What We Leave Behind
The full scope of how the Covid pandemic changed our world may not be clear for another generation. The deluge of official inquiries, political brawls, think pieces, and books (I wrote one) that have come out in the past few years are first drafts. They’re also reminders of how complex the pandemic was to live through, and how intense experiences can generate powerful insights. I periodically revisit this post I wrote in May 2020, because it puts me back in that strange time and reminds me what we could potentially learn from it. I hope we never go through another world crisis like the Covid pandemic, but even more, I hope we don’t forget its lessons. Some of which I discuss here. Best wishes for a safe and happy close to 2023 and a joyful 2024.
[The following was originally published on May 22, 2020.]
An Etch A Sketch is a mechanical drawing toy invented by André Cassagnes of France. Two knobs move a stylus that displaces aluminum powder on the back of the screen, leaving a solid line. The genius of the toy is aluminum powder. A child only needs to flip the toy and shake, redistributing the powder over the screen.
Covid-19 has presented an opportunity to envision our lives when turned upside down, powder redistributed. We can start over. We hoard relationships and the accoutrements of a life others have fashioned for us. We often don’t know any better, or don’t have the confidence to draw outside the lines until we’re older. My colleague professor Adam Alter has done research on the regrets of the dying. One of the biggest: not living the life they wanted to lead, but the life others chose for them.
In 2000 I left my marriage, my career in e-commerce, and San Francisco. I hit the restart button and left a lot behind. The period was lonely, rife with collateral damage, and the right decisions. Covid-19 presents society, and each of us, with the opportunity to design a better life with … less.
What do we leave behind? Some thoughts:
Emissions. Or at least, a lot of them. I’m not an environmentalist, and mostly believe after the last human draws her final breath, the Earth will register a 20-year belch and feel fine again. To be clear, I do believe climate change is man-made, as I don’t have my head up my ass, but I also believe the move to renewables will be expensive. Just as trickle-down economics is a lie, so is the notion that the Green New Deal will pay for itself.
In Florida, like many places, the water has been so clear, the sky so blue that I wonder if this is a time to move away from coal, cars, commutes … even if it’s really expensive. The last several weeks have convinced me it’s worth it. A spectacular home is worth a ton of money. Why wouldn’t we decide that a spectacular backyard (sea, sky, land), for all of us and our children, is also worth a huge investment?
Essential workers. The term essential means we’re going to treat you like chumps but run commercials calling you heroes. Just stop it. We lean out our windows and applaud health-care workers, as we should. We don’t, however, lean out our windows to salute other front-line workers — the guy or gal delivering your groceries or dropping Indian food through the window into your back seat.
Why? Because, deep down, we’ve been taught to believe that we live in a meritocracy and that billionaires and minimum wage workers all deserve what they got. We’ve conflated luck and talent, and it’s had a disastrous outcome — a lack of empathy.
There is so much that’s jarring about American exceptionalism. Thus far, a very American image from the pandemic is a makeshift morgue in a refrigerated tractor-trailer in Queens. Even worse? We idolize the founder of Amazon, who has added the GDP of Estonia to his wealth (all tax-free/deferred) during this pandemic, even as we discover that 25% of New Yorkers are at risk for becoming food insecure. This isn’t a United States, it’s The Hunger Games.
This country was built by titans of industry even wealthier than billionaires today — Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan. But 1 in 11 steel workers didn’t need to die for bridges and skyscrapers to happen. We are a country that rewards genius. Yet no one person needs to hold enough cash to end homelessness ($20 billion), eradicate malaria worldwide ($90 billion), and have enough left over for 700,000 teachers’ salaries. Bezos makes the average Amazon employee’s salary in 10 seconds. This paints us as a feudal state and not a democracy.
Our lack of empathy for our fellow Americans is vulgar and un-American. We can and should replace the hollow tributes with a federally mandated $20/hour minimum wage. This “outrageous” lift in the minimum wage would vault us from the 1960s to the present. As of 2018, the federal minimum wage was worth 29% less than in 1968.
Howling in the Money Storm
Money is a vehicle for the transfer of time and work from one entity to another. So, if we spend less money on one thing, we can invest more time on another. Could we invest less in stuff, less in commuting, and more in relationships? I’ve been howling in the money storm for so long. Believing my worth to others was a function of the stuff I had, or didn’t have.
