Scott’s Career Advice: Imposter Syndrome, Startups & Networking

Summary

Podcast Summary: Scott’s Career Advice: Imposter Syndrome, Startups & Networking

Episode Title: Scott’s Career Advice: Imposter Syndrome, Startups & Networking
Podcast: The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Release Date: February 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of The Prof G Pod, hosted by Scott Galloway from the Vox Media Podcast Network, Scott delves into three pivotal career topics: Imposter Syndrome, Joining Startups, and Effective Networking. Designed as part of a special two-part series focused on navigating, advancing, and surviving careers, Scott offers candid, no-nonsense advice devoid of corporate jargon, aiming to empower listeners with actionable insights.

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Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

Guest Question from Hank (0:39 - 02:00)
Hank, an American expatriate living in Stockholm, seeks Scott's advice on overcoming imposter syndrome, especially as he transitions into a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) role.

Scott’s Response (02:00 - 04:20)
Scott acknowledges that imposter syndrome is a common form of intellectual self-doubt affecting individuals across various professions. He recommends several strategies to combat these feelings:

• Self-Compassion: "Practice self-compassion, be kind to yourself, acknowledge and accept your feelings." (02:10)

• Challenging Negative Thoughts: "Say, well, the market and other people who are smart think I'm in the right position, so maybe there's something to their views." (02:30)

• Physical Well-being: Maintaining good health through diet and exercise can enhance overall confidence. "Eating well, being in good shape... you just start to feel more confident across all areas of your life." (03:00)

• Shared Experiences: Scott shares that even he has never felt fully qualified in his roles, and realizing that "everyone else is an imposter too" can be comforting. (03:30)

He emphasizes that a certain level of imposter syndrome is natural and even beneficial, as it fuels the competitive spirit essential for societal progress. However, recognizing that "everyone feels a little bit of that" can alleviate undue self-doubt.

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Navigating Startup Careers

Guest Question from Nicholas (04:20 - 05:17)
Nicholas, a 36-year-old Canadian with a diverse background in engineering, MBA, McKinsey, and Amazon, contemplates joining an early-stage startup as a COO or Chief of Staff to build wealth and company growth.

Scott’s Response (05:17 - 08:48)
Scott provides a nuanced perspective on joining startups:

• Focus on People Over Companies: "I've always picked people, not companies." (05:45) He advises assessing the team’s caliber, as talented individuals are more likely to navigate unforeseen challenges effectively.

• Company Lifecycle Consideration: Scott identifies the 20 to 200 employees stage as the "sweet spot" for balancing risk and reward. Startups in this phase often have some product-market fit and offer significant equity without the extremes of very early (0-10 employees) or large-scale companies.

• Risk vs. Reward: He cautions against the high failure rates of startups with minimal staff and underscores the importance of equity stakes for meaningful financial rewards. "If you're not the founder and you're not going to get 20 or 30% of the company, I'm not sure the risk reward is there." (06:30)

• Evaluating Signals of Success: Scott suggests assessing external validations such as backing by reputable VCs, substantial capital raised, and positive press coverage to gauge a startup’s potential. However, he warns that these are not foolproof indicators. "There's, you know, not all of these are, you know, it's sort of the good housekeeping stamp of approval, which, by the way, approves talcum powder, which ended up giving people all sorts of cancer." (07:15)

• Market Dynamics: Emphasizing the importance of letting the market decide, Scott advises securing multiple job offers to create leverage during negotiations. "Your first objective is to get one, ideally two offers so you can play them against each other." (07:50)

Scott concludes by reassuring Nicholas of the positive aspects of his background and the potential benefits of pursuing a role in a well-structured startup.

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Effective Networking Strategies

Guest Question from Sasha (11:58 - 15:41)
Sasha, a sophomore college student from Boston interested in a consulting career, seeks advice on authentic networking, especially with existing connections at top consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain (MBB).

Scott’s Response (11:58 - 15:41)
Scott outlines a multifaceted approach to networking:

• Leverage Available Opportunities: "Business school and college are fantastic ways... you get invited to all this crazy shit." (12:30) He encourages attending events, workshops, and talks, such as guest lectures by industry leaders.

