How Scott Galloway Turned $8M into $120M Through Investing

0:00 I've invested in every piece of the stack. I've done mezzanine, I've done public company investing, growth stocks. Hands down. The best asset class is distrust. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to

0:16 I put my all in it like a day song on the road, let's travel, never listen. I heard you say something recently, and I think this happens to us and uh it happens to you, I I would have to imagine. You get pegged as like just like an influencer or a thought leader. In reality, you've built a lot of amazing companies and you you talked about something the other day. That you're with Michael Lewis. And at the end of the podcast You guys barely mentioned this, and it was like pretty astounding. You talked about or you told the story about how

0:44 When FTX went bankrupt. You made the some like pretty amazing trade. Can you tell Sean and I more about that story and what happened. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, so

0:56 I always like to counter it with how many times I fucked up. So I I bought Netflix at ten bucks a share. I'm sorry, at twelve and I sold it at ten and now it's at eleven hundred. So I get it wrong all the time. I I can't stand people who are constantly taking pictures of all their whims and posting'em on social. So I get it wrong all the time. This one I got right, and that is I'm that guy who reads bankruptcy filings, and I read the FTX bank's bankruptcy filing, and essentially they list all their assets.

1:24 And when you declare bankruptcy, your creditors come in and say, All right, we're gonna take all the assets, we're gonna sell all the furniture, sell all the company, sell all the IP, whatever whatever we can sell. And then we'll divide it up and give it pro rata to the creditors based on the claims they have. There was approximately eight billion dollars in claims against a bankrupt FTX. And I went through the list of assets, and one of the assets was they had said they'd made a five hundred million dollar investment in anthropic.

1:52 And I thought, wow, I looked when they made the investment, for the life of me, I couldn't find the valuation. I assumed the valuation was uh at about five billion. So I thought they probably own about ten percent of anthropic. It was trading, I estimated it was worth around forty billion. So I thought, Okay, they're staking anthropic. Is worth it. Fifty cents on the dollar.

2:13 In other words, creditors claim Uh uh eight billion in claims against the company. And I believe that's stakenanthropic. was worth probably four billion. So I thought okay, eventually the creditors are gonna get fifty cents on the dollar just on the anthropic shares.

2:28 At the time I started At that time you could buy claims against a bankrupt FTX for twenty two cents. So I bought Uh ten million dollars worth of claims for two point two million dollars.

2:39 And It's better to be lucky than good. Crypto took off everything they had invested in went crazy. And it looks like we're gonna get a hundred and sixty cents on the dollar. So that was kind of a an incredibly lucky

2:53 Uh, it was also a good trade. There was a little bit of skill in there. I did my homework. But that's worked out. That's worked out. That's not luck. Luck. There's a lot of things you can call luck. That one is not luck in the sense that You're like I was reading the bankruptcy claims. All right, that's action. Uh, not luck. And then you did the work to try to figure out like, Okay, ballpark, what is this worth? But you just said it in passing, like so I went and bought claims. Now

3:15 You know. I consider myself Not a complete novice at the world of Business and investing. Where do you even go to do that? I didn't I would I that wasn't even on the table. It's more exotic than

3:26 buying a stock or even buying crypto, like Going and buying baker bakers reclaims, how does one even do that? And then how'd you have the confidence to say, all right, ten million? Because you didn't need to go you didn't need to bet size that large. Right. So to be clear, I bought ten million in claims. I purchased them for two point two million. So it wasn't easy. I typed in FTX bankruptcy claims and I found this guy named Thomas Brazelle. who's living in Italy and he was making a market in them. And Thomas had assembled a team that went Because when you buy a claim, you've gotta make sure

3:55 That the person who cla who claims they own the claim actually owns it. Then you've got to do some diligence, then you've got actually actually legally transfer the claim. You're sending money to a third party. I mean there's there is risk here. So I contacted this guy who was doing making a market in it, and I said, I have some capital I want to put to work here. I'll give you ten percent of the upside if you go buy these claims. And so he would

4:17 every forty eight or seventy two hours say I found a basket I found a claim. of three hundred and eighty three thousand dollars and they want, you know, ninety thousand for it. And I'd say great. And I'd I'd press, you know, yes, and he'd buy it and then transfer it into an account of mine. Uh so it yeah, it did take some real work. So this guy basically made two he he basically at the time got like two hundred thousand dollars worth of claims if you're giving him ten percent.

4:41 And then sounds like it went up about eight X. From there. So this guy made a million bucks just brokering these FTX claims in a in a way for you. Well, he he d it was a lot of work though. So Thomas is gonna make I mean these are famous last words'cause the b the the trustee hasn't hasn't distributed the funds yet, but it looks like we're gonna get fifteen million off of uh two or two and a half million dollar investment, twelve and a half million dollar. He's gonna make a million dollars. But what he did was real work because he has a lawyer.

5:07 And people following up and doing diligence, and if it sounds sketchy, like okay, this claim doesn't seem real. Or it feels like maybe this person sold the claim to multiple parties, that happened to us. There was a kid in Italy. who had sold the claim to us and sold it to a large hedge fund in the Bay Area. I had to go to the hedge fund and they said I'll

5:25 This is too bad. Let's just split it. It's gone up since then. And I'm like, Well, no, who got the claim first? Who filed it first? And got recognized. And it was me and I said, Fuck you. I want a hundred I want all of it. I didn't use those words. They're not they seem like fairly nice people. But He was doing real work, but this was I I like this stuff and it and the lesson here of all the aspects I've invested in every

5:47 piece of the stack. Or every every part of the capital stock. So I've done seed. Oh, the first time I've founded companies, so that's the ultimate seed. I've done seed stage investing. Uh venture Growth, late stage.

6:00 I've done mezzanine, I've done public company investing, growth stocks. Mature companies And then I've done distressed investing, where I've brought companies or partnered with someone smarter than me. to go find uh claims against a bankrupt company or bring a company out of bankruptcy, hands down.

6:19 The best asset class. Is distrust. And it goes to a very simple notion investing. The sexier investment. The lower the returns. Venture's sexy.

6:29 Everyone wants to hang out with Tom Brady and Giselle. No one wants to hang out with old people. And distress investing, it smells like piss. It smells like urine. You're it's just like no one wants to hang out. with bankrupt companies it's ugly it's complicated It reeks of death everywhere. This thing didn't work out. Do you remember it looked like FTX. It looked like

6:49 W if it's trading twenty two cents on the dollar. The market is saying this might all be worth nothing. Yeah. So I have found generally the sexier the asset class, the lower the returns. And if I if I was just an economic animal, I'd go back and learn a lot more about distressed credit. I've

7:05 The bet the biggest win I've ever had was bring a consumer company out of bankruptcy. I partnered or Um I have a friend Jason Mudric who runs a distressed credit shop called Mudrick Capital and He thirty X'd we thirty Xed on and about granted it was six years and a nightmare and we almost went to zero two or three times. We ended up Wait, wait, wait. Yeah, what was that? We're this like the only nerd podcast on earth where we are like, Oh, you've just that's our sweet spot. Tell us this story. Okay. But but I always have to match with the loss. I'm I'm in

7:36 Oddity, which is this amazing AI beauty company. I own I don't know. A decent amount of shares. And I thought I need to generate some income here. I was bored, so I sold covered calls way out of the money. Right. To try and collect rent. So stock's trading at Stocks trading at I don't know, forty, I sell calls at fifty to generate some income.

