‘Don’t follow your passion’: Scott Galloway’s career advice - and what he sees as ‘the world’s most undervalued stock’

"Plumbing, electric, how to install an energy-efficient system or fix an EV - I think there’s going to be such a lack of people with those skills that they’re going to be able to command really big salaries," says Scott Galloway.

NYU Stern Professor of Marketing Scott Galloway is a high achiever. The prolific entrepreneur, author, education disruptor, TikToker, YouTuber and podcaster founded a clutch of business intelligence and branding firms that – a GFC faceplant notwithstanding – have pushed his estimated wealth above US$100 million.

Does he have a morning routine to match? The Herald caught up with Galloway earlier this week before his virtual appearance at the Spark-backed Future State summit.

Herald: We often see TikTok clips showing the morning routine of type-A execs, where they get up at 4am, work out for 45 minutes, read for 60 minutes etc – but a profile said you don’t get out of bed until 8.30am. Is that correct?

Galloway: That’s a good day. It’s usually somewhere between 9am and 10am. I stay up late and I drink and do edibles several nights a week.

I spent 20 or 30 years of my life not getting enough sleep, working my ass off, taking red-eyes.

Now that I have some money, I’m not interested in optimising everything. I want to enjoy myself.

How to make some money is the topic of your latest book, The Algebra of Wealth. In movies, inspiring teachers often tell kids to follow their passion. What’s your take?

I think it’s terrible advice.

Young people often mistake their hobbies for passions. And typically, passion industries – sports, fashion, movies, arts – have a 90 per cent-plus unemployment rate.

No kid grows up thinking, “My dream is to be a tax lawyer”.

But the best tax lawyers fly private and have a much larger selection set of mates than they deserve.

Your job in your 20s is to workshop a variety of careers to try and find something that you’re really talented at and can potentially be great at.

I thought I was going to be a doctor. I took chemotherapy. That disabused me of that notion. I thought I was going to be an athlete. I went to UCLA and found out what real athletes look like. I thought I was going to be an investment banker. I worked at Morgan Stanley for two years and figured out I’m no good at that.

And I finally zeroed in on something and found something I could be great at where I could make good money.

I’m passionate about taking care of my kids and my parents and analytics and business intelligence has afforded me the opportunity to do that. And because I’m fairly good at it, it’s kind of made me passionate about it.

You’ll be passionate about having the economic security to live in a nice place. You’ll be passionate about being able to give money to causes that you believe in.

And you’ll be passionate about having the economic opportunity, not to play at Wimbledon but to go to Wimbledon. So I think “follow your passion” is terrible advice that ends up oftentimes delaying people’s start in their career.

Do you cover AI in The Algebra of Wealth? Is it a career to pursue?

I see AI as just sort of another tool – whether it’s learning how to use computers or understanding a language.

But I didn’t specifically address it. I’m not sure I used the words artificial intelligence in the book.

Did you use ChatGPT or another-gen AI to help you write?

I find the results are really anodyne. It feels like what it is: like a computer wrote it.

I do kind of use it to brainstorm when I’m stuck.

I might say, “Give me five examples of stocks that have underperformed the market for 10 years and then have one breakout year,” or something like that.

Or “Give me an example of a low-growth economy whose stock market is soaring despite negative GDP growth.”

Four responses will make no sense, but the fifth will inspire some thoughts.

Some online stores are now bombed with knock-off books, written with AIs. Could there be an AI Scott?

Maybe I’m using the wrong LLMs [large language models]. I haven’t found anything that can even say in the voice of Scott Galloway.

I have enough material that’s been crawled now, but if I say “Write in the voice of Scott Galloway”, it’ll do a dad joke and then use an expletive. [Galloway likes to drop F-bombs, several of which were removed from this exchange.]

What is a hot career choice?

I think there’s going to be a ton of opportunities in the trades. I don’t know if New Zealand is like the US, but here five people are leaving the trades for every two going into it.

So if you have skills in things like plumbing or electric or know how to install an energy-efficient HVAC system or fix an electric vehicle, I think there’s going to be such a lack of people with those skills that they’re going to be able to command really big salaries.

I think that millionaire next door is going to be a guy who hangs curtains for wealthy people’s homes.

ByteDance (the Beijing-based owner of Tiktok, which now faces a ban in the US if it is not sold within 12 months) is about half owned by BlackRock, Trump-backer Jeff Yass and other Western investors. Would you put money into it?

I actually think ByteDance is a great investment. Putting moral clarity aside and just focusing on the pure economic opportunity, this is one of the most undervalued stocks in the world right now.

You have to trade on the private market, but its most recent valuation is US$220 billion.

This is a company that’s growing faster than Meta and has greater margins. But it’s trading at a fifth of the value because of the geopolitical cloud hanging over it. I think that cloud is going to be lifted.

Biden has signed the legislation for a sale or ban ...

But what I found generally, Chris, is that money wins. And there’s so much money to be made here if they come to some sort of accommodation for both Chinese and American investors.

I think they’re going to figure it out. My thesis is that the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] knows they’re not going to have a propaganda tool and an economic juggernaut, they’re not going to give up both. They’ll want to hold on to one.

What’s been your worst investment in recent times?

I invested in Post News, a competitor to Twitter that in a little over a year has gone to zero.

I constantly have zeros, but I try not to invest more than 10 per cent of my net worth in any one thing. That way, diversification is my Kevlar. I can take a bullet to the chest. It hurts but it’s not fatal.

What’s been your best move?

I bought claims against a bankrupt FTX at 20 cents on the dollar. They owned 15 or 20 per cent of [AI startup] Anthropic and I calculated that that was probably worth 30c on the claim-dollar and anything else would be gravy. And now, seven months later, they are trading at practically par, so that worked out well. [Claims were trading at 93c when the Herald spoke to Galloway, helped by FTX striking a deal to sell its Anthropic stake for US$884m on March 25. Anthropic’s standing has been boosted by multi-billion backing from Amazon and Google. FTX’s creditors are now expected to get all of their money back.]

Is it too late to invest in Nvidia?

That’s the number one question I get every day.

And my attitude is, I don’t know. I can see it going down 80 per cent. I can see it doubling. I just don’t know. What I would tell you is buy an index fund and you have 33 cents on the dollar going to the Magnificent Seven.

But if they get cut in half and the other 493 stocks [in an S&P500 fund] have their day in the sun, you’re fine because you’ll get some lift there.

If you buy any one stock, there’s a 50.1 per cent chance it’ll go up that day. But if anyone bought any five stocks in the S&P500 and held them for 10 years, no one has ever lost money.

Don’t try and figure out the needle in the haystack, buy the whole haystack.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.