Scott, this lands, and I'd count myself in the category you're describing, though I've usually been filed under "self-made." I got a superb school education, then access to Open University computer science courses in the 1970s, right as the field was being invented—meaning I was taught programming by public infrastructure before most of the world knew the discipline existed. From there: eighty-hour weeks, fifty-one weeks a year, for a decade straight, and I retired at 44 after selling my third company to a larger competitor (the second had already gone public on the Toronto Stock Exchange). By every surface metric, that's a self-made story. But it only works because a public system handed a teenager access to a field years before the market caught up to its value. Fantastic education plus hard, smart work; but the education came first.
One of my clients, years later, had a slogan that captures your entire argument better than most economists manage: Dofasco Steel's was "Our product is steel. Our strength is our people." I've never forgotten it, because it quietly overturns the thing companies usually brag about. The product isn't the achievement: it's the visible output of a much less visible investment, and the real asset was never on the balance sheet where anyone could admire it. Swap "Dofasco" for "America" and "steel" for "Musk, Palihapitiya, Andreessen, Galloway" and you have the whole essay in nine words. The product was individual success. The strength, the actual load-bearing asset underneath it, was always the people and institutions nobody photographs at the ribbon-cutting. Every giant in your piece forgot which one was the product and which was the strength. You didn't.
Scott I am grateful and inspired and although I can’t give $20 million dollars, at 62 I realized I could contribute by advocating for the values I hold dear by creating an active letter writing campaign to whoever I believe could make a difference. I am now 75 and in the last 2 weeks have sent letters, not emails, to the Smithsonian Board of Regents, their Oversight Committee and the Jury Conference of the US. It’s all I can do and I am proud to do it.
Without a doubt, the public school system in this country is broken. I.E., the city of Baltimore. You mentioned taxing private schools from K to 12. Does that include Catholic schools or other religious oriented schools? If it does, this suggestion is unfair and reeks of your anti Christian Judeo perspective. Lastly, did the federal government also provide the brain power and intelligence of Tesla's engineers or solely the funding?
I can not agree with taxing any K-12 private school. I don't believe in taxing the basics: home, real food (not fast food, junk food), medical, gyms, exercise equipment, vitamins/supplements, education - even it its crab legs, private school or protein powder. No tax to live and be healthy. IDC if its upper class stuff, no tax to live a basic life.
Galloway’s argument is emotionally compelling, but it conveniently ignores who dismantled the affordable public-education system that once helped people like him.
He attended UCLA when California taxpayers heavily subsidized public universities, admissions were far less restrictive, and tuition was deliberately kept low. That opportunity did not disappear because Americans suddenly stopped caring about “unremarkable” students. It disappeared because political leaders and university administrators changed their priorities.
As elite private universities raised tuition, expanded bureaucracies, and competed through amenities, branding, prestige, and exclusivity, public universities began imitating them. At the same time, state governments reduced higher-education funding as a share of university budgets and redirected public money toward an ever-expanding collection of political programs, administrative initiatives, and ideological vanity projects. Students were forced to make up the difference through higher tuition and debt. The Government Accountability Office found that from 2003 through 2012, state funding for public colleges fell 12% while median tuition increased 55%. GAO report
Galloway therefore celebrates the public university model of his youth while avoiding the uncomfortable question: Who undermined it?
His proposed solution—more taxes, more spending, and another “Marshall Plan”—rewards the same institutions and political class that allowed costs and administrative overhead to explode. Simply pouring more taxpayer money into an unreformed system does not restore affordability; it may subsidize further institutional expansion while insulating universities from accountability.
The better solution is to restore the original bargain: taxpayers support accessible public education, universities control costs, administrative growth is restrained, admission capacity expands, and funding follows students and instruction—not prestige projects, political activism, or bureaucratic empire-building.
Galloway says he was “American-made.” Fair enough. But today’s students are being denied the affordable system that made him—and the people responsible cannot repair it merely by demanding more money from taxpayers.
