Why China Dominates the EV Market, How We Operate the Prof G Media Business, and How to “Rich”

Scott speaks about the Chinese EV market, specifically how China has an advantage in the EV race due to costs. He then discusses Prof G Media’s business model and why he hasn’t moved the show behind a paywall. He wraps up with advice to someone who has suddenly come into a significant amount of wealth. 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.

• 1:18Scott 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. Hey Prof G. Hey Scott and team. Hey Scott. Hi Prof G. Hey Prof G. Hey Prof G.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  Hi Professor G.

• 1:31Scott Galloway?

  In last week's Office Hours, we answered your questions surrounding the defense industry, why greatness is in the agency of others, and how to act if your partner makes more money than you.

• 1:42Scott Galloway?

  The world is becoming, it feels like increasingly insecure, and all of that leads to increased military spending. I also think you're going to see Japan and Germany dramatically increase their military spending. I've always thought my confidence is storytelling, but my superpower is the ability to attract and retain talented people who bring scale to what we do here. More women are attending college now than men. And two thirds of jobs now require a college degree. The highest paying industries generally want someone with a college degree. And you do acquire certain skills and contacts in college. So women, quite frankly, deserve to be making more money than men. Today, we'll speak about the Chinese EV market and how we run our Proph G Media business and how to rich.

• 2:28Scott Galloway?

  So with that, first question.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Professor Galloway, this is Jonathan from Philadelphia. I'm a long time listener and first time caller. Thank you for all your thoughtful and funny insights in the podcast. I recently visited Shanghai, China for the first time in the last 10 years. One thing that kind of shocked me is the number of EVs on the road. I see two or three times more Teslas in Shanghai than in Philadelphia or New York City. Furthermore, there are many domestic EV brands that I never heard of. I talked to the drivers and seems like EVs are just much cheaper there. Tesla Model 3 costs maybe 30K and the domestic ones cost close to 20K. Combined with the high gas price there, it just makes more sense for people to get EVs. What are your thoughts on this?

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Do you think US will be able to keep the lead in the EV market without government help? I know we have tariffs against Chinese cars, so we probably will not see any of their cars here. But will that also make our market less competitive and stagnant? Looking forward to your answer. Thank you.

• 3:30Scott Galloway?

  That's a really thoughtful question, Jonathan from Philadelphia. So first off, just some data. IEA's Global EV Outlook 2024 report shows that China accounted for 60%, 60% of all EV sales last year. So let's be honest, China is dominating EV production. EV growth in China is projected to continue, with one in three cars on Chinese roads expected to be electric by 2030. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China invested 231 billion in its EV industry from 2009 to 2023. Data from Counterpoint Research reveals that in Q1 of this year, China continued to lead globally in EV sales, growing sales by 28% year on year,

• 4:13Scott Galloway?

  while US sales grew just 2% year on year. I mean, think about that. Our economy is growing faster than theirs. They're supposedly in sort of a... You know, a low growth part of their history with huge unemployment and they're growing that industry by 28% versus 2% in the US. Now, if we branch out a bit, the EU plans to impose tariffs on Chinese EV imports due to subsidies while Biden announced a 100% tariff on Chinese EV imports. What about the US? Currently, the US is pumping up support for EVs through government regulations, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which will offer certain EV car buyers a $7,500 credit. For comparison, China offered

• 4:53Scott Galloway?

  a $4,600 credit per EV purchase in 2023. So why does China have an advantage in the EV race? Simply put, the same reason they have an advantage across anything else, cost. The IEA report that we previously referenced estimates that more than 60% of electric cars sold in 2023 were already cheaper than their average combustion engine equivalent when compared to Europe and the US. As a consequence, Chinese consumers are largely inclined to purchase a domestic model, as you mentioned. So where does this go? China, when you're talking about bringing together products and then assembling them and creating a complex supply chain that sources materials, brings together competent labor at a, you

• 5:38Scott Galloway?

  know, at a reasonable price, no one, no one does China like China. And so I got to think that they're going to dominate the low and mid-range EV market globally unless we put up even more tariffs, which I just think is a bad idea, which is nothing but a tax on consumers, especially EVs. Young people, I think, need EVs. And the BYD EV, that's supposedly a pretty good car that could sell for $12,000 if it didn't have tariffs on it. I say no tariffs. I say let the Chinese come in and compete on EVs. Now, what will probably happen is that the American EV market, specifically Tesla, will continue to do

• 6:18Scott Galloway?

  well, while I think its stock is vastly overvalued. I think that's an enduring company because of one thing, and that is, America still has the best brands in the world. Name a global brand, an aspirational global brand that's come out of China.

