The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Prof G Markets: Google’s Quantum Breakthrough & The World Cup Goes to Saudi Arabia
Mon, 16 Dec
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Follow Prof G Markets: Apple Podcasts Spotify Scott and Ed open the show by discussing why a federal judge blocked Kroger’s acquisition of Albertsons, Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to restructure its business, and Eli Lilly's plans to test its GLP-1 drug as a treatment for addiction. Then Ed breaks down Google’s innovation in quantum computing, outlining its potential business use cases. Scott explains why the market is responding positively—even as the broader implications remain unclear. Finally, they discuss Saudi Arabia’s successful bid to host the 2034 World Cup and debate whether it’s a smart long-term investment for the country. 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 led to the blocking of Kroger's acquisition of Albertsons?
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Today's number, $400 billion. That's Elon Musk's record high net worth as of last week. Power corrupts, and absolute power absolutely corrupts. This is terrible for society and will cause real damage to economies, justice, and democracy around the world. Welcome to Prop G Markets. Today, we're discussing Google's quantum breakthrough and Saudi Arabia's World Cup. But first... Oh, wait, banter.
You can introduce me and then we can do banter. Like anyone doesn't know you? Literally, I'm so sick of it. Everyone comes up to me and is like, tell Ed we said hello. If it's anyone young, they're like, I love that Ed Elson. Yeah, I know. Yeah, he's great. I'd love to hear that. He's great. What are you doing, Ed?
Where are you? What's going on? I'm in New York and I'm just sort of reeling from that experience. $400 billion net worth stat. I don't know if you realize this, but since Trump was elected, since November 5th, Elon's net worth has increased by 66%, and he's added $4 billion to his net worth every day. Yeah, and I was excited about getting ZipRecruiter as a sponsor last week.
oh god and here i am selling like chewable erectile dysfunction drugs seriously like oh wait they're gonna spend eleven hundred dollars on first-time founders sure i'll meet with them oh god oh god i'm headed to oh wait i'm headed to riyadh let's talk about that let's bring this back to me i'm headed to riyadh on what am i going on tuesday have you ever been to you haven't been to riyadh right no
You're welcome to take me with you. Yeah. If you were much more interesting and I liked you more, we'd absolutely be rolling together. That's not fair. I think you're both interesting and likable. But I've been to Dubai a bunch of times. I've only been to Riyadh once. I was only there for a conference. I'm kind of curious. I'm taking a little bit extra time and I'm going to check it out.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of Google's quantum computing breakthrough?
We still got two weeks. Where's those blue chewables? Anyways. And finally, our third headline here, Eli Lilly testing GLP-1 drugs for alcohol addiction and drug addiction and tobacco addiction. I love this new term here from the CEO, anti-hedonics. This is exactly what you've been talking about for a long time.
I even saw some data saying that people on Ozempic reduced their drinking by 60%. Diageo, the alcohol guys. Oh, my God. These stocks, in my opinion, are going to get absolutely hammered. We could see alcohol really taking on the chin. Your thoughts on this news?
These things are scaffolding on our instincts. They just update our instincts to the institutional production that our instincts haven't caught up to. You know, what is an addiction? Addiction is when you continue to do something despite it having a negative impact on your life or your health.
And this basically tells your brain, somehow calibrates it to say, no, you can stop eating now, or no, you don't need to stay on TikTok for another 11 hours. This is enough. All of a sudden, I'm looking at these stocks, and I'm going to say, okay, if they're up 30% or 40%, is it still an opportunity to get in?
Because if they're not only treating obesity, but they're treating alcoholism, they're treating social media addiction, they're treating porn addictions, I mean, I think you're just going to see gambling addiction. Anyway, I'm very excited about this.
Yeah. Our thoughts on what this would do to addiction were based mostly on surveys, but there is a study out now from Loyola University, and it found that people with opioid or alcohol use disorder who take GLP-1s have a 40% lower rate of opioid overdose and a 50% lower rate of alcohol intoxication. So the peer-reviewed research is now coming.
What's happened to the alcohol industry, though, is just fascinating. Here are some stats. In the past year, Boston Beer has fallen 9%. AB InBev, which owns Corona and Michelob Ultra, it's fallen 15%. Brown Foreman, which owns Jack Daniel, has fallen 20%. So the entire alcohol industry... is, I mean, I'm not going to say it's in free fall, but it feels like it's approaching free fall.
And I think what we should keep tabs on is what is going to happen to all of these alcohol stocks when that anti-hedonic study from Eli Lilly is released. And when we start to see just a flood of more peer-reviewed research that says very conclusively, this is reducing people's use of alcohol.
There's this crazy stat, something like 1% of alcohol drinkers are responsible for 30 or 40% of all alcohol consumption. There's a decent percentage of, I mean, it's just, it's staggering. There's a small number of people that drink like 27 beers a day. And the alcohol industry is really kind of driven, not by social drinkers, but by alcoholics.
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Chapter 5: How does quantum computing differ from classical computing?
So I think the way you frame it there is totally accurate. It's like they know that this is immediately going to be in the red from an expenses perspective. But they're looking at the long-term payoff and the long-term benefits. Let's say they spend like a quarter of a trillion dollars on this. I think they'll spend more, but let's say they spend that much.
That is a quarter of a trillion dollar billboard, essentially. Basically, it's a giant ad. And I think the question is, is that ad worth it? And I feel...
pretty somewhat convinced that it might pay off that it might be worth it based on your analysis there but i think the key takeaway for me is like this is no more than an ad no more than an ad that's everything that's that's awareness unearned margin and let me just go back to brand building
I don't know what Russia spent on the World Cup, dramatically less than $220 billion, but I went to games in Moscow and St. Petersburg. And I remember thinking St. Petersburg was arguably one of the most beautiful cities I'd ever been to. Walked around, there'd be squares where old people were dancing, and I just had such a positive impression of Russia and specifically St. Petersburg.
Now, them incarcerating Americans on trumped-up charges— That's sort of like, OK, I'm not going back to Russia for a while. That sort of ruins the odd. Exactly. These actions on a political stage can wipe out a quarter of a trillion dollars in branding.
Yeah, well, let's just take a moment to talk about the controversies around this, because that's important to the brand here, too. I mean, if people think that this was rigged, as many people do, or they think that Saudi Arabia is an unethical country, that's important to this conversation, too.
But I'm just going to start with this bid evaluation report from FIFA that they released, which I just found so funny. It's this report where they assess all of the viability, the viability of all the possible host nations. So first off, they gave Saudi Arabia the highest viability score ever, which is hilarious. They said that from a commercial standpoint, the bid is, quote, very good.
But my favorite was their evaluation of the human rights risk, which they determined was, quote, medium, which is also... Hilarious. Human rights risk of the games or human rights risk of KSA?
Of the World Cup, of them hosting the World Cup. Human rights risk, medium. That was their analysis. But they ultimately landed on the greatest score ever given in the FIFA bid evaluation report. Yeah, it's called money, the greatest score. Exactly. I'll go. 100% I'll go. I can't wait. I literally can't wait. And also, I actually quite like the kingdom and think they're doing good things.
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