Scott Galloway
Professor of marketing at NYU Stern and author of bestselling books including The Four and The Algebra of Wealth.
“The lesson for me was people must cling to TV like a dictator clings to power … they could not believe I was going to pass up the opportunity to be on TV.”
The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · October 2026
Galloway and Giridharadas are swapping stories about the TV shows each made during the pandemic, both of which they describe as bad. Galloway says he filmed his alone in his garage, and that when a production executive called with the "great news" of a renewal he refused. The repeated calls trying to change his mind are what prompted the line.
Transcript
And I'm like, oh my God, I've made my partner. It was, my show was so. So bad. Your show.
It was also not great. I had AOC as my first guest. So that gave it a lift. I had you as a guest, which gave it a lift. Here's what happened with my show. Probably the same with yours. It was kind of developed and set up like winter of 2019, turn of 2020, all set, contracts, ready to go. Let's start filming in February, March, whatever. And COVID strikes. And I've never had a TV show before. Spoiler alert, I've never had one since. And COVID hits. And I was like, well, I guess we're not doing a TV show. They're like, no, no, no, we can just make it in this new reality, whatever it may be. And so my daughter had a very severe lung condition. She was like two years old. So I had to go to this remote location because of her. And so then I didn't have proper internet, which was kind of important for making a TV show. So I was filming things on iPads and cameras, you know, and then I had to hire someone to pick up USB drives with the filmed video. Like it was like drug deals of data. And then they would come to my house and pick up the USB drive like from the driveway because we didn't want to have contact with each other and then drive it up to their house and upload it on some faster Wi-Fi that they had. I mean, it was, it was so surreal. So much energy to make something that wasn't good.
Oh, God. Yeah. I was literally a TV show, me in my garage alone. And they had a producer in my ear saying, oh, do this or next episode this. My tech producer drew in the cloud because, you know, we couldn't have, we had social distancing. So it was me trying to make 30 minutes of TV in my garage with like lights and a camera. And it was so bad. And the guy, I forget his name, the production executive, nice guy, called me after the six episodes. I'm like, I just got to get through this. Called me after the six episodes and like, I got great news. I want to renew it. And I'm like, no fucking way. I am so out of here. And I remember him, my agent called me. The production called me. He called me back three times. The guy running Vice at the time reached out to me who I like, Shane Smith. And they were just so flummoxed that anyone would pass up an opportunity to be on TV. And the lesson for me was people must cling to TV like a dictator clings to power that they were just, they could not believe I was going to pass up the opportunity to be on TV. Did you do have, so you haven't done any TV since then?
I know, not my own thing. I go talk about things I've written on MS Now. You're
on MS Now, yeah. And I all the time.
But I, and particularly Morning Joe is sort of my home court there. But I have always tried to maintain the discipline of going there to talk about things I have written and not going there to talk about, you know, like things that might be in my head.
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