They open with this week’s primaries, starting with Alex Vindman’s loss in Florida to DSA member Angie Nixon in the Democratic Senate primary. Is the average Democratic voter genuinely moving on from the “Resistance” era?

Susan also weighs in on whether establishment-coded, cable-news-famous Democrats losing to base-energized challengers is the real story of this primary season — or whether the DSA narrative is being overblown. And where does anti-establishment sentiment go from here, on both sides of the aisle?

When it comes to foreign policy, there continues to be a lack of cohesion in the Republican party, a problem that Glasser says is likely to persist in the post-Trump era. Trump is now promising “unprecedented” economic warfare against Iran, but there seems to be little end in sight. They also touch on what happens with…

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They discuss whether AI’s power demands are being overstated, how China built its clean-energy advantage, and why the United States risks falling behind on electrification. Plus, Hannah explains why the climate outlook is more hopeful (and more complicated) than the headlines suggest.

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Elsewhere in Florida, Representative Jared Moskowitz beat his DSA challenger in the newly drawn Congressional District 25, immediately posting “My condolences to @hasanthehun” on social media — a direct shot at Hasan Piker, who had backed his opponent. Aaron also breaks down the race to replace term-limited Governor Ron DeSantis, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s win in Florida’s 20th district — a seat held by a Black lawmaker for over three decades. Plus, more results in Pennsylvania and Alaska.

The Iowa State Fair is underway, drawing around 20 political candidates including Josh Turek, Ashley Hinson, Thomas Laehn, and gubernatorial nominees Zach Lahn and Rob Sand. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke at the fair and used an anti-LGBTQ slur, and RFK is on a 10-day Iowa swing advocating for the Presidential Fitness test.

Following comments from Senator Jon Ossoff and others about the relationship between President Trump and aide Natalie Harp, reports are emerging that Melania Trump is keeping her distance from her husband.

In South Carolina, the sole debate in the runoff election for Lindsey Graham’s vacant Senate seat produced a memorable moment: Senator Darline Graham — the late senator’s sister — admitted she was “not that informed on national security.”

Plus, Jess and Aaron take audience questions.

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Join us next Wednesday at 12pm ET for the next edition of Raging Perspective.

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Plus, you can now call or text Scott a question at our new Office Hours hotline: ‪(201) 472-3656‬.

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But the industry has never been so dependent on one bet: AI. During the first half of 2026, 86% of U.S. venture capital spending went to AI companies, up from 65% last year. That kind of concentration hasn’t happened before.

Meanwhile, funding for non-AI companies has been cut in half since 2021. This unprecedented concentration makes the already volatile venture capital industry even riskier, and threatens the breadth of the American innovation ecosystem.

All Roads Lead to AI

The venture capital industry isn’t just concentrated in AI; it’s concentrated in a few AI companies. Just two firms, OpenAI and Anthropic, captured 53% of all the venture dollars raised in the first half of 2026. As far back as 2000, venture capital has never been so concentrated in one sector. Even in 2001, only 38% of North American venture capital was allocated to B2B software.

J.P. Morgan’s head of market insights, Ginger Chambless, described the concentration as “without precedent in modern venture history.”

Mega deals (defined as funding rounds over $100 million) have accounted for nearly 88% of capital deployed in the first half of 2026, and most are being raised by AI companies. At the same time, deals under $100 million drew just 12.5%, down from 44% two years ago.

AI companies are valued at a premium and are more likely to raise a second round. In 2025, 12.1% of AI companies that raised a first round went on to raise a second. For other types of companies, it was 6.9%. As of the first half of 2026, AI companies are twice as likely to raise again as non-AI companies.

The cost of this increasing concentration is that ideas in sectors outside of AI aren’t getting funded. Biotech, fintech, healthtech, and cybersecurity companies in North America received roughly half as much capital last year as they did in 2021.

Money Begets Money

Venture capital is concentrating at the fund level, too. The 10 largest venture funds captured 43% of all capital committed in 2025, up from 13% in 2021. It continues to get worse: The three biggest brand-name firms, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and Thrive Capital, captured 48% of the capital committed in the first half of this year.

There isn’t an unlimited supply of investable capital, so when most of it goes to the same group of Stanford grads, there’s less for newer funds to fight over. Unsurprisingly, first-time venture fund formation is on pace for its lowest year since 2016.

