Perseverance, Family Wealth, and Building a Career On Air — with Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper joins Scott to discuss his experience covering the news throughout the past two decades, specifically as the anchor of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and a correspondent for 60 Minutes on CBS News. Anderson also shares his thoughts on fatherhood, overcoming personal tragedies, and what he learned while researching his latest book, “Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty.” Follow Anderson on Twitter, @andersoncooper. 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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• 1:18Scott Galloway?

  Episode 102, The Atomic Number from Nobelium. The Queen's Gambit cleaned up at the Emmys. I love that show because I can watch TV and yell, "Move the horse, move the horse", and I have no idea what that even means. Go, go, go!

• 1:41Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the 102nd episode of the Prop G Pod. In today's episode, oh my God, I'm brimming with excitement. I am literally, this is big, this is big. Today, we speak with the one and only Anderson Cooper. And in addition to being, you know, kind of the, actually, Anderson Cooper is the most trusted living journalist in the world. I've read that in several places. We hear about his experience covering the news throughout the past two decades, specifically as the anchor. For CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 and a correspondent for 60 Minutes on CBS News. Anderson also shares his thoughts on fatherhood, overcoming personal tragedy, and what he's learned while researching his latest book, Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty.

• 2:25Scott Galloway?

  So this plays a key role for me because my co-host on my other podcast, Kara Swisher, is always bringing the heat to her sway. And when I say heat, I mean really good guests. And I landed Anderson Cooper, and I did not share it. I am not a giving person. He is all ours today on The Prof G Show. I've also gotten to know Anderson a little bit. We're not friends, we're friendly. I don't want to overstate our friendship, but he's just an... You know when you meet sort of people you admire? And I have found most of the time, I'm a little bit disappointed because I create this image of them being kind of superhuman, and you find, no, they're just as kind of awkward and strange and, you know, as all of us. Anderson meets that bar.

• 3:06Scott Galloway?

  You meet the guy, and I've been thinking, as I say in the interview, a lot about masculinity and what it means to be a man and to have discipline. And also, I've been thinking about a lot about Stoicism and to be a warrior and save more than you earn and protect others and don't feel as if you need to respond to every slight. I just think this guy demonstrates a lot of behavior that young people, and specifically young men, want to model. And so I just have a lot of respect, admiration for Anderson. So anyways, I'm thrilled to have him on the show, and I think this is one of, I don't know, one of the more meaningful interviews we've done. He's a very thoughtful guy.

• 3:47Scott Galloway?

  Anyways, with that, we typically do a top of the show where I rant about some business issue, usually involving Big Tech. This week, we're not going to do that because we want to play the full interview with Anderson Cooper. Anyways, here we are. We're going to bust right into our interview with Anderson Cooper. Anderson, where does this podcast find you? I am in my office at CNN in New York City. So, gotta be honest, as always, everyone's very excited to hear from you, but I'm going to turn this back to me. You are my revenge guest. You literally... What does that mean? Don't worry, it's not, it's not as scary as it sounds. So Kara, Kara and I share a podcast, Kara Swisher, and then she has hers and I have mine.

• 4:31Scott Galloway?

  And she'll get like the deputy commissioner of PBS Cultural Affairs for Pivot, and then she gets Tim Cook for Sway. And I actually bring, I think, pretty interesting guests on Pivot. And I'm like, that's it, that's it. I finally got you to agree to come on. I'm like, I'm taking him to Prop G. So you're my Tim Cook. She has Tim Cook, I have Anderson Cooper.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  That's good. I know Tim, I'm, I would be lucky to be in his company.

• 4:58Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, 100%. So we're, we're gonna get to your book, but first off, I wanted to-

• 5:03Speaker 02

  That old trick.

• 5:05Scott Galloway?

  That thing, that thing, yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, we're gonna talk about your book, come on. Sorry, boss.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  I've used that line a million times. I'm gonna get to your book in a second, but-

• 5:13Scott Galloway?

  You get it, you get it. Yeah, we're, no, we're really excited about your book. Anyway, so I've been reading your bio, and I didn't realize, you joined CNN in 2003. Is that right?

• 5:23Speaker 02

  I did, yeah, actually 2002.

• 5:25Scott Galloway?

  Oh my gosh.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  CNN called me the day after 9/11 and asked if I could go to Afghanistan. And I think it was the day after or two days after, and it took me, I couldn't immediately go, but yeah, I tried to.

• 5:39Scott Galloway?

  I mean, you're really a ground zero for, for media and what's happened with streaming and polarization. I'm just curious to get your take, looking at it through the, you know, kind of behind, behind the music, if you will. If you did a behind the music, broadcast news as told by Anderson Cooper, what are the seminal changes since when you joined the news 20 years ago as an anchor?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  I mean, the speed of, obviously, I mean, it's, I don't think, you know, the speed of stuff, the speed of information, the speed of reaction times, the, the trajectory of stories is just exponentially greater. You know, we, a lot of people look back and they think of this sort of golden age of news back when it was Walter Cronkite and, and, you know, it was a newscaster, people trusted and all America trusted and, you know, he was an incredibly respected person and for good reason. But, you know, news back then was, I think the original CBS broadcast was like 18 minutes long, or thereabouts, became a half hour program. But, you know, what was actually covered was very limited. So I just think the ability to-

• 6:50Speaker 02

  To be places is just extraordinary now, the logistics of it. It's remarkable what we see. I, you know, I'm not sure it's a good thing. I, I think it contributes to this feeling that I think a lot of people have of the world is incredibly dangerous place and more dangerous than it's ever been, even though in fact, you know, COVID aside, it's actually not all by all metrics, things are less likely to die of violent death than ever before, but we see all this stuff in ways that we haven't before. The whole business model also is, is obviously, you know, has evolved. You know, I don't know what the future holds on streaming. Obviously, that seems to be where every company believes the future is. People have been talking about the death of the evening broadcast news for as long as I can remember.

• 7:33Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  And it's still around, but I don't think it's part of the, the conversation as much as cable news is.