Since Scott will be part of the Regents, he will be well positioned to advocate for some of the changes you mentioned. It will also take people motivated enough to vote in the politicans who share the same objectives.
Bravo Scott. What a well deserved honor and wonderful you have repaid the University of California system so handsomely! We need more people like you who do the right thing.
Scott this is so well said, and I appreciate you saying what you said, citing the statistics you did, and that you call bullshit on the mistruths i.e...."In an interview with the Economist last week, Elon Musk claimed that zero people had died as a result of his decision to eviscerate foreign aid while running DOGE. In fact, a conservative estimate puts the death toll after one year at more than 750,000 people, two-thirds of them children. The ugly cruelty of the world’s wealthiest man slashing aid to its most vulnerable people marks the worst attribute of this age: misplaced self-credit that immolates empathy. Musk, who came to the U.S. on a student visa, is the poster boy for tech bros who shit-post public spending … unless they’re the beneficiaries. Musk is the welfare queen Reagan complained about. Tesla was built with $2.5 billion of U.S. government support. NASA is SpaceX’s No. 1 customer, accounting for 20% of the company’s revenue.. Thank you." I am sick sick sick of people who only think of themselves and not those around them...funny, I was taught our job is to lift others up....
Great stuff! as usual... Giving back to the UC system = greatest public university system ever!
So true that the biggest advances in US tech. & GDP started with government R&D spending after WW2...
GI Bill = College. DARPA = www. 60s/70s. uChip DoD = Si Valley. NASA = SpaceX/Starlink. Berkeley BSD UNIX = Apple OS/iOS. UofI = Mosaic/Netscape/IE/Chrome.
All modern Apple software still relies heavily on the architecture and heritage of UC Berkeley's BSD project - a UNIX OS created at UC-Berkeley.
Apple's operating systems (macOS and iOS) are directly descended from Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a UNIX operating system created at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1970s.The Connection: BSD to AppleThe Origin: Researchers at UC Berkeley developed BSD UNIX, adding advanced networking and core system tools to standard AT&T Unix. The NeXT Step: When Steve Jobs left Apple in the 1980s to found NeXT Computer, he built the NeXTSTEP operating system using a combination of the Mach kernel and BSD UNIX code.The Return to Apple: Apple bought NeXT in 1996 and brought Steve Jobs back. NeXTSTEP became the foundation for Mac OS X (now called macOS) and later iOS, meaning modern Apple software still relies heavily on the architecture and heritage of UC Berkeley's BSD project.
When Steve Jobs founded NeXT, his team built the NeXTSTEP operating system (which eventually became MacOC & iOS) in the late 80s' by combining pieces from 2 University sources:
1. The Mach Kernel: Developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to handle core processor tasks.
2. BSD Subsystems: Layered on top of the kernel to handle filesystems, networking, and terminal commands. NeXT pulled directly from UC-Berkeley's 4.3BSD release.
Truth be told. Buy a car get $ 7,000 off paid for by us. Yeah, Elon, you did it all on your own, and now you just want to keep every damn penny you have.
Reagan was a shill for the uber-rich to cut inheritance taxes, taxes on their wealth, and now we are so upside down it's coming back to kill us. Add AI, and we're done. There is no balancing this pendulum swing.
My success is self-made. After losing everything I made in a family business by being their scapegoat and kicked to the curb, I rebuilt my fortunes not once but three times. You know, the third time is the charm. Persistence is the only answer. "Calvin Coolidge." I pay horrendous taxes now; let them do the same. Nobody needs a thousand million dollars.
Scott, this lands, and I'd count myself in the category you're describing, though I've usually been filed under "self-made." I got a superb school education, then access to Open University computer science courses in the 1970s, right as the field was being invented—meaning I was taught programming by public infrastructure before most of the world knew the discipline existed. From there: eighty-hour weeks, fifty-one weeks a year, for a decade straight, and I retired at 44 after selling my third company to a larger competitor (the second had already gone public on the Toronto Stock Exchange). By every surface metric, that's a self-made story. But it only works because a public system handed a teenager access to a field years before the market caught up to its value. Fantastic education plus hard, smart work; but the education came first.
