Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Scott Galloway

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Neal Brennan interviews Scott Galloway (Prof G Podcast, The Pivot, Professor, New Book: 'Notes on Being A Man') about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. Subscribe to Scott Galloway:  ⁨@TheProfGPod⁩  Buy Scott's new book 'Notes on Being A Man': https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Notes-on-Being-a-Man/Scott-Galloway/9781668084359 00:00 Intro 1:03 Backstory 3:22 Getting Rich 9:12 Growing up Poor 12:43 Addicted to Money & Affirmation 16:43 Billionaires 22:25 Universities 30:01 How To Convince People About Progressivism 33:57 Sponsor: CookUnity 36:12 Sponsor: SuperPower 38:37 Masculinity 1:00:10 Sponsor: FitBod 1:03:42 Sponsor: GroundNews 1:05:44 Solutions 1:24:39 Parenting 1:39:25 Income Inequality 1:46:25 Billionaire Bunkers 1:52:20 Outro ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today, guys, is, I guess he's a professor. Is that? That's his number one. I guess that's your first credit. He's got the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher, and then he's got a bunch of Prop G podcast. Now, I would switch over to the Prop G podcast, but I'm afraid Kara will yell at me. So I stick with Pivot. You have a new book coming out about manhood.

Yeah, notes on being a man. And you've had other. I wrote a book he wrote called The Four, which is about Amazon, Google, and two other companies. And he's Scott Galloway. He said he's all over your algorithm. Hi. How are you? Good.

Thanks for that. All right. So now the premise of this podcast is we talk about our insecurities, our emotional blocks. Now, we're going to need a bigger boat. How long can we know here? Well, I, you didn't, sometimes people will send me their blocks. I don't you didn't need to because I know enough about you to tell people your backstory a little bit in terms of like how you are raised in the environment the emotional environment and the actual

environment yeah I'm raised by a single immigrant mother lived and died a secretary um light of my life uh only child uh I connect really connected to her oh yeah I you know skipping to the emotional trauma stuff I describe myself as a middle-aged man who's still not over the death of his mother. I've had businesses fail. I've been divorced, and hands down the thing that set me back and kind of put me in a position of semi-parallysis where I just wasn't moving on was a loss of my mother.

But I consider myself, in terms of the backs, I consider myself a product of big government. I got assisted lunch. I got Pell Grant. I got into UCLA when I had a 74% admissions rate. I was rejected the first time. I was one of the 26% that didn't get in. I've never heard.

I didn't realize that. And then I applied again. Now, this year, the admissions rate will be 9%. I came a professional age during the internet. When middle class households, finance this thing called DARPA and the internet. And immigrants have built my company. So I feel as if a lot of the, a lot of my success isn't my fault. And I'm not humble.

I think I'm a monster. I'm talented and hardworking. But the life I get to lead is because. because of, you know, the smartest decision I've made was being born in California in the 60s, a white heterosexual male where a record amount of prosperity was crammed into one-third of the population that looked, smelt, and felt like me. But the irrational passion to my mother for my well-being, the vision of the University of California and the Regents, and incredible technology and investment and, you know, great people

gave me a life that is, you know, remarkable. Now I live in London. I'm my one of my companies went public and I thought that I was done and had a wonderful problem of trying to figure what I want to do with the rest of my life at the age of 34 and I thought I want to teach so I moved to New York and joined the faculty of NYU 23 years ago and then of course the dot com implosion happened and I was broken in but over the last 22 years I've been teaching and then discovered podcasting married two boys live in London okay great um one of did it feel like when the companies how was it gradually and then all at once like when you were like i'm set for life i'm nowhere near set for life like what was the how long was that period well i've been rich three times which means i've lost it twice and i was fortunate enough to reinvent myself and get economic security again but yeah when you came i don't know if you're around i don't know how much remember about the internet and saying i was in san francisco in the 90s but It was go all in, borrow against your stock to buy more stock.

It was very much like, and I was egocentric enough to think, if I throw myself 110% at anything, there's no way it won't be successful. And one of the first lessons I would tell people is that the market is bigger than individual performance. And if things don't work out, you know, a lot of that is not your fault. And also, if you're really successful, a lot of that is not your fault either. There's just forces that are bigger than you, no matter how talented you are. And so the thing that would probably epitomize, like the low moment for me, maybe professionally and personally, was in 08. I thought, I'm done again, you know, looking, you know, the total cliche of a douchebag

living in New York, looking at Jets, and then O.A. can. Jet, you were looking at Jets. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Anyways. See about. That's $150, you've got to have $150 million to look at Jets to me.

Well, on paper. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. That's exactly the right number. You're clearly looking at jets. No, I've never looked at.

No, no, no, I've never looked at jets because I know, no matter how much money I ever have, I would never think about getting a jet. Here's what I don't like about private jets. Yeah. I've been on less than 10 of them. Never my. I never sponsored it. Yeah. I don't like the, how much you have to socialize with the people that are on the jet with you.

Not if you're flying alone. Well, okay. No, but for me, my dad, one of my fondest memories of my father, living in Laguna, he was taking me to Orange County, which is now John Wayne Airport. This was back when it was basically a restaurant on a runway. There was no security back then. And we used to watch planes take off. He'd put his hands over my ears.

And I could go, that's a 727. That's a DC-9. And now I still instinctively, when I hear a plane look up and I can identify it. Autism. There you go. But for a lot of reasons, the success, the utility, I've just always been fascinated by planes. And so I've always wanted to own one. And, but the thing I was going to say that kind of epitomize the loan moment was in 08 when the Great Financial Recession hit, I went from being worth a lot of money to less than zero because I was that guy that still hadn't diversified, had all tech stocks, had borrowed a little bit on margin.

And it all happened about the time my son had the poor judgment to come marching out of my partner. And the first thing I felt when I saw my son for the first time was not angels singing in bright lights and church music. it was fear and shame because shame well you're i think i have very strong like most men paternal instincts that my first priority at that moment for the first time was to take care of this child and going from being economically secure to being very much economically insecure and thinking it's one thing to fuck up for yourself it's another thing when you screw up for your kid yeah but that was the first thing i felt i was so nauseous and upset and that's a terrible story you know, I had to sit down.

They were more worried about me than the child of the mother. And it wasn't because I was nauseous. It was because just all of a sudden I thought, how could I have screwed up this badly? And now I've screwed up for an entire family. That's probably a little dramatic. I struggle with anger and depression, so when bad things happen to me,

I think sometimes it hits a little harder. But I remember thinking, I've already, you know, my first thought as a father was I failed as a dad because 08 was very intense for me, like a lot of people. I was kind of levered to the market. and but yeah and you could have just diversified not in tech and okay good of yeah we I wish we'd have this podcast in 07 oh no but it is just as such as it was like a little bit here yeah like

yeah thanks Neil that's great financial advice but so but what you're saying is incredible I just wrote my previous book was the algebra of wealth and one of the key attributes that are things that people don't appreciate is just what you said and that's diversity yeah and the moment you have anything resembling an asset base and you're over the age of 30, you need to start putting money in uncorrelated things and everything somewhat correlated. But now I never put more than 3% of my net worth in any one thing. And I try. Really? Three. Yeah. And that way. I mean, Are there that many asset classes? That's like how many? There's tons of different stocks and you can invest in, I'm in a British aerospace company. I'm in Japanese bonds. I'm not going back.

I've got it. Because I'm worried I'm not going to be able to figure it out again. And so diversity is, in the 80s, a bunch of finance professionals figured out that diversification gives you risk-free upside. It's just a smarter investment strategy. But if you're young and dumb and think of yourself as an alpha male as I did up until the age of 45, I kept going all in on things. And that works really well as long as it's working. Most people get very rich through concentrated assets, but the way you don't get poor is through diversification. And it took me a long time to learn that. What was the drive, obviously, okay, so is it just like scarcity of resources growing up?

And then it just like, it's just like, okay, well, that's the main thing. And now I'm, that's never happening again. Yeah. And once you, I mean, from what I know, you went to Berkeley and then you got a job at like Smith Barney or one of those. Morgan Stanley. Yeah. And then you, you just built from there. And were you more driven than, then you're.

Pierce? I think so. Did you grow up with money? My dad was a tax attorney, but I'm the youngest of 10. 10? Yeah. So there was, uh, there was no money. Maybe if you have 10 kids, it doesn't matter how much money. So, and then like around 15, every once they were able to shake everybody else. Yeah. Like then there was, I think there was money. But I didn't, but so like, I think the short answer for most of the world is yes. I grew up with money. So middle class, parents married, dad had a job, a real job. Ten kid, wow. I'd like to unpack that at some point.

My mom never made more than $40,000. The money was a real issue. And when my dad left, he went on to have an upper middle class lifestyle. We went on to have a lower middle class lifestyle. We were never hungry. But, you know, I remember that one of the worst weeks I remember being a kid was losing two jackets in the same week because jackets cost $30. And we couldn't afford that. And I just don't think people with money can really, I think they can sympathize,

but I don't think they can empathize with what it's like to not have money growing up. And it felt the way I described it, it felt as if there was a ghost following me and my mom around, occasionally whispering in our ears, you're not worthy, right? Win the baseball game in Little League, a nine years old, everyone's going to Farrell's, and your mom kind of shovels you into the car because she's not sure what the money part of it is. there were always these conversations all my friends left my school to go to private school when they started integrating and busing

and I'm like oh I need to go to windward there's Tony private school and I had one of those conversations with my mom were different right driving school I had to go to the cheap driving school and all the other kids went you just every day it feels it's just marginalization you just feel constant reminders that you and your mom quite frankly have fucked up according to our society which is very driven

on money. And I would say my motivation for wanting to make money, I think I've worked harder than most people, is women. And one's a good story and one's probably less admirable. My mom got very sick when I was in graduate school. She called and said, you need to come home. She had just gone in for cancer surgery. She had a mastectomy. And because it's expensive to keep people in hospitals and we were underinsured, they kind of basically booted her out, discharged her early. And she called me and said, you need to come home. I'm in a really bad way. My mom is not a dramatic person.

And I walked into a situation that I just didn't know how to handle. And I thought, okay, we need to get a nurse. Try and get her back to the hospital. They wouldn't take her. You have to go to county, call an ambulance. That's not an option. Need to get a nurse. Called nursing staffing, $35 an hour.

