Is the Golden Age of Luxury E-commerce Over? The Nuances of Remote Work, and How Does Scott Manage His Time?

Scott speaks about the current state of luxury e-commerce, specifically how it speaks to a larger issue: every industry is turning into an oligopoly. He then discusses the nuances of remote work, and wraps up with how to approach time management. Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Buy "The Algebra of Wealth," out now. Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit 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.

• 1:27Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the Prof G Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. In last week's Office Hours, I answered your questions surrounding TikTok, the toxic culture of investment banking, and being an older dad. That hurts. That hurts. I think my producer just called me old. You should see me naked. I look 58 and 7/8.

• 1:51Scott Galloway?

  The propaganda tool is off the table. I think it's going away, but they'll say, "Well, if we're definitely going to lose the propaganda tool, we don't want to lose a quarter of a trillion dollars." And I believe they will come to some sort of accommodation that makes the White House comfortable and where ByteDance gets to keep that quarter of a trillion dollars. I don't think your TikTok is going to go away. I think this will end up in an agreement. People should care about you. And whoever your bosses are that are letting you work to the point of exhaustion, to where it's really impacting your mental and your physical health, then quite frankly, that's not B of A. It's those people's fault. Whoever is the VP that you're, the VPs that you're reporting into, whoever

• 2:34Scott Galloway?

  runs your group, are not decent people. You should look forward to having kids. It's never the right time. I find it's kind of never the right time to have kids. You just kind of kind of, I don't know, pull the goalie and see what happens. You don't need to anguish over this. You're going to have to be in a relationship, to have kids with someone you like, to have a good job. Forty years old and having a kid, that is the sweet spot.

• 3:00Scott Galloway?

  Today, we'll answer your questions about luxury e-commerce, the rise of the remote husband, and time management. The rise of the remote husband? Jesus Christ, what the fuck is that? Okay, here we go. First question.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Hi, Prof G. This is Toby from the UK. Given your background in luxury and e-commerce, what do you think happens next in the luxury e-tailer space? The recent downfall of matches fashion, sale a far-fetched for a song, and with private equity said to be circling some of the remaining players, is luxury e-commerce of third-party brands any longer a viable model than was it ever in the first place? Thanks for the podcast, your candor, vulnerability, and humor. I'm a Londoner, and I'd love to take you for lunch when you're next in town.

• 3:45Scott Galloway?

  Thanks for the thoughtful question, Toby from the UK. So is the golden age of luxury e-commerce over? So many experts think so. Some context.

• 3:54Scott Galloway?

  With respect to some of the things you referenced, Match's fashion was recently bought in December and then shut down by the Frazier Group. Although it was once worth over a billion dollars, it was sold for only 66 million because it routinely missed business targets, then things worsened when new owners took over. Brand partners left due to delayed payments and the firm endured harsh cost reduction strategies in December 2023, so just a few months ago. Farfetch'd, which was a darling, another major player in luxury commerce, barely escaped bankruptcy after Korean e-commerce group, I think it's called Kuipang, acquired the firm and propped it up with a $500 million bridge loan. Experts believe Farfetch'd's financial struggles reflect broader issues within the industry, including poor management decisions, overstocking in a crowded market.

• 4:35Scott Galloway?

  I think what happened with luxury commerce basically happened to traditional retail back in the aughts. And that is, there were, so big companies are slow. So you had companies like Williams Sonoma or Sephora kind of taking their time, not sure how they wanted to approach some of the brand challenges of selling online. They weren't set up for direct-to-consumer fulfillment of sending things in onesies and twosies. And into that void slipped a bunch of e-commerce companies that started selling stuff. Do you remember Gilt? G-I-L-T. That was, after 2008, there was a tremendous inventory overload and a lot of these companies needed cash quick, so they sent their stuff, I think even brands, you know, luxury brands sent their stuff to Gilt, and they cleared it out for them and got them cash fast.

• 5:20Scott Galloway?

  And then when the economy came back, they no longer needed to sell stuff on discount and recognized that that was bad for their brand. And then a lot of the brands themselves, from Williams Sonoma to Sephora, started going direct-to-consumer, even manufacturers' brands, like Estee Lauder built their own websites and developed really strong direct-to-consumer e-commerce sites. The last holdouts were luxury. Chanel did not have, did not sell online. I remember advising Chanel and them saying, and Hermès said the same thing, "We will never sell online." And it's easy to, in retrospect, pat yourself on the back when I'm saying, "Of course you're going to sell online. You're going to sell through every channel. Why wouldn't you?" Their view was that... Online was the septic tank and it was bad for the brand and they needed the full experience in the store. And of course, now they're all selling online. And so that

• 6:04Scott Galloway?

  void that was temporarily filled by players, including Net-a-Porter, remember them, has been that gap, if you will, or that void has been filled by the manufacturers' brands themselves and, and the bigger players, the really big players. I still think that Amazon, you know, Amazon doesn't have the luxury players, but it does have aspirational brands on there. And so the combination of the proprietary product catching up in terms of technology, the capital, and then one player that commands 50% market share of online purchases, you essentially don't have a lot of room for undercapitalized players or for players that don't have access to proprietary brand or distribution. You know,

• 6:46Scott Galloway?