7:57 Meaning that it if long as it doesn't go above fifty in the next month, I'm fine. I hadn't sold covered calls in a long time. The next day it announced earnings and the stock went to sixty one. So I've literally left like two million dollars on the table selling covered calls trying to generate income off this thing and I should have been smarter. I should have done a little bit of research and know that earnings were coming up and No, and this is a great company and they're gonna do really well. So in the last week I've literally like puked a million dollars for no fucking reason because I didn't do due diligence.

8:26 All right, everyone, really quick. This is the third time Scott Galloway has been on MFM. And also I read all of his books, I listen to all of his podcasts. I'm a huge fan of Scott's. And that's why we've had him on the pod so many times. And HubSpot, they did something awesome. So they took the twenty three best insights. From the first two episodes, but also this one, the one you're watching or listening to right now, they took the twenty three best insights, insights on wealth creation, on spotting good deals, on building relationships, and they put it all together in one really easy to read document. And so instead of having to go and listen to all the other podcasts, which By the way, you s I think you still should. You can download their document to read all of the best stuff. And it's sort of like a cheat sheet or a guide on all the best stuff that Scott has said on MFM, all three episodes. So it's in the link below, or you can scan the QR code.

9:17 But check it out. It's in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Anyways. The company was a company called Enjoy.

9:25 And My mother died of a smoking related illness. And a couple of my buddies said they were using a vape to get off of nicotine. This is like eight, ten years ago. And that they had quit smoking using this thing called Enjoy. The company had gone bankrupt. It was considered It's called E N D S Electronic Nicotine Delivery System. And the equivalent of the FDA in

9:46 Britain. Sends these out for free if you're smoker,'cause Let me be clear, no one under the age of twenty five or anyone who doesn't smoke should vape nicotine. It's not good for you. But it's much less bad than smoking combustibles with the tobacco.

10:02 Uh nicotine's highly addictive. But it's not it doesn't cause cancer. You can It's bad for brain development. I d I don't want to suggest anyone get addicted to nicotine. But I thought this is great. It's smoking cessation.

10:15 We're getting in. We brought it out. at a valuation of sixty million out of bankruptcy. Uh I my friend Jason is just a super smart, super aggressive guy. Wait, but so you you heard about this thing and then you googled it and you saw it was bankrupt, and then you're like I'm interested.

10:31 What came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it Jason was gonna go look or you found the company, then you found Jason? No, no, I wasn't that smart. I had heard about this company because two of my friends had quit using it. And then Jason called me and said, I'm about to bring a company out of bankruptcy. Have you ever heard of Enjoy? And I'm like, Oh yeah, I know the company and I like it. So I put Two and a half million bucks in. And

10:51 He bought brought it out of bankruptcy for sixty million. Uh and said this is a regulatory play. We're the least bad actor here. There was Jewel, which had gone up to like 10 or 15 billion in market cap, but was marketing to kids and selling bubblegum flavor. And was just getting hammered. Correctly.

11:11 And justifiably in the press as addicting a ton of kids. There at one point, about three years into the investment. High schools in the midwest were pulling the doors off of bathrooms. Because so many kids were vaping. And then the low the absolute low point was There was a huge raft of kids going into emergency rooms with what was called popcorn lung.

11:33 Yeah. And basically kids are getting so addicted to vaping. that they were buying the vape liquid in like festivals and out of people's trunks and People who are doing home brew. of this vaping liquid we're mixing in, we're cutting it with I think vitamin A acetate. Not recognizing that would have a really negative reactions on kids' lungs. And by the way, and during during that era I knew people who worked there. I'm pretty sure they gave all like one thousand employees

12:00 From the top to the bottom. Five hundred thousand or a million dollar bonus. to retain them as employees because all the press was horrible and they had to like deal with this consciousness of like Shit, I'm selling this horrible stuff? Okay, but I guess it's worth it if I get a million dollar bonus. It was crazy.

12:15 We really were. We weren't cool at all. Enjoy wasn't selling into teenagers looking to go to Raves. Enjoy was selling into a trucker. I mean the the stats around smoking are crazy. One out of three people who buy uh cardinal cigarettes promise themselves it's the last time they're ever gonna buy cigarettes. It is the just such an incredibly Malicious, mendacious, addictive. It's the second I think it's the most second most addictive substance. I grew up in a household.

12:39 Just a quick parable about me. Uh, I remember I never went to the doctor. We just weren't the kind of family that went to doctors. It was like Robotustin was our emergency room. You know, Robotus used Robotus for everything. And I got so really sick with a lung infection, they took me to the doctor and the doctor said, Okay, he's got a serious lung infection here, bi antibiotics and also Tom and Sylvia, my parents. You can't smoke.

13:00 So on the way home, we rolled down the windows so they could smoke on the ride home. And then My dad went in first, got a wet towel, stuck it under my door jam, stuck me in my room. So they could continue smoking. I mean they were so radically my mother died of a smoking related, they were so radically addicted to nicotine, so our our tobacco. Anyways.

13:21 We brought it out. Uh for seventy five million, popcorn long, and I'm like and kids are dying. And not because of anything Andrew or even Joel is doing, but because Vaping had become so big that now kids were buying black market liquid. It was damaging their health. And I'm like Great.

13:37 who claims to care about young men and I'm putting him in the fucking hospital. I that was Such an incredibly low moment for me. And I remember I resigned from the board because I'm like, I just can't stay on I was on the board, I'm like, I just can't stay on this board. My I was on the board of my kids' school and the headmaster was putting out memos warning of ving, and I'm like, I am such a fucking hypocrite. And I tried to sell my steak and there was no market for it.

14:02 There was no market for it. And Uh Jason And the CO, Ryan, were real visionaries. And said this is all about an FDA play.

14:12 We're the best actor in the space. We're selling to people who want to quit smoking. We're there's almost no youth complaints of y underage people buying in third party retailers. And they spent about a hundred or one hundred twenty million bucks, I think, maybe a little less than that. trying to get FDA approval. And they thought if we get if we become one of the three or four companies that has FDA approval around smoking cessation. This is a regulatory play. Anyways

14:36 Five, seven years later. eighty or hundred million dollars, we get the regulatory approval and we sell the company for I think two point two billion to Ultra. So that was a thirty X on my investment. Does does that mean you turn two million into sixty? Two and a half into seventy five.

14:52 I gave twenty five away though because of my guilt tax. So anyways. Dad hands down. Nothing was ever like that. And total classic. Ton of hair on it. Almost went to zero. Regulatory play.

15:07 Really unsexy. Bankruptcy, just All the shit that you wouldn't naturally that Most people just wouldn't want to get near It was really

15:17 really difficult and then just Every all the moons lined up and Altra came in and said, We have to own one of these companies. That's hands down, Ben. Other than the Companies I've started and sold. Which is hard work, as you guys know. That shit's hard.

15:32 That's really hard. That was the Best. Uh and let me match it again with another one. Ninety eight point six, this amazing healthcare texting company.