I had $700 in my checking counts. I got 20 hours of nursing. And there's just certain things the son can't do for his mother when she's that violently ill. And I remember just feeling again that like lack of, I don't know, lack of manhood, this person who'd been so good to me, I couldn't take care of her because I wasn't economically viable. So that was very motivating. The other thing is less admirable. And that is I noticed from an early age, the guys who had their shit together economically had a broader selection set of mates. And I wanted that.

And so I was always, I always say I worked very hard because, and then having kids really motivates you. but I've always been very driven. I think it's important to do an analysis of your addictions, right? Things you do despite the fact they're having negative ramifications on the rest of your life. I'm addicted to two things. I'm addicted to money. I have enough money to be fine now. Unless I really screw up again, I'm fine.

But I'll check my stocks eight times a day. If my business isn't going well, it takes me away from my kids. I'm less engaged in all my relationships. I get way too upset. It impacts negatively the rest of my life. I'm having trouble getting off the economic hamster wheel. Yeah, because you know rationally that you have enough now. Oh, yeah, I'm done.

But it's hard to, like... Stop and not fear and not think about it all the time. I'm addicted to money. And the second thing is, I'm addicted to the affirmation of strangers. I do a lot as you do, and it all goes on social. Sometimes people like it. Sometimes they don't. And I'd like to think the negative comments don't bother me, but sometimes they do.

And I'm less engaged. with my kids because of some goddamn stranger in his basement or a bot or a troll farm out of Albania because I got on the right list because I've been wrong list because I'm pro-Ukraine, whatever it might be. But it takes me away from being present. Yeah.

So, but those are my two addictions. What are you doing about, I was explaining to people because there was something, the Saudi Arabia Comedy Festival thing. So a lot of people were like, why would all these people, want to go and I'm like because people but but the thing that in you can speak to this yeah if you have a chunk of money there's something about new money that's a little bit more valuable than interest money and savings to me in my experience like it's like yeah I have that but like

some new money that would mean like a new a check that I didn't know was coming or a payday that I wasn't, I didn't plan for, is like worth 15, 20% more than the money you have. That's what I think. Well, I think when Hank Aaron hit a 714th home run, I bet 715 felt still really good. Yeah. You get used to making money and you want to make more. And also, quite frankly, the idolatry of the dollar in the U.S., the U.S. has run on money. And, okay, maybe you don't need it, but you can give it away.

Yeah. You can do awesome things with it. Or you can give it, you know, you can just do amazing. things. Does that feel good? Oh, and I want to, before I go into my virtue signaling here, I was one of the least philanthropic people you'd ever meet. I don't think I gave away a cent until I was 40 or 45. And the only time I ever did anything philanthropic was under the auspices of getting invited to some cool event where I thought I might be interesting people or hot women. It wasn't cared about the charity. But I started giving away, when I hit my

number, my practice is the following to try and bust that cycle of addiction. I hit my number and I had a number and then I thought okay now everything above that I meet with my guys at Goldman and they say this is how much above that number you are this year and I either spend it all I love spending money I'm really good at spending money I'm selfish there's so many amazing things you can do in a capitalist society with money and anything above that I give away and it makes me feel strong it makes me feel important it makes me feel American and also makes me feel like I can talk about the struggles of young men because I'm giving serious money away to, you know, suicide prevention and vocational programming.

So I like to think I'm walking the walk. But what I would tell anybody is once you get to your number, and this is a problem of privilege, spend it or give it away. And you're going to feel awesome. But I joke, I spend money like a 50s gangster with ass cancer. I spend a crazy amount of money. And I also give away a lot of money because the reality is, I don't know if you're familiar with Daniel Connaman.

He's this Israeli-American psychiatrist or psychologist, but he did a lot of work on money. And once you hit a certain level, you go no incremental happiness. And where it's taken me is there's just no reason to be a billionaire. And I see no reason why we wouldn't take incremental tax rates to 50, 60, 80 percent, as we had for the majority of the 20th century, say above 10 million a year. Because you want a tax that's less taxing. That's the idea of a tax code.

The least taxing taxes are the best. Any money above 10 million, no incremental happiness to you. But if you get an incremental... They promise they change the number. Well, you do as you get older, your number gets bigger. But realistically speaking, if someone makes $10 million or $15 million in year, it's not going to provide them any incremental happiness. Whereas that additional $3 or $4 million in tax revenue spread across 30 families for, say,

universal child care or food benefits, huge incremental happiness when you take a household from $40,000 to $50,000 with $10,000 in social services. So I've become, my journey with money has taught me to believe, okay, I believe we should have much, more progressive tax structure. And the reality is in the U.S. is that there's this myth that the rich don't pay their taxes. Actually, the workhorses who say make between 300,000 and a million a year, dad's a chiropractor, mom's a ball or partner in a law firm. They make 1.2 million a year. They probably live in San Francisco or a blue state in a big city. They're paying 52% tax rates. But once you make the jump to light speed and you have enough money to invest in stocks or buy and sell assets, your tax rate plummets to likely below 20% if you live in Florida or Texas.

So the workhorses pay a disproportionate amount of money, but they're super rich. The top 26 families in America pay an average tax rate of 6%. My tax rate the last, when I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, I was paying a tax rate of 40 or 45%. Over the last 10 years, as I've started to make a lot more than that, my tax rate has plummeted below 20%. So we've decided in America, our tax policy is you get the gold medal, you get the silver and the bronze. So I've come to believe we need massive increase in progressive tax rates for the really the people making a lot of money. And my self-imposed tax rate is I like

to give money away. And I think of it as consumption. It makes me feel really strong and good and American. Okay. Can you empathize? Well, it's the wrong word, but for billionaires. can we not assume that it makes them feel strong and having that much money making that much money they don't spend it because you can't at a certain level but whenever I hear you talk about it I'm like that's going to be a tough sell because I know I don't know many billionaire I don't know if I know any

but I the idea I have of them is they just like being they like it they like a billionaire thing yeah they just like it fits well yeah they like it it's like the way i like being a comedian like i like seeing another comedian and being like yeah there's a shorthand here yeah and and i think that's the thing with billioners like it's going to be hard to they wouldn't have become billioners if they had any any uh if they had mild feelings about money you know i mean if they if they had a reasonable approach to money they wouldn't have they never would have gotten there there's so many lies we get from lunch

speakers in NYU. One of the lies when we bring in really wealthy people or VCs, especially in finances, I never really thought about the money. These guys would sleep with their sisters for a nickel. They are obsessed with money. They can tell you on any given minute of any given day their exact net worth. And they try and pretend that I'm just so talented that I couldn't help but make tens of millions of dollars. If you're not thinking about, if you're not thinking about money, you're going to end up with zero. You got to have some financial literacy, no matter how talented you are. But, you know, my basic feeling is, look, everyone will come up with reasons why they should

have more and more money. Usually, it's up to us as voters to put in place people who understand that we have to reinvest in the middle class. Yeah. That the amount of prosperity, it's like what William Gibson said about technology, prosperity's here. It's just not evenly divided. And for 90 of the last or 70 last 100 years, we've had very progressive tax rates.

We've said, look, I've been interviewed a lot about this pay package that Elon Musk is proposing, where if the stock goes up sevenfold at Tesla, he would make a trillion dollars. And my attitude is, look, capitalism is not meant to have any limits. It's a great incentive for people to think I could make a, I could be a billionaire. I think that's a good incentive. I just think if you make a billion dollars, we shouldn't have a tax code that figures out a way where you don't have to pay any taxes and that those people should have very – through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, the incremental tax rate on people making over a million bucks was 60, 70, at one point, it was 80%.

Yeah. And then the other tax, I'm getting into economics here that is, I think, the easiest give would be to lower the estate tax exemption from $30 million to $1 million. If your kid inherits $7 million, not $9, it's not going to make any difference in their life. Whereas I think the government really does need that money. We're spending $7 trillion on $5 trillion in receipts. That means basically we're using your and my children's credit card. to prop up our current lifestyle.

I think it's irresponsible. We just, you know, do we need to cut spending or raise taxes? The answer is yes, we need to do both. But there's just no getting around it. The wealthiest among us have figured out a way to take the tax code from 400 pages to 4,000. And quite frankly, Neil, those 3,600 incremental pages

are there to fuck the middle class. They're inch by inch figuring out ways that the super wealthy don't have to pay their fair share. I want to ask you, just so my listeners and viewers hear it, Is your, I don't think it's a philosophy. I think it's true about universities and education and the fact that it's, you know, a fendi bag, that it's a luxury good education. Well, as I said earlier in the podcast, when I applied UCLA, it was a 76 group.

Were you a good student in high school? No. Yeah, I was pretty mediocre. I had a 3.1 GPA and 1130 on the SAT. 1070. Good to see you. Same thing. Same thing.

There you go. Right there, right? And I got rejected from UCLA the first time, but then I got in. And I remember when I was, I wasn't going to go to college because I was going to have to live at home. Applied to one school, didn't get in. And I was installing shelving in Ontario. My dad got me a job installing shelving. And if it was a union job, I made $18 an hour, which I thought was a lot of money at 17.

But I was inside a closet all day. And there's nothing wrong with vocational work. But I'd always been told I was smart and funny. And at that time, I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a pediatrician. So not getting into college was devastating for me. And I had been working in shelving for about three months. I came home, living with my mom, broke down, very emotional.

I'm like, you know, is this it? Is this my life? You know, I really did want more. And she said, well, is there anything you can do? And I found out there was an appeal process. And so I appealed, and the truth has a nice ring to it. I'm installing shelving. I want to be a doctor.

And I remember the day I got a phone call. And the guy from the admissions department said, you're not qualified. But you're a native son of California, and we're going to give you a shot. And that I rewarded the generosity of the admissions department with a 2.27 GPA from UCLA. I spent all of my time watching Planet of the Apes and figuring out how to make bongs out of household items. Think you're sticking paws off me, you damn dirty ape. Didn't get my shit together. And get this.