  Hermes just isn't going to distribute through a third-party player unless it's a second-hand thing. So what you've seen is effectively everyone's been crowded out. This goes to a broader issue in that I believe almost every industry is turning into an oligopoly. And that if and when we finally decide we need to address our ills in terms of too much debt, spending way too much money on the next generation's credit card to prop up our own prosperity from the kind of the incumbents, I think one of the things we're going to need to do to oxygenate the economy and maintain growth is essentially we're going to need to fertilize the entire economy. Every industry, I don't care if it's pharma, chicken, search, social, big tech, cloud, for God's sakes, AI has created more shareholder

• 7:28Scott Galloway?

  value than the entire global auto industry in the last 90 days. And what do you know? It's the same old players. They do this jazz hands. Oh, no, it's called Anthropic. Call it Amazon. Oh, no, it's called OpenAI. Call it Microsoft. It's the same fucking players. And despite their attempts to pretend that they're not in charge and it's not the same players, it is. The world is concentrating way too fast. Two companies. Alphabet and iOS control, all handheld operating systems. How on earth did that happen? 95% of messaging in India is the same one that's dominating messaging in Nigeria and dominates social media in the United States. What's it called? It's called meta. Meta, meta-analysis that was right there. Anyways, it's way too concentrated.

• 8:12Scott Galloway?

  We absolutely need to break this up. And you're seeing the same thing in the luxury market. As the bigger players have come in and taken back distribution, or you have the really big players at the near luxury, there just isn't room for these startups. And now that they don't have access to cheap capital, Farfetch'd probably never made sense. Did Net-a-Porter ever make any money? I don't know. I don't know if gilted. I don't know if these companies ever became profitable. And this goes to a bigger issue as an entrepreneur. And how I've gotten rich. I've always sold too early. Now, what do I mean by that? I sold my first company profit for, I think, a valuation of 28 or 33 million

• 8:53Scott Galloway?

  in 2002, 10 years after I'd started it to Densu, a Japanese ad agency. It was doing well. It was going to do better. It has done better. But the amount of risk, the amount of capital they've had to take on, the fact that it's sort of a management-run company, not a shareholder-run company, where they keep giving themselves more shares and paying themselves more money. Effectively, I'm pretty sure that what I sold my shares for 22 years ago is more than those shares are worth now. And I wish I'd sold earlier Red Envelope. Instead, I got emotionally involved in a battle with venture capitalists, and I held on too long and it went to zero. And what I always tell entrepreneurs is always sell some along the way.

• 9:33Scott Galloway?

  I sold L2 in 2017 for, I think, 158 million. Was it doing really well? Yeah. Would I have made more money if I'd held on for another couple of years, given the boom? Probably. But when you're younger, you need to bank a certain amount of money, have a base. And it's worth losing some potential upside. Distinctive, all the stories you hear about Mark Zuckerberg not accepting $10 billion. Get to bust a move to financial security, or some semblance of financial security, absolutely as fast as you can. I know one of the founders of Net-a-Porter. And they were smart. They sold early. They recognized, sure, could it have gone public? Could it have been a multi-billion dollar company? But I think they sold it for

• 10:15Scott Galloway?

  350 million bucks, which is real cabbage. Is that company worth that now? I don't think so. So I'm that guy. I'm that board member telling people to sell a bit early. But back to your question, luxury commerce is going the way of all e-commerce. It's going to be manufacturers' brands, the brands itself. And the thing about luxury is these brands are built over generations, or the bigger, the really, really huge players that usually are named after a river. Anyways, thanks for the question. Question number two.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Hey Prof G, got a quick question on your thoughts on the rise of the remote husband. I'm not sure if you've seen the articles lately. There seems to be an upward trend where women are going into the office or the hospital, maybe their partner in the law firm, and their husband is staying at home and working remotely. Do you think there'll be any long-term or short-term positives and negatives on this with men work from home? For example, speaking personally, I'm a fully remote senior software engineer. My partner goes to the office every day. I'm finding myself doing a lot of chores, a lot of cleaning. But if I'm honest, we are both a lot happier. Do you think I should stay fully remote? Or should I go and get back into the office, earn more money in

• 11:27Speaker 03

  the short term, so we can have that long-term gain? Let me know what you think. Huge fan of your work. Love the algebra of happiness and have been listening since the Amazon HQ2 predictions from Dublin and Ireland.