15:42 Preventive care by text message, Costco, big company signing up, three, five bucks a month. Anyone in the company can text them, da. I investe five million bucks and went to zero in eighteen months. I mean, I've never lost that much money that fast. Did I hear a story uh about you doing a bankruptcy thing? Was it with yellow pages or white pages or something like that? Yeah, Dex Media, that's probably not my second best, but my third or fourth. Really great CEO, a guy named Joe Walsh.

16:07 And you're talking about yellow pages, the book. Yellow pages, the things the things dropped on your dropped on your you know, on your porch. Uh amazing business. Yeah, it's like Six hundred million in revenue and two hundred and eighty million in Ebita, but it was declining twelve percent a year. It's just uh advertising.

16:25 Yeah, the local plumber. There's still a lot of people that that in rural parts of America that get a phone book, it's it's almost gone, but the business still it's like AOL dial up. So why would anyone have AOL dial up? Well people still do. My mom does. There you go. It's just twenty dollars a month. Uh so again, another Jason Magic investment. I went on the board, I invest I think I invest more than I think I invest about four million bucks.

16:48 And And I really like that board because I could add a lot of value. I sort of understood the business. And they were trying to transition and become a CRM company because the core asset of the company was relationships with tons of small and medium sized businesses. And they started selling them calendaring and clientelling software. And Basically we would go and buy the biggest yellow pages company in the South, then the biggest yellow pages company in Canada, then the biggest yellow

17:10 Pages company in Australia. Are they like franchisees or is there one comp is there one yellow pages, or how does that work? Big companies. Like there was like one or two companies in Australia that were still in the yellow pages business and they traded it two to three times EBITDA because everybody knew they were going away. But You could basically buy these companies and then you would close the headquarters. Keep

17:30 the thirty percent of the best salespeople and then let go of everyone else. And as long as you cut cost cut cost faster than twelve percent a year through consolidation, you were Cash flow Uh Creative. And every year the stock price went up. And then what

17:45 The management team did it's just staggeringly impressive. Is there able to transfer uh transition from, you know, a yellow page company to a CRM software company. And they actually did it. So I think we bought in at like two or three bucks a share and the stock's now, I don't know, at fifteen or twenty bucks. I've already sold my steak. I think I have four or five deck X there, I didn't ten X.

18:06 But again. What is less sexy than yellow pages? Right. And all the shit I invest in that's c sounds remotely cool. And I think this is a lesson for listeners. If you have financial capital invest in the on sexy shit and also

18:19 More importantly, your human capital. If you want to be an athlete A rock star. A musician, an artist, a model, going to restaurants, nightclubs. Just be clear, you're gonna make a lot less money.

18:32 Then someone At that same level of talent. in a less romantic industry. If you're just in the top ninety percent of tax lawyers, Right. You're not in the bottom ten, just in the top ninety, you can make a good living in tax law. If you're in the top ten percent of actors,

18:47 You make forty or fifty thousand dollars a year. I mean, the majority of actors don't make a very good living. The majority, eighty three percent of actors don't have health insurance because they did make twenty-three thousand dollars last year. And that's members of the SAG After Union. Who are the best in the world. If you're in the top ten percent of tax law, you fly private and have a much broader selection set of mates than you deserve. So just keep in mind, you wanna do something sexy, fine. You better get a lot of psychic return'cause the financial returns won't be nearly

19:14 As great is the person in that shitty, boring business who's almost as good as you, but is gonna have a much, much bigger return on their human capital. So I agree with everything you just said. But at the same time I have this like cocky part of me that's like cool, yeah but I'll still be at that top.

19:31 Top one or two percent. I'll still get there. And so I'm just curious, do you are you wired like that? Like, you know, knowing even knowing that. You still play the like right now you're playing the internet personality game. That's kind of like a Hollywood that that's like the Hollywood ratio, not the tax law ratio. You know, you're doing these exotic investments when You know, the math would show us that just Being a boring indexer and a compounder.

19:52 That way is gonna work better than Being a picker. But we do it'cause we like it. It's fun. It gives us these other returns. Plus it feels really good to be smart when you get it right.

20:01 So like even knowing what you know, realistically, if you're twenty eight Whether you know that or heard that, would you do it any differently? Yeah, but just to be blunt, and this is a story of privilege, I have access to deals that most people don't. And Uh, this is also gonna sound

20:17 There again. I have an undergraduate degree in economics. I was a graduate student instructor in macro and microeconomics. I worked in fixed income at Morgan Stanley. I I know more than your average bear about the markets and I get deal flow that people don't get. People will call me and say, Hi, I'm the C of this company and it's going public. I would like you to be in the IPO.

20:37 When but but when did that happen? I mean, was that happening during the Yellowpage era? Like I mean you're you're you're you've been successful for decades, but you've only been popular for what, eight years, ten years? It's really just happened in the last ten or fifteen years. If I had it to do again. And what I advise young people unless they have some extraordinary niche knowledge Or access to deal flow that other people don't have, which is almost nobody hands down going to index funds. And not only Going index funds, but make sure you're diversified geographically. My big theme over the last six months, and I've been saying this over and over.

21:08 Is it if you're just an SPY or in the Nasdaq? And you think you're diversified because you're in an index fund, you're not. Because I believe the US is gonna go flat for the next decade. And if you look at the P of twenty six versus Germany at twenty two, Japan at eighteen, China at fourteen. And you look at the head up your asclerotic reckless.

21:26 ridiculously fucking stupid decisions of this administration. And how it's undermining our brand of rule of law and consistency. that is gonna result in massive multiple contraction. And it doesn't matter how good the company is, if the broader market is engaging Is is registering multiple contraction. Uh it's you can't outrun it. So I have been massively transitioning my US holdings.

21:50 into Asian European and also the only companies I invest in have at least fifty percent of their business abroad because I think the US has is about to go into a ten or fifteen year uh down cycle. But to your question, would I do it again? If I did it again.

22:06 Uh what I would do. quite frankly, is I would probably just buy residential real estate for rental. And I I f to me that's the most It's not only a good return. But because our society is rejectionist.

22:19 And And wants to the entrants always want to come up with a way to make it harder for the entrance. There's been such Incredible Nimbyism.

22:30 In America that continues that Real estate just gets unnatural. Lift. And so I think residential real estate over the long term, and there's very few investments you can lever up five to one, there's very few investments you can depreciate it two or three percent a year, regardless of their going up in value.

22:46 And also just from a mental wellness standpoint. I like the idea of being investments that aren't marked every day. I check my phone way too much. I check my phive or six times a day and I get all bummed out when my Covered calls on oddity. I would have made a million bucks more. It bums me. I ruined my day yesterday. Whereas

23:04 Uh the apartment rental units I own in Delray Beach, I don't know what they're worth today. I I don't maybe they went down ten percent, maybe they didn't. But I like Uh, if I had it to do all over again, I probably just would have been Taking all my excess cash flow. And um

23:18 Massively diversified ETFs in All all s all over the world. And I would have bought more and more Uh rental residential rental real estate. prepping for this that you y you were talking about the short sort of checking your phone every day. You're like, look, if you're

23:35 the ro stock market's a roller coaster right now and like you know, there's like a political sort of like circus going on. So you it's easy to feel some type of way. And you had a good point of view. I don't know if you if you said this off the cuff or or if this is something you've s sort of really thought about, but you you were like You said something along the lines of Look, if you got your health, all right, you're you're at four you already got fifty one percent of the game.

