the soft tissue of corporate America or

the soft tissue of Trump is that he

responds to the markets. The only time

he has pulled back is not because of

protests or the courts. The only time or

quote unquote a co-equal branch of

government. The only time he has pulled

back is when interest rates spike or the

S&P goes down. What is our best shot at

the S&P going down? Simple. Go after the

subscription services of the companies

that represent 40% of the S&P.

>> [music]

>> In today's office hours, we talk about

Trump in Canada resisting big tech as an

investor and the value of focus. [music]

Our first question comes from Diane

Brooks one on Instagram. They say, "Why

do you think Trump is so [music] focused

on belittling Canada?" The honest answer

is I don't know because they're close or

because it's like that movie on Wall

Street where Charlie Sheen asked Michael

Douglas um why did you have to break

this company? And he goes because it was

breakable. So Canada is our largest

trading partner. Mexico and Canada are

actually tied. He's also sort of zeroed

in, I think incorrectly, on the notion

that uh past trade deals have

disadvantaged the US and Canada was

central to his push to replace NAFTA

with the USMCA. He tends to highlight

bilateral trade imbalances and sector by

sector outcomes.

And he frequently points to specific

industries, especially things like he

likes the kind of tangible stuff, dairy,

autos, lumber, steel, and aluminum,

where he says Canadian policies or

experts hurt US producers. And these

industries are typically more important

with kind of what he perceives as the

real America and people he feels are

advantageous to him politically and tend

to side with them, whether it's farmers

or the manufacturing states and the

industrial Midwest. So also I wonder if

he just sees it as a real estate play

that oh it's our neighbor let's buy

their house. The problem is it's around

all of this it's just really [ __ ]

stupid. Let's look at oil. They transfer

to us oil and energy and shale in its

Ross form and we add value to it and we

get a discount on it because of

proximity and we sell at a much higher

margin. They have manufacturing plants

where they produce cars, parts go back

and forth. They send in timber. They

send in oil manufactured products which

tend to have operating margins of 10 to

20 points and be produced by companies

that trade at a PE of say 8 to 15. And

in exchange we sell into them iPhones,

uh, chips,

digital services, banking, things that

have exceptionally high margins,

sometimes 40 to 50 points of operating

margins and are housed within companies

that trade at a PE of, you know, 20 to

50. So in some, if there's been any

asymmetry in trade, it's been towards

us. And that is for every dollar of

trade we do with Canada, we import in a

dollar worth of goods from Canada.

Right? So dollar into Canada of our

[ __ ] our iPhones, our chips. They put

in a dollar of cars, timber, oil into

the American market. The dollar we sell

into them is literally worth three to 10

times more to American shareholders or

to the American company than the

shareholder value they get from the

dollar they sell into the US. If there's

a trade imbalance or an asymmetry, it

benefits us full stop. But because it

was such a mutually beneficial

relationship and because there's been a

level of trust that's been built up

there by virtue of the fact that

Canadians went into World War II before

we did, they followed us into Iraq. They

followed us into Afghanistan. We have

fought shoulder-to-shoulder. So, uh,

Canada [ __ ] up. It trusted us. And 75%

of its exports come into the US. And I

think that essentially Trump said, "Oh,

we have leverage. Maybe they're our

friends, but we have real power and I

can bully them and push them around and

they kind of have to take whatever

tariffs we send to them." And Prime

Minister Carney has pushed back and

said, "Look, this might be bad for us uh

in the short term, but Canada's not

going to be bullied." Anyways, his views

on trade are just batshit crazy. I think

he did get China right. He did highlight

in his first administration that there

was asymmetry with China that they

basically steal our IP, rip it off and

then sell us back the finished good for

less uh gutting our industry. I think

there was real validity there. By the

way, since co Chinese exports are up 40%

but its imports are at 1%. And some

China's basically decided you can buy

our [ __ ] but we're not going to buy

yours. And that means trade

representatives all over the world need

to unify to push back on China. But when

the biggest consumer economy is

sclerotic and declaring war on all these

um foreign nations, we can't pull

together and China's been effectively

able to atomize us visav Trump's stupid

policies. According to Justin Trudeau,

Trump's obsession may be due to Canada's

significant supply of critical minerals.

