Office Hours: Are Young Professionals Leaving New York? Leveraging AI in Your Business, and Should You Hire a Career Coach?

Scott gives his thoughts on New York and whether it’s still worth the price tag. He then speaks about how to approach AI to increase efficiency in business. He wraps up with his thoughts on investing in a professional career coach. Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic 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.

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Northwest Registered Agent. Your business identity is everything that makes your business legitimate and professional. With Northwest Registered Agent, you don't just form a business, you start a complete foundation built for privacy, credibility, and growth. That includes registered agent service, a business address, operating agreement, domain, website, professional email, phone number, and built-in privacy. In other words, your home address, personal email, and phone number stay private. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com/aplewatchseries12.

• 1:26Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the Prof G Pod's Office Hours. This is a 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, please email a voice recording to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected]. I have not heard or seen these questions. First question.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Hello, Professor G. Mara Gardner here. You often say young people will move to cities to find their career and mate. I live in London and New York and worry it is no longer the case. The New York Times says they're moving out due to the expense and limited opportunities. And now the commercial real estate cliff edge looms over New York City. Are we entering another drop-dead New York era? Is a playground city the answer? Can you please analyze that for us? Thank you.

• 2:13Scott Galloway?

  That's a really interesting question, Mara. Every, every city in the world is competing for number three. Two and one, I think, is the toss up between London and York. I would still argue it goes to, the crown goes to New York, but probably a little bit biased. You can hear it in my accent. But essentially, both great cities. What I have noticed is if you can lubricate London and New York with just a shit ton of money, or you can be a young person who sort of dances in between the raindrops and has two or three kids and is super ambitious and has a great high earning job out of school, you're going to end up where the, you know, it's just almost near impossible to stay in these cities. I am fascinated by the mating market. But the bottom line is you want to put yourself in a context when you're a young person

• 2:54Scott Galloway?

  to have the most professional opportunity and the most what I'll call relationship opportunity. And the most professional opportunity, economic opportunity, hands down, is in cities. The best and brightest have kind of a few things in common. And one of them is that they get to the biggest city in their country by the time they're 25, and they get to the biggest city in their continent by the time they're 30. One of the reasons the American economy is so strong and that we've been so prosperous and we don't talk a lot about this is it's built into our DNA to leave and to move. And that is my dad has this. Whenever things didn't get great for my dad, whether he was getting divorced from his fourth wife or got fired, he had no problem moving to Ohio or moving to Chicago or moving to Phoenix or moving to Ocala or moving, moving to Columbus, Ohio or moving to Laguna.

• 3:39Scott Galloway?

  He moved from Laguna. That's where he fucked up. That's where we should have stayed. Anyways, longer story, but my point is applying your human capital to the place with most opportunity is absolutely a huge component of prosperity. The reason why humans are so successful as a species is not because we're stronger, smarter, faster, but because we're more adaptable. Oh, there's no more seals here. We need to move. And then the people or the tribes that stay go out of business, so to speak. So your ability to get to a city, getting to London and New York probably means you have done well economically. Now, having said that, you want to know about the kind of marketplace for cities. San Francisco is experiencing what you're Talking about not New York. New York is still singular. It's still New York post COVID is better.

• 4:22Scott Galloway?

  New restaurants, it shed its skin. Some of the tired stuff went away. New York, in my opinion, is worth the additional 13% in taxes because it's singular. It's doing amazing. People moved out of New York, but they're actually moving back. Even before the pandemic, a trend emerged where an increasing number of college graduates have been leaving metropolitan cities, including New York, Chicago and LA. The increase of flexibility through remote work has caused many to relocate to more affordable major metropolitan areas, including places like Phoenix, Atlanta, Houston and Tampa. This is the market at work. It's amazing and it's good. A study conducted by Smart Asset in 2022 monitored the mobility of individuals referred to as affluent young professionals. These individuals are defined as those under the age of 35 who earn an adjusted gross income of at least $100,000.

• 5:07Scott Galloway?

  The data revealed that New York was the state with the highest number of departures by a long shot. Oh my God, I just contradicted myself. It ends up that people are leaving New York. I thought a bunch of people were coming into New York. Let me back up. Let me back up. I was just at Casa Cipriani because I'm fabulous and a bit of a douchebag. Which is this high end members club at the tip of Manhattan. I don't like the location. It's so far down. Anyways, went down there last weekend. And I looked around and it was all a bunch of 30 somethings. And I said to the guy, one of the guys kind of who runs the place, I said, who are these people? Where do they come from? This is so expensive. I said, we just had some appetizers and a few drinks. It was 400 bucks. And I said, who can afford this? And he said, their parents can afford it. It's a lot of rich kids from New Jersey.

