The War On The Young with Professor Scott Galloway
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Of all the world's foul-mouthed straight talkers who will always tell you the unvarnished truth, Scott Galloway is probably the king. I'm very excited to have Scott back on the show, and he does not disappoint. Stay tuned.

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For decades, the Mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Ante marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people.

Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia and with the help of law enforcement brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law & Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law & Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin, a better Lacey Lamar. Boo. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. You thought you had fun last season? Well, you were right. And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs. We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach. That's my husband. Daphne Springs.

Daniel Thrasher, Peppermint, Morgan J., and more. You gotta watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you gotta listen. Like, if you're watching us, you have to tell us. Like, if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window. Just, you know what? Listen to the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I didn't know we were going to go there on this. I didn't know that was going to happen.

People that I admire. When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors of books that have changed my life. Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right? And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life. I already believe in myself. I already see myself. And so when people give me an opportunity, I'm just like, oh great, you see me.

Hey there, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar, and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior.

The last couple of years has been the hardest season of our marriage for sure.

I'm surprised our marriage survived it. I think we both are. I think we both were barely holding on. Nothing compares to how hard this is. Their stories are full of candor, awe, and hard-won wisdom. And you'll hear from scientists who teach us how we can be more resilient in the face of change. True behavior change is really identity change. Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Scott Galloway is one of my favorite thinkers. He's blunt, he's honest, and he's very well-researched. And he always provokes a thought or ten. Scott joined me to talk about what's on his mind these days.

And it's what he calls the war on the young. We go deeper on the subject that he discusses in his TED Talk and his new book, The Algebra of Wealth. We also went off topic to talk about love and how to make friends. This is a bit of optimism.

Thanks for joining. It's really good to see you. Always good to see you. And congratulations on the TED Talk, the new book. Lots of busy things happening. Thanks, Tom. When you got invited to do the TED Talk, did they ask you to do a particular subject or did you say to them, this is what I want to talk about? No, I had lunch with Chris Anderson, who I've known for 20, 30 years in London. And he said, we're thinking about having you at TED as if I'd been crowned.

He didn't commit to giving me a speaking side. He said, "We're thinking about it." And I said, "Well, first off, thanks. That's exciting." And he said, "What's your vision for a talk?" He said, "If you were to do a talk, what would it be?" He didn't even offer me the slot yet. And I said, "I think that the thing that people aren't talking enough about is I believe that almost every economic policy is nothing but a thinly veiled transfer of wealth from the entrance and the incumbents, and more loosely from young to old." And he said, "Okay."

"How would you brand it?" I'm like, "Well, I've been thinking about this. I think there's a war on the young." He said, "That's the talk and we want to have you." And I wasn't sold myself because Vancouver from London is a real haul. And I'm trying to be more ... Someone said, I love this saying, "Be generous with everything except your time." I'm pretty cheap with my time now. And anyway, so I did it and then I thought this is something I feel passionate about. So I rallied the team and I get a lot of nice feedback around, "Wow, that's so much data."

Greatness is in the agency of others. I probably spent eight hours on that talk, but I bet there was 800 hours that went into it. And so my team immediately started pulling together data and it's 110 slides. It was chilling, I would say is a good word. How...

Stark your conclusions were your your insights were mm-hmm And I think it really does point to sort of a brokenness of capitalism Mm-hmm where and you know better than I do about this stuff But my understanding is that the original concept of the stock market mm-hmm was that the average working? Yeah person could share in the wealth of a nation. Yeah, and What's happened in the past? I guess 30 40 years is

is that the middle class is leaving the stock market and it's become the playground literally of the top 1% or maybe slightly bigger.

At least it's that small percentage that are benefiting most at the expense. And then we see, and I rail against this kind of stuff, where companies announce mass layoffs because they missed their projections. They're profitable, just not as profitable as they promised the street. And so you get to lose your job. And this all benefits the stock market. When companies announce layoffs, the price of their equity goes up. Announce R&D, your equity goes down. Yeah.

To call it the war in the young, I think speaks to this very large and growing populist movement that we're seeing both in the United States and around the world. Yeah. So one of my intellectual role models is Peter Drucker, the economist. And he said that the purpose of an economy is to create a middle class. And I think the greatest innovation in history is not the iPhone or the semiconductor or the printing press. I think it's the middle class. This idea that...

The largest segment of your population gets to register the prosperity of an economy. And they fight your wars. They pay the majority of your taxes. They're responsible for the majority of the framework for real future innovations. And they create sort of a neoliberal society that decides, you know, we'd like to share some of our privilege and start affording rights to other people. I think that's the greatest innovation in history. But it's not...

What the incumbents and sometimes the far right will tell you is that it's a natural occurring organism. It's not.

Capitalism that's unfettered results in a small group of very talented people who aggregate incredible capital and then have access to cheaper capital and can kind of run away with the game show and then they weaponize government. I mean, this is what Central America is. A group of talented people figure out a way to license Unilever or ABM bed brands. They get more capital. They support the next president. They get regulatory capture and they end up with so much money.

so much of the economy that the bottom 99% says the easiest way for us to double our wealth is to kill these people and start over again. And then another group of people emerges as the 1%. If capitalism doesn't have a pay it forward reinvestment in the middle class, it does collapse on itself. It's also a bit of a zeitgeist thing, and that is

I've been watching a lot of the D-Day. I'm obsessed with World War II, the D-Day memorials. And I was wondering myself, if I were called, I like to think if I were called, I would have gone. But I also believe that, if I'm really honest with myself, if my sons were called, I think I would use my influence and wealth to get them out of it. And I think Americans have, over the last 50 years, slowly but surely, and I don't know what...

I don't know what are the underlying dynamics, but I think we've become inherently a little bit more focused on me. And we see so many people, this is kind of your ballywick. When you have a candidate for president who's just so nakedly self-serving and people find that admirable, when you have tech billionaires

that seem pretty focused on getting from one billion to 100 million, even if it involves depressing teenage girls, and they win, and we love them, then it creates this incentive system in the US where people decide, "It really is about me. It's no longer about reinvesting in the middle class." And as a result, you have incumbents, 25 wealthiest people in America, paying an average tax rate of 8%.

And we have a series of elected officials who are in a system where they need to get money to be reelected. The people with money are the incumbents. And what do you know? Old people keep voting in older people who keep voting themselves more money. And now we're at 40% of all government spending is on people over the age of 65. It's about to go over 50%.

Meaning we're not going to be able to make the forward-leaning investments in technology and education that quite frankly pay off and bring more people in the middle class. And then the older people who tend to be the executives, they're the ones in charge just by virtue of time and age, then they complain about the lack of loyalty from the young employees failing to recognize that they're the ones that set the rules. They demand loyalty. They demand you kiss the ring, but they offer nothing in return. And then they're surprised at this young generation that...

is doubling down on the rules that the older generation set, which is me before we. I think you're 100% right, which is especially in the United States, over-indexed on rugged individualism. The Marlboro Man worked too well. And we heroized CEOs. CEOs became heroes rather than the teams. And I think when we talk about would you go to war or would you allow your kids to go to war, the times that we live in are the context.

