Office Hours: Rebranding Climate Change, MBA Applications, and Lowering Your Economic Burn

Scott takes a question from a listener who wonders what it will take for climate change to become the biggest story in business. He then offers advice to a father considering moving to a more affordable city where his family can live mortgage-free. Scott also shares his thoughts on applying to business school without big name schools or companies on your résumé. 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?

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• 0:49Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1:26Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the Prof G Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question, please visit officehours.profgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours.profgmedia.com. Again, I have not heard these questions, giving you that real and authentic dog talk. Okay, first question.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Hey Prof, my name is Bill and I'm calling from San Diego. And like you, I went to both UCLA and Berkeley. That led me to a marketing career with Unilever, so I have a marketing question for you. I'm very concerned about climate change and specifically how we get people to take action. Now, the strategy I see people using most often is fear, you know, the idea of scaring people into action. And that makes good sense to me, and for many people that works. But the problem is that for many other people I know, it just doesn't work. And that got me thinking about your show and about business media in general. It really surprises me that I don't hear more stories about the innovators in this

• 2:30Speaker 02

  space because it seems like such a good subject. I mean, climate change is an enormous discontinuity. You know, it's going to create drama, they're going to be winners and losers. And yet, for every story I hear about a company like Beyond Beat or Breakthrough Energy, I probably hear about 100 stories about social media instead. So, my question for you is, what is it going to take for climate change innovation to become a big and maybe even the biggest topic I hear about on the news?

• 2:58Scott Galloway?

  What a thoughtful and nice question, Bill from San Diego. First off, go Bruins and go Bears. You sound about my age, although it's probably, I don't know, it's probably a hate crime to stereotype someone's voice or link it to age. Is that ageist? Is it voiceist? Is it voiceist? Okay, so a complicated question. I don't know. I think just trying to scare people into, okay, the super fires are coming. I mean, there's already a lot of evidence that it's just, at a minimum, this climate change stuff is a big pain in the ass. And that is more super fires. I think four of the five biggest fires in California history have happened in the last 10 years. You're going to see forced migration, huge economic strain. Fear-based marketing works in the short term, and that is, if you don't

• 3:43Scott Galloway?

  figure this out, if you don't get chemo, you're going to die in the next 12 months. I think that is very effective. But I think everyone assumes with the earth that it will, it's a long-term investment. We do know that it's going to perhaps cook our children or our grandchildren. But I generally think that people are pretty selfish. And also, I think the left lacks credibility around this issue because they're seen as alarmist. And when they try and propose things like the New Green Deal, that's $10 trillion and wants to prohibit lawn mowers and commercial air travel, they just sort of turn off. I am not an environmentalist. I believe that after the last human takes their last breath, the earth is going to belch for 50 years, and then it's going to be as if we were never

• 4:26Scott Galloway?

  here, which is not a popular viewpoint. However, I'm also a person... Of science and data and there's just no getting around it. This has gotten super serious, super fast. The oceans are increasing in temperature and it's going to have really negative externalities. I don't think it'll wipe out the race, but as with all things, it'll make it increasingly uncomfortable for the people who are the least fortunate. Now, having said that, let's move on to solutions. The thing I don't like about the way we have framed this challenge is we tend in America to frame it as an opportunity. And that is, okay, there's two people at MIT in a dorm and they're going to come up with some great climate tech company and make billions and we can invest in the company and we're going to solve climate change while making a shit ton of money.

• 5:12Scott Galloway?

  Well, wouldn't that be nice? I think this problem is so severe and I don't think there's any cheap and easy way out. I think we're going to have to make massive investments and have a regulation that just gets rid of coal, right? We're just going to have to figure out a way to make Europe more secure so we're not dependent upon their gas. We're going to have to make, in my view, and this is getting into kind of my, I don't know, everyone has an opinion around climate change. I can't figure out why we're not making a massive investment in nuclear. You want to talk about branding and marketing something? I don't think we need to rebrand or position the importance of climate change. I think we need to rebrand nuclear power. Call it elemental power, as my friend Josh Wolf says.

• 5:53Scott Galloway?

