Scott Galloway: Why Young Men Are Falling Behind | PBD #758

Patrick Bet-David sits down with NYU professor, entrepreneur, and bestselling author Scott Galloway to discuss the growing crisis facing young men, the importance of fatherhood and male role models, why boys are falling behind in school and relationships, how dating and technology are reshaping masculinity, the role of faith and community in building stronger men, and Scott’s blueprint for building wealth through focus, discipline, and long-term investing. -------- 👞 THE FLB1s: https://bit.ly/4mXV9gd 📘 SCOTT GALLOWAY’S BOOK: https://bit.ly/4unYtGv 🎙️ SCOTT GALLOWAY’S PODCAST: https://bit.ly/3P0qqnD Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj 💬 TEXT US: TEXT “PODCAST” TO 310-340-1132 TO GET THE LATEST UPDATES IN REAL-TIME! ABOUT US:Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I think if you spend enough time telling young men that they are the problem and that they're predators, they begin to believe you.

• 0:05Patrick Bet-David?

  How much of young men struggling today is them versus the system?

• 0:10Speaker 00

  And the most frightening statistic is that if you go into a morgue and there's five people who have died by suicide, four are men.

• 0:18Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't think we have enough voices of men that are good examples and challenging boys to become men.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  If you reverse engineer to the single point of failure, when a boy comes off the tracks, it's to one point, and that's when he loses a male role model. The far left hasn't been any more productive because their advice is to say, okay, you don't have problems, you are the problem, and my advice to you as a young man is to act more like a woman.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  You are a 101? My son's right there. I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 1:24Patrick Bet-David?

  So I've been looking forward to our visit today with Professor Scott Galloway. He's got a great podcast. When you speak on the topic of men, fatherhood, and finance, I think everybody's got to listen to it. Of course, you know, New York Times bestseller, done great work, made millions, very successful. I even think at one point you were the majority, was it a majority shareholder of New York Times or something about New York Times, you were sitting on the board. But anyways, incredible, incredible voice for young men. Professor Scott Galloway, great to have you on the podcast.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Patrick, thanks for the kind words and I'm glad to be here.

• 1:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes, so a question for you if we can just get right into it because I don't think we have enough voices of men that are good examples and challenging boys to become men and I love seeing the stuff you say to you. I have four kids, two of them being fourteen-year-old and twelve-year-old and a lot of things you talk about were aligned when it comes down to men, but I want to read you three stats and I'll get into a question and then today I want to talk about fatherhood, boys to men, and finance. So seven out of ten high school valedictorians right now are girls. Twenty percent of men twenty-five to thirty-four live with parents, up from fourteen percent a decade ago, and fifteen percent of young men have zero close friends, five

• 2:40Patrick Bet-David?

  times higher than what it was in the 1990s. How much of young men struggling today is them versus the system?

• 2:51Speaker 00

  That's a thoughtful question. Let me just pile on with a couple more stats. Sixty-two percent of men under the age of thirty are not even trying to date. Forty-two percent of men eighteen to twenty-four have never asked a woman out in person and the most frightening statistic is that if you go into a morgue and there's five people who have died by suicide, four are men. So, and if any other special interest group was counting themselves at four times the rate of the special interests or the control group, we would weigh in with programs. And one of the things that's really hurt this community and these efforts is there's a lack of empathy for this group because of what I think is a fair accusation or observation and that is men of my generation have had a disproportionate amount of advantage,

• 3:34Speaker 00

  but we seem to be holding young men accountable for my advantage. And it was to your point, is it them or is it society? I think it's both. I would say the majority, it's a complex problem. There's biology at play here. A boy's prefrontal cortex is eighteen months behind a girl's. You're going to see, you said you have two boys and two girls? You're gonna have, I don't know if you've already had this moment, but you're gonna have, your 15 or 16 year olds are gonna have a party, and boys and girls will come over. And the boys are dopes. Can't you look you in the eye, they look like boys. And then there'll be two or three 15 or 16 year old girls who will come, who could be the junior senator from Pennsylvania. I mean, girls are just maturing faster than boys. And they're

• 4:16Speaker 00

  excelling, and good for them, they're ascending, I think it's wonderful. But the gap between boys and girls, if two seniors, a boy and a girl, in high school are applying to college, essentially, the girl who's a senior is competing against a 10th grade girl. The boy, biologically, is 18 months behind the girl. There's economic issues, a lot of the traditional onramps into the middle class for boys who don't get a college degree. Do you remember that guy, Patrick, in high school, who was just never gonna go to college, but he could fix your car? And he was gonna get a job. There was auto shop, there was metal shop, there was wood shop. And primarily, it was sort of vocational programming such

• 4:58Speaker 00

  that men who weren't gonna end up at University of Florida, or Carnegie Mellon, could still find an on-ramp into kind of the manufacturing sector. A lot of those jobs have been offshored, so there's fewer and fewer sort of onramps into the middle class economically. Also, sociologically, I think if you spend enough time telling young men that they are the problem, and that they're predators, they begin to believe you. And so, you know, the way out here, the far right, I would argue, and I'm curious to get your feedback here, to their credit, they recognize the problem before anybody else. They said, "Look, there's a problem with our young men. They're struggling, lack of empathy for them." But I would argue

• 5:38Speaker 00

  the solution was to take, was not the right solution, and that was to take non-whites and women back to the 50s. And I think a lot of people on the right have conflated or incorrectly correlated the ascent of women with the descent of men, and I don't think that's true. At the same time, the far left hasn't been any more productive, because their advice is to say, "Okay, you don't have problems, you are the problem, and my advice to you, as a young man, is to act more like a woman." That's not helpful either. I went to the Democratic National Convention, I know you're a conservative, I'm a progressive, and I saw a parade of special interest groups. Talking about the very real issues that still face special interest groups in the

• 6:21Speaker 00

  United States, but not one word about the group that has fallen furthest, fastest in America, and that is young men. So it's a combination of economic, sociological, biological, political issues that have all converged to basically rob opportunity. And then the last comment I'll make on this is that our tax policy has effectively transferred wealth from young people to old people. The average 70-year-old is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. The average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy. Housing and education prices have skyrocketed. Those are the two primary means for getting ahead and for building economic security and finding a mate. And we've transferred wealth from young to old.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  The two biggest tax deductions, mortgage interest rate and capital gains, who owns homes and stocks, people my age, who rents and makes their money from salary, young people. So we've had just a series of kind of moons line up that have robbed opportunity and dignity and cultural standing from our young people and especially our young men.

• 7:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Incredible answer. And I want to go a little bit deeper into it because I want to see what you're going to be saying about this because you went into politics. You said, you know, the numbers that we saw, young men shifted 18 points towards Trump in four years. And when you look at these numbers, it's not like they were sold on Trump, the article says, they felt alienated by Democrats. But a part of it also, if you think about, I'm sure you remember the great, the late Charlie Kirk, he played a very big role in talking about family, kids, faith. And these 16, 17, 18-year-olds are looking at saying, who would be my role model? So for you, I think you are a role model for young men, but if I was to ask you right

• 8:07Patrick Bet-David?

  now, you know, Scott, who would you say is a young liberal role model for young men? Who would that be?