And you're saying, I would use my wealth and influence to get them out of it. But if it was 1941, I'm not so sure that would be true. At least in the United States, there were more suicides from young men who didn't get called. Yeah.

than ones who did. That's interesting. Which is an astonishing thing. And if you think about the collective desire to help, right? So people who could went to war in some way, shape, or form. They put on a uniform to support in some way, shape, or form. Those who didn't fight bought war bonds to support the effort. And those who couldn't afford war bonds planted war gardens. They just did something, even if it was symbolic, to demonstrate that we are one.

I think one of the, so the capitalism collapsing on itself is a bit of a far left narrative. Let me give some nod to the far right. I think that the fact that Americans haven't been attacked on our homeland other than 9-11, we're energy independent, we're food independent, friendly Canada to the north, harmless Mexico to the south.

I don't think a lot of people in America realize there's a large swath of people globally who the moment they feel like they can take with force our Netflix and our Nespresso away from us, we'll do it in a second. And that I don't think they really understand or nod to the amount of sacrifice that was made by previous generations to, and also very brave young men and women who are in the

uniform right now and some of our people who work in government and our security apparatus, I don't think Americans have the same level of fidelity or appreciation for just how hard it is, how much energy, how much money it takes.

how much sacrifice it takes to get to the levels of freedom and prosperity that America enjoys. I feel like America has become entitled, my generation on down, because every time we've been asked to sacrifice while we've been alive, it's been for a failed war. Iraq was stupid. Going into Southeast Asia, supporting the French colonization or recolonization after World War II ended up being a disaster.

So I think people just take for granted that, oh, we're special. All of this prosperity doesn't require sacrifice. It requires a ruthless devotion to uber capitalism and doing what you can to get to a certain point. Now, to your point around the CEOs believing the young people are entitled, it's just such bullshit. When you look at the level of compensation of CEOs relative to young people, it's gone from 30 to 300 percent.

Oh, wait, let me get this, David Zasloff. You cut the stock in half. You're firing people like crazy, but you walk away with a quarter of a billion dollars. And oh, you're going to make sure that you give enough money to senators like Kristen Sinema. You give her $2 million and she makes sure as the swing vote that the tax credit for carried interest for private equity funds maintain a $12 billion tax cut. The most disappointing thing about our government right now, it's not that they're whores. They've been whores for a long time. It's what incredibly cheap whores they are.

And the greatest return on investment in our economy is for an organization, a special interest group, a lobbying group for the rich or for corporations to go spread a little bit of money around and find out, "Oh, we need to protect the shoe market in case there's a war and we need boots, or we need this tax cut for people in the real estate industry."

And it does feel a little bit like it's collapsing on itself, that if we don't, as citizens and elect people who are a little bit more long-term thinking and recognize there's just no fucking reason why people who make their money selling stocks should have a lower tax rate than people sweeping up the floor at the New York Stock Exchange. When did capital become...

the capital that capital makes become more noble than the capital that sweat makes. Shouldn't it be flipped? Even Ronald Reagan said this is bullshit and he had one tax rate. So effectively, every big tax thing that goes through, every big expenditure, to name it, is really about a transfer of wealth. $30 billion child tax credit. Who does that benefit? Not only the children, but young mothers, right?

That gets stripped out of the infrastructure bill. We can't do it. It's too expensive. $30 billion. We need to be responsible. But the $140 billion cost of living adjustment in social security, each year, another 140 million, flies right through. No discussion of means testing. You and I should never have social security. No way. Let's call it senior security. It's not social security. And it's called a tax. It's not a pension fund, all this bullshit. Well, I paid into it. It's a tax. It's meant to be redistributed to people who need it.

Capital gains tax deduction, mortgage tax deduction, who owns homes? People our age. Who rents? The younger people here. Everything we do is how do we buttress the wealth of incumbents and old people and make it more expensive for young people. Their housing's gone up 4x. Education's gone up 2x. On an inflation-adjusted basis, their income's gone down. So they make less money.

Everything they need to get ahead or start saving or form a family has gotten more expensive, and yet they look left and right and up, and they see people making tons of money, and 210 times a day on their phone, people are vomiting their wealth, a lot of times faux wealth. And what do you know? They feel shitty. What a shocker. So how do we fix it? Short of revolution-

Because you and I, you know better than most that the way revolutions happen is when the delta between the haves and the have-nots gets too wide. 100%. Short of revolution. Right. And some may argue it's already begun. Yeah. How do we fix it? The good news about income inequality is when it gets to a certain level, it always self-corrects. The bad news is the means of self-correction are usually war, famine, or revolution. I would argue that a lot of the social...

Uprising in the US is more what I call a series of mini revolutions. I don't think what's going on on campuses in the United States is about the Middle East. I think it's about America. It's anti-establishment. Yeah. Whoever's establishment, this level of income inequality and dissatisfaction is incendiary poured on every small fire. It turns a dumpster fire into a nuclear mushroom cloud. There's just rage everywhere. Now, what do we do? I think the good news is we don't even need to come up with creative solutions. We just need to go back to the future.

We need a much more progressive tax rate. And I'm not talking about the super earners. If you make a lot of money on current income and you live in a blue state, you're probably paying 50, 52%. The super earners are actually paying too much. But once you make the jump to light speed and you say get lucky like me and you sell a company for nine figures and you can take all of that money and put it into income earning assets that are appreciated in value, you become a super owner and your tax rate plummets. And I'm very transparent about my wealth.

I think that this gestalt or this vibe, you're not supposed to talk about money, it's nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to keep poor people poor, because rich people talk about money all the time. The guy who runs the company, and it's almost always the guy, knows what everybody makes. So asymmetry of information benefits the incumbents. So what we have is a series of policies that, again, don't make any sense for young people. So more progressive tax structure on the super owners. Eliminate capital gains deduction. Everybody pays one rate.

have an alternative minimum tax for corporations and very wealthy people. Right now, corporations are paying the lowest tax rate they've paid since 1939. It used to be 2.5% of GDP, now it's 1%. There are five companies, Nike, FedEx, a bunch of them that paid, Amazon, that paid no taxes.

The tax code has gone from 400 pages to 4,000, right? And all of it is a bunch of loopholes meant to give money back to big organizations. Apple's the most profitable company in history. They incorporate in Ireland such that they can increase their taxes or increase their pre-tax revenue in a low-tax domain and decrease their revenue in a high-tax domain. That is nothing but sheer tax avoidance.

We need alternative minimum tax on the super wealth in corporations, and you could actually lower taxes across the super earners and youth. So redo our tax policy to be more, quote unquote, just equitable. Restore a progressive tax rate.

