Loading summary
Scott Galloway
Support for the show comes from vcx, the public ticker for private tech. The US Stock market started history's greatest wave of wealth creation. From factory workers in Detroit to farmers in Omaha, anyone could own a piece of the great American companies. But today, our most innovative companies are staying private longer, which means everyday Americans are missing out. Until now. Introducing VCX, a public ticker for private tech. Visit getvcx.com for more info. That's getvcx.com carefully consider the investment materials before investing, including objectives, risk, charges and expenses. This and other information can be found in the funds prospectus@getvcx.com this is a paid sponsorship.
Timberland Advertiser
It's not just something you made. It's the privilege that you get to work with your hands. It's building something that serves a purpose, Proof that you have the grit to keep going. At Timberland, we understand you take your craft seriously. And we do, too. Which is why our products are built to the highest quality. We put in the work, and so you can perfect yours with purpose, in every detail, and crafted with intention. Timberland built on craft. Visit timberland.com to shop.
Priceline Advertiser
We all have that dreamtrip we've been wishing we could go on. But too often, life, or usually price gets in the way. That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure. Don't just dream about that next trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit priceline.com and book your next trip today.
Ed
Go to your happy price. Priceline.
Scott Galloway
Today's number. $2,026. That's the average amount American pet owners spent on their pets in a year. True story. My pet parrot died. Last thing he said. Shit, I think my parrot's about to die. You have to think about it. That's what I like about that joke.
Ed
No, you don't. It's not a head scratcher. It's just a.
Scott Galloway
It's not that deep. It's just bad. Talk about the Pokemon card. You didn't read this?
Ed
Excuse me.
Scott Galloway
This show's going really well so far. I just gotta say, it's clicking. It is clicking. $16.5 million. That's how much Logan Paul sold a Pikachu Pokemon card for on Sunday, which is incredible. But the more interesting thing was the buyer. It's Anthony Scaramucci's son.
Ed
I did see that. I thought it was pretty ridiculous, but I love Scaramucci So, you know, I held my tongue on that one, but I'm not sure that was the best use of funds.
Scott Galloway
I immediately texted him, because we're friends, and I said, can you adopt me? Where does his son get 17 million bucks?
Ed
That's a great question. I mean, I knew Anthony was doing well. I didn't know he was doing that well, unless maybe his son is doing really well. How did Anthony respond to that?
Scott Galloway
I haven't heard back from him. My guess is he's got a lot of texts about that Pokemon card thing.
Ed
Didn't appreciate the comment.
Scott Galloway
What's going on, Ed?
Ed
I'm doing very well. I'm doing very well.
Scott Galloway
I heard you headed to London, is that right?
Ed
I am headed to London on a secret mission with an advertiser. I'm not sure I'm supposed to be talking about it, but I am heading to London.
Scott Galloway
Does it involve Prince Andrew?
Ed
I don't think so. I think he just got locked up.
Scott Galloway
Yeah. Arrested. Can you believe that?
Ed
I can. It's pretty crazy that it's surprising, but, yeah, it's long time coming. Right. But, yeah, I'll be in London. I'm going to the Chelsea game. I'll see Cole Palmer. What about you?
Scott Galloway
And Ed is going for. At the request of an advertiser. So I'm finally. It's good to see you finally pulling your weight.
Ed
Yep, that's right.
Scott Galloway
Well, as. As well as this banter's going, I say we head to the headlines.
Ed
I asked you a question.
Scott Galloway
What did you ask me?
Ed
How's it going?
Scott Galloway
That's your witty banter? It's fine. I'm in. I'm in Zermatt. I don't enjoy skiing, but it's a beautiful town and I get to hang out with my family. And I've mostly been doing podcasting every day. Do you see? AOC was asked a question in Europe about my resistant unsubscribe movement.
Ed
What did she say?
Scott Galloway
She said it wasn't exactly like a full throated endorsement. She said, you know, all of these things are great and even if they don't work, I'm like, oh, well, thanks for that vote of confidence. Aoc,
Ed
true politician. She's kind of crushing it right now. She's popularity, especially among young people, is absolutely exploding.
Scott Galloway
She's powerful. She's a powerful young woman, intelligent, quick on her feet.
Ed
So you haven't gone skiing once? Or is. Or did I hear that wrong?
Scott Galloway
No, no, no. Once.
Ed
So what do you. What, what's the fun in being in Zamat? Then if it's just. It sounds like it's just the same routine but with a different view.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, that's pretty much accurate. But here's the thing, Ed. I'm not in charge. You'll see. Just wait. Just wait. You're in a relationship now or you like get, you have like 50, 50 decision making. Just wait. You just gotta smile and get through it.
Ed
Get through it. Get through the family ski trip in Zamat. Well, should we get into our docket here? We've got a lot to discuss.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, let's do it.
Ed
Today we're discussing why boring stocks are winning in 2026. We've got an update on the wealth tax debate and then we will be discussing why AI is having a popularity problem. And just a note, before we move on for coverage on the Supreme Court's tariff ruling, please check out our emergency episode from Friday.
Scott Galloway
Now is the time to buy.
Ed
I hope you have plenty of the wherewithal. Last year the market was obsessed with AI and tech stocks surged on the hype. In fact, the MAG7 rose 23% in 2025 alone. But this year the vibe has shifted. Investors are piling into so called boring sectors including consumer staples, energy and materials. All MAG7 names are down on the year, wiping out nearly 1.5 trillion DOL in market value. Meanwhile, consumer staples are up nearly 14%, materials are up 18% and energy is up 22%. So the rotation is real and it is happening fast. We will get into all of this. But first, Scott, I want to take a quick little victory lap here. Last year when we did our investment strategy episode, when we talked about what we're Investing in in 2026, I was talking about how I thought that tech was a little bit overbought and that we would need to sort of rotation outwards. You need to diversify. I gave you three picks for 2026. They were the Equal Weight, S and P, Healthcare and Consumer Staples. And just, I mean, we're not done with the year. We're only a couple of months in, but the performance so far, S and P is flat. Healthcare is up 1% which is not that great, but it's still outperforming. Equal Weight is up more than 5% as some of these less loved names start to get a little bit more juice. And then more importantly, as I mentioned, Consumer Staples is up nearly 14%, one of the best performing sectors of the year. So some of the names in here that are really winning right Now, Walmart up 12% year to date, Costco up 17% Coca Cola 15% Johnson and Johnson 18%. A lot of these names that people didn't really care about, at least in the past few years, are suddenly very, very hot stocks right now. So let's start with your reactions to this rotation that we're seeing. What do you think, Scott?