• 7:39Scott Galloway?

  And what do you think the media gets wrong? When you see a story or you see a way that, that you're approaching a story or the network's approaching a story and you think, you know, this isn't accurate or this is bad for society. Are there anything that the body, not necessarily about CNN, but about media in general, we think?

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, that term media is so broad that I always hesitate to like, you know, make sweeping comments because, you know, media incorporates everybody from, you know, some far right talk radio person to.

• 8:05Scott Galloway?

  Cable news.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Cable. I, you know, I think, look, um, things that are stories get more attention than things that are, are not, you know? The, the story right now of the, the young woman who was blogging and podcast, you know, making videos and who's now disappeared and her fiance is suspected and has, has disappeared. You know, that's a story which is getting a lot of attention and there's other obviously missing people who do not get that same amount of attention. And I think one of the reasons beyond, you know.

• 8:39Scott Galloway?

  They're not on Instagram.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, there is a racial component, you know, sadly, which has been much discussed over, you know, many years in a lot of these cases. But there's also a, a component of, you know, when there's video of this person's journey and when it's a story, you know, those are all things which affect coverage and for, for better, for worse and that people, make people feel connected to stuff.

• 9:06Scott Galloway?

  You probably have interviewed the most influential, powerful people in the world of any living journalist. What surprises you, or what has surprised you the most, if you can make a general statement? Or just curious if there's individuals that just shocked you, because I always thought the most interesting, some of the most interesting parts of interviews when I go on TV is what happens before and after when you're off mic. And I think sometimes people don't understand, or don't have a real, a real understanding of the individual, other than their media presence. Has anything struck you about powerful people off mic, or that we don't understand about them? Are there any specific examples where you think, you know, people really don't get this person?

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Powerful people, they're just like us.

• 9:47Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, one leg at a time, right?

• 9:50Speaker 02

  You know, they're, okay, from my perspective, people are either far more impressive than they are in, than, than the public perception of them, or far less impressive. I am struck repeatedly by just how generally more interesting people are, just as human beings, beyond what you think they're gonna be, but also just how kind of human people are. I, I still hold on to this thing where, I think in this culture, we, we imagine like the rich, or the super wealthy, or the super, you know, successful or powerful, that they're somehow have some secret that, I mean, I, I still hold on to this idea that, well, they

• 10:34Speaker 02

  must have some sort of secret that I don't know. In the same way that I grew up believing, you know, adults had some sort of knowledge or secret that I didn't know, and then gradually as you grow up, you realize they're just flailing around like everybody else. And I find that interesting, and it, to me, it sort of humanizes them. The thing about, you mentioned people, you know, talking to people before and after the interview, I don't really do that. I'm not interested in being friends with... A lot of the people I interview, it's not my job. I don't want to be socializing with them. I don't go to parties with them for the most, you know, I mean, I've been to a few, I guess, uh, over the years, but I don't go to the White House, you know, Christmas party or whatever people get invited to.

• 11:17Scott Galloway?

  That wasn't you at the Met Gala with a dress that said, "Tax the Rich"? That wasn't you?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  I went once to the Met Gala and realized it was not my cup of tea.

• 11:24Scott Galloway?

  No, you're right.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  But like the White House Correspondent Dinner, I don't want to be socializing with all these people because I just don't think it helps my coverage of them. I want to, I don't want to, I don't, my job is not to be friends with them. It's to, to ask them questions.

• 11:40Scott Galloway?

  It's, it's so true. The, I write a lot about famous tech people and the first thing, or one of the first things, I'm not exaggerating, like 50% of the CEOs where I've written about their company negatively, they reach out and say, "Hey Scott, I'd love to have coffee with you." And it, I, it's not because they're interested in me. It's because they're very smart. And to get to that point, they're usually very charming, likable people. And I find that when I meet them, I like them and I'm less inclined to, to, to write in an unfiltered fashion about them.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah. I find it harder to have a tough interview with somebody if I know that they have a very sweet child or, you know, whatever it is. I'm not easily malleable, but I, I do, I am impacted by walking in somebody else's shoes. I really do believe in that. I don't have such strong, I'm not somebody who, you know, wears their opinion on their sleeve and is yelling at the top of their lungs in anger every night on cable news. I don't like to watch that as a viewer. I don't want to be that person. Um, and I, I don't necessarily think that someone who disagrees with something that I might privately believe is a bad person. I'm willing to believe that maybe I'm wrong and I'm interested in hearing why they think somebody's wrong.

• 12:51Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back.

• 12:56Scott Galloway?

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• 15:06Scott Galloway?

  So I want to, I want to walk in your shoes, or I want, I want our, our listeners to walk in your shoes, and this will be a good segue into your book, Vanderbilt, The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty. You're, you're not a rich kid. You're a rich, great, great, great, great grandson. You have this crazy legacy that I sort of knew but didn't understand. But to the extent you're comfortable, you had what I would describe as a fairly atypical upbringing.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Oh, really? You think so? I thought my upbringing was very relatable.

• 15:38Scott Galloway?

  A skosh, just a skosh. And, and also-

• 15:42Speaker 02

  You mean, your mom didn't have Charlie Chaplin's fertility drugs to her body so she could smuggle them into the United States and give birth to me?

• 15:49Scott Galloway?

  That's called a Tuesday for me. That's me coming back from Ibiza, boss. But you, you've had a lot of, you had a lot of privilege. You had a decent amount of tragedy. I think when people see you, they think that, they see this sort of, I don't know, almost porcelain doll of you. You kind of seem fairly, like stab him with a fork and see if he bleeds, because you just seem so together and you just seem very well balanced. And yet, I look at your upbringing and the privilege and some of the tragedy, I'm like, it's kind of a semi miracle this guy isn't pretty fucked up. Can you, can you talk a little bit about the influences on you growing up? I know you're very close to your mom, and what it meant to grow up with that privilege and some of that tragedy. But when you look back and say,

• 16:34Scott Galloway?

  these were sort of the defining forces in my life, the really big influences, have you, have you thought about that, or anything you're willing to share?

