Office Hours: What’s Going On in the Retail Sector, The Future of AI-driven Mental Health Care, and How Can I Help My Child to Become a Great Storyteller?

Scott gives his thoughts on the current state of the retail industry, specifically how they can reevaluate their investments in technology. He then speaks about how AI is impacting the mental health space. He wraps up with a discussion on storytelling. 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 Prop 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 email a voice recording to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected]. I have not heard or seen these questions. First question.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  Hi, Prof G. Elizabeth from Brooklyn here. I wanted to get your thoughts on what's going on in the retail sector right now. I work for a tech company that caters primarily to fashion retail brands, and we're seeing a lot of these companies laying off large numbers of their tech teams, even as a lot of those teams work on initiatives to improve the business efficiency and profitability. And I think the challenge is that retail generally caters to Short term demand and that simply just doesn't jive with some of the longer term investments that tech entails. And I think these layoffs are probably an example of that friction between short term and the long term. I recall you saying previously that as an investor, there are simply too many things that can go wrong in retail. And it's hard going out there if you're not one of the Nikes of the world.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  So how would you advise these retail brands on how to stop being so short term thinking while still successfully navigating this near term uncertainty? And what's your outlook on retail, especially maybe fashion retail over the next few years? Thanks.

• 2:46Scott Galloway?

  Uh, thanks for the thoughtful question. So I actually ended up in retail. I started a company called Red Envelope. I ended up consulting to a lot of retailers. My first client, big client was Williams Sonoma. And generally speaking, retail is, I think it's the toughest business I've ever worked in. I mean, tech is, tech is the most volatile because you have zero revenues, zero revenues, zero revenues. And then you might get sold for a billion dollars. Or you just may never get to, I mean, something like one out of 10 software companies ever get to revenue. It ends up being a kind of a feature, not a product. And then one out of 10 of those get to 10 million in revenues. But the upside is so dramatic in tech that it pays if you spread your bets out or you find the right company.

• 3:27Scott Galloway?

  It pays for all the losers. Retail is just, there's a million ways to die in retail. You gotta get real estate right. You gotta get human capital right. You gotta get merchandising right, which I think is actually the hardest thing in retail. You know, speaking of Red Envelope, the smartest thing we ever did, we hired, we took a merchandising driven approach. I'm like, everything is about voice and that is Lululemon brings together these, you know, original technical fabrics and a feel of health. And I think there's, uh, retail's been in a sense, kind of a, a state of stasis. And that is they just don't know what to expect or where to invest. Do you invest in real estate? Were people going to come back into the stores? Do you continue to invest in technology, recognizing there's deeper pocketed players ranging from Amazon to Farfetch?

• 4:11Scott Galloway?

  So sort of pity the retail company trying to figure out what to do right now. The thing that strikes me, I think retailers are actually being pretty smart. I would probably reduce my investments in technology. Unless it was some sort of AI driven technology. I think everyone decided that we don't know what to do, we don't know what to expect. But the great brave new world of everything is tech. And sometimes these retailers don't get the best technology people, right? Sometimes the best tech people go to tech companies and there's also. A lot of the advances in technology, whether it's the cloud or generative AI, are all about, quite frankly, doing more with less. And so if you're Walmart, you have to have a massive technology team. But I'm not sure if you're Lululemon, do you need several hundred engineers? Maybe, maybe not.

• 4:55Scott Galloway?