• 6:37Scott Galloway?

  I'm still waiting. For whatever reason, the American culture, European culture, still produces the best brands in the world. And when you start paying forty, fifty, eighty thousand dollars for a car, you're not buying steel wrapped around four tires with a battery. You're buying something that says something about you. You want people to know that you're wealthy and care about the environment, which means you should have sex with me. That's effectively what you're saying when you buy a Tesla. And that's why so many guys in midlife crises were sort of the first owners of Tesla. When you buy the first electric Ferrari, you're going to say, I have a very small penis and a lot of money. Anyway, it's just sort of kidding. But at the high end, you have self-expressive benefit aspirational brands.

• 7:18Scott Galloway?

  And the reality is, the US and Europe pretty much have a monopoly on everything from, you know, Bottega Veneta to Nike. We're just better at it. But there's no doubt about it. When it comes to really hardcore, deep manufacturing, supply chain-driven manufacturing, it's China and the seven dwarves. And that's including in the EV market. Thanks for the question. Question number two.

• 7:42Speaker 04

  Hey Scott, it's Ed from Hampshire in the UK. I've been following your content since the early days of YouTube back in 2017. At that stage, I was leaving the army and I found the work that you were producing really helpful at educating me on the world of business that I was moving into. Exactly the question, which is about the Prof G show as a business itself. I'd be fascinated to understand a bit more about how you operate the business. How do you select the content that you're going to be talking about? How do you pick the advertisers that you're going to work with? What role does Vox Media play in things? And why, for instance, have you not moved to a freemium model or even a subscription based, given your well-known views on the ad-supported economy? Again, thank you for all of your work.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  I'm really flattered as a Brit that you've been willing to endure the mediocre food and even more mediocre weather that London has to offer. All the best to you and yours, Ed.

• 8:34Scott Galloway?

  Ed, thanks so much for the kind words. I disagree. I think actually London has finally world-class food. I think anytime you have this level or this concentration of wealth, you're going to attract good food. I do agree with you, Ed, wherever on the weather. Go Team England. Let's start there. Go Team England. Okay, so Prof G Media, I sold L2 to Gartner in 2017 and

• 8:56Scott Galloway?

  I had kind of hit my number and I sat down and I was planning to raise a private equity fund. And I thought I'd really like to be wealthier, maybe even someday aspire to be a billionaire. And then I thought, why the fuck do I want to be or aspire to be a billionaire involves another 20, 30 years of really hard work, putting at risk the capital I have because you have to take tremendous risk to have to register that kind of wealth appreciation because I am far from being a billionaire. But I was about to just ramp up and, you know, get off the hamster wheel long enough to take some performing enhancing drugs and get back on the hamster wheel. And I made a conscious decision that I was going to slow down.

• 9:38Scott Galloway?

  I still have a lot of tread left on my tires, but I thought I want to spend the rest of my life, at least professionally, having more of a positive influence on issues I'm really passionate about, or that's the wrong word, that I think I bring some talent to and that I think are overlooked, specifically struggling young men, teen depression, some of the externalities around big tech. And at the same time, I want to make good money. I want to work with a group of people that I really enjoy. And I wish I had figured out earlier that my core competence is storytelling. So this all sort of bubbled up to a media company, but I didn't want to take outside capital because I didn't want to have the pressure of trying to get a return on other people's capital. So I started Prop G Media. Prop G Media is a small niche media company.

• 10:23Scott Galloway?