And then Paul Kugman's theory is that

Trump hates Canada because it's a

fundamentally decent place. It's an

interesting theory. Trump, who nobody

would describe as a decent person,

dislikes and maybe even fears people who

are, says Kugman. Hm. That's some

armchair psychology there. But it makes

no sense. Uh they will be hurt very

badly. We will be hurt badly. And it's

essentially fraying the operating system

and the world order. And what's fueled

the middle class and unlocked

unbelievable economic growth really

since kind of the '90s and Clinton, it's

been an embrace of global trade. And

that is it is hard on certain losers,

certain industries that aren't

competitive with global suppliers. But

at the end of the day, if you can buy

bananas for less money and then reinvest

that additional consumer spending in

other products that we're better at,

what's happened over time is that we

have traded or swapped out low wage

non-competitive industries for higher

wage, higher gross margin, higher

shareholder value industries. So Dave

Chappelle summarized it perfectly. We

don't want to make Nikes, we want to

wear them. The people assembling iPhones

in China, I think it's 2,000 parts, make

about 500 bucks a month, $6,000 a year.

The average wage of an Apple employee

Certino was figuring out retail

strategy, distribution, marketing,

supply chain, uh, lobbying, regulations,

communications, investor relations, they

average about, I think, 220,000 a year.

The notion somehow that manufacturing is

going to come back, which I think was

one of the primary objectives of this

these stupid trade wars, it's not

happening. Also, folks, in terms of

manufacturing, Americans have a fetish

with it. And 80% of Americans think that

we need more manufacturing in America.

But get this, only 20% want to work in

manufacturing. You can't bring your dog

to the factory floor. These tariffs have

not in any way inspired a renaissance in

manufacturing. What they have done is

hurt some of our tourism that employs 12

million people in the tourism sector. So

in some if these tariffs and a war on

Canada make no sense economically or

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[music]

Question number two comes from mxml on

Instagram. They say, "How [music] does

your call to action to unsubscribe from

big tech impact your investment plans?"

Yeah, this is a tough one. So, I've

already unsubscribed from Uber, Amazon

Prime, and last night I spent about 2

hours trying to unsubscribe from

Paramount Plus, and I still can't figure

out I got a smiley or a sad mountain

saying I'd unsubscribe. But unsubscribe

from Uber and Amazon Prime. The really

shocking thing was when I unsubscribed

or I cancelceled my Uber account, uh, it

gives you this graphic that says, "This

is how many times you've ordered from

Uber Eats." I've ordered from Uber Eats,

I think, 34 times. And then it said,

"This is how many rides you've taken." I

think I've been a member of Uber for

about 10 years. Let me say I love Uber.

I think it's amazing. I love the little

graphic of how my Cadillac Escalade. Oh,

it's around the corner. I hope he parks

in the right spot. Oh, he's going to be

here in two. I just absolutely

love it. I think it's an amazing

service. I haven't owned a car in

[snorts] four years. And it's something

I've really enjoyed not owning a car.

All right. How many Uber rides have I

taken in the last 10 years? 3746.

Okay. See above. Love Uber. I take Uber

Lux. I like to think I'm a, you know, a

big deal. I have some money and I always

take Uber Lux. I did some analysis.