Scott Galloway
The bigger story is just the amount of market cap that tech or AI related stocks has had and then kind of the SAS apocalypse. What's interesting is that it appears that people are still pretty bullish on the market and are going after or going into staples, that it's been a rotation, it hasn't been a rotation out of the market, it's just been a rotation into other stocks. So. And these companies, you know, that typically trade at, you know, reasonable multiples, I guess look cheap relative to everything else. And I almost think of it as sort of schmuck insurance where people said, all right, the AI and the tech trade has been the gift that keeps on giving and we need to just be a little bit more diversified in case there is sort of a real, I mean if you look at every single stock that's tech stock over, call it 2 or 300 billion of market cap, they have years in just the last five or seven years where they've been down between 40 and 70%. So if that happens and you're caught in that downdraft and especially when these things, these just things look, look like they got way out over their skis, you'd want to be, if you still want to be in the market, which it feels like traders still or investors still want to be, just go into more defensive names and just diversification.
Ed
I think that's exactly what we're seeing. The one thing that I would add, I mean, so to your point, the boring safe picks are the ones whose valuations have last year at least been cheap compared to say tech. But it is striking how that seems to be changing now because the multiples on these so called boring stocks are absolutely exploding now. Yeah, so consumer staples, those stocks are now trading at 25 times earnings. That's their highest multiple in decades. Same thing is happening with materials, same thing happening with utilities, industrials, energy, they're all trading at historically high valuations. So it's this very interesting dynamic where you know, a month, two months, three months ago. Yes, what you said is true. Those companies and these stocks are generally cheap compared to tech. But there's been a, a flippening that has transpired in basically a matter of weeks where suddenly it seems that actually now Those boring stocks might be way overboard. There might be too much energy, too much momentum, to the point where those valuations now look really expensive. Last week we compared the difference between Amazon and Walmart and Costco. Walmart and Costco are trading at a multiple twice as high as Amazon right now. So it's a really interesting dynamic where last year multiples were being, or premiums were being placed on companies that were, that were had high growth, that had an AI narrative that were building and that were investing in CapEx and data centers, et cetera. Now those companies are getting punished and it's the companies that are very boring that have been doing the same thing they've been doing for decades that are so called safe stocks. Those are the ones that are getting the real premiums right now. So the whole narrative has completely flipped on its head in literally like a month. And I think that is a very interesting predicament for investors, especially if you were buying into these safer stocks at the beginning of the year like we were talking about. Suddenly you're holding these stocks that a month ago looked pretty cheap. Now they look kind of expensive. So what are you supposed to do about that? Are you going to hold, Are you going to diversify back into tech? I think these are the questions that investors are now having to reckon with.
Scott Galloway
I think there's real opportunities in these fallen angels in the SaaS market because who would have thought that these companies would look like a bargain as a multiple of their free cash flow and their price earnings ratios relative to, you know, Tide and Costco, I mean, and Walmart. So I think that, I think that the surprise if you had a basket of these companies, I can imagine them doubling. I can't imagine Procter and Gamble and Coca Cola doubling in the next 12 months. So I think that this is even though these companies are quote, unquote good companies in their own right, what's driving their premium is essentially fears from AI that A you need to rotate out of AI, which is overvalued and B fear of we're finding companies that are quote unquote, AI immune. And Goldman has this AI immune index that they put together and it's done really well. But I would argue that that probably means these stocks are a little bit rich right now.
Ed
It's really fascinating how quickly this happened because I mean, literally what we're describing is basically the opposite of what we were talking about as recently as like last quarter. And it's sort of the perfect example of you want to zig when others are zagging and that is, yeah, software is getting absolutely demolished right now. I mean, one of the things that I was looking at, I'm not one for technical analysis, but there is a technical indicator called the relative strength index and it's basically this formula that captures how much buying pressure and selling pressure there is in a given stock or in a given sector. When the, the software apocalypse, the SAS apocalypse was happening just a few weeks ago, I was looking at that relative strength index score below 30, an RSI of 30 or below. Generally that means that the stock or the sector is very oversold. There's huge amounts of selling pressure happening. And back then when I was looking at it, the RSI for the software stocks was 18, it was below 20. So just a cascade of selling in what was the hottest sector. Now you look at the relative strength index for consumer staples as just kind of a stock counterpoint. The RSI on those stocks right now is north of 70 right now. So huge amounts of buying pressure going into some of the most boring stocks that you've ever known. And yes, those looked attractive a month ago. But I think to your point, these narratives are cycling through so quickly and so aggressively that you now have to be balancing and really understanding what is the sentiment in the room, how has it changed and what has it done to pricing? Because the price and the multiples on these stocks is, is just going haywire right now to the software point. I mean, we've gone through some of the reasons why we don't think AI is going to be the SaaS killer that the market seems to think it is. You know, we've talked about how the switching costs are extremely high and AI hasn't really done anything to change that. I mean, it's offering another product so maybe there's an incentive to switch. But still the lock in and the switching costs of for these enterprise SaaS companies still really high. We talked about how these companies can still just integrate AI into their own products. That's what Google did after ChatGPT. There's nothing stopping Salesforce or Adobe or even Figma, which is now partnering up with Anthropic to integrate AI into their own products. Nothing stopping them doing that. And then we've also talked about the fact that trust and security are these really big priorities for companies that are licensing SaaS services for their enterprises. And that's again something that AI hasn't really done anything to change. In fact, if everyone's out there vibe coding their own AI SaaS tools, that probably means that the trust and security the value of trust and security is actually higher. Maybe that actually incents more interest in these storied names that have a real record of success. So those are some points that we've discussed about why AI isn't going to necessarily kill software, like a lot of people seem to think it will. I think two other points that I would like to just point out, Microsoft and Amazon have gotten absolutely killed. Microsoft is down, let's see, I think Microsoft is down 15, almost 15% over the year, year to date, similar with Amazon. And again, the reason that this is happening is because there's this feeling that AI is going to kill them. It's going to massively disrupt their business model. And this all happened after Anthropic came out with AI tools and OpenAI came out with AI tools. But there are two facts that I feel like no one is really considering, which is that one, Microsoft owns 27% of OpenAI. So anything that OpenAI does that is impressive, that may disrupt the business model of legacy software companies like Microsoft is taking a third of that. So that's the first point. And two, Amazon owns more than 16% of anthropic. They're one of their largest and earliest investors. So again, if Claude comes out with something interesting, the idea of just going and selling your Amazon, because Claude's going to be a disruptor, it's like Amazon owns Claude. Amazon's one of the biggest investors. So this idea that these older tech companies are on the other side of the AI trade, to me it just doesn't really make sense. Like they are literally shareholders in the businesses, the largest shareholders in the businesses that are supposedly going to disrupt their own industry.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, but I think that their exposure to those companies, or the belief that their exposure to those companies would be their growth vehicles and maybe the growth won't be as growthy as one had hoped, has maybe had a negative impact on sort of their parent companies being Microsoft or Amazon. But at the same time there's a recognition that AI is a fundamental game changer and as you pointed out, has destroyed a trillion dollars in value in SaaS companies, despite the fact there's absolutely no evidence that their cash flows or their top line have been affected here. The other thing I would point out about recession proof stocks or that they're safe, I find that conventional wisdom, or when wisdom becomes conventional, it's no longer wise. Now what do I mean by that? There's a basic bull case or kind of this trope that with these types of staple companies that people will always need toothpaste and shampoo and that it's recession proof. I think that is total bullshit. You know what I think is more recession proof? Enterprise software that runs mission critical operations in a company. And what I would offer up just from a consumer level is that when a recession hits, consumers stop buying lattes, companies stop buying new office chairs, but companies don't stop using Salesforce to manage their customer pipeline. So this notion that this group of companies is somehow shielded from a recession, A they're not. And B, I would argue they may be less shielded from enterprise software demoter incentive might hit their margins. But when you talk about CRM, erp, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, these aren't discretionary spends. They're the nervous system of these companies. And the switching costs are enormous. The churn rates are low. Salesforce's churn is sub 10%. You know, it has higher churn cable TV subscriptions.