• 5:48Scott Galloway?

  None of the women here are paying for anything and most of the guys here aren't paying either. It's their parents that are paying. And so New York and London, I don't know if this is true of London, but I'm confident saying this about New York. New York is mostly a place where you either have to be very scrappy and making a lot of money for your young person. Or your parents are putting you through New York. I was talking to someone the other day who was complaining that he's gonna have to leave New York and said it was the worst thing ever. I'm like, no, it's not. The majority of us go to New York for a little while, figure it out for a short term. It's almost like you can't spend your whole life at Disneyland. Some people get to figure it out, but most of us go there for a few years, couple few years, work our asses off, get some stripes, maybe make some money, spend a shit ton of money, maybe you spend more

• 6:31Scott Galloway?

  than we make. And then when people leave, the prices go down. They very rarely go down in New York. But I do think you're gonna see housing prices come down in the Bay Area. But like any product, it trades on supply and demand and things go up and down. Urbanist Edward Glazer and Carlo Ratti proposed the idea of New York City as a playground city in a New York Times Opinion article and said that cities should embrace the shift from vocation to recreation and make cities more fun to live in, and that is a playground city. They look at the low office occupancy in New York City, which is around 50% of pre-pandemic levels. By the way, I loved how the mayor said you had a moral obligation to get back to work. Yeah, I'm sure you're gonna shame people into going back to work. Good luck, Mayor. Good luck with that, Mayor. According to their findings, get this, 26

• 7:13Scott Galloway?

  Empire State Buildings could fit into New York's empty office space. Wow. However, even with the empty office space, the bottom line is, the quality of life in New York has come to surpass that of most other places in the US. New York is working. It's working. It's a tale of two cities. Take San Francisco, massive amount of wealth creation, a shitty place to live. New York, a massive amount of wealth creation. You're getting your money's worth. It's a luxury item that costs a ton of money, but you're getting, you're getting your money's worth. In sum, I think New York continues to thrive. I think New York continues to be worth it. What would be interesting is to figure out, well, why is it? Why is it that New York continues to thrive and some of these other cities don't? And that's a longer conversation. Maybe we should have Richard Florida on. Anyways, thanks for

• 7:56Scott Galloway?

  the question, Mara from London/ New York. Question number two.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  Hey, Scott. I appreciate your thoughtful and measured reflections on OpenAI so far. For my own business, I see an immediate potential application and benefit of an LLM. That said, I'm not about to start putting proprietary information into one of the existing OpenAI platforms, even the ones that are starting to offer enhanced privacy protections. What would you say to small and medium sized businesses that have only ever used existing tech products and never had to think about developing our own, but who want to jump on this opportunity and leverage this moment in emergent technology? I look forward to hearing your advice. Thanks.

• 8:41Scott Galloway?

  That's a really interesting question, and I was introduced on CNN as an expert in artificial intelligence, which could not be further from the truth. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. So the last thing I, you know, the last technology I had to learn was voice and then TikTok. And every time I'm presented with one of these things, I realize I'm aging and I'm just having a more difficult time wrapping my head around this stuff. So take this with a grain of salt. According to a report by G2, corporations spent $176 billion on AI in 2021. That's up from 5.23 billion. Think about that. I mean, this, this business, it's sort of everything the web three was supposed to be. For the life of me, I can't tell you how the blockchain is going to change or affect

• 9:26Scott Galloway?

  or in any way I could even use it today. But I'm going to Istanbul with my 12 year old son and we use, we use AI to plan our weekend. I'm trying to, whenever I write, not whenever I write, but when I write my newsletter and I want data, I ask chat GPT questions. And I spend late night, I used to browse planes because that's the kind of guy I am. I dream about buying a plane and now I'm on chat GPT, just asking all sorts of questions and trying to come up with a prompt. The way I've sort of, if you will, thought about the exceptional power of AI and the potential is that if you believe software is going to eat the world, that our ability

• 10:09Scott Galloway?

  to translate the analog world into zero and one, such that we can process stuff faster and turn, you know, machinery and people into the $6 million man who can run 55 miles an hour and see, you know, see, read a book from a mile away. If you think that software is critical to that, then the question is, well, who has those skills? And there's been different generations of programming languages with a small number of people, probably less than 0.1% of the people max globally, understand how to program or speak that language, whether it's COBOL or FORTRAN or BASIC or what have you, right? And now the programming language that is going to power software that changes the world is English.

