The Fed's Next Move, and How Couples Should Actually Handle Money

Scott Galloway breaks down why the Fed may raise rates instead of cutting them, unpacks the shifting dynamics of money and separate accounts in modern relationships, and explains how to protect your work when your success starts attracting competition. Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to [email protected], or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit. Plus, you can now call or text Scott a question at our new Office Hours hotline: ‪(201) 472-3656‬. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 00

  Hogging seats on a crowded train, not saying, excuse me, watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  What we have been seeing increasingly is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me?

• 0:51Speaker 00

  This week on Explain It To Me, how to mind your manners. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:06Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to Office Hours of Prop G. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. Anyway, if you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected] or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just might feature it in our next episode. Plus, you can now call or text a question at 201-472-3656. That's 201-472-3656. Let's bust right into it. Question number one, our first question comes from bargers on Reddit. Hi Scott, with Worsch coming on next week, having his first press conference on Wednesday, he's been quoted saying he's not a fan of the longer term projections coming from the Fed. Do you think markets will become more volatile if you announce some major changes? Hmm.

• 1:51Scott Galloway?

  So in his first few weeks, Worsch has declined to submit a dot plot projection and announced a broad review of Fed communications. He did not lower interest rates despite that being the suspected reason Trump nominated him. I don't see how he could have, if he'd lowered interest rates, I think, I think markets would have crashed. They would have said, oh, fuck, here we are. We're, we're Hungary or Argentina. And the job apocalypse that was supposed to happen has not, in fact, manifested. Job growth is actually strong, but inflation numbers are even worse than the job market is strong, coming in, I think, 4.2%. So there's no fucking way this guy could reasonably cut interest rates. There's even now, I think, a greater than 50% likelihood he raises rates by the end

• 2:36Scott Galloway?

  of the year. His also, in terms of lowlights from Chairman Worsch, during his confirmation, he refused to acknowledge that Biden had won the election in 2020. So, I mean, you know, I understand, I think he's qualified. I also think he's, he's a little bitch and afraid to actually speak truth to power, which is what you want in a Fed chairman. But having said that, it is, it's a group of, I think, 12 governors. So we overestimate the power that the, the chair has. But yeah, there was no way he was going to lower interest rates. The core issue with the dot plot and forward guidance, investors tend to misinterpret these as promises rather than projections. And they can make the Fed slow to respond to market changes because they feel compelled

• 3:20Scott Galloway?

  to follow through on their projections. You know, the debate around forward guidance is really a debate around anchors. In an interview with Bloomberg, Torsten Slok, friend of the pod and chief economist Apollo Global Management, described the central bank trade off as forward guidance being that while it helps understand where markets are headed, it can be counterproductive when conditions change unexpectedly. And concerns about, I mean, everyone is always worried about communications coming out of the Fed because the media and the markets parse over every word. Jerome Powell or Chairman Powell publicly expressed reservations about the dot plot and its tendency to be misunderstood by investors, but noted the reform efforts stalled because the committee struggled to identify a better alternative.

• 4:02Scott Galloway?

  Minneapolis Fed President Neil Kashkari has highlighted that the dot plot forces policymakers to provide precise forecasts without being able to convey their level of uncertainty. The question moving forward is how does he plan to reform, if at all, the current framework and, and what replaces it? I find generally speaking, once a metric becomes universally accepted, it's no longer, no longer valid or no longer doing, doing his job. But so far, okay, he's batting a thousand. If he, if he'd lowered interest rates, I think the markets would be in a state of panic. And I think when, once anyone gets a job, whether it's someone elected mayor, you, you rally around them and hope for the best. He is qualified.

• 4:47Scott Galloway?

  He worked at Morgan Stanley. Smart guy. This is a very important position. I think it's a 12 year appointment, so we're going to get some time or we're going to have some time to get to know Chairman Worsch. Thanks for the question.

• 5:01Scott Galloway?