  We have several lines of business. For me, it begins with writing. That's home base for me. I think writing is really, really hard, but I think it creates a certain halo, a certain heft of intellectual rigor and intellectual capital. So for me, it starts with the newsletter we put out every Friday, No Mercy Mouse, which is free, goes to half a million people. I think of the Fortune 190 of the Fortune 100 have at least 100 subscribers. That is sort of a petri dish for chapters and themes and a narrative arc around the books. I try and write a book every 18 months. I make money there. I average between one and a one and a half million dollars per book. That is the hardest thing I do, writing books. It's also probably the most rewarding.

• 11:04Scott Galloway?

  And then that feeds into some very profitable businesses. Specifically speaking, I do between two and a half and five million dollars a year in speaking fees. So that's an incredibly lucrative business. I enjoy it. It is perfect example of greatness is in the agency of others. And that is, people think that I just get up there and talk for an hour. I don't. A great team of analysts that will assemble 100, 120, 140 slides. We spend a ton of time thinking about narrative arc and humor and visuals and how the pace and the flow. I see it as almost like a one man 57 minute Broadway show. And I try to bring that level of production value to it because

• 11:43Scott Galloway?

  no one's going to pay that kind of money just to show up and talk about how fucking awesome you are, which is what I see the majority of speakers doing this day who just left, you know, an office and or a job in Hollywood or in the corporate world and think they can just get up there and tell war stories about how awesome they are. And then the core business from a revenue standpoint is the podcast. And I kind of fell into this. I have a face for podcasting. I had five TV shows that are all canceled. The podcasting just took off. And been doing that about seven years.

• 12:13Scott Galloway?

  These podcasts combined will produce somewhere between call it three and a half and five million a year. So call this about a $10 million business. 12 or 11 or 12 full-time people, three or four contractors. That's exceptionally high revenue per employee for a media company. I purposely want to keep it small. I love the people that I work with. It's a group of kind of, I let a misfit toys of people I've worked with in the past. Kind of my rock or my anchor is a woman named Catherine Dillon, who I've worked with for the better part of 15 years and brings real creative depth and really great management skills. So I can just focus on what I'm okay at, which is storytelling. And these things are all a flywheel, right? You sell more books, you get more speaking gigs, more speaking gigs,

• 12:56Scott Galloway?

  more podcast revenue, more podcast revenue, or more people listening to the podcast, more newsletter downloads and, you know, and so the wheel spins, if you will. Now Vox is essentially Our content and distribution partner. They're more a distribution partner for me because we produce everything at Prof G. There are employees at Pivot that produce it, but for the most part, it's pretty much the Prof G show. We do all the production and we throw the podcast over to Vox and then we pay them a fee to sell the ads and work on audience development, although I've never quite figured out exactly what that means, other than we're supposed to be great at what we do and create word of mouth. But they're a good partner. They have a great ad sales team. The reason why we didn't go behind a wall, and this is a conversation we have seriously

• 13:39Scott Galloway?

  about every 24 months, is that money is meaningful to me, but it's not profound. What's profound for me is I want to have reach and impact specifically on young men. I want people to, especially men, to feel more in touch with their emotions. I want to educate people about business. And to go behind a wall, if you're really successful, you get 4% to 8% of your listener base to go subscription, meaning that I would immediately lose a minimum of 90% to 95% of my reach. Also, I kind of like the ads. I don't mind the host readovers. I meet advertisers. I like them. It doesn't really bother me. And if you want to press skip, you can get through the ads. But this is the most fun I have ever had professionally.

• 14:24Scott Galloway?

  But it's a niche media company. The specific crowds out the general. And I've finally figured out a flywheel and I'm doing something I absolutely love and making good money at it. So thanks for the opportunity and the excuse to talk about my favorite subject. Me! Thanks for the question. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

• 14:48Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Superhuman. The pace of modern work can be relentless. You're getting a constant influx of messages from a ton of different apps. You haven't closed all your browser tabs in a year. Everything seems urgent and staying on top of it all feels like an impossible task. Superhuman Go is an AI chat that's always there when you need it, already aware of what you're doing and doesn't ask you to start from zero. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, help you be the best version of yourself at work. It handles the repetitive stuff so you can focus on the work that only you can do. Whether you need to summarize an endless email thread or prep for a meeting that's happening in five minutes, Superhuman Go works inside the tools and sites you already use, your browser, inbox, docs, and your project tools. And its AI chat is available on the side of your browser, and it's always ready.