Ed
People were saying that Netflix is a recession proof trade. I mean that was the idea at the beginning of last year. Everyone uses Netflix. Who cancels? It's like, well, a lot more people are canceling their Netflix than they're canceling their Salesforce. Right.
Scott Galloway
Discretionary consumer. The operative term is discretionary. And, and they say okay, they're staples. Well, okay, you might buy detergent, but you might go to a private label and you might decide to have, you know, bigger loads or fewer loads or whatever the term is. But if you have Salesforce in your company or ServiceNow or Workflow or S and P or whatever it is, that shit is hard to rip out. And you may not, you know, procurement may get on off its heels and onto its toes and ask for some price concessions. But I don't see any reason why these SaaS companies aren't as recession proof as what we have come to believe are recession proof consumer staple stocks.
Ed
I think that's 100% right. It is so fascinating how many different narratives are fighting against each other in this market right now. Like there's the idea that AI is going to be the killer that's going to destroy these business models. There's the idea that there is just general uncertainty which is going to lead to a recession. So you need to move to a flight to safety. So maybe that means you move into some of the more boring sectors that we talked about. Then there's the question of like who will be the AI winners and who will be the losers. A year ago, if you were a tech company, if you were a software company, that generally meant that AI was going to be a good thing for your business and your multiples went up. Now that there's a different question where it's like, oh, actually no, we think that AI is going to be a killer for your business. Then there's the question of is AI like a bubble? Like, is the whole thing overvalued? What's happening there? Then there's a question of like, if you're moving into safety, why are you going into toothpaste? Why aren't you going into fixed income? Why aren't you going into bonds? Maybe that means you're going into gold. I thought gold was the biggest safety play. So all of these stories are floating around right now and it seems like over the past two or three years the story seems to be pretty anchored in consensus. People seemed to agree on what the major market narratives were, where the trends were moving over time. But it seems like there's so much disagreement right now over who's winning and who's losing. I look at Amazon as another example. Warren Buffett just dumped his entire, practically his entire Amazon stake. Meanwhile, Bill Ackman is going out and buying up Amazon more than ever before. That's a huge disconnect on the narrative on who's going to actually win this sort of all to say very interesting time to be in the markets, to be an investor. The level of disagreement that I'm seeing both by looking at the prices and also just looking at the conversation online on CNBC among Wall street analysts, I mean no one seems to agree on anything right now.
Scott Galloway
The net net here. And I think we feel fairly confident around this, which is dangerous. The closer you get to certainty, the more, the more likely you are to be wrong. But in sum, the market is paying a 50% plus premium multiple for low growth, low margin, commoditized physical goods over high growth, high margin, sticky digital products. So I would argue it's not a flight to safety. It's simply put, it's, it's mispricing.
Ed
And I don't think that it would be a overconfident statement to simply say that software, the risk adjusted return on software stocks on the IGV basket right now is very, very high relative to anything else. You know, that's, it's not saying that it's going to massively outperform, but based on the numbers, yeah, the risk adjusted return is, is pretty awesome. Right now those stocks have been beaten down to death. It's unlikely that they will, they will fall that much further. But the possibility of them going up is very high just on a multiple basis.
Scott Galloway
You know what else has been beaten to death?
Ed
Yeah, this.
Scott Galloway
This story. What's the next story, Ed? It's like our listeners like, all right, enough already. We get it. We get it. Ed loves Salesforce.
Ed
We get it. They want to get rich. We're going to get rich here.
Scott Galloway
There you go.
Ed
We'll be right back after the break. And if you're enjoying the show so far, send it to a friend and please follow us if you haven't already.
Scott Galloway
Support for the show comes from vcx, the public ticker for private tech. For generations, American companies have moved the world forward through their ingenuity and determination. And for generations, everyday Americans could be part of that journey through perhaps the greatest innovation of all, the US Stock market. It didn't matter whether you were a factory worker in Detroit or a farmer in Omaha, anyone could own a piece of the great American companies. But now that's changed. Today, our most innovative companies are staying private rather than going public. The result is that everyday Americans are excluded from investing and getting left further behind, while a select few reap all the benefits. Until now. Introducing vcx, a public ticker for private tech. VCX by fundrise gives everyone the opportunity to invest in the next generation of innovation, including the company's Leading the AI Revolution, SpaceX, Exploration, Defense Tech and More. Visit getvcx.com for more info. That's getvcx.com carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, discharges and expenses. This and other information can be found in the Fund's prospectus@getvcx.com this is a paid sponsorship.
Public Investing Advertiser
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds and options and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% a year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com provg and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com provg paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures
Scott Galloway
Support for the show comes from ShipStation when your business is juggling a patchwork of disconnected apps and tools, getting orders out the door quickly gets a lot more difficult. And that can slow your momentum when you're trying to scale shipstation says they're built to help Their intelligence driven platform brings order management, rate shopping, inventory and replacement returns, warehouse systems and powerful analytics into one easy to use place. Shipstation says their time saving automation can help you win back up to 15 hours a week on order fulfillment. The platform automatically chooses the right carrier, finds the best rate, prints labels in bulk, and even sends tracking updates to your customers. They also say Shipstation compares rates across major global carriers including USPS, UPS and FedEx. You can try Shipstation free for 60 days with full access to all features. No credit card needed. Go to shipstation.com and use code markets for 60 days for free. 60 days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're saving on every shipment. That's shipstation.com code markets shipstation.com codemarkets.