I got into graduate school at Berkeley with a 2.27 GPA. It was a different time. But then I got my act together. And the generosity and the bet they took on unremarkable young people back then inspired an upward spiral. And this is a flex, but, you know, last year I think I paid $7 million in taxes. So making as many bets on unremarkable people is really good for the economy. And where we've morphed, unfortunately, over the last 40 years is now we've decided that elite schools are really for two types of people. The children of rich people, you're 77 times.

more likely to get into an elite school if you come from a top 1% income earning household, and the freakishly remarkable. Kids who are captain of the lacrosse team and figured out a way to build wells in Rwanda over the summer. And I can prove to us that 99% of our children are not going to be in the top 1%. And college used to be a place for the kind of the good. You didn't have to be great, you just needed to be good. And the easiest way for universities to increase tuition faster than inflation is to artificially

constrained supply. So Dartmouth has an $8 billion endowment. They led in 1,100 kids, which is what a good Starbucks serves in a day. They're in the middle of goddamn nowhere. They could let in 5,000, and they have the money, but they've decided they're a Chanel bag, not public servants. So we artificially constrained supply, which to me means we've lost the script. And especially, this really has a big impact on young men, because young men are 18 to 24 months, literally less mature than their female peers because their prefrontal court tax doesn't catch up to 25. So whereas it used to be 60-40 male to female because of sexism 40 years ago, it's now 40-60. And because men drop out at a greater rate in the next five years, we're going to have two women

graduate from college for every one male. And so the solve, in my view, is again, around tax policy that if you have over a billion dollars in endowment and you're not growing your freshman class faster than population, you should lose your tax-free status because you're no longer a public servant. You're a hedge fund with classes. But we have developed this gestalt in higher education of rejectionism, of elitism, only the best get in. And what happens when the dean of my school announces that we rejected 90% of our applicants? The faculty stand up and applaud, which I would argue is tantamount to the head of a homeless shelter bragging that he or she turned away 90% of their applicants last night. It's bullshit. So there are some people doing

good work. The governor of California wants to expand UC enrollment by the size of one campus. Michael Crow at ASU wants to have 200,000 students, Purdue's doing good work, places like University of North Carolina, huge funding, and 83% of the kids need to come from in-state. So it's pretty easy for, it's not easy. It's easier for North Carolina kids. But on the whole, the elite schools have decided that we're in the business of rejectionism. It's funny when you say public service, I was like, I didn't and know that it was supposed to be a public service no we're paying for it you're tax no i i know once you're like oh yeah they should even the the having researched it a tiny amount i didn't even it i didn't it i didn't it never occurred to me that med schools only have a certain amount of slots

because like you need a lot of facilities for a med school you need you need you need oars and cadavers and they just it never occurred and it's like yeah we need to educate more people And the idea that it's exclusive and so fucking expensive is, it's idle. The corruption continues. We're a cartel. The top 50 schools let each other know what their admissions rate are. And they raise their tuition and lockstep exactly the same amount, which is illegal in any other industry. They restrict supply.

So what ends up happening is, look, if you get into Yale, you're fine. I have kids call me. That's the number one question I get at my show office hour. Should I go to school? I'm like, where'd you get in? If they got into elite school, it's worth borrowing the money. It says Yale on your forehead the rest of your life. People will think you're smarter than you are, right?

Employers want you, the rest of your life. But what happens is those schools, because they're in the business of scarcity and think of themselves as luxury brands, a lot of really good kids get arb down to a tier two school that has the same pricing. So they end up buying a Hyundai for a Mercedes price. They end up going into a lot of debt. A lot of kids drop out. A lot of kids just aren't meant for school.

or they end up in professions that don't pay well. And at the age of 23, it's not unusual to find a kid that went to an okay school, not a great school. It has $150,000 in debt. And if you don't believe we aren't fucking young people, one of the only forms of debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy is student loan debt. So think about the mental anguish of a 20-year-old that went for two years to a school, decided it wasn't for him or her, leaves with no degree, but 80 or $100,000 in debt. And that debt's going to follow them around the rest of their lives at the age of 20.

And yet we let businesses and rich people declare bankruptcy where they get a fresh start. But we've decided young people shouldn't be eligible for a fresh start. And it's an indication of a bigger problem outside of academia. And that is because we have the oldest elected Congress in a Western nation and old people have figured out a way to vote themselves more money. Slowly but surely, all of our economic policies basically tilt the economy from young people to all. old in terms of resources. The average 70-year-old is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. The average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy. And this is in the face of remarkable prosperity. My worry is what it took for you to come to all this realization. What it took?

A lot of money. Oh, that's interesting. I think it's data. Yeah, but I bet you have a more a more favorable take on data when you when you just checked your your Goldman account you're like we should be a little we should be more rational about yeah I mean and I'm not saying I'm saying like you're I just think about you know I we don't need to get bogged down on this but the how little persuasion there's been on the part of Democrats and so when I hear you talk I'm like hey man I'm with you yeah but now it's the actual challenge which is what do you do yeah how do you get people to agree with you. Well, look, we passed these laws. We had a progressive tax structure for most of the last century. I think, you know, we fucked this up. We can unfuck it. Get rid of,

I mean, there's specific policy solutions. There should be an alternative minimum tax on corporations, which are paying their lowest taxes since 1939. And there should be an alternative minimum tax on anyone making over a million bucks. You pay, it's not the tax code. It's not tax rates. It's the tax code. If you make over a certain amount of money as a corporation or as an individual, you should pay, say, an alternative, an AMT at least of 40%, meaning fill out your taxes, take all your deductions. And if it's not at least 40% going to the government and being redistributed to the middle class, you're going to pay 40%. So I'm with all of it. I'm with all of it. You just don't mind's going to happen. No, no, no, no. The issue is that thing in you,

that scarcity thing. We're just scarcity animals. And so convincing someone they have enough is so hard to do it's so hard to do and because i can feel it in myself where i'm like i should not that that thing of like yeah but what if catastrophe it's like it's catastrophizing and uh and and and competition and a bunch of like very very deep uh human drives that you're up against well it's hard to ignore instinct and when we came out the savannah there It was a lack of salty sugar and fatty foods, a lack of free play, a lack of resources, a lack of mating opportunities.

Only 40% of men have reproduced. 80% of women are reproduced. I know. It's such a funny step. So men are just taught with every bone in their body to have money and economic viability. And it's not like a switch goes off that says, okay, you're done.

I stop now because, you know. It doesn't, you don't, I don't know what you're, whatever you paid $7 million. Your body didn't think that. Your body doesn't think you paid $7 million. It might the day you write the check get like, oh, you get like an anger. You're not proud, probably. Oh, I engage in what I'll call, they call it tax efficiency, but it's tax avoidance.

I'm not going to disarm unilaterally. But what I do at the end of the year to try and, because I enjoy it, is I give away a lot of money. But I think to expect rich people to pay more on their own, I mean, it all comes down to very boring shit. Citizens United has basically said that money's voice. And Washington has been run over by money. The $40 billion child tax credit gets stripped out of the infrastructure bill because the Democratic senator from Arizona, Chris and Sinema, get $700,000 from private equity funds. And it gets stripped out to pay for the tax to carry an interest loophole in private equity. Meanwhile, the $120 billion cost of living adjustment and Social Security flies right through.

Why? Because Washington has become a cross between the golden girls and the land of the Walking Dead. And old people vote. And the Dian democracy is working too well. When old people vote, more than young people, old people get more money. And who doesn't vote? Kids. So we're going to spend more on ice this year

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men and i'm also curious about your relationship with your father because it it sounds like he wasn't around and then he was around he got you it's great when your dad shows up to get your job in ontario thanks dad yeah thanks for everything uh but but what was that like and did that was there also that coupled with the lack of money and feeling like ostracized a little bit subtly you must have developed a lot of resentment you know i i think i struck with anger and depression but i think it's chemical i don't think i don't think i can blame it on my parents i think it's something in the chemistry or in the batter but look my dad who he recently passed at 95 you know american dream came to california my favorite story is came here on a steamship

went to san diego you know eighth grade education and he was interviewing with a candle i was going to interview to be a salesperson or a candle company and the hr person said you've got to wait here you know you know you said how long you've been in the country two weeks And he's like, she's like, you got to wait here. And she brought in her boss and said, you have to meet Tom Galloway. He's only been here two weeks and he's already learned the language. He had this thick Scottish accent and she thought that Scottish was a different language. Like he was a, my dad wasn't a very sophisticated man, some character flaws, but in the 70s when you were handsome and had a Scottish accent, you could not only think with your dick, you could listen to it.

My dad has been married and divorced four times when he left my mom and I, uh, and he left my mom and I, uh, and had a Scottish accent, you could not only think with your dick, you could listen to it. I, you know, it was just hard on us. And if you look at the single point of failure from when a boy comes off the tracks, it's when he loses a male role model. What's interesting is that girls in single parent homes, of which we have the most of any country in the world, have similar same outcomes as dual parent homes, same rates of college attendance, same income. It doesn't really impact girls. They become a little bit more promiscuous because they start looking for male attention in the wrong places, but generally speaking, they have the same outcomes. When a boy loses a male role model through death, disease, or abandonment, at that

moment, he becomes more likely to be incarcerated than graduate from college. It ends up that while being physically stronger, boys are neurologically and emotionally much weaker than girls. In the absence of a male role model really damages a young man's prospects. So my dad leaving and moving to Ohio, I do think it had a negative impact on me. I learned in one of the great hacks in life, resented him for a long time and would go periods where I'd get angry and I wouldn't speak to him for months at a time. And then as I got older, one of the great unlocks of my life is to say, I used to keep a scorecard. We're friends and you're not being as good a friend to me as I am to you. You're out. An employee isn't adding much value. I'm not enjoying. I spent

time with my girlfriend's parents and my mom comes to town and she didn't spend time with my mom. I'm angry and you're out. Everything was a scorecard. And the problem with the scorecard is you'll always unnaturally inflate your contributions and deflate theirs. And I thought, I used to resent being a better son to my dad than he was a father to me when I needed him. And then I decided about 20 years ago to kind of put that bullshit aside and say, all right,

what kind of son, what kind of partner, what kind of friend, what kind of boss, what kind of investor do I want to be, and behave that way distinct to what I'm getting back. I'm not going to be abused. I shed relationships all the time, but I thought, I want to be a little bit loving, generous son. I really like my dad. I get along with him. We have a lot of fun

together. And I want to be a loving, generous son. And the moment I said, I'm going to put away the scorecard, and I'm just going to try and live up to that, it was an enormous unlock for me. And we've had a wonderful relationship the last 20 or 30 years because, and as he got older, he mellowed. You know, I don't know about what your dad's like. Did he ever try to justify his exit? You know, we didn't talk about it a whole lot. I think he realized the shortcomings as he got older. Well, did he? He left his fourth wife when she was two years away from dying from Parkinson's. This is not a high character person, a cautionary tale. And when he passed six months ago, my sister and I decided not to have a service because we thought it would just

be the two of us. He didn't have a single friend. So it's a cautionary tale that if you don't invest in relationships, you know, the worst thing that can happen is you die under bright and my sister and I were very involved in my dad's life at the end so that didn't happen to him but yeah I don't think he was a great on one man he wasn't a great role model he wasn't around a lot but at the same time I make an extraordinary living doing what you do communicate and I think a lot of that is my fault I inherited it for my father and as my dad got older my dad couldn't stop saying I love you and I used to think the dark side of me would think, you know, I could have used that when I was eight.