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't know. I think they're everywhere. Representative Talarico, a man who appreciates faith and family, but also what are traditionally seen as progressive values. I think there's symbols of masculinity everywhere. You know, weird one. Kris Kristofferson just passed away. Army captain, Rhodes Scholar, a poet, a great rock star, was known for being generous, married for 40 years, helicopter pilot. But more than anything, the roles of masculinity are next door. It's the guy who wakes up every morning who didn't dream of being a mechanic, but every goddamn day gets up at oh, dark 100 hours because he wants to support his

• 8:56Speaker 00

  family. And he takes a lot of blows. And he just kind of toils away in relative anonymity, but is very loyal to his wife, loyal to his kids, works hard, tries to stay in good shape, be a good citizen. You know, I think there's, I think there's, I think there's examples of masculinity everywhere. I think we lack, generally speaking, good public role models across both aisles. But where I find great examples of masculinity is in everyday men who are loyal, who are very patriotic, maybe have served, and find themselves trying

• 9:37Speaker 00

  to serve in the agency of other people and see their purpose as raising, you know, you have four kids. I don't know for you, what happened to me, I was very selfish for most of my life, and I finally found my purpose. My purpose is to raise loving, patriotic men. But I think there's examples of masculinity everywhere. But I would agree that there is a dearth of what I'll call public figures that demonstrate an aspirational form of masculinity.

• 10:03Patrick Bet-David?

  That's interesting when you're saying that. I guess my question, the follow up question for this would be, Jonathan Haidt, which I think you and him are either colleagues or friends, but you know, he wrote the book Anxious Generation, right? And I love that book. Anywhere I go, I recommend every parent to read that book. We were a couple of years ago, I don't know when it was when it came out, probably two years ago or so, uh, what, what's the timeline? Yeah, two years ago when it came out exactly, March, two years ago when it came out, I had everybody read it. And one of the interviews he did, I'm curious to know your thoughts. The interviewer is asking him a question, and he's talking about how much anxiety young girls have, right? And he asked, he says, so which, which philosophies raise more peaceful kids?

• 10:48Patrick Bet-David?

  And which one raises kids with higher anxiety? Liberal parents or conservative parents? Without hesitation, Scott, he says conservative parents. And then he says, so then why are you a liberal? And he says, because I'm academia, I can't change my philosophy. So the guy's integrity, the way he answered, I respect the hell out of him. Why do you think even he says that conservatives raise more calm, lower anxiety kids than liberals do?

• 11:15Speaker 03

  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 blog, 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.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  When you spend enough time around great companies, you notice that the best ones treat trust as a growth strategy, not a box to check. Vanta helps companies build and prove trust from day one. Its Agentic Trust Platform connects compliance, risk, and trust at enterprise scale. Vanta delivers a 526% return on investment over three years and pays for itself in just three months. Learn why over 16,000 of the fastest-growing companies use Vanta at vanta.com.

• 12:10Speaker 05

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  You know, it's a good question. I'm not sure I have a good answer for it. The two primary drivers, according to Jonathan and Jean Twenge, who did breakthrough research on this, and by the way, Jonathan's a friend and a scholar, he's probably the most consequential scholar in the world. And, you know, there's entire countries banning phones in schools because of Jonathan's work. But generally speaking, the two drivers they think of an increase in anxiety amongst our children are, one, some of it is our fault. When I say our, I mean parents, and that is what you call concierge or bulldozer parenting. And that is we use so many sanitary wipes on their lives that they don't develop

• 13:27Speaker 00

  their own immunities. And I struggle with this. I keep wanting to save my kids from themselves and every, you know, I know my more rational self goes, let them fail, let them fall down. Otherwise, they're never going to learn to pick themselves up. Now, if you wanted to, if you were looking for a thesis, you could argue that maybe progressive parents make too many excuses for their kids and think they're loving them and being more understanding, as opposed to being more kind of trad dads or letting them fail, if you will. Because what we see at NYU is we've seen an increase in self harm, because a lot of kids get there and it's sort of a princess in the pea syndrome where they haven't faced much adversity. Their parents have cleared out every obstacle and then they get there and they get their heartbroken or their first D and they literally freak

• 14:12Speaker 00

  out because they haven't known any failure up until that point. So I guess the argument, if you were trying to bridge it, would be maybe more progressive parents in an effort to do what they think is right, end up overprotecting their children and not preparing them for the real world. The second thing that appears to have driven anxiety is about the time social went on mobile, about 15 years ago, you saw a spike in depression and anxiety, especially among young girls. And the reality is we are every day up against this indomitable foe of the deepest pocketed, most talented organizations in history that are all trying to do one thing, and that is sequester you from the most meaningful thing in your Your life and that is relationships.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  And young men seem especially susceptible to believing that they can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen with an algorithm. Why go through the pecking order of friends? When you can have discord and Reddit, why put on a tie? Try and navigate the corporate world, which is difficult and hard. When you think you can make money trading crypto or stocks on Coinbase or Robinhood and why on earth would you go through the? Pain, perseverance, rejection, showering, working out. The expense, the resilience of trying to find a romantic or a sexual partner. When you have lifelike porn. So I think big tech plays a bigger role than uh progressive versus conservative parents.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  But I can see, you know, if I trust Jonathan, one of the things I love about Jonathan. I would consider myself center left. I think Jonathan doesn't like to talk about politics, but I would consider him center right. But he has incredible fidelity to the data. So if he says that in general, conservative families are raising less anxious kids, I'm inclined. To take him at his word.

• 15:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and I think both of you guys are fair in where you're at. So I think the two voices, center left, center right, there's at least reason in there when you're having conversations. When it's the far left or the far right, that's when you're going to have some issues there that kind of pushes everybody away. But why does this topic matter to you so much? I'm curious because to me, being a father matters to me a lot and I love hearing other men. Who you have two boys, I believe you have two boys, you're married, you got a family. You know, you're doing your thing. Why does this topic of being a great father matter to you so much?

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I so there was a moment, kind of the aha moment for me was a kid named Alex Kearns. In uh fall of 2020 was trading stocks on Robinhood sophomore at Oklahoma State. You know, you see this, you see this kid, Patrick, and you just see your son. And he got an errant email from Robinhood saying he was down $60,000 and that he needed to transfer 60,000. Of course, it ended up that was an errant email was a mistake and he furiously all night. Send emails to customer service saying, I don't understand what's going on because they don't have humans involved. No one got back to them and in the morning he took his own life because he left a note saying he didn't want to end debt his family.

