Support for Profit G comes from Vanta. Building a business, achieving SOC 2, or ISO 27001 compliance can help you win bigger deals, enter new markets, and deepen trust with customers, but can also cost you real time and money. Vanta automates up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand frameworks, helping businesses get compliant quickly. With over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on. Join over 6000 fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and improve security in real-time. Get $1,000 off Vanta by going to vanta. Com/profg. That's V-A-N-T-A. Com/profg. Support for Prop G comes from Better Health. What do you do when your social battery is drained? When I'm feeling totally wiped out, I like to try and exercise, eat clean and spend time with my boys. However you like to recharge, it's important to keep an eye on your social battery. Therapy can help you build more awareness of what you need and when. Better Health offers a affordable online therapy with licensed professionals. Scheduling is convenient, and finding a therapist suited to your style is quick and easy. Find your social sweet spot with Betterhelp.

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Welcome to the Prop G Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours@profgmedia. Com. Again, that's officehours@profgmedia. Com. First question.

Hey, Profji. This is Barbaros from Inc. R. B. C. Thank you for all the great work that you do. Also raised by a single mom, I admire all the conversations that you have, especially the ones with Ed and Cara. My question is on energy. Seeing large companies like Amazon buying a nuclear-powered data center and purchase agreements of fusion energy by Microsoft from Sam Altman's Helion. I wonder if you think we'll transition to nuclear energy in the years ahead. What do you think? Is nuclear soon or are We're going to magically just skip it and get the fusion. Again, I love the podcast. I think you and Eta are sharing incredible information here for no charge. And of course, also looking forward to the launch of Algebra of Wealth.

Thank you. Barbaros from Vancouver. I'm going to Vancouver next week. I'm going to be speaking at Ted for the first time, and I'm excited to not only speak at Ted, also a little bit nervous. One out of our very 150 speaking gigs, I have a panic attack. I can't figure out why. It has nothing to do with size. I think it might have something to do with jet lag. That's not a good sign, flying into Vancouver. But anyways, I think this would probably not be the time to have a panic attack during a TED Talk. Anyways, my blood pressure is going up. Just thinking about it. Jesus Christ, Barbaros, you're making me You're making me anxious. Anyways, I'm going to Vancouver. Look, I'm a huge fan of nuclear. More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in a nuclear power plant. I just can't figure out why on Earth. All the nuclear waste that's been produced by every nuclear power plant could be in a six-foot tall container that would cover, I think, one football field. To me, it just seems like a no-brainer that we should be going hard on nuclear. Unfortunately, it's really out of vogue.

We've actually reduced the number of power plants in the US. Germany basically shut them down. It became very politically incorrect. It has been a disaster for us reducing our reliance on nuclear. There's a massive, I think we're going to turn to all of it. I think we're going to use more fossil fuels. I think the price of oil is going to go up. We're going to have to do all of it. Why? The growing computing demand for AI. According to the International Energy Agency, since 2010, data centers have used about 1% of the world's electricity. But a researcher at BU University University, Amsterdam School of Business and Economics, says the energy required for global data centers could increase by 50% by 2027 just due to AI. Tech companies are also seeking energy solutions to address environmental concerns. For example, Amazon has said their new data centers are a part of a broader effort to invest in carbon-free energy, complementing its wind and solar projects with nuclear energy. Beyond AWS and Microsoft, cryptocurrency mining firms are increasingly adopting renewable and nuclear energy to reduce their carbon footprint, with examples including Aspen Creek's commitment to renewables and Tera Wolf's nuclear-powered mining facility.

I'm just a huge fan of nuclear, and there seems to be a ton of innovation, like little nuclear power plants that are the size of a container or a semi-truck that can power a small town or city, and then nuclear fusion, little nuclear backpack can power a household. I think it's really exciting, and I think we're going to see a lot of it. And energy, I mean, when you just think about where AI is headed and just the amount of compute and the energy it's going to take is just striking. That's another reason I just have been so fucking skeptical of crypto. It's a genius. It's genius to figure out a way to create the illusion of scarcity through finite coins being minted or mined. But Christ, We created something that consumes the electricity of Argentina that was like, we invented it. It didn't... Anyway, don't get me started. But yeah, I think that you're going to see a ton of this innovation. And is it going to be nuclear? Is it going to be solar? Is it going to be wind? Is it going to be thermo? Is it going to be coal? Is it going to be oil?

The answer is yes, all of the above. Just like we've always figured out, there are Our ability to innovate around apps that can soak up all the additional power offered by additional processing power, we will hands down, I believe, our demand for new sources of energy will outstrip not only new sources of energy, but our existing sources of energy. Quick fact, I didn't know this. Number three producer of energy globally or of fossil fuels is Russia, two is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Number one, the good old US of A. Anyway, Thanks for the question, Barbarus. Question number two.