Ed
We're back with property markets. Wealth taxes are suddenly back in the spotlight, and the proposals are piling up. Back in September, a French economist proposed a 2% tax on French residents with over 100 million euros in assets. In the Netherlands, lawmakers just approved a plan to tax unrealized gains on assets such as stocks, bonds and crypto. And in California, a proposed 2026 ballot measure would impose a 5% annual tax on on individuals worth more than $1 billion. That proposal in particular has sparked a lot of debates. Here are some of the headlines we're seeing from the San Francisco Standard Quote, the billionaire tax backlash is spreading far beyond billionaires. From cnbc, California's Ro Khanna faces Silicon Valley backlash after embracing wealth tax. And from Politico, billionaire tax sparks intraparty war in California. So all of this backlash underscores the bigger question, Does a wealth tax actually make sense? Scott we talked a lot about inequality on the show, income inequality and wealth inequality. This is a proposed solution to the problem. What do you think of the wealth tax?
Scott Galloway
So first off, let me just put a land acknowledgment or an asterisk on this, and that is I don't think the top 1% are paying their fair share, especially the super ownership, the super earners at the 1% that are. Mom's a baller, partner in a law firm, makes a million million bucks, Dad's a successful chiropractor, makes $400,000 combined income 2 million. They're paying a ridiculous amount of taxes because it's current income. The person who makes their living buying and selling assets has a lot of assets and then occasionally sells them, pays a much lower tax rate. And what people don't recognize is what they do is they borrow against those assets and thereby deferring the tax liabilities such that their bigger pre tax asset grows exponentially bigger faster because they kind of never pay taxes on it or they defer the taxes. So I do think we should have alternative minimum tax. I think we should tax assets if you borrow against them. But a wealth tax in some does not work because income is easier to tax. It's a flow of money from company A to person B. And basically the government can fairly easily intercept that transfer and figure out what percentage they're taking. And it's also pretty easy to estimate what someone's flow is. The problem is with a wealth tax is you get into an enormous war that'll create a pretty sizable industry trying to figure out the value of these things. So if your net worth is $10 billion because you own 15% of a company worth 67 billion, the reality is you don't have 10 billion sitting in a checking account. So you would have to sell stuff. So it would create unnatural acts in. How do you assess someone's art collection, the value of their homes? So it's sort of like you're trying to tax someone's house based on what Zillow says it's worth and then demanding that they pay cash for it. And what if they don't have the cash on hand? Do they have to sell the house? But if everyone's forced to sell their houses or assets to pay wealth taxes, what happens to asset values? They probably go down. I wouldn't think they collapse, but they go down. And valuation is an absolute nightmare. How do you value a Picasso? Is it worth 3 million or 30 million? How would we value, say they wanted to take, say it was a 10% wealth tax. How would they value what my stake in Profit Media is worth? And then where do I come up with that money? So I spend three or six months fighting with auditors and consultants and trying to get letters saying that Prophecy media is worth 2 million, not 20 or 100. Right.
Ed
So
Scott Galloway
it's Just fraught with risk. In addition, they don't work. Sixteen countries that have had wealth taxes, all but three have repealed them. The uber wealthy are the most mobile people in the world. Also, just philosophically, I think there's something to the notion that it's, it violates private property laws. And that is, once you get through the current tax regime, whatever it is, fair, unfair. And you have that asset, that cash post tax or that house, and you've already paid taxes on it, whatever, and it's gone up in value, bought the house, it's yours. And no one has the right to come in and force you to sell it or to take a portion of your assets you already have. So, a, I don't think it, I don't think it works. Billionaires will immediately hire the best tax attorneys and accounts to argue their assets are worth 40% of what the government says it is. The IRS does not have the resources to fight this. And you would literally need 10 times the budget of your auditors and your IRS to administer a wealth tax. And most of the money would go to paying lawyers to argue about your yacht valuations. They just don't work. So I think, quite frankly, just as AI in our previous story was having sort of the shadow effect on consumer stocks, I think Epstein is having a shadow effect here. I think that the general public is just so fed up with the entitlement and what is arguably the depravity of the uber wealthy here. They're like, okay, we've just sort of had it. So I can understand the sentiment, the social pressure, the basic philosophy, we need to increase taxes on corporations and the uber wealthy. This is not how you do it.
Ed
I agree with some of what you said and I disagree with other parts of what you said. I will start with where I disagree. So, I mean, you talk about how taxing illiquid assets is too complicated. Like, how do you value it if it's not current income? What do you do about that? I mean, my response to that is that's exactly what property taxes are. A property tax is you have a home. We're going to come up with a valuation, we're going to figure out an appraisal, and then you're going to pay a certain amount of cash as a percentage of the value of that home. So I don't see any reason why the exact same thing shouldn't apply to everything. I mean, we do tax illiquid assets, specifically real estate, through the form of property taxes. So how do you value property? Media? You have an Auditor come in and look at the cash flow statement and figure out a valuation and then determine a tax rate based on that valuation in the same way that we do that with houses. So I think that. I agree it's a lot of work and it is more complicated than just tax and current income. But I don't think it's crazy and I don't think it's out of the question. And I think given, as you say, the pushback against the Epstein class and the billionaire class, though, to your point, I like Epstein class. I think that's better. An argument against it, I think needs to be stronger than it's too difficult because I think the people at this point are saying, screw you, we can figure something out. We'll figure out a way to tax it. And I don't think it actually is too difficult. So that's one piece of it. On the other side, I do think there is a valid point that it doesn't really work, and that is you bring up all of those countries that have tried it and then repealed it because it didn't work. And it seems like the common thread among those repeals is that actually people tend to leave. Billionaires tend to leave, at least. And I don't like that answer. I mean, I don't like the idea that we are having to cater to this very small subset of people because they're so wealthy and we need their money so badly that we've got to tailor all of our laws just to have them stay. To me, I find that ridiculous and annoying. And to be fair, it isn't always the case that billionaires leave. I mean, we saw what happened after Mamdani was elected. Everyone said, I'm going to leave, it's going to happen. And then the luxury market, housing market started to rip and inventory went down because there was so much demand, like they were kind of faking it. But there are cases where actually that does happen. It happened in Norway. It appears to be beginning to happen in California. Mark Zuckerberg just bought a house. Miami. He apparently is going to move to Miami in April. So I think that that is a legitimate reason why it actually might not work. And then another reason that I would add on to why it probably won't work is that, I mean, these billionaires are just not going to let it happen. Like, even if it goes through in California, I guess there'll be some movement out of California. But in addition, it will be hundreds of millions of dollars funding lawsuits to make this not happen. And if there's Anything we've seen over the past few years after Citizens United, it's that rich people kind of control politics. So if you come up with a plan that rich people that very, very rich people really, really, really hate, and they hate this, my view is they're just not going to let it happen.
