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Stocks Rip to Record Highs, Leaving War in the Dust

Prof G Markets

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  • Tickets Are Selling Out And Friends Keep Asking
    • Ed says the live tour is selling out and tickets are flying off the shelves.
    • People keep asking him for free tickets; he stresses tickets cost $100 and they have very few to give away.
    • They only have about 10 comp tickets between them plus seats reserved for the production team.
    • Scott jokes Ed doesn’t have any friends to give tickets to, highlighting the scarcity and informal banter around distribution. Transcript: Ed Elson Ed, how are you? I’m doing very well. Yeah, I’m excited about this live tour. Tickets are flying off the shelves. It’s all selling out. It’s almost too late unless you go right now to ProfGMarketsTour.com. Everything’s going well. How are you doing? I’m good, except people keep calling me and asking me for a free ticket. I’m like, it’s a hundred bucks. Just get on it. You know, they don’t give us that many. I mean, I’m sure we could just solve that ourselves, but we haven’t been given that many friends and family tickets. (Time 0:02:43)
  • Why Markets Can Rip During War
    • Scott Galloway argues stocks can hit highs during war because markets now track the top 10%, not broad household well-being.
    • He calls it a ketamine economy where investors quickly buy dips after shocks like 9/11, Iraq, and COVID. Transcript: Ed Elson It was a turbulent week, geopolitically and economically. Peace talks with Iran collapsed. The US blockaded the Strait of Hormuz and surging oil and gas prices are feeding into higher inflation and also weakening consumer confidence even more. The International Monetary Fund warned that further disruptions in oil markets could raise the risk of a global recession. They also reduced their forecast for global GDP growth. And yet, despite all of that, the S&P hit an all-time high and the Nasdaq hit an all-time high. And the question for investors now is, why are markets so bullish? Why do markets continue to go up? Why do stocks continue to go up? I have a lot of thoughts here. This stuff is fascinating. It is kind of the biggest question on every investor’s mind right now. But I will start here, Scott, with your reactions. What do you make of the fact that all of this is happening, all of this conflict, all of this war, gas prices surging, and yet the stocks continue to go up? Scott Galloway Yeah, people often refer to this economy as the K economy, meaning some people doing really well, other people doing not so well. I like the term, or I just made this up, the ketamine economy. And that is ketamine is a disassociative drug. You literally kind of leave your body and see your life for what it is, and it can be very helpful. That’s really a bad description of the effects of ketamine. It’s disassociative. And I’ve said for a long time, I think the NASDAQ and the Dow are two of the worst metrics or most unhealthy metrics ever invented because they give the illusion that people are doing well. And it really is. It’s a proxy for earnings and a proxy for the wealth of the top 10%. So what do you have? All right. So, I mean, think about it. If the majority of our markets now are being run by 10 companies that are in the business of AI or online or software, do they care that gas prices are up? In addition, there’s this phenomena of buying the dip. And that is, if you look at the last three exogenous events in America, you would say the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and then 9-11 and maybe COVID. Let’s go for, well, I guess the Iraq War is linked to 9-11. Basically, there was a dip. And then the markets ripped back the following year. The markets had above market returns the following year. And we did have a drawdown here, we had a 10% decline in the Dow in March at the outset of the war, and it’s ripped back. And I think what’s happening is the cycle time between fear and uncertainty around a war and the opportunity to buy is compressing. And now people are like, let’s move to the part of the program where we make money. I also think there is a bit of a, in my view, overly optimistic viewpoint that the war is going to settle down and the straits are going to be unblocked, if you will. But mostly what I think this is about is that the markets have disassociated from the majority of people’s well-being and their prosperity. (Time 0:05:27)
  • Timeline Fatigue Pushed Investors Back To Tech
    • Ed Elson says investors may be suffering timeline fatigue and giving up on parsing the Iran war’s contradictory headlines.