  Because if you look at all of the emissions from all of nuclear throughout history, that is the spent fuel, it would be a container about five feet high that would span the entire length or be basically a football field. That is manageable. I mean, granted, that shit is dangerous and you have to be thoughtful about it, but we're not talking about pumping trillions of kilograms of carbon into the air. The emissions here, to me, relative to the productivity, are just so extraordinary. And for some reason, it's developed an incredibly poor brand. Anyways, I'm very pro-nuclear, but we need to come up with a different branding. I think there are real inspirations around branding, around kind of privatizing or capturing

• 6:38Scott Galloway?

  gain or economic gain from climate change. Most specifically, I just think you have to nod your head to Tesla. They've said, all right, we are electrifying the world, we're moving away from fossil fuels. Seventy percent of EVs in America are now Tesla. The multiple on that stock is not an automobile multiple, it's a climate change multiple. So the greed glands have been started around climate change. What's happened? The majority of investigations by the SEC launched to look into SPACs who basically said, "Things they weren't supposed to say are wildly exaggerated," which is Latin for "lied," have been filed against, wait for it, EV companies. So I think the branding

• 7:20Scott Galloway?

  here has not only been attempting to inspire entrepreneurs, I think it's become near fraudulent. When you have companies like Aspiration claiming they're ESG, I think ESG has totally been weaponized. So when you're talking about actual awareness, a study from Media Matters found that the kind of major broadcast networks spent about 22 hours discussing climate change on their news shows in 2021. That's more than a threefold increase from 2020, so it is getting an increase in awareness. But overall, that represented just 1% of news programming that year. As a matter of fact, the, I think the Blue Origin launch got more, a lot more attention on the broadcast networks as all these people went down and were just breathless at the innovation of sending a man up one fourth thousandth of the distance

• 8:01Scott Galloway?

  that we sent three brave souls 50 years ago. Jesus Christ, what a fucking handjob in the shape of a penis called a rocket. Anyways, in sum, I think the answer here is not as much about branding, although I do think there's an example of branding around nuclear power, rebranding. I think it's about a sober, adult conversation that we elect people to do what government officials are supposed to do, and that has prevented tragedy that comments and think long-term, say, "Okay, this is going to be expensive and hard, and we have to do it." Oh my God, living your best life in San Diego, go Bruins, go Bears. It's great to hear from someone from the great state of California that has benefited from what is arguably the most impressive manifestation of government, I believe, in

• 8:43Scott Galloway?

  history. Maybe with the exception of our men and women in uniform, or maybe social security, I don't know, or maybe mental health counseling or Veterans Affairs. There's a lot of wonderful things about our government, but one of the wonderful things is the good people at the University of California. Thank you for the question, Bill from San Diego. Next question.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm John Salo here, living in the Bay Area. Quick question, a life-changing event question. We have a house here in the Bay Area, and I have an idea of moving to Austin, Texas with the purpose of be mortgage-free. With the equity on this house, we can pay a house in Austin, and that would be mortgage-free. I'm the only one who provides at this moment at home. Two kids, another kid from another marriage, so child support. My wife doesn't work. I'm the only one who provides for everything, so you can imagine the stress that puts on me. As the economy might be going to recession. The idea that I might end up with a job tomorrow will mean that we might lose everything.

• 9:47Speaker 04

  So I'm trying to get a little bit of perspective from another people, persons, and see if this is something that is worth to do or not. Any thoughts? I'll appreciate the help. Thank you.

• 9:59Scott Galloway?

  Gonzalo, thank you for the thoughtful question. Also, I appreciate your transparency. I think a lot of men have trouble expressing their emotions and their fears and their stressors. And I think your stress, or oftentimes, your stress is a function of the love in your life. And that is you are taking care of a family. Kids from this marriage, kids from a past marriage are contributing. The most wonderful things in life, relationships, economic stress, are a function of your blessings. And that is you're taking care of people because you love them and I'm sure they love you a great deal. But there's just no getting around it. It's fucking stressful. The most stress I think I've had, and I've led a fairly charmed life, was I had my first kid and the great financial crisis hit in 2008.

• 10:43Scott Galloway?

  And I'm like, shit, all of a sudden I don't have any money. And a kid had the poor judgment to come marching along. It was really scary and it kind of, it triggers a lot of emotions. And not that women don't have this kind of stress. And unfortunately, women bear a disproportionate amount of stress day to day. And I'm making huge gender stereotypes here. But I think oftentimes, men who are head of households feel a lot of unique stress, but I'll call it just head of household stress, that they're economically responsible for the household. And I found that when I was economically stressed, that I had this kind of demon whispering in my ear. You have failed as a man. That it's your job to take care of your family.

• 11:29Scott Galloway?