• 17:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Remembered this.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  And I started going down this rabbit hole of teen suicide and young men and just the data was so incredibly stark, I thought, people aren't talking enough about this. This isn't, young men, it's clearly, it's, which is so clear, we don't have a homeless or an opiate problem in the US. We have a male opiate and a male homeless problem. Three out of four addicts are men. Three out of four homeless are men. You know, you're just, men, we might have two to one, female to male, college graduates in the next five years. Only, when you're walking down the avenue of America, one in three of the men haven't had sex in the last year. And you hear the word sex and your brain fires a bunch of different ways. But if you think of sex as a key to the most important thing

• 17:53Speaker 00

  in life, and that is an intimate relationship with a partner, a lot of men just aren't having access to that. So I started going down this rabbit hole. I was really interested in it. I reached out to the Kearns family. And just on a personal level, I relate to it because I could have been one of those guys. I didn't have a lot of economic or romantic opportunities when I was a young man. And also, I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. And just, you'll relate to this, as a, as a dad, you start to see the difference between boys and girls. And also, you see boys getting mixed messages. At universities, unfortunately, we've created this zeitgeist of oppressed versus oppressor.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  And I think it's gotten better because we realize in universities that it was, it was damaging what we were doing. But one of the ways we immediately identified of the shorthand for oppressor was how white and how male you were. And I think a lot of young men have started to get confused messages around mating, around their role in society. So as a dad, as someone who worries a lot about their sons, as someone who likes to think of themselves as willing to wade in dangerous waters, as being data-driven, and as someone who quite frankly, just relates to young men. Who don't have a lot of opportunity at the moment. It just, it just was something I got fascinated with. And I've been on sort of this five year journey.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  And what I'll say is that the dialogue, Patrick, has gotten so much more productive. Because when I first started talking about this, five years ago, if you brought up or in any way advocated for men, I was called Andrew Tate with an MBA. Or they're like, oh, you're one of those guys. And there was an immediate gag reflex, especially from the left, that, oh, this is another guy who's going to blame women for men's problems. And I have never done that. I think we should celebrate our mothers, our sisters and our daughters' progress. I think it's amazing. If women hadn't been, gone into the factories in World War II, we wouldn't have won the war as quickly. If we hadn't protected women's rights in the workplace in the 60s, 70s and 80s, we'd be a second rate economic power to China.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  We have benefited enormously from the progress of women. But it's not a zero sum game. We can walk and chew gum at the same time and recognize that if our young men don't, are flailing, our country and women aren't going to continue to flourish. And when I speak to young women, you know, who wants more economically and emotionally viable young men? Women. So we all have a vested interest in our youth.

• 20:24Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  And our young men. It's not a zero sum game.

• 20:27Patrick Bet-David?

  No.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  We can, we can have empathy for everybody.

• 20:29Patrick Bet-David?

  And I think it's a common sense message, you know, that, that this is, which is great. But Scott, what was, what was your relationship like with your father growing up? What was that like?

• 20:40Speaker 00

  Well, I'll answer and then I'll put the question back to you. My dad was married and divorced four times as far as we know. My mom was his second marriage. He started his third marriage while married to my mom.

• 20:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  You know, not a very sophisticated person. When they got divorced, he moved to Ohio. So he wasn't very involved in my life. Wasn't a bad father, never abused me, but wasn't as generous with his time and affection with me. And also made my life difficult because my mom and I struggled economically. And he could have been just a little bit more generous, he would have made a lot, our lives much easier. So my relationship with my father was pretty distant. And then as he got older, a big unlock for me, Patrick, was I said, okay. Instead of having a scorecard and thinking, okay, he was this good or not good a father. That's how good or not good a son I'm gonna be. I thought, I really enjoy time with my father. I wanna think of my, what kind of son do I wanna be?

• 21:35Speaker 00

  I wanna be a loving generous son, so that's who I'm gonna be. And I'm not gonna put away the scorecard. And when I did that about 20, 30 years ago, it was a huge unlock for our relationship. And the learning and the advice I would give anyone is, instead of keeping score on your marriage, your friends, you know, ask yourself, what kind of husband do you wanna be? What kind of member of the congregation or your church do you wanna be? What kind of business partner do you wanna be? What kind of boss do you wanna be? And just be that man and put away the scorecard. Because you'll naturally inflate your contribution to the relationship and accidentally diminish theirs. And if you have a scorecard, you're always gonna, you're always gonna be upset or angry or feel like you're not getting the better end of the deal.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  So what, the unlock I got from my father was just be the person in that relationship you envision and put away, put away the scorecard. And that was a huge unlock for me and made my relationship with my father much more productive. What was your relationship like with your father, Patrick?

• 22:33Patrick Bet-David?

  My dad and my parents got a divorce twice to each other. They married each other and divorced each other twice. So married, sisters born, divorce, remarry, unborn divorce. So in Iran, I would see my dad once a week. In Iran, the Friday was the Sunday here. So we had one day off. So I would hang out with my dad on Friday was the best day of the week for me. When we went to Germany out of refugee camp, I didn't see my dad for a year and a half. And I didn't have a male role model. Then we came to the States, I would see my dad once every other week. And then, of course, I joined the military. But he was my hero. Since I was six years old, I wanted to be him. The guy was a cashier at a 99 cent store, regular guy, eighth grade, dropped out to support

• 23:16Patrick Bet-David?

  his parents in Iran, came from a very, very loving family. I mean, these guys have each other's back and it was very weird for him to get a divorce. But they had each other's back, his side. But, you know, a part of this, Scott, for me is like, you know how you're coming, you're like, you know, I wish he did this and I wish this and I wish that? How, how much of him? Do you see in you now where at what point maybe you were critical and now you're like, you know what? He used to sell and I learned how to sell, I think, from him. You know, he used to. Is there anything that you look at now, the way you raise your boys, that maybe you picked up from him?

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Well, okay, so a couple of things. First off, it sounds like you had a strong male role model, even though maybe just logistically it wasn't around as much. If you reverse engineer to the single point of failure when a boy comes off the tracks, it's to one point and that's when he loses a male role model. When a boy loses a male role model through divorce, death, or abandonment, at that moment, he becomes more likely to be incarcerated than graduate from college. And what's interesting is that girls in single parent homes have similar outcomes to girls in dual parent homes. They're a little bit more promiscuous because they're looking for male attention in the wrong places, but they have the same rates of college attendance and the same income, same rates of self-harm.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  It ends up that while being physically stronger, boys are neurologically and emotionally much weaker than girls. So, one thing we need to instill into our society is that the moment there's a divorce or a death, the community needs to weigh in and the mother needs to recognize that boys need men in their lives. And even just saying that five years ago triggered people, especially on the left. What, women can't raise boys? No, lie to my life, my mother. But, boys need men in their lives. As it relates to my dad, the biggest lessons I took from my dad around fathering, quite frankly, he tried. He checked an instinctive box around evolution and that is, he was a much better father to me than his father was to him. His father was alcoholic and actually abusive of him.

• 25:20Speaker 00

  My father was never abusive to me. So, he checked the primary box. The thing I have taken away is, my father was not physically affectionate with me. I have gone the exact opposite way. I kiss my boys, I, you know, read with them, I, you know, I constantly, I hug them, my, unfortunately, my, when my oldest turned 16, he no longer wanted me to let me hug him, but now he's come back a little bit. You know, I try to be just physically affectionate. I tell my boys every day, and if I can't get a hold of them on the phone, I text them that I love them and I'm proud of them and I try and give them a reason why. Because I didn't hear that and I realize how important it is. But, on the flip side, I, like you, I make my living storytelling.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  And I make an exceptional living telling stories, finding data, creating a narrative arc, and then getting on podcasts or writing books or getting in front of a corporate audience. I do a lot of speaking gigs. And I got that from my father. It's through no fault of my own. I practice a lot because when you teach, you get a chance to, it's like being a comedian doing stand-up. You get to practice your stuff. I get to practice my stuff, or at least I used to twice a week in front of 160 kids paying a lot of money vis a vis tuition. So I had incredible practice. But I think 51% of it, I inherited from my father. My father could hold a room like no one's business.