    • After the March 30 bottom, money rushed back into tech as investors refocused on earnings, AI strength, and cheaper multiples. Transcript: Ed Elson Mean, just to look at how stocks have performed so far this year. So we are, as we said, we’re at record highs for the S&P. I mean, it hasn’t been a tremendous increase in the stock market, but it’s gone up and the stock market was already very high at the beginning of the year. It’s gone up. So now at a record high. And so you think about, OK, what what has what are the reasons why that’s happened? So year to date, when you look at the sectors that have outperformed, the biggest winners have been industrials up 11 percent, materials up 12 percent and energy up 24 And the laggards, At least leading up to the war, were things like tech, communication services, and financials. Since we hit the bottom from the Iran war, so that was March 30th, that was the market bottom thus far, it’s been a very different story. It’s actually reversed. Energy has fallen. It’s down 9% since the bottom. And the winners have been financials up 11%, communication services up 18%, and tech up 17%. So it’s really, I mean, the big trouble here is trying to understand, and this is always an impossible question, but it’s trying to understand like, what are the markets actually thinking Here? Like why? I mean, we had this steady, steady decline where the markets weren’t taking an elevator down, but they were taking the stairs down as the Iran war unfolded. We kept on getting this kind of scary news where things weren’t really resolved. And then we kept dropping more bombs and then there was more conflict. Markets went down and down and down. And then on March 30th, something happened. We hit the bottom. And then since then, we’ve basically been shooting up. Well, the markets must think that the Iran war is over, or they’re too optimistic that this thing is going to be resolved. And I think that that’s possible. But again, we should sort of remind ourselves, like, why are they up? It’s basically because everyone’s piling into tech again. I mean, we had this massive drawdown in the tech sector. Everyone was very, very bearish on the sector. And now we’re seeing that actually people are fine again. And so I think the question is trying to identify what exactly happened here, what are investors thinking about this? And I think it’s a few things. I think that one, investors are recognizing some of your points, which is that, I mean, the stock market is not the economy. If gas prices go up, yes, it might have some impact on lower income consumers. And we can get to that because it is very interesting. But ultimately, high earners are completely price insensitive, doesn’t matter to them. They drive consumer spending. Same thing with big companies, same thing with tech companies, they’re going to be fine. But then the other side of it that I do think is quite interesting, and you mentioned the word dissociative there, you call this the ketamine market, which I think is interesting. I wonder if there’s also been a little bit of what I would call timeline fatigue, where we thought we understood what the story of this war was. And there were all of these different plot points. We strike Iran, we kill the supreme leader, but then the sun is appointed. Then Trump says that we’ve had productive talks and we think that maybe the negotiations are going to go somewhere. Then they don’t. Then he says, open the fucking street, you crazy bastards. Then he says, a whole civilization will die tonight. We think that the climax is going to happen, that there’s going to be perhaps some event that ties a bow on this whole situation. And then since then, it’s just been a mirage of confusion. I mean, they say there’s a ceasefire, then they say there’s not a ceasefire. Then there’s a blockade, then they blockade the blockade. And I wonder if this is investors basically saying, you know what, we don’t really understand this. So let’s just go back to the basics here. Big tech is extremely good at what they do. They are crushing it on the AI front. Earnings are ripping. So let’s just go back to what we know. And let’s just go in and buy tech again. And that’s the only thing that we know to be true. So it’s, I mean, I’d like to hear a response because there are so many different reasons that you could give as to why markets are behaving the way they are. But that is the closest thing that I can draw to what I believe is the truth about what investors are really thinking right now. (Time 0:08:35)
  • Oil Shocks Hurt Households More Than Markets
    • Scott Galloway says rising oil hurts poorer households far more than the people who drive stock prices and consumer spending.
    • He notes lower-income households spend 22% on energy, while top earners and AI-heavy megacaps barely notice gas at $6. Transcript: Scott Galloway I buy all of that, but I see it just again as a symptom of income inequality. Does it really matter to you? I mean, you may not feel rich, but you are relative to your peer group. You’re already in the top two, if not one percent in terms of income earners. Do you give a shit that gas is at $6 a gallon? No. The people driving the Dow are unaffected by oil prices. And, you know, again, everything gets outsourced in our country. Basically, we’re becoming a country where the whole, the bottom 99% are, we optimize the bottom 99% and treat them as nutrition for the top 1%. And the reason the bottom 99 put up with it is that in America, the bottom 99 all thinks at some point they’ll be in the top 1%. So, but all of this pain is outsourced to lower middle-income households. Lower-income households spend 22% of their income on energy costs. So this really, I mean, this really whacks them, right? So, but the people responsible for 50% of consumer spending, the top 10%, AI, like what the fuck does AI care unless they start bombing the data centers in the Gulf, but they have redundant Infrastructure. And also in the US, it’s a bit, I don’t want to say it’s a wash, but we have, we’re net exporters. We have a lot of energy companies that I can’t imagine what’s happened to the stocks of the companies that build the materials for pipelines. We have Exxon and Chevron. I mean, you know, those companies are making a lot of money. Those companies are actually doing pretty well. So, and then when there’s, it’s almost, you know, it’s unfair, but it’s true. When this type of insecurity hits the world markets, there’s a flight to safety or the least unsafe place. And that’s the U.S. And tech stocks and the dollar. It’s sort of like, well, where do we go? We don’t know. Well, okay, let’s go back into tech. Also, after the drawdown, after the kind of SaaS apocalypse, there is, as a multiple on cash flow, some of the tech stocks right now look to be decent. You know, when you can invest in NVIDIA 24 times forward earnings or something, it’s like it’s just not a bad store of value. When Microsoft is trading at its lowest multiples and you’re going to talk about this in a decade. You think, well, maybe that’s not a bad value. So it’s sort of the sum of all fears of what it means to have a bit of a hegemony, at least from a financial standpoint, and that is the U.S. And that is, okay, let’s outsource all the pain to the rest of the world and within the U.S. Let’s outsource all of the pain to lower and middle income households. (Time 0:13:14)
  • What Could Actually Knock Stocks Down Again
    • A real selloff would likely need weaker consumer spending or some unexpected shock, not the risks investors are already debating.
