Notes On Being a Man with Scott Galloway

In this honest, funny, and sometimes raw conversation with Katie Couric, the bestselling author, podcaster, and professor Scott Galloway opens up about his new book Notes on Being a Man. In it, he’s on a mission to set out a kind of code for modern masculinity grounded in his “three Ps” (protect, provide, and procreate) and he calls on all of us to step up and support the young men in our lives. But… where does this call to support young men leave women, whose rights are under siege? Katie reads him a Reddit critique about just that (and he actually kinda agrees with it).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
The reality is we need more men to step up,
and if we want better men, we have to be
better men. But there's just no getting around it. Men
of my generation are not paying it back, both with
supportive policies that put more money back in the pockets
of young people. And two, I think the ultimate expression
of masculinity you take care of yourself, you get strong,
you get economically viable, you take care of your family,

(00:24):
you take care of your community. But the ultimate expression
of masculinity is to take an interest in the life
of a child that is in yours. And there's not
enough of that type of masculinity in our nation right now.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Scott Galloway, the uber popular podcaster, professor, and best selling author,
has emerged as a thought leader on all things boys,
men and masculinity. He's got a new book out. It's
called Notes on Being a Man, and he tells the
story of growing up and becoming the Scott we know today.
He also shares some advice to young men who may

(00:58):
feel lost, lonely and misunderstood. Well, let's talk about your book,
because you're probably sick of it at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
But oh no, I never tired of speaking about me.
Ab So good at this.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well, good because you're here to do more of that. Scott,
This issue, I know has been on your mind for
a while now You've written a book about it, Notes
on Being a Man, And I'm curious how this started
to percolate in that brain of yours.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I think it was just the data, you know. Actually,
the moment it started was back in I think twenty twenty.
I don't know if you know the name Alex Kerns,
but there was this nineteen year old sophomore I think
at the University of Kansas or Kentucky, and he was
trading options on Robin Hood and he got a series
of Aaron messages saying he owed sixty thousand dollars and

(01:53):
it ended up they were wrong, so furiously emailing customer
service couldn't get a response back and decided basically decided
to end his life. And the note he left was
didn't want to saddle my family with this kind of money.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
I remember this story.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, it's very rattling, and I kind of went down
a rabbit hole. I reached out to the family.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
This was like an all American kid, right.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
No sinamental illness.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, I remember this.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
You see this kid and if you have boys, you
just see your son, right. And I started looking at
teen suicide and if you go into a Morgan, there's
five young people who died by suicide, four men, and
the stats just get crazier from there. Young men are
three times as likely to be homeless, three times is
likely to be addicted, twelve times likely to be incarcerated,

(02:40):
and there's just a lack of empathy for them, which
is understandable because of the disproportionate, unfair advantage that I received.
You know, the best decision I ever made was being
born in the sixties a white, heterosexual male. And if
you look at what happened from nineteen forty five to
two thousand, America, with five percent of the world's population,

(03:01):
registered thirty three percent of the world's economic growth. So
you take six times the disproportionate accretion of wealth through
a small number of people Americans, and then you further
cram it into the one third that are white male,
a heterosexual. I just had unfair advantage. And because I
had unfair advantage, what I find is there's a lack

(03:21):
of empathy for young people who don't have the same
advantage as I had.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
So they're basically being blamed for the sense of their fathers.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
People look at me and they're angry, understandably, and they
hold a nineteen year old accountable who does not have
the same advantage as I did. It was forty sixty
female to male college admittance. This year it's going to
be two to one female to male college graduation rates.
More single women owned homes in the US and single

(03:50):
men in urban areas. Young women are now making more
money than ment and by the way, this is a
collective victory. But when we saw it was forty six
women to men in college, we said, and women, by
the way, we're on the rise. We decided, if college
is the upward lubricant of a society, we need to
do something about this. And they weigh in with Title nine,

(04:10):
which was the right move. Now that it's worse than that,
skewed the other way and men are headed in the
wrong direction. There's no discussion of anything resembling some sort
of affirmative action for men. And by the way, I
think that's probably the right decision. I think we need
programs to help all young people, because I think it
would just get too politicized. But there's a general feeling

(04:30):
that young men don't have problems, that they are the problem.
And again, I think men my age have a debt.
I think we have an obligation to advocate for policies
that start putting more money back in the pockets of
young people. Katie, the average person our age is seventy
two percent wealthier now than they were forty years ago.
The average person their age under the age of forty

(04:52):
is twenty four percent less wealthy. So should young men
be paying the price of my advantage? The numbers are
stark obvious. If there was any group in America killing
themselves at four times the rate of the control group,
we'd weigh in with programs walk down the halls of NYU,
go girl, women in consulting, Black women in investment banking,

(05:15):
women supports groups, find me a poster anywhere. It's a
support group for men, and yet they're the ones that
are struggling, hands down the most.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
At the same time, you know, you mentioned all the
strides that women have made, Scott, but then you look
at like some of the still pathetic numbers, like the
number of female CEOs for example, right, and the wealth
gap between men and women that still exists. So sometimes
it sounds like you're suggesting we've already reached parody and

(05:47):
then some. But would you concede that there are many
areas in American life where there is not gender equality,
and we still have miles to go before we sleep,
so to speak.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
So what I would argue is empathies not as zero
sum game, and that is civil rights didn't hurt white people.
Gay marriage is not hurt heteronormative marriage, and we can
still acknowledge the huge obstacles the non whites and women
still face, but there's some nuance. So for example, when
women decide to leverage their overaries and have kids, they

(06:21):
go to seventy seven cents on the dollar. We still
have not figured out a way from women to maintain
the professional trajectory. Why having children. Were the only country
in the G seven that doesn't have universal childcare until
two years ago. I think there were more CEOs named
Bob than female CEOs in the Fortune five hundred. So,
by the way, it's parents fault for not naming their
daughters Bob.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
I don't know if it's Bob. I thought it was Bill,
or I can't remember something like that.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
So I don't think there's any denying that women still
have real issues. I talk a lot about big tech,
big tech praise on the insecurities of teenage girls, and
you can directly correlate self harm from when social wed on.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Mobile, right. I mean, you look at Jonathan height, and
I know these statistics are terrible for boys and men,
but if you look at the anxious generation, you see
preteen girls have their suicide rate has just jumped. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
So it's interesting though, just as many women attempt suicide
as men. It's just that men are quote unquote better
at it because the more comfortable gunplay. Anyway, I want
to acknowledge Hispanics and Black families have average net worth
of twenty thousand, white families one hundred and sixty thousand,
So I think it's pretty easy to acknowledge that they're
still in apartheid and economic apartheid in the US when

(07:36):
you normalize it for education, it's even so that kind
of takes us to solutions, and that is the majority
of the solutions I see do not target men exclusively.
I think it's too political. I don't think we'll make progress.
I think there's an understandable gag reflex from women and progressives.
The programs I'm mostly suggesting that some are specific to