Now that I got a lot of people in my life that love me, it's not, it's not that helpful. But he did start to say that. And my dad checked what I think is a key instinctual box for men. And that is he was a much better father to me than his father was to him. I know. That's the thing. It's like when you're, it, you really want to prosecute them to the full extent of the law. And then you realize like, well, he did better.

better than the yeah he thinks he did a good job or or as best as he could do you have a good relationship with your dad no um but and he died and i did a this a Netflix thing and he died it will he cut me out and just like a whole it's like the big ending to my Netflix special but uh he cut you out yeah yeah that just seems anger and small yeah um and i was unless you were really awful i wasn't awful it was it was just it was yeah that's what it feels like feels like angry yeah so he was a very petty guy yeah and and and I but I just stopped caring yeah about I stopped using it as like a as a shield and a cudgel and a self-pity mechanism I just like it's I can't it's just so it's just

boring it gets exhausting you have a good relationship with your mother yeah yeah so so I'm I'm really curious as to what advice you would give to single moms in terms of, you know, not how to keep their son out of incarceration, but what, is there a way to compensate? Well, the first thing I would say is forgive yourself if you're struggling. I think it's really hard for single moms. I think there's something about the lower pitch or the smaller physical size of women where at some point boys kind of stopped taking them seriously. and I think the depth of our voice and our size

and maybe some scarcity because we're not around as much but I think boys do listen more to their dads in certain topics which leads me to the recommendation do anything you can to get men involved in that boy's life whether it's big brothers whether it's asking people I think there's a lot of really good men out there in their 30s that maybe don't have a family of their own or maybe they have and they recognize some success

and they realized how important it was to have male mentorship, who are willing to spend time with a boy. And unfortunately, because of some abuse in the Catholic Church and by high-profile people, there's this suspicion if you want to be involved in a boy's life. And it's really rewarding. I mentor some young men, and it's super rewarding. And not like that, there's a belief of, well, I'm not a CEO,

I don't have a degree in psychiatry, I shouldn't do this. It is so easy to add value to a boy's life. They make the stupid decisions on their own. You just need to, well, okay, do you really really, need to move to Alaska right now. You got a good job in Vermont and your parents want your mom's sick. Why are you want to move to Alaska? Like, just walk me through this decision, right? You want to be in better shape. Can you just tell me what you ate today? Yeah. I mean, just, it's so easy to add value to a young man. But my piece of advice for a single mom is

one, to forgive yourself. It's hard. And to try and get as many men as possible involved in your son's life. And also, this is a call out to men. If we want better men, we need to be better. men. There are three times as many women applying to be big sisters as are our men applying to be big brothers. And I don't know if it's because of the fear that they'll be suspected of, you know, quite friendly of being pedophiles. Not true at all. Tons of men out there. I was in the big brothers, guys, not so far as I know, not a pedophile. Something to think about it. So you, can you tell us a little bit about that experience uh yeah it was probably eight nine years ago and and i was just like i i i the the thing that volunteering i it was truly to try to overcome depression

like okay i've heard volunteering's good let me try that yeah um and it was uh it was really interesting and really rewarding and um and and it because i didn't because i'm the youngest I didn't have any younger brothers. So it was interesting to, to, I wish the kid had been maybe a little older, but, but in terms of like what I could offer them.

We just go see movies pretty much. And so, so yeah, but it was like, it wasn't hard and it was, it was interesting and, and, and I think it helped him.

I like, you know what I mean? Like, I believe in, in doing pro-social stuff yeah and and and i and i and i and i i'm like you i'm like what i i i i feel like how society where it ends up is partially my responsibility i mean obviously it's egotistical or something but but i but it's we you have to pitch i grew up catholic like i just it's in me yeah you know see above 10 kids yeah i think you probably underestimate the impact you at because i think a lot of it

It's just, I think young people, if other people think they're worthwhile, they start believing over time they're worthy. And you show that kid he's worthwhile because you could be doing something else, but you decide to go to the movies with them. Yeah, I also think life outcomes or lifestyles, access to it is huge.

That was the biggest thing my brothers did for me, or one of the biggest things was like, one of my brothers worked at a comedy club. Okay, so I'm at high school, and I, the people I'm dealing with, Louis CK., John Stewart, Ray Romano, like, literally, they're not popular or famous, but like, they were shortly their app. So it's like, oh, you can, if you go and work somewhere for free. This is a job, you can actually make a living with us. Yeah, like, and then I go to NYU because I did hear about Spike Lake.

Just like, the cascade of, of effect is massive. So I think that's what I, if I, I think that's a thing that, that. men can offer younger men well that's mentoring yeah that's and it's huge and there's a there's just not there's not enough of it yeah um and it's like i said for a boy boy while they're physically stronger and boys are just emotionally i mean here's a scary stat two 15 year olds both sexually molested a boy and a girl neither crime is less heinous than the other the boy is 10 times more likely to kill himself later in life boys are much more sensitive much weaker And I think there needs to be a general gestalt or zeitgeist in our society where the moment a boy doesn't have a lot of male mentorship, we move in.

And it can be as easy as finding a single mother in your work environment and saying, hey, does your kid want to come to the Arsenal game? I'm living in London with my boys with us. Does your kid want to come over and watch the game? And I'm telling you, these women are very receptive to this. They get it. The people who have been most supportive of my work, I talk a lot about starting. and young men are young men, but a close second is mothers. Yeah.

And the kind of email or the conversation goes something like this. I have three kids, two daughters, one son. One daughter's a pen. The other's in PR in Chicago. My son is 26 in the basement playing video games and vaping. I mean, there's mothers are the ones. I'm going to meet this guy. That's Rick. We hang out.

Mothers see what's going on here. They see the difference between boys and girls. And I see it, I have two boys, but when my 15-year-old has a party, the boys are, you know, they're polite, they're nice, but they're dope, they don't make eye contact. Some of the girls look like they could be the junior senator from Pennsylvania. Alone, Mr. Galloway. What a lovely home you have. I mean, just they're in a different league from a maturity standpoint. And what's weird, and we don't know why, is the gulf and maturity is broadening between boys and girls. Girls are menstruating earlier, and boys' testicles are descending later, and we don't know if it's.

pesticides of the environment. But if you have two 17-year-old seniors in high school applying to college, the 17-year-old girl is basically competing against a 15-and-a-half-year-old girl called a boy. They're just, their prefrontal cortex is 18 months less mature and doesn't catch up until it's 25. And so when we leveled the playing field academically, girls just blew by boys. And like I said, it used to be 40, 60, female to male, college enrollment. now at 6040, and it's going to be two to one graduation rates because boys drop out at a greater rates. Boys are four times more likely to kill themselves than girls, three times more likely to be homeless or addicted, and 12 times more likely to be incarcerated. I mean, we have a homeless

and an opiate crisis, but what we really have is a male homeless and a male opiate crisis. So the statistics are just remarkable. There are now, there are three times as many young men who are called NEETs, and that's neither in education, employment, or in training, literally doing nothing. Only one and three men under the- Well, they're vaping. They're vaping. Go ahead.

Netflix, one and three men under the age of 30 is in a relationship, it's two and 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 so we're producing a general, I think we're evolving a new species

of asocial, asexual males. It's, you know, it might be the same problem as the wealthy thing. It's like now, it's like, well, I'm sure women will turn over some of the privileges that they've accrued over the last 30 years. It's going to be, they're not going to. That's, again, this is one of these like, great, I agree. How do we persuade them? Because by the time they realize that it's a problem, they're going to be 35, 40. And they go, where are all the good men?

Well, systematically they were sort of eliminated. Yeah. So a couple things. One, I don't think it's a zero-sum game. I don't think civil rights hurt white people. I don't think gay marriage hurt heteronormative marriage. And I think what the genders have done is a great job of blaming the other gender. So when I know a young man's come off the tracks is when he blames immigrants for his economic problems or he blames women for his romantic problems.

But also I think women need, I think saying you don't have problems who are the problem is not helpful. Oh, I don't think they are the problem. I think they've been given a bunch of... No, no, I'm saying women saying that to men. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's not helpful when women and Democrats say to young men, act more like women, and you don't have problems, you are the problem. And I get why they might, why women might hold you and me responsible

for aggregating a disproportionate amount of spoils. I did. I got unfair advantage. But because of my unfair advantage, do you think it's reasonable, and what I'm saying rhetorically to Democrats and to progressives, is does that justify holding a 19-year-old male accountable. Yeah. A 19-year-old male right now is arguably biologically, sociologically, and economically at a disadvantage. If you think about schools, K through 12, 80% of the teachers now in K-12 are women. Who are they going to champion? Yeah. They champion people to remind them of themselves.

Yeah. A boy is twice as likely to be suspended for the exact same behavior as a girl. A black boy five times as likely. Seven of ten high school valedictorians are girls. And when it was 40, 60 female to male in college enrollments, we passed Title IX. Because we said, we have to get more women in college. Now, it's 60-40. And men are going like this, there's no such, oh, there's no movement. That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying. That's the guy of my point. It's like, it's going to be, it's a tough sell to go, we need to help men. You need to help who? You should see my comments feed. I mean, you know. I didn't see it. I'm, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the, I'm, I'm the, I I understand the gag reflex, because unfortunately, when, to the rights credit, they recognize the problem early.

But their solution is to go back to the 50s where women and non-whites have less opportunity. That's not right. So they hear some terrible voices, enter the conversation, enter the void. And so on the right, they conflate masculinity with coarseness and cruelty and say that women's assent and non-whites assent is taken away opportunity from men. That's bullshit. But our economy would be in tathers if women had not entered the workforce, right? That's why we won World War II, arguably. It was Hitler didn't want women in the factories.

We said, no, absolutely. They're common. Another thing he was right about. Okay. There you go. And then, but, you know, we have these knock on effects where you just said something really interesting, and that is, where are the good men? There are a lot of men out there.