    • Scott Galloway says unknown events move markets, while Ed Elson points to gas-driven spending weakness as the clearest transmission channel. Transcript: Ed Elson Like, what do you think that would look like? People seem pretty confident right now, at least just from a purely sentiment basis. Like, people are just like, you know what? This war, I don’t—I mean, it’s odd to even understand what investors think. But what do you think—what would it take to go back down again, to approach what was getting close to a bear market? Scott Galloway It’s just so hard to make the kind of prediction of what’s the trigger that sends the market down. It could be a geopolitical event. It could be, quite frankly, it could be a company announces that they’re dramatically scaling back their spend on AI because they’re not registering the ROI they’d hoped. It could be private credit starts to throw up. I mean, but anytime the list of things I list are almost by virtue of me listing them and them being present on my radar means that’s probably not what causes a market sell off because the Things that people are expecting, they adjust for, they prepare for and are baked into the market. It’s the shit you’re not expecting that gets you. So, you know, the answers I don’t know, but what you do is, per your advice, you look at fundamentals. Is the market in the U.S. Expensive relative to other markets? Should you be diversifying? Do you try and time the market and think, I feel it in my bones that the market’s going to go down? No, you can’t time the market. Warren Buffett says he can’t time the market, even though he’s gone to a third of a trillion dollars in cash, which says he believes he can time the market. But anyways, what you do is you look at valuations. You try and find good companies and try and find, you know, and personally, I don’t even think you find companies, you find index, low cost index funds, and you invest. And quite frankly, unless this is something you do full time, you go back to your life and you focus on how you make money such that you can continue to invest in low cost index funds. But this, I mean, this is a lot of fun. It’s like playing, you know, it’s sports. It’s fun to try and bet on stuff. But, you know, after spending the majority of my life looking at economics, being fascinated with the markets, some conclusion I’ve come to is nobody has any fucking idea. And what you do is you stick with truisms. You look at valuations. When things look cheap or look, relatively speaking, trading at low P, you dabble in them, put some money in them. Don’t buy anything that you don’t want to hold for at least a few years because you are not a trader. And then two, low-cost index funds and figure out a way to consistently save and focus all of that energy on time on two things. Improving your currency in the marketplace such that you have more leverage and money to invest into your relationship such that you’re happy regardless of whether the markets go Up or down that day. But God, what could happen to send the markets down? Jesus Christ, Ed, you tell me. Who knows? Ed Elson Well, I think the thing that we should be focused on is, will we see an actually large drawback in consumer spending because of the gas prices? I think that’s the thing that would trigger it. And I feel like maybe 50 years ago, this would have been far more dramatic and had a larger effect on the stock market because you would have had a combination of higher reliance on gas In America, which just isn’t really the case anymore because we have electrified ourselves a little bit more. But still, we are still pretty reliant on gas. There’s also the argument that we’re more gas-independent now. But also, as you say, the K-shape, having this weird insulatory effect, not on all of America, of course not, but it does have that insulation effect on the stock market, because, as You say, the gas prices go up, the rich people are not going to be that affected. They’re going to keep spending, and that’s going to contribute to the consumer spending. But if for whatever reason that doesn’t happen, if for some reason it does impact rich people, I don’t think it would, but if it did, or if there were a really, really sizable drawback In consumer spending among the rest of the population of America, there’s your problem. Because as we’ve said, consumer spending does matter, contrary to what Kevin Hassett has said, that, oh, we’re not worried about gas prices affecting consumer spending. Consumer spending is extremely important. It’s two thirds of GDP. If consumer spending goes down, if you see a drawback in that category, then you are going to see a drawback on the income statements of a lot of these companies. Earnings will go down. It will affect tech companies because tech companies are largely reliant on ad spend and ad spend is largely reliant on consumer sentiment or more specifically consumer spending. That is what we saw in 2022. And so that’s the question. Will it actually mean that people spend less? And so far, they’re still spending or the spending is still on aggregate high enough and the earnings do continue to grow. And so, I mean, I think a lot of people get frustrated hearing this kind of analysis where a lot of people feel strapped and they feel that they are struggling and gas prices have risen 20%, 30%. And they say, well, you know, how could the stock market not be reacting to this? How could people say everything’s fine? And the reality is that on aggregate, when you look at all of the dollars put together, reflected on the income statement of the biggest companies, everything is fine. And again, it’s not fair. It’s because the rich people are doing the heavy lifting here. But so far, that is what’s happened. And until that changes, and maybe it will change next quarter, I don’t know. But until that changes, stocks are going to continue to go up. That’s just what’s going to happen. Scott Galloway Also, when there was an oil shock in the 70s, it hit pretty hard. But since then, our economy has tripled in size, but our consumption of oil is about the same. So oil is three times less important to the economy or the impact. It’s ripple attack. You know, it creates ripples. It used to create waves. And so it’s slowly but surely just becoming, and this is a good thing, it’s becoming less important to the overall health of the economy. (Time 0:19:47)
  • How Scott Says Ordinary Investors Should Behave
    • Use low-cost index funds, focus on valuations, and avoid buying anything you would not want to hold for several years.
