Are Men Okay?

In place of Raging Moderates, we're sharing an episode of The Gray Area featuring the Dawg. Host Sean Illing gets personal when he asks professor and podcast host Scott Galloway: What’s going on with men? There’s a growing body of evidence that men are falling behind in education, the labor market, and other areas. And when you look at the numbers on drug overdoses and deaths by suicide, it’s pretty bleak. Sean and Scott — both of whom are raising sons — talk about the struggles men are facing today, how parents can navigate the current moment, and the chall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Northwest Registered Agent. Your business identity is everything that makes your business legitimate and professional. With Northwest Registered Agent, you don't just form a business, you start a complete foundation built for privacy, credibility, and growth. That includes registered agent service, a business address, operating agreement, domain, website, professional email, phone number, and built-in privacy. In other words, your home address, personal email, and phone number stay private. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com/aplewatchseries12.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies, 18 plus.

• 1:46Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to another episode of the Prop G Pod. We typically share an episode of Raging Moderates on Tuesdays, but the dog is traveling. So in place of our regularly scheduled programming, we're sharing an episode of The Gray Area, a podcast hosted by Sean Illing, a journalist at Vox Media and the co-author of The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion. The episode we're sharing today features yours truly. We discuss the state of young men, including the struggles men are facing today, how parents can navigate the current moment, and the challenges Sean and I each faced as young men. So with that, here's The Gray Area. Are men okay?

• 2:24Speaker 03

  What's going on with men? There's a growing body of evidence that men are falling behind in education, in the labor market. And when you look at the numbers on drug overdoses and deaths by suicide, it's pretty bleak. And it's not just a problem for men. It's a problem for women and for our culture and our politics. The fact is, we have an alarming number of lonely, alienated, and disaffected young men in this country. And whatever the reasons for that, and however justified they may or may not be, this is something we have to deal with.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  You can see this playing out on the political front. Donald Trump made explicit appeals to men, and it worked. He gained ground with men, especially younger men. And not just white men, but also Black and Latino men. For me, personally, the sort of masculinity that Trump models isn't appealing. I think he's a bully. I think he's a liar. And he projects a kind of strength that's divorced from any sense of restraint or obligation to other people. But the fact that he appeals to so many men says something important about this cultural moment.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  I think about this a lot because I'm raising a young son. And I ask myself, how do I raise him to be a man who's strong and capable, but also compassionate and honest? I'm Sean Ealing, and this is The Gray Area. Today's guest is Scott Galloway. He's a professor of marketing at NYU and the host of the Professor G Pod on the Vox Media Podcast Network. And he's spent a ton of time researching and thinking about these issues. He's currently working on a book, actually, about men and masculinity.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  I've wanted to talk to Scott for a while about the research he's doing, what he's learning, and how it's changing the way he thinks about his own sons, how he's raising them. It's a conversation I was going to have outside this podcast, you know, just talking to the guy. But I know a lot of you are also wrestling with this question of what makes a man, whether you're parents or not. So I invited Scott onto the show to talk about masculinity, about the struggles men are facing, and about his advice for parents who are also struggling to navigate this moment. The conversation

• 5:19Speaker 03

  got pretty personal, which I think is good. If your definition of masculinity includes dudes can't talk about their feelings, well, you're about to be surprised.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Scott Galloway, welcome to the show. Sean, thanks for having me.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  I'm really glad you're here. You've been great on this topic, and it's something I think about a lot. And I have found that it is a complicated conversation to try and have with people. Men are obviously not the only ones struggling. And, you know, people are very used to seeing men in power and in charge, that it's hard to reframe this conversation in a productive way. So I just want to start by trying to understand some of the headwinds here and just give people a snapshot of the data. So when someone wants to know what you mean when you say that men are struggling, how do you sum it up? What do you point to?

• 6:28Scott Galloway?

  Well, it's just data. Men are four times as likely to kill themselves. If you walk into a morgue and you see five people who died by suicide, four of them are men. Men are not attaching to school, they're not attaching to relationships, they're not attaching to work. One in three men under the age of 30 has a girlfriend, two in three women under the age of 30 has a boyfriend. You think, well, that's mathematically impossible. It's not, because women are dating older, because they want more economically and emotionally viable men. And the gag reflex you get from progressives and women, when you start talking about, you know, struggling young men, is understandable, because no one was talking about it. And then some very unproductive voices entered into that void. And this kind

• 7:12Scott Galloway?

  of manosphere emerged where it was more, what I would refer to as thinly veiled misogyny, where, you know, it starts off good. It starts off, take control of your life, be more action-oriented, be physically fit. And then it starts to go to these really ugly places, basically treating women as property, showing them who's boss. You would never let, I would never let my girlfriend go to the club alone, buying some sort of expensive, douchey, like, supercar, and by the way, take my crypto university and learn how to be a baller. And so, the voices that entered this discussion initially were really unproductive voices. So I think the natural gag reflex was somewhat understandable. The conversation has become much more productive,

• 7:52Scott Galloway?

  because one, the data continues to get worse, and two, the conversation is now being led or inspired by a demographic that has more credibility, and that is mothers. And that is, you see a lot of mothers who consider themselves feminists saying, there's just no getting around it. I have three kids, two daughters, one son, one daughter at Penn, one daughter in PR in Chicago, and my son is in the basement vaping and playing video games. And the data is just overwhelming. And you need to acknowledge that, one, men have had a 2,000-year head start, so you can understand why people don't feel sorry for young men on a kind of macro level basis. But also to recognize that empathy is not a zero sum game.