The concentration of capital in the biggest, most well-known funds is partly a function of market dynamics. Fewer IPOs and less M&A activity between 2022 and 2024 meant that returns from venture capital funds were dismal. In fact, this period was the worst stretch for venture liquidity since the 2008 financial crisis.

The IPO market recovered slightly last year, but the backlog of companies waiting for exits is still huge: More than 800 unicorns are stuck in the IPO backlog. At the current exit pace, clearing it would take about 30 years.

Public pension funds and university endowments are the biggest investors in venture capital, and the decision-makers at those institutions are on the hook to generate returns. When the whole category isn’t doing well, it’s safer to allocate money to large, brand-name VCs. Funds that have more capital are less at risk of going out of business if they have to wait years for their portfolio companies to exit.

Smaller VC firms look comparatively vulnerable and, as a result, are attracting less capital — and even closing outright. The number of VC firms in the United States fell to 2,984 in 2025 from 3,054 the year before — the first decline ever recorded.

What Gets Left Behind

Will historic concentration in the VC sector narrow the scope of potential public market winners down the road?

For example, if investment in biotech and health companies gets cut in half, doesn’t that decrease the odds that the next Moderna founder gets funded?

Some might argue that the increasingly lopsided funding ecosystem is an unavoidable result of the power law of venture capital, which describes how just a few winners are responsible for most of a fund’s profits. To be specific, roughly 6% of deals drive about 60% of returns. The nature of this industry rewards capital allocators who bet big on what they think is the next SpaceX, not those who bet safely or allocate money evenly.

But the power law characterizes outcomes. Achieving success in venture capital means making high-risk, high-reward bets, but it also means making a lot of those bets across a variety of different companies. If everyone thinks the next SpaceX is OpenAI, what happens if it’s not? What if AI hype is obscuring what could be the next big thing? The unprecedented concentration of venture capital in just one industry and in just a few companies increases the risk of those bets not working out — and as VCs themselves know, most of them don’t.

But there’s an even more existential threat.

Venture capital dollars shape American innovation and seed the U.S. public markets. Seven of the 10 biggest American public companies by market capitalization were venture-backed, as were half of all public companies founded in the U.S. in the past 50 years. Research suggests the VC industry in America is causally responsible for one-fifth of the largest 300 U.S. public companies, and that three-quarters of the largest VC-backed companies wouldn’t exist in their current state without it.

Venture capital is a business, and general partners are obligated to make decisions that generate returns for their investors. Funding entrepreneurs whose products improve the lives of Americans and U.S. public markets is not one of their obligations.

Funding products that improve the lives of Americans is one of the obligations of the American government. The founders wrote in the Constitution that Congress is empowered “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”

Yet, at the same time that funding in the private markets is narrowing, public R&D funding is declining and narrowing, too. The federal government’s share of the country’s R&D funding has fallen to 18% in 2022 from 67% in 1964, and funding as a share of GDP has dropped to 0.63% today from close to 2% in the 1960s.

President Trump is only accelerating the decline of diverse, federally fueled innovation. Last year, 5,844 National Institutes of Health grants and 1,996 National Science Foundation grants were suspended or terminated, and his administration has reallocated the remaining federal science budget toward AI, quantum, and nuclear. Research in less hyped fields will go unfunded.

Investing in unsexy research and boring companies has created enormous value for American investors and consumers. Could Warby Parker, JetBlue, Whole Foods, and FedEx have become what they are without venture funding? Similarly, would we have GLP-1s, vaccines, or microwaves had the government decided to fund only one kind of innovation?

The fact that both venture capitalists and the U.S. government are doubling down on the same top-heavy industry means that America’s future as a financial and technical leader has never depended on fewer people and companies.

With capital and opportunity this concentrated, it’s worth knowing exactly who the decision-makers are. A new study breaks down what separates the venture capitalists who succeed from the ones who don’t. Read on for the data, and a few actionable takeaways, available exclusively to Prof G+ subscribers.

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They open with the state of the Democratic Party following a primary season that has seen progressive and DSA-backed candidates notch significant wins. Is the moderate establishment losing its grip — and what does AOC’s effort to put “Woke 1.0” in the past say about how progressives are repositioning themselves?

Then, a deep dive on James Talarico and what his rise says about the Democratic Party’s future. Talarico has hired Jacob Smith, a former aide to John Cornyn, as deputy political director. Jesse Watters has been visibly rattled on Fox News by the prospect of Ken Paxton losing. Paul grades Talarico’s campaign, breaks down the attack lines flying in both…

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How We Tell Stories Through Podcasting

Research lead Mia Silverio and senior producer Jennifer Sanchez play big roles behind the scenes, putting out some of the best podcasts in the business. This Thursday August 20 at 2pm ET they’re doing a Substack livestream to share their insights on telling stories through podcasting. Paid subscribers only. Don’t miss out, upgrade here.