    • Scott Galloway says most people cannot time markets, so they should build earning power and invest consistently instead. Transcript: Scott Galloway So, you know, the answers I don’t know, but what you do is, per your advice, you look at fundamentals. Is the market in the U.S. Expensive relative to other markets? Should you be diversifying? Do you try and time the market and think, I feel it in my bones that the market’s going to go down? No, you can’t time the market. Warren Buffett says he can’t time the market, even though he’s gone to a third of a trillion dollars in cash, which says he believes he can time the market. But anyways, what you do is you look at valuations. You try and find good companies and try and find, you know, and personally, I don’t even think you find companies, you find index, low cost index funds, and you invest. And quite frankly, unless this is something you do full time, you go back to your life and you focus on how you make money such that you can continue to invest in low cost index funds. But this, I mean, this is a lot of fun. It’s like playing, you know, it’s sports. It’s fun to try and bet on stuff. But, you know, after spending the majority of my life looking at economics, being fascinated with the markets, some conclusion I’ve come to is nobody has any fucking idea. And what you do is you stick with truisms. You look at valuations. When things look cheap or look, relatively speaking, trading at low P, you dabble in them, put some money in them. Don’t buy anything that you don’t want to hold for at least a few years because you are not a trader. And then two, low-cost index funds and figure out a way to consistently save and focus all of that energy on time on two things. Improving your currency in the marketplace such that you have more leverage and money to invest into your relationship such that you’re happy regardless of whether the markets go Up or down that day. (Time 0:20:50)
  • AI Backlash Is Becoming A Real Constraint
    • AI’s biggest bottleneck may be public legitimacy, not chips or electricity, as backlash now shapes local politics and corporate risk.
    • Ed Elson cites attacks tied to data centers and Sam Altman, plus 14 states pursuing restrictions or bans. Transcript: Ed Elson We’re back with Prof. G Markets. If there’s one major constraint on the AI buildout in the US, it’s public backlash. Americans are making it increasingly clear they’re uncomfortable with where this technology is headed. Last week, there were three AI-related acts of violence, one targeting an Indiana councilman who supported a local data center project, and two targeting Sam Altman. That escalation underscores how quickly anti-AI sentiment is intensifying and it is starting to shape policy. Maine just introduced a bill to ban data centers altogether, and it’s not an outlier. 14 states now have active bills proposing restrictions or outright bans. So, Scott, this is something I wrote about in my newsletter about two months ago, this idea that the biggest obstacle to AI isn’t energy, it isn’t compute capacity, it’s its own popularity. Since I wrote that, some crazy things have happened. There were the attacks on the councilman’s house. He supported a data center. Someone shot at his house 13 times and they left a sign that says no data centers. But to me, the big wake-up call that we should all be talking more about was the attack on Sam Altman. A guy shows up to his house, throws a Molotov cocktail, an incendiary device at the house, it explodes. He’s arrested for attempted murder. He has a whole manifesto about how AI is going to be detrimental to society. Two days later, some people show up at his door and they shoot at his house again. I mean, unbelievable how quickly this happened and literally within days of each other. What do you make of this news and this growing backlash and just general sentiment against AI in America? Scott Galloway Well, first off, there’s just no justifying this type of violence. These people, the councilman and Sam Altman, are all operating with the confines of the law. They deserve to live their lives with some reasonable semblance of safety. And there’s just no excuse or rationalization for this type of violence. And those people should be brought to justice. I don’t even like it when people yell at J.D. Vance when he’s out skiing with his family. I think a certain level of civility and safety in a society. I think this is more an indication of how frustrated people are in society and also income inequality because in terms of the vibe. So there’s vibe and then there’s mentally ill people. I think you’re going to probably figure out that these people were loners who typically shooters or people who commit this type of violence are typically are young men who believe that A heroic act of violence is going to restore their social capital. And these are mentally ill people who find famous figures, come up with a reason for why they think they’re justified in this heroic act of violence. But this also relates to, I mean, on a broader level, and this doesn’t justify the violence in any fashion, but a lot of towns are wondering, let me get this. My electricity bills are going to go up 20 to 40% such that an NVIDIA stock can go up. I don’t own NVIDIA. I don’t have the money to invest in stocks. I’m just trying to figure out a way to pay off my medical debt from my wife’s chemo therapy. So there’s a ton of resentment here. A ton of it is understandable. There are few brands that have had a greater decline in the last 18 months than not only AI, and you wrote about this, but specifically Sam Altman. And the hero’s journey here, or the Greek tragedy, plays out in technology. And that is someone comes along and becomes, through the idolatry of the dollar, this religious mysticism that is technology. And we find someone who’s super attractive, super compelling, great communicator. We need to do better. Oh my gosh, he cares about gender politics. Jeff Bezos, he should run for president. Sam Altman, look at that nice young gay man with who just had a baby and he speaks in hushed tones about his concerns about, you know, Sam Altman was the gay son we all wanted, right? He’s just as he seemed like this lovely young man. And then you figure out they’re like everyone else. Now as a capitalist society, the only reason you become the CEO of one of these companies and you work all day long and get everyone hectoring you from the cheap seats and have to put up The most awful species in the world known as a venture capitalist is so you can make billions of dollars and that every day in order to win, and it is a thunderdome, you make incremental Decisions regardless of preventing a tragedy of the commons. And usually that march from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader takes about seven or 10 years. With Sam, it took 18 months. I mean, you don’t remember 18 months ago, Sam was the new type of tech CEO. He was the tech CEO we all needed. And now people have just had it with him. And so, but I think you need to separate the two. There’s vibes, and then a mentally ill person will decide, okay, I need to shoot at Trump or I need to, you know, for whatever reason. And this is a real problem. It’s about mental health. It’s about incendiary online rhetoric that gives people what they feel is licensed to commit these terrible acts of violence. It’s access to assault weapons and guns at every fucking corner. So I don’t, you got to bifurcate the two. There’s the decline in AI’s brand, which is real and extraordinary what’s happened here, as embodied by the decline in Sam’s personal brand. And then there’s random acts of violence, which are just a larger societal problem across a number of sectors. (Time 0:31:06)
  • Inequality Tends To Repair Itself Violently
    • Scott Galloway says inequality always corrects itself, but usually through war, famine, or revolution rather than orderly reform.
