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They open with a question Jessica is uniquely positioned to ask: should Democrats be doing more appearances on conservative media? Yesterday, progressive Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed joined Fox News primetime host Jesse Watters. Jessica and Michael break down whether El-Sayed came out on top, and whether the broader strategy of reaching voters outside the Democratic media ecosystem is paying off. Can Democrats appeal to working-class men by embracing “bro-iness”?

The Paramount/Warner Bros. merger is on ice; the $111 billion deal has cleared all required regulatory approvals but remains frozen by an antitr…

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Then: Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan — once China’s richest man — has been sentenced to life in prison for financial fraud on a staggering scale, closing the book on the world’s largest corporate liquidation tied to the property sector. Alice and James ask whether the sentencing does anything to fix China’s still-struggling housing market.

Finally: China’s humanoid robot industry is booming — Chinese vendors account for 97% of global shipments — but who’s actually buying them, and how much of the demand is real versus a “circular financing” loop that inflates the…

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Using AI in Video and Audio Production

How do we produce compelling stories at the speed of internet content? I often ask my team to think about how we can use AI tools to move faster and tell better stories. This Friday August 28 at 10am ET Prof G Media senior producer and creative director for video Billy Bennett pulls back the curtain on how we integrate AI into the storytelling process. Billy will explain what works, what doesn’t, and how AI technologies enable greater efficiency and productivity. Paid subscribers only. Upgrade here.

Tell your AI agent to RSVP here

Friday Rage

Jessica Tarlov and Aaron Parnas are off Wednesday, but they’ll be live on Substack Friday at 11am ET with another episode of Raging Perspective. The show is free for everyone, so there’s no excuse for missing it.

RSVP to rage

Rent attention, earn trust

Prof G Media senior producer Jennifer Sanchez and research lead Mia Silverio gave a great presentation on researching, producing, and packaging podcasts — from finding the hook and holding attention to building the trust that keeps an audience coming back.

Watch the replay (paid subscribers only)

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Back in 2022, inflation looked like not just the dominant issue, but the only issue going into the midterms. Then, in June, the Supreme Court overturned Roe, tearing up the rights of millions of women. It was the biggest reason those midterms didn’t turn out as poorly for President Biden as people assumed earlier that cycle.

Four years later, and here comes another pivotal election issue at the last minute: data centers. They’re being built at an unprecedented rate, chewing up land and energy, and leaving voters very unhappy.

That part is clear. What we should do about them is a lot muddier. It’s become another fault line in the Michigan Senate race. It was enough to make the NRSC send an emergency memo in Ohio.

Meantime, three governors have announced actual major reforms on data centers… and two of them look like they’re panicking.

The other is Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who – true to form – has come out the other side with a nuanced approach: recognize the economic potential without leaving communities in the dark. No wonder he’s on track for a victory in November.

Programming note: Raging Perspective is back! Join Jessica and Aaron Parnas live every Wednesday at 12PM for an unscripted, unfiltered, unedited conversation about the issues defining this era. As always, we’re also taking your questions! Ask away in the comments section below.

It’s early, but voters really don’t like data centers

Let’s start with the cold, hard truth: voters don’t want data centers near their homes. Gallup asked about the topic earlier this year, and found:

• Seven in ten Americans oppose constructing data centers for AI in their local area

• Nearly half of all Americans said they were “greatly” worried about their environmental impact

• Americans were most worried, in order, about their effect on resources, quality-of-life concerns (land, construction, and health impacts), effect on costs, and pollution.

Data center advocates have some messaging work to do here. Yes, data centers consume a lot of water and energy. Berkeley estimates show that they’ll consume 10-15% of U.S. electricity by 2030, and they already use about 17 billion gallons of water per year. But that’s less than other industries, including cattle, power plants and even residential water use.

They’ve also delivered significant economic benefits to communities. Check out Loudoun County, Virginia, which has fast become the “data center hub of the world.” The county has opened two new schools, a park, and a $102 million recreation center over the last few years, all thanks to data center tax revenue. Or Richland Parish in Louisiana, where teachers are getting $51,000 bonuses this year thanks to tax revenue from a new Meta data center.

