The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
00:16:52 · Laura Jáner, Brian Winter
[00:16:52] S2: Yeah. [00:16:52] S3: For a US equivalent. Lots of people compare Lula to Joe Biden. Yeah. And that makes sense because Lula was about the same age Biden was during his campaign. We all know how that ended. And I have to say that Lula has not shown, at least as far as I've seen, any of the visible signs of physical or mental decline that the former president Biden did. But I actually think that the proper analogy would be with Bill Clinton, because Bill Clinton was elected for the first time in 1992. And we think about how long ago that was in our politics. Well, imagine if Bill Clinton had run-in four elections since then, and that's roughly how Brazilians see Lula. But look, you have to give the guy credit. He was able to put together one last winning campaign. I think a lot of it was centered around his biography and the connection that he has with Brazil's working classes, because he is one of them. He's somebody who grew up, you know, under very precarious circumstances, who sold oranges and cashews on the streets of Sao Paulo when his family moved there from Northeastern Brazil, a very drought stricken poorer part of Brazil when he was just a kid. And, you know, that magic of his biography and his connection that he has with the working classes in particular are what carried him over the top. [00:18:23] S2: Yeah. I'm sure. I mean, I was born in 2001, so I have never known Brazil, yeah, without which is Lula's party. Most of it was Lula himself except for the four years of Bolsonaro we had in 2018 to '22.
00:18:46 · Scott Galloway
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00:20:54 · Scott Galloway
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00:22:02 · Laura Jáner
[00:22:02] S2: I would love to get to kind of the big theme, which is corruption and trust. And corruption has hung over Brazilian politics on both sides for decades. Lula himself was jailed before his conviction was annulled. And Jair Bolsonaro is now serving twenty seven years for Polanyi Kub. Also, Flávio Bolsonaro is under active investigation. Actually, in the news just before we joined, he seems to have fled the country after the federal police in Brazil are, like, FBI requested his passport. But, anyway, it's a developing situation. I feel like at this point, voters on both sides kind of assume their own candidate is is tainted, and and I feel like corruption... This year, we had a a big financial corruption scandal, Banco Master, seemed to have reached kind of every Brazilian business and politics elite, including the... Not Lula himself, but maybe some of his allies or... And and Flávio himself. So I would love to know kind of the outside view. So you've covered Brazil from the inside and you... You're now based in New York. How does Brazil's corruption problem look to sort of investors, governments abroad compared with how us Brazilians experience it? Because it's becomes such a kind of commonplace theme in our... In how we think about our politics. But also especially given the way corruption has become seemingly more entrenched in American politics as well with with Trump and power and insider trading scandals and whatnot. So I'd love to know your perspective.
00:23:34 · Brian Winter, Scott Galloway, Laura Jáner
[00:23:34] S3: Well, you've you've stolen my thunder a bit because what I was going to say was is as an American who follows Brazil, I have to start by acknowledging that corruption is a problem in our politics as well. [00:23:46] S0: Course. [00:23:47] S3: That's my starting point. Look, on the subject of corruption specifically in Brazil, a lot has happened over the last ten to fifteen years or so, including most famously the Lava Jato scandal of the twenty tens. [00:24:00] S2: Yes.
00:24:01 · Brian Winter
[00:24:01] S3: This was another scandal that when it broke splashed onto... I mean not everybody, but close. You know, politicians, business leaders, all across the political spectrum were wrapped up in that corruption scheme. Yeah. We've seen something happen similarly this year, another scandal that seemed to be connected to everybody. The path to changing that over the longer term is hard because these are systems that take root over long periods of time. And I guess for me one of the takeaways is it's hard to build a judicial system that works. Yeah. And that applies justice equally. You know, we're never perfect, but I think Brazil's got some work to do on that front. As far as its impact on the election, it's very again, and I'm sorry to sort of weave a bit around this question, but it's hard to speak about in absolute terms because it seemed at various points during this campaign like corruption was the number one issue for voters. Like this was what people were really watching and reacting to. And then at the end it was as if the narrative changed and people became more focused on the culture wars, on pocketbook issues, you know worries about Brazilian democracy if the Bolsonaro family were to return to power. You know the bottom line is don't blink because the focus of a campaign and the narrative of a campaign in the age of smartphones, in the age of social media can change so fast. I mean, I don't know that I've ever seen momentum change as dramatically, as quickly as I did in this Brazilian race, and I don't think that was just because it was Brazil. Right. I think this has to do with, you know, with the way politics are now. When I visited Brazil on several occasions in 2026, I was struck by how hard it was to find anyone who was excited about either candidate. And so I think that was a dynamic where, you know, you had people who were declaring who they wanted to vote for to pollsters and others, but they weren't as sure as we thought they