    • He argues America is already seeing smaller revolutions aimed at rich people and corporations in culture and politics. Transcript: Scott Galloway There’s a few things here to parse out. One, if you have a mental health crisis, especially among young men with a lack of male mentorship online that makes them feel insufficient, poor mental health infrastructure, they’re Going to have psychotic breaks. And then the chaser to all of this is we don’t have a monopoly on young men struggling with mental health. We don’t have a monopoly on young men who lack male mentorship. What we have a monopoly on is young men who are failing a mental health crisis and then access to guns. But my belief is that these individuals would find another vessel to place their range in mental illness, even if AI wasn’t in decline or people thought that healthcare costs were hurting America. I think you have to bifurcate the two. They would find another reason to commit acts of violence against others or themselves. I don’t think what’s going on now where you do see a connection is the following. When you have people writing love letters, Luigi, and there’s like a free Luigi, that’s an indication of a real issue where people have had it with income inequality. And that’s very, very disturbing. And then this notion, and to your point, income inequality always repairs itself. The problem is the means of reparation are war, famine, or revolution. But revolution takes on different complexions. It can be a guillotine. It can be, you know, north versus south. I find what we’re having here is a series of small revolutions. And that is we’re going after Black Lives Matter and the Me Too movement were both righteous movements, but they weren’t targeting the owner of a taco truck. They were targeting, generally speaking, rich white people. And you’re going to see more and more, I think, legislation and anger towards rich people because they’ve had it. And also corporations that they feel are making all of this money at potentially their cost. People are looking for reasons to be angry. Now, there’s different levels of that. (Time 0:38:49)
  • My Dad Warned Me Rich And Famous Is Dangerous
    • Scott recounts a conversation with his dad who warned that the key to happiness in America is to be rich and anonymous.
    • His dad argued loss of anonymity when rich makes you a target and breeds resentment, which leads to bad outcomes.
    • Scott reflects that he used to have “just the right amount of fame” but recently feels he’s losing anonymity.
    • The memory chilled him and frames his view on why public figures (especially tech leaders) face intense backlash and personal risk.
    • He connects this personal anecdote to broader examples of violence against famous people. Transcript: Scott Galloway Happiness in America. And he warned me of this a few years ago when I started getting a footprint. He’s like, I said, I’m worried about you. And I said, I said, well, what’s up? And by the way, dad, the time to worry about me was when I was eight fucking years old and you left the house. But anyways, um, little late, little late. Yeah. Thanks. Quite frankly, I’m not sure I need you to worry about me now, dad. I’m worried about paying a quarter of a million dollars a year. It costs you to keep you in that ocean view seniors home. That’s my worry right now. Dad, the cat’s in the cradle. Anyways, where were we? He said to me something. My dad occasionally had some insight and he said to me, I’m worried about you because the key to happiness in America is to be rich and anonymous. And you’re losing one of those things. He goes, a lack of anonymity in America when you’re rich always leads to bad things. He’s like, you become a target. People resent you. It’s just not a good idea. You want to be rich, but anonymous. And it kind of chilled me because I’ve always said, I’ve just the right amount of fame. (Time 0:42:46)
  • Price Data Centers To Their True Local Cost
    • Scott Galloway says blanket data-center bans are clumsy, but communities are right to resist paying AI’s local costs.
    • He argues data centers should be priced to their externalities instead of raising residents’ power bills while creating few permanent jobs. Transcript: Scott Galloway To your point, though, the total amount of new data center capacity under construction decreased for the first time since 2020 in the second half of 2025. And 14 states have active moratoriums or restriction bills on data centers, and 12 states have legislation under committee review, which, by the way, I think is a mistake. I think they should just price it to their externality. I think they should just be forced to pay what they’re costing. And it’s a very good argument that if I get a data center, my electricity bill shouldn’t go up. But they do create some economic growth. Not a lot of employment, but they’re expensive and they create a lot of jobs to build. But I hate the Bernie AOC legislation. I think it’s using an elephant gun to kill a canary. I think it’s really inelegant legislation, but the defining issue of our time is income inequality. And what’s so sad about it is the incumbents who benefit from income inequality will weaponize this bullshit notion of complexity and talk about technology and network effects. And at the end of the day, it’s just about redistribution of income. And that is stop transferring wealth to corporations and the wealthy. Corporations are paying their lowest taxes since 1929. (Time 0:52:06)
  • Why Scott Thinks Young Americans Got Screwed
    • Scott Galloway frames the core political problem as redistribution toward corporations and older asset owners at younger people’s expense.