• 8:37Scott Galloway?

  Civil rights didn't hurt white people. Gay marriage didn't hurt heteronormative marriage. And while acknowledging that women still face a lot of challenges, to have empathy for the very real and increasing struggles young men are facing, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. And a 19 year old kid in Appalachia, who's being raised by a single mother, has no male role models, has very few economic opportunities, are on ramps into the middle class, is struggling perhaps, or has gambling apps on his phone, sending him notifications 50 times a day to bet on the Kansas City Chiefs game, who has social media addicting him and maybe radicalizing him, has few mating opportunities.

• 9:18Scott Galloway?

  It's okay to have empathy for that kid, recognizing that, yeah, maybe Scott Galloway, and maybe even Sean, you're younger than me, had more advantage than they deserved. But should that 19 year old male pay the price for the advantage I registered? So I think the conversation actually over the last five or seven years has become much more productive. And if you want to understand why we should be thinking about it, just look at the data. We are not, women are not going to continue to flourish, nor is the nation if men are flailing.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Why do you think it's so hard to accept this idea that empathy doesn't have to be a zero sum game?

• 9:54Scott Galloway?

  I think a lot of it is our fault. And when I say our, I mean progressives. There is a certain, I think, sort of, okay, these people have advantage and are naturally more likely and prone to be oppressors than the oppressed. And there's very little empathy for them. In a society that is dramatically changing, where men don't have the same economic role they used to, or the same economic opportunities, there are some second order effects we need to talk about. And that is, if we're going to have an honest conversation around mating, we have to have an honest conversation around mating. So men mate socioeconomically horizontally and down, women horizontally and up. Three quarters of women say economic viability is key to a mate. Only a quarter of men, now I think it's a third, say it's key to a mate.

• 10:39Scott Galloway?

  How many times have we heard, "I know all of these great women who are high-character, attractive, have their act together, but they can't find a man." Well, actually, they can. They just can't find a man they want to date. So what you have is more and more reasons, including political bifurcation, where young people aren't connecting, falling in love and mating, and forming households. And we have declining birth rates. If it wasn't for immigration, we'd be in decline. And I think it leads to a lot of second-order effects around loneliness and depression and anxiety. And then, just to wrap up here, it's different for men than women, because when women don't have a romantic relationship, oftentimes, they will channel that additional energy into relationships with friends, family, and their work.

• 11:24Scott Galloway?

  When men don't have the prospect of a romantic relationship, they kind of come off the rails. They're less likely to be employed. They're more likely to engage in misogynistic content. And some, without the prospect of a romantic relationship, men become shitty citizens. Women don't have an obligation to mate with anyone. I'm not suggesting they lower their standards, but the reality is, we're producing the most dangerous person in the world by the millions, and that is a young, lonely, broke man. And the question is, all right, what does that mean for society? Because the thing that the most violent, unstable societies have in common is a disproportion of young men who feel as if they have nothing to lose because they have no economic or romantic opportunities.

• 12:06Scott Galloway?

  So I think this is a big issue for society, and I just come back to the same thing. Empathy is not a zero-sum game. We can acknowledge that women still face a lot of challenges, and we should be focused on those. We should do nothing to get in the way of their progress. But at the same time, we can recognize that a young man should not be paying for the advantage I received by not acknowledging the data around just how many headwinds young men are facing in our society.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  I suspect that, you know, the numbers on so-called deaths of despair, drug addiction, suicide, these sorts of things have always tilted in the direction of men disproportionately. But how much is that gap growing? And how much is it growing particularly among young, younger men?

• 12:53Scott Galloway?

  It's staggering. Richard Reeves, who started my Yoda on this and kind of inspired my thinking on this. But Richard did this analysis and he looked at deaths of despair, overdoses, drunk driving, accidents, you know, getting way too drunk and then, and then doing something stupid, suicide. The incremental increase in deaths of despair amongst men since 2004, this isn't how many men have died since 2004 based on the percentage of people that were dying from deaths of despair to that point, but the increase in the number of deaths of despair since 2004 has taken the lives of 400,000 American men. That's how many men we lost in World War II.

• 13:36Scott Galloway?

