# Galloway favors income-based affirmative action

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/galloway-favors-income-based-affirmative-action/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Scott Galloway](https://realalpha.app/people/scott-galloway/) · Professor
- Host: [Steven Bartlett](https://realalpha.app/people/steven-bartlett/) · Host, The Diary Of A CEO
- Show: The Diary Of A CEO
- Episode: [US ELECTION DEBATE: What Trump’s Return REALLY Means For The World! Is The UK About To Collapse?](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/), Jan 23, 2025
- Moment: 36:54 to 41:11 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/galloway-favors-income-based-affirmative-action/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2214

## Quote

> “I had unfair advantage because I came from a **household that was low income**.”
> — [Scott Galloway](https://realalpha.app/people/scott-galloway/) at [40:42](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2442) · The Diary Of A CEO

## Takeaways

1. Galloway says DEI's effects differ between universities and corporate boards.
2. He favors adversity-based admissions and aid tied to poverty.
3. He says venture capital remains concentrated among Stanford and Harvard networks.

## About this segment

Scott Galloway distinguishes university admissions from corporate hiring, and argues help should target economic disadvantage. His own Pell Grants inform his case for adversity-based admissions.

From “US ELECTION DEBATE: What Trump’s Return REALLY Means For The World! Is The UK About To Collapse?”, Jan 23, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[37:01](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2221) all of that just needs to end. I was watching last night as Trump sat there signing all of those executive orders. And I also watched his inauguration speak where he said, we will forge a society that is colourblind and merit-based. And he signed a bunch of executive orders last night to eliminate a variety of different DEI programmes in the federal government, directing agencies to dismantle these practices within 60 days. And then over the last couple of months, we've seen Meta come out and dismantle and reverse some of their DEI programmes. We've seen McDonald's, Walmart, Ford, Harley Davidson, Boeing, Amazon, Toyota, it feels like there's a real shift happening in both how, you know, sort of identity politics, but also in the sort of corporate environment that those identity politics have really emerged from. Are you supportive of

[37:49](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2269) Trump's move to roll back DEI measures? So I think there's a lot of nuance here. I would argue in universities we've dei's uses a giant misdirect from people such as myself who are enforcers of the caste system and wake up every morning and look in the mirror and ask ourselves the same question how do i increase my compensation while decreasing my accountability and what i found is the ultimate strategy is to create an lvma trajectionist bullshit elitist strategy where Dartmouth sits on a endowment of $8 billion and lets in 500 kids. So the conversation around who gets in is a misdirection. The important question that is how many. If you are not growing your endowment or your freshman class faster than population, you should lose your tax-free status.

[38:36](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2316) We should be letting in more gay kids, more trans kids, more white Republicans from rural state. You know who doesn't talk about DEI? Junior colleges, because there's no admissions. They I think DEI on campus has ended up eating its own tail, started out with the right idea. Now it's nothing. And I would argue the same is somewhat true of the Democratic Party. I went to the Democratic National Convention.

[38:59](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2339) On the DNC.org website, it lists 17 special introscripts. And it says explicitly who we serve, Asian Pacific Islanders, seniors, veterans, Black Americans, the disabled. It basically lists, I added this up, 76% of the population. And when you say you're actively advocating for 76% of the population, you're not advocating for 76% of the population. You're discriminating against the 24%. It's gone too far.

[39:28](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2368) I would argue in the workplace, having served on seven public company boards, and I'm going to do a lot of boasting here because I'm desperate for all of your affirmation, and 12 private company boards, there's still work to be done in the private sector. There still is a site. goal. 40% of all venture capitalists and probably 70 or 80% of all venture capital deployed are white guys from just two universities, Stanford and Harvard. So I would argue universities, it's gotten out of control. I'd love to see the DEI apparatus disassembled along with the ethics department, the sustainability department, the leadership department. These are all bullshit where we hire formerly important people with no standards. They never get fired. It just translates to more student debt. In the boardroom, in corporations, in certain sectors, I do think

[40:15](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2415) there is a need to be thoughtful about broadening the aperture of the lens and bringing in people who are underrepresented. There's still a dearth of women raising venture cap. So I think it's nuanced based on sector. But to just say all DEI is bad, I want to move to where the University of California did in 1997. They don't have race-based affirmative action. They have adversity-based affirmative action.

[40:42](https://realalpha.app/v/qpBnYB0I6_0/?t=2442) I'm a beneficiary of affirmative action. I had something called Pell Grants. I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died as secretary, so I got grants. I had unfair advantage because I came from a household that was low income. And I think that there should be affirmative action, and I think it should be based on color, but that color is green. The poor need our help.