Two more opportunities for young people, specifically broader freshman class. College is still the best on-ramp into the middle or upper income classes. Harvard has grown its endowment 40-fold, 4,000%, but it's increased its freshman class size 4%. It lets in about the same number of people that a good Starbucks does. If you aren't growing your freshman class size faster than population growth, you should lose your tax-free status because you're now a hedge fund offering classes. You're not public servants. And in addition...

Instead of bailing out one-third of kids who got to go to college with student loan bailouts on the backs of the two-thirds that didn't, we should take some of that money and give it to our great public universities in exchange for three things. One, they increased their freshman class size 6%. With the deft use of technology, they could easily do. There's no one there at night. There's no one there during the summers. I work at one of these places. We could easily expand our freshman class size, too.

Reduce costs 2% a year. We could do that with scale and more students and technology. A third of my faculty, and they're some of the best in the world, should be put on an ice float. They're not only not adding any value, because they're not adding any value, they get angry and disruptive and get in the way

That is nothing but student debt layered on young people. Ethics, leadership, sustainability, it's all bullshit and self-aggrandizement from a group of people who decided they're no longer centers of excellence, they're social engineers. I mean, just think about how fucking arrogant that is. We're not elected by anyone, but we've decided

We should train a new generation of youth around what they should care about and what social policy should be. Here's an idea. Give them the skills they can go make a bunch of money and take care of their families and then pay taxes to a group of people who are elected who then decide our social priorities.

And then finally, 20% of all degrees should be vocational certifications, non-traditional four years degree, two year in specialty nursing, one year in construction of nuclear power plants, 18 month vocational program and the installation of energy efficient HVAC. There are a ton of Main Street economy jobs that pay six figures plus.

that we're not training kids for. Here in the UK, 11% of LinkedIn profiles say apprentice, that's 3% in the US. More freshman seats, lower cost for college, and we need a federal laws that say if you get in the way of housing permits, you're liable if you found that this obstruction wasn't ethical. We need a million and a half more housing permits per year because this is what has happened. The incumbents with their degrees

salute the dean when he or she decreases admissions rates from 76%, which is what it was when I applied to UCLA, to 9%. We applaud as alumni because that means the value of our degree goes up. And then once you and I own a home, we start showing up to the local review board and we get very concerned about traffic and we find ways to make sure that no housing permits

are ever issued such that people who work with you can't afford a goddamn home. Pre-COVID 2019, homes were $290,000. They're $420,000 a day. And with the acceleration in interest rates because we keep spending money on their goddamn credit card...

Mortgages have gone from $1,100 to $2,300. It used to be two-thirds of Americans could afford a home. Now it's one-third, so they can't afford a home. They're getting taxed like fucking crazy, and everyone above them is making a shit ton of money. I'm in the club with champagne and cocaine, and the closest the next generation gets to the club is they can throw me their credit card so I can run it up. That is literally what is happening.

We're going to have cheap debt long enough. We're going to be able to pay our debt while I'm still alive. But who's really going to get fucked is the kids who are going to have to pay it back where I keep parting on their debt. Okay. So- That was a lot. The thing that I find, nobody can listen to this podcast at any faster than actual speed or slower. I speak fast. It's just too fast. It was the wrong morning to do math.

Do you remember airplanes? Like, oh, I picked the wrong week to quit drinking. That's right. To quit glue. Yeah. To quit sniffing glue. Okay. So let's back up a second here. Sure. I subscribe. Yeah. Hook, line, sinker. Right? Yeah. But-

Who will voluntarily make those changes? You just made the case that the haves, the status quo, defend the status quo because they benefit from the status quo, obviously. And so there's no incentive at all in business or in politics to change the tax code and make the changes that you're talking about. There's no incentive in a university system. University presidents aren't hired to make great universities. They're hired to raise money. And so there's...

no incentive whatsoever to make the changes that are common sense and will work that you're advocating. So short of revolution, how do we make those changes? Well, I don't think it's that bad. So I'll use myself as an example because what you're talking about, people aren't going to disarm unilaterally. I've been very open. I started my last speech on saying I've been open about my finances. My average tax rate the last 10 years has been 17% because some of the brightest people I work with help me minimize my tax rate.

Probably the brightest woman in my universe is a woman who works at a big law firm and every year she looks at my taxes and she figures out all kinds of legal ways for me to reduce my tax rate. And I have the ability to do that now that I'm a super owner. I've gone from super owner to super owner. What we need is a group of people, and we've done this in the past, that say, "We're going to elect people. No one's going to disarm unilaterally. You're going to try and pay the minimum amount of tax. All right? That's your job. It's like being a prisoner of war. Your job is to escape."

So I'm not suggesting anyone's going to say, well, I'm just going to write a bigger check to the government this year. That's not going to happen. But what we have done, and a lot of people still do, is I will vote for people. I'll vote for Senators Klobuchar and Senators Bennett, and I'll try and get Biden reelected, because I think that those people do think somewhat long-term that

And we'll try, we'll try to impose some of the things we're talking about. Hold on, let me interrupt here. Sure. Okay. You don't buy it. No. Okay, go on. When you have wealth, you get to say things like, I'll vote for the guy that will make the long-term decisions. When you are on the receiving end of everything you've talked about, long-term ain't a thing. Solving the problem...

Finding a job, reducing my tax rate, managing inflation, affording milk, getting my kid into school, not having to have two jobs to make a single job wage. Immediate relief is the thing I vote for. And the promises that some politicians can make about the immediate relief that they will offer is unbelievably appealing, whether it's true or not.

And you said it yourself, that's the voting population. The wealthy try to, they use their money to get what they want, but the voting population, the majority, gets to actually vote. Right. But I do think, so first off, to your point,

The culprits are the elected officials, but the culpable are voters. If young people want a greater transfer, want to restore opportunity to young people, they need to start voting. Instead of 40% of them voting like seniors, they need to be 60%. In addition, I think there's an interesting idea that you should be able to vote for your kids. We spend less money per capita on children than any developed nation. And I think one quick fix for that would be to give people who are the guardians of kids more votes. So you're a single mom with three kids, you get four votes.

I realize that's unlikely to happen, but that would immediately overnight reshift our priorities. So I do think there are things absolutely we can do. And I do think people do vote for people who they believe are ... Look, I hate to use the word term, but it's leadership. It's someone saying no one should have to go bankrupt after they find out their wife has lung cancer. So Obamacare, expensive. We all pay 2% or 2.8% a year in taxes that we'd rather not pay if you're healthy.

But Americans are saying, look, if a leader comes along and convinces me this is a reinvestment in the middle class and a reinvestment in America, I will vote for that person if they can articulate with passion and leadership. I think that that opportunity is still there.

For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Ante marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people.

Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia and with the help of law enforcement brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law & Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law & Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin, a better Lacey Lamar. Boo. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. You thought you had fun last season? Well, you were right. And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs. We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach. That's my husband. Daphne Springs.