Become a better storyteller

How to Disagree Without Losing Friends

As the sole liberal / progressive voice on the Fox News show The Five, Jessica Tarlov has the hardest job in television, but makes it look easy. How does she do it? A: Ask her. This Friday August 21 at 1pm ET Jessica and Raging Moderates senior producer David Toledo dive into Jessica’s upcoming book and share practical tips for navigating disagreements, having better political conversations, and making your point without blowing up your relationships. This event is open to everyone on Substack and on YouTube.

Disagree without losing friends

Raging returns

After a week off (everyone needs a break), Jessica Tarlov and Aaron Parnas return to help you make sense of the week’s political news. Raging Perspective is this Wednesday August 19 at 1pm ET (and every Wednesday).

Set your calendar to rage

Is therapy overrated?

In December, Scott wrote a No Mercy / No Malice arguing that therapy has been oversold as a cultural cure-all. In this Deep Dive, he tests that thesis with Dr. Jonathan Shedler, a clinical psychologist and researcher best known for his work on the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapy. Paid subscribers only, so if you want in, you’ll have to upgrade here.

Deep Dive: Is therapy overrated?

Dr. Shedler agrees with much of the critique, and goes further: most people who believe they’re in therapy, he argues, aren’t getting the kind of treatment that produces lasting change. They discuss when therapy is warranted, why economic suffering often isn’t a psychotherapy problem, what the gender imbalance among providers means for men, and why AI can’t substitute for a human therapist.

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Then: former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji — the man who steered China into the WTO in 2001 and became known as “China’s Thatcher” — has died at 97. Alice and James look at his legacy, from a 12x increase in China’s global trade to the tens of millions of state-enterprise workers laid off along the way, and what the surprisingly unscripted outpouring of grief on Weibo says about China today.

Finally: Typhoon Dolphin has weakened to a tropical storm, but not before forcing over a million evacuations, grounding 40% …

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Could Michigan Senate candidate and progressive Abdul El-Sayed be a difference maker or a liability in a state Trump won in 2024? Shane also assesses where Republicans stand amidst low approval ratings for Trump, a tough economic backdrop — but with a significant advantage in terms of cash on hand about to be deployed in ad buys across the country.

The Democratic Party has officially announced that South Carolina and Nevada will hold the first primaries of the 2028 presidential election cycle — a deliberate move to prioritize Black voters, who make up roughly two-thirds of South Carolina’s Democratic electorate, as…

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Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to officehours@profgmedia.com, or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit.

Plus, you can now call or text Scott a question at our new Office Hours hotline: ‪(201) 472-3656‬.

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There are real differences between these candidates, especially over Medicare for All and the situation in Gaza, which are already shaping up to be the defining progressive litmus tests in 2028. Those are big, thorny debates, and the Democrats probably won’t resolve them until they have their next presidential candidate. Fine!

There are also differences in how these candidates are polling: a new set of Fox News polls revealed last week that Abdul El-Sayed is the weakest link so far, running within the margin of error in Michigan, while former Senator Sherrod Brown, in right-leaning Ohio, leads his Republican opponent by eight points.

What you’re not hearing about – and what we think matters a whole lot more in these midterms – are all the policy areas where these candidates agree.

We get that these policies don’t drive headlines. Factional infighting gets more clicks! But that coverage gives the impression that Democrats don’t have a unified agenda.

Today, we’re laying one out. It covers five major issues: the war in Iran, cuts to healthcare funding, reproductive rights, the minimum wage, and stock trading. It’s a top-five list of what Dems across the country are offering, and we brought receipts, so you can see their exact positions.

Democrats may have disagreements. But we also have a plan to rein in President Trump and fix this country.

End the war in Iran

“I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.” “I will not send you to fight and die in a foolish, never-ending foreign war.” “No new wars.”

That’s what Trump told voters again, and again, and again in the 2024 presidential campaign. It all fell apart in February, when he started a war with Iran that has ticked over to its 170th day and $37.5 billionth dollar.

To nobody’s surprise, it’s proven to be a political disaster for the Trump administration. In a recent survey, his approval rating on the war is down to 30%; his approval on gas prices has plummeted to just 21%.

