Scott Galloway (2:02)

Thanks for having me. Those are very generous comments.

Nicole Wallace (2:10)

While your contributions to the political conversation may not be intentionally impacting how we cover politics, but I think your lens is one that speaks to me both as an anchor and as a mom. And I want to dive right into the book and then back into politics, if that's okay.

Scott Galloway (2:26)

Sure.

Nicole Wallace (2:27)

I think that we spend so much.

Podcast Host / Announcer (2:28)

Time figuring out why people voted the.

Nicole Wallace (2:30)

Way they voted, but I think with men and boys, it's important to understand why they're looking for what they're looking for and where politics comes in because politics feels very downstream from some of the crises and some of the hinge points that men and boys are dealing with. So start where the book starts, with your story.

Scott Galloway (2:49)

Yeah. Born to a single immigrant mother, lived and died a secretary. A lot of my life. Fairly remarkably unremarkable childhood. As you get older, you get more thoughtful. That's the good news. As you get older, though, the bad news is you get more thoughtful. And my narrative on my backstory was kind of like, check my shit out. I overcame all these obstacles and now I'm a ballerina. Smell me. And what I've realized is I reverse engineer some of my success and blessings. They truly are blessings in the sense they weren't my fault. But also I consider myself a product of big government. I got assisted lunch. I got Pell grants. I speak openly about this. I don't think she'd mind. When my mom was 47 and I was a senior in high school, I was living at home. I was either going to go to UCLA or I wasn't going to go to college. I just didn't have the money or the sophistication to apply to other schools. And. And my mom became pregnant. Terminated a pregnancy that was made available and inexpensive. If my mom had not had those that freedom, I don't think I would have gone to college as the only male in the household or the only person in the household. I think I would have gone to work. I got in UCLA when it was a 74% admissions rate because there was many more seats relative to the population then. The admissions rate is now 9%. I got Pell grants. I got financial aid because I came from what was considered a modest income home. I graduated into the Internet economy where American households had made these huge investments in this post apocalyptic communications network called the Internet. My backstory is that America loved unremarkable kids. It gave us all a shot. And now I worry that it's essentially the Hunger Games where the economy now is. We want to identify two groups of people. The children of rich people who are 77 times more likely to go to an elite university than the bottom 99% or the freakishly remarkable. And the good news about Americans, our superpowers are optimism. The bad news is we're a bit unrealistic. We all think our kid's gonna be in the top 1%. And I can prove to every one of us that 99% of our children are not in the top 1%. I feel like America used to be about giving everyone a shot at Being a millionaire and having some purpose. And now they've crowded all the opportunity thinking that we just wanna make more billionaires. So I feel like the America, the reason I'm in this chair, a lot of those things are under attack right now. And by the way, I'm not a humble person. I think I'm a fucking monster. I think I'm creative and super hardworking, but I would not have what I have had I been born anywhere else.

Nicole Wallace (5:20)

I benefit from a lot of the same things. I went to UC Berkeley and I too, got Pell Grants. And I think, though there's a piece of benefiting from things that are under attack that make you a remarkably effective advocate for them among people who have no idea what you're talking about.

Podcast Host / Announcer (5:41)

Right.

Nicole Wallace (5:41)

So a lot of your peers are other masters of the universe. What do you feel about sort of putting that distance between you and them to make these arguments from a moral high ground?

Scott Galloway (5:51)

A lot of it's a high ground, but I'm not. Like I said, I'm not a humble person. I think I can really use platforms and creativity and art to communicate some of these messages and create a more empathetic nation. And most people don't look at me and don't think that kid got Pell Grants. And I think if you grew up with money, you can have sympathy for people without money and you can still be a huge advocate, but you really can't have empathy. I don't think people really know. I remember feeling like you have these series of conversations when you're a kid and you don't have money. We'd win a Little League baseball game. I know your son's a baseball player. And you'd kind of get shuffled and sequestered into the car because your mom wasn't sure who was paying for what and she didn't have money. It feels as if when you. When you grow up without money, it literally feels as if you're walking around. I remember thinking that, like, my mom and I just weren't worthy. It's like there's a ghost following you around in a capitalist society saying, you know, you and your mother, you guys screwed up. I think it's so important to have these stories because one of the things I think we're really missing in our nation right now, my book's about masculinity. And I think one of the legs of the stool of masculinity is protection. And I feel like we've lost that. I think we've. Some of our leaders have conflated incorrectly and dangerously masculinity with coarseness and cruelty, and have skipped the whole protection part of masculinity. You know, our budgets reflect our values. 20% of the nation is under the age of 18, but 40% of SNAP recipients are under the age of 18. That reflects a value on the part of both parties that we've decided, we've made a conscious decision that there's going to be double the number of hungry people under the age of 18 who are, you know, it generally is not their fault. So I feel as if our nation has moved from a sense of protection and a sense of empathy and a sense of trying to give everyone a shot of being in the top 10% and instead doubled down on this notion that we'd rather just have a small number of freakishly remarkable or fortunate kids. So I think it's important to tell these stories as you get older, you get more thoughtful and you start thinking, okay, maybe I have an opportunity to just reverse engineer and make sure my success and make sure some of the things that got me here, that those avenues are at least as wide as they used to be and hopefully a little bit wider. So I feel like I have a debt. From 1945 to 2000, America registered a third of the world's economic growth with 5% of the population. So Americans 45 to 2000 got 6x the prosperity. And then all of that massive prosperity was crowded into a third of Americans that were white, male and heterosexual. And I'm all of those things. So the smartest thing I did was being born a white heterosexual male in 1964. I hit the lottery without buying a ticket, which means men of my generation have a debt. And the way I try and pay that debt is I try and raise awareness around the struggles of young men because they're being held accountable and guilty for my privilege. And when I start talking about this stuff, there's an understandable gag reflex from progressives, from women, from non whites. I get it. But I find, I think the mistake we're making is we're holding young men accountable for my unearned privilege. I get it. I've had too much advantage crammed into people who look, smell and feel like me. But the notion that we're not going to recognize that now with young people, if you go into a morgue and five people who've died by suicide, four are men. If there was any other group committing suicide at 4, 4 times the rate of the control group, we'd weigh in with programs. But because of My unearned privilege. We just have a lack of empathy for young men who do not in any way register the same advantage that I've registered.