• Active Engagement: Scott advises students to proactively initiate conversations. "Whenever I walked into a room... I would demand that within 10 seconds I'd lock eye contact with someone and I'd walk up and introduce myself." (13:20)

• Building Genuine Relationships: He underscores the importance of being friendly and liking people to naturally attract positive relationships. "The easiest way to get someone like you is to like them." (14:00)

• Diverse Networking: Beyond professional settings, Scott recommends making friends and enjoying social activities to broaden one’s network organically. "Be happy to see them... say yes to stuff with your friends." (13:50)

• Avoid Isolation: He warns against excessive isolation, emphasizing the value of being present and engaging in diverse environments. "Be out... meeting people, running into unusual opportunities." (14:30)

• Relationship Investment: Simple gestures like sending thoughtful notes and showing genuine interest can significantly strengthen connections. "Send people nice notes. Be happy to see them." (14:10)

Scott reiterates that successful networking is less about the quantity of connections and more about the quality and authenticity of relationships built.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Scott Galloway provides invaluable insights into overcoming imposter syndrome, strategically selecting startups to join, and cultivating authentic networking practices. His advice is grounded in personal experience and empirical observations, making it highly relevant for professionals and students alike looking to navigate their career paths with confidence and efficacy.

Notable Quotes:

• "Practicing self-compassion... is essential in overcoming imposter syndrome." (02:10)
• "I've always picked people, not companies." (05:45)
• "The sweet spot of risk-reward, especially given that you have a family, is around 20 to 200 employees." (06:30)
• "Be out in the wild... meeting people, running into unusual opportunities." (14:30)

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Additional Information:

For more career advice and insights, listeners are encouraged to tune in to upcoming episodes of The Prof G Pod and engage with Scott Galloway’s other offerings, including his award-winning newsletter, No Mercy / No Malice, available every Saturday.

Transcript

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[Prof. G]

Welcome to Office Hours with Prof. G. Today we're kicking off a special two part series all about careers, navigating them, advancing them, maybe even surviving them. I'll be sharing my best advice which may not be very good. No corporate speak, no bullshit. I am going to tell you exactly what I'm thinking and it might offend you and it might upset you and guess what? We're both going to be fine. Let's bust right into it. First question.

[Hank]

Hey Prof. G. My name is Hank and I'm an American that's been living in Stockholm, Sweden for the last eight years. And I've really loved your office hours advice, listening to it, getting your opinion on things, and one I thought that would be very helpful to get your thoughts on is dealing with imposter syndrome all the time. I feel like when I'm working that, I don't know, maybe I'm not good enough. Even though from all my previous jobs all the feedback's been great and now I'm about to move on to a CMO role which I think is kind of way out of my league. Even though all the interactions with the CEO and all the interview processes went really well. So I don't feel like I should have those feelings. But then again, they're still there. Just wondering if you've ever faced this in your life and do you have any strategies to kind of get over this? Anyway, looking forward to your thoughts and thank you so much for everything.

[Prof. G]

Hank from Sweden. The data says with imposter syndrome that you're supposed to practice self compassion, be kind to yourself, acknowledge and accept your feelings, challenge negative thoughts, say, well, the market and other people who are smart think I'm in the right position, so maybe there's something to their views. I find that talking stuff out really helps, like telling people, jesus, I feel like I'm in over my head or I don't deserve it. I just Feel like, you know, getting those thoughts out, help address them, and hearing yourself talk, you start to solve that type of thing, being positive, I mean, eating, you know, eating well, being in good shape. And I think you just start to feel more confident across all areas of your life. Like I'm strong and I'm healthy, which means I'd be really good at anything, including my job. So it's. Imposter syndrome is a form of intellectual self doubt that can affect anyone, regardless of their job. People with imposter syndrome often feel like they could have done better, even when things go well. I think if you don't have a little bit of imposter syndrome, it probably means you're a bit of a sociopath or arrogant because the whole point of the reason we're so competitive is that it's good for the species, right? I want to do better than the guy or gal next to me, which creates better performance, which results in a better society, and onward and onward and things get better. So this competitive spirit is important. Constantly referencing and comparing yourself to others is natural and that's part of that competitive instinct. But it can result in a lot of self doubt. And I just think, well, first off, a lot of people have this. I just said on a previous office hours that I've never felt like I was qualified to do anything I did. And then I realized when I showed up that everyone else is an imposter too and everyone else feels as if they're an imposter. So it sounds like you're doing really well. Acknowledge everyone around you that they might be smarter than you think and have picked you for a lot of good reasons. I would say be kind to yourself. Try and engage in things that make you feel positive. I think working out and eating well make you feel talented and healthy and that you would be good at almost anything because you're this strong, healthy person. But recognize everyone feels a little bit of that. And again, go back to the notion that the market may be smarter than you think and you deserve to be where you are. Thanks for the question. Question number two.

