Scott Galloway Best Quotes

luxury is irrational, which makes it the best business in the world. In 2016 Estée Lauder was worth more than the world’s largest communications firm, WPP.9 Richemont, owner of Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, was worth more than T-Mobile.10 LVMH commands more value than Goldman Sachs.

Don’t follow your passion, follow your talent. Determine what you are good at (early), and commit to becoming great at it. You don't have to love it, just don't hate it. If practice takes you from good to great, the recognition and compensation you will command will make you start to love it. And, ultimately, you will be able to shape your career and your specialty to focus on the aspects you enjoy the most. And if not—make good money and then go follow your passion. No kid dreams of being a tax accountant. However, the best tax accountants on the planet fly first class and marry people better looking than themselves—both things they are likely to be passionate about.

A study found that on Facebook, the top descriptors to complete the phrase “My husband is . . .” are “the best,” “my best friend,” “amazing,” “the greatest,” and “so cute.” On Google, under the cloak of anonymity, one of the top five ways to complete that phrase is also “amazing.” The other four: “a jerk,” “annoying,” “gay,” and “mean.”10

No one has been able to aggregate more intention data on what consumers like than Google. Google not only sees you coming, but sees where you’re going. When homicide investigators arrive at a crime scene and there is a suspect—almost always the spouse—they check the suspect’s search history for suspicious Google queries (like “how to poison your husband”). I suspect we’re going to find that U.S. agencies have been mining Google to understand the intentions of more than some shopper thinking about detergent, but cells looking for fertilizer to build bombs. Google controls a massive amount of behavioral data. However, the individual identities of users have to be anonymized and, to the best of our knowledge, grouped. People are not comfortable with their name and picture next to a list of all the things they have typed into the Google query box. And for good reasons. Take a moment to imagine your picture and your name above everything you have typed into that Google search box. You’ve no doubt typed in some crazy shit that you would rather other people not know. So, Google has to aggregate this data, and can only say that people of this age or people of this cohort, on average, type in these sorts of things into their Google search box. Google still has a massive amount of data it can connect, if not to specific identities, to specific groups.

Big Tech’s future profits won’t come from besting the competition—they have none. Their opportunity will come from stealing away the precious few hours a day we don’t spend in front of a screen. Yet. So they’re promoting a future where we are never offline.

My colleague Aswath Damodaran says the best regulation is life lessons

Your mission is to find something you’re good at and apply the thousands of hours of grit and sacrifice necessary to become great at it. As you get there, the feeling of growth and your increasing mastery of your craft, along with the economic rewards, recognition, and camaraderie, will make you passionate about whatever “it” is. Nobody grows up saying, “I’m passionate about tax law,” but the best tax lawyers in the country are financially secure, have access to a broader selection of mates, and are—because they are so good at it—passionate about tax law. It’s unlikely you will ever be great at something you dislike doing, but mastery can lead to passion.

your first markdown is your best markdown. better to sell something at 80% of your budgeted price than to wait another month and have to dump it at 60%. waiting to take action only makes the problem worse.

Higher education has become a caste system in substantial part because the rich now have a private educational system greasing the skids for entry to the best schools, and poor kids, except the truly exceptional among them, can’t compete.

Manage Your Career Take responsibility for your own career, and manage it. People will tell you to “follow your passion.” This, again, is bullshit. I would like to be quarterback for the New York Jets. I’m tall, have a good arm, decent leadership skills, and would enjoy owning car dealerships after my knees go. However, I have marginal athletic ability—learned this fast at UCLA. People who tell you to follow your passion are already rich. Don’t follow your passion, follow your talent. Determine what you are good at (early), and commit to becoming great at it. You don’t have to love it, just don’t hate it. If practice takes you from good to great, the recognition and compensation you will command will make you start to love it. And, ultimately, you will be able to shape your career and your specialty to focus on the aspects you enjoy the most. And if not—make good money and then go follow your passion. No kid dreams of being a tax accountant. However, the best tax accountants on the planet fly first class and marry people better looking than themselves—both things they are likely to be passionate about.

luxury is irrational, which makes it the best business in the world

best of times for the remarkable, and the worst for the unremarkable

Advertisers also won’t miss traditional media, since the thing traditional media advertising does best—build mass brands—is increasingly irrelevant as we graduate from the Brand Age to the Product Age. There is a double bind here, because brand equity erodes slowly, and a few months of reduced spend isn’t going to move any needles. Which will make it that much harder even for marketers still attending the church of brand equity to justify returning their traditional media spend to pre-pandemic levels.

the same answer to most of life’s questions: whatever is best for the kids.