(07:57):
young boys, but the majority of programs I would suggest
that most people can't argue with is that my generation
has taken their credit card and leveraged it for our prosperity.
And when you have young people can't afford a home,
they can't afford education, and they have the most godlike
technology that is linked to forty percent of the value

(08:18):
that SMPS companies who have a profit incentive of linked
shaholder value with polarization, division and sequestration. I just don't
think there's any arguing that young people are struggling, and
that that struggle among young people seems to be disproportionately
impacting young men, which in no way takes away from

(08:39):
the urgency and challenges. I was raised by a single
immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. My mom
and I speak openly about this. Terminated at pregnancy at
the age of forty seven when I was seventeen. Had
she not had access to family planning, I couldn't have
gone to college. I would have stay at home and
gone to work. So the fact that we are now
moving backwards around some components of women's rights to me

(09:03):
is unthinkable, and so I also feel a real debt
to be involved in an advocate for bodily autonomy because
one of the reasons I'm here is I got to
go to UCLA, which inspired this upward spiral of prosperity.
And it's a little bit uncomfortable and awkward to talk about.
But if I'd been a seventeen year old only child,
the son of a woman who'd had to carry a
child to term. This was nineteen eighty three, that wasn't

(09:26):
fucking Google. My mom wasn't going to get six months off.
She was a secretary. I couldn't have gone to college.
So I'd like to think that this isn't men versus women.
This is what i'd call liberal versus illiberal thought. This
is empathy and recognizing that we can chew gum and walk.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
At the same time, I kept thinking of the phrase
zero sum game, you know, when I was reading this,
because it does seem as, if inevitably, particularly in our
current culture, one group is pitted against another group, and
so in this case, it's men against women. And as
a producer at sixty Minutes told me my first day

(10:05):
on the job, there, someone else's success diminishes you, someone
else's failure enhances you. And I was like, that is
a really fucked up philosophy. And I think your point
is if men do better, women don't have to do worse.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Women in our country aren't going to continue to flourish
if men are flailing. And what I would argue is
you said something really powerful men versus women. The genders
have done a great job of convincing themselves. It's the
other gender's fault. There's an understandable gagery. Fucks it says Scott,
where were you when women were really struggling? And I

(10:43):
would argue, when we had Title nine that tried to
level up women in college, ninety seven percent of our
elected officials were men. So clearly some men are on
the side of a forward, leading society. I don't see
it as men versus women. I see it as empathy
versus non empathy, or what I'll call liberal progressive thought,
because there are men who are very much on the

(11:05):
side of advancing the rights of women, and there are
a lot of women. You know who my biggest supporters
are of this work. Mothers, the emails, young men come
up to me, and they appreciate the advocacy for young men,
But hands down, the cohort that has advanced as dialogue
and stop people from calling me Andrew Tate with an
MBA is mothers and the email and the kind of

(11:28):
narrative goes like this, I have three kids, two daughters,
one son, one daughter a pen one daughter in Pierre
in Chicago, and my son is in the basement vaping
and playing video games. It's mothers that really see what's
going on here. So I think that the greatest alliance
in history is not NATO. It's not between modern Republicans
and mid The greatest alliance in history has between men

(11:49):
and women. And I think there's seven and a half
billion points of evidence that it's a great alliance. So
what do we need. We need young men to celebrate
the progress of their sisters and their mothers, but we
also need women to realize the struggles facing young men
are real.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Why is that? Why is her son in the basement
vaping and playing video games and her other children are
successful going about their lives.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
It's a confluence of a bunch of things. So first,
let's just start with biology. A boy's prefrontal cortex is
literally eighteen months behind a girls. This is the gas on,
gas off executive function. Stop playing video games and start studying.
So two seniors in high school applying to college, a
boy and a girl. The girls basically competing against a

(12:33):
sixteen year old girl. Seven to ten high school valedictorians
are girls. What you have is once we level the
playing field, girls blue by boys, and the educational system,
I would argue, is biased against boys. Think about the
behaviors we encourage in school. Sit still, be a pleased,
or raise your hand, be organized. You just described a girl.

(12:56):
When you have single sex schools, boys end up with
double amount of recess time. If a boy is twice
as likely to be suspended for the exact same behavior,
is a girl five times is likely if it's a
black boy. Seventy to eighty percent of K through twelve
teachers are women, And who is a woman more likely
to advocate for someone who reminds her of herself or

(13:18):
that rumbunctious boy. Very few men, I.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Know you're going to say, very few men are teachers
or teachers. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
And the other thing we have to acknowledge is that
if you look at the single point of failure, if
you have to point to one thing, the single point
of failure when a boy comes off the tracks and
has problems the rest of his life, it's when he
loses a male role model through death, divorce, or abandonment.
And what's interesting is girls, when they lose their dad,

(13:49):
they have the same outcomes. They might be a little
bit more promiscuous because they're looking for male attention in
the wrong places, but the same levels of college attendance,
same income. They're fine.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
It's fine. When my husband died, my girls were six
and two, and I remember saying, I'm so glad that
I don't have a son, because I thought that they
would thrive or do much better with a single mom
than a boy. Would you know, I feel the same
way if like a mom dies and they have daughters

(14:22):
and it's just so so hard to not have that.
I don't know why, I just thought of that.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Your instincts are correct. When a boy loses a male
role model, at that moment, he becomes more likely to
be incarcerated and graduate from college. So what the research
shows is the following is that while boys are physically stronger,
they're emotionally, neurologically, and mentally much weaker than girls. And
we don't know if it's because women have had throughout

(14:49):
the ages, had to menstruate or give birth, that they're
just quite frankly tougher. But I'll give you a really
rattling statistic. Two fifteen year old sexually molested a boy
and a g Neither crime is less or more handis
than the other. The boy who sexually molested is ten
times more likely to kill himself later than life than
the girl. Boys are weaker, and so there needs to

(15:11):
be a societal zeitgeist er norm that when a boy
loses a male role model, we move to put men
in his life. And even saying that boys needed men
in their lives evoked this gag reflex a few years ago.
What you're saying women can't raise boys. I was raised
by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a
secretary a lot of my life. But absolutely boys, boys

(15:34):
need men.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Who did you have as a role model, given that
you had an absentee father? Right? Did he leave you guys?