• 10:52Scott Galloway?

  And so all of a sudden about, what is it about a third of the world speaks English? We now have two and a half billion people overnight are sort of mediocre programmers, but could become great programmers. And what I'm trying to figure out is how I spend more time becoming a sophisticated programmer by understanding different prompts, you know, in the voice of what additional questions can I answer such that you can provide better answers? Now, as it relates to a small business, I'm not sure I entirely understand your fear around feeding your data into an LLM. I don't know. Are you worried that you'll reveal secrets or that you won't get compensated for it? Because I've always thought that internally, people were too focused on confidentiality,

• 11:35Scott Galloway?

  that what we wanted to do, they didn't want to release a product or a beta for fear it would give the competition a heads up. And my attitude was the key is speed. The key is to do things more quickly and that you overestimate the competition's ability to respond quickly. And that it's more important that we face the enemy and we start doing interesting things and learning than it is keeping our trade secrets. You know, at L2, we had a proprietary research method to assess a firm's digital competence. I'm like, let's publish how we look at this because the bottom line is, you know, as long as we do more of it and do it better, it doesn't really matter. People know that we're measuring currency conversion and engagement. This is how we measure engagement on Instagram. Anyways, having said that, just some data.

• 12:18Scott Galloway?

  A 2022 new Vantage Partners executive survey revealed that nine in 10 Fortune 1000 companies are investing in AI and are continuing to increase those investments. In 2022, according to a report from Stanford, the AI-focused area with the most investment was medical and healthcare, $6 billion, followed by data management, processing and cloud, 5.9 billion, so similar, and fintech, 5.5 billion. I've always thought that it's healthcare that is the industry that's sticking its chin out and it's going to be disrupted by. AI. What I would do, what I would do is I would first, and I've hired somebody focused on a contractor focused on AI. I want to know what tools are out there that could make our existing processes more efficient. There is an AI tool that will look at a video and

• 13:02Scott Galloway?

  take the six most interesting video clips, select them that will get the most engagement in social. There is something that will read my newsletter and give me the 10 most interesting tweets. And what I have to do is go through and edit them. I pick two or three and maybe I end up with one or two. It's still not very good, but I'm learning how, how generative AI can help communicate. I'm learning how generative AI can edit our videos. When I say I, I mean my team. And so I think of it as a tool. I don't think of it as a replacement. And you, as the owner of the manager of your small business, want to get really good at it yourself. And when you're on this thing, as opposed to the blockchain where you're searching for ways to pretend that it'll change the world so you can feel and sound

• 13:43Scott Galloway?

  younger. When you start playing with this thing, your mind just starts racing as to what are the two or three things you could do right away. So, in sum, in sum, I'd be promiscuous in terms of investing my own time and tasking your team with understanding different tools and ask them to come back with two or three different ideas each for how it can improve your current supply chain or processes around how you deliver your product or your service. AI is not going to put your business out of business. A business that understands or a business whose employees understand AI is going to put your business out of business. Thanks for the question. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

• 14:28Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Nutri-Fol, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand used by over one and a half million people. With age comes knowledge, patience, and for some, hair loss. Didn't say it was all good things. And for those who want to do something about it, there's Nutri-Fol. Nutri-Fol has formulas built for men at different life stages. They have Nutri-Fol Men for Guys Age 18 to 49, plus the new Nutri-Fol Men 50 and Older. That's the first product of its kind specifically for men over 50. You can now address the key root causes of thinning wherever you are in life. Grow visibly thicker, fuller hair in just three to six months. Start Nutri-Fol today and make the hat optional. Visit nutri-fol.com and enter promo code PROPCHIEF for $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping.

• 15:13Scott Galloway?

  Find out why Nutraful is the best-selling hair growth supplement brand at nutraful.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com, promo code PROP G. That's nutraful.com promo code PROP G.

• 15:31Scott 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, payments,

• 16:16Scott Galloway?

  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 dot com slash PROP G. Upwork.com slash PROP G.