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah, sure. I mean, um, you know, I grew up with, the first 10 years of my life were very different than the latter afterward. I divide my, my life in between the first 10 years of my life and then the rest of my life. And when I was 10, the calendar was kind of reset. It was like, it was like when, you know, the Pol Pot took over Cambodia and reset it to year zero. And at 10, my dad died. And that was, for me, a huge- Chasm opening up and a complete change in how I viewed the world and how I viewed myself in the world. And it was for me kind of a wake up call that, you know, I don't think for necessarily

• 17:24Speaker 02

  for better changed the trajectory of my life and changed the person who I was. I think the person I was before then was much more interesting and open and outgoing and I became much more reserved and very catastrophist and wanting to prepare for what I believe would be the, you know, the next catastrophe. And so for-

• 17:43Scott Galloway?

  Just a question, do you remember much about your father or your relationship with him?

• 17:48Speaker 02

  I remember, you know, I remember him being a great father and I remember the warmth of him and the talk, you know, I remember putting my head on his stomach when I would watch TV at night and I remembered that like the beat of his heart and I remember the sound of typewriter keys writing as he was writing books and articles because he was a writer. A lot of the actual memories I don't really remember. He did write a book about his family growing up and about my brother and I and my mom and the family that he created with her. And that, he wrote it as a letter to my brother and I because he knew he probably wouldn't live to see us grow, grow up. And so a lot of my memories come from that book and I can't even separate what I actually

• 18:29Speaker 02

  remember, remember and what I just know from reading that book of things that happened. But that was enough, like 10 years with him was enough to give me a foundation that is what has carried me forward through the rest of my life. And afterward I became, you know, I was suddenly didn't really know my mom when my dad died. She had been working all the time and was often traveling and I suddenly was with her and, you know, began to figure out who she was and realized very early on that she didn't have a plan. Which she later, you know, I never asked her, but it was very clear to me and she talked about it later in her life with me a lot.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  And she, I realized there was nobody like with their hand on the rudder and I decided I needed to be that person with my hand on the rudder.

• 19:19Scott Galloway?

  So at a fairly young age, you decided you were sort of, for lack of a better term, the man of the house.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  I was her protector. Like, I needed to vet, you know, the people around her. I tried to give her advice on dating, you know, from everything, from guys to financial stuff, even though I know nothing about financial stuff. But I would read stuff like, not spending money is making money. And so I would try to, like, I had conversations with her about that, and of course, which we both knew at the time, I was 13 or so, she wasn't gonna stop spending money, because that's, it was just part of her makeup.

• 19:54Scott Galloway?

  Something to do with her last name. And you have more tragedy in your life. You lost your father, and then you lost your brother.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I didn't, I mean, I know where they were, so I don't actually lose them.

• 20:03Scott Galloway?

  Sorry. I like that you inject humor into that.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yes, I do.

• 20:07Scott Galloway?

  Blah, blah.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, no, my brother died by suicide when he was 23. He jumped off the balcony, or leapt off the balcony of our apartment building in front of my mom. And so I was 21. And, you know, and that too, obviously, was shattering for, you know, for her, particularly witnessing for me. And again, sort of, it certainly brought my mom and I a lot closer together. I'd always been very understanding of my mom and protective of her, and it certainly became more so after that. But, you know, I set about a course very early on of saving money and working from the time I was, I don't know, 12 or 13, because I figured

• 20:50Speaker 02

  one day I'm gonna need to, you know, support people in my family and build a stable life, and I need to start as soon as possible.

• 20:58Scott Galloway?

  Did you ever, was there ever a moment where you think, okay, my dad died at 10, which is a tragedy, but, you know, dads and moms die.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:07Scott Galloway?

  Your brother dies, which is not only a tragedy, but is just, I mean, that's just sort of, there's no way to get around it. It's a profound tragedy that's unexpected. Did you at any point think, okay, from the outside, people see our last names and imagine a world, but we're somewhat cursed? Did you have a fear of insecurity and fear? Or was it motivating?

• 21:30Speaker 02

  There was a ton of fear about, certainly after my dad died, a fear about, you know, my mom drank, which she was open about as well. And, you know, if you grow up with somebody who's drinking, you know, it's up and down. You don't know what, when you open the door, coming home from school, what the situation's going to be. And, and so, yeah, there was a lot that was unstable. And let me just preface this by saying, I had tremendous privileges. I was growing up in a very nice house. My mom was, you know, making lots of money. And I don't want, you know, I'm not like selling a sob story. All of this for me was incredibly motivating. It was incredibly motivating. I think some people are sucked

• 22:10Speaker 02

  under by tragedy. Some people are unable to use it as propellant. But I absolutely used it as a fuel initially, I mean unconsciously, but it definitely fueled me forward, just as it did my mom. My mom, I think the best thing I ever, you know, got from my mom was this, sort of this ability to push through and really through work and rely on work to get through anything. And I think both my mom and I had that.

• 22:42Scott Galloway?

  They've done a lot of studies on success. And one of the keys to success is resilience. And have you thought about what were the attributes that you and your mom had, or the influences or upbringings or values that turn tragedy into a catalyst as opposed to a lot of us just get stuck?

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I mean, I think rage has a lot to do with it. And like anger about what doesn't seem fair. You know, it's like the, there's a poem my mom, and I forgot who wrote it, but there's a line in it about the hard-hearted heart of a child. And I, I remember that feeling of, you know, being a little kid with a very hard little heart and full of rage at, you know, losing my dad and having, you know, a situation that I would have preferred to be a little bit more stable. And, you know, I think my brother and I both grew up in the same home, the same circumstances. He ended up

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Taking his life, dying by suicide in a very shocking way in front of my mom. And, you know, it's always interested me how two people growing up in the same home, the same forces at play, one doesn't make it through and one propels themselves through. And I think he and I had different strategies. My strategy was I set about a course of study on, it's gonna sound ridiculously overly dramatic, but on, you know, survival. I started taking survival classes, courses in the wilderness when I was a teenager. I left high school early. I rode in a truck across Sub-Saharan Africa for six months.