Nicole Wallace (9:51)

Well, who's the we? Because I think your analysis of the results of the 2024 election is spot on, that it wasn't just young men lured into the Trump adjacent manosphere, but it was their mothers.

Scott Galloway (10:01)

We don't like to have these conversations because, you know, the truth sometimes doesn't reflect either gender well. And the reality is there's still a lot of women who will vote for who they perceive as best for their husbands and their sons. And we talked about this on your show. The three groups that pivoted hardest from blue to red 2020 to 2024 were one, Hispanics. The second group that pivoted hardest was people under the age of 30. And in sum, they're 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago. And people in my generation are 72% wealthier. So people say they're not as good as math, fine, but they can do math. And all they know is things are harder for them. Housing's gone up 6x while their income's gone up 2x. Right? Education's gone up 7x while their income's gone up two x. So like everything I need to get ahead, all the keys to mating, all the keys to forced savings, pride, having a home, being successful are getting harder for me and more expensive. And yet 210 times a day I'm reminded that I'm not killing it. There are billionaires out there and I'm not one of them. So it's understandable. They just want change. They don't care who it is, they just want the non incumbent. But as you referenced, I thought the most interesting one was 45 to 64 year old women pivoted hardest relative to 20 to red. And my thesis is that's their mothers. Because if your son is in the basement, we used the term before vaping and playing video games. You don't give a shit about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender rights. The basic compact any society has with its populace is one thing. Play by the rules, be a good citizen, and your kids will do better than you. That's the fundamental contract. And for the first time in the 275 year history of America, a 30 year old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents at 30. And that not only impacts the 30 year old, but likely his roommates, his parents are reminding him of his failure every day by Virtue of the fact he can't afford to move out. And it creates rage and shame across the whole household if your son is failing. Almost half of men under the age of 24 are living at home. One in five men age 30 are living at home. One in three will live at home at some point before the age of 25. And all I can tell you is if you're the parents of a struggling kid, your whole world shrinks to that kid. And politically, if you see it as a non health related issue, you just want change and chaos. And I think you're very open to the idea of a strong man and authoritarianism. And the most unstable, violent societies in the world all have one thing in common. They have a disproportionate number of young men with a lack of economic and romantic opportunities. And that isn't to say that a lack of economic or romantic opportunities is any less bad for women. But the reality is women, when they have less economic opportunity, they can still find or have an easier time finding a mate. Men mate socioeconomically, horizontally and down. Women horizontally and up. And when the pool of horizontal and up males keep shrinking, there's a lack of household formation. And the joke is that Beyonce could work at McDonald's and marry Jay Z. But the opposite is not true. And we don't like to have an honest conversation. But let's have an honest conversation. 75% of women say economic viability is key to a mate. Only 25% of women, they don't really care. And so what you have is a pool of economically and emotionally unviable men. One in three men is in a relationship under the age of 30. It's two in three women. And 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 women. Let me just finish this word salad, okay? Loneliness is bad, but it's bad for everybody. Actually, it's worse for men because there's a cartoon of a woman in her 30s who didn't find romantic love. What a tragedy. What a crime against humanity. She's alone, living with cats. Well, you know what, Nicole? She's just fine. Women have a tendency to take a lack of romantic energy and pour it back into the friend network and their professional lives. If a guy hasn't been married or cohabitated with a woman by the time he's 30, there's a 1 in 3 chance he'll be a substance abuser. Men need relationships much more than women. Widows are happier after their husband dies. Widowers are less happy. Women in relationships live two to four years longer, men four to seven years longer. The reality is men benefit much more from relationships and quite frankly, go down a downward spiral when they lack an opportunity for a romantic relationship. And without economic viability, they're just not attractive to women.

Nicole Wallace (14:49)

When we started talking about the ways that government or the state can level the playing field through Pell Grants and what it's like to be in those programs, it sounded like there was some flash of emotion in sort of the path that you took. Is the other side of all of that a human capacity for vulnerability? And did you always have that, or is that what you're talking about? You added to your ability to understand your story in hindsight.