  And so I think they're smart right now to pull their horns in. And why is that? So retail sales are stronger than expected. Everyone's, we've been waiting for a recession. We've been a month away from a recession for about 18 months now, and it hasn't happened. And retail sales have actually been pretty strong. But effectively, if you look at the data, about $100 billion a month is coming out of people's savings. People are spending about $100 billion more than they have. And so what we're looking at at the back half of the year, at the beginning of 2024, people are going to start running out of money, and that's going to impact retail first. And I think retailers probably read the same economic data I do and have said, we need to kind of get ready for winter because this is at some point,

• 5:40Scott Galloway?

  we're going to have that recession at some point. That free money that was raining from the sky, specifically Uncle Sam, is going to run out. So I actually am on the side of the retailers here. And, you know, I think that, I think they need to, I think thinking long term here is quite frankly, getting in fighting shape and cutting costs. Also, we've had such a bull market in the economy for the last 13 years. We've stuffed so many calories down the esophagus of companies that were working in the form of capital and specifically investments in technology. I think there's fatty deposits everywhere. If Meta and Google and Amazon are laying off people, that probably means, you know, that probably means that Target and ASOS and I'm trying to come up with retailers here.

• 6:25Scott Galloway?

  And, you know, Lululemon should be thinking about where they can cut costs. Lululemon's a phenomenon, by the way. That company is like, it's one of the most valuable companies in Canada. They keep. Pulling a rabbit out of the hat. I mean, absolutely incredible. But I would bet a lot of retailers are looking at their employee workforces and the extraordinary investments they made in technology and saying, did this really pay off? Is there opportunities with technology to reduce our technology costs? And also, as always, the person that's having an impact on retail, even though he's not in retail, is Elon Musk specifically. He laid off 80% of his workforce and nobody noticed. The advertisers noticed, but they didn't notice the reduction of workforce. They noticed what an asshole he is, and so they stopped advertising.

• 7:08Scott Galloway?

  But as a consumer of Twitter, would you know that they laid off 80% of the people? So a lot of companies are saying, how can we have the great taste of reduced costs or layoffs under the cloud cover and impending recession without the calories of losing a lot of our revenue? So the pain that you sense, the pain you're seeing, my only prediction, more. Thanks for the question. Question number two.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  What's up, P-Dog? This is Ryan from Paris, the city of love. Just kidding. Anyway, my question today is about the future of mental health caring. We know that mental health is a huge issue today, especially with the new generations. And you talk often about that. The approach to it still looks fragmented to me today. You know, it feels like a trial and error approach, like, hey, let's try psychedelics, medicines, therapy, therapy with VR, nutritional psychology, and so on. So when are we going to approach this holistically? And maybe leverage technologies like AI to create a personalized plan? And even create communities where like-minded people can come together to revive social bonds that are lacking today? So I wanted to know what are your thoughts on the topic? And thank you for your work. I'm a huge fan.

• 8:17Scott Galloway?

  Thanks, brother. Paris, arguably the most beautiful city in the world. I would absolutely love Paris if it wasn't inhabited by Parisians. Oh, my God, that's gotta be a hate crime. Anyways, with respect to holistic approach to healthcare, it does feel as if there's a lot, we become so specialized that there's a lot of people that know a lot about a very narrow thing, and most people know nothing about a lot. And that is, I agree with you, generative AI, where you feed into your data set of all of your healthcare records, and it says, okay, this is kind of what's going on with this person. Can anyone really tell me what's going on? And then to distribute the healthcare away from the healthcare industrial complex and want you to come to a store called a doctor's office, which is the worst retail

• 9:02Scott Galloway?

  experience in the world, with the exception maybe of grocery and gas stations, and have someone pull back a slide, not even stand up, not even make eye contact, and say, fill out this paperwork, which you have filled out about four million times before, and create all these barriers between you and the person who actually delivers the value. A holistic approach using data makes a lot of sense. The big unlock you referenced, the big unlock you referenced, and that is remote care around mental health. And the need has never been greater. The American Psychiatric Association estimates there are more than 10,000 mental health-related self-help apps. Nearly all are unapproved so far by the FDA. Most of the apps offered structured therapy. Basically, the patient gets responses to

• 9:43Scott Galloway?