Scott Galloway
So this is total populist that defines the term, the difference between being right and being effective. The super rich are not paying their fair share. They've registered unparalleled prosperity and haven't paid their fair share. And we need to do something about our deficit. And just for the good of the Commonwealth, when the Gini coefficient is where it was during the French Revolution. All right, we've got to do something 100% right. And then let's go to the part of the program where we try to be effective and not do a non dom tax where we're going to collect less money in the UK than we did before the non dom thinking we were going after billionaires. Right. So how do we actually, if the net net is to help address income inequality, raise the funds we need to have a social safety net in a military. That's the goal. The goal is to get more money, not less, and then feel good about ourselves. So you brought up the notion of basically property taxes are kind of a we tax. I think theoretically, I understand. I own one of 14 units in my building. There are transactions every year and they can say, all right, your unit is worth approximately X ed. What is the value of Prof. G Media? Serious question. What's the value? What's the value? No, better. What's the value range?
Ed
Shall I answer it? Seriously? Yeah, yeah.
Scott Galloway
What do you think the range of value is for profit Gene Media? I would argue one of the reasons people like this show is we give them behind the Music. We try to be more transparent than any fucking show. Joe Kieran isn't going to tell you how overpaid he is. You own a large equity stake in Prophet Media because you believe it's going to be worth something. And owning equity in a company is how you build wealth. It grows tax deferred. And the reason I give you ownership in propaganda is I want you acting like an owner and I don't want you to go be Joe Kiernan's successor. So what do you think? Profit Gene Give me a range. What does Profit Gene Media? I can give you within 5 to 8% certainty with 5 to 8% variance what I think my condo is worth. What do you think the range of value is for profit and media.
Ed
I'm going to go with 75 to $100 million. But if David Ellison were the buyer, I'd double it.
Scott Galloway
Okay. The range is 0. The bottom range is 0. What is this company worth if I show up in the Epstein files tomorrow and I'm arrested? Serious question, what's this company worth?
Ed
It's worth will go $5 million.
Scott Galloway
Do you think someone would pay $5 million for this company without me?
Ed
I'll figure it out. I'll make it happen, Scott.
Scott Galloway
All right, so let's say 5 million. I buy your high end. If we continue growing. Podcasts are doing well. We have crazy EBITDA margins. We're growing 20 to 30% a year. We have done some diversification away from the angry professor. People want to get into the space. It's hot. I get it. I believe the range of this company is somewhere between 0 and 100 million right now. So say they pick the mid range, 50 million, right? Let's say someone owns 10% of the company, all right? That means they have a $5 million liability, that they're saying your assets worth 5 million. They want 3% of it. Could you come up with $150,000 right now?
Ed
No.
Scott Galloway
Now, to be fair, they're saying for people who make over 50 million. But let's walk through practically Senator Warren's prop, who, by the way, keeps getting richer and richer as a congressperson, as a senator who continues to oversee a Senate where taxes go down while she constantly complains about income inequality. Well, do your fucking job. And, you know, you're the referee on the field complaining about the officiating. Anyways, her proposal is a 2% annual tax on wealth over 50 million, 2% annually, 3% on wealth over a billion. So let's take it through. So she estimates it would raise $3 trillion over 10 years. That's assuming people don't start peacing out to Madrid or Dubai or turn in the passports and go to Singapore, as one of the founders of Meta did. Right? So she's. Let's say, let's give it to her. 300 billion a year. The 2026 federal budget is 7 trillion. So this radical, administratively complex, constitutionally questionable tax raise is 4% of the budget. And that's before accounting for evasion, avoidance, capital flight, depressed asset values from forced selling, the cost of enforcement. The annual revenue would likely be 30 to 50% lower. You're likely getting 150 to 250 billion a year less than we currently spend on interest on the debt. And compare that I'm not one of these. Don't tax the rich. But here's an idea. Get rid of the carrying interest loophole on investment firms and get rid of the lower capital gains tax. Everyone pays 37%, not 21, by the way. Do those two things. You raise the amount every year that she claims. This highly speculative, dangerous, weird wealth tax would. There's no reason I should be paying 21% when I sell my stocks and you're paying 37% when you make money. There's no reason that the private equity billionaires should be paying long term capital gains on their carried interest, which is essentially a commission. Whereas if you sell a copier as a salesperson, you pay current income. But when I get a commission on buying and selling assets, I pay long term capital gains, even though I haven't put any capital risk. There are much more pragmatic, enforceable, acceptable means of raising taxes on wealthy people.
Ed
Totally agree with that. I think the thing that I, the tax solution I think is best is the borrowing tax. As you pointed out. Like, why don't billionaires pay taxes? It's because they just never sell their assets. And then it's like, well, how do they come up with the money? It's because they borrow against their assets. And if you do, that triggers a taxable event. Exactly. So if you make that a taxable event, then you're solving the problem right there. But I think just to play devil's advocate on this wealth tax thing, I think the way a lot of people probably see it is, you know, you're presenting an alternative. You're like, this doesn't work, but how about we do this?
Scott Galloway
No, but the billionaires are just like, this is a bad idea.
Ed
This is a bad idea. It doesn't work. It's too complicated. How are you even going to figure it out? I own this company. Like, and when they do that more and more times, at a certain point it starts to sound like, okay, you guys are just making up a bunch of fucking excuses because you don't want to pay taxes. If you do this, we're all going to leave. So you can't do it. It's like, okay, well, propose another solution. Because the inequality in this country, everyone agrees at this point has gotten out of control.
Scott Galloway
Let me give you another one that I think is a better way to taxation. Zuckerberg is threatening to leave, right? I think he will leave.
Ed
Yeah, he bought the house.