[Nicholas]

Hi Prof. G. My name's Nicholas and I'm a huge fan of your podcast special Shout out to Ed for having to laugh at your dick chokes. Anyway, I'm 36, Canadian and have about 10 years of experience as a business generalist. I started as an engineer, got a top MBA and then spent about five years in Luxembourg at McKinsey and Amazon. Tired of corporate, I've moved to the south of France to join my in laws Family business only to confirm your thoughts about that region. Great place to spend, but not to earn. So my wife, two kids and I have moved to Toronto for better opportunities. Now I think my best move would be to join an early stage startup as a COO or chief of staff to build a company and some wealth along the way, which sounds super interesting and challenging. My question to you is, knowing the high failure rate of early stage companies, what advice do you have for picking a winner? How can I assess which startup is worth betting this next chapter of my career on? Thanks and keep doing what you're doing.

[Prof. G]

Thanks very much. Nicholas from Canada. What an interesting life you've led and how it's kind of good to be you. Okay, so it sounds like you want to go to a startup. So first off, nobody knows and there's hints. What I've always done is I've always picked people, not companies. And that is if you have the opportunity to interview with small firms, you want to go where you think the people are most impressive. Because a lot of times with small companies they end up doing something that they hadn't originally anticipated. But if the people are super smart, they can more often than not figure it out. So I think you want to go somewhere where you think the person I'm going to report into, I'm going to learn a lot. And these people just seem really together now. Hopefully, if it's just a stupid idea, then fine. There might have been a lot of smart people with that dog walking app backed by SoftBank, but that was just a stupid idea. But you basically want to go into battle with people that you want to go to, you know, you would want to go into battle with. And then also I think the, the where the company is in the life cycle is sort of interesting. My general experience is that joining a company with zero to 10 employees is that the risk reward ratio isn't there. Now, if the, if the company works, those people make a shit ton of money. But those are the people we read about in the newspaper. We don't read about the 6 out of 7 companies and end up with a 0. Even worse than that, sometimes they go 3, 5, 10, 20 years and then end up with nothing. That happened to me at Rent Envelop. I was there 10 years to work my ass off, invested $3 million in my own capital to end up with nothing. That story doesn't get told a lot, although I tell it a lot. But the 0 to 10 is huge upside. But I would argue if you're not the founder and you're not going to get 20 or 30% of the company. I'm not sure the risk reward is there. At the same time, when you join a company that's already at a couple thousand people, unless it's a moonshot like a Google or Salesforce, you'll make good money, but you'll never make super, super huge money. I find that the sweet spot from a risk reward standpoint is kind of 20 to 200 employees. And that is you're still early enough to get significant equity. But if they're at that point, it means that they have probably some level of product market fit. So I find that sort of the sweet spot of risk reward, especially given that you have, you have a family. In addition, there's other signals. Who are the people who have backed the company? How much capital have they raised? How much press have they received? There's, you know, not all of these are, you know, it's sort of the good housekeeping stamp of approval, which, by the way, approves talcum powder, which ended up giving people all sorts of cancer. So it's not a guarantee. But when there's good people and VCs or customers involved, there's signals you should be able to discern around how the company is doing. But again, I like the sweet spot of kind of, there's pro, there's some limited evidence of product market fit. But at the same time, if I show up, I'm still going to get, quote unquote, real significant equity. But again, this is a good problem. And also, you got to let the market decide. You got to get the job first. So your first objective is to get one, ideally two offers so you can play them against each other. But let me finish where I started. With your background living in Toronto and a family, it's just good to be Nicholas. Thanks for the question. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

[Hank]

Fox Creative.