    • He cites low corporate taxes, surging deficits, weak investment in kids, and tax ideas like a second-home pied-à-terre levy. Transcript: Ed Elson This through people’s heads? Scott Galloway I do think it’s happening. I think the next administration, taxes are definitely going up. I don’t know if you saw Momdani is proposing, I found out this about this morning, a pied-a tax. He realizes he can’t get a tax increase through the New York state legislature. He actually has pretty strong authority over housing and property taxes, and he’s going to tax second homes. Ed Elson A lot of people don’t like it. A lot of people think it’s communist. A lot of people think, oh, you’re going to drive everyone out of York. I mean. Scott Galloway Yeah, there’s always that. Taxes. Look, if you were to summarize my kind of economic trajectory over the last being born, when I was born, it would be unprecedented prosperity, but low taxes. And my generation, I no longer think of myself as Gen X or baby boom. I’m right on the edge. We’re the vampire generation. We never were drafted. We had the lowest taxes in history and we had unprecedented market prosperity. In exchange for that, we’ve decided that’s not fucking enough. And we keep voting to lower our taxes, but lower our taxes, not yours. And you literally have a generation of the people who are in power now, who are insider traders of stocks, find a way to get the best tax treatment for the assets they have, find a way to Spend more money on ice than on children, find a way to decrease public, you know, spend $10,000 a year on public school kids versus the 72,000 that are spent a year on private schools And are like, oh, okay, we can go to war, but cut my taxes at the same time and rack up. I mean, if you think about the people in charge from George Washington to George Bush and an older generation, the silent generation, they racked up $7 trillion in deficits. We’ve racked up $33 trillion once my generation got in charge. And that’s nothing but a tax on you. Anyways, my generation has literally, what’s the term? Fucked America and younger people. We’ve decided it’s almost nihilistic, like, oh, you know, this is all going to end. I’m going to be dead soon. You know, going to party like it’s 1999. It’s literally the guy that says, all right, I’m dying. I’m going to max out everyone’s credit cards, fuck everybody, and then peace out. Anyway, I’m really, I used to be very kind of blanch at this Greta Thunberg or whatever, younger people criticizing older generation. But you know what? They have a point. Yeah. Ed Elson Some of it’s misguided. I mean, I think you need to be outraged about the right things. And what you’re describing here is 100% the right thing. And it’s backed up by the data and it makes all the sense in the world. And yeah, as I said, I’m waiting for people, for that to get through to people. I’m waiting for that to really resonate. I think it’s beginning to, but I’m shocked every time I see, I mean, this big, beautiful bill, I was just shocked by it. I was shocked by how anti-young people it was and how the whole thing, it seemed as though this whole campaign was all about kind of targeted to young people in a lot of ways. Scott Galloway Let me forward to what it’s like to live in America the last 20 years so I can just get you to the emotional state you will be in. You will be constantly shocked but not surprised. I was shocked there was an insurrection and that none of those people were held accountable. And then by the time they were pardoned, I was no longer surprised. I was shocked that the president of the United States could be convicted of sexual abuse and win reelection, but I wasn’t surprised. I mean, everything is shocking now, but not surprising. And I don’t understand the old underlying cultural phenomena and Democrats have a tendency to try and feel Republicans’ pain. I’m beyond fucking that. I think we need renewal and a reckoning. We need a renewal of investments in young people, a renewal of the alliances with Europe, a renewal between the greatest alliance in history between men and women. But we also need a reckoning here. And that is there are a number of people who after getting positions of power have traded stocks, increase their wealth, created distrust in the market, have created crimes, traded Off national security for the wealth of their children, have prosecuted people for political reasons, have engaged in manslaughter at a federal level, in my view. And there needs to be, in my view, and we’re getting way off script here, there needs to be a reckoning. There needs to be a healing, but it’s gone way too far. (Time 0:53:25)
  • Why Amazon Still Looks Strong To Scott
    • Scott Galloway stays bullish on Amazon because AI could finally unlock huge gains from its robot-heavy logistics network.
    • Amazon already has about 1 million industrial robots, and he thinks retail margins can expand sharply without adding headcount. Transcript: Ed Elson We’re back with Profity Markets. Our big tech stock pick for 2026 was Amazon, and it’s off to a strong start. The stock is up 9% year to date and is the best performer in the Magnificent Seven so far. The company also just made a major strategic move, acquiring Starlink’s competitor Globalstar, and he bid to strengthen its position in the satellite race. The deal gives the company access to satellite spectrum and direct-to technology. So, Scott, we are approaching the halfway point. Not quite. We got a little ways to go. But so far, that pick was pretty great. Just to tell you what the Mag 7 returns were last year. So, you had Alphabet was up 65%. That was our pick last year. Big, big win. NVIDIA was up 35%. Tesla up 19%. The S&P was up 17%. Amazon was a laggard. It only rose 5%. It was one of the worst performing. It was the worst performing of the Mag 7. Year-to so far, Tesla’s down 11%. Microsoft’s down 12%. Apple’s down 3%. Meta’s up 4%. Alphabet’s up 7%. Nvidia’s up 6%. Amazon is up more than 9%. It is the winner so far this year. Let’s not call it victory yet. This is a year-long prediction. But it is notable, at least, that investors are kind of turning their opinion on Amazon, and they’re deciding, actually, we kind of like the stock, and they’re piling in here. What do you make of it? Scott Galloway You know, I don’t want to say this, but we picked, in 24, we picked Alphabet, because I just thought on a valuation basis, it was growing faster than almost every S&P company and trading At 17 times versus the S&P at 24. That just felt like easy 50% mispricing. I picked Amazon for a different reason. One, I liked its earnings. It was trading at its lowest PE multiple in a while. It had underperformed other tech stocks for two or three years, but there were a few reasons I really love Amazon. One, I’m fascinated by industrialized robots. They invested early and often in robotics. And then if you want to look at a place where AI is really going to create shareholder value, I think it’s in one, the targeting of ads, see above meta. Two, autonomous, see above alphabet. And then also the ability to make industrialized robots that