No Mercy / No Malice: Origin Story

As read by George Hahn. https://www.profgalloway.com/origin-story-2/ 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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• 0:48Speaker 01

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• 1:19Speaker 02

  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-like 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.

• 1:49George Hahn?

  I'm in L.A. and it's been an emotional week on several dimensions. Many of my closest friends are celebrating our 50th. It's wonderful. Any competitiveness, jealousy, or other petty bullshit has melted away. All that's left is collective joy at our friendships and adult children to boast about and cap our accomplishments. On the other end of the spectrum, my dad, who's 94, is struggling and no longer recognizes me. I knew it was coming, but still wasn't prepared.

• 2:25George Hahn?

  All these emotions are colliding and reminding me that much or most of the joy or tragedy in our lives is not in our control. This is difficult for humans to accept, so we create an origin story.

• 2:41George Hahn?

  Origin Story, as read by George Hahn. This post is originally from early 2023.

• 2:56George Hahn?

  Every one of us has an origin story. We define ourselves by our background, the narrative of what made us who we are. However, people often don't let the truth get in the way of a good story, and the narrative of "I" is often that: a story.

• 3:16George Hahn?

  James Frye found no takers for his novel, so he repackaged it as a memoir, "His Story", which became the number-one bestseller "A Million Little Pieces". Biographies and memoirs are America's second-favorite book genre. Ronald Reagan tried to curry favor with Israeli leaders with a story about how he helped liberate Nazi death camps in World War II. He didn't. Did his military service in Hollywood. Fabricated military service is apparently so common that Congress passed a law against it. People embellish their origin stories, as it's the only thing others have to go on,

• 3:59George Hahn?

  from potential employers and friends to potential mates. We are the product of our circumstances, personally and professionally, and a good origin story confers meaning to our life and career. We should recognize that and embrace it, but also be honest about it.

• 4:20George Hahn?

  The most important factor in determining a person's future is when and where they are born. Each of us, born into any other situation, would experience a different outcome. Just as the market trumps individual performance, so does circumstance. I likely would not be an entrepreneur or an academic had I been born in South Sudan. If I'd been born in 1920s Germany, I'd likely have been a Nazi who perished on a Russian field. This isn't just true across continents and centuries, it's also evident at a micro level. Being born one year earlier or later can make a big difference.

• 5:03George Hahn?

  People who graduate into a recession earn less for 10 to 15 years than those who graduate amid prosperity. Fate also changes block to block. One of the strongest signals of life expectancy and much else is the zip code where you're born. Within the same city, life expectancy can vary by 30 years based on zip code. Meanwhile, an American female whose parents rank in the bottom decile of earners has a 3 in 10 chance of having a teenage pregnancy. For daughters in the top decile, it's 3 in 100.

• 5:45George Hahn?

  This all confirms a basic point: The cards you're dealt matter. A lot. Your income is the clearest indicator of how much money your kid will make when they're 30. Churn is increasingly a rare earth element in the US. Per a Georgetown analysis, "It's better to be born rich than smart. The most talented disadvantaged children have a lower chance of academic and early career success than the least talented affluent children."

• 6:25George Hahn?

  However, the people dealt the best cards can't see their hands. The myth of the self-made man is rife among US citizens who've never faced a draft or registered a devaluation in their currency. People who are remora fish on investments made by the US government. Tech has raised a cohort of people who simultaneously credit their character for their success and blame a rigged market for their failures. The real cage match in tech is entitlement versus empathy. The former is winning, and that results in a staggering accumulation of power that's amoral, focused only on the aggregation of more power regardless of what happens to

• 7:09George Hahn?

  people with less. Side note: I hope they beat the shit out of each other. Is that wrong? Until 40, my story was that I was the son of a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. I overcame those humble beginnings to achieve significant success because, you know, I'm awesome. After 40, my eyesight began to wane, but I could see clearer. I was born a straight white male in 1960s California, which gave me state-sponsored access to elite universities. UCLA had an acceptance rate of 76% when I applied.

• 7:54George Hahn?

  This year, it's less than 9%. Later, Berkeley admitted me to its MBA program with a GPA of, no joke, 2.27 from UCLA. Total tuition for all seven years? $8,000. I came of professional age in an era of processing power and the internet. I lived in San Francisco, where in the decade of the 90s, more wealth was created within a seven-mile radius than in all of Europe since World War II. I was given a rocket ship, built by others. To be clear, I'm talented and navigated the ship well, but I wasn't going to soar without the sacrifice and talent of millions of others.

• 8:39George Hahn?

  The ship blew up several times, but I survived, and there were other vessels waiting. Luck doesn't begin to describe my situation.

• 8:50George Hahn?

  My freshman college roommate, born gay, took his own life at thirty-three when his HIV progressed to full-blown AIDS. Like others, I have faced hardship, an absent father, and tragedy: lost my mom early. But each of these losses has played a role in my good fortune. I make my living communicating, and much of this skill isn't the result of my own hard work. My dad can captivate any room, and even though he wasn't around much, I inherited some of his ability. My mom's sickness and our inability to access good care was a hugely motivating, defining moment for me. I saw the rough cut of the American story

• 9:34George Hahn?

  and decided to get my shit together in hopes of living a richer life and garnering the resources to take better care of the people who mattered to me. Capitalism is brutal and motivating. Lately, the balance has swung too far to the former. But that's another post. Supposedly, each of us has bits of every material present at the dawn of the universe. It makes sense, at least the morning after mushroom chocolates, that our matter will also be present in galaxies, stars, planets, organisms, birthed trillions of years from now. Our stories may or may not make the journey,

• 10:15George Hahn?

  but the emotions they inspire will become instinct, then DNA, and this matter will disperse. So the question is...

• 10:26George Hahn?

  Distinct from the story you and others tell about yourself, how do you make people feel? When people come in contact with you, do they feel insecure or inspired? Do you leave people cold or comforted? Do you bring joy, harmony, love?

• 10:47George Hahn?

  I'm in a deficit here. I've taken more than I've given. I have a debt to pay. I've started with my boys and am working outward from there. Still time. It's a comforting thought that bits of us will live on and arrive at distant places trillions of years from now. We all have our longest journey still ahead of us. When you get there, when you show up, what will be felt? Distinct from your origin story, what was your real journey? There's only one real journey that matters. Who did you love? And who loved you?

• 11:31George Hahn?

  Life is so rich.

• 11:41Speaker 04

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• 11:49Speaker 05

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• 12:11Speaker 06

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