• 24:19Scott Galloway?

  Were you planning on being a marine at some point?

• 24:21Speaker 02

  I was interested in the military. I was interested in, I interned at the CIA. I was interested in a lot of jobs where you couldn't be gay. So none of them would have been careers. I mean, CIA at the time, you couldn't be gay. And, you know, in joining the military, you couldn't be gay. So I realized after a while, it's not fruitful or wise to go into a career where you have to lie about who you are.

• 24:47Scott Galloway?

  And being gay, did that, was that a moment or, I don't know, I just don't know how to articulately put this. Has that been a source of fire? Has it been one of those things in terms of obstruction or challenges that has been a fire or a catalyst? And I would imagine you've seen huge changes in the opportunities in your industry over the last 20 years. But your own sexuality, what role has that played or has it in your, in your career, your motivation, your resilience?

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it was early on when I was a little kid, you know, I probably knew I was gay when I was six or seven. And, you know, when I was a teenager, I wasn't really happy about it because it was inconvenient and difficult. And I certainly, I was growing up in the early eighties in New York City. And my mom had tons of gay friends and there were, you know, people dying of AIDS. And the future looked pretty bleak. And I really wanted, dreamed of having children one day and I, it didn't seem possible or having a family, getting married and all that sort of thing.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  But at the same time, I wasted a lot of years, like my teenage years, like wishing I wasn't gay. And yet, I read a lot about, I started reading as a teenager, a lot of, you know, gay history, and I got annoyed. I got annoyed that I was wasting time worrying about this and being upset at myself about it. And at a certain point, really, probably, it was really probably the year I graduated college. I'd had a boyfriend all through college, and I was just like, this is a waste of time. I'm not doing this anymore. And I really embraced it. And that was the best, one of the best decisions I ever made.

• 26:38Scott Galloway?

  So, the book Vanderbilt, the Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, you wrote with a historian.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, Catherine Howe.

• 26:45Scott Galloway?

  Catherine Howe. And I found that the most interesting part of the book, quite frankly. I just gave me a sense of what the world was like. And your great, great, great grandfather was kind of the Jeff Bezos of his age, Cornelius Vanderbilt's success story, you know, very modest, and became the wealthiest person in the world. What did you, were you going to comment on that?

• 27:09Speaker 02

  No, yeah.

• 27:10Scott Galloway?

  Weakest person in the world?

• 27:12Speaker 02

  I went into this thinking he was a sociopath. And, because I'm really interested in sociopaths. I think there are a lot more sociopaths, I mean, studies have shown there's a lot more sociopaths than we really, you know.

• 27:22Scott Galloway?

  It's a key component of being a CEO, just FYI.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  I think that's true. I mean, I think there's, you know, we only imagine serial killers, but there's a whole world of, like, well-known people.

• 27:31Scott Galloway?

  They just modulate it better.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. So, that was sort of my initial thought of going into it. I've stepped back from that, because I, you know, one can't, you can't psychoanalyze somebody who's no longer around. But he himself described a mania for money from a very young age. Dropped out of school at 11, started working on his dad's boat, got his own boat at 16, tiny little, small boat to ferry supplies from Staten Island to New York, and built a steamship empire, and then moved into railroads late in life, building a railroad empire, founding Grand Central Station, yada, yada, yada. And yeah, died with $100 million, which was more money than was in the US Treasury at the time. And then his son, who he had made

• 28:13Speaker 02

  fun of his entire life, and his son finally tricked him in a business deal, and outsmarted him, and that was the turning point where... Cornelius Vanderbilt looked at his son and said, oh, you know what? Maybe he has something. He's the guy who's going to inherit all the money. And his son doubled the fortune or more than doubled it.

• 28:29Scott Galloway?

  Which is unusual. It's usually the son that loses it and the grandkids who make it back.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, in this case, it was the grandkids who then just started spending it because they wanted to push into New York society. And they were far away from the making of the money and they just became entitled. And so, yeah, I was, I was interested in like how this figure comes out of nowhere to create this empire.

• 28:55Scott Galloway?

  And what did you, working with Catherine, what did you find most interesting about that period? That was different about creating a dynasty versus what it would be like today? The, the folks creating, amassing huge wealth.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  You know, to me, I, I was fascinated by New York, even in the six, you know, the first Vanderbilt came in like the mid 1600s. He was an indentured servant. He was a poor farmer from Holland. And the Commodore's born, or Cornelius Vanderbilt becomes known as the Commodore's born at the end of 1700s. Dies in 1877. That whole period is just fascinating. I mean, New York in the 1600s. The, you know, some of the first people who were brought to, to New York in the 1600s by the Dutch West India Company were 11 enslaved Africans who helped them build the settlement. And there's a, I'm just, the history of enslavement to people in old New York, in Dutch New York is really fascinating, awful.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  And, and the history of that time were of the lack of, you know, regulations, the lack of taxes, the lack of, you know, in the Commodore's life, there were not the same kind of regulations. And he was able to be cunning and ruthless and, and really, he didn't want to just, you know, win over people who were challenging him in business or, or he felt had cheated them. He wanted to destroy them and he would set about doing that. And there's a quote from him saying, you know, I'm not going to sue you because the legal system takes too long. I'm just going to destroy you. And, you know, that's what he had the capabilities of doing with the kind of money he had. He was not a nice guy. He was awful to his family.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  And that pathology, that mania for money, I, I think, and Catherine and I are right, that it infected all the previous, all the next generations of, of Vanderbilts, that, that. That pathology played out in their lives in a whole bunch of different fascinating ways.

• 30:49Scott Galloway?

  It sounds like this, and I don't know how you'd respond to this, it sounds like there's an analogy to the Trumps, that the fathers, the fathers sort of weirdness, aggression, toxicity, quite frankly, that DNA kind of carried on. How did that manifest itself in future generations?