Five of the six Democrats running the closest races this cycle have made their positions clear, and we’d suggest that unlike Trump, you can trust them to do what they say.

• Josh Turek, Iowa: “I will put an end to forever wars and will always put Iowa and Iowans first”

• Troy Jackson, Maine: “Susan Collins handed Trump a blank check for his illegal war in Iran, jacking up costs at home. Mainers won’t forget.”

• Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan: “This war must end. This aggression must stop… and Trump must be held accountable.”

• Sherrod Brown, Ohio: “We need to end this war and stop this chaos.”

• James Talarico, Texas: “Suspend the gas tax. Suspend the diesel tax. End the war in Iran.”

Oppose cuts to healthcare funding

Trump’s cuts to healthcare in his “Big, Beautiful Bill” were supported by all but three Senate Republicans (Susan Collins was one of those three). The scale of the pain that they inflict is mind-boggling: $1.1 trillion in spending cuts that would see 12 million Americans lose their health insurance over the next eight years.

As we’ve pointed out before, voters say that healthcare ranks above the cost of housing, food, gas and electricity as the most important cost on their mind heading into this election. There’s a reason Obama made it his signature issue in 2008, and it will likely be a critical issue in the next presidential race.

There are big differences between the battleground candidates on Medicare for All, a topic that Hakeem Jeffries waded into on Meet the Press yesterday, telling Kristen Welker that he didn’t support the legislation (he previously did).

But there’s universal agreement that Trump’s cuts to healthcare were an abomination. Opposing these cuts is the unity ticket Democrats can run on in ’26:

• Mary Peltola, Alaska: “Dan Sullivan threatened healthcare for one-third of Alaskans and gutted the funding our rural hospitals depend on.”

• Turek: “Because of the Big Beautiful Bill, we’re looking at 110,000 Iowans losing their healthcare.”

• Jackson: “People in this country deserve to have healthcare.”

• El-Sayed: “I will push to immediately repeal Medicaid and ACA subsidy cuts.”

• Brown: “I’ll always fight to protect Medicaid and Medicare because they protect hardworking Ohio families.”

• Talarico: “Protect and improve the ACA and reverse the Trump administration’s dangerous cuts.”

Codify Roe to protect reproductive rights

It’s hard to believe that this time only four years ago, the future of reproductive rights was a top issue in a major election cycle. It’s fallen off the map since then, but remember, that’s a product of voters feeling hopeless, not that the issue doesn’t matter anymore.

Abortion is still a major topic at the statewide level, where voters have turned out in droves to support constitutional amendments guaranteeing reproductive rights.

Ohio, home to one of the most competitive Senate races this year, is the perfect example: despite voting for Trump by an average of nearly ten points over the last decade, voters supported an amendment restoring Roe protections in the state by 14 points.

It’s a winning issue for Democrats, and a big-ticket item where the party’s battleground candidates are totally aligned:

• Peltola: “I would codify Roe v. Wade.”

• Turek: “The very first thing that we’ve got to do, and what I give you my pledge on, is that in the United States Senate, I will work to codify Roe.”

• Jackson: “It’s time we fight to codify Roe into federal law”

• El-Sayed: “I’ll fight to codify the rights once protected by Roe into federal law.”

• Brown: [Campaigning in 2022] “By this time next year, the Senate… will have codified Roe.”

• Talarico: “Restore reproductive freedom with federal legislation to codify Roe”

Raise the minimum wage

Raising the minimum wage is another issue that doesn’t get the attention it deserves – especially since voters have supported it by large majorities for years.

It still sits at just $7.25 per hour (good luck getting a burrito with that money), and nearly half of all states stick with that baseline, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Again, like most big economic issues, Democratic candidates differ in the approaches they’ll take to support low-wage workers. But the overall message is clear and consistent: increasing the wages of American workers.

• Peltola: “Push for real wage increases for Alaska workers” (with tax incentives for companies that pay fair wages)

• Turek: “I think that we need to raise it to a $15 minimum wage [and] attach that to a cost of living adjustment to make sure it is going up with inflation”

• Jackson: Has already voted to increase the minimum wage in Maine

• El-Sayed: Has long advocated for a $15 federal minimum wage

• Brown: An original sponsor of legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15

• Talarico: “It is time to raise the minimum wage and expand overtime pay”

Ban congressional stock trading

Which brings us to the swamp, fuller than ever under Trump. Putting a stop to corruption and cronyism is about as unified as Democrats get on any issue.