Scott Galloway (15:22)

So it's strange. One of my hacks I have this series of life hacks. I struggle with anger and depression, which probably doesn't surprise anybody that listens to my podcast. But the way I try and address the issue is I try and learn all about it and then write about it. That's cathartic for me. There's a series of life hacks I try and remind myself of from the age of 29 to 44. I didn't cry. I didn't cry when my mom died. Side I didn't cry on my business when chapter 11. I didn't cry when I got divorced. Just kind of forgot how. And the advice I would give to any man and women who are don't express their emotions a lot is that life goes so fast as you get older that the only way to slow it down is to really lean into your emotions. We're sentient beings, which is synonymous with emotion. And what I would suggest is when you stumble upon a piece of art or flowers or something that inspire you, you stop and really kind of lean into and ask yourself, why does this inspire me? When you're watching Modern Family and I now, like, cry at a drop of a hat, Modern Family, I can't help but get through an episode at some point and not cry. Ask yourself, what is it about this that inspires me? Is it the parental relationship? What is it about? Is it someone? What is it about you? If you're I used to go to Brazil every year with a bunch of guys and if I ever managed to get up on a board, like just being in awe and wonder of this cylindrical mass of millions of gallons of water, just really try and lean into your emotions. Because as men, we're taught that masculinity signals strength and also the reason that we're more uncomfortable crying and showing vulnerability is the following. It's very obvious. For 99% of our time on this planet, if you cry to demonstrated weakness, and if you demonstrated weakness, there was a decent chance another man might kill you and have sex with your wife and eat your children. I mean, there's a reason why men have been taught instinctively not to demonstrate vulnerability or weakness. But what I can say is that being more emotive as I've gotten older informs what's important to me. It slows my life down. It's cathartic. I think it makes me healthier. So, in sum, my advice to men is laugh out loud, feel sadness. If you feel like crying, cry. And when you're inspired by things, really slow yourself down and say, what is it about this that moves me? And what does that say about what's rewarding in my life?

Nicole Wallace (17:42)

As you're talking, I'm thinking of John Boehner, the former speaker of the House, who was such a wonderful male public figure. He cried all the time.

Scott Galloway (17:49)

I saw that.

Nicole Wallace (17:50)

I never took him live because if we were taking him live, there was something happening without watching him weep. He cried when the pope came. He's still crying about the Pope. I mean, he cried when he got the job. He cried when he left the job. And it was so additive to his Persona and to what people thought about him. Why do you think people are still trapped in a phony view of what masculinity is?

Scott Galloway (18:14)

I don't know. I think it's conflating masculinity with a weird sense of strength. But, you know, I think, like, when I think about what makes a good partner, you know, what you really want is you want someone to notice your life, right? You want someone who, like, just observes you. Because the biggest fear is you go through life without a series of deep and meaningful relationships, and it's as if you never happened. Right? And I think men are taught that their role as a protector and a provider and a procreator. That's what I think of the three stools of masculinity, that it's hard to present yourself as strong and a provider and a protector if you're emotional. But I do think that's changing. I think men are getting better at that. And I think a lot of young men, I mentor a lot of kids, and I've only had it happen once. I said, you know, listening to you, I was talking to this kid about his mom's Alzheimer's. I'm Like I said, you know, I feel so bad. I've had a shitty day. I'm like, I can hear the emotion in my voice. I'm like, don't be freaked out. I cry all the time. And he started crying and I think it was nice for him because I just think at some point you need that release and you need to process. We're just not good at it, Nicole. But the thing about it is that I've noticed I was on the View and I started crying and I didn't like it at the moment. I was really embarrassed. I'm like, I'm with four really impressive women in front of a studio audience where they're getting free shit handed to them and everyone's like, yay. And it's great to be in fall in New York. And then this professor comes on and starts crying when he's talking about his father. And I'm like, oh, fuck. And of course, that's the thing they clip.

Podcast Host / Announcer (19:56)

We'll take a quick pause right here. Next up, much more my conversation with podcast host and best selling author Professor Scott Galloway. Stay with us.

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Scott Galloway (20:53)

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Podcast Advertiser (21:01)

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Scott Galloway (21:11)

Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why Is this Happening? Journalist Jasper Nathaniel on his experience in the West Bank.

Jasper Nathaniel (21:17)

It's not just a story of occupation violence and settler violence, but it's about these Americans who are not used to this. They have much more in common with you or me than they do with probably a lot of people that we see in Gaza. And they are now facing this kind of terror that they've never seen before and they're trying to figure out what to do about it. And they've turned to the US Government and they've been basically had the door slammed on them.

Scott Galloway (21:43)

That's this week on why is this happening? Search for why is this happening? Wherever you're listening right now and follow.

Nicole Wallace (21:53)

This may be one of the enduring gender divides. I think what women feel when anyone is emotional, a man or a woman is connection. And maybe what men feel is shame. And I just want to toggle back to childhood and I wonder for any child, how twisted and braided is it with shame? And how twisted and braided was that for you? You're talking about the wave. I mean, one of the first things you write about is the waves. You describe them almost the same way. And you talk about surfing with your dad.

Scott Galloway (22:27)

Yeah, I mean my dad was very emotive. My mom, My parents are European. But I think you can take. You can not only learn from what your parents do to what they don't do. I started something that's been a gift for me. I'm super affectionate with my boys. I used to kiss them on the lips until they wouldn't let me. My closest friend Lee, his father used to come over and his father looked like Burt Reynolds. He was such a handsome guy and he was an entrepreneur. He's one of those guys you just looked up to and they used to walk in and Lee's a young handsome guy and just very naturally and seamlessly they'd kiss each other on the lips. And I had never seen anything like that. My dad occasionally would mess up my hair, but that was about it. And so I thought as I got older like. And my mom couldn't help it, sometimes she would occasionally grab my hand. But she was raised in a non affectionate. There just wasn't a lot of affection. And you can make a conscious decision like we're an affectionate species. We're meant to lie on top of each other. I think the nicest things I did as a dad was I decided I'm down with co sleeping. And one of the biggest regrets I had is we read some stupid article on Psychology Today or something that you're not supposed to let your kids sleep with you in India. Co sleeping's big in Japan's co sleeping. And my two year old son used to show up at our bedroom door with an offering of his basket of cars saying if you let me come in there, you can play with these too. And we were such idiots. For the first two years we didn't let them co sleep with us cause we thought that was bad. But one of the most rewarding things I've had in my life was letting our kids when they want to come in and sleep with us. And I'm just trust me on this one. For the men sleeping out there and the mother sleeping out there, co sleeping with your kids when they're little is a gift and when you're older, you'll cherish it. Just trust me on this.