Daniel Thrasher, Peppermint, Morgan J., and more. You gotta watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you gotta listen. Like, if you're watching us, you have to tell us. Like, if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window. Just, you know what? Listen to the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Get emotional with me, Radhi Devlukia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry. We're going to talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone. We're going to go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic personal development, and just building your mindset to have a happier, healthier life. We're going to be talking with some of my best friends. I didn't know we were going to go there on this. I'm going to go there on this because this is going to

People that I admire. When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors of books that have changed my life. Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right? And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life. I already believe in myself. I already see myself. And so when people give me an opportunity, I'm just like, oh great, you see me.

Hey there, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar, and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior.

Many of us have experienced a moment in our lives that changes everything. A moment that instantly divides our life into a before and an after. On my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, I talk to people about navigating these very moments. The last couple of years has been the hardest season of our marriage for sure.

I'm surprised our marriage survived it. I think we both are. I think we both were barely holding on. Nothing compares to how hard this is. Their stories are full of candor, awe, and hard-won wisdom. And you'll hear from scientists who teach us how we can be more resilient in the face of change. True behavior change is really identity change. Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is in

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that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You're touching right on something that that's the thing that I'm sort of lamenting these days. And it is the leadership. It is that leadership conversation, which is it seems that there's been a total loss of idealism. I agree. And you go back to Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy. So I don't care what your politics are. They literally use the terms peace on Earth, world peace in their inaugurations as a driving motivation.

which is an incredibly appealing thing to bring people together and be willing to bear any burden and pay any price for the greater good. And talking about world peace now, literally in this artificial context, sounds completely cheesy to say the world, I'm doing it for world peace, you know?

And I don't see it in politics. I don't even see it in business the total loss of idealism And I think idealism is the thing because idealism exists on a level above everything we're talking about Yep, it is the thing that we can actually see the forest for the trees and say well I am willing to give up some mm-hmm because I believe in that and some could be money It could be an effort. It could some sort of sacrifice. Mm-hmm. And so I wonder if this is solvable and

with good leadership. Now, I'm also not so foolhardy to think, oh, well, you just make leaders. I actually think that the single worst thing that happened to the United States was the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union. Because the problem with vision and idealism is it's ethereal. It's ethereal. It's literally in someone's imagination. They give a rousing speech and like, oh, that sounds amazing. But

And the great thing about a common enemy is they're tangible and we can see it. That's right. And it's easy to know what we stand for when I can literally see what I'm against. What's the thing that is preventing me from getting this thing. And I think there's a very important nuance here, which is the enemy isn't the thing. Having an enemy is easy and we've seen it

Throughout every dictatorship, they find an enemy and that's how they come to power. What they're missing is the idealism. The enemy isn't the enemy so much it is the thing getting in the way of us getting to the thing that we want, which is really important. There's something on the other side of that. And I blame every president, by the way. This is not a Republican-Democrat thing. The decline of idealism from every president who has served since the fall of the Soviet Union has slowly chipped away at American idealism. And that is gone.

There's a lot there so like and by the way, we know we know the numbers which is we know that belief and trust in Politicians is at an all-time low. You know that belief and trust in there's no social leaders either We're the Martin Luther King juniors like they're they're not there right the ones that are bringing people together rather than breaking us apart They're not there but trust in corporations weirdly. Yeah, it's quite high right now. Yeah, and so

I'm just going to go where the market takes me. And if that's where the trust is, then I'm looking to the corporate leaders to start to demonstrate the restoration of idealism.

And if they can start to make the changes that you and I are advocating at a national level, which by the way, it's not going to happen like that, doesn't it? But if they can start making it at a corporate level, mid-sized companies, small companies, even large companies, start making the kinds of social changes that you and I are talking about there, it'll filter out and eventually roll over to politics. The part where you lost me is that we keep hoping that the better angels of CEOs are going to show up. And then if we paint iPods red, the corporations and capitalism will save us.

And I find that this entire notion of corporate social responsibility is just such unfettered bullshit. But wait, I don't think, that's not what I'm talking about. But let me, give me some running right here. All right, okay. And that is-

We keep hoping that Sheryl Sandberg actually does care about our children and that Sam Altman and his hushed tones and concerns about AI cares about anything but making money. Corporations are so great at making money, and we need that so we can generate tax revenue and create economic security for people. They're so good at making money, they shouldn't be trusted to do anything else. What we should do is have a group of people who sit on top of that tax revenue that hopefully grows with the full body contact violence of capitalism, which is a wonderful thing,

that tax them at a fair rate, and then redeploy that capital based on a series of policies that we all buy into. I think that people generally do believe that we have a problem when one in five households in the most prosperous society and nation with children are food insecure, that they would like to see those problems solved. And if someone comes in with an idea and leadership and says, "Okay,

This is how we do it equitably. This is the sacrifice it's going to require. Are we going to cut spending or increase taxes? The answer is yes. I do think there's opportunity right now for someone to come in and say, it's time to start paying it forward. It's time to return to our American roots. We have sacrificed all the way through. We've been harvesting these sacrifices. It's time to step into the void and pay it a little bit forward. I do think there's an opportunity here. I'm more optimistic that

Americans, if you think about it, are an incredibly generous people. And what's happened is that I think because of no term limits, because of the aging of our elected

elected representatives. Nancy Pelosi, when she had her first child, Fidel had just declared martial law in Cuba. Only a third of houses had color television. So does she really understand the challenges facing a single mother? I think we need much, much younger electorate. But I think Americans as a whole are ready to sacrifice as long as they feel they're part of a collective sacrifice. And there really hasn't been a voice

to kind of bring people together and say, unions, you're going to hate me. Old people, you're going to hate me. Corporations, Jesus Christ, you're going to hate me. Young people, all right, I see the problem here. Something I've struggled with my whole life is the difference between being right and being effective. And as I talk about these things and try and foam in and catalyze social change, I'm trying to be more effective. So for example, I'm trying to

appeal to people's sense of reward and masculinity, for example. And this is virtue signaling, but I actually think virtue signaling is fine. I give away a lot of money and I don't do it because I'm a good person. I don't think I do it because I'm philanthropic. It makes me feel really masculine. I brag about it. It makes me feel strong. I believe it's bringing together my skills and my strengths to protect and provide for others. And it makes me feel like a fucking baller.