They're just not that many men, women want them made with right now. Because they're under 5'8, Scott. how can you blame why would you ever go on so women made socioeconomically horizontally and up men horizontally and down so as Chris Rock said Beyonce could work at at McDonald's and Mary JZ the opposite is not true and when the pool of horizontal and up keeps shrinking there's less household formation and in married households when the woman starts making more than the man the use of erectile dysfunction drugs, triples, and the likelihood of divorce doubles, because society...

What about dildo use? Do we have any stats on that? None so far. Just anecdotal evidence. But society and, look, and women and men themselves still expect men to be economically viable. And when they aren't, they're seen as failures. And that's not true of every household. There are a lot of households figured out. Good for them. And I'm not suggesting we should do anything to get in the way have women's assent. But we have to acknowledge no group in America has fallen further faster than young men. And the country and women aren't going to continue to flourish if young men are flailing. And they are really struggling. One out of three men who hasn't cohabitated by the time they're 30 or married someone is going to be a substance abuser. Here's a stat. This freak me out.

45% of men, 18 to 24, have never asked a woman out in person. And, you know, no one wants, they get a lot of mixed signals. No one wants to be that guy that approaches a woman at the bar and it's unwelcome and he's now that guy. He's a creep. But now what you find is, in surveys, 80% of women still say they want the man to initiate romantic interest. And young men have gotten a lot of mixed signals. In addition, they don't have the same economic opportunities. And where do they go to demonstrate excellence?

Women are much choosier. You have a room of 100 men, 100 women. If there's alcohol involved, the majority of the men would agree to have sex with the majority of the women. Almost all of the women would have sex with none of the men. Women are choosier. That's the basis of evolution. We're trying to spread our seed to the four corners of the planet. They put up a much finer filter to try and screen out the smartest, fastest, and strongest seed.

The way men get there, 80% of couples married longer than 30 years say that initially one person was more interested in the other was always the man. how does the man get there he needs to demonstrate excellence and where are the venues for demonstrating excellence now we're not going to church or temple we're not going into work we're not men aren't going to school and if you talk to these people world of warcraft there you go home duty not a lot of mating going on there not a lot of mating going on there but if you talk to these couples of merry a long time they say yeah I wasn't interested him in the beginning but I like the way he treated his parents he was so good at what he did we work together I hung out with him and And he was really funny.

He made me laugh. I like the way he smelled. I like his body language. I like with dance. Women fall in love. Where does a man demonstrate excellence right now? And also in an economy that's increasingly about how much money you have, and men have fewer economic opportunities because they're not going to college.

And a lot of them are going down rabbit holes online. You know, you just have, we're producing, it's almost as if we're planning our own extinction. I know. Well, again, I agree with everything you think. Now what? Guys, you know, I get after it in the gym. I get after it on the stage and in the gym. And one of the things that makes me crazy is dudes on the internet that are constantly showing

you influencers, the dumb ideas about how to exercise. They don't know what they're talking about, they're just good looking, they got new teeth, they got and they got the nice matching fit and that's nice that's they got the nice matching outfit i don't want to use the word fit it's not appropriate doesn't help us for what we're doing here uh it's aggravating and it's also not you can't like go on the social you can't follow a guy and look up all the it's just it's it's uh it's sloppy and then you got to pick a phone up over it's just a it's a nightmare it's a sloppy nightmare on the other hand there's an app that your friend Neil uses called FitBod, F-I-T-B-O-D.

It's on the phone, I've used it, I used it two days ago, as a matter of fact, and it's got everything you could possibly want in a, in a workout app, right? You've got every possible muscle group, every possible routine, every fitness level you could possibly want, I'm an expert, doesn't mean you are, that's just who I am, guys uh you can a number of days types of equipment you have you could do no equipment you could do all kinds of machine dumbbells barbells it's a legitimately good app that i was using when they weren't advertising on this podcast guys because that's how much i believe in the product sure they hear my feelings when they stopped when they stopped advertising but i stuck with them

and now they're back what muscle groups do you work out neal we're going to go butt cheeks says they're called on the street. Well, they're called butt cheeks on the street. Chest, really chest and butt cheeks. My biceps get overly developed. I know that sounds unlikely, but if I do that too much, very little bicep goes a long way with me. I need shoulders, butt cheeks, chest,

what my guy I used to write with used to call t-shirt muscles. Those are what I'm after. So I'll load in what I'm trying to do that day, and they'll give me three or four, or two or three exercises, let's be real, for each muscle group, and I'll cycle through them on the app. There's little videos of how to do it. There's videos, a sequence to do it, amount to do it.

And I've had a trainer, guys. I have. And a good dude, but you know, eh, just it's, you got a guy there counting, which is embarrassing. It's humiliating for him. It makes me think, like, I want to say to him, like, you think I can't count? You know how I get defensive.

So I like to keep to myself, do the app, look at what I got to do, and listen my podcasts or videos on youtube here's a call to action this is when it gets real and i got to read it verbatim level up your workout join fitbod today to get your personalized workout plan get 25% off your subscription or try the app free for seven days at fitbod dot me slash n-a-l that's f-itb-b-odd dot m e slash n-a-l fitbodd dot m e slash n-a-l fitbodd dot me slash any al man see anything can't see anything look at that lens for you though it's nice hey guys you know i'm really happy to partner with ground news in today's episode i know that wasn't

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Ooh, that was a nice one. Now what, okay, series of solutions, ideas and programs. Red shirt, kindergartners, start boys at six, girls at five, recruit more men into K through 12. Boys need male mentorship, more after school programs and sports funding. My male mentors were typically coaches. I played sports growing up.

I had my first baseball coach, sensed I didn't have a lot of money and would quietly buy my uniforms and buy my stuff so I could play. You're not growing a freshman class faster than population growth, you lose your taxary status. We need more seats for, you know, more trans kids, more,

Republicans, more men, more women. We need more seats. We need a tax policy that puts more money in the pockets of young people. We need to stop transferring money from young people to old people. Mandatory national service. The lowest levels of teen depression or young adult depression in the West or in Israel, where they spent two to three years, all of them in the IDF. And I just hung out with a battalion in the IDF in Israel, a bunch of young, beautiful men and women learning how to handle dangerous equipment, learning to count on each other for character and training. training, learning, meeting people from different ethnic, different economic, different social orientation backgrounds.

I think young people need to meet other great Americans and realize that they're American before their quote-unquote specific identity. I think there are vocational programming, 20 percent, any public university, 20 percent of their certification should be for non-traditional one or two-year training, nursing, specialty construction, energy efficient, HVAC, installation. There's a ton of jobs on Main Street ready for these people. And by the way, that's one of the few things men are better at. Men seem to enjoy working with their hands and outside. And not always, but are typically really good at it. And yet, where has wood, metal, and auto shop gone? Out. Remember that guy in high school who

wasn't going to go to college, but he could fix your car? He got a job, but he learned how to fix a car in high school. Those jobs are gone. We've replaced them with computer science, hoping they it'll go to MIT, drop out, and start the next big platform. That's not working for the middle class. So I think there's a total rethink of our tax structure. Two biggest tax deductions, mortgage interest rate, and capital gains. Who owns stocks and homes? People our age.

Who rents and makes their money through current income? Young people. Why is money more noble than sweat? So almost every economic policy we've had in the last 40 years is nothing but a transfer of wealth from young to old. the result? 60% of 30-year-olds, 40 years ago, out a kid, now it's 27%. Is it because people just decided they don't want to have families? No, it's they can't afford them. And so you have young people who are just economically strapped, and then 210 times a day they get a notification on their phone reminding them that they're failing. And if there were, if you

are going to reverse engineer one statistic to our biggest problem, you know, I think it would be the following. For the first time, our 275 history as a nation. Six years ago, we crossed this terrible threshold, and that is for the first time, a 30-year-old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That creates rage and shame across the household, because your roommates, because you're probably living at home, your parents, are reminding you every day that you're failing. And it's been especially hard on young men because we disproportionately evaluate men based on their economic viability in terms of their attractiveness, their role in society,

in their self-esteem. I think we fuck this up. I think we can unfuck it. And the incumbents want to pretend that these problems are unsolvable? No, we need to put more money in young people's pockets. Stop stealing from them. We need to have more opportunities for vocational training. We need mandatory national service. We need more men involved in K through 12. And we need to stop pathologizing young men. We need to celebrate our young men. We've been celebrating women. Let's continue to do it. But let's celebrate our young men. When you have troops pouring or Russian troops pouring over the border in Ukraine, you want some big dick energy. There's a lot of men who are young men who are wonderful and add a ton of value.

They typically make, oftentimes, better entrepreneurs because they're more risk aggressive. Carnegie Award rewards 80 people a year for risking their own life to save another life, running into the burning building. 75 of them last year were men. some of that risk of aggressiveness and recklessness that we criticize, it also translate into valor. It can also translate into patriotism. So I'd like to see what I call a restoration of alliances between our great economic trading partners, between moderate Democrats and Republicans to make some progress, but also we need to restore the alliance between men and women. If you go online, there's too many men blaming women and immigrants for the problems, and

there's too many women saying shit like, I don't go on dates because I might be not alive. I might be murdered. If you go on a date with a young man, he is 16 times more likely after that date to go home and hurt himself than hurt you. You are four times more likely to be hurt in a car accident or choking a dinner than that young man hurting you. Young men have become more violent, but mostly they've become more violent on themselves. So stop with the pathologizing of young men.

We need men and women to begin to restore their alliance. I have seven and a half billion pieces of evidence that the greatest alliance in history is men and women. Men need to celebrate the progress of their mothers and their sisters, and women need to have, in my opinion, young women, a little bit more empathy and realize that if they're constantly criticizing young men,

maybe he's not going to want to approach you and ask you out. Yeah, I mean, the issue is, and one of the issues that I think when you're speaking is, like, the incentives to, there's more juice in the like men are all men are trash and I'd rather have sex with a bear or whatever that thing was like there's more cultural cachet and like in in a sort of belittling the opposite sex than there is in and going like no men are great like even saying men like that that that triggers that that that testosterone has

been transformative for the earth is like, what? How dare you say that? It's like, it's why there's the bridges and inventions and it is trying to impress women and it's protecting nations and it's like, so, so, but there's no, it's been so stigmatized for,

it's similar to the, to the, to the, pedophile thing where, where a priest and fucking priests ruin the Catholic church. they ruin any sort of interaction with young kids it's it whatever it's and it is a few bad apple yeah of course but it's a it's a it's the few bad apples thing where it's like yeah there i don't you think i like violent men do you think like men like i like watching violence i don't like being anywhere near it yeah which i don't i think women think we like it or you know what i mean like so i it's another thing where it's like turning the tide on the branding

as a branding professor of so-called branding professor is the that's where I go like dude this is that's the hardest part with all this stuff taxing the rich getting women to admit men are mostly great

that's hard that's the hard part well if I'm at a conference and I say women make better doctors and lawyers they're more nurturing more observant better managers because of their maternal instincts or their attention to detail because of instinctual reasons, people nod and clap.

