Many Americans have big feelings about “big government.” For some, it’s become shorthand for inefficiency, waste, and overreach. Critics say government spending and bureaucratic bloat are obstacles to economic growth and people’s individual success. But according to Scott Galloway, a serial entrepreneur and professor of marketing at New York University, that doesn’t paint the complete picture. In fact, he says, some of the most successful people alive owe their prosperity to “big government”—himself included.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Vice’s Shane Smith published in October, Galloway spoke about how he never would have been successful had UCLA not given him a chance. When he initially applied to the university as a teenager, he got rejected. He had a 3.1 GPA, and his SAT score was 1130 out of 1600.