• 31:05Speaker 02

  Well, the Commodore's kids, he didn't care about women. He had mostly girls. He didn't care about them because they would not inherit the Vanderbilt name, because they would be married off. They wouldn't be allowed to be buried in the Vanderbilt mausoleum, because only people, only men could be buried in the mausoleum, and only a man that had the last name Vanderbilt. So, he didn't really care about the women. And his sons, he was brutal to, until the one kind of showed a spark of, this was savvy, in probably in his 40s. And then that's when he started to elevate him. His other son died by suicide, shot himself in the head. He was secretly gay. He had epilepsy. The Commodore thought that was a sign of weakness. Had him committed twice to, what was that

• 31:50Speaker 02

  called, lunatic asylums. You know, he was really tough. And, and his son, Billy, who inherited all the money, you know, ends up in a huge legal battle with his brothers and sisters, because they believed that he tricked the Commodore into giving him all the money, when in fact, I mean, the Commodore wanted to keep all the money together, because he knew that if he broke it up, what would ultimately happen would happen, which was it gets diffused and then ultimately disappears. And then the subsequent generation grew up in this incredible world of entitlement, where, you know, the riches of the Vanderbilt, I mean, Bezos is probably a good parallel, just in terms of the size of the fortune,

• 32:34Speaker 02

  and how insane it was at the time. You know, Bezos's fortune is unimaginable. The Commodores as well, you know, one and every $20 in circulation in the United States, if you had taken it out of circulation, that it belonged to Commodore Vanderbilt. Coming up after the break. What interested me was being a place where the language of loss was spoken and where life and death was very much was there. And it wasn't fake conversations. It wasn't, you know, talking niceties. Every conversation was was raw and real. And it was one of the first times I felt anything in probably since the time my dad died. Stay with us.

• 33:21Scott Galloway?

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• 34:58Scott Galloway?

  It seems like every wealthy family really is sort of a mix between succession and knives out. You know, I don't know each other well, but we know each other. And it struck me that we both have sort of a similar story where we sort of took or felt responsibility for the financial well-being of our mothers. And I came at it from a different lens, but the emotions were exactly the same. And I always say with rich people, generally, you find that rich people are living hand to mouth. They're just living hand to mouth on a higher level. And there's the same level of that dysfunction and stress. And, you know, the functional families are the ones you don't know. When you do this research and you really look through your past, and you were talking about, you know, the difference between your brother and you and different paths.

• 35:43Scott Galloway?

  The thing I found, and you'll see this, I think, with kids, is it's an argument for nature versus nurture. Because the only thing that you know when you have two kids is they're going to be totally different. When you look at the genetics or the things that have been passed on through your family and you spend time documenting it, was there any decisions or realizations about the DNA you've inherited and any actions you want to take or any... Has it changed the way you approach life and things you want to modify or modulate for or things you've discovered in yourself and you think, I want to expand on that or I want to modulate it?

• 36:19Speaker 02

  It certainly confirmed the decision that I consciously made as a little kid. I mean, I probably didn't make it consciously in the sense of like I knew the problem with the Vanderbilts. I just sensed that whatever my mom had come from was not healthy and good. And I had two models to kind of look to, my mom and my dad. And I looked to my dad. And I made that decision early on. Doing all this research certainly confirmed for me a lot of the choices I made. Because it looked to me that the choices that, you know, subsequent, each generation of Vanderbilts and each individual in that family made...

• 37:00Speaker 02

  It was impacted by the money. And for me, I, from a young age convinced, I told myself, whatever money your mom has is not going to last. It's not going to be there and you should just discount it. Do not get used to your mom has, I looked at it as my mom has a very nice house that I'm living in. This is nothing, this is not mine and it's not never going to be mine. And I need to build my own house one day and I need to figure out how to do that. And so that was my mentality. And I think that was a healthy mentality. I don't think it was a happy mentality, but I think it was a long term, it played out well for me in the sense of believing I needed to work hard. And, you know, I mean,

• 37:43Speaker 02

  I started child modeling when I was like 12 or 13, which is a ridiculous thing. But, you know, there's not a lot of things when you're that age you can do. And I would go every day on these go sees after school and, you know, there are other kids there with their parents and I was just by myself. And, you know, I was a weird little kid. The other, you know, other thing that it's been confirmed, you know, confirmed, my dad, my grandfather on my mom's side died of alcoholism at 45. I mean, he was guzzling absinthe and on his deathbed, you know, his esophagus exploded and projectile vomited blood onto all the walls. I mean, it was not a happy ending. It certainly has confirmed my early

• 38:23Speaker 02

  on decision not to drink. And I'll have occasionally a glass of wine, but I don't, I don't think I come from a line of people who should drink.

• 38:34Scott Galloway?

  It's, I've always admired people who come from some degree of wealth who use that as a motivation because to be blunt, I didn't come from wealth and that was what was motivating for me. I think if I'd been raised in similar circumstances to you, the only two things I know I would have had in my life as a young man is a Range Rover and a cocaine habit. It just, I think people who come from some level of wealth and manage to be motivated. I mean, you basically, and I am blowing smoke here, you decided to like pick up a handheld camera and head to war zones as a means of establishing credibility. That was sort of your first job, wasn't it?

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wasn't actually, yeah, that's how I started reporting. It wasn't as a means of establishing credibility, though. It was, I wanted to, I mean, I talked about, again, I don't want to sound like, again, I had an incredibly privileged upbringing. I don't want to sound like I, you know, crying here about, oh, woe is me. But in my child view, survival was a real issue. I mean, I, my dad didn't survive, my brother didn't, and that was a real fear of mine. And I, you know, started doing survival courses. And out of college, I just decided it would be best for me to go to war, some, to go to

• 39:48Speaker 02

  war zones, or, and understand how people survive. And like, see if I, how, what would happen if New York, I always wondered, I need to prepare myself for if New York is attacked, and there's a war here, how will I make a living? What will I do? These are the kind of things I thought about when I was a kid.