We proffer admiration, affection, and a sense of awe to people who aggregate wealth. But that affection is often misplaced, as wealth can lead to greed and lack of empathy. This is an opportunity to spend less on stuff, spend less time commuting, and reallocate that capital and time to our partners and children.
On my podcast, the Prof G Pod, I interviewed philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris. I asked him for one piece of advice on how to be a better man. He offered that rather than trying to parent, cajole, discipline, or guide your children, your real purpose is just … to love them. My 9-year-old has been having a hard time with corona. I’m spending less time correcting, explaining, arguing, and more just loving … sitting in his room when he’s doing homework, engaging in conversation, and watching The Simpsons together. We’re on season 5. There are 31.
And … we’ll get there.
Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, and Jeff Bezos have 13 kids by 6 women. One denied his blood under oath to avoid child-support payments, another mocks the disabled, and the third steals from school districts (demand tax/budget cuts) to cling to power and wealth. We need a generation of men who emerge from this crisis with a commitment to being better fathers, husbands, and citizens.
The fastest path to a better life is regularly assessing what we’re leaving behind. The fastest blue-line path to a better world is more engaged fathers, not a better fu*king phone.
Life is so rich,
P.S. Join me and Mustafa Suleyman for a free talk on “Can AI Be Contained?” on January 9. Sign up here.
So for the past 9 years Hillary Clinton has been bitching non-stop that Trump is the worst person in the world and is going to end their world and she managed to cast this spell on planet earth where people lost their minds to Trump Derangement Syndrome and it turns out all this time her husband was involved in a Human Trafficking operation with Jeffery Epstein and she failed to mention that to any of us.
Pay attention to how all the Trump Derangement Syndrome people react to this news.
Pay close attention.
I just saw the Boston Globe piece that said that those of us who are alone have been found to have unique neural patterns.
That makes people who are alone the only true individuals left.
When online media jerks hate on incels, that means they’re trying to stamp out individuality, doesn’t it? Wasn’t there a time when writers considered themselves individuals and promoted individuality as beneficial to creativity?
Oh. That must mean any online writer who rags on incels is the hackiest of hacks.
That would make even Stephen King the hackiest of hacks when he ragged on incels because there weren’t enough of them going to see that Oscar-bait gem, THE MARVELS.
To achieve the goals Scott describes is impossible but to move in their direction would be incredibly rewarding. As for the accumulation of wealth, there’s nothing wrong with making gobs and gobs of money. What’s wrong is using that money to pass laws and push policies that increase that wealth at the expense of the other 99%. Perhaps what we need is a 28th Amendment: Separation of Cash and State.
High School Freshman, 14, Dies After Having Stroke During Swim Practice
James Oliver, 14, collapsed at his practice at West Chicago High School on December 8. It was determined that he had suffered an AVM stroke and brain hemorrhage.
It’s not normal for healthy teenagers to get strokes and drop dead.
Now it’s happening all the time.
LeBron James 19 year old son had a cardiac arrest.
Spike in Died Suddenly.
Spike in health young people dropping dead.
Everybody has suffered damages.
Every business and school that forced their employees / students to take an EXPERIMENTAL drug as a condition of their employment / education should be sued into oblivion.
The coming class action lawsuits will be Biblical.
“Enough already. Federal law should require any citizen who wants to cash a government check, use public transport, or enter a place of business to show proof of vaccination.”
Scott Galloway
BUNK: Cardiac arrests are no higher today than prior to covid.
Four anti vax bloviators die… “Bernier was at least the fourth talk-radio host who had espoused anti-vaccine and anti-mask sentiments to succumb to the virus in August. There was also Phil Valentine, 61, a popular host in Tennessee; Jimmy DeYoung, 81, a nationally syndicated Christian preacher also based in Tennessee; and Dick Farrel, 65, who had worked for stations in Miami and Palm Beach, Fla., as well as for the conservative Newsmax TV channel.
All four men had publicly couched their opposition to mainstream public health efforts in the typically hyperbolic and sometimes paranoid rhetoric of conservative talk radio. Farrel, for example, called coronavirus mitigation efforts “a scam-demic” and described the government’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci, as “a power-tripping, lying freak.”
…In July, after Valentine was hospitalized for complications from covid-19, his brother Mark went on air and said on Valentine’s behalf: “For those listening, I know if he were able to tell you this, he would tell you, ‘Go get vaccinated. Quit worrying about the politics. Quit worrying about all the conspiracy theories.’ ”
His family later issued a statement indicating that Valentine had changed his mind about the vaccines he had mocked.”
