Scott Galloway is a professor at New York University Stern School of Business teaching brand strategy and digital marketing. He has started nine firms and his weekly YouTube series has generated millions of views. Scott is also author of “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.”
Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are arguably the most influential entities in the world. These companies have deconstructed who humans are as a species and reassembled who humans are, in the form of for-profit companies. They have scaled up so fast and become so successful by understanding humans most common questions and producing answers instantly. Scott breaks down the specific reasons each of these companies have individually thrived: Google = God, Facebook = Love, Amazon = Consumption, and Apple = Sex.
Mediocre and cheap products have been pushed in years past. However, people have new tools allowing them to practice due diligence and find what product is best for them personally. A better product is the best and only way to brand in today’s marketplace. With customer reviews built into Google and Amazon, they have changed the entire course of how people buy.
These four companies have done a lot of good, but have they become so big that they have become bad for society? In some ways, they are leveraging their power to unhealthy heights. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google yield more money and more power than some foreign governments. This has allowed them certain privileges such as tax avoidance and immunity to government oversight. What is another negative? Amazon has literally sucked the oxygen out of other top companies such as Nordstrom, Macy’s, and Sears. Facebook and Google have taken over the digital marketing world. If you are not working with Facebook or Google, then you are marketing with newspapers or magazine — rapidly declining markets. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are not only in zero sum markets, they are creating zero competitors.
What are some great leadership qualities from these top companies? Jeff Bezos, for example, has always kept a long term outlook on consumption rather than short-term. He also has combined fast and free service. Tim Cook has tripled the value of Apple. Apple is the first company in history to have great quality and spend extremely low on production. Facebook has shown tremendous agility in their management. Michael and Scott finish the conversation talking government, and how these companies yield their power in the political arena.
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Larry David is one guy who is totally OK with the unexpected. He wrote and starred in the hit show, Curb Your Enthusiasm. He wanted total control of writing the show and didn’t want HBO looking over his shoulder. However, the show has no script. The actors are comfortable going into the unknown and winging it. So much of our modern world is pre-packaged and scripted down to the last syllable. Larry David knows that life is all about the surprise, and people value that surprise factor.
What do these examples have in common with the stock market? Markets are unpredictable. Yes, it is necessary to have a game plan but with constant unexpected changes, you need to know what to do when things deviate from the plan. Chaos exists, there is no getting around it. To be successful in the game you must look past the chaos and know how to profit from it.
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Jeffrey Tucker is an American economics writer of the Austrian School, an advocate of anarcho-capitalism and Bitcoin, and has authored seven books. Jeffrey’s new book, coming out September 2017, is titled “Right Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty.”
Michael and Jeffrey start the conversation talking information. Regimes come and go, but information we share with one another cuts through governments. Interactions with others and the tools we use to spread information are what shapes history, rather than governments trying to put their spin on it. Government officials are not visionaries, they do not define the world, they do not create history. They spend their term in office gearing up to get elected for their next term in office. The more responsibility taken out of government’s hands the better. This leads us to Bitcoin…
Why is Bitcoin so important? Bitcoin represents freedom. It’s an international currency, trades the same globally and has increased in value over time. Jeffery has been studying monetary theory since he was an undergraduate. He wrote his thesis on the gold standard and assumed he had the monetary system figured out. So naturally, when Bitcoin came out, he dismissed the idea. After a few years went by, he was forced to acknowledge the advancement of crypto currency. He now looks at markets far differently than he did in the first part of his career. He knows that the markets know much more than any person could ever understand.
Jeffrey switches the conversation to another passionate subject for him, child labor laws. Youth have bought into the idea of needing a college degree to get the right job. Parents see pushing higher education on their children as a way of guaranteeing their children’s success. Unfortunately, degrees are not necessary in today’s age. Youth unemployment and child labor is a major leading factor to issues later in life. Many kids never have their first job until after they graduate from college and every year thousands of college students graduate still dependent on their parents.
Michael and Jeffrey finish up the podcast discussing corporate taxes and building digital walls. The American economy would experience spectacular gains if corporate taxes were slashed. Cutting personal income tax would be nice, however corporate income taxes being cut is the first phase of reform. Our economy also is being hurt by slowing down the flow of information and trying to block it. Is the world going in the direction of building digital walls? Are governments slowing down growth potential by blocking information? Absolutely.
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Recently after running sprints, Michael decided to walk home a different way. He ended up walking next to a woman with an artificial foot. She was about 4’9″, 75lbs, missing a foot but looked as if she was still kicking ass. From Michael’s perspective, she had no excuses. She was not sitting at home, complaining. Too many these days complain about their weight, gender, political views, political correctness, etc. — and use anything they can as an excuse for why life is unfair.
How do you break free from that mentality? What is the process? What system should be put in place? Creating a routine is a great place to start and has many self-help advantages. Having a routine can help center a person and allow them to measure and see personal achievement.
News prevents us from living authentically. It is not real. It is something thrown at us on a daily basis with an agenda by those creating it. The same can be said for politics. A true experience is you walking down the street and noticing what is going on — taking in the sights, sounds and smells of your environment and making decisions about your life based on those experiences. As shown in news and in politics, this type of thinking is rapidly disappearing. There is nothing rational about how people think. People are crazy and that will never change.