Nicole Wallace (24:08)

I'm with you. I mean my ex husband still calls me a panda mom. I mean it's all the soft things. And I won. And my mother and grandparents are Greek. And so it was everyone kissed, everyone kissed, everybody on the lips.

Scott Galloway (24:21)

I've gotten to a point now I try to manage my depression without pharmaceuticals. Not that they can't serve a huge purpose, but I know when I'm going dark. And I have this means or this, this behavioral therapy to try and reverse the downward spiral. And I have, it's an acronym. SCAFA S C A F A S for sweat. I immediately try and reset my system by sweating clean. I try and eat at home. Non salty, non sodium, non fatty food, abstinence. What I mean by that is I love alcohol and marijuana. I'm good at them. I'm a better version of me, a little fucked up. I've gotten more out of alcohol than it's gotten out of me. They're additive to my life. But when I feel myself going down, I stop all outside substances banging on my sensors. F family. I find being around my boys is restorative because my boys can be such jerks. It makes it impossible for me to stay in my screwed up head. And then affection. And I'll even say to my boys, you know, I'm feeling down. And they know to kind of like come sit down with me on the couch and throw their legs over mine. The dogs I find are very affectionate dogs. Don't rely on you. I have a little rescue mutt that I think is a dachshund. And then we have a Great Dane. So we have some very big and dogs.

Nicole Wallace (25:27)

They have good lap dogs. Yeah, I have two vizslas. They're lap dogs too.

Scott Galloway (25:30)

Oh, we had a Vizsla. Sweetest dogs in the world.

Nicole Wallace (25:32)

They have to run, they have to feel, they have to touch.

Scott Galloway (25:35)

Very sensitive dogs.

Nicole Wallace (25:36)

Very sensitive dogs. How much of managing your own mental health do we, you know, leave the gender piece out of it? But does everyone have to take responsibility for understanding that? There's so many things working with the phones, with the isolation, with whatever sort of post Covid work habits are. I mean, you talk a lot about it on Your podcast, you write about it. I mean, how much should be as much of a practice to take care of your mental health the way people take care of their workouts?

Scott Galloway (26:05)

Well, first is to acknowledge that, unfortunately, unwittingly, moment by moment, we have connected our economy to diabetes and depression. Healthcare is the biggest industry in the United States. $2 trillion a year, and a decent amount of that is based on the obesity industrial complex. And then the most valuable companies in the world, representing 40% of the S&P by market value and 20% of global equity value, are big tech firms who do a lot of things. But the two real primary businesses they're in are sequestering you from all other activities. The more time you're on the screen, the less time with your parents, friends, mentors, mates, the more money they make. And also, in order to keep you engaged, they want to enrage you. I've been in marketing my whole life. From 1945 to the introduction of Google. We thought the ultimate secret sauce was sex. Drink our beer, you'll be hotter. Buy this car. Greater likelihood of a random sexual experience. What the algorithms found out is there's something that sells better than sex, and that is rage. And so you have to be cognizant of the fact that the industrial food complex wants to get you addicted to sugary, fatty, salty foods. Hand you over to the diabetes industrial complex, which will make money on dialysis, statins, cholesterol drugs, hip and knee replacements. It's a big business. And that the most valuable companies in the world have a profit incentive to use their godlike technology to sequester you from relationships. And the worst thing you can do as a mammal to your mental health is not be around other people. Put an orca in a tank alone, see what happens. The worst thing you can do to a human is solitary confinement. By the way, there's a new study coming out showing that 20 to 30 year old males are spending less time outside than prison inmates. Jesus, what happens to your dog when you leave it alone without another dog or another being? In sum, your success, your economic success, your mental health, your likelihood of becoming a millionaire, your likelihood of not engaging in self harm, your likelihood of not hurting someone else, your likelihood of having more sex is inversely correlated to how much time you spend on a screen. So just recognize you are up against a very capable, well armed foe that wants to sequester you and divide you from the key thing to mental health, and that is being around other people.

Nicole Wallace (28:27)

I say this about the phone because I have a 13, almost 14 year old. And we have a lot of structure around phone use still. And it's a friction point. But I say to him, you're the only generation that's going to have one of those things. It's going to be like cigarettes. You're going to look at your kids and they're going to say, you had a phone when you were 10. That would be like me giving you a pack of cigarettes. Do you think that the society and policy and laws and norms will catch up with all that is available in science, all that information that you just shared?

Scott Galloway (28:57)

Yeah, I think if we're going to have, I think our biggest regret around our economy in big tech is we'll say, okay, the income inequality was bad, the monopolization, you know, there were a lot of bad things in big, big tech. The thing we're going to just be in disbelief about is how on earth did we let this happen to our kids?

Podcast Host / Announcer (29:14)

Right?

Nicole Wallace (29:15)

Like who thought it was good idea to hand a nine year old a screen.

Scott Galloway (29:17)

We age gate, the military, pornography, alcohol, voting. But we've decided not to age gate screens. Technology that puts an arcade, Netflix pornography, high school cafeteria. The judgment, the shaming. We've decided to let a 14 year old, when they're especially susceptible to their social capital, or lack thereof, where young men who are more sensitive and can become more addicted to dopa, hits faster. And we put this in their pocket. So typically what happens is it takes 20 years to figure things out. It took 30 years with cigarettes, it took 20 years with opiates, it's been about 20 years with smartphones. And it's happening. They're banning phones in schools. So in some, I think we're figuring it out. And the thing is, there's common sense solutions. No one under the age of 18 should be on a social media platform. I'm sorry, AI should be similar to movies. There's a different AI for people under the age of 18. And the thing that really has me freaked out is the idea of synthetic relationships.