FACT: People that choose not to take the vax did not break any laws. Not a single one.
The same can’t be said for any business or school that forced their employees / students to take the vax.
Not only should every business and school that forced their employees / students to take an EXPERIMENTAL drug as a condition of their employment / education should be sued into oblivion but every person who spread misinformation about the vax should also be held liable.
If Alex Jones can be sued for $965M for spreading misinformation than everyone who said that the vax was safe and effective and that it stopped the spread of CV should also be sued for $965M.
I’ve often wondered if a lot of the people that were publicly pushing the vax so hard online and on TV had some financial incentive or ulterior motive that they failed to disclose to all of us for pushing the vax so hard.
I guess we will find that out once we get them under oath.
The coming class action lawsuits will be Biblical and the amount of fraud around this scam will shock the world.
“Enough already. Federal law should require any citizen who wants to cash a government check, use public transport, or enter a place of business to show proof of vaccination.”
Scott Galloway
I got Covid that lasted 5 days, mild symptoms. I kept pace with shots and boosters. Glad I did. That’s how vaccines work. Personal choice.
There is so much that’s jarring about your negative take on every subject. The one consistency is your disdain for the USA and the merit system that has given each child the opportunity to rise above their humble origins. I’m someone who came from very little and was able to move higher in the rungs of society. I did and do believe in the chances that working hard and persevering offer in our country. I don’t believe in the selective socialism that you seem to feel will level the world’s field. Please attempt to gain some perspective; read history and see how things rhyme. Read The Fourth Turning is Here by Neil Howe for some perspective on how it goes around and how it comes around. Your sadness is palpable. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a new year with a happier outlook for our country and our world.
It’s nice for you that the American Dream worked out for you. The chosen few for whom it works tend to become evangelists for it. They want to make up reasons why it doesn’t work for everyone else. They must be lazy, lack confidence, blah blah blah. But there’s only so much wealth to go around, and if you concentrate it in a few hands, everyone else has to go without. That’s just basic math. Eventually, if things continue as they are, the billionaires will topple the whole system.
Bunk. There is not a fixed supply of wealth. It is not zero sum.
Wealth is created by those that add value to society. There is no “right” allocation.
Finally, and much to the chagrin of those that buy into this class warfare, high income inequality in a free society is a sign of health as it indicative of a high degree of opportunity.
The word ‘free’ attracts more attention than the word ‘bunk’, freedom being largely a function of inheritance. If you want the best opportunities, choose the best parents. And, whilst wealth has never been zero-sum, there’s quite a lot of concerned discussion in many echelons about our discovery of the limits of a finite planet. We put a lot of trust in technology to save us, and we’re drowning in the stuff. But children in developed countries are still, by and large, less wealthy than their parents.
Agree – he seem to hate the very things that he took advantage of.
The irony is that the author of these articles is a multi-millionaire himself. Made his millions from high tech investments and actively teaching marketing strategy to students. He and his wife are the epitome of everything they claim to be against but never bring that up nor give their wealth and privledge away.
Kudos!
You have written yourself up as some kind of a hero for watching TV with your kid. Really Scott, you need to grow up.
Firstly, I would like to wish you and family a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hopefully we are at the tipping point of meritocracy and greed. As you clearly point out, it has caused a lot of strife in our world. As Rachel Maddow said, « Fascism doesn’t come for all generations but it is calling us, so pay attention.» Too many people feeling left behind and this makes us all vulnerable to the extremists among us. Your newsletters never disappoint and I have passed them on to friends who equally enjoy them. Thanks
Frances 🇨🇦🇲🇶
We need better men/fathers/husbands. Yes we do. but why? and why do we find ourself in need for that?
It’s a necessary condition but not sufficient (as mathematicians say) because we also need women. It’s a 2 sided equations. Whats up with the women? We can’t meaningfully engage in a discussion with one half of the equation.
I hate to use the word holistic, because it seems to be used exclusively by wankers, but it points to a comprehensive (inclusive would have been a better word, but the wankers got that one too) or broad analysis. Thats a good start, for a more informed and further reaching discussion. But it doesn’t dig deep enough. We are still captive lingo-cultural paradigm, and even within that not deep enough
Update: We’re on the eve of 2024. Things have only gotten worse.