• 26:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. He's fantastic.

• 26:47Patrick Bet-David?

  So he was a great storyteller?

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, and he had this Scottish accent. He was handsome. So that's why he probably was the reason why he was married four times and divorced four times. But there's no reason why you can't be grateful, even if your, even if your parents didn't, didn't intentionally give something to you. You know, I'm tall, I have broad shoulders, and I'm a decent storyteller. And all of those things I got from my father. So there's no reason I can't be grateful for those things.

• 27:13Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm looking at a picture. I don't know if you see it or not. This is your Berkeley graduation. Can he see it, Rob, or no? Is it shared with him on his end? Okay, so I see a picture of you 1992 flashback, Berkeley graduation, dad in the background, big smile on his face. You got your smile with the whole, I wish you could see this. What a cool picture this is. You posted it 27 weeks ago. You know, to me, my father showed up. I'm at boot camp at South Carolina. And they say, so David, who's gonna come and visit you? I said, nobody. I don't have any family coming. They live in LA. They don't have the money to fly.

• 28:13Speaker 06

  When you're building a company, you learn that trust is what closes deals. You may have the best product, but buyers won't sign without proof that your product is secure, especially if it has AI. Vanta gets you compliant fast with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and more, and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring. Hyperbound, a YC-backed startup, used Vanta to unlock the Fortune 100 in under a year. Snowfire got audit-ready in a month and closed a multimillion-dollar deal. Trust matters. Get started at vanta.com.

• 28:42Speaker 05

  Quicken knows you've got big plans for your money. You invest, you track, you plan ahead. But does your financial app help you decide what to do next? Quicken helps you go beyond balances and basic reports, project your cash flow, dig into your investments, and use Quicken AI to understand what matters across your finances. Quicken: Know What to Do Next. See how at quicken.com.

• 29:11Speaker 05

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, theHouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 29:41Patrick Bet-David?

  So I'm upstairs in a barracks, and then a guy named Wiggins, he says, "Your dad is here. Come on, Bet David." I said, "There's no way my dad is. I'm telling you, your dad is here." I said, "My dad can't come." He says, "There's a man with a sombrero on. He's downstairs. He's telling everybody he's your dad." I said, "Dude, he's not gonna come. He told me he's not gonna come down." I go downstairs, Scott. My dad drove 2,500 miles. He rented a car. They didn't ask him how many miles he was gonna put on. He returned the car $2,499 today with 5,000 additional miles. He was at graduation. It was priceless to see the guy there with me at the military. So the role's a very important role. Let me ask you a different question. I saw a stat the other day about birth rate.

• 30:23Patrick Bet-David?

  We we used to be at three point five seven birth rate in nineteen fifty. We're now at one point five eight. And as we got deeper into it, three times in the history of America, we went on a run of making four million babies a year. One time it was five years, another time was seven years, another time was eleven years, that we made four million babies every single, and I think the biggest year ever was four point three million. And one of the stats that came up, and I'm curious what you think about this, is in nineteen fifty, where the birth rate was a higher birth rate, workforce, women in workforce was thirty five percent. Today, it's seventy percent. How much of an impact do you think that has made in raising kids?

• 31:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Of women now competing with men, saying, I don't know if I need you, I can go make my own money, I don't need you, you know, I can make my own money, I'm an independent woman, there's no need for me to have a kid, I don't need to go out there and make kids. You know, women in fifties used to have kids at twenty years old. Now it's twenty eight, thirty years old. How much you think it's getting women into the workforce that impacted what we have today?

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Oh, it's complex. So, first off, I don't think there's any doubt that if women are in the workforce and and it's more difficult to, or or they're not as focused, or their quote unquote purpose, they find purpose somewhere else, other than having children, is going to result in lower birth rates. But I also don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. And I think corporations, the reality is, men and women have largely equalized their income, and women and men under the age of thirty in urban areas make about the same money now. Where you do see some impairment professionally is when women decide to have children.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Now, the issue is, has women's ascent professionally resulted in lower birth rates? And I think the answer would be yes, but I think some of that is a good thing, in the sense that women have leveled up economically and are no longer as dependent upon a man for their economic independence, and so they are demanding more from men. And they're demanding more, quite frankly, fewer women just feel trapped. Divorce rates have gone up, one, because I think my generation is more selfish and doesn't see marriage as a commitment, but an enhancement to their life. But also, women have more economic freedom. And I do think that you asked before, how much of it is men's problems of society versus their own problems or their own issues?

• 32:54Speaker 00

  I do think men need to level up. I hate, so just to your question, there's no doubt about it. Women's entry into the workforce and their economic independence has resulted in lower birth rates. But I think some of that is a positive. I think that women deciding that they have other options than just being tied to somebody and necessarily, you know, I think women having more freedom around the choices they make is good and that it's incumbent upon men. No one has the right to reproduce. Only 40% of men have reproduced throughout history. So if women have more economic independence and don't feel the same obligation to reproduce, I think that's probably a good thing and it should be a motivator for young men to

• 33:39Speaker 00

  level up. There's a cartoon, and this is where I sort of, I think, disagree with some of Charlie Kirk's philosophies, and that is, there's this cartoon of a woman in her 30s who never found romantic love, she pursued a career, now she's alone and depressed. Okay, there's probably some examples of that in women. Said, "I was totally focused on my career, I didn't spend enough time trying to find a mate, and I missed out on a family and I'm really bummed out about it." Let's just be honest, I think that happens. At the same time, she, when women don't have a relationship, a romantic relationship, they tend to pour that additional relationship energy into their work and into their friend network. Yep.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  When a dude doesn't have a relationship, he oftentimes pours that energy into video games, conspiracy theory and porn. It ends up that men need relationships more than women. Widows are happier after their husband dies. Widowers are less happy. A woman in a relationship does live longer, she lives two years longer, but a man in a relationship lives four to seven years longer. It ends up that men need relationships more than women. And something I've said that upsets people on the left, and what I tell my boys... I think men should pay for everything in the company of women. And people say, my dad's like, or my dad, my 18 year old's like, Dad, that's so boomer. I'm like, look, a woman's fertility window is shorter.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Men benefit more from relationships than than women. The downside of sex is greater for her than it is for you. And if you're on a date, you're in the back of your mind, hoping maybe at some point you'll have sex. So the asymmetry in risk, value of the relationship, her fertility window, means that there's asymmetry. And every mammal has a courtship process. And when you're dating, you're courting and you want to demonstrate valor. And one way you demonstrate valor and recognize the asymmetry is that you pay for everything. And if you can't pay for everything, you don't go out and you don't go on the date. And I've gotten pushback from the left, that's so boomer. And I've just said to my son, when he says, Dad, that's not true. I'm like, just keep in mind, any woman you split the check with is never going to kiss you. Let me just just say that.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  That's just that's just real. So while I do agree that in the US, if you look at us demographically, we're actually not as screwed as many other nations because of immigrants and because there are certain populations that are having kids. We demographically look challenged, but not, you know, in in South Korea, it's like one out of 17 people are going to have a grandkid. There are some places that are really demographically-