So I'm like, why above a certain level? And Daniel Kahneman, one of my intellectual role models, has this thing. He proved that the difference between making $30,000 and $80,000 a year or $30,000 and $50,000 is huge. The difference between making $1 million and $3 million a year, no incremental happiness. You're no happier. So wouldn't that argue for...

a really progressive tax structure once above, say, one or call it even 10 million. You're going to get any happier between 10 and 20 million a year? You're not. I have science that shows it. But if you can take that money and then make a bunch of households much happier taking them from 30 to 50, let's elect people who are going to have the backbone to say no to corporations and special interest group and impose a truly progressive tax structure. And I think that argument, that argument

Will resonate with a lot of voters I do think the D and democracy can still work here and I think that we are looking for a voice and I think they're out there to say look it is time to nod our head to all the people who've made a ton of sacrifice Such that we could reap the fruit. We're reaping. I think it's time. I think America is ready for it You know, I giving each other a lot of dense sandwiches to unpack. So the capitalism that you're defending Yep, or at least pointing to yep. I

that Sam Altman who comes in with these idealistic notions and all of a sudden they disappear when money gets involved. Yeah.

is a relatively modern conception of capitalism. It's Milton Friedman's capitalism. Right. Popularized by fuckers like Jack Welch. Right. But it's not Adam Smith capitalism. It's not the capitalism that made America great. Yeah, it's not true capitalism. It's not true capitalism. And so we've conflated the bastardized version of capitalism we have now with the capitalism that has contributed to the world for over 200 years. And my fear is that we're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

because we've so conflated them. And so I think there should be a return to a kind of capitalism where there is, I'll use the term, moral obligation. That's right. That we have moral obligation. So just out of curiosity, I did this just the other day. Just out of curiosity, I was curious why rich people gave to charity like the Victorian era, right? So 19th century.

because the Carnegie's, the Rockefeller's and the British wealthy, they gave shit tons to charity and they built universities and hospitals and all these wonderful institutions that exist today.

I was curious if they did it for tax incentive. And in neither Britain nor in the US was there any tax incentive, a total of zero tax benefits to give to charity. And then I went and read some of what they wrote and what they said. And they all used the same terms. They all used the same term, which is moral obligation, that we have a moral obligation to give back to the society that gave to us. Even if you could make the argument they were assholes and not nice people, they believed in this moral obligation. And that moral obligation came from

In other words, God was the thing that was bigger than all of them, whether they were God-fearing or not. I'm not looking for religion to solve the problem here, but it's idealism. It's the thing that's bigger than all of us. The fear of an existential, of something existential. A comity of man. A comity of man. Yeah.

somehow restores moral obligation. I don't think any CEO feels a moral obligation. They talk about fiduciary duty, which by the way is lower than a moral obligation. They talk about their fiduciary responsibilities.

And I think that's why business has become so myopic. And to your point, which is the only thing they're good at is making money, but I would like them to have a moral obligation and be good at making money. See, I think you're talking your own book because this is how you make your living is you go into corporations and you teach them or you try and convince them to be more moral. And I think that that is a noble thing that we need more of. I don't think it's the right strategy. Go on. Because they're always going to figure out ways why they get to their next fucking Gulf Stream.

And they'll wave their hands. I go to these meetings, I'm in these boardrooms, and they all talk a big fucking game about social responsibility. And then they will incrementally do whatever's required, whether it's put out media that results in more teenage girls self-cutting, radicalizing young men such that they can, while they finally are in that CEO seat that they worked so hard to get to, bank enough money that they have influence and have a much broader selection set of much hotter mates than they deserve.

Those things are irresistible. That's what I want. But those things are irresistible in different times. Those things are not a modern conception. Those things have existed literally since there were people who had more than others. If you're waiting for the better angels of CEOs to show up, don't hold your breath.

What we need is a group of people who convince enough people to vote for him to say, okay. But where are the candidates? So you and I are stuck in the same place. Right. Which is... But you think CEOs are going to fix this? No, I think the CEOs at least... At least there's an opportunity in business that I think is more...

more likely to happen in the short term than the opportunity in politics? We need long-term solutions. Let me give you one very tactical idea. If we could go back in time, would we put a pretty immense tax on all carbon capture, all carbon emission, and all oil pulled out of the ground? We knew that pulling fossil fuels out of the ground and then arbing it into a substance to create economic value was going to have a lot of externalities. So if we'd said, for every barrel we pull out, we're putting a $10 tax on it, and we're going to start investing in forward-leaning investments around the government, job training, and

And renewables. We're at that moment. The new energy, seven of the 10 most valuable firms in 1980 were energy companies. Seven of the 10 most valuable firms in 2024 are tech companies. But they're not. They're energy firms. They're all becoming the same firm offering something called compute. Instead of powering our cars and our factories, they're powering our phones and our LLMs. Which requires a lot of power. Right now-

A query on ChatGPT takes 10 times the energy of Google. Right now, is this an opportunity to put in place legislation and have forward-leaning and forward-thinking politicians who get enough support

And say, okay, we're going to tax compute. We're going to tax compute because we know there are going to be externalities that will require money around misinformation, around teen depression, around paying off the deficit. Everything you're saying is correct. Right. Where are the people who have the courage to implement those things? You're more cynical than me. The government does pass some positive things. The CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Act. There are some people thinking long term.

Bob Iger isn't going to save us, Simon. No, I don't think he is. And Sam Altman? But I'm not looking to those guys to fix it. I'm looking for the revolutionary CEOs. What, Ben and Jerry's or REI? No. Okay, who? Who's doing it?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Your power, Simon, you are so articulate and so forceful, is to rally a group of people to find elected officials who are going to make the hard decisions to hold corporations and the super wealthy and reinvest in America. I'm not looking to rally CEOs. Right. Fair enough. Good. Okay.

For every reason you've articulated. And by the way, I have the same meetings with them. They spew the same, they tell me what I want to hear and then they go and make the opposite decisions. No, no, I'm fully aware of the idiocy. And when I can, I'll call bullshit, but that's part of what I think my job is, is to call bullshit. I'm rallying the rest of us. The voting population in business is the workforce. And I believe that power is...

It's not a belief. It's a fact that power always exists with the people. The people always have the power. I agree. Another quick idea. You didn't like the compute idea. No, no. I love that idea. All right. Another one. Why wouldn't we raise minimum wage to $25 an hour? Well, it'll put all these small businesses out of business. No, it doesn't. The states that have raised minimum wage...

to $12 or $15 an hour, Washington State and California, their economies have grown. Because the wonderful thing about poor people is they spend all their fucking money. It creates a multiplier effect. And by the way, if minimum wage had just kept pace with inflation or productivity, it'd be 23 bucks an hour. And by the way, McDonald's and Walmart, their stock would go down. And that's okay. Corporate profits are at an all-time high. Wages as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time low. Minimum wage, $25 federally mandated. You and I agree.

Here's where we actually agree, that the power is with the people. You're saying it's the voter, I'm saying it's the employee. And what I'm hoping... Fair enough. What I'm hoping is that...