There shouldn’t even be a minimum wage. There is less employment with a minimum wage. The higher the minimum wage the less jobs available. Just think in logical extremes- At a little over zero per hour there would be an unlimited number of jobs available- and at $500 an hour there would be very few.
Most minimum wage jobs are starter jobs, not jobs that support a family.
Importantly, minimum wage is really an affront to individual liberty. If a person is willing to take a job at a low wage and an employer is willing to hire said person- why should the state dictate that they can’t agree to it?
Worse, it makes our companies less competitive with localities (states/ countries) that have no or lower minimum wages. This reduces the number of higher paying jobs and reduces shareholder returns (think pensions that are invested in stocks).
Bad policy, no matter how well intended results in inferior outcomes.
As Dear Abby used to say: Wake up and smell the coffee
What we really need (besides a decent minimum wage) is a maximum wage.
Scott, your writings are fantastic, thought provoking and right for the times. You were so correct in all your points about the super wealthy of the world—the Bezos and his $500 million yacht, Jobs, Musk, Ellison, the ever disgusting trump and so many others. What gets to me about these people is the rarified air they believe they live. Rules, common decency, a commitment to others, the environment, fairness, and the list goes on—in their world none of this applies because they do not tread with mere mortals and they are in their own universe. Repulsive. Thanks for this great article and all the others, they are thoughtful and a joy to read.
Love ya Scott, have a wonderful holiday season
Well said, you show that capitalism, wealth, and entrepreneurial success can happen without the oppression of workers and in the parameters of moral standards. All can prosper along with the entrepreneur that’s building wealth. I hope to interview you one day at UCLA.
If you do interview him, ask him how he made his millions in net worth. Mostly investing in Amazon and the very people and industry he speaks against. How he teaches courses on making the tech money he used and yet speaks against.
A year back or so my 35 year old son turned me on to you. What a joy!.. I like to say that I had the best father in the world. So thoughtful, stern, giving and huge shoes to fill. He pasted away at 95 with Alz. As a father I work very hard to follow in his foot steps. It’s not easy, but I keep trying. I know I’m succeeding because my son called me today and asked me what my thoughts were about buying GOOGLE stock. This is his extra money from his second job. Thanks for all you say and write. It’s a joy to read.
Well done! I love this!
If followed your writing for a few years now. Your balance of insight and transparency is something I try strive for. That Covid article was one of your best. More importantly I’m as also a father and being that is my greatest joy. Covid was a blessing and a privilege for some of us to spend extra time with our kids. I’m aware of the privilege. I truly hope I can love them and not judge or try to guide, just love them. Happy Holidays and look forward to your next writings. Kind Regards Ozzie
You know what else we should leave behind? Hypocrisy. I can hardly take any of your comments about the evils of capitalism, big tech, and about other big-name earners when you yourself are worth around $50 million from ventures and investments, coupled with making about $5 million per year from speaking engagements. You even TEACH this tech marketing to young people to do what you did to make your millions. Not only that, but your wife is a big name real estate developer – one of the very people making living unaffordable to the masses.
If you want any credibility – perhaps it’s time you start giving away all those millions you claim big tech and people JUST LIKE YOU owe to the rest of us and show us how it’s done.
Oh – and while you’re beating up Beezos, why not mention you made most of your money from Amazon and Apple stock. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Agree, It is pretty weak stuff when you point to people richer than yourself and say: “They need to sacrifice! ” What about giving 10% of YOUR income away each year.
Read more of his articles and you’ll see that they don’t hold an indictment of capitalism, but of the excesses of our current version, which produces inequality and a wealth gap. The point is precisely that our system unfairly rewards some; not his fault that he falls in this group and acknowledges it.
It still makes him a hypocrite who demands others do what he will not.
And I can guarantee the Gates foundation gives away more money than the author of this page gave away in his life. Hypocracy.
What a great Christmas gift you have given me and your readers!
Thank you for this.
The pandemic had many if not most Americans asking themselves what I call the “Blade Runner” questions. Roy the replicant asked the protagnoist Dekerd “How long do I have to live?”, implying “Why am I here”. Roy then said “I want more life!” I suspect one reason far more people retired than was expected after the pandemic was because of how they answered these questions. Gen Z has experienced more turmoil live on TV and social media, than any generation in the last century and there are ten million fewer of them than Boomers. For many people, life feels like “trying to windsurf in a hurricane while wearing rollerblades on a bongo board.”