They’re not just targeting Republicans. One of the broadest areas of agreement we could find would affect everyone in Congress: banning congressional stock trading.

• Peltola: “Anyone with common sense would ban congressional stock trading”

• Turek: Has called for a ban on members of Congress owning or trading stocks

• Jackson: “Ban members of Congress from trading stock”

• El-Sayed: “I’ll always fight to ban stock trading in Congress and kick dark money out of our politics”

• Brown: “Ban congressional stock trading”

• Talarico: “Ban Members of Congress from trading individual stocks, engaging in insider trading, and profiting from their positions.”

Democrats aren’t going to agree on everything. They shouldn’t have to. Regardless, from Alaska to Texas, its candidates are offering voters a strong agenda: end Trump’s war, protect healthcare and abortion rights, raise workers’ wages, and clean up Washington.

The traditional male is making a comeback. At the top of his defining characteristics? Provider.

After decades of liberalizing what it means to be a man or a woman, young Americans are embracing a return to traditional gender roles faster than any other age group.

When Americans ages 18 to 34 were asked how they felt about the statement “It’s better for men to work and women to stay home,” 11% said they strongly agreed, the highest single-year reading in the General Social Survey’s 47-year history .

Young men are leading that shift. In 2016, 13% of men ages 18 to 34 agreed with the aforementioned statement; in 2024, it was 37%, the highest reading in more than three decades. Young women’s agreement rose to 29% from 25% over the same period.

We talk about young men a lot at Prof G Media — the challenges they face, the policies that help and hurt them, and the roles they play at home and in society. One question that’s come up repeatedly is central to the man-as-breadwinner stereotype: How important is making money to being a man?

We’re revisiting that discussion today. We’ll explore what the most recent data tells us about the role that providing plays in modern manhood, and what happens when masculinity is built on shaky ground.

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The Provider Mandate

It may not be woke to admit it, but men (and women) associate economic power with masculinity. When asked what being a man is, 86% of American men chose provider as the number one trait. Seventy-seven percent of women also chose provider as the top trait for a man. Men rated being a friend and being strong in second and third place, respectively.

This carries over into marriage expectations: Husbands are expected to provide in a way that wives are not.

Scott’s instincts are right — research confirms that money plays an important role in men’s success in the dating market.

In a study of online dating, men with higher incomes received 10x more profile visits than men who have lower listed incomes. This dynamic didn’t show up with women.

Furthermore, men in the highest-income category are 57% more likely to get married than men in the lowest-income category. Income is unrelated to marriage for women.

There isn’t just a correlation between money and marriage for men. Data indicates a causal relationship. As Lyman Stone, the director of research at the consulting firm Demographic Intelligence, pointed out, when women win the lottery, their marriage rates don’t change. But when men win the lottery, they get married.

Money also impacts divorce rates. One study of marriages found that the more time the husband spends unemployed, the higher the likelihood that the couple will get divorced. A woman’s employment, or lack thereof, however, has no impact on the likelihood of divorce.

The Weight of Providing

Money doesn’t just shape a man’s romantic prospects: The ability to provide, or lack thereof, shapes how men see themselves. In fact, men who experience economic anxiety are twice as likely to say they wish they were more masculine.

The inherent risk is that when men can’t provide, they struggle more — psychologically and emotionally — than women in the same position. A woman who loses a job loses a job; a man loses his job and his identity. The data bears this out. Men who are facing financial instability are 16x more likely to have suicidal thoughts than men who aren’t, while women who face financial anxiety are 7x more likely.

When your identity depends on your economic or professional success, it’s harder to bounce back when the American Dream isn’t working out. And for many men right now, it’s not.

You’ve heard it before: Men are struggling. Men ages 25 to 34 are 33% more likely than women the same age to still live with their parents, and 15% of men have no close friends today versus 10% of women.

Fewer men are graduating from college — only 40% of bachelor’s degrees last year went to men, less than the percentage of degrees awarded to women in 1970.

Those who do graduate are unemployed at a higher rate: 7% of recent male grads are unemployed, versus 4% of women. A major reason for this disparity is that two-thirds of the jobs created in the past three years were in healthcare, a field that employs mostly women.

This trend is getting worse: Nearly 90% of jobs created since President Trump returned to office have been filled by women.

Industries that traditionally employ men, like professional services (law, engineering, architecture) have grown modestly this year, while those that employ men without college degrees, like manufacturing, warehousing, and transportation, have been on a steady decline.