23:56 If you have your health. I'll start with that. Are you got some friends, some family, you having dinner with people? Like you know, and you started sort of stacking back up rather than being like Cool. I'm in a mood swing. Along with the sort of like rolling average of the uh of the index, you know what I mean? What's can you can you sort of like give your take on that? I I paraphrased you. Well, I've been reading some Buddhism recently and I love this one thing I read really st struck me, and that is the person with good health has thousands of problems.

24:23 The person with bad health has one problem. And You guys are well, you guys are younger than me. I when I went into my fifties, something happens in your fifties and it's really awful. Two or three of your friends die. just like weird genetic shit.

24:38 Pops up. I had a friend who was Healthy Ripped, handsome, happy. This weird nerve r disorder. Barosculane took him out. Another friend We're in Tulum.

24:51 Fifty one. Having a great time, great life, three kids. Killing it professionally. Little bump on his head. What is that? I don't know. I gotta go and check it out. It's leukemia, but they think they can

25:02 Get rid of it with with With uh pharmaceuticals, I don't need chemo or anything. Oh, it's not going away. I need chemo. Oh, it's come back stronger. I have to get a Stem cell transplant.

25:14 And they basically give him a very intense and then it's like, Oh, it's back, I'm done, and he's gone. Like diagnosis to death, six months. And you realize like okay. If you're waiting to have washboard abs, if you're waiting to find the perfect Spouse. If you're waiting to have more money. Don't wait. I mean really try and

25:35 Try and take advantage of the moment. Tell people you love them, be nice to yourself, be kind to yourself, enjoy yourself because It's going. I mean, you guys are sort of at the age where time starts to fall off a cliff. But I think a lot about the notion of freedom. I always thought that money would give me the freedom I wanted. And it has given me some freedom from it the economic anxiety I've always had.

25:57 And it's given me a lot of options. But what I've figured out as I've gotten older is that true freedom is Releasing yourself from the conventions and expectations of a broader society around what I should write or what I should say or how I should condition something and say, You know, I constantly when I talk about young men or I talk about what I think's going on in the world, I feel a need to add a sentence such that it I water down it water it down such that the

26:20 far right or the far left don't come for me and shame me. And I still haven't found the freedom of releasing myself from the conventions of expectations. Now, I still want to be kind because I like that. I want to be a good person. But I still fall I still have a lack of freedom around really My goal with my content is to catalyze A productive conversation.

26:40 That shapes better solutions. And I might be wrong. The conversation I'm catalyzing, the way I catalyze it, I might get it wrong. But that's my goal, and yet I'm still too fucking worried about being shamed. or getting it wrong, or saying something stupid, or disappointing people or not being liked. By strangers.

26:58 So I still am not free. So I think a lot about what does it mean as I barrel towards the end. To have real freedom because If you're just focused on getting to a certain point and think that you're gonna find the perfect X, Y, or Z, no. You're here to learn, you're here to enjoy yourself, you're here to be as kind as possible, you're here to surround yourself with as many people. is possible who love you and let you love them.

27:21 But I'm trying to get off this hamster wheel of constant ambition and and engaging in true freedom, and I'm still not there. But do things y you know, you I guess it's a a weird like uh I I act like a tough guy, this thing doesn't bother me, but then like I'll see a comment and I'm like You know, I'll think about it late at night. I'm like, Oh fuck. Like d did I do I really look puffy in the face? You have this thing called the anti Galloway.

27:46 Index, or is that what it's called? Inverse Galloway, anti Galloway, something like that. Does that bother you? Insult, sign of respect? How do you take that? Well no, at the at the time well, first off, anyone who takes pictures of a plane doesn't have a plane. Anytime someone's Instagraming you pictures of a Gulf stream, it's not theirs. Anytime anyone says I I don't care what other people think. It means they're obsessed with what other people think. It's like when people say, I don't think about I hate it when VC is like, Oh, I don't think about money, mate. They're fucking obsessed with money. They fuck their sister for a nickel. I hate it when people say

28:17 Well, I don't care about money. I just wanted to build great products and everything would work out. Yeah, okay. It's like those douchebags that say they went to school in Cambridge rather than just saying, No, I went to Harvard. Well, good for you, it means you have rich parents, you shithead. Am I a little angry today? When we hit the 40 minute mark, you really just like crescendo. It's like you ain't both breaking away in the 100 meter dash. I think your odd your oddity investment or whatever it's called is still.

28:52 Uh I would say The six or eight times I've had a quote unquote mental health episode where it's something has really bummed me out. It's through my weekend and I haven't been able to enjoy my kids or whatever. It started online. Someone calls me Professor Genocide. I go on Morning Joe and I talk about my support of Israel and Why I think they have a right to defend you know, I I'm very pro Israel.

29:12 Yeah. Thousands of comments. That I don't care about children. people start referring to me offhandedly as Professor Professor Genocide, it it fucking rattles me. There's just no getting away from it. And I don't

29:25 And I think some of that's good. I think if if you're total I've gotten much better, I let I don't engage in comments anymore. I read the first ten to get a feel for what they think and I try to learn from them. But what I've found is most of the really vile content or comments, if you click on'em, it's a bot. It's Dog Face One O One with three followers. So I try not to take it

29:45 too seriously. But yeah, it still it affects me less than it used to. But it's still It still does affect me. It still has The ability to To bum me out. But at the same time

29:57 You can't be a sociopath. It also makes me really happy. I get a lot of positive feedback. And so I read I try and register that emotion as well. I try and appreciate that people are nice enough to take time and say something nice in the comments. Also s I get a lot of really constructive feedback. You know. Like your work.

30:17 Uh really appreciate the effort you went into this. This I think you got wrong and this is why. And I learned from it. I don't mind that I like that. I like pushback. Um you know, if as long as it's civil and thoughtful. But yeah, it doesn't the notion that it doesn't get to me, oh no. It it it absolutely sometimes gets to me. It just gets to me less now. I am a little less focused on on the comments, the sewage system. And also I got off of X, which helps a lot.

30:45 Great at and like maybe. You know, in politics they have John Stewart. It's like somebody who's both funny and entertaining to listen to and like Will speak truth to power, or if you see something that he thinks is nonsense and like there's there's people like that in like, let's say the political game. I feel like you are you you do a little bit of that in the in the business world and whether it's big tech or it's things like that. And you say y you said, uh, you know, I don't feel totally free to kinda like say, you know, fully what I feel'cause I'm worried about, you know, maybe what

31:13 Do you feel like there is anybody who is free? Like, you know, who do you look at and say, like, Okay, the way they're doing it uh is something I admire, right? Because your role is in some ways like you're a take down artist sometimes. You call out bullshit, you call out something that's wrong. You wanna catalyze that conversation, like you said, and like push us in a better direction. So inherently there's like a A little bit of like finding negative things and calling them out or take taking down something that's powerful but is going in the wrong direction. Mm-hmm. What about the other side? Like is there somebody who you look at where you think like wow, the way they're living their life, that's that's kick ass. Or this

31:43 The way this this industry's going, I think that's really great. Like what's the positive spin of that? Yeah, there's a lot. Uh I'm I I'd say if there's one person who I really just admire, it's Sam Harris. I find he's so disciplined. And so thoughtful and good and so unafraid.