• 40:06Scott Galloway?

  Child model.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. Right. I knew child modeling would not work in a war zone. So I started going to-

• 40:12Scott Galloway?

  Your second career. That's your fallback, child model.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. So, yeah, so I, I wanted to go places where this was happening and understand how people survive and learn other people's stories about how they survive. And becoming a reporter was one, was the only way to kind of do that, other than joining the military, which I couldn't because I was gay. So, that's what I did. My friend made a fake press pass for me. I borrowed a camera and I started snuck into Burma. I hooked up with some students fighting the government. I ended up in Somalia in the famine, Sarajevo, during the siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia in the early 90s, Rwanda in the genocide, Haiti a lot. You know, I wanted to go places where I could understand about life and death and the line between the two, and why some people survive and other people don't.

• 40:59Scott Galloway?

  And what were sort of the key moments or figures in your career? So you're going to war zones, you're a reporter. When you think back and say, these are kind of the two or three moments that got me, or you know, kind of really were step changes in my career. What were those things?

• 41:14Speaker 02

  So I did, I snuck into Burma, hooked up some students fighting the government, then lived in Vietnam for a while, going to school and shot some stories. And then I ended up in Somalia in 1992 in August. And this before like Black Hawk Down, before the US military, you know, landed in Mogadishu. And I shot a story in a small town called Baidoa. And that story ended up airing on I think called Channel One, which was I think created by Chris Woodall.

• 41:40Scott Galloway?

  Chris Woodall.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  And was in about half the high schools and middle schools in the United States at the time. And that for me, just I didn't know at the time that that was a big turning point in terms of my career. I knew that it was a big turning point in my life to witness horror on that scale. And starvation, it was the first time I'd seen a child die in front of me. It was the first time I'd seen, you know, that level of death. And the horror of that was a huge impact on me in terms of wanting to be like when that happened. And I remember the moment I was in a small hut of made out of twigs and a kid had died while I was there.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  And it was his mother and father washing his body before it would be buried in a mass graves. And this was their last child, he was five years old and they didn't have any more kids. And I was, I was like, this is what I want to do. This is where I want to be forever. Like I want to be where real things are happening. You know, it wasn't some frivolous story. It was, this was life and death. And I wanted to document that and tell, be there and just bear witness to it, even if it didn't change anything.

• 42:58Scott Galloway?

  It's strange because the thing that's the contradictory forces here are you've described yourself as someone who thinks a lot about catastrophe, in some ways when it comes to money, risk averse. But then I hear a young man who has a lot of options deciding to go to Somalia in the early 90s. And the term I would use for that is fucking crazy. It's almost like, are you an adrenaline junkie?

• 43:20Speaker 02

  No, not at all.

• 43:21Scott Galloway?

  There's definitely, no.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, not at all. I mean, first of all, you said I had a lot of options. In my mind, correctly or not, that is not how I viewed it. I did not view, I viewed it as I have no options. And this was actually the only option I can think of, to actually forge a life that would be interesting and valuable to me. I didn't think I could make a, I didn't know I could make a career out of it. I didn't know I could get paid to do it. In my mind, there was no plan B. It had to be this. I don't know if that's a good or bad way to look at things, but that's how I, how I looked at it. But I, adrenaline, there, yeah, there certainly is adrenaline. But it's, for me, it's not so much adrenaline. I mean, I've had moments of intense adrenaline of like, covering the,

• 44:05Speaker 02

  you know, elections of Mandela in South Africa. And in the run up to it, there was a lot of violence between the I, the Inkata Freedom Party and the ANC. And I was in a shootout in downtown, in a demonstration where there were snipers shooting into the crowd. And that was, in terms of adrenaline, one of the most adrenaline-filled experiences of my life. But that's not what interested me was, what interested me was being a place where the language of loss was spoken, and where life and death was very much, was there. And it wasn't fake conversations. It wasn't, you know, talking niceties. Every conversation was, was raw and real. And I, it was one of the first times I felt anything in, probably

• 44:49Speaker 02

  since the time my dad died. And I wanted to feel stuff.

• 44:54Scott Galloway?

  And you were talking, one of the lovely things you said about your dad, and I'll summarize is that you don't remember a lot about your father, but you can feel him. You can feel his heartbeat, you can feel his touch. How has that impacted your behavior or some of the goals you have in terms of your own fatherhood and the relationship you want to have with your own son?

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's completely my guidepost to everything with my son. I mean, I am so in love with being a dad and so in love with this little human being. And as you said, I completely agree with you on the whole nature versus nurture thing. I mean, he's all there. Like, there's

• 45:31Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, they come to you.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  His character is already, he's 17 months old and just, you know, he has a sly smile and a sly sense of humor. And I know this. And it's extraordinary to me. And I'm so excited to see more of who this little person already is. And I just don't want to, like, I just want to help him along and not mess him up. And I wanted to give him, you know, I, what my dad gave me was a sense of stability in a time I wouldn't ordinarily, I wouldn't otherwise have had that. And, you know, I want to create a stable platform for, for my son and present him with options and show him a lot of different things and see what sticks and see what he's interested in. And, and the other thing my dad did, and

• 46:18Speaker 02

  my mom did too, was they included my brother and I in on everything. We were, we weren't shunted to a children's table at parties, you know. I remember going to a Thanksgiving meal at a relative's house and they had a kids' table. And I remember looking at my mom and dad being like, are you kidding? Like, I'm expected to, like, we're expected to sit at the kids' table? There's no way.

• 46:40Scott Galloway?

  And what, when you think about, I mean, you spend the day kind of highlighting everything, I don't say highlighting everything that's wrong with the world, but like, if it bleeds, it leads. And I would imagine, I find being in the media sometimes, I just get, I have to shock myself into not being cynical and not just kind of shaking my head all the time. Because, you know, things are reasonably good and getting incrementally better doesn't make much of a good headline. When you come back from, you know, a day of talking to people about vaccine hesitancy or climate change or autocracies and you see this little boy, are you hopeful? Do you feel really protective? Do you feel like I've got to kill it and leave money and protection for this kid?