• 36:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Sexless society, yeah. We keep hearing about the whole sexless society concept. When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast, we had the choice to make it cheap. We chose neither. Instead, we chose Tuscany era. We chose true Italian craftsmanship. Each pair touched by 50 skilled hands. We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail, and we chose the finest quality at every step. Introducing the Future Looks Bright collection. Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary, rather intentional, luxurious, timeless.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  So I think that the notion that women going into the workplace has resulted in a lot of unhappy women and a decline in birth rates, there's a kernel of truth there. But I also think women getting economic independence has, for the most part, been a good thing for them. As somebody who came from a family where my mom not being economically independent, but being independent, in other words, we didn't have anyone else to rely on, was a huge source of stress. So I would never tell a woman, discourage women, for pursuing economic independence. For me, the big message is that as women ascend, it's a challenge to men to level up. And the movement I hate, and I'd love to put this back to you, Patrick, I hate the incel movement.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  And that is, there's a group, there's this movement that says, okay, women aren't interested in men, 80% of women want 20% of the men, I give up. And it's like a badge of honor to say I'm involuntarily celibate. Well, okay, I was involuntarily celibate the first 19 years of my life. I wanted to be uncelibate in high school, but no one would participate in my plan. And 99% of men, for 99% of history, have been involuntarily celibate. There are few men who wouldn't rather be having sex right now than whatever it is they're doing.

• 38:19Patrick Bet-David?

  They have issues, but I get it.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Right, something. So I leveled up. I started working out, I took Accutane, I went to UCLA, I made friends with girls, such that I could learn what women wanted, they could introduce me to their friends. And what I coach a lot of young men, I have something called the rule of threes, and that is, if you work out three plus times a week, if you work at least 30 hours a week outside of the house, and at least three times a month, you're in the company of others, in the agency of something bigger than you, whether it's church, temple, A nonprofit, a sports league, you are immediately in the top 5% of men. What does that mean? If you are in the top 5% of young men for long enough, you are going to be voluntarily incel-ebit, which is awesome.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  So what I would argue is that the vast majority of men who claim they're incels aren't incels. They're V-cells, they're voluntarily celibate. And that is, it is up to them to level up. So while I think there's a lot of obstacles facing men, they have more agency than the majority of men throughout history. Only 40% of men have reproduced in America, it's now 75%. So you have more agency than most men throughout history. So for most men claiming to be incels, it's like, boss, this is on you. We've all had to level up. And you probably have to level up more now because women are kind of, you know, doing it for themselves now, and that's a wonderful thing. But level up and you will be voluntarily incel-ebit.

• 39:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, I agree. And I think also there's the, the other, the Playboy model, which is like, look, go get what you can, smash them, run, you know, never get married. If you're gonna have kids, have a structure in place that you can have kids with a bunch of different women. There's also that messaging that's very strong today. That the women, all they want is money and if they, they'll leave you for a guy with more money, with better looks, with better this, so screw women. All you want to do is just take advantage of them. There's that as well, that's becoming very attractive. I think both of those arguments, the one on the far left, which is, hey, feminism, you know, equal power, we're the same, that's a lie. And on this side, you know, hey, you know, just screw everybody, you know,

• 40:31Patrick Bet-David?

  the women, all they want to do is take advantage of you, that's also a lie, you know? You know, I like the rules of three. I guess maybe let me ask you this question. I know you're an atheist yourself, you can correct me, I've read that you're an atheist, maybe you're not. I just, okay. So how big of a role you think faith plays? Because- You know, I had a guy on a podcast, his name is Dr. Taylor Marshall, and he's a YouTuber, he's got a podcast himself, he does very good. And I said, "How many kids do you have?" He says, "I have eight." I said, "You've got eight kids?" "Eight kids?" He says, "Yes." I said, "Wow, how many marriages?" He says, "No, I've just been married once." I said, "To the same woman?" "Yes." I said, "Your wife has given you eight kids?" "Eight kids?" "Yes." "Wow, why?" "We're traditional Catholics." "Go look it up, nobody has more kids than traditional Catholics."

• 41:15Patrick Bet-David?

  I pull it up, it says, "It was either 3.9 or 4.9, more than Muslims, more than Mormons, more than anybody else." I was blown away. The other day, a guy comes in, one of the lieutenant governors, he was running for governor himself. So he comes to his team, and one of his right-hand guys, very successful guy, Jewish guy in Miami. And I said, "So, how many kids do you have?" He says, "I got 11 kids." So, "Okay, you know, yours..." "No, me and my wife, how old are you, 46, how long you been married, 20 years? How many twins did you guys have?" "None." "How many adopted?" "None." Wait a minute, your wife had 11 kids, yes, Jewish, traditional Catholic. How much of a role you think faith plays in us, you know, kind of getting men and women to realize they need each other,

• 41:59Patrick Bet-David?

  kind of getting this whole concept of women not competing with men, and also to be able to increase the birth rate we have now down to 1.58 to the 2.1, 2.2 number?

• 42:11Speaker 00

  So first off, Patrick, are you religious?

• 42:13Patrick Bet-David?

  I am.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  I think that the church attendance at an all-time low,

• 42:19Patrick Bet-David?

  It is.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  or religious attendance, or attendance of religious institutions being at an all-time low, is not good for America. And your faith, I won't say I'm jealous or envious, but I respect it, and I would like, at some point, I, you know, when I was younger, I considered myself a scientist, and I was somewhat derisive or disparaging of people. You know, I used to say, "I don't have an invisible friend," or "I believe in one less God than you." I really do respect and admire people of faith. And I think that young people, I really, like I said, I coach a lot of young men. I mean, go to a church group, and they're like, "I don't buy into that stuff."

• 43:02Speaker 00

  I'm like, "Okay, when you say that stuff, it's a group of people getting together." That want to be in the presence of other good people who are, you know, want to love the poor, want to shake each other's hand, want to figure out how to help their community. I was exposed to a lot of religious institutions growing up because my dad was married four times. I went to temple, I went to church, I went to Unitarian church. And generally speaking, I benefited from all of it. I generally, I think religion is a bad brand right now because of some unfortunate actions, mostly in the Catholic Church. And what gets reported in the news is basically sometimes people from the extremist side of religions. But

• 43:42Speaker 00

  I think we're, we're better off for religion. And I, I encourage young men to find community in religious institutions. So what you have in religious institutions is similar to what you have in in-office work. And that is, going back to the mating crisis, right? If you talk to people who've been married longer than 30 years, 80% of them, four in five, say one was more, much more interested in the beginning than the other. And it was almost always the man. Men have millions of sperm, women have one egg. So we've been taught for millions of years that our job is to spread our seed to the four corners of the universe. And women are taught to put up into much finer filter to pick the strongest,

• 44:26Speaker 00

  smartest, and fastest seed. And that's the reason why every generation is taller and smarter than the previous generation, although Jonathan and I would argue we're getting stupider. But what men need is a place to demonstrate, a venue to demonstrate excellence. And when you interview these couples, you hear stuff like, "Yeah, I didn't like him, but we went to church and I loved how nice he was to his parents. I hung out with him and his friends and I found out he was a great dancer and really funny and I started getting attracted to him. I worked with him and he was so good at what he did, I found myself drawn to him." Where do men demonstrate excellence right now? Most people are now meeting through online dating, which is still down to a number of anodyne, anodyne metrics, specifically your ability, height, and your ability to signal wealth.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  And everyone else gets shut out and doesn't have an opportunity to demonstrate excellence. And traditionally, when, when people met each other at temple or at the mosque or church, it was kind of like, okay, here are the eight single guys, here are the eight single women. And they kind of paired off based on, if you will, their attractiveness weight class. But they had the opportunity to demonstrate excellence. Or men, men need venues to demonstrate excellence. And when they're not going into work, remote work is a disaster for young men. When they're not going to religious institutions, when they're not connecting through school, because fewer men are going to college, where does have a man have an opportunity

• 45:53Speaker 00

  to demonstrate excellence, and not only demonstrate excellence, but to fail and learn and iterate? And if a man hasn't been in a relationship by the time he's 30, if he hasn't cohabitated with a woman or been married, there's a one in three chance he's going to become a substance abuser.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  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.

