The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Prof G Markets: Ask Us Anything — Forgiveness, The Manosphere, Parasocial Relationships & More
Mon, 23 Dec 2024
Follow Prof G Markets: Apple Podcasts Spotify Scott and Ed answer listener-submitted questions about everything from the origins of Ed’s accent to how they feel about parasocial relationships. They address why they look similar, talk about how to maintain friendships and give tips for improving storytelling. Plus, Ed discusses how he figured out his long-term goals and Scott reveals how much he paid for his birthday party. Order "The Algebra of Wealth," out now Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Follow Scott on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram and X Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the unique cost of Scott's birthday party?
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Today's number, 22%. That's how much Bible sales grew this year in contrast to the overall book market that barely grew 1%. True story, Ed, sometimes I masturbate while reading the Bible. I call it my come-to-Jesus moment. Welcome to Prop G Markets. Today, oh wait, today we're doing something different. What's going on today, Ed?
Today we're doing an All's Me Anything episode, Scott, and we've got our producer Claire back in the studio. And she's going to be asking us some listener questions from Instagram and Reddit and YouTube. So thank you to everyone who sent in those questions. Claire, welcome back to the studio.
Very nice to be here. Thank you. Scott, are you ready for your first question?
Lay it on me. We haven't seen these yet.
All right. This is the most popular question on Reddit. The people are dying to know, how much did your birthday party cost?
I think it cost about a quarter of a million dollars.
Give us a breakdown.
Well, we took over a hotel, the Five Farms. We reserved it two years before. I think that, the honest answer is I don't really know. But I imagine that it was like 45 or 50 rooms. We had it for two nights. I don't know, that was probably 100 grand. The food was probably another 50 or 70 grand. Plus things like axe throwing and kilt rental and all that shit.
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Chapter 2: How do Scott and Ed maintain their friendships?
Ed, next question. Where did your UK accent come from? Genuinely curious. Thank you. I think people are actually confused about this part of your life, including Scott. Scott just doesn't care.
Yeah.
Let's hear your origin story. Where were you born? Where did you grow up? And where did the accent come from?
Yeah, so I was born and raised in London. So that's where the accent comes from. The weird part is that both my parents are American. And they came to London probably 30 years ago before I was born. They moved there for work, but they're both originally from Atlanta, Georgia. So they have American accents, and then me and my sisters all have English accents. And so... People ask me why that is.
I don't really know. I guess because I went to school from a really young age and I adopted the same accent as my friends at school. I would assume that's it. But, you know, I left England when I was 14 to go to boarding school in America. And then I stayed in America for college. And now I'm here.
Scott, any follow-up questions?
I'm sorry. I wasn't listening. I fell asleep about a minute ago. Well, let me get this. You have an English accent because you were raised in England. That's right. I think the accent adds 10 perceived IQ points. Ed, what do you think, Claire?
We all already know that. I do think he's putting it on a little bit. Didn't your friends from home kind of tease you when you started to get a bit of an American accent?
They tease me right now. They think my accent right now is American. Really? They say I have an American twang. So when I go back home, I sound even more English. But yeah, look, it's a hard life. People thinking that I'm a phony. But what can you do?
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Chapter 3: What is the origin of Ed's accent?
Ed literally just spit his coffee out.
Sorry, I shouldn't have laughed that hard. Spit take.
I think you have a fantastic accent. Your accent is, I think it's really strong. What's interesting is my mom did really well in school, and she had what felt like a kind of a refined English accent, similar to yours. And some of her siblings who went to different schools have just an accent that's not what I would call aspirational. Sometimes it's a little bit hard to listen to.
It's just strange how... And it sets such a tone and they're all really bright, or I find them bright. It's just so interesting how your perception of someone is obviously, supposedly guys, their perception of someone is very visual. And women, their perception of someone is based on their ears. And you immediately with that accent come off as very educated and interesting.
It's a great accent to have. I love this. Let's keep going. Somehow this podcast wouldn't be making any money if you were like, Viva, ask the question, Scott, any predictions? It just wouldn't work.
Okay, I have a related question. Do you think you'd be more successful if you weren't bald?
Oh, no. It's the opposite. When I was—believe it or not, my hair used to be my best feature. Granted, it's a low bar, but in graduate school, I had a ponytail. I rode a skateboard to school, and I had a ponytail. And I started—I remember the exact moment. I remember reading my finance book and thinking, I don't remember underlining this. I'm like, oh, my God, those aren't underlines. It's my hair.
And my hair was like, my hair basically decided it was a fire on my head and needed to escape as quickly as possible. I went from having Cher-like hair to being Yul Brynner in what felt like three weeks. And it was so distressing that I decided I was living in San Francisco. I think I was in my early 30s, maybe even younger. And I said, I'm just going to shave it all off.
I had taken a vacation with my ex, and she said, I'm so sick of you talking about this. Just shave it off. And she bought a clipper, and she actually sat me down, and we split a bottle of wine, and she shaved my head with a blade. It was actually a really bonding, intimate, sort of erotic experience.