  Question number two comes from Reddit. BillCategory2486 says, hi Scott, what do you think of saying his money is our money? My money is my money?

• 5:10Scott Galloway?

  I think that's a little bit sexist. So what you're saying is, I think what you're referring to is that sometimes in a relationship, a wife will say, his money is our money and my money is my money? I shit, I don't know. Like attitudes around share finances are changing. More slowly than behavior, there's some cognitive dissonance. In 45% of heterosexual marriages in the US, wives bring in the same amount or more than their husbands. That's three times the share 50 years ago. That's a celebrate, that, that's a success. If women hadn't, if, if women hadn't entered the workforce and we didn't provide certain legal protections for them in the workforce, we'd be a second rate power to China or a second rate economic power to China.

• 5:55Scott Galloway?

  23% of married couples don't have a joint bank account, one in four. Two thirds of couples in committed relationships keep some money separate from their partner. And younger couples are leading this trend. Gen Z, about 88% keep separate accounts. Millennials, 70% of Gen X, 59. So basically, younger people, the trend is younger people are having more separate accounts. So the data would show that when men were making all the money, it was, it was, it was our money. That's interesting. And now that women are making as much money or more than men, then there's a separation, which I find. Look, I think there's a difference, generally speaking, in the behaviors and approaches to a lot of things between people more as men and women.

• 6:38Scott Galloway?

  Does that mean that men can't exhibit very feminine behavior and men and women can't exhibit masculine behavior? No, but in an effort not to piss off the woke middle or act as if a non-binary community isn't entitled to the same rights, which they are, we never want to talk about the 90% that identify as male or female. And also, we don't want to have a productive conversation around the fact that there are very real differences that are rooted in biology. Just get, just invite 10 eight-year-olds over, five girls, five boys, put cars and dolls in a room and see, and see what happens. I find that women in general are more conservative with money because for a long time, women

• 7:20Scott Galloway?

  have been economically disadvantaged and quite frankly, more vulnerable than men. Women have kids. Women are more likely to feel fidelity and loyalty to that child, even when dad takes off, and as a result are more vulnerable. The most vulnerable point in my life, the most anxiety riddled part of my life was when my dad pieced out to Ohio with his new wife and continued his ascent up the ladder to upper middle class. And me and my mom immediately dove to the kind of what I call the upper, lower middle class. And my mom felt very vulnerable and the job opportunities available to my dad, who left school at the eighth grade, were a universe different than the job, the jobs available to my mother, who also dropped out of school in the eighth grade.

• 8:04Scott Galloway?

  She could either be a secretary or a travel agent. That was pretty much it. She couldn't even be a teacher because she didn't have the credentialing. Whereas my dad, who was handsome and Scottish, could be a salesperson and make a very good living. By the way, I think things have changed for, for the better, quite frankly. So I understand that a lot of women feel more economically vulnerable and are more prone. Is it true, are women better savers? I don't know, there's probably some good research on this. A little over 70% of adults say it's very important for a man to be able to support a family financially, to be a good husband and partner. So the conversation between man and wife, back to the question around money, is always a delicate one. I think it's a conversation people should have before they get married.

• 8:49Scott Galloway?

  The number one source of marital strain is not infidelity, lack of shared values, it's money. And I think it's important to have an honest conversation around, one, what kind of lifestyle are we expecting? Who is responsible for the economic part of that lifestyle? What is each of our approach to spending? I know guys that control their wives with money. They get an alert every time they spend money on a credit card. And it's a constant negotiation involving money. And that's, I think that's a really unheld. At the same time, just to be an equal opportunity sexist here, I know some relationships where quite frankly, the woman sees it as a game to see how much money she can spend or get away with.

• 9:29Scott Galloway?