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[Prof. G]

Excited to be here, Tommy.

[Tommy Taylor]

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[Prof. G]

Well, it's a little cluttered and kind of looks like it was made in 1997. I'm going to say it's a Canva.

[Tommy Taylor]

That's right. But thankfully every Canva can be beautiful with just a little help from Canva. Now it's time for our lightning round. True or false? The brain process visuals 30,000 times faster than written language.

[Prof. G]

True.

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[Nicholas]

Foreign.

[Prof. G]

Welcome back.

[Sasha]

Question number three hi Scott, my name is Sasha. I'm a big fan of your podcast and I'm a sophomore in college in Boston and I find your career fascinating. With that, I need help understanding networking. As a student interested in a career in consulting, there's a lot of pressure to quote unquote network. How can I do this authentically and I'm lucky to already have connections at mbb. But what can I ask those connections to really do for me? Thank you for your wisdom and considering my question.

[Prof. G]

Thanks, Sasha. So I say yes a lot. Business school and college are fantastic ways. You get invited to all this crazy shit. You get to go see. I remember. I don't know why this popped into my mind. I went and saw Don Valentine speak at an event at Haas. And you as a student can go up to Don Valentine and say, hi, I'm Scott Galloway. And I found out he ran this firm called Sequoia. And I don't think I leveraged that content, but I eventually ended up raising him a lot of money from Sequoia. But you can kind of call on anybody from a professional standpoint and they'll meet with you, have coffee with us. When students call me, and I'm not suggesting you do this and say, I want to have coffee. I'm much more inclined to have coffee with them than even at this point, like a CEO of some company. Right now, you just have currency to meet people. And I would take advantage of that, both professionally or kind of networking at these sort of corporate events. But also a different type of networking is just to try to make as many friends as possible and have fun. Say yes. Go to football games with people or whatever it is they do at your college. Go out for a drink. Also invest in relationships, Send people nice notes. Be happy to see them. There's this great study that looked at who are the most popular kids in high school and was it the athletes? Was it the best looking kids? No, you know what it was? It was the kids who liked the most people, not the kids who had the most people who liked them. But the easiest way to get someone like you is to like them. The kids that were friendliness, waved at other people in the hall were confident. Those kids were the most popular. I thought that was so obvious, but fascinating. So what do you want to do? You want to go to as many of these kind of networking events as is, you know, doesn't get in the way of your studies. Say yes to stuff with your friends. Be nice to people. Be friendly, like as many people as you can. And take advantage of the fact that people want to meet with you and you have access to all this incredible stuff. And more than anything, try not to be in your dorm room or your fraternity or wherever you're living more than eight or ten hours a day. Be out. Be out in the wild. Be out in the jungle, meeting people, running into unusual opportunities. That's what I worry about with most young men is there's too many temptations to sit at home and believe you can have a reasonable facsimile of life.

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[Prof. G]

No, get out of the house, go on campus, go to these events. Another trick I do. I did this whenever I walked into a room, whether it was a networking event or a corporate event at business school or a bar, I would demand that within 10 seconds I'd lock eye contact with someone and I'd walk up and introduce myself. I'd break the seal because it's easy to sort of walk into a room and you don't know anybody and you just kind of sit there and you look at your phone to pretend you're doing something and before you know it, you're just sort of, you know, sequestered and you're getting too used to not talking to people right away. You roll into, you roll into a situation, you're going to go up to a group of people or to someone and introduce yourself. Just break the seal right away. Anyway, Sasha from Boston, thanks for the question. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to office hourspropertymedia.com Again, that's office hourspropertymedia.com foreign.

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This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.

[Prof. G]

Our intern is Dan Shalon.

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Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prophecy Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for.

[Prof. G]

No Mercy, no Malice as read by George Hahn.

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And please follow our Prophecy Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

[Tommy Taylor]

Foreign.

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