If I say on average, women make, men make better combat soldiers, and in many cases make better entrepreneurs because they're more risk aggressive, which isn't to say the same opportunity should be allowed to everybody, there is a very uncomfortable pause. Acknowledging men might be better at anything. Or even admitting that women have maternal instincts.

Or saying that women are nurturing, you're saying, you're saying we should be home barefoot and pregnant. I'm like, no, those translates in being a great doctor and a great lawyer. We're going to have more female doctors and lawyers forever for a while now. But just turning to my book, I'm trying to figure out a way, masculinity has been conflated with toxicity. There's no such thing as toxic masculinity.

There's cruelty, there's abuse of power, there's people who are violent. Those are the most non-masculent things in the world. I think of the three pillars. I'm trying to figure out a way to develop an aspirational code for masculinity because I think every young person needs a code to help them make decisions. You can get it from the church. You can get it from your parents. You can get it from the military.

You can get it, even get it from your workplace, like a code. This is my code. This is how I make decisions, hard decisions. I'd like to think that masculinity can be presented as an aspirational code. And the three legs of the stool, I think, are our first provider. I think every young man should take economic responsibility for his household. Sometimes that means getting out of the way and being more supportive of your partner, who's better at that money thing.

My partner worked at Goldman 15 years ago when I wasn't making very much money, so I tried to pick up the slack at home. That's the right thing to do. That's also masculinity. But you should assume you need to be economically viable. You got to get certification. You have to work hard. You have to show discipline. You have to be smart about saving or spending less than you make so you can save money.

And women are attracted to that. Don't be the douchebag that orders a bottle of gray goose at two in the morning. You have shit to do in the morning. Go home. Be disciplined. and demonstrate that you have a plan. You don't have to be rich, but have a plan. I'm going to be able to take care of you and a family

because I have a plan. Second is the default operating system for men, I think, is to be a protector. If you think about the most masculine jobs, firemen, policemen, military, what do they do? They protect. Your default operating system

should be a move to protection always. And this is what disappoints me about many of our male leaders now. So I don't think they're in the business of protecting the vulnerable. You may not agree with the trans community. You may not think we need third bathrooms and corporations. You may not think transgender women should be able to compete at the NCAA swim trials,

which I believe both those things should not happen. But if you see a community being demonized, the way the community is being demonized right now, your move should be to protection. And it's not only, think about the guys who break up fights at bars. They're usually strong men. The guys who start fights at bars are usually not strong men emotionally and physically. So, and it's not only physical, you hear people talking shit about someone else behind their back. I think a very masculine attribute is to not participate or to push back.

You protect people. And the most reward I have, do you have kids? My girl has a five-year-old. My whole life has been about more. I want more money. I want more relevance. I want more fame. Eyeglasses.

I want more glasses. I want more experiences. I want more sex. I want hotter women. better experience, never fucking enough. The only time I ever feel somewhat sated and satisfied is when I know my family is safe asleep and I feel like I'm their protector. And I know that sounds very primal. I think that is the most satisfying feeling for a lot of men is that they have translated their prosperity into protection, protecting your country, protecting your community,

protecting vulnerable groups. I think that feels really fucking awesome. And I think that that's a key component of masculinity. And I think it comes somewhat natural. to men back to that testosterone. And the final thing, and this gets the most interesting dialogue, is procreator. I think we have to stop pathologizing a man's romantic and sexual desires. It's fire, and if it's, it can be very damaging. If a man spends too much time, especially young man, watching pornography,

he's going to start objectifying women, thinking, have unreasonable expectations about what a relationship is. But that sexual desire can be channeled like fire put into an engine to call progress to make you want to dress better, better groomer, have a plan, demonstrate excellence, show resilience, approach people, ask them for friendship, express romantic interest from making them feel safe and get used to rejection. Why? Because you want to have sex. There's nothing wrong with that. Wanting to have contact with women, be attractive to women, establish relationships, have a sexual relationship, that can, that that mojo should be

something that turns you into a better man. When I mentor young men, they always end up at the same place. They first start about talking about the relationships, what's gone wrong, then they want to talk about how do I make some money. But ultimately, where it always ends up, Neil, is I'd really like a girlfriend.

And the first thing I ask them is, would you have sex with you? And they kind of objectively, and I say, well, what would it require for women to want to have sex with you? And they outline a series of things that make them better men. So I think that, I think to a certain extent, we have to embrace that.

And also, when we have, the thing we haven't talked about, young men are up against an indomitable evil force called big tech that has Godlike technology trying to convince them that they can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen with an algorithm. You don't need friends. You got Reddit and Discord. Why? Figure out the pecking order and try and figure out the cafeteria and the hierarchy of friendship. you don't need to put on a tie and apply for jobs and navigate the bullshit of going to an office,

you can make money trading crypto or stocks on Coinbase or Robin Hood. And why would you go through the expense, the aggravation, the rejection, the humiliation of trying to establish a romantic partnership when you have lifelike porn available 24 by 7? Yeah. So we have the most well-funded companies in the world representing 40% of the S&P who have connected profitability was sequestering and polarizing young men. So they're up against what I would say is almost an unbeatable foe.

And that is, I mean, well, let me ask you this. I haven't talked about, you know, I barely graduated from UCLA. One of the reasons I went on campus is I want to see my buddies. It was fun. And I also like the idea of meeting a strange woman and potentially having a relationship with her.

That was motivating. If I'd had on-demand porn 24 by 7 that was lifelike and had AI, reverse engineering, figuring out, you know, my fetish is, would I've gone on campus as much? I don't know. So men are up against some really challenging things around the attempt to essentially convince them. You can have a life alone. And we're becoming less mammalia.

And if you want to see an animal go crazy, put an orc in a tank alone. The worst thing you can do with a human is solitary confinement. Leave your dog alone and see what happens. And these men, when sequestered from relationships, quite frankly, just come off the tracks and start to become much more prone to misogynistic content, much more prone to nationalistic content. And some, they become shitty citizens. And if they don't go through the, if they don't walk through the coals of trying to get a job or trying to establish a romantic relationship, those are skills that serve them well the rest of their lives.

I mean, my guess is, I'm going to guess this is true of you. It was true of me. The only way I could ever navigate and get a date, I was. super skinny growing up and I had bad skin. That's not a great rap. That's not the peanut butter and chocolate of bread. Yeah, I heard you talk about acutane the other day, which same boat. Oh, same thing?

Yeah. The only time I could ever convince a woman to go on a date with me is if I'd made her laugh a lot. Humor was my secret weapon. And so, but where do men now demonstrate humor? Where do they develop those skills? They're not going to work. They're not going to religious institutions. They're not going to school. They're in their

basement learning that every relationship is frictionless and that's not the real world and the reason the most rewarding things in our lives are relationships and the why reason the reason they are so rewarding is they're so fucking hard that's what real victory is is figuring out a way to have friends figuring out a way to get along with your parents figuring out a way to be generous with your siblings figuring out a way to convince someone to to be involved in your life romantically committing to them having them commit to you putting up the bullshit of children Jesus Christ it's It's hard. It's hard.

But if you're able to do these things, that's what real victory smells like. And if you believe you can have those things online, I think a lot of these young men end up 30, anxious, depressed, and obese. What do you espouse for your sons? How old are your sons? Fifteen and eighteen. Money, they have a lot. I'm sure you have a plan in terms of like, I'll give you this or I won't give you that, but

like, what are you doing there? not as much you're willing to share. I'm not looking. I'm genuinely like, what do you, okay, what are you practicing? So I want to be clear, I don't have a playbook on this, and this is kind of do as I say, not as I do. One of my kids struggled with device addiction. I've been studying big tech my whole life.

You'd think I would have figured that out. So I get it wrong a lot. I also think having kids has made me a better man because I learned pretty early. What you say has very little meaning. It's what you do. So I do think the best thing you can do for young men is try to be really good to their mother.

I think they see that. They see that, oh, you're supposed to be kind, you're supposed to be supportive of your partner. I think they register that. It's made me, I try to, I try to just model the behavior I would want them to model when they get to be men. And I have these practices.

What does a man do, I call it? And I sit them down. When we have visitors, a man immediately runs to the car and grabs their luggage. and puts it in the room. A man never pours his own water first. And this is one of my favorite stories about my youngest

when he was 10. We were at a restaurant in London. And it was just me and him. His mom was gone. And there was this big bad of water or a big thing of water. And he wanted to pour his glass. He picked it up and waddled over

to this other table across the restaurant and poured their water because he thought it meant everybody. Yeah. And I thought, and I was just so proud of him at that moment. But just a series of practices around what men do.

I've tried to really emphasize physical fitness. Not for everybody, but I think it's important for, you mentioned testosterone. And you have the 15-year-old taking testosterone. Oh, yeah. Human growth hormone 11. But I think fitness and speed is really important. And, or let me go. Okay. Do you foster competition with them? Because I know a lot of the most successful people I know are really competitive. I try. And some of it's, some of it's, I think a lot of it's just insecurity manifesting is, but fine. The two things I thought, I've heard, okay, competitive sports, playing on a team, and chores. I have failed on chores.

My kids are lazy, and they don't even make their beds any longer, and I have totally facilitated it because we have a live-in. I've failed there. What I have done is from a very young age, I had them playing sports. They're not great athletes, but the wonderful thing about our sports infrastructure is you don't need to be a great athlete to play. Some kids would rather do something else, but it's got to be something. chess, dance, whatever it is. You know, but I like the idea, and this is some bias. The only reason I got a job of Morgan Stanley is because I rode crew at UCLA.

And the guy who rode crew, the guy who ran the fixed income department at rode crew and said, every oarsman gets an automatic hire because you're willing to kill yourself. And that's what we like here at Morgan Stanley. So I think competitive sports are really important for building confidence. Young men have this blessing, and this is one of my practices with the kids I'm men are. they're born with denser bone structure, more muscle mass, and then you pour on at this amazing substance called testosterone. I think every man under the age of 30 should be able to walk in any room

and know if shit got real, they could either outrun everybody or kill them and eat them. And I say that metaphorically, but don't you look, I look back on my 20s. What about saying something very sarcastic and mean? That too. That's cutting. Yeah.