Nicole Wallace (30:20)

What's that like talking to chat, A character? Yeah, yeah.

Scott Galloway (30:23)

Supposedly one in three people under the age of 18 are now in a synthetic relationship.

Nicole Wallace (30:28)

Like her. Like the movie.

Scott Galloway (30:29)

Exactly. Friends, advice, therapists. And if you're a 17 year old male and maybe your initial overtures to other 17 year old girls in your high school have not been, have been rebuffed, which is called being a 17 year old male. And you have this lifelike 4k beautiful woman and an algorithm behind it that is figured out a million times A second your fetishes, the type of titillation that works best for you. And this individual synthetic figure never says no, supportive, nice, totally frictionless, and starts performing erotic acts. You're going to expect that kid to finally take risks and get in shape and smell nice and get someone to dress him and approach strange women and establish resilience and trying to learn a kindness practice and trying to develop a sense of humor. My fear is that we're reducing and this goes back to mentoring young men. I don't tell them to not engage in porn. I think that's almost unrealistic right now. But what I tell them is the reason I graduated from UCLA. I graduated from UCLA with a 2.27 GPA, which is not very good. But one of the reasons I graduated is when I went on UCLA's campus every day, is I wanted to see my friends. It's a beautiful campus. But also, to be blunt, there was a remote but non zero probability I'd meet a woman and get her to come back to or invite her to a fraternity party and at some point have sex with her. I wasn't seeing women and thinking I want lower rates on insurance when I'm 40 or I want to even raise kids with this person. I was thinking I would really like to have sex with this person. And I think we have pathologized young men's sexual and romantic interests, not recognizing that some of the messages they get discourage them from learning the skills around how to make express romantic interest while making that person feel safe. But also, if I'd had lifelike synthetic porn on my phone and computer 24 by 7, I'm not sure I would have gone on campus as much and I might not have graduated from college. And it's also giving young men an unrealistic expectation of a relationship it's leading to. Ultimately, porn gets more and more extreme and quite frankly, it becomes violent and misogynistic. It's just training men to not take risks. And it's training them to have unreasonable, strange expectations around what a romantic relationship is. The most rewarding things in life are the hard things. They're just the only thing the best things in life have in common is they're really hard and they usually involve a person. And the reason why relationships with people is so rewarding is it's so goddamn hard. It's hard to figure out the pecking order and the insecurities of establishing a friendship group. It's hard to come into an office like this and put up with a Bullshit boss who's less talented than you or not make as much as Bob because he's been there 20 years longer. It's hard to navigate that. And finally to try and figure out the nuance and the rejection and the perseverance and the skills required to establish a romantic partnership. That shit's hard. But at the end of the day, when you figure out the skills and the resilience and the perseverance to establish these things, that's what victory looks like. And then I think the most rewarding thing, hands down, in life, is to establish a romantic partnership with someone such that you commit enough to each other, where you raise these things that get less awful every day called kids. That's the only time I've ever felt purpose. And I can tell you that is hands down the hardest thing I have ever done. And it happened because I was so attracted to someone that I mustered up the courage to endure humiliation by approaching her under the sun of midday without the benefit of alcohol at a pool in a hotel in Miami called the Raleigh Hotel. Simple line, hey, where are you guys from? And 18 months later, our son's middle name is Raleigh. If you want to punch above your weight class, economically or romantically, get ready to endure rejection and get off a screen. But initially you got to recognize the entire economy in the United States right now is a giant bet on big tech and AI. And they're not malicious people, but their algorithms have figured out the less time you go out making friends, mentors and mates, the more their stock price will go up.

Nicole Wallace (34:57)

At what point is Trump the beneficiary of that? And at what point in the second term as president is he the architect of that? I'm just thinking of his bets on AI, his bets on civilian airs, to the exclusion of his own working class base.

Scott Galloway (35:16)

So I think essentially Trump, essentially most candidates who win, whether it's Kennedy or fdr, TV and radio, so to speak, weaponize a new platform that's emerging and weaponize, leverage. A better president Trump did in his first in 16, with Twitter in 24. The medium that got him elected was podcasting. I believe me too. And that is the average viewer of a cable news network, if you distill it down to a person, is a seven year old white woman. She knows who she's voting for. The average podcast listener is a 34 year old, ethnically ambiguous male. He's a swing voter because he typically votes on who he perceives as being better for his pocketbook. And that flips back and forth between Republican And Democrat. So when he went on Rogan, he got between his audio downloads and video views, he got 55 million views. Vice President Harris, to have matched that number of impressions, would have had to gone on msnbc, CNN and Fox every night for three hours for two weeks. Do you notice that Trump went on every manosphere podcast because somebody very genius in campaign said the swing voters are young men. Our message of what I would call faux masculinity is resonating with them. They don't feel seen. And the way we reach them is with Andrew Schultz and Theo Vaughn. I think the manosphere and podcast delivered the election to Trump. Now what I think is really damaging to young men right now is that whether we like it or not, the premier role models for young men are going to be the most powerful man in the world and the wealthiest man in the world. And right now that's Trump and Musk.

Nicole Wallace (37:01)

What about athletes?