• 47:23Scott Galloway?

  Or this kid's opportunities, you know, the world's going to get better? What's your outlook?

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Well, I do believe the world is only getting better. I mean, I don't believe that every single day and there are days I, you know, incredibly depressed and obviously in the last, you know, the last administration and, you know, the times we live in and this administration, you know, the extent to which people are following laws and conspiracy theories is terrifying and very sad. But I also look, you know, I love history and I look at the history of America and there have been conspiracy theories for a long time and the whole QAnon conspiracy theory is really just a regurgitation and reinvention of age-old antisemitic tropes that have been around for hundreds of years.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  And so it's just got a new spin on it. As for like the idea of leaving money, I was very glad my parents told me early on, you know what, there's not a pot of gold waiting for you and we, even if we don't believe in inherited wealth and college will be paid for and then you're going to be on your own. And that's the way we view it should be and I am so happy about that. I'm so glad, you know, William K. Vanderbilt, my great uncle, who had inherited, you know, I don't know, tens of millions of dollars and did nothing with his life and forced his daughter to be married off to some British duke for, but the only reason was to, a penniless British duke, to get a British title for some ridiculous society reasons.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  You know, at the end of his life, he told the New York Times, you know, that inherited wealth is like cocaine. It's as bad as cocaine in terms of sucking your initiative. And I really believe that. I mean, you look, you talk about the Trumps. I mean, you know, Donnie Junior and Eric Trump, I don't know that they have much money, but, because I don't think their father is of that mind frame, despite him inheriting lots of money from his dad. But I don't, you know, what have they really done other than, you know, I mean, they're in their dad's shadow, they followed him into whatever branding business he's been in. And, you know, the same really with Ivanka Trump.

• 49:30Scott Galloway?

  What, in terms of your own professional career, I find that when you kind of, you're younger than me, but we're sort of the same generation, that I always found kind of when you hit your late 40s, you do start to think about quote unquote, "the end," and that the time is finite, whereas when you're young, it thinks time is just this amorphous thing that will go on forever. Professionally, what boxes are left for you to check when you, and I'm gonna ask you not to say, "Well, I want to be doing the exact same thing," if you can, if you can resist saying that. In 10 years, or looking out, what boxes professionally do you want to check that are still not checked?

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Um, well, just very briefly, I always thought I'd be dead at 50, because my dad died at 50. So when I hit in my 40s, I thought, not only did I think about the end, I was like, "The end is nigh," you know, and-

• 50:17Scott Galloway?

  Here it is. I'm done.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:19Scott Galloway?

  Maybe I should try cocaine. I got six months left.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  I told you, I told you there was no plan B. My plan was, I'm gonna go as hard as I can and drop dead at 50, because that's what happened to my dad, and I just want to live an interesting life till then. And then I hit 51, and I was like, "Oh, my God, now I-"

• 50:37Scott Galloway?

  What now?

• 50:37Speaker 02

  What now? And I'm still a little bit in the "what now," except, in terms of career, the idea of just raising my son is a really delicious and glorious idea to me. And so, I don't, I don't have the same ambition or the same need that I had before I had a son. I hope I, I will hope I'm alive 10 years from now, and I hope I am deeply involved in the life of my son, even though he'll be 10 then and probably starting already to not really want to be around me. I don't have an answer of what I see, I don't know what 10 years even looks like. I don't know what, is it all, you tell me, is it all streaming services? Is it all, uh, who knows?

• 51:20Scott Galloway?

  Do you look at something, "Oh, I'd like to do that. I'd like to have, you know, I'd like to do, be in a fictional scripted series on Netflix. I'd like to produce a movie." I mean, what would you think that would be a kick in the ass?

• 51:33Speaker 02

  If I could have been the person who made Succession, that series, that I would love. If I could have made Gamora, which is my new favorite series, that would be great. If I could, you know, continue for 60 minutes, and that would be, you know, telling stories and traveling around and doing things and covering breaking news for CNN, all that is- That's like, that's like life. I don't, it does not feel like work in that sense. So I don't know. I don't have an answer for you. I'm sorry.

• 52:05Scott Galloway?

  So as we wrap up here, what advice would you give to young people just starting out in their career? What advice would you give to your younger self or to our younger listeners professionally and personally?

• 52:17Speaker 02

  Well, I'm not going to say follow your bliss because I know you have written about what bullshit that is. And that's only what rich people say, which, which I actually agree with you on as somebody who my mom told me to follow my bliss. So you.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  I believe in work. I believe in really working hard. And if you can be the first one in and if you can be the last one to leave, if you don't have children at home, you should be that person. You should not be the person that is the last one to come back into the office after the office has reopened. You should be early on. I have a friend who's the CEO of a company and he said to me that he was in the office the other day and he was riding the elevator with somebody who he'd never seen before, but who worked in the company. And he turned to the person and said, oh, you know, what do you do here? And the person explained what they did and he got out of the, the CEO got out of the elevator and he called up

• 53:20Speaker 02

  the, the HR department and said, I just met like this rock star in the elevator who's great. Who's really good and motivated and, you know, I'm really pleased that this person is here at the company. And the fact that was that person and the CEO probably would not have had an interaction had it not been for the fact that this young person decided to come in and be there and do the job. And I think careers are often made in very serendipitous moments because you're there on the scene. I was only, you know, I was in Somalia when something was happening and that's how I was able to get a story. And so I think you want to put yourself in a position where serendipitous moments can happen and where you can be noticed for the hard work that you are doing.

• 54:06Scott Galloway?

  So quick lightning round. So favorite band, favorite music?

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Uh, Elvis Costello.

• 54:13Scott Galloway?

  Oh my God.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  That's like my first. Well, like Armed Forces, yeah. But I'm mostly a huge Madonna fan, so.