One of my clients, years later, had a slogan that captures your entire argument better than most economists manage: Dofasco Steel's was "Our product is steel. Our strength is our people." I've never forgotten it, because it quietly overturns the thing companies usually brag about. The product isn't the achievement: it's the visible output of a much less visible investment, and the real asset was never on the balance sheet where anyone could admire it. Swap "Dofasco" for "America" and "steel" for "Musk, Palihapitiya, Andreessen, Galloway" and you have the whole essay in nine words. The product was individual success. The strength, the actual load-bearing asset underneath it, was always the people and institutions nobody photographs at the ribbon-cutting. Every giant in your piece forgot which one was the product and which was the strength. You didn't.
Thank you for doing that.
Well put Eric!
excellent comment
Well-said!
Scott I am grateful and inspired and although I can’t give $20 million dollars, at 62 I realized I could contribute by advocating for the values I hold dear by creating an active letter writing campaign to whoever I believe could make a difference. I am now 75 and in the last 2 weeks have sent letters, not emails, to the Smithsonian Board of Regents, their Oversight Committee and the Jury Conference of the US. It’s all I can do and I am proud to do it.
As you say “Life is so rich”
Without a doubt, the public school system in this country is broken. I.E., the city of Baltimore. You mentioned taxing private schools from K to 12. Does that include Catholic schools or other religious oriented schools? If it does, this suggestion is unfair and reeks of your anti Christian Judeo perspective. Lastly, did the federal government also provide the brain power and intelligence of Tesla's engineers or solely the funding?
I can not agree with taxing any K-12 private school. I don't believe in taxing the basics: home, real food (not fast food, junk food), medical, gyms, exercise equipment, vitamins/supplements, education - even it its crab legs, private school or protein powder. No tax to live and be healthy. IDC if its upper class stuff, no tax to live a basic life.
Galloway’s argument is emotionally compelling, but it conveniently ignores who dismantled the affordable public-education system that once helped people like him.
He attended UCLA when California taxpayers heavily subsidized public universities, admissions were far less restrictive, and tuition was deliberately kept low. That opportunity did not disappear because Americans suddenly stopped caring about “unremarkable” students. It disappeared because political leaders and university administrators changed their priorities.
As elite private universities raised tuition, expanded bureaucracies, and competed through amenities, branding, prestige, and exclusivity, public universities began imitating them. At the same time, state governments reduced higher-education funding as a share of university budgets and redirected public money toward an ever-expanding collection of political programs, administrative initiatives, and ideological vanity projects. Students were forced to make up the difference through higher tuition and debt. The Government Accountability Office found that from 2003 through 2012, state funding for public colleges fell 12% while median tuition increased 55%. GAO report
Galloway therefore celebrates the public university model of his youth while avoiding the uncomfortable question: Who undermined it?
His proposed solution—more taxes, more spending, and another “Marshall Plan”—rewards the same institutions and political class that allowed costs and administrative overhead to explode. Simply pouring more taxpayer money into an unreformed system does not restore affordability; it may subsidize further institutional expansion while insulating universities from accountability.
The better solution is to restore the original bargain: taxpayers support accessible public education, universities control costs, administrative growth is restrained, admission capacity expands, and funding follows students and instruction—not prestige projects, political activism, or bureaucratic empire-building.
Galloway says he was “American-made.” Fair enough. But today’s students are being denied the affordable system that made him—and the people responsible cannot repair it merely by demanding more money from taxpayers.
Since Scott will be part of the Regents, he will be well positioned to advocate for some of the changes you mentioned. It will also take people motivated enough to vote in the politicans who share the same objectives.
Great read, great view. I’m a Swede, and I’m forever grateful for my free education made possible by the people who went before me.
All I can say is: 👏👏👏
It's OK to not be overly humble as long as you are not an Ahole. You approach the boundaries of AHism, but rarely go over the line.