Scott Galloway (37:03)

Yeah, but they don't have maybe or rock stars. But I still think that globally, if you had to pick the two role models that young men are going to look up to or young people in general, it's going to be the president and in a capitalist society, whoever's won the game, right? And that's the richest man in the world. The whole point though of prosperity, and I think we miss this sometimes, the whole point, the whole shooting match, you develop economic security so you can take care of yourself. You want to fix your own oxygen mask. But the second leg of the stool is protection. Think about the most masculine jobs, cop, fireman, military. At the end of the day, they protect. The whole reason you want to work out and be big is such that you can protect people physically. That's when you feel, in my opinion, most at peace. When you feel like your kids are safe, when your partner feels noticed, when you can protect your country. And this is where I think our leadership has entirely failed. I just think they don't move to protection being sued concurrently by two women for sole custody of that child because you have not spent any time with that child that couldn't be any more anti masculine. Figuring out a way such that in the most prosperous nation in the world that kids are going to go hungry, there just couldn't be anything.

Nicole Wallace (38:11)

And they're trying to manufacture hunger. I mean, it's not an accident that they're refusing to solve. It's a benefit they're designing a way to not provide. And I like that you write about. It's a correction I made immediately that toxic masculinity isn't a thing. It's oxymoronic. I called a couple of guys that I know felt disaffected after 2024, and I said, why don't you start like a BDE pack, like big democracy Energy. Like what Mascul and this was after the cabinet came together and you've got Hegseth was investigated for rape allegations. Matt Gaetz was his first choice for AG who was repelled by his own Republican caucus. They repel no one. I mean, why isn't there an effort. Forget about politics, I guess, for a second. But hopefully it ultimately benefits politics to rebrand like male energy and what masculinity is and isn't in a way that graphs onto our politics that makes all these points in a political arena. Would you take this mission and run for office?

Scott Galloway (39:18)

There's a lot there. So I consider myself a patriot. I want to add value. But the way I'll go in reverse order, the way I can add the most value is by bringing attention to what I think is an outstanding bench of Democratic candidates. That's my superpower, and so that's going to be my role. And other than being a narcissist and having some money, which are qualifications to run for office, I don't especially like people. I don't think I'd especially enjoy the job. I don't think I'd be especially good at it. So the way I can be a patriot is by trying to restore some of the great. Quite frankly, I say I want to make America America again. And the way I can be helpful is what you're doing, and that is bring attention to the issues. I just think we have an outstanding bench of people who are great at this. So my.

Nicole Wallace (40:02)

But do they think outside the box enough? I mean, you've been talking about an economic strike for months. Someone should have done it already, and they should have done it when states started passing voter suppression laws predicated on a lie about election fraud in 2020. I mean, do you think anyone in the political arena moves fast enough?

Scott Galloway (40:18)

I find when I spend time with some of these politicians and I coach a lot of them, I'm like, no, no. Just we're in a world where you just need to sound real. If you're not saying something occasionally off color or offensive every once in a while, you're not being real and just getting on with the stump speech that tries to thread the needle and not offend anybody. If we've learned anything, the public forgives inarticulate or undelicate statements and doesn't necessarily reflect your character as long as your heart's in the replaced, as long as you're willing to apologize. But I feel like I need to do a land acknowledgement here and recognize that I've always asked for male role models, and I was like, it's not male role models, it's masculine role models. And two of my role models for masculinity are Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton never forgot about protection through her whole life. She's always like, I'm about helping kids. Always made a part of her public policy, was always very pragmatic about it. It was public policy that would plant trees, the shade of which she would never sit under. I think that is the ultimate expression of masculinity. So masculinity and femininity are not sequestered to people born as males, as females. And a lot of women bring great masculinity. But I would argue that 95% of us who are born binary, which, by the way, doesn't mean any lack of opportunity, grace and respect for the 5% who are non binary, but 95% of us are born binary. And for those of us born biologically male, I think leaning into masculinity can serve as a great code. There's too many decisions to be made in this world without a code. And you might get your code from your family, from your religion, from the military. I think I got my first code from work. I worked at Morgan Stanley and there was. They just. There was a certain acceptable behavior and approach to work and approach to each other. But I think masculinity can be a great. In an aspirational format, can be a great code for young men. And to your point earlier, there's cruelty, there's abusive behavior, right? There's being unfair, there's being reckless. That's not masculinity. So I think there's an opportunity to reframe masculinity in an aspirational way and help young men lean into it. There's an award called the Carnegie Award, where they basically give awards to people who risk their own personal safety to help somebody else they don't know. In the heat of the moment, literally the Rushing into the Burning House award, they give about 80 awards, I think, every other year, on average, 75 of those 80 go to men. Where we see recklessness in young men, you also have to recognize there's valor, there's right. Where we see impulsiveness, Young men are willing to rush an enemy. But if I say women make better doctors and lawyers and it looks as if they are on average better doctors and lawyers because they have better eq, more detail oriented, more nurturing, more observant. If I say that, people nod If I say women are better managers because they have better EQ and maternal skills, I think are somewhat synonymous to good management skills. People politely clap if I say men make better combat soldiers or on average might make better entrepreneurs. There's a general gag reflex of I don't feel safe around you. So I don't think we have an honest conversation around the positive side of masculinity. The far right was the first to recognize it to their credit, but their answer is to take non whites and women back to the 50s.

Podcast Host / Announcer (43:51)

My conversation with Scott Galloway continues right after the break. We'll be back with more in a moment.

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Scott Galloway (44:47)

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Nicole Wallace (45:11)

When their answers to put into that coalition Nick Fuentes, who I know is a trigger for you. I mean their coalition is to take everything toxic and merge those two words together. Toxic and masculinity.