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, my dad's been married and divorced four times. You
started a third marriage when he was married to my mom.
Is second marriage? Not a bad man, but not an
especially good Man and moved to Ohio. So my dad
wasn't very involved in my life.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
So who did you look to as a role model.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
I had coaches, so it was played sports. My mom
was very good about getting men involved in my life.
Two of my mom's boyfriends stayed involved in my life
even after they broke up. I had a guy down
the hallway show up one day and say do you
want to come horseback riding with me and my girlfriend?
And he used to take me on on weekends. When
I was thirteen, I walked into a stockbroker which with
two hundred dollars that I got as a gift, and

(16:18):
I met a stockbroker named cy Sero, and we bought
thirteen shares of Columbia Pictures and he gave me my
first lesson in stocks. And every day for the next
three years at Emerson Junior High used to go to
the phone booth put in two dimes and I call
him and he talked to me about the markets, like
the stock is up today, Close encounters are the third
kind is a big hit And to this day Sia

(16:38):
is now eighty three. We text each other. So I
was really fortunate. Men filled in the void, but men
have to step up and they're not.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Why aren't they? Why aren't men helping each other more?
I mean, you talk about friends, you talk about loneliness
and social isolation. You know, just anecdotally for me, women
are much better about building a community supporting each other.
Is it just the way that men are conditioned and
they're not comfortable forging those kinds of bonds with other men.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
I have some thesies, but I don't have data on it.
But the date I do have as a following is
that in New York there are three times as many
women applying to be big sisters as are men applying
to be big brothers. I know, and I think some
of it is the following. I think there's a taboo
and a suspicion of men who want to be involved
in a boy's life. I think because of the Catholic
Church and Michael Jackson. If a single guy in is

(17:31):
thirty who has fraternal and paternal love to give and
thinks I could really help a fourteen or a fifteen
year old boy, I think he's worried he's going to
be suspected of being a pedophile. And also there's a
certain self consciousness that if I'm not a CEO, or
don't have a degree in adolescent psychiatry, or I don't
have my own kids, I'm not qualified. And I can
tell you of someone who does coach young men. It

(17:52):
is so incredibly easy to add value. They make such
bad decisions. Just asking a series of questions can help
them avoid so many bad decisions, and just showing up
and being present in their life adds huge values. So
the reality is we need more men to step up,
and if we want better men, we have to be

(18:12):
better men. But there's just no getting around it. Men
of my generation are not paying it back, both with
supportive policies that put more money back in the pockets
of young people. I think the ultimate expression of masculinity
you take care of yourself, you get strong, you get
economically viable, you take care of your family, you take
care of your community. But the ultimate expression of masculinity

(18:32):
is to take an interest in the life of a
child that is in yours. And there's not enough of
that type of masculinity in our nation right now. It
should be common expected societal norms that the moment a
boy does not have males in his life, that we
move in and we figure out a way to get
him male mentorship.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
How do you actually make that happen realistically? You know
it sounds great, it sounds important and definitely worthwhile, but
you know, how do you do that with policies, with
changing societal attitudes? How does that happen?

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Well? The answers, yes, all above, But there are common
sense solutions to all this. I think we should read
shirt boys in kindergarten. We should start boys at six,
girls at five. Boys are just biologically and mentally behind girls.
You have kids, when my fifteen year old has a
party and there's boys and girls. The boys are nice,
but they're dopes. They don't look in the eye. They're

(19:24):
just dopes. Some of the girls there could be the
junior senator from Pennsylvania. I mean, it's just so obvious.
The girls are just way ahead of the boys in
K through twelve. Encourage more men, more after school programs,
more sponsorships for sports. I think actually religious institutions can
play a big role in this. I think any freshman
class at a college that isn't growing its freshman class

(19:46):
size fast than population, that has an endowment over a
billion dollars should lose its tax free status because it's
decided it's no longer a public servant. It's a hedge
fund offering classes. Twenty percent of their certificate should be
non traditional vocational everything from nursing to specialty construction. I
think mandatory national service would be a huge benefit for

(20:06):
all Americans, but especially men. Tax policies that again stop
sucking so much money from young to old, a commitment
to build eight million houses in the next ten years,
and eligibility and low interest rate loans for young people.
In some the incumbents, specifically older people and politicians who

(20:26):
have benefited from the sucking sound of young capital to
old people. We just need to put more money back
in their pockets right as soon as you graduate from
UVA or UCLA. We like the admissions rates of Ganda.
When I got into UCLA, the admissions rate of seventy
four percent, it's now nine percent.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Oh, I know, I could never get into UVA today, So.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
I'm part of the problem. I'm an educator. What do
you think the faculty does when the dean announces we've
rejected ninety one percent of the applicants, What do you
think the faculty does? Eight cheery applod which is tantamount,
in my mind to a homeless shelter bragging that he
or she turned away nine in ten people last night.
We're public servants, We're not Chanelle Backs. So more freshman seats,

(21:07):
more vocational programming, tax policy, a truly progressive tax policy
that puts money in people's hands, mandatory national service, low
cost housing. It's pretty simple. Make it such that young
people can afford a home, go to school, and have
the economic viability to start families. Forty years ago, sixty
percent of thirty year olds had a child, and now
it's twenty seven percent. It's because the young people don't

(21:29):
want families. No, they can't afford.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Them, and in some cases they don't want to bring
a child into the world we're in right now. I've
heard that from plenty of my daughter's friends.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
I think that, and I don't have research in that.
I think that. It's like when we say our kids
don't need college, it's usually because we don't think our
kid's going to get in. I think that's while papering
over the disappointment that they may not be able to
find and emotionally or economically viable mate.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
WHI everyone, it's me Katie Couric. You know, if you've
been following me on social media, you know I love
to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of
my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen,
Lighty Hoyke, Alison Roman, and Inegarten. So I started a
free newsletter called Good Taste to share recipes, tips and

(22:20):
kitchen mustaves. Just sign up at Katiecuric dot com slash
good Taste. That's k A t I E C O
U r I c dot com slash good Taste. I
promise your taste buds will be happy you did. I'm

(22:44):
listening to all these, you know, sort of your prescriptive
advice and thinking, Jesus, that's the exact opposite of what's
happening in our federal government and in our country's leadership.
I mean, you sound like Zoran kind of.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, that's not the comparison i'd want, but I see
what you're saying. Well, okay, we can talk about zoron.
But I don't think ren freezers are going to bring
down rent. I think they're going to take them up.
And I don't think government sponsored grocery stores is the answer.
But anyways, Yeah, his emphasis on affordability is absolutely the
right one. I think his message is the right one,

(23:20):
and I also want to be I think Democrats could
take a lot away from what an excellent campaign is
are on. But I think there are common sense economic
policies that would reduce the cost of education massively decrease
the cost of housing. We've entered into this rejectionist luxury positioning.
Dartmouth has an eight billion dollar endowment. They lay led
an eleven hundred people, which is what a good Starbucks

(23:42):
serves in a weekend. They could have eleven thousand, Katie.
They're in the middle of goddamn nowhere. They could leverage
their faculty. They have about fourteen faculty for every one
person that actually teaches. They could open a satellite campus
in the South. We need to move back to our
roots of loving unremarkable kids and leveling up all young people,
which I believe will disproportionately impact men. And here's the