That's approximately 370 rides a year if

you divide it evenly across the 10

years. Most of my rides are to Midtown

to do a meeting, to the West Village to

go drinking or to an airport to go

somewhere else. So, my rides are

expensive. The average Uber Lux ride

when I joined in 2015 was 40 to 60

bucks. And this is the big tech

playbook. They underpric, they

consolidate the market with an

incredible offering. And then once

they've consolidated the market, they

raise prices faster than inflation,

which is what Uber has done. It has

raised prices 7 to 10% a year despite

inflation going up about 3 to three and

a half% a year. The result is in 2025,

the average price of an Uber Lux ride

for yours truly is somewhere between 80

and $120. So let's call it a hundred

bucks. So do the math. I have been

spending, no joke, $35,000 a year on

Uber. And before you say, yeah,

privileged. Yeah, I guilty. And my point

is is that you don't realize how much

money you're spending on these things

because they raise their prices. You get

used to them and they make it

frictionless such that it is so easy to

spend money. Back to your question, uh I

own stock in Apple and Amazon and Amazon

is my big tech stock pick of 2026. I

have owned these stocks since 2009.

So to sell them would incur an

extraordinary capital gain. But at the

same time, if I'm going to walk the

walk, do I really want to finance these

companies? Do I want to send a signal?

So I am contemplating selling down or

selling my positions in these companies.

I've not done it yet because, and this

is a good problem, these companies are

up 10 20x, meaning that basically the

entire sale amount is going to be

taxable. So I try to be very careful

about having an emotional reaction. At

the same time, I need to walk the walk.

I'm going to unsubscribe or cancel

something every day. I think it's

amazing how many things you have that

you didn't know you had. I have three

different chat GPT accounts. I'm not

even talking about canceling all of

them, but you know, I had a family

meeting. Family meeting. I love those.

That's my basically my boys rolling

their eyes and me lecturing at them and

saying, "Someday you'll respect me." And

I said, "We're going to cancel our

streaming media." Told them about what I

was doing. And they're like, "Yeah,

yeah, we're not." And they're like, "No,

we're not canceling our streaming

media." I'm like, "Okay, I'll let you

keep one." And of course, the argument

broke out from going, "We have six

streaming media platforms. We're going

to one. I'm not suggesting you give up

everything, but if you're a subscriber

to Anthropic or Chat GPT, pick one.

Could you do without Amazon Prime for a

month? Could you take more cabs or could

you eat local and not use Amazon

Grocery?" I mean, there's just a ton of

different subscription services you

could do away with. And one, I think

you're going to find you're going to

save money. I think it hits these firms

really, really hard. My next thing

that'll be pretty easy just to

unsubscribe from Apple TV. By the way,

these companies have have increased

their prices 20 to 40% just over the

last two or three years. And the soft

tissue of corporate America or the soft

tissue of Trump is that he responds to

the markets. The only time he has pulled

back is not because of protests or the

courts. The only time or quote unquote a

co-equal branch of government. The only

time he has pulled back is when interest

rates spike or the S&P goes down. What

is our best shot at the S&P going down?

Simple. go after the subscription

services of the companies that represent

40% of the S&P and that is if you cancel

Chat GPT at 20 bucks a month they're pro

offering that's $240 right okay it's not

a lot of money but say you decided not

to buy groceries Kroger's trades at.3

times revenues open AI trades at 40

times revenues what does that mean that

means that every dollar that goes to

Chat GPT results in about $130 in market

value. Put another way, you could buy

$30,000 less groceries. The average home

spends $6,000 on groceries. Meaning five

homes, American homes, could take all of

their grocery spending down to zero and

I guess plant gardens and figure out a

way to survive. And it would have the

same impact on the markets as one person

canceling their chat GPT subscription.

So, I'm suggesting we focus on pulling

the string that might have a real impact

on the markets, which is the only thing

that Trump listens to. But back to your

original question, I am going to do

something involving my stocks and my

capital to try and send a signal to

these companies and these financial

institutions that they need to speak up

before it is too [music] late. And if

you're interested in joining us, please

go to resistandunsubscribe.com.

Again, that's resistandunscribe.com. and

we've tried to make it really easy with

links for you to investigate which big

tech subscriptions you can easily cancel

without much impact on your day-to-day

life. We'll be right back after a quick

break.

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>> Welcome back. Question number three. Hi

Scott, my question is about the value of

focusing on one project [music] and how

elastic one's focus should be. Due to my

ambition and FOMO, I've spent most of my

life managing or building multiple

projects at the same time. A full-time

career, a couple small businesses,

investing, thought, leadership, etc.