  specific problems with a workbook-like approach. An example might be Woebot, I think it's called, which is designed to help young adults experiencing stress and wellness difficulties. Unfortunately, so far, it doesn't look as if these apps, we can indicate or point to success here. A study published in the JAMIR Mental Health Journal revealed that the proportion of apps developed using evidence-based framework is unacceptably low. Fuck, that's a disappointment. Outside of apps, the application of generative AI in healthcare looks more promising in areas like clinical decision-making and risk prediction. The government has been taking note of the flood of AI hitting the market and is turning to regulation as a solution. Both the Department of Labor and the FDA announced last year it was ramping up its efforts to exercise enforcement. So I'm still very excited about remote healthcare,

• 10:26Scott Galloway?

  specifically, uh, mental health. I think just acknowledging you have an issue, reaching out and starting to do something about it is really important. Um, I think talk therapy, obviously, I don't want to underestimate the importance, or some people need some sort of pharmaceutical intervention. Um, I have my own, um, self-care, if you will, and I'm going to share it, and it's not, obviously, approved. Uh, this is not financial advice, this is not medical advice. I'm just being very open and honest around what I do when I am not feeling well. And that is, I recognize that I struggle with depression in the form of anger. I hold on to grudges, I get angry at other people, but more than anything, I get very angry at myself. And I get super upset at a mistake I made, I turn it into a big deal. It's like acid in my veins, and then a couple of days later,

• 11:11Scott Galloway?

  I am so deflated and down, I have trouble just thinking about anything, other than just what a fucking idiot I am, and what a disappointment I am to myself and everyone around me. And I realize objectively that is something else taking over my brain. Because I, you know, as much as I screw up, I have a wonderful life and a lot to be very thankful of. I have, you know, blessings the size of Saturn and I have mood, you know, the size of something much smaller than Saturn. I don't know what the right analogy is here. So I have an acronym around what makes me feel better. And I would argue that there's no downside to saying, when I feel down, what gets me out of this? And trying to set an algorithm or some sort of methodology or map for things that make you feel good.

• 11:56Scott Galloway?

  Nietzsche said, look at all the things, look at all the situations in your life that give you reward, that make you feel fulfilled. What are those situations? What were the common attributes of those situations? The sensation, the work, the people, the context of that situation? And try and build a life that has more of that. I intervene with the following thing, and I call it SCAFA. The S, the S is for sweat. That's what resets my system. I sweat right away. I think that exercise is totally underrated as a treatment for mood and mental health disorders. C, clean. I try and eat really clean. And for me, that means eating at home. Get rid of the trans fats, the butter, all the shit that's stuffed into food when you eat outside

• 12:41Scott Galloway?

  or eat at restaurants in salt because it tastes much better and gets you addicted to it. But I eat at home really clean, organic. A for abstinence, not the kind of abstinence you think, but I love alcohol and THC, but I cut them out. When my head's in a weird place, I'm like, I'm just gonna take a break and reset my system. And I don't need that sort of external stimuli, whatever you wanna call it. And by the way, I'm not, I like both of those things. I'm a better version of me, a little bit fucked up. I've gotten more out of alcohol than it's gotten out of me. I like it. But during those times when I'm going a little bit dark, I just don't do it. F is for family, specifically time with my boys. My boys are so demanding and can be such jerks that it takes me out of my head and thinking about me, me, me all the time. And I find them restorative. And then the final A is for affection.

• 13:23Scott Galloway?

  Mammals are meant to touch, being around my dogs, again, being around my family, flopping on the couch. Just a sense of community and proximity to other people. Back to your original question, yeah, I hope there's some sort of holistic approach. That's the promise of AI, is that you feed into it a data set and it comes back and gives you a better view of your world. I think healthcare needs to go from a defensive, disease-driven. Sector to an offensive, health-driven sector. I think that's the opportunity, the dispersment of medical advice on our smartphones and our smart speakers, and also getting to Paris more often. Hello, Paris. I want to go to the new Cheval Blanc hotel there because I'm fancy. Because I'm fancy. I absolutely love Paris.