(24:04):
thing we don't like to talk about. Men mate socioeconomically
horizontally and down women horizontally and up. Seventy five percent
of women say economic viability is key to a mate.
It's only twenty five percent for women. Beyonce could work
at McDonald's and Mary jay Z the opposite is not true.
So there are some knock on effects from women blowing
by young women blowing by men economically that we have

(24:26):
to acknowledge, and that is women say that, how many
women do you meet say I can't find a dude. No,
they can find a dude, they just can't find a
dude they want to mate with. And that's because young
men aren't nearly as economically viable as they used to be.
Many of the jobs that were on ramps to the
middle class have been hollowed out. They aren't getting the
certification because they're not nearly as good at school, and

(24:47):
they're also, quite frankly, some of their behaviors pathologized. And
that is just to be provocative here, we've pathologize men's
romantic and sexual interests. No guy wants to be that
guy who approaches a woman and it's not welcome, right.
No guy wants to be the creep. Yet eighty percent

(25:10):
of women say they expect men to initiate romantic contact.
So I think we need to stop pathologizing romantic interest
and celebrate it. What do I mean by that. I
didn't see my partner and think I'd like someday to
get a better deal on life insurance. I looked at
her and thought I'd really like to have sex with her.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because
it should motivate a man, and it can to dress better,

(25:32):
to smell better, to have a plan, the seecret weapon
of mating. Demonstrate a kindness, practice, demonstrate excellence, be funny,
show resilience. I think these are wonderful things. And then
competing against that effort is what is increasingly lifelike porn.
So what we have is a series of generation of
men who don't feel like they need to take the

(25:54):
risk to make friendships because they have read it in discord,
don't need to navigate the corporate bullshit of a corporation
because they think they can make money trading stocks or
crypto on coinbase or Robinhood and Katie. Why would they
go through the effort, the expense, the trauma, the resilience,
the demonstration of skills, the demonstration of excellence, the demonstration

(26:15):
of kindness, to get a date, establish a relationship, persevere
through the much finer filter that women have because they
are choosier for good reasons, such as they can have
their own romantic relationship when they have near lifelike porn
at home. And the reality is we have the most talented,
deepest pocketed companies in the world taking advantage of an

(26:35):
immature brain known as a young man, sequestering him from life,
not taking risks, trying to convince him that he can
have a risk free, low cost facsimile of life, and
he wakes up at thirty. Not all of them, but
many of them obese, anxious, and no relationships and none
of the skills he needs to operate across a variety

(26:55):
of scenarios. We are evolving a new species of asocial,
asexual males. It's as if we've decided to plan our
own extinction such that we can keep the NASDAC high
with ten companies who are in the business of sequestering
and polarizing.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
So what do you do about that those companies specifically,
there's nothing.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
I'm a catastrophist, but I've learned. I want to talk
about what could go right. One no synthetic relationships for
people under the age of eighteen, age gate social media,
no phones in.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Schools, which is starting to happen, which is.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Hard to happen. Remove Section two thirty protection for algorithmically
elevated content. I'm not talking about censorship. But if you
put out videos on how to kill yourself, and then
because those videos seem to enrage people, you elevate them
beyond their organic reach, you're no longer an ascent platform.
You're a media company. And there's no reason that those

(27:56):
media companies shouldn't be subject to the same scrutiny you're
held right now. If you were elevating content on your
podcast platform and they could tell it was resulting in
young girls self harming, you would be in a world
of trouble. But these multi trillion dollar companies are considered
Nason companies and they have absolutely no liability.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
They're not considered publishers. They're considered basically the infrastructure, but
they don't control the stuff that's going through the pipes
and going out, which to me is always seemed insane.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Makes no sense at all, and some boring stuff antitrust.
I think they need to be broken up. But there
are common sense solutions. I mean, higher tax rates. Corporations
are paying the lowest tax rates since nineteen thirty nine.
But I'll just give you a couple of things. One,
it's not about tax rates, it's about tax enforcement. There's
seven hundred and fifty billion dollars a year that's uncollected
from the top one percent because the Republicans are smart.

(28:48):
The biggest tax cut ever is to neuter the irs
because they don't have the money to audit anybody. We
should have an alternative minimum tax, meaning if you make
a certain amount of money, you pay, say at least
forty percent, no matter what the deductions are. Because the
tax code over the last forty years has gone from
four hundred pages to four thousand, and quite frankly, those
incremental thirty six hundred pages are meant to screw the
middle class and make it SUTs of people like me

(29:10):
can start a company and have what's called twelve oh two.
The first ten million dollars of proceeds from a company
I start and sell is tax free. I mean, there's
just so many goodies in there for rich people. The
average tax rate of the twenty six wealthiest families in
America is six percent. And what's interesting is people say, well,
the rich don't pay their taxes. The kind of Bernie

(29:30):
Elizabeth Warren side of the pile. That's actually not true either.
The workhorses are the ones that get screwed the most. So,
say you live in New York and mom's a baller.
She makes two million dollars a year working at Scadden.
Dad is a chiropractor thriving practice makes six hundred thousand,
two point six million ballers. They have to live in
a city in a blue state. They're probably paying fifty

(29:52):
two or fifty three percent income tax. But say Dad's company.
Say he makes the jump to light speed and it
gets bought by private equity firm, and he gets shares
in that private equity firm, and it gets sold for
thirty million dollars, his tax rate plummets to the high teams.
So what we've decided is it sweat is more noble
than money. So the tax rate is progressive until he

(30:14):
gets about the ninety ninth percentile. But once you make
the jump to light speed, if you get the gold medal,
we decide to give you the bronze and the silver.
And also corporations are just not paying their fair share.
But it's more about loopholes than it is about tax rates.
We could fix all of these problems. And by the way,
through most of the twentieth century, the top tax rates
were sixty or seventy percent. Right, So the workhorses the

(30:38):
people making a lot of money in current income. I
would imagine you're in this category make an exceptional living.
But it's all W two reportable income.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
I haven't made a salary in seven years, so.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
Well there maybe so it's not impacting you. Yeah, but
I make my living. When I was making hundreds of
thousands of dollars in my thirties and forties, I was
paying forty something tax rate. Now that I made the
jump to light speed, yeah, very lucky. I've sold some companies.
I make the majority of my money now when investing
in companies and then selling stock. Living in Florida, my
tax rate is plummeted to the high teens. That makes

(31:09):
no sense. That's nothing but weaponization of the tax code
to create greater income inequality. And this results. If there's
one statistic, if you had to find ground zero, the
epicenter of the earthquake that's rocking our society, it's the following.
For the first time in our nation's history, a thirty
year old man or woman isn't doing as well as

(31:30):
his or her parents were at thirty. That's never happened
in our society. Sixty percent of men under the age
of twenty five are either living at home or will
be living at home. And when you're a young man
or woman and you're not doing as well as your parents,
there's rage and shame across the entire household beause most
likely your roommates are reminding you every day that you're failing.