I've had an epiphany that maybe my

outcomes have been worse than if I just

focused on doing one of those things

really well. I see you as someone who

has many pots cooking at the same time,

but it seems like they all use the same

ingredients. For example, the content

you create for Prof Media becomes a

book, newsletter, and a section course.

What are your thoughts on focus, how

liberal one's focus should be, and if

finding synergies between projects is

essential to making them all work? Or

maybe you think people should just have

one successful project before expanding

into others.

>> Uh yeah, a secret weapon that most

people don't take advantage of is focus.

And that is I'll give an example. I hate

side hustles. There was a trend around

side hustles. Everybody needs all young

people need a side hustle to make some

extra money. If you're spending a lot of

time on side hustles, it means you need

to find a different main hustle. And I

think your job in your 20s is not to

find your passion, but to find something

you're really good at and then double

down on it and focus on it and try and

become one of the 10 top 10% of that

profession with an objective of within

10 years being in the top 1%. I think

it's okay to workshop stuff if you don't

love your main gig. You got to make some

money. You want to investigate some

other things. You want to dip your toes

in water. But as soon as you find

something where you think I could be in

the top 10% in three years and the top

1% in 10 years, I think you go all in on

it. Now what I've done is I've basically

gone allin on one function and leveraged

a superpower. Now what is that function?

I've gone allin on storytelling and that

is I create a lot of content where I try

and find data uh couch it in a

entertaining, humorous, provocative,

irreverent way. That is what I do.

That's my super power. That's my focus.

The majority of my day is around

creating content that is entertaining

and educational. Now, my superpower is

finding really talented people that

scale that focus. We have a graphics

team. We have a video team. I was just

talking to a woman who runs our company,

Katherine Dylan, who I've been working

with for 15 years, and she's saying, "We

need more people on the video team." I'm

like, "Go ahead, make a full another

full-time hire. We have probably 25

full-time people and another half a

dozen contractors working at ProfG G to

try and scale my focus and each of them

has their own focus. Katherine's a great

manager. She's very good with people but

she also is very good on the creative

side. Billy runs our video group. Drew

is our tech guy. So what I would suggest

is find someone close to you who

understands business and say this is all

I'm doing. Should I pair a couple of

these things? And pairing is really

important. So for example, I don't go on

boards for longer than four years and

I'm now much more disciplined around

okay this sounds interesting but what am

I going to get from it? How is it going

to advance? I try and set corporate

objectives financial objectives every

year objectives around my relationships

mostly around my boys and then I run

almost every decision or allocation of

time and I used to say yes to goddamn

everything. You know the sexist word in

the English language is no. So, the

problem most people have is not what

they say yes to, but what they say no

to. And what I would suggest is you just

do an audit and have some friends help

you and say, "What am I really good at?

What would pay the most dividends if it

got into the top 10 or 1%." And then

quite frankly, try to outsource or clear

everything else off those decks. Now, if

you haven't figured that out, dancing in

different parties might make sense to

see which one gets traction, but at some

point you should be totally focused on

one thing. And then success is a series

of small acts of discipline every day.

If you're doing financial content on

TikTok, you need to put out one, two,

three pieces of content every day. It's

like investing. Small acts of discipline

every day. A few bucks every day adds up

to millions by the time you're my age.

So what are we going to do? We're going

to build a kitchen cabinet of people.

You're going to describe very honestly

and openly all the things you're doing,

what's working, what isn't. Ask them

where you should be focusing or if you

should be focusing. And then you're

going to be very disciplined about

doubling down and putting all of your

human capital into that one thing such

that you can be in the top 10 or the top

1%. And then you're going to get really

good at saying no such you free up more

human capital to provide the artillery

and the ammunition to be exceptionally

focused. 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 at

proprochdia.com. Or if you prefer to ask

on Reddit, just post your question on

the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just

might feature it in an upcoming episode.

[music]

[music]