• 46:35Speaker 06

  When you're building a company, you learn that trust is what closes deals. You may have the best product, but buyers won't sign without proof that your product is secure, especially if it has AI. Vanta gets you compliant fast with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and more, and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring. Hyperbound, a YC-backed startup, used Vanta to unlock the Fortune 100 in under a year. Snowfire got audit-ready in a month and closed a multimillion-dollar deal. Trust matters. Get started at vanta.com.

• 47:05Speaker 05

  Quicken knows you've got big plans for your money. You invest, you track, you plan ahead. But does your financial app help you decide what to do next? Quicken helps you go beyond balances and basic reports. Project your cash flow, dig into your investments, and use Quicken AI to understand what matters across your finances. Quicken, know what to do next. See how at quicken.com.

• 47:33Speaker 05

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  So, men being in the company of others, friends, mentors, and potential mates, and quite frankly, falling flat on our face and then getting up and maybe learning a little bit about how to approach someone and express romantic interest while making them feel safe, developing a sense of humor, developing a kindness practice, having a plan. You don't have to be a baller. You don't have to show up with a Range Rover and a Panerai. But you have to have a plan. I'm planning to go to junior college, then to vocational school. I want to learn how to install HVAC energy heaters. This is a great job. You have to have a plan. Even if you don't stick to the plan, every young man needs a plan. You have to demonstrate economic viability because distinctive at The Atlantic and The New York Times will tell you 75% of women still say economic viability

• 48:48Speaker 00

  is essential or key to a mate. It's only 25% of men. Men effectively don't care.

• 48:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Zero.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's that Chris Rock joke, that Beyonce could work at McDonald's and marry Jay-Z. The opposite is not true.

• 48:59Patrick Bet-David?

  That's right.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  So, and I've gotten pushback for this, but I say to a young man, you have to have a plan to be economically viable. By the way, part of that plan, maybe you end up with someone who's working at Goldman, and for a certain amount of period, you're going to take more responsibility for the household. Fine. Maybe you're more supportive and get out of the way of your wife, who's better at that money thing than you. But at the outset, you have to assume that at some point you need to take economic responsibility for your household. Or, society's going to judge you harshly. You're going to judge yourself harshly, and you're going to have a difficult time finding a mate.

• 49:35Patrick Bet-David?

  See, my concern isn't for guys like us, you know, and I love when you said in one of your interviews. By the way, I saw a clip yesterday, it could have been you. It says, "Sometimes all women want is a man that's got a vision, selling a vision. One day, we're gonna do this, one day, we're gonna be this." They need to have a man be in a pursuit of a vision and a dream, whatever that may be. But going back to it, in regards to this, with, you know, the idea of faith and all that stuff. I'm assuming you're a big reader. Have you, because I was an atheist for 25 years of my life. And for me, I didn't believe in God. I lived in Iran, I saw the war, I saw people dying. There was nothing for me to say, "If there is such a loving God, why the hell is he allowing this stuff to happen?" That was my biggest disconnect.

• 50:20Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm like, "Listen, I got kicked out of Bible study, I'm like, 'Don't even bring me any of this stuff.'" So I was the opposite. I didn't like going because I didn't believe any of it, and I thought it was BS for weak people. And then I read two books. One was by C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. I don't know if you've read it or not. If you've never read it-

• 50:38Speaker 00

  Are you a fan of C.S. Lewis?

• 50:39Patrick Bet-David?

  C.S. Lewis wrote a book called Mere Christianity. And by the way, I don't know if you're a fan of Anthony Hopkins, one of my favorite actors of all time. Anthony Hopkins played C.S. Lewis in a movie called Shadowlands. I think you would enjoy watching the movie Shadowlands. Phenomenal love story, and what happened to C.S. Lewis. But Mere Christianity, great book to read. The other side, if you're a math guy, I'm assuming you are because you went to, uh, Arthur, I think you went to UCLA, right? You got your MBA in entrepreneurship and, uh, yeah-

• 51:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, Morgan Stanley, I like math. Yeah, yeah.

• 51:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So if you like math, Case for Christ was written by an atheist who's a mathematician. I think those two books for you, consider it if you're, if you said, "I'd like one day to, I'd like to be open to it." I think you would enjoy those two books. Because C.S. Lewis came from a Oxford professor atheist who eventually is like, "I don't know, man, I think there may be something there." You may enjoy those two books. But I want to ask you something. So, you know, I was a, you know, I was like the teacher, you know, I was a student that teachers couldn't control. It's like, "Oh my God, I'm gonna do this." I was always hard charging, moving. I was selling something, I came to school with two backpacks. And, you know, I'm like, "Hey, one backpack was books, the other backpack was hats. I would buy the hats for 99 cents and sell it for seven bucks." And I was my way of making money when I was 14, 15 years old.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  By the way, that's so Iranian.

• 51:56Patrick Bet-David?

  That's so-

• 51:57Speaker 00

  Let me just say- I've been, I've been getting a ton of shit because I'm one of the 10% of Democrats that's supportive of military action in Iran. I grew up in Los Angeles, largest concentration, I think, of Iranians outside of Tehran. And my roommate, my sophomore year Iranian, I've said this before, Iranians are the only immigrants I have ever met who are more American than Americans. Love education, super into capitalism, and I say that in a good way. Like, they're, they're traders, they, they love making money, they love to have a good time. I've always thought, for me, and I've been saying this, I have this vision, and it's

• 52:38Speaker 00

  probably a bit of a naive vision, I think Iran and America someday are going to be outstanding allies.

• 52:46Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  The Iranians in my life, my mentor, Hamid Mogadom, B. Takbassiri, a friend of mine, Alex Decealy, my roommate David Deceal, more American than Americans. And I've always thought, if that culture, and I believe it does, still exists in Tehran, and everything I've, and everything I've read about it, it's more, it's more non-secular than people believe, it's less anti-West than people believe, I think that the unlock of the 21st century could be an incredible alliance between Iran and America.

• 53:18Patrick Bet-David?

  And by the way, you know, I watched your entire interview, beginning to end, with Fareed Zakaria, it was a phenomenal interview you posted, and I heard you say that there, as well as him, and it was interesting to see where both of you got, it was a phenomenal, phenomenal conversation between the two of you guys. I watched it this morning, it was great, but going back to it, you know, you know what the question is? So, you know, one of my sons, sports guy, if you see him, he's like a Little Bo Jackson, he'll play all sports, he plays soccer, travel, he plays football, basketball, and straight A student, just one of those kids that cannot sit still, right? But then I look at the, you know, education system, you're almost, you know, rigged against boys.