Really enjoyed this.
Bravo Scott. What a well deserved honor and wonderful you have repaid the University of California system so handsomely! We need more people like you who do the right thing.
Scott this is so well said, and I appreciate you saying what you said, citing the statistics you did, and that you call bullshit on the mistruths i.e...."In an interview with the Economist last week, Elon Musk claimed that zero people had died as a result of his decision to eviscerate foreign aid while running DOGE. In fact, a conservative estimate puts the death toll after one year at more than 750,000 people, two-thirds of them children. The ugly cruelty of the world’s wealthiest man slashing aid to its most vulnerable people marks the worst attribute of this age: misplaced self-credit that immolates empathy. Musk, who came to the U.S. on a student visa, is the poster boy for tech bros who shit-post public spending … unless they’re the beneficiaries. Musk is the welfare queen Reagan complained about. Tesla was built with $2.5 billion of U.S. government support. NASA is SpaceX’s No. 1 customer, accounting for 20% of the company’s revenue.. Thank you." I am sick sick sick of people who only think of themselves and not those around them...funny, I was taught our job is to lift others up....
Great stuff! as usual... Giving back to the UC system = greatest public university system ever!
So true that the biggest advances in US tech. & GDP started with government R&D spending after WW2...
GI Bill = College. DARPA = www. 60s/70s. uChip DoD = Si Valley. NASA = SpaceX/Starlink. Berkeley BSD UNIX = Apple OS/iOS. UofI = Mosaic/Netscape/IE/Chrome.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
I thought UNIX originally was Bell Labs. Still a quasi govt organization as part of a regulated monopoly.
All modern Apple software still relies heavily on the architecture and heritage of UC Berkeley's BSD project - a UNIX OS created at UC-Berkeley.
Apple's operating systems (macOS and iOS) are directly descended from Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a UNIX operating system created at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1970s.The Connection: BSD to AppleThe Origin: Researchers at UC Berkeley developed BSD UNIX, adding advanced networking and core system tools to standard AT&T Unix. The NeXT Step: When Steve Jobs left Apple in the 1980s to found NeXT Computer, he built the NeXTSTEP operating system using a combination of the Mach kernel and BSD UNIX code.The Return to Apple: Apple bought NeXT in 1996 and brought Steve Jobs back. NeXTSTEP became the foundation for Mac OS X (now called macOS) and later iOS, meaning modern Apple software still relies heavily on the architecture and heritage of UC Berkeley's BSD project.
BSD was based upon the work of Thompson and Ritchie at Bell Labs.
When Steve Jobs founded NeXT, his team built the NeXTSTEP operating system (which eventually became MacOC & iOS) in the late 80s' by combining pieces from 2 University sources:
1. The Mach Kernel: Developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to handle core processor tasks.
2. BSD Subsystems: Layered on top of the kernel to handle filesystems, networking, and terminal commands. NeXT pulled directly from UC-Berkeley's 4.3BSD release.
Truth be told. Buy a car get $ 7,000 off paid for by us. Yeah, Elon, you did it all on your own, and now you just want to keep every damn penny you have.
Reagan was a shill for the uber-rich to cut inheritance taxes, taxes on their wealth, and now we are so upside down it's coming back to kill us. Add AI, and we're done. There is no balancing this pendulum swing.
My success is self-made. After losing everything I made in a family business by being their scapegoat and kicked to the curb, I rebuilt my fortunes not once but three times. You know, the third time is the charm. Persistence is the only answer. "Calvin Coolidge." I pay horrendous taxes now; let them do the same. Nobody needs a thousand million dollars.
Could be your Best Post.
Scott, saw you on the Bill Maher show last night. Outstanding dialogue. Now, your weekly newsletter on Friday was perfection. You’re the best Scott!
TW
Great article Prof, truer words have rarely been written.
Thank you.
Excellent post Mr. Galloway.
Signed,
Another product of the California public school system