• 14:06Scott Galloway?

  Anyways, congratulations on living in what is arguably the most beautiful city in the world and for the thoughtful question, thanks. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us. Support for the show comes from NetSuite. They say every day your business is late to AI, you might fall two days behind. So how do you keep up with the competition when they're only moving faster? Enter NetSuite Next. You probably know NetSuite, the AI-powered business management suite that securely connects all your data. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth, trusted by over 44,000 customers. NetSuite Next is the next big leap in how business gets done because AI is built into everything you do.

• 14:51Scott Galloway?

  It automatically surfaces custom insights throughout your day. AI agents work alongside you to solve problems and handle routine work. And anytime you have questions about anything, you can ask, just like you're having a conversation with a colleague. NetSuite is customized for a wide range of industries, so it supports the way your business truly works. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, it's time for NetSuite Next, where your business meets AI. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com/prog. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/prog. netsuite.com/prog.

• 15:36Scott 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.

• 16:20Scott Galloway?

  Upwork also takes care of contracts, 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 dot com slash prof G, upwork.com slash prof G.

• 16:49Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  Dear Prof G, this is Dr. C from Toronto, Canada and Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have just listened to your episode in which you explain why storytelling is the most underrated, yet perhaps the most important skill we should be teaching our children. I couldn't agree more. After 22 years of management consulting, including eight years as a partner, I got to see the upside of superior storytelling. This is, in essence, what partners do in consulting or investment banking or any other senior positions. As a parent, on the other hand, I have been experiencing mostly the downside of storytelling, either in the form of honest incompetence, when there is subpar fact-checking or no fact-checking at all, or dishonesty in the form of misinformation.

• 17:33Speaker 04

  This honest storytelling is certainly what populists and/or dictators do best. Given the downside of storytelling, I have two questions for you. First, what do you do as a parent so that your child can become a savvier consumer of stories? And second, as an educator, do you think universities should do more on how to become better consumers of stories? Thank you for your wonderful podcast series.

• 17:57Scott Galloway?

  This is a thoughtful question, Dr. C, that touches on a bunch of things. There's raising kids to be good storytellers, and then there's sort of this post-truth world that we're entering that's really, or have entered that's really unfortunate. As it relates to raising storytellers, or good storytellers, I remember thinking...

• 18:15Scott Galloway?

  You know, I do so much virtue signaling on this program and I pretend to be such a better father than I actually am. And I've been talking about how important storytelling is for a while. And I'm like, well, okay, boss, what are you actually doing about it to try and help your kids be better storytellers? So I've been doing, you know, dumb things like at dinner, when, you know, my 12 year old won't, you know, be quiet, but my 15 year old won't say anything, I task the 15 year old of starting a conversation. When they're telling me stuff, I ask them to continue. What I'm going to start doing, I haven't done it yet, is to actually come up with stories. I started by telling them stories of their grandparents, how they met immigrating from Britain, you know, moving to Canada, their drive across the US in an Austin mini metro when my mom was seven months pregnant.

• 18:58Scott Galloway?

  And they're enthralled by it. And I think that them hearing stories, I hope, gets them to be better storytellers. The schools, I'll give it to them, are trying to pull that out of them. My son went to this wonderful school, or my son's called Gulfstream, and they're eighth grade. Every eighth grader has to stand up in front of the entire community of the school, including the parents, and do a 10 or 15 minute talk. And my son did his talk on whaling and the whaling industry in Nantucket. God, could that be a wider topic? Seriously? All of a sudden, I just felt exceptionally Caucasian and privileged. Anyways, and it's great. And he thinks about it, and he has to do it with slides, and, you know, he's nervous about it, and it's hard for a 13 year old to stand up in front

• 19:43Scott Galloway?