  So the incremental deaths of despair amongst young men over the last 20 years has taken as many lives as World War II. And if you were to reverse engineer all of this to where a boy or a young man kind of comes off the tracks, like where did these problems start? You can typically reverse engineer it to one point in their life, and it's the following: when they lose a male role model. I think the ultimate expression of masculinity is to take an interest in the life of a boy that isn't yours. And unfortunately, I was on Bill Maher and I said, I made this speech about men need to get involved in boys' lives. And he said, whoa, I get involved in a 15-year-old boy's lives and everyone's going to say, well, what's he doing? What's wrong?

• 14:19Scott Galloway?

  And because of the Catholic Church and Michael Jackson, there's now this feeling that if a man wants to get involved in a young boy's life, that there's something wrong with him, that he might be a pedophile. And this just isn't true. There are a lot of great men out there who have love to give fraternal and paternal love and would like to coach a young man. And they don't need to be ballers. They just need to be trying to live a virtuous life because I can attest to this as the father of two boys. It is not hard to help them. Why did you decide to go to school without shoes today? Basic questions. I'm coaching another young man who's decided he's going to quit a decent job and move to Alaska. And I'm like, why are you moving to Alaska? And he's like, well, I saw a program out and it looks cool. I'm like, so you're going to give up your job? You're going to give up your support

• 15:02Scott Galloway?

  system and you're just going to move to Alaska? I mean, there's some, it's not that hard to add a lot of value to a lot of young men's lives right now. So I think we need to stop the suspicion and the demonization of anybody who wants to get involved and help a young man or get involved in a young boy's life and suspect them of something much more malicious and create a culture of mentorship and helping young boys. So one call out is if you're a man who has love to give and there's a lot of them out there, you don't have to be a baller, just living a good life. There are young men everywhere and boys that need your, need your guidance.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Well, to your point about, you know, the most dangerous person in the world being a young man who's broken and alone, I think we have this loneliness crisis intersecting with the rise of digital technology. And it really is impossible to overstate how ugly some of these online spaces are. I mean, if you've seen an Andrew Tate video, you know what I mean. And, and someone like Tate is a weak man's idea of a strong man in the same way that Trump is a poor person's idea of a very rich person. But the reality is that Tate is the dominant model you're going to encounter online. And if you're

• 16:22Speaker 03

  trying to make sense of this journey people take from loneliness to resentment to conspiracism and fascism, just put on some fucking gloves and scroll through Tate's social media feeds and see how easily it drops you into this whole constellation of bad ideas and shitty politics. And more and more people are being sucked into that. Abyss.

• 16:47Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, and I do think there's actually, at this point, I think, I think Andrew Tate is just kind of an irrelevant footnote in history. I think he's going away almost as quickly as he's popped up. I think a lot of people have realized that this kid, you know, spending time, three months in a Romanian prison for sex trafficking, it's not anyone's ideal of a successful person. And all this bullshit, this, this grift of join my crypto universe, he's not even worth the oxygen talking about. I actually think that Trump, and to a certain extent Elon Musk, are a bigger problem for young men, because these individuals have taught young men that coarseness and cruelty is conflated with masculinity. And their

• 17:30Scott Galloway?

  success, especially Elon Musk's success, is so impressive and inspiring for young men. I get why he's, he is and should be a role model on many levels for young men. At the same time, attacking people online, disavowing your transgender daughter, saying that she's dead to me. You know, it's just Trump, that being, you know, this is an insurrectionist, 34 felony counts, and people say, oh, you have Trump derangement syndrome. No, I have democracy addiction is what I suffer from. And at the same time, inspiring an insurrection, these are just not great role models for men. And I worry that this vision of masculinity

• 18:14Scott Galloway?

  has been conflated with some very ugly attributes. Coarseness, cruelty, misogyny, that's basically what it is, and attacking, always on the attack. I mean, I have 14 and 17 year old boys. Their first role model, the first role model of any child used to be the president. That was, that was the person you were supposed to immediately look to as success. That's what it means to be successful in America. Is that our definition of success now?

• 19:02Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Superhuman. The pace of modern work can be relentless. You're getting a constant influx of messages from a ton of different apps. You haven't closed all your browser tabs in a year. Everything seems urgent and staying on top of it all feels like an impossible task. Superhuman Go is an AI chat that's always there when you need it, already aware of what you're doing and doesn't ask you to start from zero. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, help you be the best version of yourself at work. It handles the repetitive stuff so you can focus on the work that only you can do. Whether you need to summarize an endless email thread or prep for a meeting that's happening in five minutes, Superhuman Go works inside the tools and sites you already use, your browser, inbox, docs, and your project tools.

• 19:43Scott Galloway?

  And its AI chat is available on the side of your browser and it's always ready. No new tabs, no switching apps, no losing your place. This is AI that works with you, not on top of you, so that you have the time and brain space to solve the problems that matter. Check it out, find out more at superhuman.com.