31:59 He just doesn't He's like really thinks through issues, he doesn't say them errantly or flippantly, he really does his work. And then when he thinks he has moral clarity around something, he's just unafraid. And absolutely not. Who else like that to admire?

32:13 Well I admire them for different reasons. I think Matt Levine and Bloomberg, I just love the way he looks at the markets. I find it so interesting. I think Bill Cone at Po Puck, I like the way he looks at the markets. I love Uh Josh Brown and Barry Rydhold. So I love Like a couple of long island guys talking about investments. You know, I just did a podcast with David Brooks, and I love how he mixes spirituality with comedy of man and community, and he's more conservative. So I learned from him. There's people every day that I find their work uh really Really inspiring. So I don't but I wouldn't say I have like one or

32:47 you know, specific role models I turn to. But there's so many people out there that I've I get a lot of inspiration from. You do this sort of like advice for young men. Tight. J I guess like bucket of content. And I think it's pretty interesting.

33:02 What's a message that You wish Like if you just poke picked one message out of that bucket. And you're like, God, I really wish people actually listened to this one or internalized this one. Uh what's the one that

33:14 You really wish you could just like you know, if if you could really get in septus in people's brains, you think it would make the biggest difference. So You're referring I have a podcast called office hours I found when I was teaching You have something called office hours and professor and people come to your office.

33:29 And they're supposed to ask you questions and say, Well, I don't understand the brand core identity for the tech No one ever came to me to talk about strategy or brand strategy. They came to me to talk about life advice or Professional advice. Like uncle shit. You know what it's based off of? It's based off of the

33:43 Remember the show Fraser? The Colin. He did he with Doctor Fraser had a call in show. It's basically that. People can call in and ask anything about life or Should I move to Houston, I'm engaged and I'm worried that my fiance can't move, I'm worried that our relationships can't, you know. Whatever it might be, or should I should I buy is it too late to buy NVIDIA? I mean it's all over the map. And I enjoy giving advice. I think I'm good at it. The one piece of advice if I could only give one piece of advice to young people, it's that Nothing's ever as good or as bad as it seems.

34:13 And that is A lot of your success and a lot of your failure isn't your fault. And at the end of your life And there's research here. When you're on your deathbed and that's it, you're not gonna take a walk on the beach. You're never gonna be with your wife again, you're never gonna get to laugh with your kids again. And I'm an atheist and I got a lot of power from

34:31 my atheism. The things you're gonna regret You're not gonna look back and say, I regret. Did this happened? What you're gonna regret is how upset you were. And so recognize that when you get fired or you have an investment go bad, or you have love that's unrequited or not returned.

34:50 Or you screw up and you say something unkind or professionally you just You're not on the right path. Keep in mind Again, you're gonna be upset at how upset you were, not at what happened.

35:02 And at the same time on the flip side Also recognize that when something really good happens to you Uh, whether it's good health or you have an investment that triples or you get promoted. Realize a lot of that isn't your fault. And

35:16 You should be you're never more prone to a really stupid mistake than after a big win because you start believing your own press. So be humble. really be grateful, realize a lot of it is the fact that you were born at the right place and the right time and were in the right position at the right time to do something. And just forgive yourself when things don't go well. Nothing's ever as good or as bad as it seems. Like Try and look in the mirror and say

35:41 He got fired. I can add value to a company. If someone doesn't return your love, you know, I can make it look in the mirror. I could make someone very happy. Investments will come and go. I will find good investments. If I keep trying and I'm a good person, I work hard, I will achieve some level of economic security. Because again, it's it's just not nothing's ever as good as bad as it seems. That's the one piece of advice if

36:02 You're uh you're reading Buddhism, you're talking about The end of life. The the dog has chilled out. I've listened to you for a decade now. I I I enjoy this era of your uh thinking. The mushrooms. It's it's working. Uh you know, I've heard that you're into that and uh it's working. Dude there's a hilarious joke. You know Hustin Minhaj, the comedian, he had this great joke the other day. He's like Yeah, he goes, Your religious preference is uh directly tied to how well you're doing in life. He's like No one loves Buddhism more than like a wealthy wealthy a wealthy white person. He's like, Yo, Gwyneth Paltr love it. Loves her some the must day. And then he's like But when you're on rock bottom

36:39 Welcome to Islam, babies. Like Mike Tyson, when he's going through it, it converts like you know, it's always that guy at that le at that rock bottom that they find Islam, and he's like, I could just I know exactly what religion you have if I know how well you're doing in life. I know what I know how well you're doing in life if I know your religion. Yeah, I I get it. I wanna ask you I think Three years ago. I I forget exactly when you're like chat GPT, it's more like GLP ones, like that's the thing. And uh you're you're a bit early on that, but what other company, brand movement do you think

37:11 is quietly crushing it right now that Not a lot of people are talking about it. Well wouldn't that be nice if I knew that. But that's what you do, right? Every year every year uh in your newsletter you make uh you make some Pretty wild predictions. What you know, surely you have a a notes app where that you're like writing down ideas on what your prediction's gonna be at the end of the year.

37:32 Well okay, so I I said In twenty twenty three the technology of the year was A I in twenty four I said it was GLP one. And

37:44 I pick stocks every year. I picked I forget what I picked. over the last few years. But I've gotten My big tech stock pick for twenty four was Reddit. Uh and then twenty five, my quote unquote big trend or big stock pick is really boring and that is

37:59 I think the rivers are about to reverse in terms of capital flows and the unprecedented capital flows into the US over the last fifteen years. I think those rivers are about to reverse. And we're gonna see a massive outflow of capital. And it's already happened. I started selling down my US stocks and Q four of last year. It's been my big theme for twenty five. Just regression of the mean is an incredibly powerful force and we have been on a

38:25 unprecedented terror for about fourteen, fifteen years. Economic cycles usually go about eight years. We've been on a terror for a good fourteen, fifteen. And Uh I've been my big investment or big theme, if you will. is that you're gonna see a massive reallocation of capital out of the US.

38:42 into non US markets. And the market I like the most is Europe because if you ask anyone about Europe, they just roll their eyes and go, Oh no, they're fucked. It's a museum. It's overregulated. That's when you invest is when something's been left for dead. There are really good companies in Europe trading at Single digit PEs. And then in the US you have Apple Which is not growing.

39:03 Apple grew one percent last year and it's at a PE of thirty six, I think, or thirty four. So that just it's trading like a gross stock and it's not, it's a mature stock. So my big kind of theme is not I don't I I don't know a technol my technology that I really like was Nuclear and then I did more research on it and people like Nuclear's gonna take five to ten years to come online. It's more

39:28 L and G it's more liquid natural gas. And then I realized it was over my head talking about energy. So my kind of My thing here has been basically that uh you're about to see an enormous Uh transition

39:41 Uh. massive multiple uh contraction in the US. Where we go from twenty six to the high teens, maybe even lower. And we're you're gonna see other markets outperform the US. That's that's my big theme and and that's what I'm

39:57 Um how I'm reallocating my capital. I'm gonna be almost In terms of public stocks, I'm gonna m be almost entirely out of the US market within three or four months. Does that mean you'd be owning uh Uh I know you you you talked about a lot of your public holdings being indexed. Does that mean you'd own like a global market fund or you'd be owning uh a European index? What what does that mean?