• 16:43Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  PROP G, this is Matt from San Francisco. First off, thanks so much for wisdom and insights. Big fan here. I have a question about self-improvement and the potential value of a professional coach. I'm a single 30-year-old male. I'm in a promising mid-level position with a top 10 bank. And outside of work, I'm very focused on health and wellness, and I'm always looking to learn and address areas of improvement. Consider getting a professional coach to give myself a leg up, especially as the world's getting more competitive, and I don't have any other significant time or financial commitments at this moment. It's a big investment, though. Could be thousands of dollars per month. And there are other ways to enhance my skills that are either free or inexpensive,

• 17:25Speaker 04

  such as Toastmasters, connecting with mentors more often, completing certifications, coursework, and more. What are your thoughts on hiring a professional coach? And what else should I consider when looking to increase the odds of success in work and and life in general? Thank you.

• 17:41Scott Galloway?

  Matt, thanks for the question. First off, you're just so far ahead of where most thirty-year-old males are, where I was. I thought that at your age that I would never have thought to reach out to a coach. You know, I thought, I'm a baller. I don't need advice. It was such a huge mistake. It's really hard to read the label from inside of the bottle. And that's an easy one. Yes, you should have some sort of a coach or a mentor. The question is the format. And I see the advantages of hiring somebody who's this is what they do full-time, or this is their job. By the way, quick digression. I did this thing called Summit at Sea. I must have met six people who were transitioning out of social media something into executive coaching. And I thought, are there enough executives out there to coach?

• 18:23Scott Galloway?

  But clearly, this is a trend, and there's a lot of demand for it. So someone who's skilled in this, it's like a great friend can give you really good advice around your marriage. But a marriage therapist is kind of sole purpose. Their distance, the fact they're getting paid, the fact that you can lean on them and sit there and tell them about, you know, why you're not listening, or why you should be, whatever it is, is a is a smart thing. At the same time, at the same time, if it's a financial strain, is there an opportunity to kind of build what I call a kitchen cabinet? And that is two or three people in your company, or friends, or or people who have a little bit more experience

• 19:02Scott Galloway?

  than you, who are invested, or, you know, want to see you succeed, but aren't maybe too close to you, if you will, that you would feel comfortable communicating very intimate things about, or private things about your work life, including where you're falling short, who would be interested in mentoring you. And I've never had a paid coach. I have a good friend who's the CEO of a very successful tech company that has a paid coach. I've always had a kitchen cabinet, and that is I have probably three or four, maybe even more than that, five, as I think about it, people that I just call before I make any major decision, personal or professional, just to bounce it off them, just to hear their view. Most of the time, most of the time, I end up

• 19:48Scott Galloway?

  Doing the same thing I was gonna do, but it helps me think it through. And occasionally they save me from myself. So a coach, hands down, yes. Mentors, yes. The question is, might you be able to go sort of the Old Navy route and get 80% of a professional focus coach, sole purpose coach for 10% of the price or 30% of the price with a kitchen cabinet? Because I do find that people, women and men who are a little bit older, really enjoy mentoring and giving people advice. You know, they've got a lot of wisdom they can share, and I think that they are interested. And it doesn't have to be a big formal thing. Will you be my mentor? Ask them out for coffee and just say, I'd love to get your advice on a couple of things. And if it feels right, you ask them for more advice again, and you say to them, is it cool

• 20:33Scott Galloway?

  if I reach out to you for advice on a regular basis? So I think, one, it's seeing if you can develop that informal kitchen cabinet. And you want to do that regardless of whether you hire a professional coach. And then maybe just try before you buy, buy a few sessions with an executive coach and just ask yourself, is this worth it? Is this worth whatever it is, 100 or 200 bucks an hour? But your instincts are strong. At your age, thinking about getting people who can help you provide a perspective, an outsider's perspective, means that you are tracking towards success and prosperity and you have a degree of self-awareness that most people don't have at your age. Thanks for the question, Matt. That's all for this episode.

• 21:15Scott Galloway?

  If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected].

• 21:32Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly markets show.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com.

• 21:59Speaker 06

  Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service, from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you. Visit Blinds.com to order your free samples.

• 22:21Speaker 07

  When you shop pickup at Kroger, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries selected just for you. Our associates are committed to getting every detail right, carefully handpicking your items, checking for quality and freshness, and packing your order with care. Because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. And right now, enjoy $20 off your first online order of $75 or more. Restrictions apply, see site for details. Kroger, fresh for everyone.