My first thought is that everybody in

podcasting should probably send a

royalty to Joe every time we do a

podcast because I do think he blew open

the medium. So, and also he's enormously

successful. He sort of set a vibe for

podcasts in that is I don't try to play

gotcha with who are my guests. I try to

present them in their best light and I

think Joe kind of set the tone there. I

think he's generally speaking he

attempts to position people in their

best light. Now, this is the problem,

though.

[music] In today's office hours, we

discuss Joe Rogan's dominance, my

year-end takeaways, and the secret to

building a great team. Question number

one, I have not heard these questions.

Our first question comes from Spongebob

[music] Spackpants. That's what we love

about Reddit. And they say, "Scott, have

you entertained or been approached about

going on Joe Rogan? I think your message

would actually resonate a lot with him

and his audience. What are your thoughts

on Rogan? My first thought is that

everybody in podcasting should probably

send a royalty to Joe every time we do a

podcast cuz I do think he blew open the

medium. So, and also he's enormously

successful, good at what he does. He's

sort of set a vibe for podcasts and that

is podcast culture I think is a little

bit more gentle and I try and practice

this and that is I don't try to play

gotcha with who are my guests. I try to

present them in their best light. I'll

occasionally push back and it's a fine

it's a fine line, but I want to let

people run and give them the benefit of

the doubt and then push back enough to

challenge stuff that my listeners are

probably asking. But I don't I don't

want to be a food fight. I don't want to

be Abby Phillips or Fox and like trying

to call people out for a Tik Tok moment.

I don't I don't do that. I'm not looking

for sparks. And I think Joe kind of set

the tone there. I think he's generally

speaking, he attempts to position people

in their best light. Um, think was a

huge mistake for Vice President Harris

not to get down there. She should have

taken the bus down there if needed and

it would have saved her 3 weeks of going

on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox for 3 hours. This

is actually legitimate. It would taken

her uh she would have had to go on those

programs 3 hours a night on cable news

for 2 weeks to match the exposure that

Trump got on Rogan. Now, this is the

problem though, and this is quote

unquote my issue with uh Rogan, is that

he will bring on Sanjay Gupta to talk

about uh the COVID vaccine, and then

he'll bring on some [ __ ] quack and

create a false equivalence and create a

scenario where people start questioning

the legitimacy of whether or not the

veracity of the statement that this

quack who's been debunked and basically

had his licenses removed of saying that

mRNA vaccines alter your DNA. And I feel

Spotify and Joe didn't match the size

and influence of his platform to

factchecking.

And the reason I have not gone on Rogan,

nor will I go on Rogan, nor will I ever

be invited on basically everyone like me

has been invited on Rogan. And the

reason why I have not been invited on

Rogan and will not accept an invitation,

which is not coming, is during co I

pulled down all of my podcasts from

Spotify. And the reason for doing that

was I lost someone who I cared a great

deal about to co and they had decided

along with their girlfriend that they

were part of this antiax narrative. I

think they were misinformed. I think

they were influenced by media that was

spreading misinformation. And I think

the manosphere did an especially good

job of hip-hop

or not being very honest about what the

science said. And also uh we got it

wrong. When I say we, America got it

wrong. There was some narrative that was

just false or just it became that you

couldn't trust institutions anymore.

First saying that no, you don't need

masks. Oh, no, everyone has to mask. Oh,

you won't get COVID with this vaccine.

No, you would get it. You were just

likely not going to die from it if you

got it. Anyways, this person close to me

was an antivaxer. Came down with COVID.

Series of really unfortunate

circumstances. I don't know if it was

poor health care, but this was someone

who should not have died of COVID. Long

story short, uh was on a ventilator,

took him off the ventilator, thought he

was getting better, crashed and died.

And then approximately seven months

later, his girlfriend killed herself and

left uh an orphan boy. And this has been

um obviously difficult for for uh a lot

of people. And I want to be clear. I

don't hold any platform or any podcaster

responsible for the death of an

individual around COVID. But I do hold

Spotify and Joe responsible for not

again matching their factchecking and

their fidelity to the truth around

really sensitive issues as their

platform has grown. For me, it's very

much a mixed bag. I don't think he's a

malicious person. I think everybody on

the medium owes him a great deal. But I

do think Spotify and Joe were reckless

uh with other people's health and

created unwittingly greater death,

disease, and disability than uh was

necessary.

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Question number two also comes from

Reddit. Natural swimming 294 asks. Hi

Scott, with the year coming to [music]

an end soon, what would you say some of

your highlights and what didn't go as

planned? Uh, so I'll start with

professionally, what went really well.

My book came out as the number one New

York Times bestseller, Notes on Being a

Man. That was very exciting. It was a

lot of work and it culminated in that

and that was very rewarding. I had never

hit number one before. I've hit number

five, but I'd never hit number one. So,

that was really exciting. The live tour

for Pivot was really rewarding. We did

seven cities in seven nights. Um, live

podcast. Who would have thought it? I

wouldn't have thought people would show

for a live podcast, but it was really

nice to meet people and quote unquote

engage with the fans. We hosted about

15,000 people across seven venues. So,

those were sort of I think the

professional highlights. We've hired

some really good people. Our business is

strong. So, professionally things are

going well. On the downside,

professionally, I didn't make that much

money this year. year. I usually make a

bunch of money from investments and this

year I invested in a Bitcoin treasury

company and some most of my stocks have

just been flat. So I think I got spoiled

making a lot of money and it feels like

this year everyone's making money but

me. So that's kind of disappointing.