• 11:41Scott Galloway?

  Thanks for the question, anonymous from Dublin. By the way, my son just went to Ireland and had the best time. He just loved it there. And he's not of drinking age, so I know it's not the beer. But he absolutely loved it. And I remember going to Ireland with my father and thinking it was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever been. It was one of those father-son trips. He was getting into his 70s and his passion his whole life was golf. And so I thought, I'll take him to Ireland, kind of the, you know, some of the better courses in the world. Anyways, little walk down memory lane. So a new trend is emerging, the rise of the remote husband. Why is this happening? Men and women tend to specialize in different kinds of work. According to The Economist, men are often found in industries including computer science, engineering, while women dominate teaching and nursing jobs.

• 12:25Scott Galloway?

  And although professions, including law and medicine, have historically employed more men than women, that's changing. Now more women than men enrolled in law school and medical school. These industries where women are outpacing men typically require in-person work. On the other hand, industries including coding, technology, architecture, engineering, and business jobs that attract more men, report high levels of remote work flexibility. A McKinsey survey revealed that 38% of working men had the option to work remotely full-time, while only 30% of women have this option. Also, about half of women surveyed reported that they cannot work remotely at all compared to 39% of men. Okay, so this is somewhat situational. I don't think, you said whether or not you have kids.

• 13:05Scott Galloway?

  So in sum, in sum, I think remote work is an unbelievable unlock for certain cohorts. There's some nuance here. I'll start with my favorite topic, me. Remote work and the comfort with remote work, or a cultural shift in the acceptance of remote work, has been an absolute game changer for me. Best years of my life, COVID. And I feel self-conscious saying that, but it was more time with Netflix, more time with my kids, and my stocks skyrocketed in value. And I used to, I built a studio, my tech guys, Genius Drew, he built an incredible remote studios in all my homes, and he comes in via the cloud, he sets them up, basically such that if I'm doing a TV hit or a talk.

• 13:49Scott Galloway?

  And back then, all of these companies were trying to keep people together, so they were doing remote talks. I made great money. It was amazing for me. Again, another transfer of prosperity and well-being from poor people who had to load up their Diet Cokes and their diabetes medication, then head out into very dangerous environments, driving an Uber or waiting on people who they had to remind to put up their mask back on. But if you were an incumbent, you already had some money, and you could do remote work, COVID was much less damaging on you than the rest of the population, kind of the services population. So what do I think? I think that remote work is a tremendous unlock for caregivers. And I would like to see a new classification of worker called the caregiver, who is taking care of kids, taking care of aging parents. And maybe even taking care of their own mental or physical health,

• 14:34Scott Galloway?

  who does make the kind of money where they can be close to work. I think a special accommodation and investment should be made such that those people can work remotely. Now, here's the nuance here. It's a fucking disaster for young people. Why? Especially men. They need the socialization. What happens when you pull kids out of school? They come off the tracks. They need the socialization. What happens when you sequester a dog? What do they tell you when you have a dog? You take it to the dog park to socialize it. Well, guess what? You know, you're not a... Young men and young women aren't puppies, but they're adolescents and they need socialization. When I went into Morgan Stanley at the age of 22, I absolutely needed to do that. I needed to learn how to get up at a certain time every morning.

• 15:16Scott Galloway?

  I'd had some of that because I was an athlete, but put on a tie, look presentable. I used to get pulled out of meetings all the time and it was a wonderful thing. And my boss would say, "Don't say that," or "Don't be a fucking idiot." Or occasionally might say, "Do more of this." You need the socialization. You need to learn how to read a room. You're also going to make fantastic friends. You might even find a mentor. And you're 38% more likely to be promoted when you're in the office. Why is that? The decider always has three candidates for a promotion. And he or she will make that decision based on who they have the best relationship with. And relationships are a function of proximity. So the person they've had coffee with, the person they see physically working really hard, the person they see that's a good culture carrier, the person they see who dresses well and works out,

• 16:01Scott Galloway?

  which reflects discipline. And if you think I'm fat shaming, well, okay, fuck me. So that's the bottom line. It reflects discipline to be in good shape. It reflects a certain level of attention to detail to look presentable every day. It reflects a certain amount of discipline to get in the goddamn office. So it's a conversation with your spouse, right? What are the trade offs here? Because there is a trade off. You will lose some professional trajectory. You will lose some opportunity to develop relationships that will pay off later in life by being remote. Having said that, I get that it's a creative, especially with kids, especially if you're a caregiver, especially if you're managing issues around your own health. But be clear, my brother, you can have it all. You just can't have it all at once. Thanks for the question.