• 54:20Scott Galloway?

  There you go. Um, uh, so you said Gomorrah, favorite piece of media, best moment, most inspiring moment?

• 54:27Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, my son and waking up every morning is the best.

• 54:30Scott Galloway?

  Best interview, best interview you think you've done when you thought, when you like finished the interview, you thought that was, that was something I want, I want on my professional tombstone?

• 54:39Speaker 02

  Uh, I did an interview with Stephen Colbert about, uh, we talked a lot about grief and to me that was, that was a really good, interesting interview.

• 54:48Scott Galloway?

  Who you would most want to be friends with that you interviewed that you're not friends with?

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Wow. Um, I've never interviewed Molly Shannon, but I really want to be friends with Molly Shannon. I love Molly Shannon.

• 55:00Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, she's hilarious. Two or three people you've interviewed, you think are going to change the world, like you think that for looking forward are gonna have a huge impact.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Alexander McLean, uh, who has an organization called Justice Defenders and I did a 16 minutes profile of him and I just think he's one of those people you meet and I mean, I don't want to say holy, but he, I mean, he has a very strong religious faith. He, he, Justice Defenders, he came up with this idea, uh, to, uh, create a paralegal programs where prisoners teach other prisoners to become paralegals inside the prisons, some who are really motivated. He helps them get a correspondent law degrees to the University of London and he has graduated dozens of inmates who are currently imprisoned in prisons throughout Africa. And they are helping tens of thousands of other inmates get access to a fair hearing.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  They may be guilty, they may be innocent. This isn't just like helping innocent people, but everybody he believes deserves a fair hearing. And I think it's a model that's extraordinary and I think he's extraordinary.

• 56:01Scott Galloway?

  Uh, I think something you really don't like about yourself, you're trying to change.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  I say um all the time. Like that annoys me. I say I mean.

• 56:08Scott Galloway?

  That's your biggest weakness is um?

• 56:11Speaker 02

  I'm highly critical of every aspect of my life.

• 56:12Scott Galloway?

  I'm working on my selfishness and narcissism. You're working on um? All right.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  I embrace myself in narcissism.

• 56:21Scott Galloway?

  You're leaning into it. You're leaning. I like me. I like me, full stop. All right, boss. Well, I don't know how you're going to take this. But what little I know of you, I've been thinking a lot about masculinity. And I'm trying to define it because I think that society has incorrectly conflated masculinity and toxicity. And loosely speaking, I think that masculinity is someone who demonstrates skill and strength to garner the resources and influence to protect and fight for others. You're one of the most masculine people I know. I'm being very serious.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  That's interesting. I mean, you know, I don't know what my T score is, but.

• 57:01Scott Galloway?

  There you go. Well, mine's going up, but we can talk about that on another show. Tea therapy, my boss, I would, I would recommend it. Anderson Cooper is an award-winning journalist and the anchor of CNN's news broadcast show, Anderson Cooper 360. Anderson also serves as a correspondent for 60 Minutes on CBS News. And his latest book, Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, is out now. Also, very strong like bull. Strong like bull. Anderson Cooper. Anderson Cooper, thanks so much for joining us, boss. I really appreciate you doing this.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  I'm so glad it was just you and not that Kara Swisher.

• 57:35Scott Galloway?

  Hello? That's right. My revenge guest, Anderson Cooper. Stay safe, my brother. Thanks for doing this.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 57:51Scott Galloway?

  Algebra of happiness. One of the secrets to my modest success, simply put, is rejection. And rejection is a forward-looking indicator of your success. Simply put, if you're not getting rejected a lot, you're not going to be that successful. Why is that? There's a myth that everything falls into place all the time for people who are successful. No, as a matter of fact, I think successful people endure more rejection than most people. I was given the opportunity to read for an original scripted series on Netflix as, wait for it, the asshole partner of a firm, of a services firm that everyone's scared of, and they thought this guy will be great. And I read, I bombed, and they said, no. And. What does that mean?

• 58:35Scott Galloway?

  That means at some point, I am going to be on an original scripted program. Why? Because I am starting to get rejected from a lot of stuff in media. I also tried to get one of my books turned into a movie and it got optioned. And then fucking nothing happens as it, as it never does for LA and me. But anyways, my point is at some point, it probably will be made into a movie or scripted series because I'm getting rejected a lot. I ran for sophomore class president, junior class president, senior class president in high school, then student body president, then 10th grade senator. I ran for basically every office and the only thing that happened every time was that I lost. I tried out for baseball, I tried out for football, I tried out for basketball, I was cut from all of them. And guess what? Guess what?

• 59:20Scott Galloway?

  That is the key to my success. I've always been able to get rejected, to mourn, and then to move on. And the fact that I got some rejection from this Netflix drama, okay, I learned from it, I should have practiced more, I'll do better the next time. But if you are not being rejected a lot, it means you're not going to be successful. There's something here around meeting people, too. The reason I am partnering and raising children with someone who is quite frankly, more impressive than me, is that I was always willing to go up to strangers and begin speaking to them. And sometimes it's humiliating when they don't receive you warmly. But here's the difference between being someone who complains about the woman making 500

• 1:00:02Scott Galloway?

  grand a year selling Oracle database software, is she either played with the wrong toys or the right toys to endure rejection. The key to your success is rejection.

• 1:00:15Scott Galloway?

  Our producers are Caroline Chagrin and Drew Burrows. Claire Miller is our assistant producer. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you next week on Monday and Thursday.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  My mom told me the story of, uh, my mom had dated Frank Sinatra for a bit and they remained friends for the rest of their lives.

• 1:00:40Scott Galloway?

  I love that. You just roll that out there. My mom had dated Frank Sinatra for a bit.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Wow, my mom got around.

• 1:00:47Scott Galloway?

  You and I had the same upbringing.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Again, it's a very relatable upbringing.

• 1:00:52Scott Galloway?

  I love that.

• 1:00:56Speaker 04

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