting to now. And all this legislation too against like the communities, it's just things are going backwards instead of forward.
40:38 Speaker 05 What do you think of the recent controversy, if I may ask? I love it. Let's make everything gay. Oh, hell yeah. Go Pride.
40:48 Ed Elson? Okay, let's take a look at the week ahead. We'll see housing starts and existing home sales data for May. And Fed Chair Jerome Powell is once again testifying before the Senate Banking Committee on the state of US monetary policy. Do you have any predictions for us?
41:04 Scott Galloway? I think live PGA is not a done deal. And it may ultimately go through, but I think there's going to be a lot of posturing and arm waving and I wouldn't be surprised if there's congressional hearing. I just, this to me, you know, this is bigger than whoever was about Newcastle. This is a sport. And I would imagine there's a lot of, you know, I'm going to go out on a limb here, white Republicans who enjoy golf, who are going to go, I mean, I guess it's how they sell it. This will be great for golf and, you know, we're going to invest a massive amount of money for it, but we're going to hear a lot more about this.
41:42 Ed Elson? I don't know if you saw also, but last week your prediction was that Jay Monahan would take some sort of, he would step down to hang out with his family, i.e. he'll get pushed out, he'll get fired. He's on medical leave right now.
41:57 Scott Galloway? For what? Like assholeitis? Hypocritectomy?
42:01 Ed Elson? So this is why I was hesitant to bring it up because. I don't want to insinuate that it's not legitimate.
42:07 Scott Galloway? We find out tomorrow he died of cancer, we're going to feel pretty shitty.
42:10 Ed Elson? Yeah, exactly, exactly. But do you have any... What do you think?
42:16 Scott Galloway? My guess is that's total bullshit.
42:18 Ed Elson? Right.
42:18 Scott Galloway? My guess is he's on, he's hiding somewhere in a home in Kauai, or he's hiding at the, you know, the, whatever it is, whatever that hotel is that all the VCs go to on the big island. Yeah, it's, I'm, look, let me put it this way. If we find out that Jay is okay, I won't be entirely shocked.
42:38 Ed Elson? Yep.
42:39 Scott Galloway? So for him and his family, I generally, two things. I do hope that he's healthy, and I think he's lying. I think he's lying. If I had basically held the hands of 9/11 widows while selling my company to the kingdom, and I had a mole taken off my head, which I did last week, I might decide to go on medical leave too.
43:02 Scott Galloway? This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our executive producers are Jason Stavers and Catherine Dillon. Mia Silverio is our research lead, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to Prop G Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Join us on Wednesday for Office Hours, and we'll be back with a fresh take on markets every Monday.
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