much more facile and productive. And there are one million total industrialized robots under Amazon, in an Amazon warehouse or somewhere in Amazon infrastructure. The rest of the nation, private companies, has a total of 400,000. And AI was the thing that took is going to help industrialized robotics meet its potential too. They’re talking about using AI industrialized robots to not increase their personnel by one person in their biggest business, that is Amazon retail. And they’re talking about doubling the top line revenue of Amazon retail by 2032. So while AWS and Amazon Media Group have provided margin expansion, you’re about to see just enormous gross margin addition at the hands of their biggest top line growth, which will Be retail at what will likely be greater margins, given they won’t need more people. And then the chaser to all of this, the cherry on top, the champagne and cocaine, the nitro meets glycerin is space. Or simply put, I think that Project Leo, which used to be known as Kuiper, which I think is a cooler name, is now, they just made an acquisition of Global Star for $12 billion. And I think what you’re going to have here is, one, there’s a huge opening for even a distant number two to SpaceX. And two, the most popular loyalty program in the history of the planet is Amazon Prime. And I think the mission here, what I would be talking about if I were in strategy at Amazon, is we’re going to offer a competent phone. It won’t be as good as the iPhone, but it’ll be as good as an Android phone. And with Amazon Prime Plus, you’re going to get Wi-Fi, you’re going to get blazing fast broadband into your home and on your phone. We’ll also offer an enterprise level wireless product and network to serve warehouses, delivery hubs, robots, drones, not only for us, but for other enterprise company. And we’re gonna continue to become the most impressive, extensive, robust infrastructure and logistics company in the world. And I think the market’s going to get very excited about this when they see not only a viable number two, but a service that can immediately be dropped into 115 million households. And then when I look at the valuation, trading at the lowest valuation in a long time, I just love, I just absolutely love Amazon. And so, so far it looks like, so far we’re look, you know, it looks like we’re right, but I think the rest of the year is going to be even more exciting for Amazon. (Time 1:01:52)
  • Amazon Fits The New Halo Trade
    • Ed Elson says Amazon also benefits from the halo trade, where investors favor firms with hard-to-replicate physical assets.
    • Its planes, vehicles, fulfillment centers, and robotics make it a cleaner physical-AI bet than pure software companies. Transcript: Ed Elson Far, so good. Just one point. I mean, you bring up the potential of an Amazon phone. You’ve said before that people who have Samsung phones have no chance of getting laid i just i pray for the people who are going to get their hands on an amazon phone have the amazon prime Plus phone that’s a different that’s a different talk track the nick fuentes phone they should call it the fuentes phone yeah exactly the the incel phone there we go uh but to your point Uh i think the biggest i mean there are a lot of narratives here that are making Amazon look more exciting. One was that it had already gotten beaten up in 2025. Two, one thing that you didn’t mention, or maybe you did, but I didn’t hear it, is they’re getting into semiconductors. They have this Tranium chip. The chip business is growing. It’s at a run rate of roughly $50 billion at this point. So that’s exciting. The revenues in that segment is growing in the triple digits. It’s very new, but still that’s very impressive. There’s the potential for space. There’s also just cloud providing in general. But I think the biggest thing is this halo effect. And this is what we talked about with Josh Brown last week. But Josh Brown coined this term halo, and it’s an acronym for Heavy Assets Low Obsolescence, and describes this investment trend where people are going to pay a higher premium for companies That are really strong in the assets department, in the physical assets department, because the moats to have a really strong physical asset network are a lot larger than in something Like software. And that has been the whole story of the beginning of 2026, which is that AI is kind of killing software and it’s destroying the moats and software. And there’s truth and also a little bit of hype or that trade might have been overdone in a lot of ways. But that’s been the big trade. And Amazon is kind of like the perfect halo stock in a lot of ways. Like you mentioned their capacity in airplanes. They have vehicles. They have all of these fulfillment centers. Three quarters of Americans live within an hour of an Amazon fulfillment center. Like they have all of this physical stuff plus the robots that they’re investing in. So if you’re bullish on physical AI versus software AI, Amazon is basically your pick. And that, I think, has been playing out. I agree with you. I think it will probably continue to play out. And the question will always be, as it always is, when is it going to become too played out? I don’t think we’re there yet. I think that there’s definitely a lot of room to run for Amazon right now. (Time 1:06:46)
  • Ed Doubled Down On Microsoft At The Lows
    • Ed Elson says he doubled his Microsoft position around $380 after the stock got crushed on valuation.
    • By recording time it had bounced to about $420, reinforcing his view that Microsoft remains undervalued. Transcript: Scott Galloway Yeah, you love Microsoft. Say more. Ed Elson Well, I just think that it’s gotten absolutely destroyed on a valuation basis. And I actually bought it in Sasspocalypse One. I built up a decent position there. I bought it at around $400. It got battered, continued to get battered. And then last week, I was looking at it, it was $380. And I just doubled my position. I was like, fuck it. As we record this, we’re up to $420 per share. So it’s risen 10% in literally a matter of days. So that’s a big win there for me. And we can get to predictions. My prediction is that Microsoft, I mean, I would have loved to have made the prediction when I bought the stock at 380. And I would have said then, this will be the best performing stock of the year. And we’re already up 10%. So it kind of takes some juice away from my prediction, but I will continue with that prediction. Based on where we’re at right now, I think Microsoft is the best pick. I think it’s still undervalued, trading at 21 times forward earnings. I mean, this stock has gotten massively punished and I don’t think it’s very much warranted. Scott Galloway There you go. It’s still down 12% year to date. I agree with you. It looks, and again, if you look at it as a multiple of cash flow, it’s trading at, you know, recent lows or maybe even all-time lows. (Time 1:09:25)
  • Why Anthropic May Beat OpenAI To An IPO
    • Scott Galloway thinks Anthropic could IPO before OpenAI because enterprise customers are concentrating spending there at remarkable speed.