Scott Galloway
I don't know. I think he's got between 80 and 120 billion. Let's call it $100 billion in metastock. He probably realized it's been amazing run. It's pretty high. Maybe it's time to start liquidating. And he's going to come up with a bull. I've had it. I'm out of here. I don't like the homeless encampments. I can't stand. He'll come up with a bunch of Keith Raboy bullshit reasons for why he just wants to pay lower taxes. Here's the bottom line. Mark Zuckerberg has enormously benefited from the University of California, the great Cal State system, our highways, the fact that we have massive investments in social programs that make it a really nice place to live for all the shitposting. The most, the wealthiest people in the world, which is Latin for the people the most options all decide to stay in California. And it's because there's enormous investments in the infrastructure paid for by California citizens. So if mark Zuckerberg aggregates $100 billion in wealth while in California, he can peace out to Florida. But when he sells his stock, he is subject to state taxes on the amount of money accreted while he was living in and leveraging and enjoying the California infrastructure. So when Bezos moved from Washington state to Florida, and this is my favorite, to spend more time with his father. What a guy. What a guy. When he starts selling down his stock, which he did immediately after getting, I guess his dad talked him into selling his stock because the moment he moved to spend more time with his dad, he started selling stock. Okay, when you leave, they go zuck. Here's a mark 100 billion in wealth until you have paid 14% on that hundred billion. Maybe adjust it if the stock goes down in value, but if it goes to 200 billion, fine, pay the 0% in Florida on that 100 billion. But on that first hundred billion or selling that you accreted in California as a function of the amazing culture and infrastructure of California and amazing human capital that is drawn to California such that they can go eat sushi at Nobu and Malibu and go sailing in the bay and go see, you know, the Rams player. I'm trying to come up with cultural references for just how fucking awesome. Or go to the Greek theater or go to stay at the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel. All the amazing things that are singular about California, you are paying for what you accrued here. There are a lot of common sense taxes that are indefense. It's indefensible to argue against them. Indefensible if you Made all this fucking money in California and then want to peace out and not pay back California? No, no. You are paying California taxes on the money you made and the wealth you accrued in California. Get rid of the carried interest loophole, do away with the tax, the reduced taxes on capital gains and your state taxes follow you on the capital and wealth you have accreted while enjoying the privilege and investments of that state. Boom.
Ed
And make borrowing a taxable event.
Scott Galloway
There you go. That's right. There's a taxable event.
Ed
Exactly. Just the final point and then we'll move on. It is just so frustrating when you've got this rampant inequality where 19 households control 2% of all the household wealth in America. We all know the stats. The top 1% commands a third of the nation's wealth. Never been higher. Inequality going out of control. None of these rich people who appear to care about or say that they care about the state and the health of the nation, no one says a word. And then the wealth tax is proposed and suddenly they're all triggered and they're all up in arms about how this doesn't make sense. And suddenly they have this great analytical minds about what is best for America, what makes sense in terms of the tax code, et cetera, et cetera. And it's like it is so obvious how self interested you are are with your motives here. And I think what they need to get through their heads is that this train isn't stopping. I mean, billionaires have never been as unpopular in America as they are today. I mean the statistics are just striking. Seven in 10 think Americans think billionaires need to be taxed more. More than half think billionaires are threatening democracy. People do not like billionaires. And you can say that that's unreasonable or they're being jealous or whatever it is, but that is the reality of the situation and it's a function of how out of control inequality has gotten. So this argument of that doesn't make sense. We're going to leave. It just, it doesn't really work. I think you'd have to take a poll of the people of California who would probably say, okay, leave, we don't care. From our view, you're not really paying taxes anyway. We don't really like you. Get out of here. Fine with us. And maybe that will be a mistake later down the line. But that's the reality on the ground right now.
Scott Galloway
It is reality and it is a mistake. That was the sentiment here in the UK was people like fuck you, leave. And they did. And now they're going to collect less
Ed
money and maybe it will be a mistake. And to be fair, like, I'm not a huge fan of this wealth tax compared to others, but I think the billionaires should be if they want to take this seriously, propose alternatives. Don't just sit there and say, no, it doesn't make sense, and then peace out. I mean, give a real solution.
Scott Galloway
They will. The billionaires themselves will never do that. The billionaires will never come up with, with. I mean, I heard, I saw a clip of basically what is the right wing version of this podcast and it has a couple billionaires and they said, you can't get the taxes we need unless you go after the middle class. That's where all the revenue is. I'm like, okay, let me get this. You guys are suggesting the pragmatic solution is to raise taxes on middle class households.
Ed
They're going to lose. I mean, they're so out of touch.
Scott Galloway
The Epstein overlay. Look at it. The president, the wealthiest man in the world, and the guy who's considered the kind of prototypical icon of billionaire wealth and technology, Bill Gates. They're all in the Epstein files, dozens, if not hundreds of times. That is not helping their case. Let me get this. Income inequality is out of control and now I believe unfairly every billionaire. I think there are no. I think there's a decent size of the population right now, a decent segment of the population right now that feels as if the majority of billionaires are pedophiles.
Ed
Yeah.
Scott Galloway
I mean, so, oh, tax them. Yeah, I'm down with that. Whatever it is. I don't care how pragmatic it is.
Ed
I don't care.
Scott Galloway
Just, yeah, hit them hard. Hit them hard. We've had it with these guys.
Ed
We'll be right back. And for even more markets content, sign up for our newsletter@profgmarkets.com subscribe. Support for the show comes from upwork. Scaling your business isn't about executing some growth hack. It's about growing your team and knowing how to delegate instead of feeling like you have to do it all yourself. Upwork can help make it easy to bring in the right freelancer when you need them so you can stay focused on what you do best. Thousands of growing businesses already trust upwork to hire flexible, high quality freelance talent for everything from one off projects to ongoing support. You can browse profiles, review past work and get help scoping the role so you can hire with confidence and get started quickly. Upwork also cuts down operational hassle by handling things like contracts and payments in one place so you can spend more time running your business. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's up w o r k.com Upwork.com. Support for the show comes from Indeed Right now. There is a talented person somewhere out there there who could help take your business to the next level. But finding that person doesn't need to be a grind. Just use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It boosts your job posting to reach quality candidates so you can connect with the exact people you want faster and it makes a big difference. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs posted directly on indeed are 90% more likely to report a higher than non sponsored jobs because you reach a bigger pool of quality candidates. Join the 1.6 million companies that sponsor their jobs with Indeed so you can spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time and more results now with Indeed Sponsored Jobs and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves@ Indeed.com Prof. G go to Indeed.com ProfG right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com profg terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the Right way with Indeed.
Priceline Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Nespresso Introducing Virtuo up, the latest in a long line of innovation from Nespresso. Its innovation you can touch, sense and taste in every single cup. With a three second start, easy open lever and dedicated brew over ice button, it's even easier to enjoy your coffee your way. Sip for yourself. Shop Vertuo up exclusively@nespresso.com.
Ed
We're back with Profg Markets. AI is quickly becoming one of the defining political issues of the decade. What once looked like a breakthrough technology with broad updates side is now drawing scrutiny over its real world costs, from energy demand and infrastructure strain to concerns about jobs and economic disruption. That concern isn't coming from just one side of the aisle. Politicians across the spectrum from Ron DeSantis to Bernie Sanders have started sounding alarms about the industry's impact. So Scott, I think this is the defining issue for the next 10 years. I think this will make or break careers. I think it's already breaking careers. The question of AI do we want it? How do we want to handle it? How do we want to regulate it? It seemed like it was sort of a technological nerd bro conversation. It is now very quickly becoming a mainstream conversation it is spurring all of these grassroots organizations across the country, people who are protesting against data center constructions. It's becoming a really big deal deal in Washington and basically across America. So a lot to say there. I guess I'll just start with what are your initial reactions to the notion that AI is now the new political football?