The net effect is that men who don’t attend college are falling even further behind. Men without college degrees now earn less, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1973, per the latest Pew Research data. Young women are earning more.

The Manosphere Distortion

Money plays a vital role in being a man, but it’s important to draw a distinction between zero-sum interpretations of masculinity and a more-grounded view of how money, gender, and partnership actually intersect.

Small but vocal online subcultures teach that money is the primary determinant of a man’s value — that status and “provider capacity” are all women look for. For unattractive men, money is the only reliable way to compensate for low attractiveness.

At the core of this thinking is the claim that women are primarily economic actors seeking security and lifestyle upgrades. They say marriage is an economic risk for men, and commitment is a financial trap.

Versions of its logic show up in commentary from well-known figures:

• Andrew Tate: “Women want money and use ‘love’ to get it.”

• Nick Fuentes: “[Women] expect so much from the men. They want the man to be rich and provide.”

• Sneako: “All women are gold diggers.”

The Reframe

There is more than one way to be a provider. Emotional support and taking on additional household and childcare tasks can be just as valuable as monetary support. Does society judge these options differently? Yes — for now. But there are signs that this is changing. Dads now make up 16% of stay-at-home parents, up from just 10% in 1989, and a plurality of U.S. adults say that society should be more accepting of men who take on caregiving roles.

Solutions

How can we help young men who are struggling?

1. Expand male mentorship for boys growing up in single-parent homes. Positive male role models provide structure, accountability, and a vision of healthy masculinity that isn’t shaped by online extremists or grievance communities.

2. Put more economic power back into the hands of young people.
Universal childcare, a higher minimum wage, and breaking up Big Tech would create more jobs, reinvigorate upward mobility, and make it easier for young people to form partnerships and families.

3. Teach young men that they have more agency than they think. Young men cannot be victims. They should work on being kind, exercising, building skills, and taking risks. Stop outsourcing responsibility to conspiracies about women or immigrants. Granted, this is easier said than done — another reason why we need more aspirational male role models.

1. America has become an entrepreneur’s paradise

2. How sustainability fell out of fashion

3. The newest workout class: Prenups and pilates

Programming note: The Markets team is going on vacation. We’ll return to your inbox again in September.

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Entrepreneur is a synonym for salesperson, and salesperson is the pedestrian term for storyteller. We (entrepreneurs) are all impostors who must deploy a fiction (i.e., story) that captures imaginations and solicits capital to pull the future forward and turn rhyme into reason. No business I have started, at the moment of inception, made any sense … until it did. Or didn’t. However, every business I’ve ever started has been based on a compelling story. Prof G Media is no different, though stories are our product. Mia Silverio, our research lead, plays a key role in developing the stories we tell. This week, I asked her to write about the art and science of effective storytelling.

Editorial note: This post was originally published August 15, 2025. Some of the examples contain data that is out of date. (Things change.) Nevertheless, the examples remain excellent illustrations of the art and science behind great storytelling.

I’ve been on hundreds of Zoom calls with Scott (not an exaggeration). Over the past five years, I’ve learned how he crafts powerful presentations. This is how we think about business storytelling at Prof G Media.

Welcome to the Entertainment Industry

Scott will often stop me when we’re reviewing his decks to call for “more drama.” Infusing a narrative with drama and emotion separates an exceptional storyteller from a mediocre one.

A good storyteller is simply a good entertainer. Am I discounting the importance of the underlying content? Somewhat. But the unfortunate truth is that, even if you have revelatory information to share, it’s not going to have an impact if no one’s paying attention. As writer and podcaster Derek Thompson observed, “There’s something overlapping in the Venn diagram between what is demanded of standup comics and what is demanded from public intellectuals. And that is: Explain this shit to me — make me feel something.”

Research tells us that experiences that elicit emotions are more memorable than ones that don’t. Your story doesn’t need to make your audience cry or laugh, but it should inspire thoughtfulness or surprise, promote introspection or curiosity, or evoke longing or guilt. At the very least, you need to be self-aware enough to make a deprecating joke about a dull topic.

Two ways to inject emotion into your presentations:

No. 1: Lean into provocative, contrarian takes that surprise your audience or challenge their assumptions.

The first slide of Scott’s 2024 TED talk asked, “Do we love our children?” The question begs an obvious answer — yes. But it sets up the next slides, which show irrefutable evidence that young people today have been handed a sour deal.

If we’ve elected officials who have let the American dream and the promises of capitalism die in the service of older generations’ enrichment, Scott asked, how does that behavior square with really loving our children?