• 20:05Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Upwork. Trying to scale your business? At some point, you're probably going to hit a point where you need some help. Sometimes the best way to break through that is bringing in the right talent at the right time. Upwork can help. Upwork is a one-stop platform where you can find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across more than 125 categories. Whether you need specialized skills for a single project or extra support to keep up with demand, it's easy to connect with experienced professionals, review their work, and find the right fit. You can move faster without taking on the commitment of full-time hires. And for businesses that need the very best talent, Upwork Business Plus provides access to the top 1% of freelancers on the platform. AI-powered matching connects you with qualified candidates in under six hours, cutting down the time spent searching.

• 20:48Scott Galloway?

  Upwork also takes care of contracts, payments, and other administrative tasks, so you can spend less time managing logistics and more time focused on what's next. Visit upwork.com/profg right now and post your job for free. That's upwork.com/profg to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U.P.W.O.R.K. com/profg. Upwork.com/profg.

• 21:16Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Vanta. As AI adoption grows, so does your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but your team isn't getting any bigger. Most compliance tools promise automation, but you're really stuck doing all the work by hand, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently. The regentic trust platform is built to scale with you, not slow you down. With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round, cutting your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools including Claude or Cursor. Want proof?

• 22:01Scott Galloway?

  Over 16,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp, Ryder, and Harvey save time and resources while scaling fast with Vanta. Learn more at vanta.com/profg and get $1,000 off. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A dot com slash profg for $1,000 off.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  My son's five. And so this one's personal for me, too. And, you know, I don't want to see him screwed up in the way I see so many other young men screwed up. I don't want to see him undone by his own resentments. And I don't judge these men, even though I can see how much destruction they're causing, because I can see myself in them. I can see myself tumbling down the same rabbit hole when I was younger. I was pretty lost. I was caught up with drugs. I was close to falling right over the cliff, you know? But I had a family member who said something to me one night that probably saved my life.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  It was my get-your-shit-together moment. And soon after that, I was in the military and the whole trajectory of my life changed. And that's how close any of us are to going the other way. I really believe that.

• 23:38Scott Galloway?

  Well, but what you just said is really powerful and it moves to solutions. And I'm trying to be better about proposing solutions because I'm such a glass half empty kind of guy. I'm really, I think I can articulate the problems really well. I've got to get better at articulating the solutions. But I think mandatory national service would benefit America, young people, and especially men. I spent some time in Israel after October the 7th, and I got to spend some time with a battalion or a squadron, I don't know what the term is, about 120 kids from the IDF. And these are 19 year olds, men and women, fit, thin, handling semi-automatic weapons, serving in the agency of something bigger than themselves, meeting lifelong friends,

• 24:19Scott Galloway?

  meeting co-founders of businesses, meeting mates, and they all serve in the same uniform. So I think national service, and it doesn't necessarily need to be military service, it can be senior care, it can be planting trees, whatever it might be, helping, you know, kids in low-income neighborhoods. But I think saying to all, all young people, you have to spend 12, 24 months, serving the agency of something bigger than yourself with people from different income groups, ethnic, sexual orientations, recognizing that America is worth investing in. I think that's one idea in terms of a solution for getting around some of these issues.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  So if it's not Tate, it's not Trump, it's not Musk, what do you think the healthiest model of modern masculinity looks like, or ought to look like?

• 25:08Scott Galloway?

  I think there, I think there are examples, but they're not, unfortunately, I don't think there's, you know, I have a tough time. People always say to me, who are the role models? And I do think there's just millions of men who get up every day, add surplus value. They create more tax revenue than they absorb. They listen to more complaints than they complain. They notice other people's lives. They're in great shape. They try to achieve. They plant the trees of which the shade they'll never sit under. I think there's millions of those men. I mean, this is not example. I read Kris Kristofferson's obituary.

• 25:45Scott Galloway?

  I don't know if you know him, the, the country singer. He was a Golden Glove, played high school football, became a Rhodes Scholar, got a master's in English from Oxford, and then decided he was going to go serve his country, rose to the level of captain, he was a helicopter pilot, was known as kind of a poet in his music, and had this reputation for being very generous with other artists. I mean, a gentle, generous soul who went to, wanted to serve his country, was physically robust and outstanding at what he did. Now, I don't think it's realistic to think any of us are going to be Kris Kristofferson, but I think there are men everywhere who are trying to add surplus value

• 26:29Scott Galloway?

  and can be really good role models. I think there's a lot of them in government. I think there's wonderful role models in the service, in services. I, I think they're everywhere. Unfortunately, because of social media and the algorithms, because of the rage that people feel, I think that we're more drawn to, the media is like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It's drawn towards movement and violence. And when it sees people making outlandish, provocative, stupid, aggressive, mean things, it gives those people more organic reach. So there's a confluence of really unfortunate factors, and that is the algorithms love Elon Musk accusing an honored serviceman of treason and saying he will pay a price.