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Chapter 4: How do Scott and Ed manage parasocial relationships with listeners?
So how did you get over the disappointment of him not being generous to you and find a way to be generous to him?
It's a really thoughtful question, and it goes to... What has been one of the biggest unlocks in my life, and that is I used to approach relationships naturally, and I think most people do naturally, as kind of a transaction. Am I getting as much out of this friendship as I'm giving? In a romantic relationship, is my partner as good to me as I am to her?
In a business relationship, am I getting as much from my business partner? Am I adding more value? If I am, then I should have more equity or more compensation. I was constantly keeping score, and it was a real recipe for disappointment and frustration and strain in relationships because you'll naturally inflate your own contribution to relationships and diminish other people's.
And what was an unlock for me, and I used to approach my relation with my father that way, and that is I was a good son, but I would occasionally get upset. I remember not talking to my dad for a few months.
We used to always, you know, we would talk every week because I thought, you know, I just went back to these ugly moments as a child and some of the things you referenced, and I would just get very resentful for him, even in my 30s and 40s.
And somewhere in my early 40s, I decided the unlock is to decide what kind of friend, what kind of boyfriend, what kind of spouse, what kind of son you want to be. And then ignore what you're getting back. And the reality is I wanted to be a generous, loving son. And so that's how I started behaving. And I put the scorecard away.
And also I forgave my father because I think the litmus test of any dad or the kind of evolutionary box you need to check is to be better to your son than your father was to you. And I found out later in life that my father had been physically abused by his father, that my grandfather used to come home drunk and physically abuse him. And my dad was not very sophisticated.
He wasn't a great dad, but he was much better to me than his father was to him. He tried. And it just makes me feel good to feel like I am being a generous, loving son. And I think about this a lot. The key in relationships is not to have the transactional mentality I had or scorecard. The key is to achieve a surplus value in all your relationships.
So if you're being a better spouse, if you're being a better daughter or than your mom was to you when you were a kid, that means you win. That means that you're here for a reason.
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Chapter 5: What is Scott's perspective on forgiveness?
How do we not become Tate?
Scott, we'll start with you. What are your thoughts on how you and Ed can avoid that fate on Profiteer Markets?
Because you're pushing it, Scott.
We're critical thinkers. We read. We are curious but suspect of stuff and try to use information to learn as opposed to sanctify your beliefs. One of the things I love about this medium is I think people go to cable news to sanctify their religious and political views. I do think people come to podcasts with an open heart.
And one of the things I love about humor is that I think it softens the beach. I think if you can make someone laugh for a brief moment, you soften their gray matter and they're more open to new ideas or new opinions, which might be dangerous. I don't think I'm a likely candidate for falling into some sort of conspiracy. I do think I'm in a bit of a bubble.
I read a lot of media that's produced by urban liberals, which is the majority of media. And so it's good for me to step out. I purposely read some stuff that's a little bit more conservative to try and get a different viewpoint. And one of the things I really appreciate about, you guys encouraged me to go on the podcast with Theo Vaughn, is it just gave me a little bit of a different worldview.
I remember thinking, it's like a zebra talking to a lion. We're just such different people. And – but, yeah, I'm not – maybe I should be more worried, but I'm not – I think we're, you know, critical thinkers. Ed, what's going to stop you from going red pill weird or – I don't know.
Yeah, I'm not worried about this at all just because that's just not who we are. And – the idea of a podcast where you talk about eating red meat and escaping the matrix and getting into drop shipping, like none of that stuff interests me or makes me think that that's worth talking about. Um, and our job is to figure out what actually interests us and what engages us.
And it's just not, none of that stuff is interesting to me. So I'm, I'm really not worried about devolving into a, a manosphere podcast, uh, Personally, I mean, I think to Scott's point, we need to be aware of any bubbles we might live in. And I think the solution to that is just a very, very broad media diet, trying to amass as many different opinions as possible.
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Chapter 6: How do Scott and Ed avoid falling into the manosphere trap?
And you do do your research, which goes into that. So one of the questions was, what is your research process like?
So before every podcast, about 24 hours before the podcast, we all meet as a team, and we have a team of analysts and producers, and it's about seven of us who get on this call. And we talk about what we want to talk about, and then we decide with Scott, these are going to be the stories. And then I spend the next 24 hours just obsessively researching all of those topics. I start with Google.
I use AI as well. I use a finance tool called Rogo. I use ChatGPT. I think if there's anything I've learned about the research process from doing this podcast, it's that the most important thing, and I think this applies to all research, is trying to figure out what is the so what of anything that you're reading.
And that's kind of hard to do these days because there are just millions of different articles about all of these events. And they're filled with really, really useless information. And that's especially true in earnings reports and 10Qs. You know, I'll read like an entire 10Q in preparation and I'll learn maybe one thing from it. But that's sort of what you have to do.