Just like the voting population gets involved and gets educated, I'm hoping that the employee population learns the skills that they need to learn about idealism and leadership and moral obligation so that as they make their own way through the ranks, that they will become the leaders that they wish they had. I like that. The manifestation for that in the 20th century is unions who are corrupt and ineffective. There should be one union. All unions have been totally ineffective. 45 of the 47 nations...

that have unions, have lost union membership. Union membership in the United States has been cut in half. There should be one union. It should be in Washington, D.C., and it should be federally mandated minimum wage of $25 an hour and get rid of all the corruption and weirdness and inefficiency that is unions. Everything we're talking about. Usually, if you go to a company with a good leader, what the federally mandated minimum wage is is irrelevant because good leaders will say, my people can't live on that wage. I'm going to pay them fairly.

Okay. Right. And those good leaders are usually in information economy companies that can afford to pay other people $25 an hour. Unless all fast food companies are forced to pay $25 an hour, the temptation to pay them $11 an hour will be too great. They won't.

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I didn't know we were going to go there on this.

People that I admire. When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors of books that have changed my life. Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right? And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life. I already believe in myself. I already see myself. And so when people give me an opportunity, I'm just like, oh great, you see me.

Hey there, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior.

The last couple of years has been the hardest season of our marriage for sure.

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I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is in

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I think that you and I have gone in a full circle here because all we have advocated is revolution. No, no, no. But I don't think it has to be a violent revolution. But what we're advocating is revolution. There's an opportunity, and I think they're out there, for a younger person to come in and say, "It is time to pay it forward, folks. I'm going to literally piss off every special interest group, but I need your vote." It's funny because we're kind of saying the exact same thing, which is we're looking for people to say

what the solutions are and ask, vote for me or support me, whether at work or in office, to do the right thing. I agree with you. The problem is once they get the power and once they get the money, the same thing happens. There's a...

The congressmen that I've met, their first terms or when they're running for the first time, my God, they really are idealistic. Then once they get there and they sniff the power and they recognize that their job is fundraising, the idealism falls away. There's some good people. I'm not throwing- Ro Khanna, Senators Warner, Klobuchar, Bennett. By the way, on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the aisle, there's- Fewer and fewer on the right, to be blunt.

Fewer and fewer. The... Ratios aren't the same. James Carville said, and I think he's 100% right when he said it then, and I think it's 100% true now, which is the difference between Republicans and Democrats is Republicans want to win and Democrats want to be right. Well, the difference between being right and effective. And also, just to give equal opportunity, the far left has become...

incredibly naive and incredibly anti-American and incredibly, in my opinion, racist. I think there's, look, the biggest threat in the world is not a pandemic. It's not Putin, it's not Hamas, it's extremism. And if you look at the far left and the far right, they seem to have all come together to agree on antisemitism.

We have decided to elect people who are extremists. And because of gerrymandering and hard right and hard left districts, we send people who are just fucking crazy on the left and people who are fucking crazy on the right. And we're supposed to govern that way? We have minority rule, right? 80% of our senators are from 20% of the population. The vast majority of Americans are in the middle. The vast majority of Americans think, okay...

We need corporations to be successful, but they should pay their fair share. Okay, women should have bodily autonomy. Should a woman be able to have a pregnancy in the third term without threat to the life? Probably not, but that never happens. Let's have an honest conversation. Do we need three sets of bathrooms in every corporation? Probably not, but for God's sake, stop demonizing...

"These people who make up the total population of lacrosse players in Wisconsin, why the fuck are we demonizing?" Most people are somewhere in the middle. In the middle. Yes. And those people have absolutely no representation because social media says the following, "Okay, you need two things to survive as a species. You have to enjoy sex." We still have that. "And you need to be able to get enjoyment in a rush."

from collectively pulling together, and you referenced this earlier, to defeat a common enemy. Whether it's either there's no more deer here and we need to move on, or there's people over the hill that want to kill us, so we come together to kill them. You've got to get a rush from that. And in order to have that rush, you need to find an enemy. And unfortunately, because as you said, we're no longer in a Cold War, well, we need an enemy. Well, I know. Let's turn our neighbors into enemies.

40% fewer people are speaking to their neighbors right now. 52% of Democrats are worried their kids are going to marry a Republican. We're not each other's enemies. We're fucking Americans. We're each other's allies, for Christ's sake. But instead, let's find algorithms that pit us against each other. Let's find politicians that are more interested in making the other side look stupid for their YouTube moment than actually coming together to actually fucking govern. Enough already. Let's find people in the middle.

And by the way, I'm sure it happens to you. It happens to me. You know what they all agree on? We should hate moderates. This is what I get from the political spectrum.

The far right calls me a libtard. And occasionally when I talk about the importance of having a strong military or the taxes are too high on the super earners, the far left feel like, oh my God, we thought we could trust you. You have betrayed us. There is absolutely no room anymore for anyone in the middle. And unless people start speaking up and going, you know what? This doesn't make for good TikTok.

But it probably represents how most people think and we need to have a thoughtful opinion. We need fewer ideologues and more pragmatists. But there is such a white space right now for a new generation of leadership to come in and say,

Okay, I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm never going to personally attack anyone on the other side. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to get legislation done. There's some obvious things we need to restore here. Income inequality is out of control. We need an exceptionally strong defense. We need to stop spending $7 trillion a year and only taking in $5 trillion. We need to stop this bullshit transfer of wealth from the entrance to the incumbents. Come on, let's grow up. It's time.

The opportunity is huge. Someone is going to step in. You and I are founding a new political party called the Common Sensists. The normies? The normies, the Common Sensists. And you're right. This country, the United States, it's a moderate nation. I am hopeful. And here's what gives me hope. You and I shouldn't have careers. I definitely shouldn't have a career.

You know, I talk about trust and optimism. That's such bullshit. You have the core competence of success. You know what that is? What's that? Storytelling. You know how to tell stories. I have, but I talk about, my stories are about trust and cooperation and there should be no demand for my work. You don't believe that. I do. Yeah, no, no, no. If I had said, if any of my books were written and anything that I've said- If you're living in Russia talking about the patriarchy or oligarchy- No, no, if I had said, if I had written anything that I wrote or said anything that I said in the 1980s,

There would be no one. But you would have found something else. No, but the point is, this is what I believe. And my beliefs would have zero resonance in the 1980s. Okay. The times are right for what we're talking about. And there is demand for this stuff that you and I are talking about. There is demand for people who are looking for to belong to something. And the society isn't providing, you know, the bowling leagues and the religious institutions aren't providing it.

that people are looking... They've focused on money. They did as they were told and focused on me and focused on money and focused on advancement and they haven't found...

the happiness and joy that they've been looking for. And so they're looking somewhere else and they're looking in weird places and weird spiritual things. And what if I do ayahuasca every weekend? You know, it's like, it's like that, you know, it was said that a glass of wine a day is good for you. That means the very American way. Well, the glass of wine is a day is good for you. Then a bottle of wine a day must be great for you.

So quick stat, just, I'm probably interrupting. There's a statistic showing that far right families are better at parenting than far left, which upset me because I'm far left, because of what you're talking about. Far right families are more likely to inject institutions into the kid's life, religious institutions, Boy Scouts.