Powerful stories surprise us. Harry Potter running into a brick wall and not getting head trauma is so delightfully perplexing that it prepares you for the magical new world you’re about to enter.

Scott is well known for his surprising takes: “Young people need to drink more.” “The era of the brand is over.” “Tesla is dramatically overvalued.” Etc. But provocative statements only work when they’re anchored in evidence.

If you don’t have the evidence or creative leeway with your content, you can still deliver surprises through how you present. Hide half a chart in PowerPoint and reveal it at a key moment. Drop in a video or audio clip. Bring in a guest. Move — literally. Scott has worn wigs, lip-synched onstage, and jumped up and down shirtless at SXSW. No one expects these stunts, which is why they land. Surprise gets attention and draws your audience into the story.

I never thought I’d use the words “accounting” and “viral” in the same sentence, but a professor at the University of Oklahoma changed that. Instead of droning on about balance sheets, Jonathan Kern runs around his classroom singing about depreciation and leading chants about cash flow. Viral TikTok videos show lecture halls full of engaged students. He made the most boring subject in business school unforgettable by doing the exact opposite of what everyone expects from an accounting class.

No. 2: Use engaging data.

Be selective with your data. And by “selective,” I don’t mean stingy — any persuasive story should include quantitative evidence. What I mean is, select quantitative data that has an outsized qualitative impact.

Use the “wow” test. If a data point, sentence, or slide doesn’t challenge or surprise you, cut it. Dig for the good data, don’t settle for the bland stuff.

For example, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft will together spend $364 billion on capital expenditures this year. I could leave it at that, or I could make that data dramatic (and meaningful) by telling you that for the same amount of money, you could build another International Space Station, reinvent the nuclear bomb, construct six nuclear submarines, dig the Channel Tunnel between England and France, run Japan’s military for an entire year … and still have enough left over to buy everyone in Manhattan and the Bronx an iPhone.

Note: this year, Big Tech will spend an estimated $800 billion — more than double what they spent last year. For that amount of money, they could (theoretically) buy Greenland.

I believe there’s “wow factor” data in every field, no matter how boring. Consider this dull data point: The U.S. tax code is roughly 75,000 pages long. To add drama, try this: All stacked up, the tax code would be taller than a two-story building.

OK, maybe that’s a bit too dramatic, but you get the idea.

Zoom Out

Good stories teach us something new. Good storytellers cultivate the ability to see what others don’t.

I call this “zooming out.” Most people analyze events as if they’re looking through a camera lens, seeing only what’s in focus. Skilled storytellers pull back to capture the wider landscape, revealing potential causes and effects that were invisible in the close-up shot. Put differently, zooming out requires moving from the what happened layer of understanding to the so what? what made it possible? what happens next? layers.

Zooming out is most helpful in the analysis and brainstorming stage, when you’re deciding what story to tell. That’s how I arrived at my 2024 prediction that GLP-1s will supercharge the medical aesthetics market. Most GLP-1 news covers how the drug will affect the food and beverage industry. That’s the obvious story. What’s a more interesting one? I zoomed out and asked, what exactly happens after a patient loses 50+ pounds?

Rapid weight loss can create beauty problems: excess skin and “Ozempic face” — the gaunt, aged look you get from losing facial fat too quickly, often “fixed” with filler. I wondered if this was already fueling demand in medical aesthetics. It is: 60% of plastic surgeons say weight-loss drugs are boosting their business.

The numbers are striking. Surgical lifts and tucks are up 20% to 40% since 2019. Facial fat grafting jumped 50% in the past year. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons found that 2 in 5 GLP-1 patients are considering surgery, and 1 in 5 already went under the knife. The stock of Galderma, a Swiss pharmaceutical and skincare company, is up 35% over the past year on surging demand for aesthetic treatments.

Now zoom out further: 72% of Americans are overweight or obese, but only 11% are taking GLP-1s. As adoption scales and insurance companies expand coverage, we’re looking at massive demand for cosmetic procedures to address the unwanted byproducts of weight loss.

Zooming out works in investing, too. In 1900 betting on the automobile probably seemed smart. But U.S. automakers delivered mediocre returns thanks to competition and consolidation. The real windfall came decades later from the ripple effects: Cars enabled suburbs, suburbs fueled demand for big-box retail, and Walmart stock returned 1,600x between 1980 and 2020 — roughly 70 times better than Ford over the same period. When everyone spots the primary trend, zoom out to spot the causes and effects.