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Rayner Teo is a 29-year old self-made, independent, ex-prop trader from Singapore. He also is the most followed trader in Singapore. Where does Rayner stand, in numbers, with social media followers? He has about 22,000 followers on YouTube and his Facebook community consists of about 15,000. Most of his followers love what he does, however, with every public figure there are always haters. Rayner gives his perspective on his social media reach and how to deal with trolls.
Rayner entered the military (mandatory) at age 19. 97% of men entering the military end up in the same training camp, however Rayner was placed in an elite camp of men who are the first to go into combat — due to a glitch on his part in his application. Even though life was hard during his time in the military, it did award him his first “aha” moment — he realized his mind was much stronger than his body. He was able to take his body far past limitations that his mind had set. The military also promoted a mind frame of excellence, and that has been a driving force in his life.
Throughout the episode Rayner expands on: the importance of charting wins and charting losses, the true reality of trading, preparing for the big losses so you can wait for the big wins and taking responsibility for your losses so there is opportunity to learn from them.
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Dan Pena is a high performance coach, philanthropist, businessman and author. He has seen every type of business imaginable. He brings an attitude that inspires and provokes action.
The pussification of America has come to fruition through low self-esteem individuals creating a snowflake generation. Youth today are being raised by beta males who aren’t teaching them how to live strong, persistent and driven lives. Dan explains why the lack of alpha males in today’s society is the root of the politically correct driven culture.
When someone has a beta personality, they tend to be less than a high performance achiever. High performance people succeed because they get things done. They walk the walk on a consistent basis. They do not live a sheltered, PC life. How do they accomplish this? Picking the right friends is the first key to success. Pushing yourself to be around others who inspire, will lead to you being inspired. When kids are around other kids looking for success, they are given a much higher probability of becoming successful.
Dan doesn’t have a subtle, gentle teaching style – as anyone can sense from this podcast. His students regularly ask him, “Why are you so mean? Why do you use such harsh language?” He responds by saying, “Because life is hard.” Most people want change, but they only want change that conforms to their definition — and that is not change. That is staying the same.
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Robert Sutton is Professor of Management science at the Stanford Engineering School and researcher in the field of Evidence-based management. Sutton is also the best-selling author of “The No Asshole Rule.” What does it mean to live in a “no asshole environment”? It means to weed out the people who demean and make you and others feel horrible. He gives the science and craft behind how to deal with assholes, how to prune these people from your life and get out of negative situations.
But the question ever since that book has been:
“Help, I’m dealing with an asshole! What can I do?”
Sutton has heard that question asked in a thousand different ways. He answers the question in “The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt”. It shifts focus from building civilized workplaces to providing relief for anybody who feels plagued and pushed around by assholes.
The Asshole Survival Guide delivers a cogent and methodical game plan. Sutton starts with diagnosis—what kind of asshole problem, exactly, are you dealing with? From there, he provides field-tested, evidence-based, and sometimes surprising strategies for dealing with assholes—avoiding them, outwitting them, disarming them, sending them packing, and developing protective psychological armor.
Ultimately, this survival guide is about developing an outlook and personal plan that will help you preserve the sanity in your work life, and will prevent all those perfectly good days from being ruined by some jerk.
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Jason Calacanis is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, angel investor, author, blogger and has years of perspective when it comes to investing in start ups. His new book is “Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups–Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000”. Even if you never plan on becoming an angel investor, his book is a great look at how the modern economy works.
Technology is accelerating at an ever-increasing rate and Jason argues that there are approximately 30 million jobs that will disappear in upcoming years due to advancements in technology. He wrote his book to try and help people step away from the usual way of thinking and look at where the world is moving. For example, the cheapest car you could buy today is far and above more sophisticated than the most expensive car you could have bought 20 years ago. When Jason evaluates a company, he looks at a couple things: What is in the best interest of society? And what is the best technology that we can use to get there?
What is Silicon Valley like through the eyes of someone living and breathing it? Jason talks about Silicon Valley as the center of the world. There is an infectious need to look for the next $100 billion dollar idea rather than the next million dollar idea. It’s also very liberal, political and quirky. It is where the largest amount of high power tech companies derive from.
What is the biggest factor in becoming a successful angel investor? Success in angel investing comes down to portfolio diversification. You need to cast a wide net, knowing you are going to have a lot of loser companies. There are massive implied odds. The upside to finding a winning company far exceeds any amount of losses you may incur. Michael relates this to the Babe Ruth effect and Jason puts his own spin on it, “Finding a winning company is more like the equivalent of a grand slam scoring 100 runs rather than just four.”
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Laura Doyle is bestselling author of “The Surrendered Wife”, and her newest work is “The Empowered Wife.” Relationships are a skill just like everything else in life. They can be hard and sometimes and having some basic survival tools could make the difference between having a failed relationship or a thriving relationship. Laura gives a perspective and tools that we can all use in our modern day relationships.
Laura went through thousands of hours and thousands of dollars of marriage counseling that did not work before she tried asking her friends what they were doing right in their relationships. She wanted to learn what was working for them and what hadn’t worked for them over the years. Her main “aha” moment was when she realized the problems her and her husband were having were self inflicted.
Who has the most power in a relationship? How do you make your spouse feel respected? What are some main differences emotionally between men and women? What type of language do men respond best to? What type of language do women respond best to? Laura answers these questions and more on today’s podcast.
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