What you're saying is the importance of institutions. The importance of institutions, the points of- Collective. Of collective and the importance of friends. This is the thing that I'm sort of working on and writing about now, which is there's an entire industry to help us be better leaders. There's an entire industry to give us advice how to be better parents. There's an entire industry how we can be healthy, how we can eat right, how we can manage our glucose, how we can live longer and how we can exercise. And there's absolutely nothing to teach us how to be better friends.

And none of those other things will be there in a time of need. Yeah. Like your boss isn't going to be there for you. And by the way, learning to be a better boss doesn't make you a better parent. Learning to be a better friend makes you a better parent, makes you a better boss, makes you a better everything.

Yeah. The thing that's lubricated friendship for me is alcohol. By the way, one in seven. Which is why you and I aren't friends because I won't drink to excess with you. Don't say that. That hurts my feelings. You said to me the last time I saw you that you couldn't be my friend because I won't go out and get drunk with you. No, it means we couldn't have sex. I don't think I've ever had sex in my life. I didn't get fucked up first. We should probably edit that out. By the way, for all young people listening, my advice to you is go out, drink too much, and make a series of bad decisions that might pay off.

That's not my career experience, just so you know. Yeah, yeah. But there was different- One in seven men, I'm trying to find a segue out of this. One in seven men don't have a single friend. One in four men can't name a best friend.

I agree with you. I'd like to see something called the Friendship Project. I'm trying to be more promiscuous with saying yes to stuff. I'm at a point where I'm looking to shed friends, not gain them, but I'm trying to be better about it. And something I'm trying to instill in my boys is I ask them to speak to a stranger when they're out because I'm worried that being on the phone that they slowly but surely become introverts that aren't investing in other people. Are they good at playing with each other? Like playing together? You know, they're brothers, so...

Do you have siblings? Mm-hmm. I have a younger sister. So you hope as parents that they're going to be best friends, and they're not. The younger one's obsessed with the older one, lashes out to get his attention. The older one's into other things. What are their ages? They're 13 and 16. So our vision for what we'd hope they would be

I mean, I hope it grows into a great friendship, but right now they're more competitors than friends. It's actually sort of heartbreaking to be honest. But it's an age that makes sense. Yeah, I get it. I get it. But we'd still rather they were looking out for each other a little bit more. But anyways, by the way, I think that's my biggest regret is not having more kids, but I don't know how I got on this. Anyways. You were trying to segue out of the other thing. About the alcohol and having, it's like my parents, I asked them if I was an accident and they said, no, I was a tragedy. Yeah.

Anyways, where are we, Simon? Bring us back. So, the irony is of all of these social challenges that we're facing and the decline of the empire, which declines of empires are acts of suicide always. The thing that we're watching play out in front of us, that perhaps, just perhaps, this very, very old-fashioned thing called, I care and love the people next to me, might actually be the solution because...

I want to do the right thing, not for myself, but for the people I love. And, you know, like I spent time with Navy SEALs and other very high performing military special operators. And what they all have in common is

is that they care for each other more than others are capable of and that they don't have this raw courage. I think that's the definition of love. They don't have this raw courage. It's that they fear letting each other down more than they fear dying. It's all about the guy next to you. It's all about the guy next to them. And I think very few of us, I remember the first time a friend of mine in uniforms called me brother.

Because you and I have colleagues and coworkers. They have brothers and sisters. And I remember the first time somebody called me brother, it meant something. And I also, as a friend of mine, he's a warrior. Make no mistake of it, he's a warrior. He's a war hero. He's risked his life to save others. He's still in uniform. And I remember we had a long conversation one evening just catching up as friends. And at the end of the conversation, before he got off the phone, he said, I love you. Not love ya, not love you. I love you. And...

Men don't say that to each other for sure. No. Yeah, and I remember what it felt like I made it I'm feeling it now and I was it struck me so hard Yeah that I started experimenting saying that to the people who I feel that way about yeah, and I have some friends who are I Would call them not warm good people. Yeah kind people. Yeah, not warm people. Yeah, but I

But I love them. And I remember, I'm thinking of two people in particular. And I remember saying to them,

I love you when I was leaving to say goodbye and I remember how struck they were yeah and then in very short time they started saying it back and in very short time they started hugging me like they've never hugged me before and these are old friendships yeah that's nice and when we talk about World War two and and the willingness to and the intense desire to serve mm-hmm I think it's because we knew our and you said it before we knew our neighbors and

We barbecued with our neighbors. We cared about our friends. We went to church. We went to bowling league. We went to PTA meetings. We took each other's kids to school. And dare I say it, this very old fashioned, very, very human thing called love thy neighbor, love thy friend might actually be the solution we're looking for that all the other things that you and I have spent way too long talking about might actually be symptoms rather than the causes themselves.

So I like that. I think that's part of it. But you know how I say I love you to people now? I give them money. That's not love. Oh, it's better.

The kids who work for me don't want my love, they want money. Your friends, I'm not talking about your employees. Okay, friends fine. I'm not talking about your employees. Okay, but that's how I make the biggest impact. I have a group of friends, we share affection with each other. I'm seeing like three fraternity brothers in Aspen in two weeks. I invite my friends to a bunch of shit. I think they feel loved, I know they love me. But that's generous. But in terms of moving society forward, here's how I was the first 40 years of my life. Anyone that walked into one of my companies had two bubbles.

One bubble was how much money they made. One bubble was how much value they were adding. And if the left bubble got bigger than the right, I warned them. And if it didn't get fixed fast, I fired them. I was a pure under-dollar-rated capitalist. And now you know what I do? I overpay people. My job as someone who has a lot of money is to stuff as much money into the pockets of people who are working with me who do a great job. It's almost like a self-imposed- Okay. Wonderful. I love that. Keep doing it. Great. Love it. Okay.

But your friends that you're generous with and you'll pay for the trip and you'll pay for the hotel. I'm talking about that. Like I'm talking about like, like let's take two scenarios, right? A friend of yours is moving house. Yep. And you, you go, you're, you're such a great friend. I'm paying for the moving van. Here's five grand, right? Yeah. You wanted to go over an actual help them move, right? And versus the friend. No fucking way.