I nodded my head in agreement throughout your article. If only it could required reading for all!
You forgot Joe Biden’s grand-daughter. Almost all politicians and high-ups are contemptible in multiple ways. Just waiting to see Epstein’s client list.
So good, Scott. Such a nice reminder before the holidays, fraught with tension and tempers at times, to remember what is really important. I so appreciate your words. Happy holidays to you!
“Enough already. Federal law should require any citizen who wants to cash a government check, use public transport, or enter a place of business to show proof of vaccination.”
Scott Galloway
You openly advocated targeting people that did not want to take an experimental drug that they did not want or need with economic warfare and wanted to ruin their lives.
And you broadcast that Wish out to your followers and the world at large.
Remember the time Biden went on national TV and said as a statement of fact “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”
Biden then went on to get the shot 5 times at last count
And Biden still caught COVID.
And then Biden caught COVID a 2nd time.
These experimental drugs DO NOT WORK AS ADVERTISED.
And nobody ever got sued over making false medical claims on national television.
And how did Galloway treat his fellow man during these trying times?
Galloway, with his net worth of $40+ Million Dollars, used his voice & his platform to send out a Wish to his followers & planet earth that people should suffer economic ruin for refusing to give in to the peer pressure & the bullying and refusing to shoot up experimental drugs that clearly DO NOT WORK AS ADVERTISED.
Real brave of you there, Galloway.
Give Scott a break, he trusts government and big Pharma.
I got vaccines, but would like some control like my body my choice.
Pro-Vaccine Canadian Journalist Who Advocated for Vaxx Passport and Called for Unvaccinated to be Fired Dies at Age 33
Journalist who advocated that the unvaccinated be put in concentration camps dies suddenly at the young age of 33:
“Ian Vandaelle has died after being hospitalized and “declared neurologically dead,” his family revealed.
Vandaelle was a business journalist who worked as a reporter and editor at the Financial Post.
He was also previously a producer at BNN Bloomberg for over a decade.
Vandaelle advocated for vaccine passports and mandates and called for the firing of anyone who refused the injections.
He also suggested that unvaccinated people should be arrested and taken away to concentration camps.”
Karma will find you and hold you accountable.
“A leading QAnon promoter who urged both her followers and strangers she passed on the street not to take the COVID vaccine died Thursday of the coronavirus, making her just the latest vaccine opponent killed by the disease.
Weldon’s death from COVID is just the latest instance of a far-right personality who opposed vaccination being killed by the virus. On Jan. 3, radio host Doug Kuzma died while infected with the coronavirus. In August, QAnon promoter Robert David Steele died of the virus shortly after posting a picture of himself in an oxygen mask and vowing to still refuse the vaccine.
In September, a QAnon follower named Veronica Wolski became a cause celebre in QAnon circles after she was hospitalized with the coronavirus. QAnon fans besieged the hospital with phone calls demanding that Wolski receive ivermectin, the deworming drug used by some as an unproven coronavirus treatment. Wolski died of the disease later that month.”
“Bernier was at least the fourth talk-radio host who had espoused anti-vaccine and anti-mask sentiments to succumb to the virus in August. There was also Phil Valentine, 61, a popular host in Tennessee; Jimmy DeYoung, 81, a nationally syndicated Christian preacher also based in Tennessee; and Dick Farrel, 65, who had worked for stations in Miami and Palm Beach, Fla., as well as for the conservative Newsmax TV channel.
All four men had publicly couched their opposition to mainstream public health efforts in the typically hyperbolic and sometimes paranoid rhetoric of conservative talk radio. Farrel, for example, called coronavirus mitigation efforts “a scam-demic” and described the government’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci, as “a power-tripping, lying freak.”
…In July, after Valentine was hospitalized for complications from covid-19, his brother Mark went on air and said on Valentine’s behalf: “For those listening, I know if he were able to tell you this, he would tell you, ‘Go get vaccinated. Quit worrying about the politics. Quit worrying about all the conspiracy theories.’ ”
His family later issued a statement indicating that Valentine had changed his mind about the vaccines he had mocked.”
“The fastest path to a better life is regularly assessing what we’re leaving behind. The fastest blue-line path to a better world is more engaged fathers, not a better fu*king phone.” Thank you.