(31:50):
And then two hundred and ten times a day that
young person gets notified that they're failing with fae wealth porn,
basically convincing the media, basically saying you don't have a
hot boyfriend, and you're not on a golf stream, and
you're not seeing black coffee to visa, you have fucked up.
So what do you know. They're anxious, they're depressed, they
feel bad about themselves. They feel one in two people

(32:12):
our age feel good or very good about America. It's
one in ten young people. And it's because I keep
using their credit card right to buttress my lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Let's talk about the three p's, because when it comes
to figuring out how we address all these issues that
you raise in the book. You say men should protect, provide,
and procreate. Tell me how you decided on these three descriptions.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Well, the most important thing is they all being with P.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
You like alliteration, That was the key.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, reproduction didn't work. Well, horning has sounded weird.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Well, I don't see where horny is protect, provide and procreating. Well,
I guess that's under Okay, got it.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
It's that's trust me essential to it, and I'm open
to push back. I may not have this right. The
book initially started as me trying to do the algebra masculinity,
and my first chapter was on testosterone. I thought, I'm
not an innercrenologist. So the book is really about where
I got a right and where I got it wrong,
and quite frankly, more about my failures trying to be
a man and then trying to develop a code for

(33:14):
young men that they could lean on to help make
their decisions. Some people get their code from the religion,
from their work, from their family, from the military. I
think you can even get a code. My first code,
really on how to behave was I worked at Morgan
Stanley and I got a lot of kind of rules
from that about how you behave in a corporate setting.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
But I imagine your mom gave you a code too.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
You know what my mom gave me. My mom was
a great friend. I got that from her. But more
than anything, Katie, my mom every day explicitly, implicitly communicated
to me that I was wonderful. I was a tall
kid with bad skin, mediocre grades, totally unremarkable. But I
think as a parent, I think if you communicate every

(33:54):
day that your kid is wonderful, they can't help but
start to believe you. And I think that still rests
inside of me. But the three p's, I'm trying to
think of a framework for masculinity to help serve as
a guide or a code for young men. The first
is provider. I think in a capitalist society, and I'm
not saying this is the way the world should be,
but I think it's the way the world is. I
think you got to be economically viable as a man,

(34:17):
and I think you should assume at the outset of
your career that at some point you're going to need
to take economic responsibility for your household. And by the way,
sometimes that means getting out of the way and being
more supportive of your partner.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
I was going to ask you, what about if you
marry a woman who, as you said, is a baller
and you're a middle school teacher, because you want more
men teaching.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Right when I was living in New York and twenty ten,
I was an academic making okay money, not great money.
My partner was working at Goldman Sacks. So I got
up with the kids. I was home for bath time.
And I'm not trying to be a hero here, but
that's being a man, that's recognizing that, that's taking economic
responsibility for your household. But the reality is, even if

(34:58):
you were to have total equality of opportunit unity in
the professional world, more women are going to decide to
take a disproportionate amount of the responsibility for the kids.
They just are. And I don't think a bad place
to start as a man is to assume I need
to get the certification, I need to get the skills.
I need to show the focus, the drive, the discipline
to be economically viable. Don't be the dude ordering a

(35:20):
bottle of grey Goose to two in the morning. Have
a plan. Showed discipline. The reason women like guys who
are in shape and muscular. Is not the muscles, it's
not the aesthetics. Is that it reflects he has discipline,
and he shows up and he knows how to commit
to something. And in a capitalist society, regardless of how
any subscriptions to the Atlantic or The New York Times
you have, you are going to as a man, be

(35:41):
disproportionally evaluated based on your economic viability. By the way,
women are unfairly disproportionally evaluated on their aesthetics. So we
both have biases against us. But I think it's a
good place to start as a man, to assume you're
going to need to take economic responsibility for your household
and be a provider. Second, the whole point of prosperity,

(36:04):
the whole shooting match, is not such you can buy shit.
It's such that you can immediately pivot to being a protector. Right.
The only times I've ever felt a sense of purpose
that I have meaning that I have a real sense
of peace, is when I'm at home, my kids are
safe and warm and asleep, my partner feels noticed and secure.

(36:25):
I can give some money away, i can protect them.
I'm strong, I'm prosperous, and that's given me the ability
to protect people. And one of the real shortcomings I
think of our leadership and who should be perceived as
role models for masculinity right now is they have entirely
skipped the masculine component of protection, and that is you

(36:48):
may not understand the transgender community. You may not agree
we need third bathrooms. You may not believe a transgender
woman should be able to compete in NC two A sports,
But if you see a community being demonized, you're re
flex muscle memory should be default to protection, full stop.
We have to train boys from an early age that
if you aspire to be masculine, it means being a protector.

(37:10):
What are the most masculine jobs fireman, cop, military, What
do they do at the end of the day. They protect.
We are bigger, we are stronger physically. Who breaks up
fights at bars? Big strong men? Who starts fights at bars?
Guys who are insecure and are not masculine. It also
goes beyond physicality. You hear people criticizing others behind their back,

(37:34):
your reflex reactions should be to protect them. You can
absorb blows because you're big and strong. You don't need
if someone cuts you off in traffic, you don't need
to be like the douchebag I was when I was
a younger man and speed up and cut them off
to restore balance to the universe.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
I sometimes do that.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Well, that's anti masculine behavior, Katie or these are all
my own feelings, and I know as well. With the
Delta one K customer, I.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Don't cut them off because that would be too scary
and I'm afraid of road rage. But I do like
flip them off, and I do sometimes like ride their
bumper if they really make me that. Actually, more often
than not, if they're riding my bumper, I slow down
because it's so obnoxious. Is that masculine?

Speaker 1 (38:17):
I'm guilty of all these things. Some people would say
we're just being assholes, but also the person at the
Delta counter checking you in is rude. I used to
get back in their face, like, don't you know who
I am? And I don't think.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
I don't do that.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
I don't think you need to do that. And the
two people that will serve always serve as role models
for young men will be the President the United States
because he's the most powerful person in the world and
the richest man in the world. Because we're in a
capitalist economy.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Oh great, Trump and Elon, Well, this.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Is where I'm going with this. All right, being sued
concurrently by two women for sol clust to your child
because you haven't seen that child. That is anti masculine,
cutting off a to HIV positive mothers. There's nothing that
could be more anti masculine. Mocking people, mocking people less
powerful than you. I mean, there's a very basic thing here.