40:19 No, because it's it's sort of like what you were saying, that I can't resist picking individual stocks. I'm an investor, and this is a very risky one. I invested in a company called Vertical Aerospace, which is a V Tall company, vertical takeoff and landing. Uh and my thesis is that generally you're gonna have multiple expansion in the UK. Or in the U uh in Europe. I think the last mile of transportation is I'm fascinated with aviation. I think the last mile is the problem to be solved. Helicopters are this dirty, dangerous technology that just shouldn't be around.

40:49 And these V Talls basically I don't know if you've seen these things, they look like drones and they have You know, vertical pro and they they're electric, so They're really quiet. One can land in your backyard and you wouldn't know it's there. And then Archer in in America, Archer's one of them. Archer and Joby. So Archer and Joby trade at like four to six million. This one, again, on the ropes. Uh, went in with my same friend, did a pipe It's got like I think a two or three hundred dollar three three or four hundred million dollar market cap.

41:15 And also my real my thesis is that My big thesis is I'm trying to get in front of what I think is gonna be one of the greatest increases, unexpected increases in capex in modern history, and that is Essentially the EU has come to the painful conclusion it can no longer count on its crazy rich rich uncle. uh for military support or for kind of consistency. And so the EU is talking about taking one percent one point nine percent of GDP allocated to def to defense.

41:45 And increasing that to three percent. So nineteen trillion dollar economy, you're talking about an incremental spend of two hundred billion dollars a year on defense spending that No one was expecting even twelve or twenty four months ago. So I'm looking and by the way, defense stocks have already ripped. It might already be too late. The few defense stocks in Europe have already dramatically overperformed.

42:06 But I think that there's gonna be I think that additional spending is gonna be stimulative. And also there'll be some technology spillover, which I think will help the tech sector. And I think inspire sort of an upward spiral in some European stocks. So Uh I'm an investor in this company called Vertical Aerospace. I'm an investor in a fund Called a land of partners that find small and mid cap special sits in Latin America and Europe because I think big cap

42:32 kind of big cap growth has taken all the returns decade and I don't know of how long that's gonna last. So I try and spread it out. Ray Dalio said something that was really powerful that the key is to try and find twelve Positive income streams. They're not correlated. That if you can do that, you're gonna do really well. That on a risk adjusted basis, if you can five twelve different stocks, companies, cash flows.

42:54 That are somewhat uncorrelated. That's the goal. And then you get kind of above market risk adjusted return. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to find either funds or individual companies that are somewhat uncorrelated. The problem is Everything's on c everything now is somewhat correlated because diversification that basic theme caught wind or purchase in the eighties. And so every large institutional investor started diversify like crazy.

43:19 Which means it's impossible to have non correlated assets now because if an institution is investing in an iron ore manufacturer in Australia. And over Nordisk. If they get in trouble I need to uh need capital, they're gonna sell everything. And so basically we're all kinda d we're all kinda interconnected right now. So the the the recognition of diversification

43:39 Has made it more difficult to diversify. But I'm buying both individual stocks investing with Investing, co investing with friends and VCs. I'm an investor in two Israeli companies. Do you have a target rate of return? Are you like I wanna compound that

43:54 Fifteen percent. Twenty percent. Well do you have a Do you have a target? And do you Actually. Track it. For yourself personally.

44:00 My target is I just want to be a baller. What what does it take to do that? Same. I don't know. How does one know?

44:06 How does my ball scott asking that question? Yeah, that's right. That immediately outs me as not a baller. I'm going tonight to some British hotspot or some hotspot in London and the door the doorwoman lets me in because I think she thinks I have more money than I have. So I need to catch up to her expectations. Of me. Uh me. Uh I need the perception of me to catch up to the reality of the reality of those of the perception. How much money do you think that I have? So I know I need a target. Yeah. I need a goose to chase. Uh my eye contact at a bar, I'm like, she's thinking I'm rich. Um anyways.

44:45 I don't I'm not that thoughtful. What I'd loosely try to think m I'm now at the point Where I'm not looking to get rich, I'm looking to not get poor. So I don't think of returns, but I think of I wanna find good investments and good assets. And I wanna make sure that I I always I do I do a lot of what they did in Star Main's Oxley. I do a lot of stress testing on my portfolio. I'm like, okay, what if the NASDAQ got cut in half tomorrow?

45:07 What would that mean for me? What would happen if there was a real estate crash? My biggest investment and we haven't talked about this, my hands down, my biggest Personal investment theme. Is that I think income inequality is only gonna get worse.

45:19 And And I've been saying this for a long time. I think it's terrible, but I think it's only gonna get worse. I think the money has totally washed over Washington. We now have a ch We now have a president who's opened A meme coin coin, which is essentially a Swiss banking account where anyone could put money in.

45:34 Oh, by the way, congrats on your uh the five hundred K membership you bought. To the Trump Friends Club or whatever. Oh yeah, yeah. The ambassadors, the the doucheist, douches, and douchefill. Um for five hundred K. I pay a lot of money not to be in that. Anyways, and by the way, I think those guys he'd sell you that too. He's a genius. People have been really critical of that. My sense is right of free assembly, they can do it every want. I what I think is criminal Is having a meme coin that Putin could put wouldn't Putin be stupid not to call Trump and say I'll put a billion dollars in here Pulsed and I have these mathematicians and I'll take the value because price discoveries at the margins. I'll take the value of this thing up to thirty billion, you own eighty percent. I'm gonna make it a

46:14 Wealthiest man in the world. And by the way, in unrelated news, could you stop supporting Ukraine? Wouldn't he be stupid not to make that call? He's losing half a billionaire. What's the Trump coin uh uh called Trump coin. He has a meme call. Yeah, what's it at now? What's the market cap of it now? It wasn't it like five billion? Oh went to twenty. Now I think it's uh three or four. By the way.

46:34 You wanna tell me about if this happened bef the day before the inauguration, yeah? Okay, hold on. You want to talk about grift? Where they have flooded the zone with so much crazy shit. You want to talk about grift? They announced the Trump coin the Friday night, the darker Friday night before his inauguration, so it would get lost in the news. Thirty people made eight hundred million dollars.

46:54 Over the weekend. I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna go out on a limb here that Those people probably got a call maybe from someone close to Trump saying, Launching a coin, you should do this. Then over the course of the next couple of months, I think about eighty thousand people lost billions of dollars. i. e. retail investors. Then as the lock up's coming off, he announces a big dinner to hype the stock.

47:16 Then He decides oh you know what the division of justice the department of justice investigating scams in the crypto market, we should close that unit down. You know, Hunter Biden.

47:36 It should be like what Hunter Biden has been accused of is a parking kick ticket compared to the double murder. Of grift. This administration is leveling against the American public. Both can be wrong.