• 27:14Scott Galloway?

  You just don't, I mean, this is the kind of behavior we never would have tolerated, but now the algorithms love it. And there are now so many people living their own reality that they believe Elon Musk, because he inspired the EV race and sends rockets into space, that he must be right, that he's on to something. And so I think there's unfortunately, the, the men who are, gain the most notoriety.

• 27:36Scott Galloway?

  The algorithms love their coarseness, their cruelty, and what I would call anti-masculine behavior. And that is, I don't even like to use the word toxic masculinity because I don't like to put those two words next to each other. But this is, this is anti-masculine behavior. This is, this is deciding that you need to show your toughness by being coarse and cruel and attacking people that are, that are less powerful than you.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  For me, the problem isn't toughness. It's not warrior culture. It's not the celebration of strength and fitness, which is now stupidly coded as right wing. The problem, as you're saying or have said, is that when all of this gets unmoored from any sense of purpose or community, any sense of service to people and things beyond yourself. And that's part of the reason why I think the loneliness crisis is so central to this whole conversation, not just about men, but really everyone. It's practically a civilizational crisis at this point.

• 28:35Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, look, but I have a couple of questions for you because I don't know that much about you. You said you suffered from addiction and then you went into the service. What was your addiction and what branch of the armed services did you serve in and how long did you serve?

• 28:49Speaker 03

  I wouldn't say it was addiction. I was using a lot of drugs. I was selling drugs. And I was 18, left home, and I joined the Air Force. And I did my, I did my just under four years and I got out and I went to school.

• 29:06Scott Galloway?

  But, but obviously, so you're selling drugs and using and something went off that said, okay, I need to get my shit together. And you turned to the Air Force. And by the way, I think that's a great, that's a way out. That's a way to get your life back on track. And unfortunately, something like 60 or 70% of the people now, of the men who decide I want to take that path can't because they can't pass a physical fitness test because of obesity or a mental wellness test because of anxiety and depression. But that for you, it sounds like that was really kind of the turning point in your life. Is that accurate?

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was living in a shitty apartment with a bunch of drugged out people that I was valet parking cars at the casino with. And I had an older cousin who grew up next door to me. I was an only child, but he was basically my brother, my older brother, the closest thing I've ever had to one. And he came over and dragged my ass out of the apartment and pushed me up against the car and just said, you're better than this. I'm embarrassed for you. I'm embarrassed for our family. Get your shit together. And I went back in the apartment, sat in the corner and looked around and said, nope. Where's the ripcord?

• 30:25Scott Galloway?

  But here's what you had. You had, you had a man in your life who had an irrational passion for your well-being and was willing to have a very uncomfortable, like no upside conversation, other than hoping it was going to impact your life. And that's what's really missing with a lot of these young men. It doesn't sound like you had a lot of male role models, like me, single mother, not a lot of economic or romantic possibilities. But what you had was a man who cared about you. And, and there's just certain things. It's hard for your mom to push you up against a car and, and physically intimidate you and scare, kind of scare you straight. That's hard for your mom. Moms can provide other

• 31:09Scott Galloway?

  things. They can provide love and nurturing and a sense of confidence. But young men need men. And so what you had, or what I would, what I would diagnose, is the drug that saved your life was having a man in your life that cared about you and cared so much, they were willing to have a very uncomfortable conversation. He had to plan out what he was going to say. He had to go over. He had to know you might not ever speak to him again. A non-zero probability, probably a better than likely opportunity, you were going to ignore him. That's like all down, almost all downside for him, other than wanting to help you because he cared about you. That emotion is what's in short supply. That person

• 31:54Scott Galloway?

  who has the strength and the willingness to, to find someone, to, to, to go over to that, that guy's apartment and tell him to get his shit together and do it out of love and concern. You know, that's, that is quite frankly, what we, we don't need more fucking AI. That is what we need. We don't need more, we don't need the S and P and the Dow to hit more highs. We need more men who have the relationships and the strength and the will to go have those conversations with other young men. So I think a lot about this, but the path you took, think about that, that is, that's a great story. Right? So the question is, how do we create more of those moments?

• 32:38Scott Galloway?

  Where when men come off the tracks, there's someone and an organization there for you. It was older cousin in the air force that quite frankly, saved your ass.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  And it had to be him. I had a relationship with my dad. I still do, uh, but you know, you have all these hangups. And there's all this bullshit macho posturing with, between sons and, and fathers. I needed an older male in my life who I didn't have that, those hangups with, who could shake me out of my stupor. And that goes to this point you're making about having more male mentors in our lives that aren't necessarily our, our fathers. And the question for you is, do we have the cultural infrastructure to facilitate that? Are we doing anything politically, socially, culturally, economically to make that more likely, to make that more of a thing?