Scott Galloway
It's easy to highlight the problems or the causes and not necessarily the solution. But the way I see it is all you have is a bunch of very smart people. There's two things going on here. The chocolate and peanut butter of the genitalistase of AI from the American public as a function of two things. One, I'm really sick of hearing all these quote unquote founders of AI who the moment they vest their 100 or 200 or $300 million in shares and sell them on a secondary market, all of a sudden get very concerned about A.I. you know, bitch, that's not helpful. Now you, you built this fucking code.
Ed
What have I done?
Scott Galloway
While you were accreting your wealth, you. You didn't say anything. And now that you've decided, okay, I got my 3% of anthropic that's worth $10 billion, I'm gonna go write poetry. Well, you. And all they talk about is the massive peril. Well, what do you mean exactly? And use all that you can. You coded this peril. Any thoughts on how we uncode it? Bitch. And by the way, are you so worried about the peril that you're going to give your money back? Or realize that you have created such an existential threat you're not entitled to the options? Or are you just going to catastrophize and scare the shit out of us while you're writing poetry from the Cote d' Azur with your fucking Belarusian horse? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really helpful. You're a great citizen. Thanks so much. And then the second thing is, on a pragmatic level, you have millions of households who've seen their electricity rates go up 67% because there's some fucking empty building that supposedly has, you know, computers and chips, this data center down the road that's not employing anybody, that's sucking all the energy off the grid. And all I see is my, my bill, my. My electric bill's gone from 80 bucks a month to 140. So there needs to be legislation. I mean, one legislation is pretty simple. We need to start taxing the shit out of data centers.
Ed
Yes.
Scott Galloway
I mean, at least to. At least tax them to the incremental Cost of the incremental energy and the incremental price increases. Middle class households shouldn't be subsidizing AI companies right now know so. But I am, I am really fed up with the post. I've made my money catastrophizing and I don't, I don't buy it. I don't see any reason why AI can't be used as much for defensive as offensive measures. And maybe I, I might be missing it here. There's people much smarter than me claiming it's really dangerous. Fine, but what do we do? Fine, you built it it. Fine, what do we do? Come up with some solutions. I don't want to hear the word peril, I want to hear the word solution. And two, let's figure out a way that all this wealth creation not only at a minimum, if it's not going to make the economic lives of the middle class easier, at a minimum, it can't raise their prices.
Ed
I also think that Wall street is kind of underestimating the impact on future revenues here, specifically the political backlash against AI. Like, you know, you got big tech spending $660 billion on AI, 3,000 data center projects underway across America. Everyone's so excited about what AI is going to do and they're figuring out, okay, how are we going to set up the chips and how are we going to set up the energy and how is it all going to work out and who are going to be the winners, who are going to be the losers, et cetera. But I do think that Wall street is neglecting a very large question. And I wrote about this last week, which is like, how many people actually want this stuff? Is it possible that the American people have decided, similar to our previous conversation on wealth tax, in the same way that Americans decided we really hate billionaires, what is that going to do to the structure of our economy? If most Americans hate them, what happens if most Americans hate AI, what happens if most Americans decide actually, you know what. But we don't like these data centers that employ the third of the number of people that work at an average Walmart and also send our electric bills through the roof, which is something we have already seen, it's been well documented and also most analysts and most economists agree this is only going to continue with more AI, More energy usage also happens with your utility bills as well, because these Dana Ciders consume like millions of gallons of water per day. So if all of this happens and all of this builds up, up, and I get that, it's kind of more of a popular politics conversation. And one might argue that's separate from markets. But I would argue, actually, no, these two things are very, very linked because we're already seeing all these activist groups shutting down data centers, saying, you're not allowed to build this on our property. There's a town in Wisconsin, they want to recall their mayor because he allowed an OpenAI data center to get built. So if that happens on a mass scale, what does that do to the future cash flows of a Google or an OpenAI or an Anthropic or any of these other companies that are building data centers? Does that hurt your top line? I would argue definitely. And I think the question is, how big an issue is this going to become in the political realm? And what I'm seeing, and we talked about this months ago, we said this is probably going to become an issue. What I've seen over the past last, basically two weeks, is that this is rapidly accelerating into, like, the biggest issue in America right now. Every politician is figuring it out, talking about it, and now it's on every politician, every elected official, to decide what is my stance on AI. Do I like it, do I support it, or do I not? And I think increasingly, as it gets less popular, you're going to see a lot more politicians saying, I don't like AI, I'm going to be against it. I don't know if that's the right position. It might be the wrong position. But I do think that is going to be a position that becomes more popular.
Scott Galloway
Again, I think it all stems back from, to a certain extent, Epstein and the war on. You know, I won't call it the billionaire class, but the Epstein class, because essentially, AI has become inextricably linked, Whether it's Musk or Trump's support of it or Sam Altman and, you know, prostrating himself to Trump. AI has become kind of the business of billionaires and tech and everything that's bad about it. And also with the Internet, that you got to at least reserve your plane ticket or something, I think those of us who are what I'd call AI literate are getting a lot of value from it. But I would argue that GLP1 is actually having a more positive impact emotionally on more Americans than AI Right now. I think people are experimenting with AI, but I don't think people think, wake up. Or a lot of people that go, God, I just love. I just love ChatGPT. It's so much fun, or I'm getting so much utility. I think people are blown away by it. And there's a lot of people in business going, this is hugely important. But the catastrophizing far outweighs the perceived utility at this point. Whereas with the Internet, no one was, you know, catastrophizing about it. The narrative here has gotten away from them, and that is the everyday consumer sees nothing but higher electric prices and some supposedly very brainiac person saying it's the end of the world. It's like, well, okay, I'm done with this. And if. If this doesn't pan out for Sam Altman's $850 billion raise, you know that I'm okay with that. And a lot of these folks don't see how this is going to affect them economically. There's a small number. You've pointed this out. There's a small number of companies where you have exposure to AI. And so I don't think, you know, I don't think consumers. The bottom line is, right now, consumers aren't rooting for it. It.