    • He cites ARR jumping from a $7 billion run rate to $30 billion, with 80% of Fortune 1000 customers paying over $1 million. Transcript: Scott Galloway The non-interesting prediction, Anthropic IPOs before OpenAI, I believe they’ll go public before. There’s few companies with more momentum than Anthropic and few companies with less momentum than OpenAI. I mean, get this. Essentially, Anthropic has gone from a run rate of $7 billion at the end of the year to an annual recurring revenue run rate of $30 billion. That’s got to be the most important stat of the year. Ed Elson That is unbelievable. Probably no one’s ever done that ever. Scott Galloway And 80% of Enterprise 1000 customers are paying $1 million plus a year. $0.70 on the new incremental spend from AI, from the enterprise are coming from, are going to Anthropic. And also what people miss is the competitive dynamic here. And that is people say, well, B2B is better than B2C, most valuable company in the world, Apple, or they are the second most is B2C. It’s not that, it’s just that in the B2C AI market, there are a lot of substitutes for free. Whereas if you’re Clorox and looking to implement a global site license for AI, there’s nothing for free, or it’s very difficult. There’s some open-way Chinese platforms. But what I found having started both B2C and B2B companies, when you have something that feels differentiated, you have greater margin power in B2B because they’re more about getting It right than shopping around, if you will. So I think Anthropic gets to the IPO starting line faster than OpenAI. (Time 1:11:32)
  • The Coming Wave Of AI Rebrand Stunts
    • Scott Galloway predicts failed legacy brands will slap AI onto their names or strategies to spark meme-stock rallies.
    • He cites Allbirds rebranding as New Bird AI, buying $50 million in GPUs, and seeing shares jump 900%. Transcript: Scott Galloway Okay, so my more long tail prediction, the Allbirds pivot to AI is going to inspire a bunch of copycats. I don’t know if you saw this, but Allbirds, which is just a stupid fucking company that a few VCs wore, which is like the worst influencer move in history. They closed all their stores and they sold the IP for 39 million. And two weeks ago, they rebranded itself as New Bird AI, and they bought $50 million in GPUs and said that they’ll lease them to customers and the shares spiked 900%. Ed Elson Oh, God. You know, a few years ago, there was an iced tea company that was going down the tubes and they rebranded to blockchain. Similar thing happened. Stock went up and it came back down. Scott Galloway Well, that’s exactly right. You’re talking about Long Island Iced Tea Corp rebranded as Long Blockchain in 2017. It made me, I saw a TikTok of like 50 teenagers waiting at an In-N for them to call 6-7, and then they all went just crazy. And I’m like, oh, my God, we are so fucked. We are so fucked. That’s how I felt when I saw this thing spike 900% because it bought 50 million. So if Prof. G buys 50 million GPUs and says we’re going to run them out, is that? Anyways, okay, fine. But it’s crazy as batshit crazy as it is. It’s going to inspire a half in the next 30 days. You’re going to see six legacy brands, you know, Jemco or Kmart AI. You’re going to see just some crazy shit. Ed Elson How about us? Maybe we should do it. ProfG AI. What do we think? Scott Galloway Did I tell you this? A kid approached me, this really talented kid approached me about six, seven years ago and said, we’re going to start the ProfG token. We’re going to do a coin. It costs, you put in 5 million, we put in 5 million. It’ll get a valuation of two to 300 million. You can probably get- I remember this. Ed Elson I think I remember this because I think I remember telling you that we should absolutely not fucking do that. Scott Galloway And he said, you’ll get 40 to 60 million out before the thing crashes. And I’m like, wait, so you know what’s going to crash? And I’m like, so isn’t that fraud? He’s like, no, it’s legal. And I’m like, I love money as much as the next guy, but even I won’t go there. Ed Elson And that’s why we’re not billionaires. We don’t love it enough. Scott Galloway I have done so many embarrassing things for money. Someday we’ll sit down and talk about them. I’ve pretended to be friends with people I didn’t like. I’ve gone on the worst golf vacations ever. I’ve hung out. I mean, I’ve just done so much. Those are okay. That’s what we’re all doing that. I blew my first marriage. I’ve lost all my hair. Just so trying to get to rich. But I couldn’t do the Prof G coin. I just couldn’t do it. Anyways, we’re going to see a bunch of Allbirds AI copycats in the next 60 days. They will probably spike. The insiders will have the shares when they make the announcement. They will, as you put it, dump the bag or drop the bag. Ed Elson And no one will go to jail because we no longer have an SEC and we no longer have an IRS and we no longer have a DOJ because this is built into the system. So they will make a lot of money and they will never be punished for it. That’s the other part of the prediction. (Time 1:15:19)