But I think you're physical, I think if you work out a lot, a run, I think you're going to be kinder, less prone to depression, more attractive to potential mates, and just feel better about yourself. So I think fitness and competitive sports are a big part of what my kids do. But I'm trying to move more to modeling. Also, I'm really trying to lean into this idea of garbage time, and that is, I think the idea of quality time was something invented by rich dudes who didn't want to spend a lot of time with their kids. Like, I can make up for not being with my kids by taking a Disneyland. Yeah, by going on Safari. Yeah. Be the Uber driver yeah hang out what are you doing let's just let's just go let's just go grab let's go grab

let's go grab because the real moments of connection and you'll find this with your yeah it's your stepdaughter it's son stepson they happen randomly yeah they happen when you're not exactly oh jerry Seinfeld talked about it on this podcast where he's like it's just garbage like just not you're eating cereal it's one of the morning just that's where you get to it's that's true in offices as well. I mean, it's true in a lot of situations. So my attitude is you want to be, you want to be a, I mean, it's just presence. It's just figuring out a way to just be there as much as possible. I also find being in their company when they're not looking at you, driving them is really powerful. Because when they're not looking at you, I find they're more likely just to be quiet. Especially for boys.

And then blurt something out. Yeah. Okay, this is a moment. Because you find as a dad, at least with my kids, I would kill for my sons to open up more to me. And if I say, if I start asking them questions like, hey, is there a girl you like at school? And that's it, that's a non-starter. It's the first 48. Yeah, there you go. It's a non-starter. But in moments where I'm spending a lot of time with them, just stuff comes out, you

know, so. Do you sell them on status, meaning, not sell them, but do you make them aware of status? I think that's a big, I just, I'm, it took me a long time to realize how, I mean, I read the El-Dibaton book. status anxiety when it came out in 2005 or six. But like, that's a big thing in the world. I don't know if I don't teach them about it, but I try to take them to environments

where they realize they're not, just their privilege, just how incredibly fortunate they are. And I try to remind them. Have you taken them places where they're not? Because that's, I think that's the, where they're not high status, where it's like, those people are higher status

and the reason why is because, and then, you know, the litany region. Give me an example of that. Well, the clearest one is, I've heard a long time ago, it's easy to go from economy to business. It's very hard to go from business to economy. It's very hard to go back. So meaning your low status here in this situation, and you can get to higher status, but you're going to have to earn it. And I'm wondering if it is something you can teach or something you can demonstrate.

The honest answer is, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, it's, I talk so much about fatherhood and masculinity, and I think I come up so short so much of the times. You know, I don't. Well, it's, it's impossible to do perfectly. I mean, and every book I'm parenting I've read contradicts the one I read before. Yeah. You know, look, I do the basics.

I'm good at their mom. Try and get them involved in sports. Try and through actions know that I love them immensely, and I think they're one of them. I think something I got for my mom was every day in subtle ways, explicit and implicit. She just made me feel like I was just wonderful. And I think over time you start to believe that. So I try to do the same thing with my boys.

Even when I'm on the road, I try to face-time them every day. I demand the answer. I'll just keep calling them like a jealous, you know, boyfriend. And just check in, how are you, what's going on? If they don't pick up, you leave like a dead animal on the front porch. I get it. of me boiling a cat. And I think over time they're just going to know that I thought they were wonderful.

The issue I have, and you're alluding to it, is that the reality is I wouldn't have what I have if I had what they have. A lot of the embers around for me that burned and drove my success and my discipline and my hard work were because I didn't have a lot, the scarcity mindset. My kids don't have that problem. So I wonder where that's going to come from. And I don't have the answer. Is it necessary?

I was talking to a friend last night about he's about to have a kid and we're talking about he's Asian and he was talking about, he's like I'm going to try not to be Asian about it in terms of what kind of, like not to be like a tiger parent, not to be like you have to become a doctor or a lawyer or Harvard or Yale or whatever. And I'm betting because I know I feel this way or I'm. I see the value in just being a happy, well-adjusted person, and I see the value in being a high-status successful person. The thing is, though, that, I mean, I'd like to say,

find your own road just as long as you're happy. Part of your calendar series. Hang in there, yeah. July, you have value. But the reality is I'm not a Tiger Dad, but I do believe in a capitalist society. I mean, I'm going to my oldest applying to college. And I'd like to say, no, if you want to take a gap here,

wherever you end up is right for you, I'm all over them. Yeah. I want them to go to an elite school. I know that we tell ourselves a lie, that college doesn't matter, and where you go doesn't matter. That's a lie. The kid coming out of Dartmouth is going to have more opportunities than the kid coming out of Cal State Northridge.

They're going to have more mating opportunities, better health care. That's not to say it can't be a billionaire coming out of Cal State Northridge. It's a great school. But the kids rolling

out of Harvard. I will say also Cal State Northridge shockingly nice campus. Have you been? And a world-class accounting department. Incredible.

I don't even understand why it's where I was going to go to college before I got into UCLA. So I don't know why I brought that up. By the way,

the Cal State system is the unsung hero of the California system. Cal State Long Beach has a fucking pyramid gym. The biggest grantor of Pell Grants

in the nation, meaning they educate more low-income kids than any other system in the United States. You want to talk about how you solve income inequality. You better fund our great junior colleges in Cal State system. But I'm on that hamster wheel, Neil.

I want my kid to go to a great school because I think it matters. I think we tell ourselves a lie that it doesn't matter. So I'm all over them. Did you study for the ACT today? Do you have your personal essays done? Yeah.

You know, and they have resources. So my guess is the land of going to good schools. So I'd like to think I'm that supportive, loving 60s parent or whatever. I'm all over my kids. I'm all over. I want them to be successful. And I'm in their face about a lot of stuff. And quite frankly, I needed more of that when I was a kid.

I needed someone telling me, get your shit together. You could have used more. Oh, yeah, a lot more. Yeah. I think boys need it. Yeah. I think they need people asking them questions every day. I also think, like, not force, but some.

kind of force or incentive or disincentive. I feel the same way because I was, I, I ended up just working a lot because I didn't want to be around the house. And, and I caddied at a golf and, and, and I was a caddy too. Yeah. In, in Chicago, the place that Bill Murray and his brother's caddy called Indian Hill that the movie's based on. How old are you when you caddy?

11 through 17. Did you ever have to do a double bag in the summer? Had to. I mean, that was, I mean, he's literally child abuse. Totally. No, I have. summer, you're like, I don't know about you. I was like, all of five, seven, 120 pounds.

I mean, I was tiny when I finished. Carrying two ram golf bags. Yeah. And by the end of 18 holes, you literally could have expired from heat exhaustion. For what, I used to get maybe 15 or 18 bucks. I forget what I got. I'm older than you. But that was a great job.

Yeah. It taught you, there's a little bit of method, a little bit of knowledge, how to get along with people. And also, how hard work is. Yeah, it's grunt work. Yeah. It's literally grunt work. It's physical labor. Yeah.

So I've kind of weirdly developed a better work ethic as I've gotten older, like almost by the year, where I probably just have a good work ethic now. It would say in the last three months where I'm like, no, I really have to. The thing I've been saying is when you're in school, A students, B students, C students are all kind of treated the same in life. A students are treated way better. Your life is so much better. The delta between, like when I was an Ohio cadet. Explain for the B students what a delta is, Scott. So remember when we were kids, your dad's boss had a bigger house, but was nearby.

Yeah. And we all went to the same kind of church and country club. And he had a Ford Thunderbird or a Cadillac. My dad had a Grand Tarino. They were both like just reasonably shitty American cars, one had leather, one had cloth. Maybe he got to ride in business class where the seat was this and we had to write here. But our lives are somewhat similar. The delta between making a decent living and making a great living has broadened so extraordinarily.

It used to be coach or business class. Now it's coach, premium economy, economy comfort, business class, first class, private air travel, chartering, fractional airplanes. you know small jet mid-sized jet uh you know falcon 900 heavy jet you can get if you have enough money you can go to the met gala you can go to fucking space dude the difference between this it used to be the difference was this and this now the difference is this and this yes so while being wealthy might be for some people an empty and meaningless experience trust me on this as far as empty and meaningless experiences go it's pretty fucking good yeah and this country has decided that we are optimized for the top 1%.

The bottom 99% are nutrition and tax to make the life exceptional of the top 1%. And this is where our optimism damages us as a country is we all believe our kids are going to be in the top 1%. So it's like that Simpsons episode where this guy's screaming, you know, lock them up or raise their taxes, it's like, you realize we're one of them, right?

And he's like, yeah, but once I'm one of those rich guys, wait till you see how I treat me. Yeah. Right. So it's like everybody, people know the lottery is a bad idea, but their tickets a winner baby, right? So I think our optimism, while it's our strength, it's also our Achilles heel, because we assume our kid is going to get into MIT or start a tech company or, you know, figure it out. And the reality is the structural, you know, the structural programs in America now have made housing almost impossible for someone in the literature. We're in New York right now.

there are now three types of I moved to New York right out of UCLA I had two roommates you could kind of dance between the raindrops we used to we all worked to banks we could we could pool our per diems go out have a fun time my rent was $1,900 three of us six 33 each you know you could get a pot you get the slice you could just figure it out it wasn't easy but you could figure it out the cost now in Manhattan there's only three types of kids Manhattan our people kids who were for Google or matter attack kids who were for JPMore Governor Goldman, Finance Bros, and kids whose parents are putting them through New York. When I meet somebody who's in a regular job, I know, like, oh, you have rich parents.

There's no way. If a kid's making, and these are kids making good money, if you make $100,000 in New York and you're 24, 25, you probably can't survive without help in New York. A one-bedroom apartment in New York is $5,500. That's $66,000. That's your entire hundred grand post-tax. income. So, and I'm not suggesting everyone has a birthright to live in New York, but the inflation has essentially made it almost impossible for young people to live in the big cities unless their

parents are putting them through big cities. And again, you know, it's easier to talk about the problem. But when I was younger, it seemed like we just loved the unremarkable more. And when there is now, it feels like everything is an attempt to optimize. When I got out of business school, we all made good money. A few of us made more than others, but no one was poor. We all made like good money. Now I say to my kids, if I have a class of 100 or any kids, I'm like, there's two or three billionaires in waiting here. They'll make it through tech or alternative investments. But also, probably 10 of you will be living with your parents at some point in the next 10 years. The winners and losers' economy, the economy really has transition to a hunger game,

and it's been a conscious effort. We know what's going on. Our optimism has resulted in that we're passive about the notion that we're okay with billionaires, while, while one in five homes with children are food insecure, because unfortunately we have seemed to have embraced this Hunger Games economy. I think it's gone too far. I think people are finally gagging on it. But we also have to acknowledge

it's been a bit of a conscious choice in America. My father, who's an immigrant from Scotland, used to say, America is a terrible place to be stupid. And what I think he meant was is America is a harsh place, if you're unfortunate. It's humiliating. Well, what we, the, it's humiliation, the, poor people are humiliated minute to minute. Forty percent of American households have medical debt.

Can you imagine his dad, you have a five-year-old stepson? Can you imagine like your kid is in screaming pain? You got to get them a root canal. You got to go into debt to get your kid a Ruth canal. That's 40% of American households right now. It's just gone, I do believe in winners and losers. Capitalism is about huge rewards for the winners. There's got to be a floor and the safety net has become.

way too porous. And in the most prosperous nation in the world to have this sort of, we're the richest nation in the world. But if your wife gets lung cancer, there's a one in three chance that means you're going bankrupt. Literally, what the fuck? And so anyways, we haven't elected enough people who understand and have the backbone to have what I think is a truly progressive tax policy. And I'd like to think that we're going to move back to that. And I'm talking, I'm not talking about, I'm talking about like Reagan and Carter and, you know, Nixon. The tax rates were much different than the tax code was much different. I'm with all of this, but it's the, it's the getting there,

and it's also the balance of all the other stuff we've talked about with achievement and, and competition and, and, and, and taking care of the vulnerable and, because it just seemed like, It's America's, I mean, it's just this pendulum from one extreme to another and like, yo, can we be, can we just be like sort of just reduce the overton window of the pendulum just because it's fucking crazy. There's, there's no middle anymore. The majority of Americans, I think of it kind of anywhere. That's the crazy thing. Well, the electoral process is the following. It's been so gerrymandered that the general election no matter, no longer matters is the primary.

And the way you win the primary is a Republican or Democrat is just to say, I'm more fucking crazy than this person, more liberal, I'm more conservative. And so we send a bunch of people to Washington who just have no shared values or experiences. And the tax cuts for the wealthy, in my opinion, at some point it becomes morally bankrupt. It just, when you have one man garnering an increase in wealth, the equivalent to the GDP of Costa Rica, Larry Allison's wealth goes up $90 billion. in one day and the only people buying media companies are billionaire kids whether it's sherry redstone who's a billionaire kid selling her company paramount to another billionaire kid larry ellison and in meanwhile you know what is it 30 percent of kids are on snap food payments i mean come on it's just kind of too i know well i guess it's just the how how harsh is the wake up going to be that's

And that's, again, I'm sure you worry about is also, like, I'm, you know, this is the craziest time I've ever been alive. Well, look, the bad news is we have extraordinary income inequality in our country. The good news is it always self-corrects. Let me give you the bad news. The means of self-correction are usually war, famine, or revolution. Throughout history, there's a very basic cycle. The top 1% get there because they're hardworking, smart, and also very lucky.

and then they use their resources to incrementally rationalize weaponizing government to get more and more resources. And then at some point when the top 1% has more income than the bottom half, which it does now, actually Elon Musk now has more net worth

than the bottom 50% of American households. At some point, the bottom 90 realizes the fastest way to double their income is to kill the 1%, or at least take their shit away and tell them they have 48 hours to get out of the country. This has happened over, And this is basically the story of Central and Latin America

for the last 200 years. At some point, the bottom 99 or the bottom 90 gets fed up. And I would argue that you're seeing small instances of revolution. I think the Me Too and Black Lives Matters movements both had righteous components, but they weren't going after the sexual harasser owns a taco truck. They weren't going after middle class executives. They were going after rich white people,

which is a form of revolution. So I think, look, what I would say to all rich people It's just in terms of self-preservation. At some point, your neighbors are going to take your shit away by force. I don't know who's you saying this, but it's like, I don't want to live in a world with armed guards. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't, I have, I have some really, really wealthy high status friends. And I've had a joke I haven't written yet, but it's like, I'm so successful I have to be surrounded by ex-military at all the time.

That's, I'm so funny. I'm surrounded by a bunch of X mill. It's like that doesn't seem like a good life. And that's what, with all these rich people now, it's like, you like this? Well, one part of it is it's a flex. I went to this party. Of course it is. I went to this party in Abitha, this, and this guy I know is wealthy, but he's not that wealthy.

And he has a security guard with him. He's like, oh, no, the new security guard, the new trend in security is not a big guy. It's a hot female former Mossad. And I'm like, okay, so you're doing this before. This is like wearing a watch. Yeah. But I just went to one of these Master of the Universe conferences where, I'd say 20 or 30 of the richest people in the world were there, there were security everywhere.

And they're not doing it to show off. They've lost their anonymity. And they feel threatened and I'm sure they get a lot of threats. In South Africa, which has enormous income inequality. Yeah. That's what I mean. There's more private security than there are policemen. Yeah.

And you have some fame. I don't have as much as you but I have a bit of a footprint and I'm going on a podcast tour and since the Charlie Kirk shooting they've said do you want security do you want metal detectors I just thought fuck

that's where we're I know I know that's what I mean like I don't I'm nowhere I would argue you're more famous than me that's we'll do a whole podcast about it because I think people would really like it yeah that sounds but but yeah it's like

it's just a weird I even think about that with with the bunkers and Zuckerberg and I'm going to go to New Zealand and it's kind of like is that you want that like why not just do what you can to make the world better because that seems like entirely self-defeating having to live in a bunker like is that that's that's your that's the that's your end that's your end game bunker yeah that what the fuck did you do to need to create a world that you need a bunker well and and the idea that these guys instead of i just think it's insane that someone would spend billions of dollars to try and inhabit space that's so nihilistic that we you think we're going to have to inhabit space i mean that's the ultimate go-bag i mean here's an idea oh i mean my friend Gerard Carmichael did a joke 12 years ago, I'll start worrying about income inequality

when rich people start going to space and then it happened. Yeah, so the question you'd put forward to these guys, so obsessed with space, wouldn't your billions be better served trying to make this place a little bit more fucking inhabitable, I mean, or more habitable? Like, here's an idea.

The assumption is it's beyond repair. I don't know what they're thinking. I don't understand the Nile. First off, let's just talk about the practicality. someone else a bunker in New Zealand and a whole goal plan, it's Gulfstream, ready to go at any moment. Okay. Very quickly. Yeah. Where are they getting fuel? Well, no, no. What I asked is if shit really gets real and I'm your pilot, I'll fly you there and then I'll kill you. Yes. And then I'll live in your bunker. And yes, I hope you make peace with your security because he's going to fuck

your wife. Well, the first opportunity you might even need the opportunity. He's just going to fuck your wife or the moment that you find out to say there's some sort of global revolution or a nuclear attack and oh wait we don't have food did you hear there's a guy with a hundred billion with a bunker out of that here i know maybe we just go check out what's going over there hypothetically so i don't it's like the problem right now i think we should tax i'm talking about taxes private schools more because when parents leave public schools they're not engaged What you have is essentially rich people have sequestered themselves from the problems of our society. They're no longer invested.

They have their own schools, their own tutors for college. Essentially, they have their own colleges now. They have their own security, their own police force, right? They have their own health care. They don't mind that maybe health care is not working or not working or too expensive. They don't even know what you're talking about. So they have removed themselves from America. They're living in Elysium.

And the problem is when rich people aren't as invested, in the success of America, they're not as invested in the success of America, right? They don't realize that when we shut down the government, that's 300,000 people who are taking care of veterans, giving them physical therapy, helping them with their emotional trauma, their PTSD, getting them. Aren't all the veterans working security for rich people? That's how they think. I promise you that's how they think.

Yeah, calm, I need, but the amount of security at this conference, I agree with you. My dad said to me once, he said, the ultimate algorithm for happiness, he was always obsessed with money. He was like, is to be rich and anonymous. Yeah. And actually, as I look back on it, I think, yeah, he's right. Yeah. That's the way to go to happen. You and I have this thing like, a little fame, little fame, little fame, a little thing.

Yeah. Touch. But, but you, you know, the further you go, fame's great, but there is a thing of like, if you tip everybody a hundred bucks, you're famous. meaning anywhere you go if they know you remember from caddying yeah yeah you know who the good I knew the guy was

yeah that guy so that's the thing I realize it's like people would rather meet people would rather meet Ben Franklin than whatever the fuck you are

like they that's gonna help them long term but I am I am fascinated by what this what this end game is because it's like

these super rich guys like hey Zuckerberg how good are you a jiu jiu jitza because it's you're going to be tested there you go yeah like it's going to be tested

the minute you again anything if you like you got to feed your security you got to feed that what are you going to do it's going to be a cult in a weird way and those have never

historically have none have ended well yeah no like I said we're famine a revolution and you'd think at some point that they'd recognize that. And anyway, I think that as a country, it just swung way too far. I do believe in winners and losers. I think we should have billionaires. I just think they should be taxed more.

Yeah, I think you want the incentive. I think you want guys coming up with crazy and women coming up with crazy ideas that create crazy amounts of wealth. But they should not be able to piece out to Texas or Florida when they made all the money in Washington State and benefited from the public schools and the infrastructure and then piece out to, you know, Bezos moved to Florida to spend more time with his dad. Isn't that sweet?

And about the time he moved to Florida, he started selling all the stock. I know I moved to Florida. For tax avoidance, fine. And states should compete with each other, but maybe we should tax you based on where you accreted that wealth. There's a series of common sense solutions here to solve the deficit and also, you know, have a country that acts like it's the wealthiest country in the world. we are but it's it's uh new voreche it's just it's it's it's new money it's it's acting like it's tearing down the east scott galloway ladies gentlemen the book is what's the book called again

notes on being a man no something i'm sure by the time this comes out it'll be everywhere uh and the podcast i'm a pivot guy but you got prop g you got prop g markets you got ranging moderates uh you've got You got a newsletter. Yeah, no mercy, no malice. It's got a lot happening. There's a lot of ways to consume him. Scott Gallagher. Thanks for doing it, man.

Thank you. I really enjoy this. I'm a big fan, man. Yeah. Oh, I appreciate it. Yeah. Mommy