• 54:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Boys develop slower, but school, but start school at the same age as girls, you kind of talk about that a little bit at the 20-minute mark. Schools reward sitting still, following instructions, pleasing teachers, behavior traits more natural to girls, okay? All right. So then when I'm looking at the stat that my guys gave to me this morning, Humberto, I said, can you pull up what percentage of public school teachers in elementary are women? Eighty-nine percent, okay? Only eleven percent are men. So what do you do when your kid gets in trouble and it's like, hey, go to detention, you're gonna sit there for one hour every day, you're not gonna go out there and play for one week? That, that may work for punishment for a girl, but it may not work out for, for a man.

• 54:44Patrick Bet-David?

  And by the way, K through twelve, it's seventy-seven percent women, twenty-three percent men, but specifically public, elementary, it's eighty-nine percent women. How do we fix that? How do we fix, you know, women teachers understanding young boys better?

• 54:59Speaker 00

  You've just zeroed in on one of the problems, and that is, like, the K through twelve primary education system in America is biased against boys. A boy is twice as likely to be suspended for the exact same behavior as a girl.

• 55:13Patrick Bet-David?

  That's insane.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  So two kids, two kids both cheated on the chemistry exam.

• 55:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  Exact same infraction. If it's a boy, he's twice as likely to be suspended when he leaves the office. If he's a black boy, he's five times as likely. And it's understandable, if, if you're a, a young woman in teaching, you're naturally gonna champion the people to remind you of yourself at that age, and you're gonna feminize the culture around you. And so seven of ten high school valedictorians, when they have boys-only schools, within a year of their founding, they have twice as much recess. Even if you think about, what are the natural advantages of a boy? A boy has greater gross motor skills. He's faster and he's stronger. A girl has greater fine motor skills, writing and oral skills. What do we ask kids to do in, in primary school?

• 56:03Speaker 00

  Push around a pencil and answer and ask questions. So our education system, once we leveled the playing field, and quite frankly, it wasn't level, women, girls just blew by boys. So what do we do? I think, one, we redshirt, and this is my, one of my Yodas here, uh, Richard Reeves, American Institute of Boys Men. We redshirt boys. I think boys start school at the age of six, girls start at five. And girls will still be ahead.

• 56:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  Still be ahead of girls. We need to get more men involved in K through twelve. And I'm not suggesting affirmative action where we pay men more than women. What I'm suggesting is that small, small fixes. Men are more inclined to be coaches after school, but that's unpaid. We need to start paying men and women who stay after school to coach athletic teams.

• 56:50Patrick Bet-David?

  I like that.

• 56:51Speaker 00

  So there's, I think, a series of little tweaks to try and get more men. My male role models, growing up with coaches, I was a decent athlete. I became quite close with my baseball coach. He bought me my uniform, he came over for dinner a couple of times. He was a nice role model for me. So we need to get more men involved, absolutely, in K through 12.

• 57:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, that's a very good point about six and four, right? Redshirt them and keep them and then put them in there. I like that. But to me, it's what do you do to get? Because if my son is being coached, he's never, he's played sports with a lot of different organizations. Never once has a coach called and said, hey, we have an issue with your son. Never, not one time. And he's a very, very feisty, competitive, strong personality guy. But thank God forbid they sit him down in school, you get a completely different side of him. We have a few minutes left at the end, I want to focus on the topic of creating wealth. You've made a lot of money. And the part I like about how you made your money is you started with nothing and you ended up, you know, getting into schools that you probably shouldn't have gone in into, right?

• 57:57Patrick Bet-David?

  You went into school with a 2.2 GPA and I think you told a story at your TED Talks, which was phenomenal. And you also told the story how you got into college and how at first they didn't look at you, but then you're like, no, you got to give me a chance. And you went and sold yourself on how to get in there. And now created wealth. I saw one of the stories about you invested into Apple and Amazon in 2009 and today it's worth $40 million. So you've made some very good investments as well. I'm 22, I'm 25. I want to marry a beautiful girl. I want to be a stud, I want to be a father, but I also want to make a lot of money. What advice can you give me about creating wealth?

• 58:35Speaker 00

  First off, have an honest conversation. If you expect to be in the top 10%, much less the top 1% from an influence or economic standpoint, you're going to have to work your ass off. I just don't know anybody who has attained a certain level of economic security or influence who hasn't spent 20 or 30 years doing not nothing but work. But if you keep using the word balance in your objectives, fine. But move to a less expensive place and recognize you're probably not going to be that wealthy. From the age of 25 to 45, I did pretty much nothing but work. And by the way, my way isn't necessarily the right way. But if you're looking to be economically secure, as I was as a young man, buck up and get ready to work really, really hard.

• 59:19Speaker 00

  So the first thing is, I kind of have an algorithm for wealth, and that is the first is focus. Your job in your twenties is to find something you're good at, where maybe you could be in the top 1%. You could be great at it. Like, your job isn't to find your passion. My, I thought I was gonna be an athlete when I was in high school, and when I went to UCLA, I found out what real athletes were. So, but I found out I was pretty good with numbers. I found out I was a good storyteller. So I went into academia, and I started writing books, and I started speaking, and I started, you know, I started an analytics company, a business intelligence company, where I take data and I tell companies essentially a story on what their strategy should be. Find something you're good at and go all in on it. I hate side hustles.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  If you have side hustles, it means your main hustle isn't working. Find something- I'm with you on that. Find something you're good at, that you could be great at. And then if you get to the top 1% of something within a decade, the accoutrements of being in the top 1%, relevance, economic security, camaraderie, prestige, will make you passionate about whatever that thing is. And here's the key thing, find something that can be in the top 1% that has at least a 90-plus percent employment rate. You wanna be an actor, a model, design jewelry, be an athlete, be in sports, open a nightclub or restaurant, fine. But now you gotta be in the top 0.1%, because there's an over-investment of human capital. The top 10% of tax lawyers get to fly private,

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  and have a much larger selection set of mates than they deserve. The top 10% of actors can't even get health insurance. So be clear, if you're picking a romance industry, you gotta be in the 0.1%, not the top 10%. So be, have a sober conversation, find a focus, then stoicism. What I mean by stoicism, and it might be the wrong word, from the age of 22, you gotta start putting 10, 50, 100, then if you can, 1,000 bucks a month aside in low-cost index funds. Because I was always, I was always waiting for the big hit, a bestselling book, going all in on things. Someday I'll sell my company.

• 1:01:29Speaker 00

  If I had just, I bought my first bonus from Morgan Stanley, went out and bought a $35,000 BMW, hung swim goggles in the rearview mirror, because I thought that would make me more attractive to women. If I'd bought a Hyundai for $12,000, $23,000 into the market, I think it'd be worth 1.9 million now. You do not realize- Take advantage of the fall in the species. We do not realize how fast time will go. Like, I mean, literally, Patrick, we were 22 yesterday.

• 1:01:54Patrick Bet-David?

  I know.

• 1:01:55Speaker 00

  It will go like this.