47:50 Like both could be wrong. Like you know, I w I o I cannot stand when when when people say, Well, what about this? It's like That Is also bad. You know what I mean? Like it it we can have two conversations.

48:02 To your point. The ch I almost respect. We демократ Are corrupt for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Speaker Emirates of Pelosi trade stocks. That's fucking insane. Yeah.

48:14 With health and human services and they say, Oh, we're gonna Invest more in payment systems using AI and then she goes out and she buys. This happened. Options, call options on Tempest AI. And then when she discloses that she's bought options, the stock surges thirty or forty percent. That that's

48:31 So Democrats have been corrupt. We're just corrupt for small ball. He's corrupt for he's corrupt for billions. And The damage she does in terms of reducing Americans confidence in the market is bad.

48:45 But the ability to say, Hey, you know, I'm thinking about invading Taiwan, can you make sure that your attack submarines and your carrier fleets don't show up? In the Strait of Taiwan. And by the way, we're buying a shit ton of uh Trump coin. And nobody knows. That's grift on a different level. Anyways. I where the where I started this round was I think income inequality is only getting worse. I think there's a small, what I call emerging cohort of what I call transnational oligarchs.

49:10 And that is the point really oh one percent that has access To influence and deal flow and corruption and gets exponentially richer. And unfortunately, those folks don't have no longer have a vested interest in the health of their Host nation.

49:26 Because they have their own schools, they have their own rights. I I will always have access to to Uh Mm. Methastron, I never get it right. Uh

49:37 I will always have access to family. I could l I could be living in deepest reddest Mississippi. If someone in my life needs to terminate a pregnancy, I'd have no problem. If someone comes after my rights, I can lawyer up like no tomorrow. If they start rounding up Jews In in the United States, the same way they're rounding up people with the wrong tattoo.

49:56 I can piece out to Dubai or Milan. So The transnational oligarchs are losing a vested interest in the success of their host countries and democracy and kind of rule of law because they have their own rule of law. They have their own bill of rights.

50:11 And so what I see is a group of people who are becoming so exponentially wealthier than the rest of the population, and I think okay, that's terrible. I rail against it, I'm trying to work against it, but at the same time I'm not gonna fight City Hall, I'm gonna try and make money off of it. And the way I'm making money off of it is the following The really wealthy the point

50:31 Oh one percent wanna live in one of five places. They want to live in Dubai. Five percent. Or point. Anyone anyone who's worth more I think it's like anyone who's worth more than um fifty million dollars. Five zero. Okay. Okay, so

50:45 Um But by the way, the number of millionaires in the United States has doubled since twenty twenty. The number of billionaires has gone from five hundred to twenty five hundred in ten years. Yeah, I mean d d d doesn't something like uh the fifteen fifteen percent, the top fifteen percent is is millionaire. Like or or I mean something like where it's not like that

51:03 That is when we started the podcast. But I'm not even talking I'm not even talking about millionaires. I'm talking about people Let's look at billionaires. Billionaires want to live in one of five places. Dubai, London, Palm Beach. Aspen. Uh or New York.

51:19 That's pretty much it. A few of them in LA, a few of them in Hong Kong. But my investment strategy is I own I own Really nice homes in four of those five areas. And my view is in thirty or fifty years, those homes could be worth a lot of money. And they're a great store of value. I can lever up on them with Which I don't do, but you can borrow against them.

51:39 And also there's a psychic benefit, and that is I wanna try and figure out an investment strategy that makes it hard for my boys to avoid me. And that is when they're in college, they're gonna say, Well, we can go to Tijuana or we could go to Aspen and hang out with my dad, but we have to have lunch with them like, Well, how fat's the house? It's fat. All right, we'll have lunch with your dad. Um So but the biggest assets I have are Our residential real estate. And I when I'm not living there, I rent them out. But I think income inequality has gone so batshit crazy.

52:08 Not only in the US around the world. That you want find places Where these people want to live. If you're a billionaire You have a home in one of these places. Or you're going to.

52:19 And if you were worth over a hundred million dollars, you're gonna have a home in one of these places. And they're not making any more beach run real estate and Palm Beach. Manhattan is constrained. Aspen is almost impossible to develop in. And London is constrained. And I think London is a super city and will always have a certain appeal for the for the wealthy. So my biggest my biggest asset allocation has been in high end real estate in in what I call these super super cities, homes of future billionaires.

52:46 Whenever you um are in a bad mood Feel free to come on. And uh just just ran. I I enjoy this. Don't ignore it, bitch. If you uh if you find a new religion that you're into, whatever it is, do it. F How are you guys? I'm so good at talking about me. How are you guys?

53:06 I think we both hit a point where we kinda had to make a decision on How much of our future decisions are gonna be dictated by money? Because you know, a hundred and twenty percent of my decisions between the age of maybe twenty and Thirty two were uh

53:20 were dictated by like how do I be more successful? Yeah. And then You sort of I sort of realize like great that I see two groups of people in life, uh, you know, from here. Some people who just continue to make all their decisions based on money even though they've already earned the last dollar they'll ever spend. That doesn't seem like that doesn't make any sense.

53:37 But I totally get it,'cause they found a game. And they're good at the game. The game is fun. And you get rewarded for that game. uh with a clear, tangible, visible metric. And then

53:46 There's a smaller group of people who went back and thought of a new game they wanted to play. And they went back to the bottom of the mountain. And philosophically that's my real answer to your question. Like yeah, my I got good stuff going on with my kids and their business and all that. But like philosophically, that's where I'm at is uh

54:03 Picking what game I want to play for the next seven to ten years, uh, because I don't think it should be the same game I just played for the last fifteen. Like what was the point of winning the last fifteen? If I'm gonna play the same levels again and just keep doing that even though Incrementally it does nothing.

54:18 That's great self awareness. I I think your decision to be very focused on economic security in your twenties and thirties is absolutely the right decision. Uh, because it'll provide more balance as you get older and more flexibility. You know, they say money is ink in your panic and write new chapters and make certain chapters burn brighter, but it's not your story. But Fill up that pen while you have the health, the strength, the lack of dogs and kids.

54:41 And also young kids are I don't know. I think young kids are overrated. I I w what I would say is. I'm uh contradicting myself.

54:51 Another piece of advice, take so many pictures. Take so many pictures because You know, the the reason you will get so sentimental and be so appreciative of these pictures because We're a species that value scarcity. We gorge because there's been an absence of fatty, sugary food. We We're you know, we wanna play

55:11 Uh we wanna gamble because there's an absence of free play uh on the Savannah. We engage in porn because there's an absence of mating opportunities. Only forty percent of men have reproduced throughout history, whereas eighty percent of women have And scarcity makes us miss things and desire it. There's nothing more scarce. Than your kids. Because literally your kid

55:32 I mean, it's like that saying, you never know the last time you're gonna pick up your kids. And my kid now I mean literally my little boy. You you know, who I just want a college tour with. It was yesterday.