  of people. The only competence I have is communications, right? I just, I know how to communicate. I know how to write. I know how to put together slides. I know how to a good twist of phrase, right? And that is how I've made my living. And I immediately recognize with younger people, they have to be able to be good storytellers if they want them to be a businessman consulting. If you're really amazing with technology, but you can't spin a story, that's the C O L or the C T O max. You can be less good and a great storyteller, and you call that woman C E O. The ability to communicate your ideas and attract capital, human and financial, is the whole shooting match. How do you get people to be good storytellers? One is practice. Two is different mediums. I would start with the written word. I think if you can express your thoughts cogently by writing

• 20:28Scott Galloway?

  them out. The other stuff's gonna get much easier. And then just practice, and specifically, a lot of confidence in trial and error around speaking in front of people. And I'm credited with being a good communicator and a good speaker. I get paid a lot of money to speak. And, and I have panic attacks. Sometimes I get so fucking nervous and I freak out and I get on stage and I start talking and I start gasping and swallowing air and I feel as if I'm dying. And the whole audience freaks out because I look like I'm in the midst of a heart attack. And so if you're nervous in front of people, if you think I can just never do it and I need to avoid it, think again. Think again.

• 21:11Scott Galloway?

  This is how I make my living and I get panic attacks. And you have to get over it. You have to figure it out. I'm not suggesting you're gonna be Tony Robbins, right? I'm not suggesting you're gonna be, you know, Maya Angelou, but you gotta have a certain minimum acceptable presentation skills. It's painful, take classes, go to Toastmasters, whatever you need to do. I am trying to figure out a way to put my kids in context where they get more of that, more experience at that, creative writing, et cetera. The second part of your question, I'm really worried about a post-truth world. The biggest fear I have about generative AI is I would say, okay, give me 10 tweets about how vaccines alter your DNA. They'd sound real and like they came from a medical established agency or a medical think tank.

• 21:56Scott Galloway?

  And it'll produce 10 tweets that are false, have no scientific verification or scientific veracity, but sound kinda real. And veracity has really become a function of who, who is the loudest and who has the biggest following, right? If Donald Trump says a lie long enough, it starts to become less of a lie. What do we do about that? I don't know. Invest in organizations that have fact checking, whether it's the Wall Street Journal or...

• 22:24Scott Galloway?

  PBS or the BBC or, you know, love them or hate them, The Post and The New York Times, they have a viewpoint, but they do take fact checking very seriously. Don't advertise on Fox News, that should be called Fox Entertainment, where the anchors coordinate to spread information and lies that they know are lies because they think it'll inflame their audience and sell more, sell more hearing aids. I mean, that bullshit is really, that's mendacious. That's an abuse of your position and society. What else can we do? Remove Section 230 or have carve-outs such that the social media algorithms, if they are circulating lies that result in teen depression, or misuse of medical treatment, or a belief that an election is rigged when they know it's not rigged, they should have

• 23:07Scott Galloway?

  the same type of liability they have out now with the carve-out around sex trafficking. If you put information on Facebook, the results in the trafficking of a minor, Meta is liable. Guess what? It reduced it a lot. So do we want to reduce election misinformation, vaccine misinformation, medical information, data or content that gives kids suicidal ideation? Oh, no, it'd be too complex. No, you could do it. They could absolutely do it. Just give them financial incentive to do it. In sum, I haven't figured this out, but I recognize the importance. I'm trying to do some things that help my kids develop those skills. Some of them are uncomfortable. I don't have definitive answers. I just know if we want to appreciate the truth, we have to appreciate the truth and

• 23:51Scott Galloway?

  reward those that are fact-checking and punish those that believe they can turn a lie into the truth by just telling it over and over. Thanks for the question. Dr. C. from Toronto, the friendly, clean Canada. Go Leafs! Go Leafs! 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].

• 24:24Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Caroline Shager and 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.

• 24:43Speaker 05

  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.

• 25:13Speaker 06

  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.

• 25:21Speaker 07

  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.