To me, it's all about synthesizing, okay, what is the, why do I actually care about this? Like, what is the takeaway from this gigantic document that is filled with all these numbers and a lot of bullshit? What could affect my life or what could be interesting to someone else's life? What is the so what here?
And we've got to give a big shout out to Mia Silverio and Jessica Lang, too, who inform basically everything we do. They're our researchers. Yeah. And they do a lot at this company, but they're very focused on property markets. So thank you to both of them. All right. Here's another for both of you. How are you guys doing with the parasocial relationships that you're setting up with listeners?
Yeah. Does it feel hard to relate to strangers who are kind of also not strangers? And has it changed the way you approach your daily life? Scott, we'll start with you.
It's one of the nicest things in my life. Like, everybody wants to be on a stage where people who don't know you are applauding for you. And I try to remember that with my boys and my partner. I try to make sure that it's not just always all about me, that we find venues and ways to celebrate their achievements.
and put them on a stage in front of other people such that they get their own applause. But when people come up to me on the street and say, I like your work, one of the things I think is such a shame is that these – large language models aren't crawling the real world. Because in general, what I find is online, there's a lot of really awful, vile, aggressive course content.
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Chapter 7: What is the research process behind the podcast?
So, Ed, this is a newer phenomenon for you. So how has it been to start getting recognized by people on the street?
Very strange at first, but ultimately I land where Scott is, where it's just... I really enjoy it and I find it extremely rewarding. I feel like you couldn't really ask for more in a job than for people to come up to you and recognize and affirm that they are enjoying your work. Like, that's just not something that... a lot of people get to enjoy.
And so, you know, to me, it's like an affirmation that I'm doing my job right. I mean, I think the biggest fear in media, if you work in media, isn't that people don't take you seriously or they don't like you. Like the biggest fear is like that no one's listening to you. Like that's the concern.
And so to have someone come up and say like, hey, like I heard what you said about this and it made me think about this. And it's like, I couldn't ask for much more in terms of professional reward. So yeah, I land completely where Scott is. I really like it.
Here's one that I'm going to take. This is kind of the only affirmation that I get from our listeners. It's to do with the music. The most frequently asked question I get is about the music on this show. People want to know what is that cool Spanish song that plays before one of the podcasts and what's the outro song. used at the end of Profiteer Markets. So the cool Spanish song is called 1977.
It's by Anna Tijoux. And the reason it's the intro song is because Scott heard it on an episode of Breaking Bad. Is that right?
I didn't know that. I think so.
Yeah, that's the legend. That's exactly right. And the outro song is called Lifetimes. I don't know who sings it because she's not credited, but the composers are Benedict Lambden and Nathaniel Pern. This is not a huge song. It has fewer than 2,000 streams on YouTube. You can find it on Spotify, too. But the music on this show is fantastic.
largely inspired by a trip that ed caroline and mia and i took to tulum and she's so nice in 2022 um which scott sent us on and one night we were at this place called tree house to this day the best dinner best dinner i've ever had and afterwards there were some djs and We were dancing in the sand under the stars, under the palm trees, and they played Donna Summer's I Feel Love.
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Chapter 8: What music inspires the show's vibe?
But the most important thing is that you... offer the interviewer a good time. And the way you can do that is by being entertaining. Say things that sort of capture their imagination, say things that aren't boring. I feel like that's such an underrated asset and we should be taught it more in schools. So I'm giving you your credit for teaching me that.
The only pushback I would offer is that At the end of the day, you want to be yourself. And some people just aren't funny. And when they try to be funny and they're not, it just falls flat. I think of myself as funny and provocative, and sometimes my shit falls flat. I just go too far, and it just— No, it always lands. Cringe, right?
But there are some professors and some communicators that are just so chock-full of facts and so well-rehearsed and so competent— You guys are too young to remember the show Welcome Back, Cotter, but he was trying to help this fellow teacher and he was trying to convince her that she needs to be funny and she just couldn't do it. That was just wasn't her.
So I would say early on, you just want to figure out what is my gift around storytelling? What are my mediums? And then lean into those advantages.
I think the question that people should be asking in all of their work is, is this something that I would want to consume? So I'm not saying like you have to be funny or you have to be, you know, really emotionally thoughtful, do whatever you want to do. But ultimately the answer to, is this something that I would consume? Is this a story I would want to hear?
Is this a report I would want to read? The answer must be yes.
Another one for both of you. What should be your goal in your late 20s? I feel lost. I work in consulting, but I find it very unfulfilling. I feel like it's time to make a drastic change, but I don't know what. I don't know if I'm built for a conventional career, but I've been on a conventional path my whole life, so it's all I know. Ed, we'll go to you first.
Well, first off, I relate to that question. I felt that way during college. So I feel you. I can offer what I did to get out of that because I no longer feel that way. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And this really worked for me, which is I just wrote up a list of people who I admire and whose lives I wanted to emulate in some way.
And I think I've said this before, but Scott was on that list. And so what I would recommend is make that list of people, and I would say do it within reason. Like, don't choose, like, Lionel Messi. Like, people whose lives you could actually live.
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