Scott Galloway (45:22)

Yeah, unfortunately Nick Fuentes is just an aberration and a cancer that is fueled by this environmental toxin called social media where the things he says are so vile, so stupid, so inhuman that the algorithms just love it. Because a bunch of us can weigh in and make comments and every comment we make that's outraged, a bot will come in and promote it and it's another Nissan Atom or shareholder.

Nicole Wallace (45:46)

But his human body was inside the real life household of Donald Trump, the current president. So I mean, I guess the Nick Fuentes part in that male sort of coalition that includes MAGA and I don't know how else to describe. I don't know if it's a MAGA coalition that includes a lot of men with the wrong perception of what it means to be masculine or if it's a masculine coalition that includes maga. I'm not sure which is the apex sort of figure. But it includes Nick Fuentes. Not just as an algorithm. It includes him as a person that went to Donald Trump's house. How do you bring men into a political coalition that values decency and is repelled by figures like Nick Fuentes?

Scott Galloway (46:28)

So if you look at the cadence of politics in our country, I would say if you tried to reduce it to something pretty simple, it's the following. Democrats have their heart in the right place and they develop a narrative and they have a certain apostate culture. If you don't sign up for the narrative exactly. You're cast into the wilderness.

Nicole Wallace (46:47)

Cancel culture.

Scott Galloway (46:48)

Well, yeah, two and a half years ago I said, Biden's too old. I'm an ageist. And you know who else is ageist?

Nicole Wallace (46:54)

85% and 85% of the country thought he was too old.

Scott Galloway (46:58)

We have the oldest elected populace of any democracy. Our elected populace is a cross between the walking dead and the golden girls. And people say, well, you're being ageist. Okay, when 75% of Congress is going to be dead in 25 years, do they really give a good goddamn about the national debt or climate change? Do they understand how to regulate TikTok? The average age in America is 35. I'm not suggesting everyone needs to be 35, but we have an ages problem. And guess what? Old people have figured out a way to vote themselves more money. And people under the age of 40 are 24% less wealthy. And people my age are now 72% wealthier because kids don't vote. And unfortunately, young people don't vote. So the child tax credit is stripped out of the infrastructure bill. 40 billion. But the $120 billion cost of living adjustment to Social Security flies right through Congress. But the political algorithm or pattern is the following. Democrats start with the right idea. They take it way too far. Sixty years ago, there were 12 black people at Harvard, Princeton and Yale combined. In 1960, only 12. That's a problem. Affirmative action made sense. Race based affirmative action was the right decision in 1960. This year, 55% of Harvard's freshman class identifies as non white. The problem is 70% of those kids come from dual income upper income homes. So the academic gap between non whites and whites was double. Between rich and poor 60 years ago. Now it's flipped. So we need to evolve and say, okay, some people have wins in their faces that deserve a hand up. All Democrats believe that. I'd say some or most Republicans believe that. But affirmative action should be based on color and that color is green. A white kid from Appalachia with a drug addicted mom and a father who's been incarcerated, that's the kid that needs help. And so we need to evolve our policy. And what happens is in an effort to understand and show empathy for the trans community which has been demonized, we sit around and politely applaud and look at each other when a 6, 5 person born as a male shows up at an NC2, a women's swim meet. Democrats take shit too far and we put our chins out by quite frankly just being a little bit crazy on some of this stuff. And then Republicans weigh in with an overreaction and start implementing a series of cruel. They take the name Harvey Milk off a frigate in a big fuck you to the gay community. This was a guy who served his country. The word used most in Harvey Milk's military reviews were excellence goes on to be the first elected official for the gay community which must have given huge comfort to the gay community. And now one of the first acts of the Secretary of War is to take his name off a frigate. So we as Democrats take things too far. In my opinion. One of our many flaws is we're more concerned with grabbing perceived virtue than focusing on actual programs that will improve the material and psychological well being of Americans. All right? And then we stick our chin out with, in my opinion, irrational crazy behavior. And the Republicans come in with a set of incredibly cruel coarse policies that not only don't help people, but seem to be saying, I'm strong in the way I communicate my strength issue, just baseline cruelty. One of the basics of our democracy, and you've talked about this, is we reward and punish people based on their character and their behavior. And now we're slamming cars because of someone's identity. Oh, they look brown, pulled them over and asked for their id. So I think Democrats need to be more focused on ideas versus indignance and stop the purity test. And I don't think the right suffers as much from that. The right just writes me off as a libtard. But some of the most vehement, ugly emails I've gotten from people I know is you don't understand the assignment. At some point we have to be more than the party of no and indignant and Running around with our hair on fire. It's like, well, what's our plan? Is it $25 an hour minimum wage? Is it lowering the cost of healthcare? We need nationalized medicine. Our medical industrial complex is monetizing health. We spend twice what everyone else spends per capita. We die sooner. We're more anxious when we're more obese. Lower eligibility for Medicare by two years. For 10 years and 20 years. Anyone over the age of 45 is eligible. That's a big bold idea, right? Mandatory national service. Eight million homes in 10 years. For God's sakes, let's move to the ideas part of the program. Instead of look at how awful he is. You either think he's awful or he isn't. Stop trying to convince people they're either on board and they agree with you or they're never going to agree with you. There needs to be more pragmatism recognizing that we have made progress and certain things are outdated. And we absolutely need to figure out a way to say coarseness and cruelty couldn't be any more opposite than the whole point of America. Right? The whole point of America is you give more rights, dignity and grace to people. And for some reason we've conflated leadership with this weird, perverse cruelty.