Hi, Scott. Matt here, and a big fan of your podcast. I followed you for a while, and one of your enduring takes has been that advertising and building brand through paid media is a dying business strategy. Outside of some companies seeing hyper growth without big media budgets, mainly in the tech sector, most major firms continue to increase budgets, and those tech companies are now some of the biggest advertisers in the world. Even Tesla, famously averse to advertising, is now paying for media to try to differentiate first the growing EV market. As someone who also falls this closely, there has been a golden age of advertising effectiveness research from professors like Byron Sharp showing the value of paid media. I would be curious how much of your successful ProfG Media business, ProfG Media business, is supported by advertising. I work in this space, so I'm obviously biased, but curious if you've amended any of your opinions here. Thank you for all you do, and go, Gunners.

Go, Gunners. I love that. Look, I make these provocative statements that if you're advertising, it means your product sucks. And I've also said, and this is, I think, more true, if you constantly are having dinner with strangers, it means you're selling an undifferentiated product. So if you're in the services business and your job is to have these full relationships with people, it means you're all selling the same damn widget and you're dependent upon relationships. One of the things I loved about, I started a brand strategy firm, and basically, we were good at what we did, but there were a lot of good firms out there, interbrand, doing brand strategy. And the way we got business is I would develop these proxy father-son relationships with the CMO or the CEO. I found it just fucking exhausting. They were really interesting, wonderful men, and they were all men. This was in the '90s, but I'm an introvert, and I just found it difficult. I vacationed with clients. I mean, it was just so much. But anyways, I We think advertising is a tell for a company that doesn't have a truly differentiated product. I would push back that the tech companies, yeah, they advertise a lot, but as a percentage of their top-line budget, they don't.

I met with Ted Seranos, the CEO of Netflix, and I said, Why wouldn't you start a TikTok competitor? I still, by the way, think they should partner with an AI firm and buy a hopefully divested TikTok. But he said, No, we use TikTok as free advertising. It's amazing. We give them a certain number of clips, and it's fantastic for us. And they don't spend a lot of money, I don't think, on marketing. And I think the companies that... The companies that have added the most shareholder value over the last 10, 20 years have a few things in common. One, they're typically asset light. Why build a factory when you can just design the chip and video? Why invest in expensive real estate when you can just create a platform and take fees? Airbnb, why buy and maintain cars when you can just create software, a thick layer of software on top of them? That's Uber. They tend to have recurring revenue streams that are more more predictable, like a software company. But also, I have found they tend to be less reliant on advertising. And the thing about advertising, one of the reasons Google largely killed the traditional ad business, and I think it has, Google loses or gains the value of IPG, WPP, Publishy, and Omnicon every day.

Those guys used to be the big swing and dicks, and now they basically work, and they beg for the crumbs off of the Google and meta cookie, if you will, is that those companies have difficult times finding attribution or building it. Basically, all the research that Condenast or IPG does all leads to one place. You should spend more money on our advertising, right? And it's bullshit. It's bullshit, and it's a model where the lack of attribution was both the sin and the opportunity in the sense that brand building is difficult to reverse engineer to specific sales. There's been a dearth of it, which probably means it's going to offer higher ROI and direct response advertising, specifically Basically, Meta and alphabet with their unbelievable targeting. I mean, what, you only have 70% of your budget in digital marketing? It should probably be more. I mean, every year, these companies just take more and more share of an industry. Advertising is a weird industry. It's always like one and a half % of GDP. It doesn't go below that. It doesn't go above it. So this is not a growth industry, but you have some companies that are going 20 and 25 % a year, everyone from Meta and Alphab to TikTok, which means they are sucking the oxygen out of the for the other folks.

Does that mean traditional-based advertising and brand building is going to go away? No. But it's going to be a shitty place to work or invest. If you're absolutely in love with it, or you're scaling and have senior-level sponsorship, or you're rounding third, then by all means, stay there. But if you're younger, don't love it. I just think it's going to get more and more difficult for the traditional advertiser/brand building complex. And this is from someone who made a really good living preaching about brand. I think things have generally changed. I think we've moved from a brand era, and I don't want to call it an innovation era, to a supply chain era. Most of the big, big advances in shareholder value, in addition to being asset light, recurring revenue, lack of advertising, have been supply chain. So my brother and I'm a professor of brand strategy. I think the era of brand, the sun has passed midday, and Dawn Draper has been drawn and quartered. Thanks for the question. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