55:44 That he was coming into my room, crawling into bed with me and saying, Let's make a plan And she used to just go You know, just used to go. Abe shit crazy. Like it's so excited when the news you know, the new episode of Mandalorian came on and like run around the house or

56:01 you know, jump into the pool after my dog. And those moments Y you're gonna be so sentimental and the thing that kind of kind of fills that hole of that sadness is I do those Apple memories every day. Yeah. And you just You cannot take enough pictures and

56:19 And you're m it sounds like you're more soulful than I was at your age, but trying to take time with your partner just to stop And kind of bask in those moments'cause I think it was Gloria Vanderbilt said the happiest she w ever was. was when she had young kids at home. And I do believe looking back on it, that will be the moment I say that was the happiest I've ever been. So I think you're thinking about it.

56:41 Uh wh why did you say young kids are overrated? I think babies are hard. I think babies I I should have said, I think babies are tough. Yeah. I think kinda zero to three. Dads pretend to like it. I think most dad don't. Yeah. I openly I openly dislike zero to eighteen months. And then after that stuff, that's

56:58 I I after that I'm I I love it. And then three to five is, you know, I get starts getting fun. And then like five to fifteen. It's just the golden decade. I'm shocked at um How soft it's made me. Like uh I cry pretty easily, like thinking about certain things with my children.

57:15 Dude, I watch this movie Wonder. Have you seen this movie Wonder? Oh gosh. Doesn't have a main. Wonder will destroy you. Wonder will destroy everybody. I cry every other episode of Modern Family. Like it's cra I'll like look at phone I get when I get the thing on my phone where like one year ago today and I'm looking my my daughter's eighteen months now and I'm like Oh my God. Uh like I get my notification. I'm like, Oh wow, she was she's grown a lot. I I actually have a prediction on this.

57:44 Fringe to in vogue. And then You know, cold plunging. Uh we do all these things to like change our state, change the way we feel. And like the reality is you're not cold plunging Because you think it's gonna like add a a year to your life when you're eighty nine years old. It's not a longevity thing, it's a feeling thing and it's a s brag on social media thing.

58:02 And so I think that the There's gonna be another one of these. It's a technique that uh I actually learned at a Tony Robbins event. Tony Tony said that he does this thing with his wife once a month. That's literally the weakest flex in the world.

58:13 I learned this. I learned this from my friend Anthony. Um learned it on a silent retreat or something. He does it as a regular practice. So they basically him and his wife, they sit down, they basically put like the last uh they they just like g put the camera roll on the TV and he calls it like emotional flooding, basically. It's like You basically just like kind of wash yourself in these like the best memories, the the sort of the best photos, the best videos. And

58:51 it keeps you like I don't know, it keeps you bonded, it keeps you happy. It's like such a simple thing. It's like way easier than meditation. And I feel way better afterwards. And it's just been a very like healthy, especially with me and my wife we got three kids under five. It's like really easy for us to not like we can go five days without even talking. Like or the only talking we have is functional. Like you know You have three under five? Yeah. Oh you're in Vietnam right now. That's hand to hand combat. So this is what's keeping us alive. I'm sure the guys in the in the bunkers like had you know things that they did to feel good too. Um you know, glass half empty. Uh

59:28 What the three of us are experiencing? Is Not a foregone conclusion for the majority of young people. I think in America today. It's like the future. Prosperity's here. It's just not evenly distributed.

59:46 I think the majority of young people, it's not within their reach right now. To think about finding a mate and having children. And it's such when you think about it, it really is I think it's the great tragedy of America. Despite the Nasdaq going up, despite the incredible prosperity, despite our

1:00:03 ability to capture these amazing technologies and create unbelievable shareholder growth. Sixty percent of thirty year olds used to have a child in their household forty years ago. Now it's twenty seven percent. Well you said some crazy stats with Logan. Logan's a a good friend of mine. I love Logan and You said something was it something I I don't exactly remember. It was like if you're above thirty five and you're a man and you Aren't in a relationship. the likelihood that you're going to have children is only twenty percent or or it was like some phenomenal stats where it was just like

1:00:30 Uh basically Uh the men who are having sex who are single now are the ones who are getting all of the sex, and the men who aren't Yeah, in their twenties, like the they have no hope. Something ridiculous. Like that's a story. Well, I I think the stat you're referring to, there's a couple the a couple of scary status. One

1:00:47 If a man hasn't cohabitated or been married by the time he's thirty, there's a one in three chance he's gonna have a substance abuse problem. Loneliness really does take a bigger toll on men than it does on women. Women will transition a lot of that. romantic energy into friendships and into professional work, whereas men Men don't You know.

1:01:07 Yeah, they rechannel that energy into a lot of negative things. And the scariest doubt I've seen is that In America. Fifty one percent of men eighteen to twenty four have never asked a woman out in person.

1:01:19 So if you're a dude listening to this podcast and you think I wanna level up in terms of My success romantically, if you have ever asked a woman out. I'm not saying you have to be successful. She might have said no. And that's fine. But if you have ever asked a woman out in person, you're already

1:01:35 in the top half of young men. In terms of risk aggressiveness. And your willingness to try and express romantic interest while making someone feel safe. Young men are basically sequestering from society, or a lot of them are, unfortunately. And the economic

1:01:49 The the fact that old people have figured out a way to vote themselves more money, a fact that the fact that Corruption is now uh gone on full tilt and a smaller number of people are aggregating all the spoils. means that a lot of young people just no longer have really have the viable option to a find a mate. And B should they find a mate, have the economic viability, have a kid and experience with the three of us.

1:02:12 are experiencing. I think that in my view that the unifying theory of everything, I think a lot about politics Should be a series of programs that help anyone under the age of forty one meet people more third places. They need their version of the game. When Sean and I were fourteen, the game, the book, it came out and like every fourteen year old read this book called The Game. It was about pickup artists. And then like. It took a a whole bunch of internet nerds like us. Have you never read this book? The game.

1:02:37 I I know it, but I haven't read it. Neil Strauss. You would appreciate it just from a writing perspective. You'd appreciate it. It was awesome. It was why I read it. To be clear, just for the the pros. My girlfriend in high school We were going to colleges in two different states, and uh her parting gift to me was she gave me the book The Game, which was the greatest the greatest gift and the greatest insult I'd ever received in my life up till that point. It was amazing. Yeah, I know a lot. I imagine a lot of young men listen to this podcast. You know, your goal is to get to know what do I mean by that? Send your LinkedIn profile or emails to jobs you're not qualified for.

1:03:08 Find friends that you're interested in hanging out with and try and hang out with them. Put yourself in the agency of strangers. And absolutely develop some game, a plan such that you're confident enough to go up to strange Change people, same sex, other sex, and express romantic interest while making them feel safe. And the only way you get to great yeses is through a shit ton of no's. So start working on the no's. And by the way, if you don't know what to say, the little dicky pickup line. He just goes up to a woman and he says

1:03:34 Excuse me. What's your availability right now as far as being hit on? The most polite pickup line that'll make her laugh. I got a better one. I got a better one. You approach him with a camera. And you say, Will you take a picture of me? Everyone always says yes, if you say, Will you take a picture of me?

1:03:50 Like you're a tourist or something and take a picture of you and I go, Okay now Now can you flip the camera around and take one of both of us? And Shog. Well why and you say because someday I'm gonna show it to our kids. Scott Galloway, thank you very much, man. You're the best. Thank you guys. Congrats on everything. I feel like I could rule the world and know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like my day's off On the road less travel never looking back

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