One issue they can’t address is the land use. These things are BIG. The same county, which has more than 250 warehouses, is losing a lot of space. Those centers use 53 million square feet, or about 920 football fields of land.

The scale of construction is also probably making voters uneasy. There are already 537 data centers in Texas, the most of any state. There are hundreds more on the way, and construction is accelerating: the number of centers there has more than doubled since July last year.

Pennsylvania and New York have a combined 309, and have also doubled their total number over the same period.

Moratorium mania has left two big-state governors panicking

Given those statistics, it’s easy to see why some people on the left say a moratorium is the only path forward.

What’s interesting is how much impact the “moratorium” advocates have had in two states that are otherwise diametrically opposed: New York and Texas.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul became the first governor to impose a one-year moratorium on the largest data centers (“hyperscale”), on the grounds that they are asking for more power than the state can handle. According to one state legislator, Mayor Mamdani’s request for New York City residents to turn up their thermostats in July has also weighed on lawmakers.

(Mamdani hasn’t commented on whether he supports a data center moratorium.)

Then there’s Texas, where – we can’t believe we’re saying this – Republican Governor Greg Abbott has taken a similar approach. In early August, he announced the state would stop approving data centers until his agencies could audit the amount of power that they’re seeking. It’s effectively an open-ended moratorium.

Abbott got himself into this mess by letting data centers spread without much oversight up until this point. That’s something he’s been willing to admit, telling This Week on Sunday that data center builders “dug their own grave” and are getting “backlash they deserve.”

Another big reason for that was Gina Hinojosa, his Democratic rival in this year’s gubernatorial race. She has been calling out Abbott for his previous lack of oversight on this topic all year; in particular for the tax incentives the state has been giving out, which she calls the most generous of any state in America.

It’s a strong argument from a VERY strong candidate, and it looks like it’s working: she has the support of 49% of Texas voters compared to Abbott’s 50% in a recent Fox News Poll.

Shapiro’s solution

So, Hochul’s announced a moratorium. Abbott, after months of letting data centers spread without the oversight they need, has now done the same.

Where does that leave the rest of us? Those of us who get the real economic advantages that these centers bring, but also want to live in communities that house more than just giant power-hungry grey boxes?

Enter Josh Shapiro, our friend in Pennsylvania.

On the surface, he should be just as vulnerable as Abbott or Hochul. Pennsylvania has about a third as many data centers as Texas, but with only 17% of the land area, and as we mentioned above, its number of centers has also more than doubled.

Some locals in the Keystone State are even taking to the streets to make their voices heard, including in Limerick and Plymouth.

Shapiro has come up with a solution. Instead of a blanket ban on data centers, he signed an executive order last week cracking down on “irresponsible” and “predatory” proposals. Under the order, data center developers must get support from local officials first, and they have to adhere to a set of good citizenship guidelines: they must pay for power, conserve water, hire local workers, and be transparent about their impact.

Under Shapiro’s plan, locals get a voice. He’s even set up a website asking Pennsylvania residents to tell him about their local proposals.

At a press conference last week, Shapiro told voters he wouldn’t be bullied by big corporations or bulldozed by lawyers. Years of polling on working-class communities shows that is an important message to send. And with his order, voters get something to back it up.

So no, don’t panic about data centers. There is a way forward that keeps the economic wins without the local losses.

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Get your ticket for our live show at 92NY: https://www.92ny.org/event/scott-galloway-and-jessica-tarlov

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Most of us, including me, live inside a media bubble. Jessica Tarlov, my Raging Moderates co-host, works across media bubbles. To say I’m in awe of how Jessica, the lone liberal voice on The Five, engages with her conservative colleagues at Fox News is an understatement. She appears unafraid, but as she writes in her book, I DISAGREE, fear doesn’t go away. You just decide it’s not going to stop you. Wise words.