• 33:31Speaker 03

  To make that more of an opportunity for more people in more places?

• 33:38Scott Galloway?

  I, I think, but even conversations like this, I think there's a lot of men probably listen to this podcast. The first thing I ask men is who are, have their active, I'm like, do, do you mentor or coach any young men? And they'll say, well, and they pause and they're like, well, my nephew, I'm like, I'm like, look what an impressive man you are. It would be so easy for you, 30, 60 minutes a week, I coached three young men at a time. And, and they get intimidated when they're embarrassed to do that for fear that people are going to think something's up with them. We get, we need to get, we need to starch our culture of that. And to create a society where the moment you become.

• 34:16Scott Galloway?

  A virtuous man who's on the right path, your obligation is to try and pull a few people behind you. And what you said about your relationship with your father is very typical. There's a very healthy hormone or instinct with young men where they kind of rebel against their dad because they have to leave the tribe, the nest, the pack. What's interesting is that oftentimes a 16, 18, 22 year old boy slash man will listen to his dad's friends more than his dad. And there's a lot of men, young men, who the dad isn't around. My dad wasn't really around. I mean, and the other thing is we need single moms and moms and churches and family courts to recognize the moment there's a divorce

• 35:00Scott Galloway?

  and there are kids, specifically boys, who no longer have a male role model living with that young boy. There needs to be an infrastructure for maintaining male presence in that boy's life. And even that is a controversial statement. Well, what do you mean? Aren't women able? Well, of course they are. Women are important to a young man's life. My mother lived and died a secretary lot of my life. But my mom always made sure I had men in my life. Two of her boyfriends that she only went out with for, you know, two or three years each, stayed involved in my life and she encouraged it. There was a guy across the hall. He and his girlfriend used to take me horseback riding. And then he would just every weekend like roll over to me and like, come with me and wash my car. And my mom always made sure I had men in my life.

• 35:44Scott Galloway?

  And that was hugely important for me. I, my mom's boyfriend gave me 200 bucks and said, go buy stock. I started asking about the stock market. I was 13 and he said, go to one of those fancy brokerages in the village, Westwood Village. And if you don't buy stock by Monday afternoon, I'm taking the 200 bucks back. I'd never seen $200 in my life. I went down to Dean Witter. I sat in the lobby. I met this guy named Cy Sero. I had $200. I bought 12 shares of Columbia Pictures at 16. I wasn't very popular in junior high school. I used to go to the phone booth every day, put in two dimes, call Cy, and he'd give me a 10 minute lecture on the market. So Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a hit. That's why the stock's up today. Why is it up? There's more people who want to buy it than sell it. So they have to raise the price to get enough sellers interested in selling.

• 36:29Scott Galloway?

  I've made, and I'm flexing now, tens of millions of dollars in the market. And a large part of it is I have been buying stocks since I was 13. And I still get probably monthly a text message from Si 46 years later. You know, a fantastic male role model for me, taught me about the markets. But we have to have a culture of ensuring, and I think family court plays a role. I think religious institutions, the moment you see a boy without a male role model, it is the community's responsibility to inject male leadership, male mentorship into that boy's life.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies. 18 plus.

• 37:52Speaker 04

  It's me, the

• 37:55Speaker 04

  We don't need the jingle twice.

• 37:58Speaker 04

  Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.

• 38:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  Fine. No one deals more deals than

• 38:16Speaker 04

  Please stop. Touche. Priceline.

• 38:20Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Nutraful, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand used by over one and a half million people. When you get to the stage of life where you start to notice hair loss, you have a few options. You can shave it all off and enjoy your new look, or you can commit to a new team whose logo you wouldn't mind constantly spotting on a hat, or you can actually restore some of your hair's former glory with Nutraful. Nutraful has formulas built for men at different life stages, such as Nutraful Men for guys aged 18 to 49, or the new Nutraful Men 50 and older. It's the first product of its kind specifically made for men over 50. You can address the key root causes of thinning wherever you are in life. Grow visibly thicker, fuller hair in three to six months. Start Nutraful today and make the hat optional.

• 39:05Scott Galloway?

  Visit nutraful.com and enter promo code PROVGE for $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping. Find out why Nutraful is the best-selling hair growth supplement brand at nutraful.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com, promo code PROVGE. That's nutraful.com promo code PROVGE.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  I'm not here to tell anyone to have children or start a family. That's a choice everyone is free to make, should be free to make. But do you think we'd have better, healthier, more productive men if more of us became fathers? I mean, all I can say is that it was transformative for me and my life. I badly needed to care about someone else's life more than my own.

• 40:10Scott Galloway?

  Some people just aren't ready for kids. They're not economically secure. They're not emotionally ready for kids.

• 40:17Scott Galloway?

