Scott Galloway‘s latest “No Mercy No Malice” post, “Text-ure,” was a little shocking and then I found the genius in it. I hope it’s either genius or an issue of limited time to think through the implications of the article. In particular,
Mid-way through the article he says, “On average, they’re [rich people] more intelligent and harder working than your average citizen”
My gut reaction is to ask, how many poor people does Scott hang around with? Ok, that’s dismissive. Was Einstein rich? Not in the sense of today. Godel certainly was not! Van Gogh, nope. MLK, nope. Lincoln, nope. Gandhi? Q is about to break the news that Gandhi had 1000 secret swiss accounts. Toni Morisson? Maybe at the end, but not at the beginning. Scott’s example was anecdotal and shows some obvious blind spots. The photos that hang on my wall are not of rich people — but of people of unimpeachable character, hard workers, intelligence applied to real, human problems.
L Ron Hubbard was rich, smart, and hard working. Kenneth Lay too. The architects of the opioid crisis, rich, hard working, smart. The architects of the great recession of 2008, all rich or aspiring to be, many were converted math and physics PhDs. Jeffrey Epstein was by accounts I’ve heard rich and smart and hard working. Bernie Mad– Oh, I hope I see what Scott is doing here.
I think Scott is right that some people in think that money is the score. Isn’t this what he’s complaining about with Elon and co? Are we saying that people with 1M-100M are really smart and of good character, but things start to decline from there? I hope I see what he’s doing here…
I think the distribution of talent across social classes is unknown and unknowable, because we spend so little providing opportunity to lower classes, one of the points Scott makes. I think I see what he’s doing here…
Again, I really respect Scott’s brand of say what you think — and he’s right in his final question. Who is going to check you and pull you out of your self-created psychosis? Is your wingman checking your six or admiring your paint job?
I hope this was his ironic, self-referential internal check to make sure someone on his team is checking his back. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and call it pure genius — because I’m an optimist.
Looking forward to seeing if I can bring this up in the last Section4
Brand Strategy Q&A.
A Sense Of 