  So the healthiest relationships I find are when men and women have alignment around their approach to money. Who is responsible for bringing it in? What is their approach to spending? I believe in co-mingling money. I think if you're going to be married and you're going to share a life together and share kids, then it's kind of one account. I've never had separate accounts. I just think that's, I personally think that's strange. Having said that. It probably works for some people. I think this is a very, you know, individual thing. I don't think there's a right way. There's just your way. But one of the keys, I think, to a successful, long-term relationship is alignment around money, alignment. How much do you expect to make? What are the trade-offs? I need you to be home more. Your wife's working.

• 10:14Scott Galloway?

  I need you to be home more and help out with my kids. Maybe your husband stays at home. Well, okay, we can't afford this house in Connecticut, then. We can, I can't imagine what it would be like to have one person at home and living in any of these blue cities that are crazy expensive, unless you're smart enough to have rich parents. So it's a conversation. Where are we going to live? What are our expenses? What are the trade-offs? What are the commitments? And do we both have alignment around that? I think it's also what I do. I sit down with my partner and I go through our finances on a regular basis. I want her to know what I'm investing in, where we're making money. How much money do we have? Did we lose money last month in the market? I don't think, I think the worst thing you can have in a relationship

• 10:59Scott Galloway?

  is not difficult conversations, it's surprises, right? It's, oh, we can't afford to take a vacation because I lost money trading options, or our stocks are way down, or, you know, whatever it might be. Or we got a huge tax bill. Maybe it's not your fault or you haven't done anything wrong. But I think a certain level of transparency and regular conversations around this taboo, this taboo topic called money, I think it's really important early on. I was getting very serious with a woman, actually a woman who was in residency to be a surgeon, and she was talking about her student debt. And I thought this was a woman that I would eventually have a long-term relationship with. And I said to her, I said, this is how much money I have.

• 11:44Scott Galloway?

  These are my stocks. This is what I'm trying to do with my business. This is how much I'm worth. This is how much money I spend. Because I wanted her to know everything about me. And as we started thinking about a long-term relationship, I wanted to be totally transparent. And she was transparent with me. I want, she was like, I want to be a surgeon. This is how much money I'm going to spend. This is my student debt. So we could get some, something resembling alignment around our economic future together. Young people are really good at figuring out romantic energy. What they're not good at figuring out is how, if they have a shared vision around what the next 7,000 Tuesdays feel like. And part of that is the bills and the expenditures on that Tuesday and the other six days a week. So in some, I do think that women feel more economically vulnerable for good reason,

• 12:29Scott Galloway?

  based on history. I do think that it's up to you. It's clear young people want to have separate accounts. I think, quite frankly, you could argue that now that women are making more money, that they've decided they want separate accounts. Okay. That's up to the individual couple. But the key is this term alignment. Have open, honest, uncomfortable conversations. It's like raising kids. Have the uncomfortable conversations now. You're being an asshole. You need, no, you have to go to school. No, you can't speak to your mother that way. No, you can't behave like this. No, if it's 11:00 PM, you've got to call and tell us where you are. Have those uncomfortable conversations now, such that they're not assholes later in life,

• 13:11Scott Galloway?

  or less of an asshole. I think it's worthwhile to have those uncomfortable conversations when you start to get serious with someone about money and try and be as transparent as possible around what your and their expectations are. Again, the key word is alignment. Thanks for the question. We'll be right back after a quick break.

• 13:35Scott Galloway?

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• 14:20Scott Galloway?

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• 14:35Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Vanta. As AI adoption grows, so does your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but your team isn't getting any bigger. Most compliance tools promise automation, but you're really stuck doing all the work by hand, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently. The Regentech Trust platform is built to scale with you, not slow you down. With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round, cutting your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools, including Claude or Cursor.

• 15:19Scott Galloway?

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• 15:42Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Vanta. As AI adoption grows, so does your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but your team isn't getting any bigger. Most compliance tools promise automation, but you're really stuck doing all the work by hand, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently. The Regentech Trust platform is built to scale with you, not slow you down. With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round, cutting your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools, including Claude or Cursor.

• 16:25Scott Galloway?