(39:06):
Punching down is about the least masculine thing you could
ever do. You're a protector, that's your job. You are
physically stronger, and if you are smart enough to ever
register prosperity. The whole point of prosperity is such that
you can move to protection. And then the last thing
is procreation. We touched on this. I think that desire

(39:26):
to procreate is fire. It can be harmful if you
begin objectifying women, if you engage too much in porn,
if you see women as one dimensional. I think it's
reckless and I think it can be very damaging. But
if you use it as a means, let's go back
to coaching these young men, I say, what are your goals?
Let's reverse engineer, let's outline your goals. And let's reverse

(39:47):
engineer the activities to get to them. Usually, I want
to move out of my parents. That's using number one.
Number two is I want to make some of aren't
making some money? And say we're able to get to
those two things what they do under their breath and
what they really want. So you really want a girlfriend?
And the first thing I asked them is I asked him,
I say, would you have sex with you? The point
is do you smell nice? Do you make an effort

(40:10):
to look good? Are you in shape? Do you have
a kindness practice? Women are drawn to kindness. There's research on.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
This kindness intelligence, which is also humor, because you have
to be smart to have a good sense of humor.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Well, you've forgot number one. You're going in reverse order.
Number three's kindness. Number two is intellect, and the fastest way,
by the way, just being clean. Now, the fastest way
to communicate intellect is humor. And just because I get
the sense you probably have very progressive viewers and I
want to offend some of them. This is my invitation
of a woman. I'm laughing, I'm laughing, I'm naked. If
you can make a woman laugh, she will go on

(40:44):
a date with you. The number one, though thing we
don't like to talk about. The number one source of
sexual attraction is the ability to signal resources, and we
don't like to admit that that is still number one
for women. That's the bad news. But the good news
is it doesn't mean you have to show up with
a range over a panorai. It means you have to
have your shit together. It means that you have to

(41:05):
signal that at some point in the future you will
garner resources because you're responsible, you're smart, you're hardworking, you're
a decent person. But those are kind of the three
things in terms of sexual attraction. But I think leveraging
that desire to have a relationship and to want to
have sex at some point are wonderful things have channeled

(41:26):
in the right way.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Let's get back to resources, because I think some of
the takeaway from your book is Scott Galoway is really
obsessed with money, and I'm curious if you feel you're
too obsessed with money.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
I think everyone needs to take a regular audit of
their addictions. So let's define what an addiction is. So
it's continuing to gauge in something despite it having a
negative impact. On other parts of your life. Right. I
love alcohol, I love marijuana. I'm really good at them both,
Katie Mussel, I've gotten more out of alcohol than it's
gotten out of me. I'm good at it. I'm a

(42:01):
better version of me. A little bit fucked up. But
when I started I Morgan Stanley, I cut it all off.
I'm able to manage those things really well. The things
I'm addicted to are the affirmation to strangers I care
too much. I don't know. If this is on YouTube,
I'll go on. I'll look at the comments.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Yeah, this will be on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
But if the comments really negative, I'll be checking my
phone when I should be engaged with my boys. That's
an addiction. I believe what I'm saying. I know I
get it wrong. Sometimes I care too much about what
strangers think about me, and he gets in the way
of my quality time with my loved ones. That's an addiction.
Hands down, my number one addiction is my addiction of money.
I didn't grow up with a lot of money. My

(42:39):
mom got very sick was very humiliating for me. Not
to be able to take care of her at a
level I wanted to. Money was a thing for me
growing up, and so I've always been very focused on
economic security. I did nothing but work for thirty years
to get economically secure, and I have trouble getting off
that hamster wheel. I have a tremendous amount of my

(43:00):
own self esteem and relevance and sense of worth tied
to the number in my head or that it is money.
I'm cognizant of it. I got very lucky. I'm done
unless I screw up again, and I've done it a
few times. I'm done, but I still I'll check my
stocks on my way out of here. I'm always looking
to make more money. I should be spending more time

(43:21):
with family and friends. It should occupy less than my headspace.
I've had trouble getting off that hamster wheel.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
If you want to get smarter every morning with a
breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter,
wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. I

(43:54):
was looking at a Reddit thread and it was called
Scott Galloway needs to stop talking about men and boys,
and one person wrote, and I'm not saying this because
now that I know you're obsessed with comments. I feel bad,
but it's interesting because I wanted to see some of
the holes people were poking in your arguments. And someone wrote,

(44:17):
I'm a therapist and I see a ton of young
adult men and boys. Let me tell you, I can
spot a Galloway watcher within about five minutes. There is
absolutely an algorithmic pipeline of left of centermen who have
the presence of mind to reject the Peterson, Rogan, Tate,
Shapiro brand of masculinity that is more misogynistic, outwardly toxic,

(44:39):
and shaming towards women. Galloway, to his credit, packages his
brand of bullshit on improving men and not demeaning women,
but he does so through the same tired and harmful
ways of internalizing shame to be weaponized as a motivator
to compete in the mating market. You'll never be enough
until you win capital and then have a family and

(45:02):
then provide for that family. And this worked for him,
so he's happy to preach it. This poster goes on
to say it's reckless and often unsustainable when approach this way.
People who rush to achieve these benchmarkers in life often
do so in haste. If I just get a girlfriend,
any decent girlfriend, then I'll have a wife and be happy.

(45:22):
Divorce speed run one oh one. Now you've got a
man who derives his value from his partner, and suddenly jealousy, anger,
and resentment start to creep in when that relationship goes
through natural ebbs and flows. Same thing with placing all
of your value on your career. Lose your job, and
now who are you? You're in my office trying to

(45:43):
rebuild a sense of self from the ground up is
who you probably are. One of the final thoughts of
this poster is improving self worth and self esteem is good,
build it from within. I just thought that was a
very interesting comment about sort of this provider part of
your prescription, and it just made me wonder, are you

(46:06):
focusing too much on this money because of perhaps your
own hang ups with financial wealth.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
I think that's a really thoughtful comment what she wrote,
and I'll take it to heart. I think there's a
kernel of truth in it, because when it hits me,
it hits me hard and I don't like it, which
probably means there's some truth in it. The retort would be,
will me finding self worth pay for my health insurance
for me? And my kids. And I'm not suggesting you

(46:34):
need to be a baller and make millions of dollars.
I'm suggesting in a capitalist society when in America we
believe in winners and losers. Look, unfortunately, I've lived to
work for a long time, So should I could get
to economic security because I didn't think I have trauma
around it? That's my way. I acknowledge it may not
be the right way. I think there are a lot
of people who decide they want to work to live,

(46:55):
they move to a lower cost neighborhood. More power to them.
What I'm is that people have an honest conversation around
their expectations economically and the sacrifice required to get there.
When I survey my kids, When I say my kids,
my students, about eighty plus percent of them expect to
be in the top one percent economically. Some of this

(47:17):
is proximity by uscause I was going to say, yeah,
but if you talk to young people and you ask them,
talk to young women about what they expect their partner
to make to be an economically viable male, it's usually
about the top two or three percent just to qualify
to date him. So those comments resonate with me because

(47:38):
you go to your own playbook around what's worked, and
you think that works for everybody else. I acknowledge that
some of my insecurities have been channeled too much into
thinking money's going to solve my problems. My dad, who's
an immigrant I was, said America is a terrible place
to be stupid. I think what he meant to say
was that America is a terrible place to be unlucky.