• 15:33Scott Galloway?

  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.

• 15:51Scott 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,

• 16:36Scott 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.

• 17:01Scott 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 or Cursor. Want proof?

• 17:47Scott Galloway?

  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/profg and get $1,000 off. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A dot com slash prof G for $1,000 off.

• 18:09Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three.

• 18:12Speaker 05

  Hey Scott, first of all, I love the pod, of course, but more importantly, I love how transparent you are about your finances, both practically and, let's say, psychologically. So here's the question. How do you rich? And what I mean by that is, what would you do if you had a sudden influx of wealth? Or what advice would you give to someone who has a sudden influx of wealth? And I want you to break that down based on how old that person might be and how much money they might have gotten in that sudden influx. So, you know, someone in their 20s to 30s, someone in their 30s to 40s, someone over 40, or something with, whether they got 5 million, 10 million, 50 million, 100 million, whatever numbers you think are most interesting for how you would break that down with different advice for different people, different age groups, different amounts of money. Thank you. Thank you. Keep up the fun work.

• 18:57Scott Galloway?

  It's a really thoughtful question. I'm not sure I have time to go through all those segments, but let's assume you're in your 20s, 30s, or even, so 20s or 30s, and you come across $5 or $10 million. So, for example, one of 10,000 Nvidia employees that have woken up in the last 12 months and realized that a 31-year-old product manager now has $13 million in stock. This is an easy one. Maybe you buy a house, maybe you take a nice vacation, but for the most part, you immediately take a lot, if not all of that, off the table, pay your taxes, and invest in low-cost index funds, such that when you're my age, you're just done. And you can always have that peace of mind. Look at your debt. What debt do you have? And I'm not saying eliminate all debt. If you have good debt, you have student loan debt at 3%

• 19:41Scott Galloway?

  or you were smart enough to get a mortgage when rates were really low. You don't pay that off. But any debt that is, say, higher than 6% or 8% or what you could get in the market, I want you to go and pay off that debt. You just don't want this haunting you and following you around. And then you're not going to buy anything. I mean, maybe go out for a nice dinner, maybe take a vacation, fine. If you really, if you're kind of within striking distance of a home and you need that for a down payment, okay. But be thoughtful about what is the monthly payment going to be. But what I really want you to do with that is I want you to put it into a low-cost index fund. Because even 150, 200 grand, if you're in your 20s or 30s, that is literally, if you're smart enough and disciplined enough

• 20:23Scott Galloway?

  to put it away, diversify it in an index or an ETF and never look at it again until you are my age, you're going to be fine. You're going to really be happy that you demonstrated that kind of character and the kind of discipline and maturity that I didn't have. If you get real money, I mean, if you get really lucky, and I got really lucky later in life in my kind of late 40s, say 50, 70, 100 million, I think you do two things. One, I think you spend like a fucking 50s gangster that's just been diagnosed with ass cancer. You spend a shit ton of money. Mostly, I think, and most of the research shows, that the greatest happiness of return you're going to get is spending it on experiences. And then anything above that, I think you just give it away. I think it's really important

• 21:06Scott Galloway?

  that we maintain this wonderful American brand of generosity. Money is a transfer of time and work, and there's so many people that with just a little transfer of your time and work to them in the form of money, just makes them so much happier. There's so many wonderful causes that need, that can do just incredible good with a little bit of resources. So this is what you call a great problem. When you're younger, put aside capital. Stop, don't fall into the delusion that you making that money meant you're really talented. Yeah, maybe that means that. But more than anything, you're really talented and really lucky. Take some luck off the table, deconcentrate, put it into low-cost index funds. And if you're my age and you come into money and you have more money than you need,

• 21:50Scott Galloway?

  then brother, spend it all or give it away.

• 21:54Scott 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].

• 22:14Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Caroline Shager. 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. That was read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prop G Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday. The Prop G Markets Pod is literally number one in business right now, so please subscribe. It comes out, new episodes, every Monday and Thursday.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended blinds.com. With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at blinds.com experienced overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep and a sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Visit blinds.com to order your free samples today.

• 23:15Speaker 06

  They're running a cover two defense, but you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.