Nicole Wallace (52:10)

Do you think that last night's wins by Spamberger and Sheryl and Gavin Newsom barony that out? I mean, their campaigns included ideas. Their campaigns were about a rejection of what Trump has wrought in nine months. I mean, Obama's closing message in both New Jersey and Virginia was, is your life any better than it was nine months ago?

Scott Galloway (52:35)

Off cycle elections should naturally favor the non incumbents. I don't know about you. It felt alien to wake up and have wins. I'm like, this feels good and alien. It felt more strange initially than good. The thing that was encouraging about it was not the victories, but the margins of victories. And actually it's the boring stuff and the turnout 100% and young people the way they went. I think actually it's the boring stuff that people don't notice. That's the most seminal thing. I think Prop 50 in California is actually the most important thing.

Nicole Wallace (53:01)

Me too. I said that all night. It was the only idea that was on the ballot. Everything else was a person, it was an idea. And it was an idea that Californians voted against. A few years ago the electorate went out and rejected mid year redistricting and they went out understanding the moment, understanding the message, understanding a rather complicated narrative that involves something that a state, a few states over did and voted for democracy. I thought it was unbelievably inspiring, very.

Scott Galloway (53:26)

Important and 2 to 1. And it also, I think right now it kind of cements Newsom, in my opinion, as the Democratic front runner right now with a lot of time to go. But something I was really encouraged by was the governor's wins in Virginia. And Jersey. And Jersey. Excuse me. Empathy is not a zero sum game. Gay marriage didn't hurt. Heteronormative marriage. Civil rights didn't hurt white people. And advocating for young men and recognizing just the stark data doesn't in any way take from the fact that women still face real hurdles. Once a woman has a baby, she goes to 73 cents on the dollar relative to her male peers. We still haven't figured out a way to maintain a woman's trajectory professionally if she decides to actually continue the species. The dude's fine. As a matter of fact, his earnings usually go up. Oh, Bob just had a baby. Oh, Bob would be great for the promotion. Oh, she's pregnant. She's going to come back, right? Or I don't know. Do we really want to invest in her future? Anyways, there are real issues still facing women and one of the biggest issues that is just so obvious, straight up misogyny is a tough word. Bias against women is the following. The only thing our 535 elected officials have in common, the only thing you'd say is a requirement, is, I think something like 95 or 97% of them graduated from college. That's the prerequisite to be an elected leader in America. More women have been graduating from college for the last 40 years than men. And yet it's 26% of our elected officials are women. America is a highly looksist and sexist society when it comes to our elected officials. Show me a 5 foot 4 person with a high pitched voice and 140 IQ. Hello, school board president. Show me someone six two with a deep voice and 105 IQ. Hello Mr. Senator. I don't want to see a woman as the Democratic nominee for president. Not because I don't think it's time, but because I think she will lose. Because I think America is still very sexist when it comes to its elected leaders. So last night for me was some sense of progress because I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican, you really.

Nicole Wallace (55:29)

You don't want to see either party nominate a woman.

Scott Galloway (55:32)

I believe there will be a female president, she will be a Republican and she will bring one attribute that will get her elected presidency. And that is a belief that if you run as so much as run a stop sign, she will drone strike your ass. It is going to be a Margaret Thatcher like, I do not like people. I don't like leaving my home. The only person I've ever canvassed for door to door was Secretary Clinton, who was a hero of mine in 2016. I hope it's a straight white male over 6ft tall, because I just think America, deep down, is still pretty sexist when it comes to elected officials. And by the way, I'm not saying that's the way the world should be. I'm saying the world is.

Nicole Wallace (56:09)

We've been paying attention. Yeah.

Scott Galloway (56:10)

Going back to New Jersey and Virginia. I don't care. Democratic Republican. You look at these qualities, you look at these candidates. Our candidate quality was far superior through the roof.

Nicole Wallace (56:21)

Yeah.

Scott Galloway (56:21)

And the fact that we even were saying it might be close. So I found it really encouraging, not only as a rebuttal, as a rebuttal to Trump and his policies, but that the candidate quality was so strong and that people are hopefully starting to embrace more female candidates. The fact that a quarter of women our elected officials means there's straight up, still a lot of misogyny when it gets to our elected leaders. And my point of bringing this up is we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can recognize that we need to train or educate our younger people. That women, despite all the history books just showing arguments between dudes, that women can be great leaders. Right. While at the same time recognizing that young men are 4 times as likely to kill themselves, 3 times as likely to be addicted, 3 times as likely to be homeless, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated. There's programs and ideas for all of this.

Nicole Wallace (57:16)

Thank you for your time on all of this.

Scott Galloway (57:17)

Thank you.

Nicole Wallace (57:18)

Scott Galloway, who never minces words and has written a really important book, notes on Being a Man. Thank you for being here.

Scott Galloway (57:23)

Thank you, Nicole. Thanks for your good work.

Podcast Host / Announcer (57:30)

Thank you so much for listening to the Best People. You can subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to get this another MSNBC podcast ad free. You'll also get early access and exclusive bonus content. All of the episodes of the podcast are also available on YouTube. Visit msnbc.com the best people to Watch the Best People is produced by Vicki Vergelina and senior producer Lisa Ferry. Our associate producer is Rana Shahbazi with additional production support from Query Robinson. Our audio engineer is Bob Mallory and Katie Lau is our senior manager of audio production. Pat Burkey is the senior executive producer of Deadline White House. Brad Gold is the executive producer of content strategy, Aisha Turner is the executive producer of audio, and Madeline Herringer is senior vice president in charge of audio.

Nicole Wallace (58:22)

Digital and long form.

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