(48:00):
I have been there. I know what it's like to
have you your mom discharged early after cancer treatment and
literally not knowing what the fuck to do, Literally can't
get her back in the hospital, can't do certain things
for my mom as a son, Nurses are thirty five
bucks an hour, and I got seven hundred bucks in

(48:22):
my checking account, so a lot of my life only
person who ever took care of me, and I got
twenty hours of nurse in care before we're out of money.
And this society doesn't give a shit. So I'm all
for the middle class find purpose in other things, but
have an honest conversation around what it means to have

(48:45):
some dignity in America and what's required to get there.
But I want to be clear, I am too focused
on money. Excuse my views, but I do think young
people need to have an honest conversation around the regulisation
trade offs to be economically viable and have some dignity,
because unfortunately, in America, money means life. Rich people live

(49:08):
on average seven to ten years longer, they have access
to health care, they have access to dignity. The top
one percent are protected by the law, but they're not
bound by it. The bottom ninety nine percent are bound
by the law but not protected by it. That is
absolutely wrong. It's unjust. We need to change it, and
it's the way America is. So I accept that criticism.

(49:31):
It hits hard quite frankly, which probably means there's truth
in it. But feeling good about working on myself and
having self actualization, I think that's great as long as
you can pay for your health insurance.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I know you've never been in therapy, but I just
feel like that I no, I feel like I was
playing the role of the therapist for a second there.
That was very self revelatory, and I appreciate your honesty
about that. Let's talk about the manosphere for a second,
because I think a lot of the negative associations with

(50:03):
masculinity come from that space. Tell me observing people like
the late Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate types, why
do you think they have captured the imagination of so
many young men? Why do you think they have become
these kind of medium messiahs.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
I think, I say, capture their imagination as much as
that young men feel seen. To the rights credit the
far rights credit. They recognize the problem before anybody else.
They said, our young men aren't doing well. And the
problem is is that I think some really unproductive voices
entered that void. Generally speaking, their answer, their solution, It

(50:45):
starts off, fine, you have real issues, just like other
special interest groups have issues. You deserve empathy, you deserve
to be seen, take control of your life, be fit,
be action oriented. All these things are wonderful. But then
it comes off the rail because the solution on the
far right usually has something to do with let's go
back to the fifties where non whites and women had

(51:07):
less opportunity, and the most dangerous thing about the manisphere
is to believe that there's an inverse correlation between women's
assent and men's descent. And when I know a young
man has come off the tracks is when he starts
blaming immigrants for his economic problems. Now, the reason why
you can maybe someday afford a house, eat good food
at a reasonable cost, and have someone take care of

(51:30):
your parents at a low cost is because of immigrants.
The reason we've had so much economic prosperity is because
of immigrants. And when you start blaming women fear problems,
your romantic problems, that's the dude I can't speak to
right And that's where the manisphere went. At the same time,
let me hold the left accountable. I went to the
Democratic National Convention. It was a parade of special interest groups,

(51:54):
not one person talking about the group that has fallen
further fastest in America, young men. If you go to
the DNC website, and I'm going to take credit for this,
because they've changed it since I pointed this out on CNN,
it has a section called who We Serve and at
lists seventeen demographic groups ranging from women, that disabled, Asian

(52:15):
Pacific Islanders, seniors. Just goes down the list. I counted
it up as seventy four percent of the population. The
only demographic it doesn't mention and call out under who
we serve is young men. And when you say you're
advocating for seventy four percent of the population, you're not
advocating for seventy four percent of the population. You're discriminating

(52:35):
against a twenty six percent. So I don't even think
young men went to the Republican Party. I think the
Democratic Party left them, and I think on the left,
the general consensus around how to solve the young men
of the masculinity crisis is the following act more like
a woman. I don't think that's helpful. I don't think
that's actionable for a young man. You don't have problems.

(52:59):
You are the problem, and if you were just more
in touch with your feelings and acted more like a woman,
you'd be fine. I don't think that's especially constructive either.
There's got to be a middle ground where if women
can embrace the wonderful attributes of femininity, that young men
can grasp and appreciate the wonderful things about masculinity.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
And you say toxic masculinity is an oxymoron, you feel
like it's been co opted.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Really, right, have you heard the term toxic femininity? No?
Because we acknowledge that the female attributes are positives, so
are masculine attributes. There's violence, there's cruelty, there's an abusive power.
Those couldn't be any less. Masculine masculinity again comes down
to providing, protecting, and procreating. When you have Russian soldiers

(53:47):
pouring over the border of Ukraine, you want some big
dick energy. There's no word called the Carnegie Award that
gives awards to people who literally rush into a burning house.
It's given to people who risk their own lives in
the moment to save someone else they don't know. The
rushing into the burning house of the eighty one awards
given seventy five or men. Men are much more risk aggressive. Now,

(54:10):
sometimes that can be reckless, but sometimes it's valor. Men
have built the biggest buildings in America. Men are better
in combat. You also need women, who, quite frankly, are
more measure to make better decisions. If I were to
say women make better doctors and lawyers, and there's evidence
that's true in that they make better managers because they
have an easier time reading the room, people nod their

(54:32):
heads and clap. If I were to say that on average,
and this doesn't mean you should in any way limit access.
Men make better combat soldiers and sometimes make better entrepreneurs
because they're more risk aggressive. I hear, I don't feel
safe around you. So we can acknowledge that everyone should
have a quality of opportunity. But there are wonderful attributes

(54:56):
around being born a female. And by the way, embrace
your masculinity or femininity and celebrating both sides. In no
way is meant to say that a significant portion of
our population is non binary. They deserve the same rights
and same opportunities as anybody else. But just as we've
leaned into really appreciating and celebrating what it means to
be a woman, why can't we do the same thing

(55:18):
and say to our young men, you're wonderful. We appreciate
your strength, we appreciate your value, we appreciate your risk taking.
We appreciate that you are willing to be aggressive, that
you are willing to approach people and have crazy ideas
and try and put men on the moon and approach
women that are out of your league and apply for jobs.
We celebrate it for women, why wouldn't we also celebrate

(55:41):
it for men? And when I think of the happiest,
most productive households in the world. They bring a mix
of female and masculine energy. And by the way, some
of that masculine energy can be brought by women. People
ask me who my role models are for masculinity. I said,
Margaret Thatcher, I thought you showed tremendous strength and risk aggressiveness.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Is this what my husband means when he says I'm
like the dude?