Ed
Exactly. And that's such a big deal. And the comparison to the Internet is the right one. Just some polling data in. In front of me here. Back in 99, 2/3 of Americans said they liked the technology of the Internet. Among users, that number was nearly 80%. Today, less than half of Americans say they like AI, that they have a favorable view of AI. Less than a third of Americans say they trust AI. And I think your Epstein point. Point, some would call it a bridge too far. I think it's exactly right. I think the two things are related. I think there is a lot more public popular interest in the way companies are built, in the way wealth is built. There's more interest in business and markets and power and who runs the world and who runs these tech companies. You combine that with the explosion that we've seen over the Epstein files, the fact that we are seeing a lot of these leaders showing up to the island and potentially assaulting children. And to your point, yeah, there's probably. People are painting this with a broad brush and saying all billionaires are pedophiles, which obviously isn't true. But let's be real, a lot of them, or a lot more than we had expected did go to the island and potentially might be. Or potentially might be abusing young girls. So I think these two things are related. And. And the popular pushback against the Epstein class, against the wealthy individuals who are part of that ecosystem who are controlling the technology of tomorrow, which is AI. I think that that is a big deal, and I think it's a big deal in the political realm. But again, we're a markets show. This is one of those situations where I do think there will be spillover effects into the markets. I think this actually will, will damage a lot of these companies. And it's interesting how politics and markets are just, they're totally blending together at this point. I mean the two, you cannot divorce the two in 2026.
Scott Galloway
I mean, sort of investment thing that's coming out is go short kind of direct AI related companies, the, you know, Nvidia's Microsofts of the world. And go long, the companies that have supposedly are under threat of massive disruption from them in the tech sector, the SAS guys.
Ed
Okay, let's take a look at the week ahead. We'll see inflation data from the producer price index for January. We'll also get a read on consumer confidence for February. And earnings will roll in from Home Depot, Lowe's, Alibaba, Constellation Energy, Paramount, Skydance, Warner Brothers, Discovery, Salesforce. That'll be interesting. And Nvidia. That will also be interesting. Scott, any predictions?
Scott Galloway
I hate the cold. I'm becoming so old. Ed, you asked me if I was skiing earlier. I don't like the cold. I want to be in Palm beach drinking an Arnold Palmer and playing shuffleboard and playing gin rummy. I, I, I'm getting sold. And one of the things I notice is that I'm obsessed with war. And I follow all these amazing people on TikTok, including this guy, the Geo Hussar, and I follow all these content creators that are fascinated with weapons and troop movements. We are so fucking bombing Iran. I mean,
Ed
from what little I know, I would agree. Yeah.
Scott Galloway
We have two carrier configurations and massive air assets deployed to the region. We have 13 warships in the Middle east with a second aircraft carrier also on the route. And by the way, that doesn't even include the support. It's not like one aircraft carrier. An aircraft carrier comes with dozens of support ships. We got the Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier is currently in the Atlantic Ocean en route to the region. And the SS Abraham Lincoln is already operating there. The USS Gerald Ford has an estimated arrival window of less than a week. And if you take all of these and then you include these, I think it's called an Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer carrying Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. You have more than 600 Tomahawk missiles. We have the ability, we're soon going to have the ability to do like 800 sorties a day. Just the cost to organize all this and move it there is staggering. A two carrier battle group is not a show of force. It's literally a strike force. And so we have the military option fully ready. Talks are ongoing but described as very far apart. The window for diplomatic resolution is measured in days, not weeks. And if talks collapse, which I think they, I would argue they already have, the infrastructure for strikes is already in place. Now those are rational reasons why we'll bomb again. The reason we're going to bomb Epstein. Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files more times than Jesus is mentioned in the Bible or the term meth is mentioned in all seasons of Breaking Bad combined. He loved the flex and the macho light of the Venezuelan raid, which was incredible. And he's like, let's fire up the macho meter again. And by the way, I'm in favor of this. I think the Islamic Republic has been one of the most brutally oppressive, misogynistic regimes in recent history. I think that this would. There's always a non zero probability and risk when you, when you, whenever you take military action against a country. I think the risks to the upside here are wonderful in terms of peace and stability in the U and the Middle East. But anyways, if you follow some of these creators that follow troop deployments and we basically have the world's largest gas station in the sky now with these refueling tankers that are in the Middle east ready to fuel sorties, this is Here come the Marines.
Ed
So the America First President and I agree with all of your reasons why this is going to happen, is going to drag us into another war because he wants to distract us away from the fact that he is likely a pedophile. Or at the very least, I mean,
Scott Galloway
keep in mind the UK in the last 24 hours has demonstrated more institutional credibility than the US has demonstrated in the last five years. They arrested somebody and they arrested somebody very powerful.
Ed
They arrested that prince.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, very powerful and very prestigious. Meanwhile, you know, what are we doing? We're. Anyway, I'm not going to go there. We're bombing Iran. We're bombing Iran.
Ed
This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Allison Weiss. Mia Silverio is our research lead. Our research associates are Isabella Kinsel, Dan Shalon and Kristen o'. Donoghue. Benjamin Spencer is our engineer. Drew Burrows is our technical director. And Catherine Dillon is our executive producer. Thank you for listening to Property Markets from Property Media. Tune in tomorrow for a fresh take on the markets.
Scott Galloway
You have in kind reunion as the water.
Prof G Markets – Why Big Tech Is Losing to Boring Stocks
Podcast: Prof G Markets
Host: Scott Galloway with Ed Elson
Date: February 23, 2026
In this episode, Scott Galloway and Ed Elson dive into the shifting winds of the capital markets in early 2026. They discuss the surprise outperformance of so-called “boring” stocks like consumer staples, energy, and materials over the fallen tech giants, including the mega-cap “MAG7.” The hosts examine the roots and risks of this rapid rotation, challenge perceptions about safety and recession resilience, and unpack the growing political battle over wealth taxes. They close with an analysis of the rising backlash against AI as a political and economic force, and how these issues are reshaping investment narratives.
Timestamps: 05:34 – 23:43
Market Dynamics for 2026
Why the Rotation?
Are Defensive Stocks Still Safe?
Valuation Extremes & Contrarian Opportunity
Notable Quote:
Timestamps: 27:44 – 51:41
Global Moves Toward Wealth Tax
Scott’s Critique
Ed’s Counterpoint
Seeking Effective Solutions
Notable Quotes:
Timestamps: 54:52 – 66:20
From Hype to Headache
Critique of AI Founders
Popularity Polls Show Weak Public Support
Investment Implications
Timestamps: 66:36 – 70:49
Market Uncertainty
War Watch
2026's “safe” market play has now become the bubble. The mad dash from tech to “boring” names may have gone too far, setting up a value-contrarian case for beaten-down SaaS and software stocks. While politicians battle over (often symbolic) wealth taxes and the public mood sours toward billionaires and AI, investors are navigating one of the most narrative-confused markets in years. The smart play may be to zig where others are zagging — and keep one eye on D.C. and Main Street, not just the balance sheet.
For More