  And even though I was able to do that, that fear was just always, it was just hugely stressful. Anyways, I empathize with that and I hope you realize that stress is a function of the people, a function of your blessings and some of the love in your life. Now specifically to your question. So a lot of it is what's the job and the source of income in Austin? It sounds like you probably work in tech and I didn't get this, but it sounds like you have a job potentially in Austin. And so you're looking to do sort of a geographic arbitrage where you lower your cost of living by moving from San Francisco to Austin. Now, that arbitrage isn't the R it used to be because in some Austin home prices have kept pace with or actually increased in terms of year on year change.

• 12:11Scott Galloway?

  And that is downsizing is wonderful and the idea of lowering your burn is really responsible and takes a lot of stress. What does it mean to be rich? Simple, your passive income is greater than your burn. My dad is rich. He makes $52,000 a year between social security and his pension from the Royal Navy. He spends 42. My dad is literally the cheapest man in the world. So at the age of 91, he's saving money and it makes him very happy. He's rich. I have another friend who runs a large division at an iconic investment bank. He makes between three and $7 million a year in between alimony, his net jet's card, his master of the universe lifestyle. He spends all of it and I know that he is very stressed. Now, could he choose to live his life differently? Yes, for whatever reason, he lacks the discipline to do that and he is wildly stressed. He is not rich.

• 12:57Scott Galloway?

  So I understand you wanting to manage that stress. What I would suggest is the following. If you can sell your home in the Bay Area and if you can maintain your income and lower your burn, that feels right. And by the way, the lifestyle in Austin is awesome. It's a great city, great food, great people, great economic opportunity. I just text Max, music scene. I go to South by Southwest every year just because I don't even go to the conference. What I'm doing is I'm going to Austin. So according to Investopedia, interest rates on a 30 year mortgage have averaged from about 3 to 4.5% through the last decade. And another thing you got to figure out is do you have a great mortgage on your house right now that you'd be giving up?

• 13:39Scott Galloway?

  And now it's jumped to the current rate on 30 years gone up almost to 6%. Here's what I think you want to be mindful of, or here's what my advice would be. The idea of paying off a house feels economically smart. I would suggest that even at these interest rates, especially even get a variable rate, that it's still financially wise to take out a mortgage. And then the money you otherwise would have put into paying off the entire house or being mortgage free, you invest in diversified, low-cost ETFs. Because most of the time, you're going to get a greater return. When you look at the tax deductions, what has been historically low interest rates on mortgages,

• 14:23Scott Galloway?

  you can usually, over the long term, outperform that. And that is, a certain amount of manageable debt is actually financially responsible. It feels emotionally really good to not have any debt. I get that. And if it's a huge emotional, if it's hugely emotionally accretive for you to not have any debt, fine. But what I would suggest is, if you can arb, if you can take a San Francisco salary to Austin, good move. If you can sell a home in the Bay Area, which I don't, no one knows if it's the best time to sell, but we know it's a good time to sell, right? That's the good news. The bad news is you got to buy into Austin, which has probably doubled in the last three to five years, but it's still a lot less.

• 15:06Scott Galloway?

  You'll still probably be able to buy a similar sized home for a lot less. And I think over the medium and long term, my brother, you're going to outperform and have more economic security. But let me finish where I started. These types of stresses are a function of, one, your character, that you take being head of household seriously, which both are, I think, great, great signals. My mother did this. She took economic responsibility for my household. It was just me and her, and I'm forever grateful for her. And she was thoughtful and an adult and, and managed our finances well. She never made more than, I think, $48,000 a year. And we lived an okay life because she was responsible and worked hard. So I think that's what it means to be an adult.

• 15:48Scott Galloway?

  And that's what it means to be, you know, a man or a woman who's head of household. So, so your stresses here are a function of a couple wonderful things. One, you have people in your life that love you. And two, and just as importantly, you have people in your life that you get to love. Thanks for the question. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

• 16:13Scott Galloway?

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• 16:55Scott Galloway?

  chat is available on the side of your browser and it's always ready. No new tabs, no switching apps, no losing your place. This is AI that works with you, not on top of you, so that you have the time and brain space to solve the problems that matter. Check it out. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 17:16Scott Galloway?

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• 17:58Scott Galloway?

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• 18:28Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three.

• 18:30Speaker 05

  Hello Prof G Pod. This is Connor from Idaho. I'm a big fan of both Prof G and Pivot. I appreciate your advice, candor, and sarcasm. So thanks to you, Kara, and both the teams. I'm a non-traditional student trying to get into a top MBA program. I've lived overseas in El Salvador, but I left college with an associate's and recently returned and graduated from SNHU with 4.0. My concern is most MBA graduates I follow went to a top undergrad program, Brown, Duke, UOP, and have since worked for Google, Deloitte, McKinsey, or a top firm. I didn't, but rather have 15 more years' work experience and have needed to doordash over the past year to finish my degree.