• 16:43Scott Galloway?

  We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

• 16:51Scott 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. Being a renter and now owning a home feels a lot better with Built.

• 17:36Scott Galloway?

  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.

• 17:51Scott 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,

• 18:36Scott 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.

• 19:02Scott 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 regentic 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

• 19:44Scott Galloway?

  or Cursor. Want proof? Over 16,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp, Ryder, and Harvey save time and resources while scaling fast with Vanta. Learn more at vanta.com/provg and get $1,000 off. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A dot com slash profg for $1,000 off.

• 20:10Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three.

• 20:12Speaker 04

  Hi Scott. Thank you for being generous with your time and insights. My name is Arun and I'm calling from Singapore, a place I'd love to hear your thoughts on. You juggle multiple demanding roles: a father, professor, author, public speaker, and many more. In each role, you masterfully blend effective storytelling with rigorous data analysis, making your points both relatable and memorable. It's clear you've invested much time in refining your approach, and while you've been very open about the algebra for wealth and how to go about it, I'm curious, how do you manage your energy and time to perform so well across these capacities? All the best for your new book.

• 20:51Scott Galloway?

  Arun, thanks so much. People under the impression I'm much more productive and I work a lot harder than I do. So I'll come back to that. But first, Singapore. I think Singapore is just an incredible inspiration, just a model. Anyways, so...

• 21:07Scott Galloway?

  I do juggle a lot, but the reality is people are constantly come up to me and say, "How do you produce all this content?" And I love your sketches and I love your content and you must work around the clock. And I, no, greatness is in the agency of others. What I am good at is finding and retaining really talented people. And the way you do that is that loyalty is a function of appreciation. And you try and be thoughtful about what they want from their career. You try and coach them. Sometimes that's giving them, I don't call it tough love, but most of the time, especially with young people, it's watering them, putting them on a path for economic security, trying to show that you have a vested interest in their success and that your success is directly connected to their success and

• 21:51Scott Galloway?

  vice versa. But if you can do these things and build a team, you can just get incredible leverage. So I think we do five podcasts a week. We're doing a book about every 18 months. We'll do, I think, three million in speaking fees this year with presentations that are very rigorous and deep. We have a really strong production team. We have, you know, tech people, video people, editors. So the key is finding leverage on your time. Now, that's not possible for all people. What you want is, obviously, you have to go, you have to be in the part of your career, when you're a younger person, is you're providing leverage to someone else or to another entity, or you're using a platform for greater leverage

• 22:34Scott Galloway?

  called JP Morgan or Google. But once you get to a point where if you're going to be an entrepreneur, where you have a little bit of capital, what you really want to be focused on, and I think this is true even if you're not an entrepreneur, is trying to zero in on what can I do really well, and then trying to outsource almost everything else. And the very basic is, at some point, you probably decide, okay, it's not worth it for me to spend four hours cleaning my apartment on a Sunday. I'm going to get someone to clean my apartment, and I'm going to focus on self-care, or working out, or maybe a little bit of additional work, whatever it might be. And then at your job, once you get to a point of, I don't know, emotional or financial security, I have eliminated the should bucket. What do I mean by that? Life is three buckets. It's things you have to do.

• 23:16Scott Galloway?

  If general catalysts who backed my company section, if they want to talk about, if they want me to come talk to their entrepreneurs, the CEOs of their companies, the portfolio of companies, I have to do that. They're good to me. They've invested a lot of money in me. I have to do that. There's things I want to do. I want to walk around Soho. I want to go to Equinox later and work out. And then there's things you should do when you spend most of your life doing should, right? I should, I should go to my friend's daughter's wedding. I should go to this networking event. I should write an article for this to try to make a small investment. Well, I've gotten to a point now where I've eliminated the should bucket. I just think to myself, okay, is this something I need to do? Or I have to do, or something I want to do? And then I eliminate everything else.

• 24:00Scott Galloway?

  I have someone else dress me, or at least pick out my clothes. I have someone else plan my diet. I have someone else managing my calendar, setting up everything. I haven't planned travel in years. That's a position of luxury. But to a certain extent, as soon as possible, you want to be, begin taking as much off your plate as possible once you identify something you are really good at, and then double down on that one thing. And then, when you get really good, you'll start making more money. And then what are you going to do? You're going to reinvest in people who provide leverage to you. People think it's me producing this content. Prop G Media is 14 people. It's 14 people and we get leverage on that. Books, speaking, podcasts.

• 24:44Scott Galloway?

  Greatness is in the agency of others.

• 24:50Scott Galloway?

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

• 25:09Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Caroline Shageran. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer. Andrew 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 please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

• 25:31Speaker 05

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• 26:01Speaker 06

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