Support for this podcast comes from Grammarly. Isn't it? It's so frustrating when you have to read someone else's bad writing. Isn't things just the worst when you have to read bad someone? Okay. Isn't things just the worst when you have to read... Isn't things just the worst when you have to read bad someone else's writing that is also bad? Worst it is, absolutely worst. Do you hear that? That was written without Grammarly. Slopy writing can cause serious issues in the workplace. A few misspellings here, some poorly chosen words there, and good communication goes completely out the window. Thankfully, Grammarly is a trusted AI writing partner that saved your company from miscommunication and all the waste of time and money that goes with it. But Grammarly is more than just a grammar check. It can help generate AI prompts or even help you strike the right tone and personalize your writing based on audience and context. We here at the Prop G team use Grammarly, and what I would say is that we take this very seriously. This is something my mother drilled into me at a very young age. If you want to come across as educated and intelligent, you need to write well.

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Support for This episode of Prop G comes from Indochino. Picking out a suit to wear to your buddy's wedding doesn't have to be competitive. I mean, sure, you could grab something that fits you okay, looks decent, and smells all right. But why settle for just okay when you can grab a suit that instantly makes you the best dressed person in the room? Indochino makes suits that turn heads in a good way and has everything you need to find your perfect wedding fit. It doesn't have to cost a fortune either. They make it easy to get a fully customizable, affordable suit without leaving home. Choose from dozens of different high thread fabrics, colors, and patterns, and get a suit custom tailored to fit better than anything you could buy off the rack. They sent our analyst, Ed, a pair of pants. Ed, how's it going?

Love them. Love them, Scott. Fit well. Yeah, they look good. Wear them at least once a week. They're great. Yeah. Thanks, Indochino. Well, yeah, I haven't noticed, but I think your buttocks look sublime.

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Welcome back. Question number three.

Hi, Scott. I'm currently finishing up my first year at business school, and I'm starting to think about my summer reading list. I'm looking for some advice on books to read outside of the assigned books and cases I've been reading in school. What's on your reading list? Anything you recommend? Love the show. Thank you.

It's so funny. My producer put in some books because she knows I don't read a lot. I'm trying to be more transparent. I don't read a lot. Oh, that's not correct. I read a shit ton. I don't read a lot of books. I wait till I know a book is everyone says it's amazing, and then I'll read it once, and I'll highlight stuff, and I spend a lot of time on it. It takes me three months to read a book because I try and cement different things about the book and make them part of my narrative and really learn from them, but I don't read a lot. The books that my producer thinks I would like to recommend to you are The Way of the Champion: Pain, Persistence, and The Path forward by Paul Rabel. Oh, I know Paul. Paul is a wonderful guy. I don't know if the book is any good, but he's this incredible guy. He's basically the Michael Jordan of Lacrosse, the greatest Lacrosse player everywhere. According to my producer, the book is a guide to embodying a winning mindset with memorable stories and lessons for how to be a pro in all areas of life, in sports, business, and relationships.

If you met this guy, you don't want to figure out what is the secret sauce to being Paul Rabel. He's an impressive man. The Anxious Generation. Oh, my God, we haven't talked enough about this. How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness by Jonathan Hy. Jonathan is the most influential scholar in the world. If you have kids, this is a must read. I'm going to stop there because everyone's already bought this goddamn thing. It's number one on every list in the world. I did get a book the other day, and I've started actually reading it, which is unusual for me. It's called The Age of Revolution's Progress and Backlash: From 1600 to the Present by Farid Zahkari. It's fantastic. I'm already parroting some of Farid's thought leadership. Look, some books have changed my life, The Winds of War by Hermann Wook. I'm just fascinated with the World War II history, and it gave me a perspective for how just brutal and important war is and has been to shaping our society, specifically World War II. That's probably not light reading for somebody. The World According to Garp. I just thought it was so strange, and it gave me an appreciation for how just weird and wonderful people are.

People are just so fucking strange. I think John Irving changed my life. It just gave me an appreciation for the excentricities of people. What else have I read recently? Sapiens. That's one of those books that I read a couple of times because I got so much insight from it. If you're interested in management theory, anything from Peter Drucker, I loved Observations of a bystander. I thought that was just super interesting. But there's just so much good shit out there. What else have I read recently that I really, really enjoyed? Oh, in another book I'm rereading just because I saw the movie is Dune. I remember it's really interesting. Books for me are like music. The ones I read in high school and college are cemented in my brain. Anyway, it's a ton of good stuff out there. Let me know what you come up with. Post it and we'll write a review on it. But what a nice problem to have. What books am I going to read this summer? That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officetours@propgmedia. Com. Again, that's officetours@propgmedia. Com.