• 19:12Speaker 05

  My question, when I apply to top MBA programs, do I need to be coming from a full-time position, or does that matter? Thank you so much for your time and look forward to hearing more. Take care both y'all.

• 19:25Scott Galloway?

  So thanks for that Connor from Idaho. I appreciate your transparency here. Okay, so a couple things. A top MBA program. I do think that unless you get a full ride, you probably only want to consider a top 20 program. We're not in the business of educating in higher education. We're in the business of certifying. And that is the primary benefit and the justification for the massive investment in time and money you make in a graduate program, is that it says to every HR department, "We've done your job." And that is the HR, the head of HR at Google would rather pay $200,000 a year for an MBA

• 20:06Scott Galloway?

  when that person is maybe worth only 140 or 160, or they could find that person for 140 or 160 with equivalent skills who doesn't have an MBA, but they'd have to do much more work to get to that realization. And they would rather just pay the additional fee to know that that person has been already evaluated by an admissions department at an MBA program. So the primary value add of MBA programs. Is the sort of screening from the MBA admissions. Anyone who gets into a top 20 program is smart, tests fairly well, has shown they play well with others, has shown that they have the mental health to work well and meet deadlines and handle stress, has contacts, can network, you know, all that, all that good stuff,

• 20:48Scott Galloway?

  and also has some good skills, knows a spreadsheet, understands the basics of strategy, marketing, finance, et cetera. Now, so first thing, I would apply to a top 20 program. I wouldn't naturally assume that because you're not coming from a top elite school yourself, you can't get in. I had a 2.27 GPA at a UCLA, and granted, it was a different time. I applied to nine schools, and I got into two and waitlisted at one. I got into UCLA, I got into Haas, C-Above, grateful to California taxpayers, and I got waitlisted at the University of Texas, Austin, where they said I was going to show up and pass some summer classes to get in. True story, I wanted to go to UT, I thought that would be awesome.

• 21:32Scott Galloway?

  I thought, oh my gosh, Tex-Mex, Hook 'Em Horns, I thought that would just be an amazing experience. And I fell in love with someone, and she said, "I'm going to Berkeley," or Haas. And I said, "Well, I'm going to UT." And she said, "I'm going to Berkeley-Haas." And I said, "Well, I'm going to Berkeley-Haas." And so I basically went to business school following somebody. Anyways, was very much in love with her, and I don't regret it at all. Anyway, and had a wonderful experience. That's not what you asked. What I found out applying is that everyone, no one's a perfect candidate. What I found, I got there, I'm like, "Oh, my God, I fooled them, I'm an imposter." And then what I found out is I was surrounded by other imposters. So this is what you do, Connor. You write an application, you do an application. First off, you study really hard for the GMAT, and you try and say, "Look, I've got it going on.

• 22:16Scott Galloway?

  Maybe I didn't go to a top school, but I got good grades." And then you apply, and you see where you get in. And then hopefully you get into more than one place, you can play them off of each other. For tuition or financial aid and let the market decide if you don't get into a good school, if you don't get into a decent school with financial aid, then you don't go. But don't assume that everyone is a graduate of MIT and work for Google. I think they want people with a different background, but they want to make sure, they want your background to say to them, you have a great potential future. And I think there's a variety of ways you can demonstrate that. The fact that you did well, I think it's Southern New Hampshire University, the big online university, but a 4.0 says something about

• 22:58Scott Galloway?

  you. Anyways, bottom line is if you get in, you won't deserve to get in, but guess what, my brother, most of the people there didn't deserve to get in. So don't spend too much time wringing your hands over this decision. Let the market decide. Apply. I don't think you're going to get into Harvard or Wharton or Stanford. I'll say that. But you might get into a great school. And the key is applying to a bunch of schools. And they might say, we want to take a chance on that guy. They took a huge chance on me. And we're all imposters, Connor. Thanks for the question. That's all for this episode. Again, if you'd like

• 23:28Scott Galloway?

  to submit a question, please submit a voice recording by visiting officehours.profgmedia.com. Our producers are Caroline Chagrin and Drew Burrows. Claire Miller is our associate producer. If you like what you heard, please follow, download and subscribe. Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Thursday.

• 23:57Speaker 06

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