Although why the [ __ ] do I care? I have

enough money. It hasn't changed my life.

But still it weighs on mentally when I'm

not making good money. Still both

addicted to money. So that's sort of I

guess the net of my professional life.

Personally, look, the worst thing that

happened, my father passed away a few

months ago. Not surprising. 95 lived a

very robust uh kind of the American

dream. I had like many people a kind of

a complicated relationship with my

father and him passing stirred a lot of

those emotions and I was just sad for

him. But that was obviously uh now, you

know, my only family really is my my

sister by my dad's third marriage other

than my own kids. That was uh difficult

as it should be. Uh, the best thing I'm

trying to think the highlight personally

for the year was I did a college tour

with my oldest and it was just me and

him and over like 10 days we went to

seven cool little towns ranging from

Evston and Madison to Chapel Hill and um

Charlottesville. It was just so nice.

We'd check into these little weird

hotels, grab dinner, and then do a

school tour in the morning. And it was

just really um rewarding for me to spend

that much time with him and also very

the term is melancholy or not sad but

this little kid who used to bomb into my

room in the morning on the weekends and

crawl in bed with me and then wake up

and say dad let's make a plan is now you

know 6'1 and walking around

you know Northwestern's campus asking

questions about their biology

department. It just it's both incredibly

rewarding and [music] uh quite frankly

sad. And I like the notion that kind of

grief and anxiety are the receipts for

love and I'm feeling some of that. U but

that was the best. [music] I had a great

summer. I I lead a life of privilege. I

did amazing things. I've gone amazing,

you know, places and stuff, done [music]

cool stuff. I spend most of my money on

experiences, not on things. Uh but

anyways, uh but that was the highlight

was the [music] college tour with my

son.

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[music]

>> Welcome back. Our final question is from

Dan. Hey Scott, Dan here from Melbourne,

Australia. [music]

You often say that greatness is in the

agency of others, and I was wondering if

you could share some advice on how to

find those others. I imagine you have no

shortage of highquality applicants

wanting to join your teams now, but what

advice would you have for small

businesses that are just starting out in

a saturated job market? How can a small

business without much reach attract

truly great people?

>> Oh, hey Dan from Melbourne. I just

decided I'm going to be the mayor of

Melbourne, Australia. I think I could

move. I think I'd be big in Melbourne.

Melbourne. So, look, it's easy to say

that the team is everything, right? Team

with best players wins. Greatness in the

agency of others. But then the question

becomes, well, how do you find great

people? And what I have found is you're

constantly posting telling people you're

looking for people when you are looking

for people. And the my approach to

hiring and I'm not sure it's the right

approach but it's my approach and it's

worked is I tell people everyone I know

do you know anyone smart really good and

it doesn't matter if they're looking but

I I'll say to people especially we have

a strong kind of referral system in our

company who are really smart people you

know in your peer group and let's bring

them in and tell them about our company

and see if they'd be interested in

joining us. I do not really believe in

the power of interviewing. I mean that

kind of bottom and top 10% the tales of

people in interviews occasionally meet

someone you're like okay this is

obviously not a fit and occasionally

meet someone you think Jesus Christ this

person is just so impressive. I'm pure

about reference hiring and that is and I

always tell the story but Ed Ellson

who's uh my co-host at Prop Markets or

now that he's hosting Five Days Away I

should say I'm his co-host but

essentially this woman Joanna Kohl's

called me and said you must hire Edward

[clears throat] Elson that's my British

my woman's British impersonation and I

said well for what role and she said it

doesn't matter you idiot

she basically said you got to hire this

guy and if somebody I trust calls me and

says, "You got to hire this person."

I'll hire them. I find reference hiring

is absolutely the way to go. But I'll

I'll make it clear to the person, all

right, this isn't a friend or someone

you want to do a solid for. This is

someone you think, you know, that if I

hire pretty much side on scene, they're

going to be they're going to work out.

Now, I everyone has to interview them.

Everyone has to agree that they would

like to work with them. But for the most

part, if someone if I get a really

strong reference hire from someone who

either works with us or someone I trust,

that person has got kind of a 80 90%

lock on the job because I find reference

hires are absolutely the way to go. So

what do you do? You spread the word that

you're looking for people. You don't

wait for people to call you. You find

really good people and then you ask to

meet with them and you just get on their

radar. Hey, this is what we're up to. If

you ever want to know more, we have a

lot of respect for you. We've heard

you're great. And also when you do find

good people um the only way to get them

to act like owners is to make them

owners. I usually give away equity and

then I will plot a path for them. I

think young people want to come to work

to be to learn and to develop economic

security for them and their families. So

uh the best reference hires for people

looking to join whether I should join

this firm is they'll talk to the people

at the firm or the people who used to

work there and I'll sit down with an

employee after they you know they've

worked out for a year and I'll say okay

this is the strategy for the company.

this is our strategy for you. This is

where you'll be in three years

professionally from a position

standpoint, a responsibility standpoint,

and also a financial standpoint. And

just be very explicit. And sometimes it

works and sometimes it doesn't. But they

knowing that a you demonstrate

excellence and that you want them to win

uh is very intoxicating for them. At

Prop G Media, I think we have 25 or 30

people now, and I think we've had maybe

one or two people leave voluntarily.

That's all for this episode. If you'd

like to submit a question, please email

a voice recording to office hours.com.

Again, that's office hours.com. Or if

you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post

your question on Scott Galloway

subreddit and [music] we just might

feature it in an upcoming episode.

[music]