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Well, these attributes are not sequestered to people born as
male or female. I'm personally my close friends, my close
male friends are very feminine. I'm drawn to men who
take care of me, who are more nurturing and more sensitive.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Maybe because of your dad, who.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Knows this is We're going back into the therapy session.
But just as we celebrated, as we should, feminine energy,
we should celebrate masculine energy and also acknowledge that the
greatest alliance in history is a NATO. It is in
between moderate Republicans and Democrats. The greatest alliance in history
is between men and women.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Let me end by asking you a question. One of
my friends wanted me to ask you. She said, your
focus in this book, and so much of what you
talk about these days is the male loneliness crisis. But
I think to a lot of women it feels like
their rights, which never even reach parity with men to
begin with, are being stripped back even further. We have

(57:02):
an accused sexual predator in the White House, leading the
Pentagon and on the Supreme Court. So what do you
say to women who feel like, Okay, I don't want
men to feel because that's bad for society as a whole.
But why should we worry about them when there's so
much work to be done? And her point was they

(57:23):
don't seem to be very worried about us.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
I would argue that person doesn't have sons. And let
me be clear with respect to you're talking to someone
who was on MSNBC and was giving reasons for why
we elected an insurrectionist and a rapist. I feel the
president is a rapist, and see Bannon has called for
the Trump administration to sume me for saying that. I

(57:46):
think it is insane that we have someone who has
been accused of sexual assault twenty eight times and is
rolling back bodily autonomy. The first time rites have been
taken away in our country is when and lost, when
Roe v. Wade is overturned first time in our nation's history,
we have taken a right back. So I am this
person's ally. I do not think this is a zero

(58:10):
sum game. I think we can fight for women's rights.
I think we can celebrate the progress they've made. And
what I would ask is that young men recognize that
our sisters and mothers making progress. We should be the
after burners to that progress. We should absolutely celebrate it,
promote it, and again be the chaser to that. At

(58:33):
the same time, I think women need to recognize that
young men are struggling and we need their help and
we need their empathy. But as it relates to a
president who is a sexual predator and is denying women's rights,
I am so fucking with you. I am moving back
to the US and I'm going to be part of
that fight. This is not a zero sum game. We

(58:54):
can acknowledge that women still face huge issues, especially when
they decide to leverage their own they go to seventy
three cents on the dollar. Right, There's still huge issues
facing women. But at the same time, we can walk
into you gum at the same time and realize that
women are not going to continue to flourish. The country
is not going to survive if we have young men

(59:15):
who are failing. And the reason we put an insurrectionist
and a rapist in office is the following. If you
look at the groups the pivoted hardest from blue to
red from twenty to twenty four, it was one Latinos and.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
A young white men.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Number two was people under the age of thirty. They
are not doing well. If they're not doing well, they
want change. The most interesting was the third group that
pivoted hardest from red to blue, and it was women
age forty five to sixty four.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
I mean blue to red.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
I'm sorry, blue to red. Excuse me, thank you, Katie,
women forty five to sixty four. And my thesis, Katie,
and I'm curious if you validate this is that's their mothers.
Because another thing we don't like to acknowledge.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
I know I've read that, you said that. It might
even be in your book.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Another thing I don't like to acknowledge is there's still
a lot of women in this country who will vote
for who they perceive is best for their husbands and
their sons. And if your son is in the basement
playing video games and vaping, you don't give a flying
fuck about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender rights. You
just want change, even if it means chaos. The most
dangerous person in the world, responsible for the most unstable

(01:00:21):
societies in the world, are young men who are broke,
and we are producing way too many of them, and
there's no reason we can't restore the same progress and
the scent of women, while also acknowledging that we need
to value our young men and stop pathologizing them and
realize it. If you walk into a morgue and four

(01:00:42):
out of five who died by suicide or men, then
there is trouble in Mudville.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Well it's a very depressing note.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
Sorry about that, and I generally appreciate the pushback. And
what I would ask is if your willing is to
respond to that woman on Reddit and say that I
am open to how I can be better at this,
and that I am her.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Ally, well you can answer her on Reddit.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Well I'll go on. I don't go on to Reddit
because I find it so rattling.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Some of the comments didn't make a lot of sense
to me, but I thought hers was germane. I sort
of interrogated you about your view on money and making money. Adriana,
who produced this interview, was saying, there's something called provider pressure.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Oh. I think it's a huge part of anxiety. When
the woman in the relationship, in a marriage starts making
more money than the man, erectile dysfunction, drug usage triples,
and the likelihood of divorce doubles. I think a lot
of that is because of provider pressure, and that as
a man starts to feel insignificant. But I also think
we need to acknowledge that there's a lot of women
that deep down still expect the man to be the
provider and are less sexually interested in him when he

(01:01:49):
fails to be the provider. And I don't care how
many subscriptions The Atlantic or The New York Times you have,
I think there are exceptions to that. I hope the
world gets better on this front.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
You know, I face this in my own Marya when
I was on the Today Show and I married an
incredibly smart, talented lawyer. But you know, you make funny
money on television, right, It was really hard for him.
But this was in the nineties, and I feel like
it's more and more the norm where the woman is
out earning her.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Husband seventeen percent of households, but I would argue your situations,
especially anomalists. It sounds like your husband was a baller
in his own right. He just wasn't making millions.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Of dollars compair and despair stuff, right. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
The other thing I just want to add is that
I think what we're terrible at the left, and what
I think is a very dangerous time for us where
progressive values are really at risk, is not aligned with
imperfect allies. I'd like to think most of what I'm
saying is right. I know some of it is wrong.
And what I worry about. What I don't like about

(01:02:50):
the left is that we look at each other and say,
you're holding the gun wrong. We're both on the same side,
we're allies, we agree on ninety percent, but you're holding
the gun wrong, so off with your head.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
There is a lot of that, isn't it like self
righteous judgment?

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
There's a purity test, you know. I agree with most
people on most things, with most of our progressive wing
of the party. I disagree with them on Israel. I'm
a strong advocate for Israel, and I find that the
right says I find that on the left you get
treated like an apostate if you don't sign up for
the full monty of the most extreme narrative feedback. So

(01:03:27):
what I would say, and I'll go on to Reddit
with this woman is I can tell she and I
are allies and I'm open to coaching, but we are
in this fight together.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
Scott Galloway, This was really fun. Thank you. The book
is Notes on Being a Man, Scott Galloway. Great to
finally spend some time with you. I likewise, thank you
so much. Thank you, Katie, Thanks for listening. Everyone. If
you have a question for me, a subject you want
us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts

(01:03:58):
about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out send
me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear
from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and
Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric,
and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and
our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller

(01:04:22):
composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
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(01:04:45):
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