  My life up until I had kids, I had kids later in life. I didn't have my first child when I was 42. My life was about more. I want more money. I want more fame. I want more recognition. I want to party with cooler people. I want to date more women. I want to have more sex, more money, more cool. It's just like, oh, I'm, I have this much money. Well, I can have more. Well, I'm in this fabulous scene. Well, all right, I'm on an amazing party in St. Bart's. Well, is there a more amazing party in the south of France? It was always more. And the only time I've ever felt sort of sated and thought this was enough was when I have, occasionally I have that moment with my boys. And let's be, let's be honest, kids can be awful. It's a lot of stress. But occasionally, last night,

• 40:58Scott Galloway?

  I'm watching the Liverpool, Man City game. My kids is naturally 17, 14, come in, throw their legs over mine just naturally. And I'm like, dogs come in, I'm like, okay, this is enough. I can't imagine anything more than this. It also got me, like you said, it's, it's almost sort of relaxing. When I was single, it was like on Friday, it's like, where am I gonna have brunch? What cool people am I hanging out with? What hot woman am I gonna go out with? Like, it, and then all of a sudden, your weekends are like, you know what you're doing. You're taking your kid to soccer practice and you're going to some lame ass birthday party on Sunday where you wanna like, you gather with all the, all the other dads and just roll your eyes like, Jesus, how did we end up here? But it's sort of relaxing. It's like, okay, I got something else that's more important

• 41:41Scott Galloway?

  than me all the fucking time. And also for me professionally, it got me very focused. I made, I always made enough money to live a pretty good life, to at least have faux wealth, have a nice apartment, a big screen TV, take nice vacations, go on, you know, do cool things. But once I had a kid, it was like, okay, shit just got real. I gotta get very focused. And I also get tremendous reward at night when I know my kids are warm and safe and well taken care of and going to good schools and I'm raising them with a competent partner. That makes me feel very strong. It gives me a sense of gratification. That is where, that's the only time in my life I've ever felt whole, like really whole, like, okay, I get it. I'm here for a reason. I'm doing something. So I feel

• 42:25Scott Galloway?

  the same way you do. I'm remiss to tell people that the answer is, you know, have kids. But what I can say is personally is nothing, I was never sated. I was never satisfied fully until I had kids. And I think that's a whole shooting match. And I think we need more public policy to stuff more money into the pockets of young people so they can afford to have kids. 60% of 30 year olds used to have a child in their house. Now it's 27%. So I'm a big believer in child tax credit, tax holiday like Portugal, age 20 to 30, no federal tax, more third spaces, give more people, more young people a chance to meet each other and fall in love and have kids and make sure that when you have

• 43:10Scott Galloway?

  a kid, it's not as economically stressful as it's become.

• 43:16Speaker 03

  I know we have lots of parents who listen to the show and they're all trying to navigate these waters with their kids in their own ways. Do you have any words of advice for them?

• 43:31Scott Galloway?

  I think it's such an individual, I think I've read most parenting books and the thing they all have in common is they all contradict each other. I mean, you know the basics, right? Firm but gentle, you know?

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm looking for your approach, not the approach.

• 43:46Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, look, I, what I try and do is Ryan Holiday is this wonderful podcaster, young man. I'm learning so much from so many of these young men who talks about Stoicism. He talks about garbage time. And that is, you know, the myth of quality time. Well, I work all the time, but I spend time, I have quality time with my kids. There's no such thing as quality time. The biggest moments, the most important moments with my kids have been unexpected. I'm driving them to school, not looking them in the eye, and they say, Dad, there's a girl I like at school. This happened. What do you think? You pray for those moments as a dad. I think my kids have asked me for advice maybe three times in their life. And they happen when they're least expected. You know, garbage time, as much time as you can. Having said that, when they're young, I didn't spend

• 44:31Scott Galloway?

  a lot of time with them because I was focused on building economic security. And I think that was the right decision. I think that trying to ensure that the household has an absence of stress by getting to a certain level of economic security. And then with any remaining time, just garbage time with your kids. Just be an Uber driver. Hang out with them. You know, just a ton of time with them. Play games with them because you never know when those kind of moments are going to happen. And then the other thing I think you can do as a man is try and be as loving and supportive of your partner as possible. I think they see that. I think they see this is how I should treat women. I think they see, wow, dad really loves mom and is thinking about her a lot.

• 45:16Scott Galloway?

  And I'm going to be that way when I'm a man. I think that some of my faults when it comes to women have been, quite frankly, because my model for how to treat women, my father, who's been married and divorced four times, was not a great role model. So economic security, as much garbage time as you can can muster and try and be a really loving, visibly loving and supportive of your partner such that your kids notice.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I really do believe that the best thing you can do as a father for your kids is to love their mother. And I really like what you say about framing our lives in terms of negative and surplus value, which sounds like sterile economic language, but I don't think it is in this case. Yep, my dad wasn't perfect. He made a lot of mistakes, but he did his best and he did a little bit better than his dad. And I'm committed to doing a little better than him. And I expect my son will be better than me. And that's the whole game, man. Like, that's it.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  That's the ethos we have to instill in young people, whether it's in the context of being a dad or being a husband or partner or friend or whatever the most important role in your life is. Attack it with that mindset and the world will be better for it.