• 1:01:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes.

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  So if I said to you, there's a magic box. And for every hundred bucks you put in this magic box, I'm going to give you $4,000 back in an instant. That's called investing in index funds when you're young.

• 1:02:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:08Speaker 00

  You want to have some stoicism and find a way, whether it's not having that Starbucks every day, not taking Uber as often, whatever it is, find a way to put 10, 50, 100, then 1,000 bucks a month away while you're young. And by the time you're my age, you're younger than me, you're going to be set. And it doesn't matter if you don't have, go double platinum, or you ever make a million bucks as an investment banker. If you just have that discipline, you'll be fine. The third thing is diversification. And that is, don't be like me and go all in on things. I went all in on things, technology, my own companies. And I've been wealthy three times, which means I've gone broke twice. I went broke for the first time in 2000. I was looking at jets in 1999. By 2000, with the dot bomb implosion, I was broke.

• 1:02:53Speaker 00

  Crawled my way back, 2007, money again, 2008, again, not diversified, all in tech. Wham, broke again. And that was about the time my son had the poor judgment to come marching out of my girlfriend. And it was a hugely insecure and anxious time for me. Diversification and then let time take over. Put stuff away, ignore it, low cost index funds. Take 30% of your portfolio and have some fun in things where you think you can pick stocks or crypto. And then you'll figure out a lesson that you do not know how to pick stocks, that you can't beat the market. But if you do those things, focus, stoicism, diversification, and let time take over. By the time you're our age, even if you don't hit it big, you're going to be economically secure.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  And that's the key, such that you cannot have the economic anxiety in your life and you can focus on what really matters. And that is relationships.

• 1:03:45Speaker 03

  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 blog, 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.

• 1:04:10Speaker 06

  When you're building a company, you learn that trust is what closes deals. You may have the best product, but buyers won't sign without proof that your product is secure, especially if it has AI. Vanta gets you compliant fast with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and more, and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring. Hyperbound, a YC-backed startup, used Vanta to unlock the Fortune 100 in under a year. Snowfire got audit-ready in a month and closed a multimillion-dollar deal. Trust matters. Get started at vanta.com.

• 1:04:39Speaker 05

  Quicken knows you've got big plans for your money. You invest, you track, you plan ahead. But does your financial app help you decide what to do next? Quicken helps you go beyond balances and basic reports. Project your cash flow, dig into your investments, and use Quicken AI to understand what matters across your finances. Quicken: Know What to Do Next. See how at quicken.com.

• 1:05:07Patrick Bet-David?

  I love that. What year did you work at Morgan Stanley?

• 1:05:11Speaker 00

  Oh, God, I'm old. I joined there when I was 21, right out of UCLA. I was there. It was my first job, '87 to '89. I was in the analyst program.

• 1:05:18Patrick Bet-David?

  So I worked at Morgan Stanley at 21. I'm the only kid they hired without a four-year degree. I got my Series 7, '66, 3126, Life and Health. A day before 9/11 is when I started with Morgan Stanley, Dean Whitaker, and Glendale, a man named Dave Kirby hired me. I'll never forget that.

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  What office were you in?

• 1:05:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Glendale. Glendale, California, in the New York Life building, I think it was eighth or ninth floor.

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  So you were just smiling and dialing?

• 1:05:43Patrick Bet-David?

  I was just smiling and dialing is what I was doing. And then later on, I went to insurance, trans-American, and then built my own insurance company from 66 agents to 60,000 agents in 50 states. And we sold it to an aggregator where the money came from Silver Lake and Harvest three years ago, three and a half years ago. So...

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  You just brought up, I wish I had a fifth thing. It's called the spoon. And what I mean by the spoon is the following. 99% of people aren't willing to get out a spoon and eat shit. When you called people at 21, I bet what 98, 99% of you them didn't want to hear from you.

• 1:06:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Nothing, nothing, yeah.

• 1:06:20Speaker 00

  And you develop resilience. And if you, if you are, if you want to be really successful, if you see a guy who's got real money and a mate that's more attractive and higher character than him and doesn't appear to be a genius, here's what that guy has, he has a spoon. He's willing, he's willing to endure public failure, he's willing to call people that don't want to hear from him. 99% of the public isn't willing to start calling strangers and say, have you thought about single premium variable life?

• 1:06:50Patrick Bet-David?

  That's right.

• 1:06:51Speaker 00

  Which you were doing at the age of, most people just don't have that resilience. I don't know if it's you played with the wrong toys or the right toys, but the people who are really punch above their weight class, all have one thing in common, no. You know, Patrick and Scott, I can guarantee you have heard millions of no's to get to a couple dozen really important yeses and there's no way to short circuit it to the yes. You gotta be willing to endure the, endure the no's, you gotta have the spoon.

• 1:07:20Patrick Bet-David?

  No question about, I'll tell you a funny story and then we can wrap up. So I called, I would call clients, I'm like, yes, this is Patrick Bedavid from Morgan Stanley, Dean with our office in Glendale, you know, you have to give the address and where you're from, okay. And then I went to a couple of clients, they're like, wait a minute, you said your name is Patrick and last name is Bedavid? I said, yes. You don't look Irish or Jewish, what are you? I said, I'm from Iran, my mom's Armenian, dad's Assyrian. I thought you were Irish or Jewish, you know, listen. So it, it, it worked in some instances and I had to learn how to break the ice very quickly, just like yourself, you got a sense of humor. Scott, I wish we had a couple of hours together, I know you're in London, it's tougher for you, next time you're in South Florida, I'd love to do a couple of hours with you here in-house.

• 1:08:01Patrick Bet-David?

  I got, I have so many questions to ask you and we barely touched the surface, but for the hour that we had together, it was phenomenal. The audience that's watching this, do yourself a favor, go order the book, Notes on Being a Man, what Scott teaches young men need and fathers, you need to read it so you can raise stronger men as well. Scott Galloway, thank you so much for your time.

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  Patrick, thank you. And I just a shout out or just a recognition that center-left, center-right, we're all Americans. My parents are immigrants. It sounds like you're an immigrant. We have more in common than separates us.

• 1:08:37Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree. I agree, brother. Appreciate you. Take care. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye, bye-bye. When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast, we had the choice to make it cheap. We chose neither. Instead, we chose Tuscanyero. We chose true Italian craftsmanship. Each pair touched by 50 skilled hands. We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail, and we chose the finest quality at every step. Introducing the Future Looks Bright collection. Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary.

• 1:09:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Rather intentional, luxurious, timeless.

• 1:09:35Speaker 04

  When you spend enough time around great companies, you notice that the best ones treat trust as a growth strategy, not a box to check. Vanta helps companies build and prove trust from day one. Its Agentic Trust Platform connects compliance, risk, and trust at enterprise scale. Vanta delivers a 526% return on investment over three years and pays for itself in just three months. Learn why over 16,000 of the fastest-growing companies use Vanta at vanta.com.

• 1:10:07Speaker 05

  With Quicken, your finances can stop feeling so complicated. You save, you invest, you keep an eye on spending. But what next? Quicken helps you put the whole picture together and make sense of your options. Connect accounts from more than 14,000 financial institutions and see how all the different pieces of your financial life fit together. Quicken: Know what to do next. See how at quicken.com.