  Want proof? Over 16,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp, Ryder, and Harvey save time and resources while scaling fast with Vanta. Learn more at vanta.com/profg and get $1,000 off. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A.com/profg for $1,000 off.

• 16:51Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three comes from a listener who texted us. Scott, my question is, in a large organization, how do you handle situations where you take the risk early, but once that risk pays off, everyone wants a piece of it? Should you fight to protect your territory, share the credit, and trust it'll come back to you, or focus on the next opportunity instead? Yeah, welcome to the work world. Failure is an orphan and success has many fathers. So I would just, in as elegant, but, you know, least obnoxious way as possible, whether it's providing updates on what's going on with the division or what have you. I would even say to your boss, occasionally, or you say, it kind of pisses me off

• 17:34Scott Galloway?

  that everyone else is getting credit for this, or it's disappointing. Some of that also might be paranoia, that you don't think you're getting the credit you deserve. But there was a line in Law & Order SVU saying, it's not enough to do well in politics. You have to be seen doing well. If you're talking about credit in terms of praise of who did a good job or who gets credit for something, I find that good leaders share a disproportionate amount of the credit. One of the things I always really respected about Mayor Bloomberg was whenever there was an announcement or a ribbon cutting, he was there, but he would immediately say a few words and then step back and highlight the good work of other people.

• 18:17Scott Galloway?

  It's one of the things I find most off-putting about Elon Musk. Do you know anyone else at Elon Musk? I mean, no one is allowed to get near a mic unless it's Elon. It's all about Elon all the time. So I find sharing credit is actually a key component of a good leader. Now, in terms of, if you're talking about economics, there's agreements in place. If you're looking for justice, you're not going to find it in a cap table. Whenever I sold one of my companies and I go down and see how, you know, who is getting what, there's inequity everywhere. It's like, oh, so-and-so. I remember one person who worked part-time for us, who lived in Chicago, ended up getting, I think, a half a million or a million bucks in the buyout of L2.

• 19:01Scott Galloway?

  And quite frankly, she just didn't add a lot of value. And I remember thinking, well, oh, that's unfair. Okay, yeah, it's unfair. Good, good for her. And then there were other people who had been around for years in low-level jobs, and they, for whatever reason, didn't have a lot of equity. And quite frankly, they just didn't make that much money. Now, what you can do, if you're senior in a company and that happens, is you can try and top them up such that they get a bigger hit. And I actually, when I sold L2, there were three or six instances where I felt people needed greater participation. And I went back to my VC's, General Catalyst, and said, can we top these people up? And it's not free money. It means that everybody else, including General Catalyst,

• 19:42Scott Galloway?

  gets less money. And they did something I've never observed a venture capitalist do. They said yes. And they took the dilution to top up people they had never met before. So if it's sharing credit, I think the sign of a good leader is to overshare credit if and where possible. Like, I'm constantly trying to highlight the good work of the team because I get so much disproportionate credit for what we do here, just naturally. People, people don't want to take selfies with the producer of this podcast because they don't know who she is, despite the fact that she is largely responsible for the success of this program. But if it's money, there's legal agreements in place. And maybe you have a chance to adjust up or down, but it kind of is what it is. And it shouldn't be really much of a discussion.

• 20:26Scott Galloway?

  It's okay. According to the agreement you signed and I signed, this is how much you're getting in this situation. So this is on you to figure out an elegant way to people, to make sure that people understand that you're sort of the owner or the father or the mother of this project. But I can't give you specific, you know, specific tactics here. I would raise the issue and try and discern your own ego from the reality of the situation. But also, if you aren't recognized in terms of compensation or opportunities, you might want to think about looking for another job because that means the culture is not a fit for you or just not a great culture. Thanks for the question. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to [email protected]. That's [email protected].

• 21:11Scott Galloway?

  Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Janer. Kami Rique is our social producer. Brad Williams is our editor. Andrew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from Prop G Media.