Personalize and Contextualize

When Scott presents in a different country, I adapt his deck with region-specific data. Even small details get tailored. People pay more attention when content is personally relevant, so frame your message in a way that makes them care.

Great storytellers do this. Ruth Bader Ginsburg advanced gender equality by taking on cases where men, not women, were harmed by gendered laws — forcing male judges to confront bias in a way that felt personally relevant.

Personalization is only half the battle. The other half is context — framing numbers, concepts, or jargon so their meaning is instantly clear. When Elizabeth Warren protested Trump’s tax bill, she told Congress: “No baby should lose healthcare so Jeff Bezos can buy a third yacht.”

She could have cited the revenue loss in billions, but that wouldn’t land as hard. By putting the cost in human terms and tying it to a vivid image, she gave a dry budgetary trade-off context and made it impossible to ignore.

You can do the same with business data. “Nvidia is worth $4.5 trillion” is just a statistic. But saying “Nvidia is worth more as a percentage of global GDP than the U.K., France, and Germany’s stock markets” provides the context needed to understand the company’s scale, just like Warren’s yacht line made people feel the trade-off.

Context also makes complex topics accessible. Take this stat: Living next to a nuclear power plant for a year exposes you to 0.1 microsieverts of radiation. That sounds terrifying until you learn that eating two bananas gives you nearly twice that dose.

TikTok creator Becca Bloom nails this by explaining finance terminology using colloquial Gen Z language. She defines market cap as the total value of a company’s shares, aka “checking someone’s Hinge profile and instantly knowing if they’re high effort or still figuring life out.”

Visualize

You can supercharge the power of context through visualization. Data visualization is a defining feature of our work and core to the Prof G Media brand. It also leverages a basic fact about comprehension: The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. Scott’s presentations reflect this: His AI Optimist talk features 13 text-based slides and 104 filled with charts, images, and videos.

Here’s an example. I could tell you that AI data centers are major CO₂ contributors. Or I could show you this:

This chart works because it pairs visualization with baseline context. Without showing that the aviation industry accounts for 2.5% of global carbon emissions, how would you know 3.4% is really huge?

Back in 2021, when everyone was losing their minds over the metaverse, Scott was famously bearish. (“Headsets are nothing more than wearable sex repellent.”) I was putting together slides to back up his position, so I pulled Google search data for “metaverse.” The chart looked OK in isolation — a big spike, followed by a higher baseline.

But here’s why context is so important. For fun, I compared searches for the metaverse to something random: Crocs. Those ugly foam shoes consistently outpaced metaverse searches, even at its peak hype moment. If more people were googling Crocs than the supposed future of human interaction, maybe the metaverse wasn’t as inevitable as everyone claimed.

I started calling this the “Crocs Test.” It’s held up surprisingly well. The Crocs Test correctly predicted the collapse of Quibi, NFTs, and Virgin Galactic.

SaaS (Storytelling as a Service)

Stories exist to be shared. We tell them to entertain, teach, connect, and move other people. Storytelling is a service — a way of charting a path, yes, but also a mechanism for generating the hope needed to sustain us on our journey.

A well-told story creates a bridge between storyteller and audience, unlocking emotions in all directions. Scott, who the New York Times likened to Howard Stern — always sharp, sometimes crass — gets surprisingly emotional onstage during his presentations. He almost cried while giving his TED Talk, and I almost cried reading the comments on YouTube, not because we were receiving praise, but because we’d given hope:

Good stories help us recognize feelings we couldn’t name, experiences we believed no one else shared, and insights we knew but couldn’t articulate. As Walt Disney said of storytellers, “we instill hope again and again.”

-Mia Silverio

P.S. I interviewed 200 teachers about what AI is doing to their classrooms. The answers were bleak. Read it here, and find more of my work on Substack or follow me on Linkedin.

P.S.S. Prof G Producer Jenn Sanchez and I are hosting a livestream on how we tell stories through podcasting. Join us Aug 20 at 2:00pm ET.

Plus, Scott and Jess discuss America’s declining power and what it takes to build a capitalism that works for the middle class.

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They also discuss how dating apps have turned romance into a winner-take-all market, how pornography and AI offer frictionless substitutes for relationships, and why growing resentment between men and women is making it harder to find lasting love.

Follow Dr. Soh, @DrDebraSoh.

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Rohan Goswami is a business reporter at Semafor and the co-host of Compound Interest. Mark Zandi is the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

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