No fucking way. Okay, so I'll be getting drunk with someone or I'll be at the Hotel du Cap But by the way, here's the money no need to thank me. I got it money is the transfer of work and time It is the best way to express love. But it's a redeemable commodity. It's such an awesome commodity in a capitalism society. Ask the people who work for you Do they want a fucking hug or do they want a bonus? Give them a bonus bitch. You keep conflating employees and friends

Every time I'm talking about friends, you keep going back to people who work for you or work for me. You're that guy lecturing CEOs. Turn them into your family. Isn't that what they're called? We're a family. Okay, treat them like family. Give them money. I'm talking about the people you love in your life that you will learn tomorrow

obligation and you keep going back. We should so be drinking right now. You keep talking about employees. We should so be drinking. I think we need to lie you down on a couch here and you need to tell me about your childhood, why you can't talk about friends and loving friends and you keep wanting to talk about capitalism and paying employees. It's not either or. It's yes. It's yes. I got that part down. I got the love part down. There are two different things and you can only talk about

one of them. But they're not mutually exclusive. What do we need more of? People telling each other they love each other or stepping more money into their pockets so they can have their own house? Yes, we need both those things. So they can vacation where Simon vacations. We need both those things, but you are only all talking about one. I'm trying to get you to talk about the other. Okay. I agree with you. I'm there. The love thing is great. I have an idea. I have an idea. The love things are great. I have an idea. I don't think we suffer from an absence. Well, okay. The coarseness of our discourse is...

is gotten too coarse. I agree with you. Take the temperature down. The greatest unused commodity in history is good intentions.

Men have a difficult time expressing their emotions. It's great to say, I respect you. I think you're an interesting guy. I think you're handsome given your age, Simon. You don't have to say I love you. We don't have that friendship. It's fine. It's not going to happen. I don't expect it. It would be weird if you said it. I respect you. But I do think that for guys in my position, I think the way I can add the most value is to really... I'll give you an example. I hit my number...

10 years ago. I don't understand. I'm totally optimized for happiness right now. I got a third of my life left chronologically, but I'm going to live four thirds of it spiritually.

and psychologically. I'm just gonna have a fucking, I'm gonna squeeze so much juice out of this ellipsoid lemon called Terra, called Earth, and I figured out the way I can be happiest is to get rich. I got there. That's really important to me. It's wonderful in a capitalist society. It means I get to live a better life. I get to be loved. To be rich in America is to be loved. Full stop. It's a violent, rapacious place. If you don't have money, it's a loving, generous place if you do have money.

Once you hit your number, and I would like to start a movement here, there's no reason to be a hoarder, 'cause this is what makes you happy. Spend it. I spend so much fucking money and it's amazing.

And then you know what I do? I give it away. I have not increased my net worth in seven years. I look at my number once I got there 10 years ago. The last seven years, I look at my number, and if my wealth has gone up X and I haven't spent it all, I give it away. And you know what? It makes me feel strong like bull. I want to beat my fucking chest. It feels so good. And so what I would say to anyone else who has a lot of money, why do you need to be a billionaire? It's not going to get you anything. Here's what you do.

You go to the Hotel Du Cap with your wife, you do amazing things with friends and family, you take care of your parents, you fly your friends to Aspen to hang out with you, and then anything above that, you give it away. And there's so many amazing causes and people, and overpay the people who work with you. Throw money around like you're a fucking gangster in the 50s diagnosed with ass cancer. Just live it up.

And you know what? You're going to love life. Don't do it because you're noble. Don't do it because you're praying to some god or whatever it is. I can tell you firsthand, it feels amazing. So I'm trying to appeal to people's selfish instincts. You want to have an amazing life? Get rich. Economic security is important, especially for a man. And I know that sounds sexist, but assume you are going to take economic responsibility for your household, which sometimes means getting out of the way and letting your wife

Because she's better at the money thing. And then once you get your number, once you get your number, spend it or give it away. I was so trying to wrap this up and end this. And you had to go and open a fucking Pandora's box for me. There you go. I can't just let that go. Okay. Okay. You're missing one vital element from that rant. Okay.

at what cost? At what cost? In other words, that's what's been happening for the past 30, 40 years. You mean I don't get a second plane because I'm giving my money away? No, no, no. I'd like a bigger plane, Simon. No, no. I want the Gulfstream. Meaning...

People are pushing so hard to make their number. The cost is too steep. It's at the cost of each other. It's at the cost of society. It's at the cost of our employees. It's like I'm going to lay off all these people so that I can make my number. I'm going to stab you in the back so that I can make my number.

Your rent needs a little bit of a hedge. That's not true. Because the rent that you're giving is the new capitalist 1980s Jack Welch rent. You're falling into a populist myth that rich people call over other people to get there. The majority of rich people are good people. If you want to be really wealthy, it's a full person project. You're the one who said that there's no CEOs that I'm living with rose-colored glasses because the CEO is ignoring me because of...

They're doing a good job. We should have higher taxes on them, but generally speaking, they're good people. I know, yes. Generally speaking, they're good people. Some of them are our friends. Yeah, yeah. Some of them I don't like, but some of them are our friends. Look, the majority of successful people have one thing in common, and that is, one, they work out. That's the thing that's most common. Physical fitness is really important. You need to walk into a room and be able to either, if shit gets real, either kill and eat everybody or outrun them. I believe that. Yeah.

And two, they're generally put in a room of opportunities even when they're not there because they're high character people. So the cartoon of Monty Burns lighting his cigars with $100 bills, that really isn't accurate.

But at the same time, they need to pay more in taxes. They need to pay their fair share. They can't be incentivized to lay off people and invest money in artificial intelligence. It's tax policy. It's incentives. At the risk of this becoming yet another one of your podcasts. There you go. Scott's announcing another podcast that he's doing. It's now with me. There you go. How many podcasts do you have now? Four?

To resist is futile. I'm like AOL in the 90s. You stick your hand in a cereal box and you pull out a disc of the dog. I'm everywhere. I'm literally... It's like every time I turn on any kind of social media, it's like... To resist is futile, Simon. Scott Galloway, Prof G, has yet another podcast that he's doing. Give in. Do you just spend eight hours a day, like one podcast or the other? Here's the unknown secret. I work 30 hours a week max...

Greatness is in the agency of others. I have 14 people that I pay really well and I think overpay, they would argue, and they do an amazing job. You have the same thing. I've met your team. You have really good people. People think it's us in our kitchen with a camcorder sketching out shit, and they don't realize, no, the key to success is

is, like I said, greatness in the agency of others is finding and retaining really good people. And it's easier when you pay them really well. And the lesson I learned a long, long, long time ago when I had that thought completely backwards when I started my business, thinking that I had to be the one that had all the answers, was learning to ask for help and accepting what it was offered. I think that's right. Yeah, I still struggle with that. But yeah, I agree. On that note... On me agreeing with you, Simon Sinek... We agree on more than...

You think. By the way, I made fun of Simon in my TED Talk. I said that Ted was a Brazilian novella where Bill Gates and Malcolm Gladwell had a night of wild sex and gave birth to their bastard love child, Simon Sinek. And literally the crowd went crazy for that. And it was a picture of a baby with your face on it. I knew you would love it. I think it was the biggest laugh you got. It was. Oh, wait, and the picture of Bezos with his...

New wife. That got a lot of laughs. That got a lot of laughs. Simon. Scott. I don't love you, but I like you. I like you a lot. I like you, Simon. I like you a lot. I respect you a great deal. Likewise, brother. And I'm glad you exist.

If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsenik.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by David Jha and Greg Reutershan, and Henrietta Conrad is our executive producer.

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