I asked Jessica to share the following excerpt from her book, as I believe she understands better than most of us, or at least me, how to metabolize rage without letting it curdle, as well as where to find calm without falling into complacency. Her answer, in short: get louder about your convictions, gentler with your people.

Life is so rich,

On Raging Moderates, I ask my guests the same closing question: What’s one thing that makes you rage, and one thing you think we should all calm down about?

Every week, I think about how I’d answer. Sometimes it’s a frivolous frustration, like the jockeying for overhead bin space on an airplane. Other times, I’m raging about something deeper — maybe American citizens being detained by ICE.

When I ask about what we should calm down about, it’s the same pattern. Sometimes it’s a minor frustration with my kids, and other times I’m considering something more meta.

Right now, the thing that makes me rage is fear, or more particularly, the feeling so many of us have that we can’t overcome our fears. When I started at The Five, facing four conservatives and millions of viewers who might not agree with me, I’d wake up with my stomach in knots and rehearse arguments in my head, terrified I’d say the wrong thing.

But eventually I learned the fear doesn’t go away. You just decide it’s not going to stop you. You learn to live with it. To feed off the energy and, hopefully, to find a way to express it that doesn’t sap your strength, but makes you stronger. When your fear is harnessed, no matter what it’s about, you become a more complete, self-aware person.

That’s what I want for you. Not to be unafraid — fear is a rational response to the challenges ahead. But to decide that you’re not going to let that fear keep you on the sidelines of whatever challenge is making you tense.

And what is the one thing we should all calm down about?

Each other.

I know that sounds simple. Maybe even naive. But good people have flaws. It can be hard to see the humanity in people whose politics feel so foreign to yours, or imagine bonding with those who excuse or, worse, endorse behavior that’s antithetical to yours. But those same people can be loving parents, generous neighbors, and devoted friends. The reverse is true as well. People with the “right” politics can have serious personal failings. If we demand perfection from everyone, we end up alone.

And loneliness? That’s what’s really killing us.

It’s also okay to listen to bad ideas. In the past decade on Fox, I’ve been exposed to a lot of conservative thinking that I can get on board with, or at least peacefully co-exist with. But I’ve also heard arguments that range from misguided to flat-out wrong. Conspiracy theories dressed up as facts. Policy positions held up by vibes alone. Being exposed to those arguments didn’t convert me. It didn’t shake my core principles or change my vote. Actually, it’s been the opposite. Listening to bad ideas has taught me what people fear, what they believe in, what they know and don’t know, and sometimes — just sometimes — how I might change their minds. The weakest arguments are the easiest to dismantle. The strongest are actually worth wrestling with.

But the biggest reason we need to calm down about each other is that the world is less scary when we’re together. I’m lucky to have people I can share my thoughts and beliefs with. Fewer and fewer Americans can say the same. Some loneliness is imposed on us — by work, distance from family, health, circumstance. But some of it is voluntary. We hide from one another when things get tense. We ghost friends, skip family dinners, mute people on social media.

Politics matters. Of course it does. But the most meaningful parts of life — love and loss, opportunity and disappointment, triumphs and mistakes — are rarely related to a new law or Truth Social post. That’s true even for me, and I live and breathe this stuff.

What all those meaningful moments have in common is that they’re shared with other people. My father squeezing my hand on my wedding day even though he could barely stand. My husband, Brian, making me laugh when I wanted to cry. My daughters’ faces when they figure out how to do something they thought was impossible. Random acts of kindness from Fox viewers who disagree with almost everything I say but still sent me those baby blankets when Cleo was born.

Remembering that calms me down more than anything.

So yes, rage when you need to. Fight for what you believe in. Use your voice. Show up prepared with facts and conviction.

But don’t forget that the person across from you — whether across the Thanksgiving table or across the cable news split screen — is a person. Flawed, complicated, sometimes infuriating, but still human.

That’s not weakness. That’s strength. And it’s the only way forward.

– Jessica Tarlov

P.S. You can pre-order I DISAGREE: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends, and for those of you in the New York area, there are still a limited number of tickets available for my Conversation with Scott at 92NY on Wednesday September 16 at 7pm.

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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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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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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