• 46:45Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, there's, there's two great points in there. This notion of

• 46:53Scott Galloway?

  A huge unlock for me was, I used to look at relationships as a transaction. Am I getting as much joy and camaraderie from this friendship as I'm giving? Am I getting as much money from this business partnership or value as I'm giving? Am I getting as much joy, romance, good sex, whatever, from this romantic relationship as I think I'm giving? And the moment I felt like I was getting less than I was giving, I was angry, injected expectation of the relationship. And a huge unlock for me was to stop keeping score. And that is, I think, okay, my dad wasn't a very good dad. He wasn't bad. He was much better, to your point, to me than his father was to him. His father physically abused him, and my dad tried.

• 47:34Scott Galloway?

  He, you know, left me and my mom, moved to Ohio, wasn't that involved in my life, but he did make an effort, much better to me than his father. And the fact that you've recognized that, I think, is a huge unlock. But the big unlock for me was, and it didn't happen until I was your age, I said, "Stop thinking about relationships as a transaction." And just say, "What kind of son, what kind of partner, what kind of business partner, what kind of investor, what kind of dad do you want to be? And ignore what you get back." I mean, if you're not enjoying a relationship, I shed friends, that's fine. If at some point it's like, "You're not getting no value from this thing," then just exit the relationship. But I said, "What kind of son do I want to be? I want to be a generous, loving son." And that's what I decided to do. And I stopped thinking, "Well, my dad wasn't there for me.

• 48:18Scott Galloway?

  My dad could have, my dad basically left me to go to Ohio." I just, I got rid of all that bullshit, and I started just being the son I wanted to be. It's really important with your kids, because despite what the Hallmark Channel tells you, you're not going to get as much from your kids as you're going to have to give them. I mean, there's just some days where I feel like I'm a loving, you know, I'm something out of the fucking Hallmark Channel as a dad, and my kids are just total assholes. Could not be more ungrateful, could not be less kind to their mother, could not be more expectant, more spoilt. I mean, it's awful. And I'm like, "Okay, there's a word for that. Dad." If you feel as if, "All right, I'm not getting as much from my kids as I'm giving," that

• 49:03Scott Galloway?

  means you're being a father. That's what we're here for. We're here to absorb blows. And I'm not saying be depressed or not in touch with your emotions, but I recognize now that my job...

• 49:19Scott Galloway?

  My goal is to add surplus value that I want to give more than I get. And be clear with kids, that's just, that's just part of it. You're gonna have to invest way more of your love, emotion, resources than you are ever. I mean, maybe when I'm older, maybe, maybe I'll get more back from them than I'm giving, but I'm not holding my breath. And what you have to realize, or what has been a big unlock for me is that's, that's the goal, is to be able to say, I know I'm giving my kids so much more than maybe I'm getting from them. That's it. That means I'm, that means I'm serving that purpose. I'm being a dad.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  We could go all day, but I know you have to go. So I will let you go. Scott, this is great. It was a long time coming. I really appreciate you being here and taking the time to do it.

• 50:09Scott Galloway?

  Shauna, I love your work and I love your story. I think you're just doing great work. I think you're adding real value. I very much appreciate what you're doing.

• 50:26Speaker 03

  All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode. It got a little more personal than I intended, but ultimately I think that's a good thing. And I know this was a conversation between men, about men, and mostly for men. But my goal was to do it in a way that felt useful to everyone. And I hope it was. And if it wasn't, I'll do better next time. As always, we want to know what you think. So drop us a line at the gray area at vox.com.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  And once you're done with that, please rate and review and subscribe to the pod.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  This episode was produced by Beth Morrissey, edited by Jorge Just, engineered by Christian Ayala, fact-checked by Anouk Dusso, and Alex Overington wrote our theme music.

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Also, just a heads up, there's a new TGA video that just dropped over on Vox's YouTube channel. It's a long clip from one of our more popular recent episodes, a chat I had with my friend and Vox colleague Zach Beecham about Trumpism and the direction of American politics. You can check it out at youtube.com/vox. The Gray Area is part of Vox. Support Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today. Go to vox.com/members to sign up. And if you do decide to sign up because of this show, let us know.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back. With support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone. The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential. Search gatesfoundation.org/mosquito to learn more.

• 52:50Speaker 06

  I'm Glenn Washington, host of Snap Judgment from KQED. Every week, Snap drops you inside someone's biggest decision. The kind of decision you can only make once. With everything on the line, what do you believe? What do you want? And what would you risk to get it? Find out. Tap to listen now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify.