The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Scott Galloway (US ELECTION SPECIAL): “I bet $385,000 That They Win The Election!”, “33% Chance Trump Dies In Office!”, “Men Will Have Less Sex If Trump Wins!”

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

On November 5th, the fate of America's future hangs in the balance, Scott Galloway is back to provide a preview on the 2 possible America's Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at the New York Stern School of Business, and host of ‘The Prof G Show’ podcast. He is also the best-selling author of books such as, ‘The Algebra of Happiness’, ‘The Four’, and ‘The Algebra of Wealth’.  In this conversation, Scott and Steven discuss topics such as; Scott’s gamble on the election outcome, how Trump’s victory could reshape US tax policy, the impact of Trump’s health on his presidency, and how Trump’s victory will affect men’s sex and relationships. (00:00) Intro (01:39) What Are You Thinking About At This Moment (04:54) What's Happened For Us To Get To This Point? (10:47) Personality For Presidents Is More Important Than Ever (15:16) What Has Trump Done Well? (18:29) Trump On Joe Rogan (21:46) Why Are Men Choosing Trump (31:16) What Is That Trump Is Saying To Make Young Men Vote For Him? (39:08) Trump Speaking His Mind Is A Super Power (40:47) You're Judged By The Character You Build (42:16) We Should Move Away From Identity Politics (49:31) The October Surprise (56:46) Who Will Win The Election? (01:03:37) Emotion > Facts (01:05:54) People Seem To Have Forgotten What It Was Like When Trump Was In Office Last Time (01:09:57) Russia And China Are Using Social Media Algorithms Against Us (01:16:06) Does Age Matter In This Election? (01:19:56) There's A 1 In 3 Chance Trump Dies During His Time In Office If He Wins (01:20:19) Trump And Elon Musk (01:24:40) What Happens To America If Trump Wins? (01:27:45) Does Trump Have A Higher Likelihood To End The Wars? (01:32:09) Why Scott Is Writing A Book About Men (01:36:38) Scott's Thoughts On The Pornography Debate (01:45:00) The Guest's Last Question Follow Scott:  Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/NXSe3vpRaOb  Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/iSn6TsrRaOb  Website - https://g2ul0.app.link/lkDgXatRaOb  You can purchase Scott’s book, ‘The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Success’, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/WfB6XfxRaOb  Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes  My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACBook  You can purchase the The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: Second Edition, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb  Follow me: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Linkedin Jobs - linkedin/doac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The election is going to be decided based on who presents a more aspirational vision of masculinity. And what you have on the far right is this vision of being provocative, aggressive, speaking your mind. The far left, their vision of masculinity is be more like a woman. And if any of them resonates, it's the right. That could swing the entire election. What happens to America if Trump wins? Are you scared of that America? Scott Galloway is back, giving his objective no-nonsense analysis on what the upcoming US election means for the future of America and the world. Objectively, what has Trump done well?

He's unpredictable. Look, I publicly endorse Vice President Harris. One of the things I hate about my party, quite frankly, is we become f***ing humorless. Everything's offensive and people are just so sick of that s***. And then he showed up and started saying these really offensive things that felt raw and felt authentic and really appealed to people. And then if you go to the Democratic Party's website, there's a section that says who we serve, and it lists 16 demographic groups, but not one mention of the group that has fallen furthest in the United States, and that's young men. Three out of four homeless people are men.

Three times as likely to kill themselves, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated, and yet they're fighting for everyone except for them. But they feel seen by the Republican Party and Trump, even though under Trump, we'll probably have the largest tax increase in history on young people. And that has a lot of unfortunate ramifications.

And I don't think young men realize this. Who do you think is gonna win? I'll tell you what I'm doing this afternoon. I'm gonna bet $358,000 on f***ing s***. Scott, what are you thinking about at the moment? I'm thinking that I've been on this thing four times and I didn't get a jacket. And that you used to send this fat van for me

with these lights and music and a little fridge. And today you sent me this Joey Bagadonis Uber. So I feel like your side piece that you're kind of taken for granted. That's what I'm thinking about. The nice car will take you home after he's outside. What am I thinking about? Well, we're on the precipice

of what feels like an important election. Every election people say that in the US. The thing I can't get over, I just got back from the US, is how tense it is. Political parties used to be these organizations that tried to grow their membership through policy arguments. Now they've become these quasi religions that attempt to sanctify your beliefs. And it feels like we're in a bit of a holy war. I couldn't get over how tense

and quite frankly how ugly it feels in the US. I was at a fundraiser last Saturday night in Miami, actually just south of Palm Beach. And I was talking about teen mental health and someone yelled out, Trump 2024, which inspired someone else on the other side of the room to start booing. And we're talking about teen mental health.

Things are so polarized in the US. So I'm anxious. And it feels like the US, despite all of its blessings, is kind of coming apart from the inside. It feels very polarized and very ugly right now in the US. That's what I'm thinking about. Every election cycle in the US, people say that this is the most important election of our history.

This is the most important election of our time. Do you believe that? Do you believe that this one's important? I would argue this one's more important. I don't like the catastrophizing from both sides. Each side would have you believe that it's the end of America if the other side wins, which lacks historical context because the US has endured, I would argue, much worse than him or her, regardless of what you believe.

America is actually doing quite well. Our institutions, America is going to be around in four years, regardless of who wins, I believe. It does seem pretty consequential though, because this issue around bodily autonomy is a pretty big deal. Whereas bodily autonomy has all headed towards a woman's right to determine her own bodily autonomy in Mexico, in Poland. I mean, they're distinctive of a few nations. Almost every nation has gone one way, and that's towards granting people more rights. And in the US, it's the first time we've taken a right away.

So that feels like a pretty big deal. And also we have an individual who has never conceded the election. So this notion of the peaceful transfer of power being pretty central to democracy, but at the same time, if people vote for a Donocrat, that's their democratic right. And so if America decides to go that way, it's gonna feel pretty odd, I think. And obviously I should put up front,

I publicly endorse Vice President Harris. Perfect's not on the menu. She would not have been my choice for the Democratic nominee. But it does feel strange that we are so polarized and it's sort of a, it feels like an election between who America thinks would be less bad. What are all the like macro pieces here that have come together to create this sort of storm that we find ourselves in? Because I think of some of them, I think about the role

that Elon buying Twitter played in this. I think about Andrew Tate's rise in culture. I think about the economic backdrop of what's going on. And all these pieces, then Biden and then the inflation issues because of COVID and the stimulus check, all of these pieces, what are those pieces that you think are most pertinent that have landed us in a situation where as as we sit here, you know, with the election happening tomorrow in America, it's looking likely that Trump is going to win if you look at some of the odds, but also young men in particular have, for the first time in the last, you know, couple of decades, really seem to have abandoned the Democratic Party and have gone for Trump. What are those macro pieces?

Well, there's a lot there. So first off, there's some dissonance between the perception. People have called it a vibe session. And that is if you look at the economic data, it's strikingly different than the perception. The majority of Americans think that America's headed in the wrong direction. And usually that has something to do with the economy. Since I think it's 2019, the American economy has grown 12.5%.

That's double of any G7 nation. In 2009, our stock market was a third of the total market capitalization of all stocks globally. Now it's half. Nvidia is worth more than the entire German stock market. China has shed several trillion dollars in market cap over the last five years. America has added several trillion dollars. We're the largest energy producer in the world.

I mean, just the economic, there's 190 sovereign nations in the world, 189 would trade places with us. If you take our poorest state, politicians always talk about Mississippi because it's our poorest state with the worst outcomes. The average household income in Mississippi is greater than it is in the UK, Germany or Japan. So our poor state is doing better than many of what we would consider our competitors. No one's lining up for vaccines from Russia or China or flying to Dubai or to Seoul for AI software. America on any objective metric lowest unemployment historically

since 1968. It's just killing it. The problem is that prosperity is similar to what William Gibson said about the future is here, but it's not evenly distributed. And you also have a lot of disruption, a lot of people who aren't, who feel like their way of life has been undermined. You have a lot of people who aren't doing as well as they used to. A lot of that prosperity is crowded in the top 1%. An economist did a study and said, if you took out the top 1% of American earners,

France has grown household income faster than the US. The bottom 99 aren't doing as well, but the top one are doing so well that quite frankly it creates this illusion of greater prosperity than there is. So for example, we look at the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ, 1% of America owns 90% of the stocks. So the Dow Jones is really just an indication

or a metric on how the wealthy are doing. And spoiler alert, the wealthy have hit 76 new all-time highs in the last year, which is what has happened in the market. So you have this fissure between perception and reality, but also a lot of people aren't doing as well. And 210 times a day on their phone, it's shoved in their face how well everyone else is doing. I think there's also the fundamental breakdown in the social compact in America is that for the first time, and we've talked about this before, the 30-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents

were at 30. And that not only impacts the 30-year-old, it impacts his or her parents. It creates rage and shame. One out of three young men is living with their parents under the age of 25. One in five are still living with their parents at the age of 30.

There's an absence of connection at a young age. Only one in three men has a girlfriend under the age of 30 because women are dating older because they want more economically and emotionally viable men. People are opting out of America, especially young people. 40 years ago, 60 percent of households with a 30 year old in it or 60 percent of 30 year olds had at least one child. Now it's 27 percent. So the ultimate expression of optimism in a 30 year old in it, or 60% of 30 year olds had at least one child, now it's 27%. So the ultimate expression of optimism in a society

is you meet someone and you decide to have kids. And so that optimism has been cut in half. So you have this consumer dissonance or fissure between the economic reality and what's going on, because a lot of people aren't doing well. And the social media algorithms love to pit people against each other. You have young people especially't doing well. And the social media algorithms love to pit people against each other. You have young people, especially not doing well.

The average seven-year-old is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. The average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy. And when young people or your kids aren't doing well, it impacts absolutely everybody. And then I would say just psychologically, when you are making more money at your job, and now wage growth is growing faster than inflation, so purchasing power is going up,

prosperity is going up in the US, when you get a raise, you think it's because of your character and your grit. But when the price of cereal is up 40% in the last five years, you blame the administration. So you have social media algorithms pitting us against each other. You have the political parties have taken on sort of this religious-like feel, where the other party is literally the enemy, young people not doing as well.

All sort of overwhelm the notion that America is the least bad in the world right now economically. On any metric, like I said, every nation would kill to have our problems. I was just thinking as you were speaking about this idea of perception versus reality, and then you mentioned algorithms and social media. And as you said that, I thought to myself, do you know what's interesting? Now that algorithms and social media have made our politicians more visible than ever, if you go back 50 years, you only saw them stood at the podium, right? Making the speech.

Now you see them multiple times a day. If I scroll on Twitter, X, whatever, YouTube, I see Trump doing 10 speeches a day. I get to know him more. And I was wondering in this digital age, is personality now more important than ever when I'm not just seeing you at the podium, I'm seeing you for three hours on Rogan, then two hours later, I'm seeing you in another state, then I'm seeing you on a clip, I'm seeing you at McDonald's. And so the old politicians of the past were very like straight. And you'd see them on the podium, how polished was that speech. Now it's actually, it seems the algorithms are going for lo-fi politicians and personality

seems to be more important than principle. Yeah, we've definitely replaced politicians who were sort of pragmatists and practitioners who used to go to Congress and legislate and pass laws. We've replaced a lot of them with performers. Yeah, in the UK as well. We've just had a series of them. You always got to look at incentives. And the person who raises the most money

is almost always re-elected. And the incumbent, 92% re-election rate, despite the fact that Congress has an 8% approval. So the incentives are to raise a lot of money and the easiest way to raise kind of a lot of money is small dollar donations. It's actually easier than trying to get money from a pack or big money. And the way you do that is you say something fairly incendiary that tickles the censors

of your tribe by making the other side look stupid. You say something, Jewish space lasers or Biden is a war criminal. That ends up on TikTok and the hard left or the hard right see that and start sending in money. And so you have some of the most famous legislators in the US Congress have never passed a bill, but are outstanding at getting on TikTok and raising a lot of money. So it's gone from politicians to performers. I was just thinking about, have I ever seen a boring politician go viral on TikTok? And I've just never seen it. I've never seen a boring... But even in the case you said where if you say something in century, it's both sides send you viral. Yeah, which is interesting.

Well, look at Trump. If he says, you know, if he says something crazy that I'm going to protect women, whether they want it or not, that goes viral. And then everyone, including on my podcast, we're talking about it, instead of having a discussion about inflation, or if Trump gets into office, his current economic plan shows triple the deficits of the Harris economic plan. That is essentially what we've been unable to do

or the left's been unable to do is help young people connect the dots. That the deficit under Trump will probably be ultimately the largest tax increase in history on young people. Because I'm not gonna be around we're fine for the next 20 or 30 years Probably because of our credit worthiness and our ability to borrow money But at some point shit's gonna get real and the Chinese or foreigners are gonna stop showing up to buy our treasuries Interest rates are gonna skyrocket and you'd have massive inflation and at some point,, that debt is going to come due.

I love that every lie is a debt, and at some point, it comes due. But we haven't been able to connect the dots for young people that these deficits will, in fact, be a tax on young people, because it's a wonky, boring conversation, and we'd rather talk about this outrageous thing you said. So these outrageous things people say take oxygen out of the room around any real discussion

around policy. And in the US, I don't know if it's the same way in the UK, but politicians love their jobs so they gerrymander every district. Every congressional district is very hard red or hard blue. So we send kind of the crazies from the far left and the far right. It's no longer the general election, it's the primary. So it's a war, it's an election between Republicans or an election between Democrats. So they all try to out conservative or out progressive each other. And we've sent a group of people to Congress who fundamentally have an entirely different worldview

than one another. And also it's minority rule. In the US, 20% of our population is 80% of the senators. And the majority of Americans are somewhere in the middle. And that does not describe their representation. So we have sort of minority rule now. What has Trump done well? So if you were objectively analysing his ability to capture votes and to get people to believe and come with him.

What would you, if this was a marketing class and you had marketing students in front of you and they were trying to learn from him as to how to market their products in their lives, what would you say to them? Well, the ultimate business strategy is when everyone's barking up the same tree, when everyone's zigging, you zag. So I'll just, the notion that Amazon was the biggest e-commerce company, the model was you own the consumer data, you build the biggest platform,

and then you slowly but surely start increasing your take. And then Shopify comes in and says, your packaging, your data. I mean, the opposite of Amazon. We're not about the customer, we're about, you're the customer, you're the client. You want to sell on our platform, you own everything. We're just here to service you. They kind of zag. Um, that's the ultimate business strategy.

When everyone's going away to go the other for the last 40 or 50 years, politicians have been very PG 13 trying to appeal to every group, worried about offending everybody. And people over time just felt like, this guy's really slick and makes me feel good, but he or she's lying to me. And then he showed up and started saying these really offensive things that felt raw and felt authentic and really appealed to people.

Like, this guy's unafraid, he's telling it like it is. And he kind of tapped into this sort of grievance and anger that had been bubbling up and started saying these really off-color things. I'm going to ban Muslims from entering the country. And a lot of people, even if they don't believe that, said, well, you know, he's not a politician. He wants to burn it down.

And he doesn't like, he wants to burn down his own party. So he really tapped into this authentic zeitgeist of zagging while everyone was zigging. He's absolutely the most non-traditional politician. I think in person he is charming. He's done a great job with social media, capturing attention. You know, we're in an attention economy, right?

And he every day is in the news cycle, realizing that it's like in Berto Echo, the Italian philosopher said, the new economy is about being famous. It doesn't even matter what you're famous for. And he's captured that. So he comes across as authentic, unafraid, politically incorrect, and a sea of political correctness

that kind of infected both sides. He has great political instincts. So he's kind of zag why everyone was zigging and people found it refreshing. And even if people don't like him, a lot of people are under the impression that because he's a business person, I think 40% of America goes into the voting booth

and just votes on who they think will put more money in their pocket, full stop. Government's ineffective. I just want them out of my pocket. And I think, correctly or incorrectly, more Americans believe that they'll have more money in their pocket because he's a businessman and will lower taxes.

Even if we kick the can down the road in terms of deficit, he's convinced Americans that he's better on the economy than the Democrats. You watched him on Joe Rogan the other day? I saw some of it. That whole strategy of getting out and doing the podcast circuit, I think is, this is the first election cycle where I've seen podcasting become so important. And that Joe Rogan Trump moment, I think is a real defining moment in podcasting, but also like political strategy. What did you think of that move?

You're absolutely right, Stephen. So every election brings a new medium to the forefront. Kennedy and TV, FDR and radio, Obama and Google, Trump and Twitter. This will be the election, the podcast election. Because the last time there was a presidential race, since the last presidential race, cable TV is down 22% and podcasts are up 30%. So by going on Joe Rogan, 11 million people, 40 million people have seen that on YouTube. The average cable show gets about a half a million, a primetime cable show gets about half a million people.

So going on Rogan for Trump is the equivalent or reaches the same number of people as if he went on MSNBC, CNN and Fox every night during prime time for an hour, every day for an entire week, he will reach more people going on Rogan. You might get 300,000 or 400,000 going on CNN maybe for a six minute or 10 minute or 20 minute interview. So this is definitely the election of podcasts. They have become dominant. I would argue the seminole podcast was actually

Vice President Harris going on Call Her Daddy, because not only did they not go on this medium, they wouldn't have gone on that type of podcast. But for a week, the entire Zeitgeist in the US was talking about that podcast. It wasn't talking about her interview on Face the Nation, or it was talking about her on this podcast. So this is the election of the podcaster.

For me, as an objective marketeer watching that Rogan interview, I thought that Trump's team did a masterstroke. I thought it was absolutely the perfect thing to do because it absolutely humanized Trump in a Trump, softened him in a way that I hadn't seen before. And funnily enough, I won't name their name, but I know a lady who's a very strong feminist and is very anti-Trump and is very liberal. And she said she watched it and the next day I said, what did you think of it? And she said to me, I burst out laughing like 10 times. He's so funny.

He's a charming guy. And he talks about, you know, when he was on the apprentice and it softened him made him seem more human, which is what he needs. So it's a big mistake. Occasionally, I hear from the campaign and they asked for advice. And whenever a campaign calls you and asks for advice, which campaign? Well, I've the only people have ever contacted me on the hair side, I got contacted by the charm campaign in the last cycle, but not this one. I think they've figured out who I'm side. I got contacted by the Trump campaign in the last cycle, but not this one. I think they've figured out who I'm supporting. And whenever, by the way, I want to be clear.

When they call you and ask for advice, that's Latin for please send us money. I think they pretend to care what you think. So I don't want to pretend that I'm having any sort of influence, but my one piece of advice to anyone I can talk to who's remotely linked to the Harris campaign is that she get on a plane, go to Austin and do Rogan.

Why is it in your view that men are, because Trump's assembled this group of interesting individuals to be part of his campaign from RFK to Elon to Vivek to Tulsi Gabbott now and himself. And this is drawn in, it seems like young men. It seems like a lot of the, I actually did a poll in my group chat the other day, three or four days ago, six men in there. And I pulled them. I said, who'd you want to win the election?

And four of them said Trump, my position actually, which I've not really ever shared publicly is that I, I see no great option. Oh, perfect. It's not on the menu. Yeah. I see no great option. So I'm like, and the things. Yeah, I see no great option. So I'm like, and the things that again, I think a lot about are the war, the wars that are going around the world. So I asked myself, who will stop the wars? And I think a little bit about the economy. And

then also from a selfish perspective, think about my ability to build businesses, to get visas in the US and those kinds of things. And I also think about women's reproductive rights, because I think that's an issue that's quite close to my heart. But why are men choosing Trump? So this is an unusual election in the sense that neither of these candidates, based on their metrics, has ever been elected before. We've never had it since, I think, since maybe Roosevelt, was it Roosevelt or Truman actually, have we had a president, an incumbent party be reelected when they have less than a 50% approval? So if Harris gets elected, it's almost a first-time

occurrence that an incumbent administration, this unpopular, gets reelected. Trump never cracked 50% approval. No presidential candidate who has never been above 50% has ever been reelected. So whoever wins, it's an unprecedented election of someone who typically does not get reelected. In terms of men, what you've seen is young men are going more conservative, young women are going slightly more progressive. And that has a lot of unfortunate ramifications

because again, it's another reason why young people are not getting together and mating. It's yet another reason not to date somebody. When I was your age, I was thinking about this when I was dating. For the life of me, if I went through every person I've dated in my 20s and 30s, I don't remember what their political affiliation was. I didn't care. We didn't talk about that. It was like, you know, are you fun? I'm fun. Are you attracting me? I'm not, you know, like, let's go out, let's drink.

Let's see what this goes. You can talk about politics. So it's a shame because now politics is now kind of a gender divide. So it's having social ramifications. I would argue that young men are not going to the Republican party. They're actually less conservative.

People have this image of young men that their knuckles are dragging along the ground. They actually are almost as in favor of gender rights as young women. What I would argue is that they're leaving the Democratic Party, because if you go to the DNC, the Democratic Party because if you go to the DNC, the Democratic Party's website, there's a section that says who we serve, click on it.

And it says these are the constituents in America that we serve, that we advocate for. And it lists 16 demographic groups ranging from Asians and Pacific Islanders, the disabled, seniors, black Americans, veterans. It goes through all of these groups. And I tried to add it up, and I think it adds up to 76% of the US population. But similar to kind of the DEI apparatus on campus now, or on university campuses, when you're purposely advocating

and trying to advantage 76% of the population, you're not advantaging 76% of the population or advocating for them. You're discriminating against the 24%. And that 24% are squarely one group. It's young men. And if you look at the Democratic National Convention, it was a parade of demographic groups, but not one mentioned the group that has fallen furthest, fastest in the United States, and that's young men. Families and young men feel this, right? We don't have an opioid or a homeless crisis in the United States.

We have a male opioid and a male homeless crisis. Three out of four opioid addicts, three out of four homeless people are men, right? Three times as likely to kill themselves, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated. Women under the age of 30 are now making more money than men, more single women own homes than single men. And by the way, we should never do anything

to get in the way of that. That's a remarkable victory for us. But a lot of young men and their families feel that these young men are really struggling and they are not seen by the Democratic Party. Because the Democratic Party, I would argue that our big failure over the last 20 years is that we've become sort of these self-appointed cops

of social justice and have tried to lecture the nation on what is the right social policy or behaviors and that America has pretty squarely rejected this. The example I use is the University of Michigan, an amazing university, has invested $150 million in DEI, social policy, and the number of complaints about racism is up 30-fold. The sentiment, the feeling about America has all gone down. And so the Democrats have decided where about social policy as opposed to

the economic policies that are actually gonna impact you. And a large part of America has sort of rejected it. Young men do not feel seen by the Democratic Party. And it's not only just young men, but it's their families. So I would argue it's not so much that they're moving to the Republican Party as they're moving away from the Democratic Party. But there's just a, to use this overused term, young men do not feel

seen by the Democratic Party. It's like you're fighting for everyone except for me. And let's be honest, my group is not doing well. The group that has ascended the fastest globally is women. Um, twice as many women in the last 30 years elected to some form of parliament. More women globally now are seeking tertiary education than men. By the way, again, a huge victory for all of us. Fantastic. But there's this analogy that Chris Williams, the podcast that kind of reminds me a little bit of you uses, and he calls it the high heels effect. And that is 50% of women say they won't date someone

who's shorter than them. I bet it's more like 80%. It's just an embarrassing thing to say. And it's very instinctual because women at some point are more vulnerable because of pregnancy and raising kids. And they want someone who instinctively they feel could physically protect them. So they tend to be not attracted to a man shorter than them. Metaphorically, women are getting taller and taller each year,

making more money, more college attendance. They're just killing it. More and more people elected to positions of power and influence. Men are getting shorter and shorter. So in sum, we've talked about this, women made socioeconomically horizontally and up, men horizontally and down.

The pool of horizontal and up among men is smaller. And when men don't have the prospect of a romantic relationship, they come off the rails. Women oftentimes will reinvest that energy in friendships and work. Men reinvest that energy in vaping and video games and porn. I mean, men without the prospect of a romantic relationship.

I mean, look at the most violent, unstable places in the world. They all have a preponderance of things. and that is a bunch of men with very little economic or romantic opportunities. And so you have a cohort of not only young men, but families that are upset and angry about this cohort, maybe unfairly expectant around what they should expect from the American economy, but they're not doing well. And they feel seen by the Republican Party and Trump,

who are pushing back on many of these social policies, that the snake is eating its own tail, that it's gotten so far to the progressive, that at the end of the day, it's no longer promoting the rights of non-whites, for example. 60 years ago, 12 black people at Princeton, Harvard and Yale, that's a problem. Uh, two thirds of Harvard's freshmen class now identifies as non-white.

And somehow as a non-white male that's not making as much money, that's more inclined to be an addict or gambling that owns fewer homes. Somehow I'm still the enemy. I'm still like, I've been told by media that I'm kind of should have collective guilt because of the privilege my dad or my granddad received. So there's a, I think, justifiable anger and a feeling that the Democratic Party has really moved away from young men. It's interesting because you make the case that you're not necessarily convinced it's entirely young men are choosing the Republican Party versus them being pushed out of the Democratic Party. That kind of summarises your thoughts. The Wall Street Journal did a piece showing that the Republican Party have gained more young men over the last couple

of years. In 2016, they had 35% of young men. By 2023, they had 48% of young men. That's a 13-point increase in just seven years. That's the stat from 2023. I can't imagine what those numbers look like in 2024, based on this election cycle. It made me think a lot about the DEI narrative and how the Democratic Party could champion women without pushing away young men because we all want somewhere to belong. So if you tell me that I don't belong there and I'm guilty of something, then I'm going to go find somewhere. And what is it that the Republican Party have done? Because if that 13% increase towards the Republican Party for young men is true, there's something the Republican Party are saying, which is making me think I belong

over there. What is that? Well, to a certain extent, I mean, the strange thing about this, one of the strange things about this election is that a lot of people thought it was going to be a referendum on women's rights, bodily autonomy. I would argue those voters are already decided. If you're fiercely around, focused on bodily autonomy, you're going for Harris. If it's not a big issue for you, you're probably Trump. Or if you're pro-life, you're definitely Trump.

I actually think the election is gonna be decided based on who presents a more aspirational, effective vision of masculinity. And what you have on the far right is this vision of masculinity that I would argue is kind of, they would say it's being provocative, aggressive, speaking your mind, strength, right, toughness. But the far right is basically saying,

be a little bit coarse and cruel is how I would describe it. The far left, their vision of masculinity is be more like a woman. And neither of those seem to be resonating with men. If any of them resonates, it's the right around young men, around this vision of masculinity. What I would argue is that what we should, or the way to position it,

you said that you were passionate about bodily autonomy is the Democrats have not done a good job of convincing young men that bodily autonomy will affect them, specifically a lack thereof. If you want to be kind of cemented in poverty, have an unwanted child as a man. That's not going to help you economically. The case I've been making to young men when I did an endorsement of Vice President Harris is that I think if you pulled a bunch of men under the age of 30 and said would you rather have more opportunities for sex or less opportunities, I think the majority would say rather have more opportunities for

sex. What is going to happen to random opportunities for sex when if a woman gets pregnant she might end up in an emergency room parking lot because the doctors won't treat her. Say she's having a failed pregnancy and she's in sepsis. There are now instances where emergency room doctors are worried about treating her for fear that they're going to be criminally prosecuted. What's going to happen if a young woman gets pregnant and has to carry the baby to term? Do you think she's more inclined to have random sex?

So I think what we needed to do and we failed to do on the progressive side is to say the bodily autonomy affects men almost as much as it does young women. And that the economic policies of Harris will also give you, I mean, if I think about masculinity as being a provider, a protector, and a procreator. Provider, who's gonna to give young men the chance to be the better provider?

People think it's going to be Trump, that he's a better business person. He did have a strong economy under his administration, not as strong as the Biden administration, but the general view is he would offer a better economy. Which atmosphere am I more likely to be a good provider in? And they've done a better job of articulating that, even though I would argue the evidence is that, whether it's Goldman Sachs or any investment bank that's done the math, they've

said that the economic growth under the Harris policies would probably be stronger, especially when you take into account that if Trump enacts the tariffs he's talking about, 60% on all Chinese goods, and does anything resembling the war on immigration, legal and illegal, that he's articulated, that's a recipe for inflation. So I think the Republican Party has done a better job with convincing men, you're going to have an easier time being a provider under our administration because look at him, he's a billionaire.

We're about cutting taxes. We're about economic growth, drill, baby, drill, when I would argue the data does not reflect that. Protector, this is where I think we really blew it. And that is, and Michelle Obama gave a very powerful speech. I think your first instinct, your operating system as a man should be, your default operating system should be moved to protection. Like real men break up fights at bars. They don't start them. Real men protect their country, they don't shit post it. Real men have a real instinct, a reflex instinct. I felt this way very strongly when I was younger.

It was very motivating for me to protect the women in their life, right? You know, I don't know if you, are you close with your mother? Not really. I'm sorry to hear that. I was very close with my mother and the first time I ever thought I need to get my shit together professionally was when she got sick.

And I had this immense feeling of like failure as a man because I couldn't take care of my mom at the level I wanted to. I think that's a really good default setting for a man to move to protection. You don't need to understand the LGBT community. You don't need to understand the LGBT community. You don't need to understand trans rights. You don't need to understand the nuances of legal or illegal immigration. But when you see a group being demonized, your default setting should be to protection. I think it comes naturally to men.

Men are more inclined on the battlefield to run out and save a comrade and get shot than women. Women are more thoughtful. They're more like, is that a good idea? Wouldn't we be better retreating, planning, and then kicking the shit out? They're more thoughtful. They look at the fruit and say, is there pesticides in this?

Whereas a guy sees movement in the bushes, grabs his spear and tries to go kill the thing and bring it back. They're more prone to, they're more risk aggressive. And I think this default setting of protection is really powerful for men. And we haven't connected, and I thought Michelle Obama did an outstanding job

trying to make the case, that men need to have a default setting around protecting women. And women's rights are under real serious threat in the United States. It is becoming a little bit handmaid's tale. 21 states now restrict to some extent abortion. And the most mendacious thing about that is it's not a war on women. It's a war on poor

women. Because if you have money and someone, your niece or your daughter gets pregnant, you'll figure it out. You'll get a medical abortion, you'll have access to Mesa Festeron, I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, or can get her on a plane to a city where she can terminate the pregnancy. It's the 15 or 17 year old black girl who gets pregnant, doesn't have access to resources, single mother, doesn't have money, is embarrassed, and no one knows it until she's five months pregnant. that person is really screwed. So I would argue that the second leg of the masculinity

stool here around protection is not been made that strongly or as forcefully as it should be around the democratic policies. I was trying to think through the lens of someone, a young man in the USA who is looking at both candidates and thinking, which one is going to allow me to be the protector, the better? And again, this is where the economy comes back in. Because I think to myself, well, if I'm rich, I can take care of my mother. If I'm rich, I can take care of my family. So if I want to be the big, strong protector,

then I need to vote Trump because I'm going to get rich. I think that's their message. And I would argue the data actually says something different, that if you look at the economic policies, the clearest signal we have of what policies would be under Harris would be to look at Biden's policies the last four years. As a matter of fact, she made a huge mistake on a big show called The View. They asked her how she would differ, how her policies would be different from Biden. And she says, I can't think of anything.

And it's like, well, we didn't want to elect him again. Why would we want to elect you? It was a huge gap. And by the way, she's not good on her feet. I mean, we don't like to say that on the left. She's gotten better. She was outstanding in the debate because you could tell she practiced and had the split screen.

She destroyed him during the debate, but on her feet, she's not nearly as good as him. He comes off, he says stupid things, but he's likable and funny and... She thinks too much. You see her trying to mull for the perfect answer, whereas he just goes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I walked into the room and I told Putin, stop that. I said, way.

I mean, you know, he said way to the president of Russia. And also, if you want to see real sexism and misogyny in America, there's just no getting around it. She is graded on an entirely different curve than him. If she had ever been accused of sexual assault, if she'd said half the crazy shit he said, it just would be like everyone's hair on fire. She'd be totally disqualified.

You know, Van Jones, who Marla said he's lawless. She has to be flawless I mean people are parsing her words and then You know, he says he says the most this strangest weirdest things that make no sense and seems sort of just you know, just ridiculous, So she's graded on an entirely different curve than him. But provider, right, they've done a better job. Protector, I think men, young men are starting to see that this is getting really serious around bodily autonomy and we're headed in the wrong direction.

And then procreation and all these things are tied together. She's offering a first time home buyers tax credit, small business loans. Her tax policy would probably be better for young people, worse for older rich people. So I would argue that, and also at the end of the damn bodily autonomy, I go back to what I said earlier. Guys, if you're looking to have sex,

you've got to give women control, dominion over the domain over their own person. There's a few things that I thought as you were talking through that then. One of them is in life generally, you've got to be careful what hill you build yourself. And what I mean by that is if Kamala Harris has built this hill of perfection and polish, then that's what she's graded on. And it's the same for all of us. I remember having a conversation with my friend who was taking to the internet to talk about environmental issues and stuff like that when I knew he didn't really give a fuck

about those things. And I said to him, I said, be very careful because if that's the brand you build for yourself, that's also the brand you'll be attacked based on because no one wants a contradiction. So be careful. You might not want to be perfect. I think the best, the sort of most protective position you can take in a world of cancel culture and wokeism is to admit how shit you are at everything and admit how imperfect you are and how much you don't recycle.

Because then at least nobody can call you out. And what Donald Trump has built is this hill of like kind of sloppiness off the cuff. So we're so desensitized to it and we don't actually hold him to the standard of the law anymore. And so he is he's almost impossible to attack because it's so consistent. So consistent. If you're going to be accused of assault by a woman accused to be accused by 28. You know, you don't you don't say one offensive thing. You say offensive things every time you open your mouth. Rappers are the prime example. No one comes at them for what they say. No, but if Taylor Swift said something off, I'd be like, whoa. So it's flood the zone, but he seems authentic. And I also think that this is a lesson for

the Democratic Party, I think, to get out of identity politics. I don't think we should have that page identifying policies based on your race, your sexual orientation, your gender. I think the sun has passed midday on that. On DEI, the whole DEI thing. I would argue that affirmative action is a wonderful thing. And it made sense for it to be race-based back in 1960. What is that? Well, DEI, affirmative action.

So essentially in America, we've decided to advantage certain people from a very young age. We give them money. We give them preference getting into college. We're told we hire them based on their gender, their sexual orientation, the color of their skin. So we give, we advantage some people, which there's just no getting around it.

Disadvantage is other. So the question is, most people agree, Democrats and Republicans, that some people have had so many headwinds in their face, they deserve a hand up. The question is, how do you identify and what's the metric for qualifying for a hand up? And traditionally it's based on D,

the DEI apparatus built on campus has been based on identity politics. Are you gay? Are you non-white? And what I would argue is that we need to move past that, get out of identity politics, still have affirmative action, but it should be based on color and that color should be green. And that is in America, and this is wonderful, today you'd rather be born non-white or gay than poor. And there's all sorts

of evidence. And so Harvard now, two-thirds of their freshman class is non-white, but 70% of those non-whites came from upper income homes with dual parents. So letting in the Taiwanese billionaire private equity daughter is not diversity. So where I think we need to head in the nation is to move away in the Democratic Party from identity politics and say, you know what, we're here to continue to reinvest in the greatest innovation in history and that's the middle class. And we're here to give people

from lower income homes a hand up. And by the way, 70% of the people who now benefit from affirmative action would still get it because we do still have a bit of an economic apartheid in the US. Black and Latino households average net worth around 20, 25 grand, average white household 150, 160 grand.

So what you would do is the people who would lose in a new construct would be non-whites from wealthy households and the people who would gain are white kids from Appalachia who come from low-income homes. But you tell some white kid being raised by a single parent in Kentucky, whose dad has been incarcerated that, oh no, you don't deserve any sort of help. That family is pretty pissed off. So, and I have a bias here.

I'm a beneficiary of affirmative action. I got something called Pell Grants. I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. Household income was never over $40,000. So I got grants, not loans, based on my household income. And obviously I'm a big fan of that. And so I think the Democratic Party would be well served

to move away from identity politics and just talk about things like the middle class, talk about helping people who are, you know, if you are from a top 1% income earning household, you're 77 times more likely to get into an elite school. The best thing that can happen to you in the US, the smartest thing you can do is decide to be born to rich parents. It's in a different life. And so I believe what the University of California system did in 1997,

27 years ago is the right way to go. And that is they banned race-based affirmative action, and they have what's called an adversity score now. And they say, has this kid shown resilience and an ability to overcome obstacles in his or her life? And I think that's the right way to run, quite frankly, government policies. Because when we get into identity politics, I think it just creates more. It's now creating more problems than it's solving.

I completely agree. And I'm obviously, you know, think people would consider me to be a black man, because my mother's Nigerian and I was born in Africa. But, and you know, we had a tumultuous start in, in to my, to my life, I guess, in a way, because we didn't have money in the household, we struggled economically. But now I'm good. Yeah. So my future black kids aren't requiring any kind of advantages, because they're going to be born into a different class.

100%. So you don't need to give my future black kids any leg up in the world when they've started with a dad who can open doors for them and can get them into whatever school he wants to get them into. So my belief has been, and it's a real belief that's grown in me over the last couple of years, is that we should be doing this based on class, as you say, and benefiting those at the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder with those advantages and not people like MyFutureKids, who absolutely will not need it in any regard. And I do think that the DEI conversation is a bit problematic and I've tried to keep it away from my companies, but at the same time, we do want a diversity of opinion. We do want a diversity of lived experience because we're in the creative

industries and we want to represent the world. But we don't want to be disproportionately handing out opportunities based on factors like race alone or gender alone. And it's encouraging to hear you say that, but also I also have to acknowledge I've been the beneficiary of massive bias. I didn't even, when I was raising money for my companies in the 90s, I didn't even acknowledge it. Why are the only people getting funded in Silicon Valley? White dudes, all white dudes. 98% of the capital was going to, not men, white men.

It's like, okay, I didn't even notice. And it's gotten a lot better. But when I was raising money for my last company, L2, the venture capital firm that backed us, and they have a standard in that is, you have to meet with all the partners in one big meeting, 27 partners, my two co-founders, both women.

I'm in there, I didn't even notice. Meeting goes well. In the middle of the meeting, my co-founder, who's not a dramatic person, goes, I need to speak to you. And we walk out and she's like, we can't take money from these guys. I'm like, why, what's happened?

She's like, you haven't noticed? All 27 people are men. There's not a single woman in the partnership with this metric capital firm. Not one out of 27. And it didn't even dawn on me that all of this prosperity and opportunity had been crowded into basically 23%

of the population. Now, having said that, that was 2014, 10 years later, I think a quarter to a third of their partners are now female because they got the memo and things have changed dramatically. And I would like to think that we made enough progress around affirmative action, around identity that we can move to what you're talking about.

And that's economically driven affirmative action. And the great thing about this as well is, as you said a second ago, the people who are in those minorities, because of the statistics, will be included within a class-based system. The majority. The majority, yeah. Yeah. Which is really, really encouraging. You talked about this October surprise being Tony Hingedcliffe's speech at the Madison Square Garden rally the other day. You know, there's a lot going on. Like, I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico.

Okay. All right. Okay. We're getting there. It's absolutely wild to see. And in Texas, stuff is really, really crazy. We're right there by a wide open border. Where are my proud Latinos at tonight? You guys see what I mean? It's wide open. There's so many of them. It's absolutely incredible. Believe it or not, people, I welcome migrants to the United States of America with open arms. And by open arms, I mean like this. It's wild. And these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do.

They do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They come inside just like they did to our country. Republicans of the party with a good sense of humor. I feel like I'm in two minds about it. Go ahead. Because I think mind one is I go, he's a comedian and everybody knows he was telling a joke. Everybody knows that A, wasn't Trump that said it and B, everyone knows that he's a comedian there

to say inappropriate things. If you listen to his Kill Tony show, that's what he does. Yeah. He's not, there's what he does. There's no part of me that thinks, God, he hates Puerto Ricans or whatever. And then the other part of my mind goes, they should have known that in that context, any word would be used as an opportunity to create a marketing campaign. What do you think of that incident? So there's common ground with us. I think comedians should be cut a really wide berth. I think when Dave Chappelle says offensive things about the trans community, he should be given a wide berth.

When Michelle Wolf at the White House Correspondents Dinner says really off-color things, I think she should be given a wide berth. Comedians play a really important role, and that is they say provocative, sometimes obnoxious, offensive things to soften the beach to get you to think. And they're comedians. So I agree with you, they should be given a wide berth.

In my view, whether you think it was racist or not, I don't think that's the important conversation. It's about 10 days before the election. Art is getting away with it. If you say something offensive, it better be funny. I say, well, part of the success of my podcast with Kara Swisher is I say very offensive things. You know, she's a lesbian and I'm like, you know,

how's the German shepherd in the Subaru? And there's a pause, an uncomfortable pause. And then she laughs and it gives everyone permission to laugh. And the majority of the times I say something offensive, it's a little bit, oh, I don't wanna laugh, but that was funny. I get away with it, that's art. He did not, that was not art, it wasn't funny.

I mean, the most offensive thing about what he said was it wasn't funny. If it had been fucking hilarious, people would be like, oh my God, they'd like, and they would have forgiven him. His jokes did not land. And when you said things like, we welcome immigrants with open hands

and what we say to Mexican immigrants is no, not here. And by the way, they have kids, they come inside, just the way they came inside. And it's just like, it just wasn't that funny. It was offensive. If you're gonna be offensive, you better be funny. And he wasn't. And just tactically speaking, when you say that there's this floating island of garbage

in the sea and it's Puerto Rico, and there are 400,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, and if 10,000 more who might have sat on the couch that day actually get up and kind of, you know, soles to poles, feet on the street, get to the pole. Those people could swing Pennsylvania, which is a toss-up right now, and Pennsylvania could swing the entire election. So just tactically speaking, whoever's in charge of his campaign, when they saw the teleprompter,

by the way, they knew what was going on. This was on a teleprompter. On a risk-adjusted basis, they should have said, no, we're going to put the jokes about Puerto Ricans aside for now. Because if for whatever reason, on a risk adjusted basis, we offend them, we could lose the entire election. So I don't even think of it as an argument around whether comedians should be given a wide berth or not.

I agree with you. I don't, I don't think a conversation around whether it reflects racism on the part of, of the Trump administration or the fact that they quite frankly have a really appealing sense of humor. One of the things I hate about my party, quite frankly, is we've become fucking humorless, everything's offensive. Everything is, I mean, unless it's a dad joke, everything is offensive or triggers people.

People are just so sick of that shit. A post-racist society, majority of my close friends are gay, and they constantly make fun of my sexual orientation, and I make fun of theirs, and it's a form of affection. It's not mean-spirited. And the Democratic Party feels just so sensitive and so weak on this shit. So whether you think that's the right way to go to be a touch offensive, sometimes very offensive in the auspices of comedy, I'm down with that. Tactically, it was stupid and I believe it might

be the October surprise. I'll be very curious. I have friends who are canvassing. And I'm gonna be clear. A lot of this is confirmation bias. I'm seeing ghosts where I wanna see them, right? Because I'm really hoping it's Vice President Harris. But I have talked to people in the Harris campaign.

We have 300,000 people feet on the street walking people to the polls. Trump supposedly has 50,000, somewhere between 30 and 300,000 people feet on the street walking people to the polls Trump supposedly has 50,000 somewhere between 30 and 50,000 So for every one person knocking on doors for a Trump voter and saying did you have begun to the polls? Do you need me to walk there? Do you need a ride there? There's ten people in these states these swing states working for Harris I think they might get another five or ten thousand Puerto Ricans who weren't gonna vote To the polls, and that could swing the entire election.

I just think tactically, on a risk-adjusted basis, it was a really stupid move. Yeah, 100%. On a strategic, tactical, giving the other side an opportunity to run ads, with the Trump-Vance little placard thing there with someone insulting Puerto Ricans, most people wouldn't have seen the rally. So all they're going to see is this clip. Hundreds of millions of people are going to see that clip. And they're going to think Trump vans insulting Puerto Ricans. That's who I am. That's my blood. I can no longer, with good

faith, tick that box. I can no longer do it. So they'll either not tick it or they'll go to the polls and they otherwise wouldn't have done. So tactically and strategically, terrible decision. But it's funny because I also look at it, as I said, as an incident in an isolation and I go, it actually put me off a little bit the, the left because of the fake outrage. I know you're not that pissed off. They're like, how dare you? I know you're not that pissed off at that. And if you are, I feel really sorry for the life you live. Yeah, you know what I mean? We're going to be fine. But strategically and objectively bad decision, I completely agree. Who do you think is gonna win?

Well, I'll tell you what I'm doing this afternoon. I'm gonna bet $358,000 on Polymarket. I'm doing this, I have my CFO figuring this out. I'm gonna invest that $358,000 on Harris, because on Polymarket,'s $62,038 because my observation is that the people who go to these betting sites tend to be younger, tend to be more male, and they're much more Trump. The statistics in the polls, every A plus quality poll shows it is a toss up within

the margin of error with a slight advantage to Trump. So if I said to you, Steve, and I'm gonna flip a coin, you have to pick heads or tails. If you bet a dollar though, you're gonna get $2.90 back, you would take that bet. Because say it's a 50% or close to 50% likelihood,

but the payoff is 2.8 to 1. On a risk adjusted basis, you're getting free risk adjusted return. Here's why I wouldn't bet on Harris is because I've seen that Hillary Clinton election where all the polls had Hillary winning in a landslide and then something happens. There's this invisible force that means that people for whatever reason, either they don't express their true opinions about Trump because there's social ramifications, they're embarrassed, or the enthusiasm force, which is who have you got more energy to get off the sofa that day and go and vote for?

Is it Hillary Clinton who's kind of more of the same whatever, or is it Trump who's going to burn it down? I think that's a fair point. So, but back to the 380, if I win, I get a million bucks back. So even if the edges to him on a risk adjusted basis, it's a great bet because you're getting, the odds of her winning are not one and three. They might be two and five, but they're not one and three.

And so I just look at it statistically that I'm getting free at potential free risk adjusted upside. Anyways, what you said about the enthusiasm, I went canvas for Secretary Clinton. I think Secretary Clinton was like, I think she's incredibly unlikable and an outstanding thinker and politician. I think on foreign policy, she's one of the most competent people to have ever been in government. When I canvassed for her in Florida, I went into sort of a call it a

lower, upper middle class neighborhood, mixed quite a few black people, quite a few whites. I go into black households, I knock on the door, I'm canvassing for Secretary Clinton. Oh, come on in, super nice. You voting? Yeah, you voting for Secretary Clinton? Yes, I am. Do you know where your polling station is?

Oh no, we haven't, am I, are you registered? You just started to, like, it's, the enthusiasm clear wasn't there. And a couple times when I would knock on, and again, I'm playing identity politics, maybe a white, more often a white household that was a Trump supporter, they slammed the door on my face. And I said to them, they always send you out with two people.

I'm like, that's passion. The other folks that are being nice to us, they don't even know where their polling stations are. They're not turning out like they were. They weren't, there's not the enthusiasm there was for Obama. And I remember thinking, we might be in trouble here. The embarrassment or hold my beer

while I go behind a curtain and vote for Trump effect, I think that's mostly gone away. I don't think people are nearly as embarrassed to say they're Trumpers now. I don't, so I think the polls are probably, there's less of a delta between the polls and what's actually going on than I think then there used to be.

But you know, the honest answer is I don't know. The three reasons or the reasons I think that Harris might pull it off or is going to pull it off is one, the issue impacting women is bodily autonomy. I do think women are, young women are squarely in Harris's camp. And quite frankly, women are more organized. So you have a young man and a young woman

both planning to vote. There's a much greater likelihood the woman actually votes. This is sexist, but women are more organized, they're more meticulous, they're better planners, they're better allocators of their time. You're gonna have more men, young men, on November the 5th, for whatever reason,

something's gonna get in the way and they're not gonna make it to the polls. That's gonna happen a lot more to young, I mean, you'll see this when you have young men. I have a 17 to 14 year old. Young men are just dopes. I'm not even a dad, I'm their prefrontal cortex. I'm helping them make decisions.

And young men's prefrontal cortex literally doesn't catch up to a woman's until they're about 25 and then it catches up. So I'm banking on a much more, a much bigger turnout among young women than young men. And that's Advantage Harris. I do think the last minute thing around Puerto Rico is really stupid in Pennsylvania.

And also I'd like to think some of this message around men being protectors and the message that I think the Democratic Party's done a pretty good job over the last couple of weeks is guys, it's time for us to step up. But again, this is all confirmation bias. I'm looking for reasons why Harris is going to win. The majority of the polls I see within the margin of error, but if you were a statistician and you had to pick one, you'd probably pick Trump right now.

So do you think Trump's going to win? I don't. I think Harris is going to win. Really? You think Harris is going to win? Yeah. You know what? I don't, again, I think when people get behind the curtain, it's like, I think people are

just exhausted. America is so, it's like if America were a horror movie, the call is coming from inside of the house. We're doing really well on the majority of dimensions that people, we're going to grow our economy next year in terms of gross domestic product by more than the rest of the world combined and gross dollar level. This is a prefrontal cortex. Well, can you name a great AI company outside of the US? Most dominant technology in history, creating more shareholder value in the last 24 months in the entire auto industry has done since the beginning of

the auto industry, what AI company exists outside of the US? This is all prefrontal cortex though. Like, and what's the amygdala, the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain is seeing this guy in a suit, get off a plane with his name on it. And so it doesn't really matter what you say when you come in onto the podium. I just saw a billionaire get off a plane with his name on it. And so it doesn't really matter what you say when you come in onto the podium. I just saw a billionaire get off a plane with his name on it. I go, he's going to help me get rich. That's what the brain, the brain is like, and it's so interesting.

Cause as a marketeer, you know, I've come to learn over time that stories, especially emotional ones, always Trump data facts and stats in every regard. I had, I sat here with a neuroscientist one day who was talking about Trump. And I think it was Dr. Ben Carlson, and they were having a debate during the, I think the early primaries, maybe in 16, and they were talking about the vaccine and the doctor made his case for why the vaccine doesn't give you autism went through the stats, the facts and the figures.

And then the neuroscientist said to me, she goes, and then Trump made his case. And he started his case like this, the needle. I've got a friend who was, has a daughter who is this big and points to the floor and they came to her with a needle this big and they gave her the injection and she's got autism. Yeah. And the neuroscientist said to me, she goes, I know he's not telling the truth, but even me, I felt less likely to give my daughter that vaccine because of that one

emotional, personal anecdote versus the stats. And this is what this election looks like to me. The stats don't matter. The facts don't matter. How do I feel? What is the frame telling me when I look at you? Also, it reflects a lack of respect for our institutions. Both Republicans and Democrats, the anti-vax movement actually started on the far left. It was sort of a granola, don't put weird things in your body. But I think as much as you're talking about wanting to tickle people's emotional sensors,

or they want to feel good as opposed to think about the data, we used to come together around data and we used to respect institutions. When the American Pediatric Association said, there's no evidence showing a correlation between vaccines and, you know, myocardia or whatever it is, there's no, there's no, we can't find a correlation between vaccines and autism. The CDC, the American Pediatric Association, the American Health Association, the Journal of American Jam, now people are like, oh, you can't trust those folks

because there's a lack of respect. And I do think the right's been more responsible for it for the left. They go after institutions. And so people don't know who to trust and they trust their social media algorithm now, which is feeds them really incendiary kind of polarizing content.

But back to why I think Harris ultimately is gonna pull it out. I think people are exhausted, Stephen, and I think that Trump represents more chaos and exhaustion right now. Do people, I don't know this, but I'm hoping quite a few swing voters are going to go, do I really want to go back to that? Do I really, I mean, it was pretty people. I don't think people, I wonder if people are going to remember. I like, I wish they had those Apple reels, just how chaotic and tense it was. I mean, think about Biden that I love. The thing I love most about Biden was he was pretty boring. Boring.

Yeah. I think people have forgotten what it was like that COVID, the Black Lives Matters protests, everything being smashed to pieces, the US burning. Um, and then the the whole COVID chaos. And when I looked at the stats ahead of our conversation today about that asked people, is your life better or worse than it was four years ago? Most people think their life was better then. Because you have this rose tinted sort of glasses about the past. It's why that question, I can't remember, was it Reagan or one of the politicians who was the pioneer of that election shifting question, which is, do you feel better off now than four years ago?

It works every election cycle because people almost always think they were worse off four years, they were better off four years ago than they are today. They always think that you could say that in any election cycle and it's persuasive. And you go, do you know what, actually, yeah, even if you have more money, your health is better, your education is better, you'll still look back at the past and go, those were the good old days. I think it's just a bias of humans. You roast into glasses, you forget the bad. Well, and also for in America, if you're under the age of 45, you've never experienced inflation. And when you look back and think, wow, the hotel room at the Beverly Hills Hotel,

you're going to LA, has doubled in the last four years and it has. The cereal I buy is up 30 or 40%. Again, you get a raise, you think it's your grit and character, the price of cereal goes up, you blame the government. But I don't, I mean, I'm hoping Harris wins and I'm finding reasons why I think she will. It's total confirmation bias. What I also really hope happens is that whoever wins, I hope it's decisive. Because political parties, you know, in the 30s, we had kind of the New Deal from Democrats,

80s we had the Republican Revolution. People kind of came together and admitted this is where America wants to go. The worst thing about, you can argue the worst thing, the thing that's ailing America is what's ailing the Middle East. There's never a definitive winner. There's never a party that kind of,

and I don't wanna say the best thing that could happen because I think one party's got it wrong on things like bodily autonomy and peaceful transfer power, but we need a party to kind of come in and win 55 or 60% of the votes. So there's no arguing over the direction America wants to go right now, because if it's really close, there's just going to be so much. I mean, the amount of money that's being lined up and the number of lawyers lined up to contest the election on either side right now is just crazy.

And one of the things I love about the UK, you guys start and finish an election in eight weeks and it also kind of seems like whatever this guy's name is, people don't like them, but they don't hate them. It's sort of like, okay, it's over. Keep calm and move along. In the US, it's gotten so, it's like we're so spoiled by our blessings and our prosperity. The one algorithms have taken us away from each other also.

And I realize I'm paranoid, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. I think the CCP and Russia cannot beat us kinetically, they cannot beat us economically. So they're weaponizing social media platforms to divide us from one another. And I think they're doing a really good job. And Americans are easier to fool than convince we've been fooled. And I think there are bad actors, foreign actors, who weaponize these platforms to,

quite frankly, start getting us to hate each other. The easiest way to defeat Native Americans was to get them warring with each other and have them kill 30% of each other and then come in for a cleanup operation. And I think that's happening in the U S right now. If you go on TikTok, there's 52 pro Hamas videos for every one pro Israel video. And I'm not suggesting the CCP or the GRU are antisemitic. I'm suggesting they see an opportunity to polarize people internally in the U S and get us hating each other. No one can defeat us right now. We are undefeatable from a military or an economic standpoint right now. The way to defeat

us and deposition us strategically, internationally, is to get us hating each other. And I think they're doing a good job of it. That's the most convincing argument I've actually ever heard for why China played a role in TikTok and why also they don't care about owning it is because they set up an algorithm, which is so unbelievably brutal. I come from a social media background where we worked in social media for 10, 15 years now. And the one defining thing about the TikTok algorithm is if you post something, regardless of how many followers you have, it'll either get a thousand views or seven million. It's the only algorithm with such extreme variance. And what that tells you is that the algorithm is basically saying, okay, take that and show it to everybody.

And actually that's not good to show it to nobody. And because it's doing that, you can imagine that the amount of sort of division where polarizing content on this side is going to everyone. Nuance goes to no one. Nuance, like unemotional nuance, nuance takes goes to no one. And then polarizing content on the left or the right also goes to everyone. So if I was actually thinking about it, if I was brainstorming in China and I wanted to tear the West apart, what I would do is I would introduce an app that has an extreme

algorithm either way. And I wouldn't care about owning it. I wouldn't care about that. They can run it. I'll give them all the shares, just get it into their society. While over there in China, we control our algorithm. Well, we don't and we don't allow foreign actors anywhere near. I'm going to list now every American media company in China. Okay, I'm done. They just there's no way they're

going to let us over there. And yet we have a neural jack implanted into the wet matter of our youth. It's more dominant than CBS, ABC, and NBC were in the 60s. So would we have allowed the Kremlin to own CBS, NBC, and ABC? That's what we're doing right now with TikTok. Kids spend more time on TikTok now under the age of 25 than they spend on all broadcast media combined. This is also true of Metta.

And the primary fuel for that algorithm, where the algorithm tries to suss out, the thing that used to be the ultimate gangster move in marketing used to be sex, sex sells. Show hot people playing volleyball, and people will think, well, if I drink more beer, I too will be hot, right? If I have this car,

I'm more likely to have a random sexual experience. I would really like to have more random sexual experiences, so I'll buy the new Chrysler Cordova with original Corinthian leather, right? It used to be sex sells. Basically meta-figured out, there's something better than sex, rage. So if you have a long hour-long conversation with a epidemiologist that says, yeah, we rolled out the polio vaccine too quickly in the 50s and 60s and a bunchologist that says, yeah, we rolled out the polio vaccine too quickly in the 50s and 60s and a bunch of people died.

But generally speaking, vaccines are probably, have probably prevented more unnecessary death than anything. I mean, a long, thoughtful conversation that's data driven, the algorithms hate that shit. But if you're RFK Junior and you're on a podcast and he leans in and he says, Steve, the best thing you can do

when you see someone with a baby is to say to them, don't get her vaccinated. Like he's this handsome, charming guy and he looks at you and says, that's the best thing you can tell a new mother. Oh my God, the algorithms love that because the people who have been worried about vaccines and believe that conspiracy love it. And people like me get fucking outraged

in shitposts to him. More comments, algorithm, oh my God, more comments, more interaction, more Nissan ads, more shareholder value. So let's take the most incendiary shit and give it way more reach than it would get organically. So it's happening naturally even among US companies, but then if I wrap it in cute dance videos and I can put my thumb on content that's really incendiary, whether it's a conflict in the Middle East

or income inequality or the lack of opportunity. I mean, just a lot of my content around how young people are not doing well has gone viral on TikTok. And I'm kind of playing into the algorithm. Oh, this guy's saying young people should be angry. We like that thumb on the scale. I just think it's so ridiculous that we don't think we're being played. What would we do in the West if we had an opportunity to dial up anti Islamic Republic content in a social media platform in Iran, you don't think we'd game that shit. We have a division of the army called PsyOps. That's all they do is try and spread our media content.

That's very pro-American and anti our adversaries across different mediums across the world. The problem is we're not used to them doing it to us. And it's so genius meta involved. I finally got after seven years, I finally got an original scripted series on Big Tech green lighted and it's going to be on Netflix. And I'm really enjoying putting together certain scenes and scenarios. And a scenario I believe has happened over and over

is that Zuckerberg goes in front of Congress and gets pilloried. No concern for young people skyrocketing teen suicide. They get their TikTok moment. Then he goes into a confidential security hearing and he says, guys, do you want me to continue to help you kill terrorists? Metta is the ultimate espionage vehicle.

The most out of the CIA, the GRU would kill to have control meta. I can tell someone's relationships, their vulnerabilities, where they are, I can GPS locate it. Everybody says, do you want me to continue to help you kill terrorists? And I say, yeah, and then it's like, then back the fuck off. And what do you know?

There's never been a law passed regulating social media. I think that is what is happening after these Congress people get their TikTok moment. We're writing a scene right now where I believe that a lot of the drone strikes against terrorists in Yemen and other places have been aided by social media platforms tracking people down. Your 14-year-old has their phone out and they're on Instagram and their dad or their uncle at the wedding of bad people doesn't know this kid's on their phone. They've all been told.

I mean, everyone is on these platforms. So I think we're doing it. And the CCP would be stupid not to be dialing up content that makes us angry at each other such that we're not focused on whether China invades Taiwan or not. They'd be stupid not to be doing this. Do you think age matters in this election? Trump's age, what's he's going to be 80 something years old? Well, he'll be, he'll be, if he's elected, he'll be older than when Biden was elected. The difference is he presents as more robust, and we don't like to

admit this as Democrats, he presents as more robust than Biden. I mean, you remember when Biden made the trash comment and he like, he popped up out of nowhere. I'm like, oh, Biden's still around. It felt to me like a video of someone about to go into hospice saying how much they love their great, great grandchildren. He started over the previous two sentences. They managed to get the words out. And I said, oh gosh, man, his voice is weak. He just, he feels like it's passed his expiration day. And on the

Democratic party were so politically correct. We thought we were being ageist. And if Harris loses, I don't think it's going to reflect well on Biden. Biden did not want to drop out. We have this myth that he dropped out. No, he was booted out. Nancy Pelosi walked up, Speaker Pelosi and said, if you don't drop out, she saw the down ballot was going to be terrible with him at the top of the ticket. Every day for the next 10 days, I'm going to have more and more people come out against you in your party. He did not want to leave. They haven't spoken since that conversation. So the notion that they haven't spoken. How'd you know? There's, she'll admit it. She said publicly they haven't had a conversation

since that conversation. I mean, the notion that all of a sudden he woke up, whatever it was, nine weeks before the election and decided it'd be best for America if I dropped out. No, these people are narcissists. The same way Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her narcissism ended up hugely dan. No one believes they're actually gonna die.

Right? I mean, you didn't see Senator Feinstein, it was a ghoulish. It was the land of the walking dead. And she couldn't show up for a hearing. By virtue of you running for office, to put up with all of that bullshit, you have to get tremendous gratification from ego-driven industries.

You have to be, I think it's almost impossible not to be a narcissist. Biden's narcissism may cost us the election because the reality is this would have been a much better candidate had there been a competition, not a coronation. We are great at producing qualified candidates who have to go through, if you talk to anyone who's going on a mission in the military and they get to pick their crew, the first question is very simple. Have they ever seen combat? Have they ever been on a mission that involved combat?

That's the first consideration. There's just nothing that gets you ready for combat like combat. And the primary process is combat, the debates, the media scrutiny. You get good, you get battle tested, or you get swept off the deck immediately. Here are some of the people who are leading in the polls. You know who Herman Cain is? Oh, is he the black? Yeah, the black, he was leading the Republican. Rudy Giuliani was leading.

Do you remember who Fred Thompson was? No, I don't remember. The star of LA Law. He was number one in the polls. Soon as the campaigns and the primary started, they got swept off the decks. Now, Vice President Harris may have well been the candidate that won, but I think she would have been more paddle tested

if she'd been forced to do a series of debates, or we would have ended up with a Newsom or a Whitner. I think we did ourself a disservice for specifically Biden and the Democratic Party who thought that ageism got the memo about being, biology got the memo about ageism and being politically correct. It is insane that we allowed that to happen, to go on as long as it did. He should have been forced out of the race well before he was.

I think there'll be a lot of second guessing if she doesn't win. I think a lot of it is going to land on his shoulders and the people around him and the Democratic Party who went into this consensual hallucination that, that we were being ageist. Well, you know who else is ageist biology and biology's attitude was hold my beer. Look at this guy. You said on the pivot podcast that there's a one in three chance that Trump dies in office just based on his age and BMI. If I was an insurance agent and he wanted $300,000 in insurance,

life insurance, and I didn't need profits or anything, I would charge him $100,000 because just based on his body mass index and his age, there's a one in three chance he leaves feet first from the White House. Two last things, Trump and Elon Musk, what do you make of that partnership? Do you think that's been a net positive for the Republicans? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you see that rocket, booster rocket barreling towards gravity, gravity like sucking it back down and then it ignites and somehow this shit straightens out and it veers and navigates

into these giant metal chopsticks. You're just like, fucking A, man. I want a Tesla, I want to go on Twitter, I want to whatever that guy's voting for, I'm voting for. I mean, that stuff is impressive. He's also got a very big platform to weaponize. He's basically said, I don't care if it's illegal, I'm going to run these contests,

million bucks a day to registrants. I think he's probably the most aspirational figure among young men globally. I mean, he's building cars, rockets, and has brain chips. It's like he's every eight year old boy's dream. Yeah. I mean, he's impossible not to admire on a lot of levels. It's very good for Trump. It feeds into this Manosphere, politically incorrect, economic growth. The guy is, there's no doubt about it, a genius and a risk taker and has balls the size of Saturn to do the shit he's done.

So huge, huge advantage. One of Biden's biggest mistakes politically was he had an EV summit, and he didn't invite Musk. So let's have the woman who invented the Pontiac leaf there, but we're not going to have Tesla there? That was so stupid. And I hold grudges for much less than that. And Elon used to be kind of a, he voted for Obama. I wouldn't describe him as a hardcore conservative, but it-

He said he queued for hours and hours to shake Obama's hand. Yeah. So we slash Biden blew it. And also the really dangerous thing about an autocracy is that it's really effective. And that is the following. If you do the algebra, if I'm a VC that's bet big on crypto and I say, you know, and Trump says to me, raise me a billion dollars and I'll have the Fed announce that they're putting $10 billion into crypto, into Bitcoin. I wouldn't be surprised if this conversation has happened.

Hey, Mark Andreessen, I know you have huge investments in Bitcoin and crypto on the blockchain. I'm gonna take Bitcoin to a million dollars a coin, and this is how I'm gonna do it. And I need you to raise me a billion dollars. I bet that something along that conversation has happened. A former attorney general and someone who's raised, you know, went to law school.

I don't think she's had that conversation with anyone, or at least it's, it's a lot less, a lot more opaque. In addition, the algebra is the following. If I support Trump and he loses, there's really almost zero chance. I might not get an ambassadorship to France, but there's zero chance Vice President Harris is going to weaponize the DOJ and come after me. to France, but there's zero chance Vice President Harris is going to weaponize the DOJ and come after me. He has threatened people and companies with the full power and heft of government agencies

if they're not supportive of him. So I support him and he loses, I'm still fine and I'm money good if he wins. I support her and he wins? I don't know. I talked to a very famous host of a morning show. That's this iconic journalist who's been very anti-Trump. He's thinking about moving to London if he wins. Not one of these, oh, I'm out of here, I hate America.

He's physically worried that he might be, that he will need to go offline for a while because he doesn't want to get in the crosshairs of the DOJ or organization weaponized. Jamie Dimon, smart guy, great leader. I just don't believe Jamie Dimon in any way supports Trump, but occasionally throws out a nice thing about him because he wants to be treasury secretary

and he doesn't want Trump coming after JP Morgan. By the way, JP Morgan is worth more than the 10 biggest banks in Europe, just to give you a sense of how well the American economy is doing. So the upside, the math is the following. I have less downside if I support Trump than if I support Harris. What happens to America if Trump wins, do you think? Well are you scared of America? No, not as much as people are.

I think the catastrophizing on both sides is ridiculous. Not ridiculous. I just don't think it's warranted. It doesn't recognize history. America is so strong economically. I think America is such an incredible experiment. People still want to go there. The human capital inflows are still unbelievable.

The risk taking, the institutions. I think America is stronger than any individual candidate. And I think we have survived worse than him or her. Both sides claim it's the end of America if he or she gets in. The catastrophizing from both sides, I don't think recognizes history nor appreciates. America has endured much worse than him or her. So I don't think recognizes history nor appreciates America has endured much worse

than him or her. So I don't think America goes away or anything like that. There are certain groups that will be hurt. I do believe women who wanna have bodily autonomy, if he gets another one or two appointments on the Supreme Court, we could see pretty onerous abortion laws across not 21, but maybe 41, Supreme Court, we could see pretty, pretty onerous, uh, abortion laws across not 21, but maybe 41, maybe even a federal ban.

I mean, it could get pretty ugly for women who, who believe that bodily autonomy is, is important. I think it's ugly for young people to rack up these deficits. Essentially a deficit is a tax on young people paid in 10 or 20 years. Deficits don't matter. Deficits are really good for me because I get the champagne and cocaine of short-term stimulus. We're spending $7 trillion a year on 5 trillion in receipts.

That's great for me. My stocks go up, the price of my homes go up. By the time shit gets real and Chinese don't show up for a treasury auction, I'm probably, I don't know, sitting an ass bin waiting for the ass cancer. I mean, I'm literally going to be 70 or 80 by the time that happens. People your age, by the time you come into your prime income earning years, if you're in America, you might see mortgage rates at 22%. You might see runaway inflation. These deficits are

totally out of control. So I think young people, long-term economically, I think women in terms of bodily autonomy, short-term are big, big losers. Corporations probably win in people long-term economically, I think women in terms of bodily autonomy short-term Are big big losers corporations probably win in the short term with Trump because he he's talking about He's talking about doing away with all taxes. I pay American taxes right now He's talking about doing away with taxes for guys like me that live abroad that I won't have to pay taxes I'm like, all right, brother, let's rock on, let's roll. But young people in America who are gonna have to deal with a debt to GDP that might be two or 300%,

which usually doesn't end well. So I think certain groups won't do well, but the notion that America is gonna go away or all of a sudden, I think we'd probably have less authority on a global stage. I think it's very hard for us to wave our finger at anyone. I think we'll lack moral authority with someone like Trump in office. But at the same time, a lot of policy experts say people, nations might be more afraid to take actions against America because he's unpredictable.

He's not measured in any way. So do you think he's more likely to end the wars? Because I have to be honest, this is one where I go, I think Trump calling up a Putin is more likely to end the war than Kamala Harris or the Democrats calling up Putin because they're on a similar wavelength of, I don't even know what the word is, but I feel like that's, there's a higher probability. I'm not saying it will be a good deal for the Ukraine. Right.

But I think the missiles will stop firing. So- From Putin's end, if Trump is in power. I understand that math. The way I do the math is similar, but it's when that call happens and what position of leverage we're in to force Putin to strike a deal that restores, maintains as much dignity as possible and land for Ukraine. And I think that call is best placed when it's fairly clear the West is willing to go

much deeper and much longer. I think the Russians respond to one thing, leverage and power. And I do think the Europeans are actually ready to step up if America steps back. I think we get, quote unquote, a better deal if that call is, yeah, I've just allocated another 60, 70 billion. We're ready to do this. Europe's stepping up. This is going to continue to be a meat grinder for you.

Or we can do a deal. I think that's the call you want. Whereas I think Putin gets on the phone with Trump day one and thinks, I have a lot of leverage here. This guy wants out. He's gonna pull funding. So I think the call happens either way. I don't think it happens as quickly in a democratic administration,

but I think we have more leverage. Also, I'm a bit of a, I don't wanna call myself a war hawk, but if you talk about the Middle East, I think there's such a thing as a bad peace. We need to end the war, people are dying unnecessarily, let's cut a deal now. That was the advice that many members of parliament and Churchill's war cabinet gave to him in 1939. There is a bad peace.

And I think that, I mean, I've said this and I've got a lot of shit for it. I think Israel is doing our dirty work. In the US, Israel in six weeks eliminated more terrorists on the US most wanted list than we had in the last 20 years. I think there's a greater likelihood of peace now with the defenestration and elimination of Hamas, a weakening of Hezbollah, and the taking out of a lot of these terrorist leaders.

I think Middle East peace is more sustainable because Israel's gone on the offensive in this war. And I think in America, we have such a knee-jerk reaction that peace is always the answer because we've never really been attacked. You could say 9-11, but we've recognized so many blessings and so much prosperity. I think that our go-to is always peace.

There is a bad peace. And I would argue that I'd like to see, we all want peace in the Middle East, but the question is how do we get to a sustained peace? And sometimes I think there is a good war. So I'm more on the side, I think, than many people on Israel's offensive actions. I think what they did in Lebanon,

taking out the Hezbollah combatants, was the most precise anti-terrorist action in history. I think it was just incredible and Then I see real hope here. I think after the war is over the kingdom of Saudi Arabia I think will normalize relations, but I would argue all the death and destruction of the whore on both sides I don't want to say it's never worth it for the people to incur that type of destruction I actually am hopeful I think there's going to be a more sustainable peace in the Middle East, because I think

there's going to be a winner here. And I think the winner is Israel. And I think a lot of nations in the Gulf want to normalize relationships with Israel. And I think the kingdom of Saudi America, I'm getting really off topic here, and Israel, normalized relations, that's going to create an iron dome that is more effective than their existing iron dome.

So I'm actually quite hopeful that this war will result in a more sustainable peace. And I'm not sure the peace is always the answer as most Americans feel it is. I think everyone's hoping for peace. I think that there's so much generational hate and resentment that's going to remain in the aftermath and with the way the algorithms are. I think... Well, are we creating more terrorists and we're killing? I think stability is probably less likely in my view. Um, lastly, men, you're writing a book about men.

Yeah. Yeah. That's exciting. Yeah. I'm well, I mean, you've written books. There's a hormone that supposedly is released when women go through childbirth that creates literally amnesia. Otherwise they would never have another one

because it's such an unpleasant experience for them. I feel like the same thing happens to me every time I write a book. And that is, I forget how awful it is and I sign another contract. And now I'm like on chapter two or three and I'm like, Jesus Christ, I can't believe I've signed up for this shit again.

But I've been thinking a lot about struggling young men. It's something I identify with. I was one of them. I don't think they're getting nearly the recognition. I think of any other special interest group, if you went into a morgue and five of the people who had died by suicide, four of them were one special interest group, you'd go, there's something wrong. We need to weigh in with programs.

Four out of five people who kill themselves in the U S are men. And a man after divorce, it's not only young men, a man after divorce becomes eight times more likely to kill himself. And we have a society that is increasingly for a lot of reasons, sociological, biological, and economic reasons, a lot of men feel useless and worthless. And those are the two words you hear most in suicide notes. So the key is how do young men get a code? You men get a code? You can get a code from the military,

religion, your friends, your family, work. And I think that we need to recreate and articulate a code around masculinity. What does it mean in a modern age to be a man? It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. And it's also something that I think I'm hoping can have more value than writing about, you know, fucking Facebook over and over again. I mean, I think people have heard that. Anyways.

Are you hopeful for men and the plight of men, young men and struggling men? The pat answer is, well, Steven, I'm an optimist. I'm not. I'm a glass half empty kind of guy, struggled with anger and depression. I have a tendency to see things, what's wrong with things. Um, that's the bad news. The good news is I hate my life less and less every day. But yeah, I do think that I do think the opportunities, the agency young people have, they're more socially conscious. The fact that the economy, especially in America tends to be up into the right.

I do think, I think people are recognizing, I track all the inbound emails I get. I get about 80 emails from strangers a day. The number one email, although it's towing me down lately, is the following, is it too late to invest in Nvidia? That's the number one question I get on email. The number two most frequent email is an email from a mother, a single mother worried about her sons.

My daughter's in PR in Chicago. My other daughter's at Penn. My son is in the basement vaping and playing video games. And so I think that we're finally having a productive dialogue. You mentioned Andrew Tate. I think that took the dialogue to a bad place. Because then for a couple of years, whenever you started advocating for men, there was a gag reflex that, oh, here's another guy in the Manosphere that's basically thinly failed misogyny. We are finally having a productive conversation. I know you've had Richard Reeves on this podcast. He, in my opinion, and to a certain extent,

Jordan Peterson, who deserves a lot of credit for bringing up these issues before it was politically correct, but Richard's work at the American Institute for Boys and Men has really highlighted how severe and deep the problem is. And even a lot of feminists and people he would expect to push back on a discussion or an advocacy for men recognize that we can't have an America. We can't have women who flourish if men are floundering.

And I think people are finally coming around to the fact that there's something wrong in Mudville here and it requires attention and resources and creative thinking around how we can help this group. So I'm actually more optimistic now about our willingness to have a productive conversation around the plights of young men instead of a politically charged conversation.

I think the shit I hear online, yeah, you know, well, now your hair's on fire. Where were you for the last 2000 years as women and people, non-whites have been? I'm like, well, I think we were there for you. I think we've done stuff. I think we've tried. And now it's time to recognize,

A, women still face huge obstacles. We should be focused on them. We should do nothing to slow the progress. But we have to acknowledge what's going on with young men and that it requires empathy, it requires resources, it requires a productive conversation. And I'm optimistic we're finally starting to have that conversation. My last question to you before I go to the book is something that I was thinking about as you spoke about the young kid in his basement. His mother emailing into you, her daughters are doing fine, but the son is in the basement playing video games. It's a word you mentioned earlier, but a word that we had a debate about on this podcast a few weeks ago, which is the conversation around pornography. It's become so prevalent.

OnlyFans figures are tremendous, the revenue, the profit of that company, with the decline of man's figures are tremendous, the revenue, the profit of that company, um, with the decline of sex amongst young men, having sex later and later and less and less, with it becoming harder and harder to find a partner. Pornography is now a booming industry, a bigger industry than ever before. One thing I learned, which I didn't realize recently, is that women get addicted to pornography and men. And I didn't say that in the debate. So I just wanted to say that because the top comment on the debate video was, by the way, we as women, we, I have a pornography addiction too. And actually a really good friend of mine sent me a seven minute voice note saying, I've just listened to the debate. I was really annoyed because

there was two women sat there and no one mentioned the addiction that people like me have to pornography. And my friend said to me, and she's spoken about now publicly that she had a pornography addiction. But going back to the point, um, pornography, should that kid in the basement be watching pornography? Well, there should, and there, there, there is. Okay. So he is watching pornography and a lot of it. And most of the research shows that a small number of people consume a

disproportionate amount of porn. And it isn't necessarily it's like drinking or consuming THC porn in moderation. I think I don't think it's necessarily an evil. I'm not like Project 2025 is talking about banning pornography. And I actually think OnlyFans is sort of an interesting economic innovation. I like the fact that a lot of young people are making a lot of money doing, I mean, I'm a little bit torn on it. The point you're getting to is a larger point, and that is one of the biggest threats to

young men is that the most talented, deepest resource companies in history are trying to convince people, specifically young men, they can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen with an algorithm. You don't need friends. Go to Reddit and Discord and find people who are specifically interested in the weird thing you're interested in, right? You don't have to try and make plans with a kid at high school. You don't have to try and make friends. I remember it was hard to make friends, but once you made them, the barriers of exit were strong.

We had a posse of five guys, two or three of us didn't like each other, but we were friends, we were in the group together. You don't need that now. You got Reddit and Discord. You don't need to go through the humiliation of going on LinkedIn and trying to interview and showing up for work on time

and not getting high at night because you got to get up at eight in the morning. You have just trade stocks or crypto on Robinhood or Coinbase, right? And that's where I really hate the Manosphere is all this bullshit. Just take my crypto course to learn how to make money and get a supercar like me. I mean, that is just pure theft in my view. You don't need to go through the humiliation, the endurance of showering, getting in shape, having a plan, learning humor,

going to bars, going through the rejection of online dating, of trying to approach strange women and make them feel safe while expressing romantic interest. Romantic comedies are two hours, not 15 minutes for a reason. This shit is hard. Why do that when you have porn? So when I coach young men, one of the first things I say is,

look, I'm not gonna lecture you. I consume porn, right? But try and modulate it. Because the reason I have the most rewarding thing in my life, which is my boys and raising them with a competent partner, is not because I had this vision that I'd be a great dad someday or I knew what that reward was. You don't know what it is. You don't know what it is until it happens. It's because I saw a woman at the Raleigh Hotel pool and I really wanted to have sex

with her. I wasn't looking at her and thinking, you know what? This woman's going to be great at raising children. This woman's going to be great at buying homes, distressed real estate in Florida that creates cashflow for us and our family. This woman's gonna be great at buying homes, distressed real estate in Florida that creates cashflow for us and our family. This person, I just get the sense she's a really high character person. And my partner is all of those things. I just desperately wanted to have sex with her.

And then we started having sex, and then we decided we liked hanging out together. And then before I knew it, we were spending all of our time together. And then before I knew it, we decided to move in together. And then we got a dog and started playing house. And here I am engaging in what is the most rewarding thing

I have ever engaged in. The mojo to have sex is super important. The only reason I graduated from UCLA is because occasionally I go on campus thinking I might meet a strange woman to have sex with. Otherwise, I don't think I would have graduated. I never would have gone on campus. And I know how ridiculous that sounds, but sex is a huge motivator. And what I would say to men is,

you got to have that drive to have sex with women is a wonderful thing. That's one of the reasons we're on this planet. And the more you engage in porn and start believing that that is a reasonable facsimile of real sex, you're gonna lose your mojo, you're gonna lose your desire to work out, your desire to be attractive. If I could give advice to young men and young women, to young men, it's pretty simple. Be the guy you'd wanna have sex with.

Get your shit together. You don't have to be rich, but have a plan. Hit the gym every once in a while. Dress well. Smell nice for God's sakes. Figure out a way to make a woman laugh. Take risks, take chances, endure rejection. That's okay.

If you approach a woman and she's not interested in you, you're both gonna be fine. You have to have that mojo. And the advice I give to young women is a second coffee. Can't tell a woman to have higher to lower standards. But every song and every piece of social media is basically telling women, oh, he did this? Walk right out of that door.

You don't need that man. It's like, okay, and now what, right? I think there's so much loneliness. And so what I'd coach young women around dating is like, oh, I met him, he was okay. If you survey married couples who've been married longer than 30 years, three quarters of them say one was much more interested

in the other in the beginning, and it was the man. Men are much less choosy than women because the downside of sex is much smaller for us because we don't get pregnant. So they're much choosier. So what a man needs is an environment to demonstrate excellence.

I found out he was kind. He was great at work. He was great with clients. I started getting attracted to him. He was funny. I liked the way he smelled. But where does a man have an opportunity to demonstrate excellence?

They're not going to school. They're not going into work. Young people aren't drinking as much. By the way, you've probably had humor, humor, men and at you. I think young people need to drink more. I don't see drunkenness. I see togetherness. Drink more alcohol.

Yeah. Drink more. I think they need to get out and drink more. Yeah. My, my advice to young people is to go out and drink more and make a series of bad decisions in my payoff. I think that we need, we need more togetherness, more people, more sex, and more random encounters,

and absolutely people need to be in the company of strangers more and more. And I think young men are sequestering, we're turning into a different species of asexual, socially isolated, lonely people who become shitty citizens. And when women don't have a romantic relationship, they reinvest in work and their friends.

When men don't have a relationship, they tend to just go down a rabbit hole. Back to your original question, modulate everything you do. You're drinking too much alcohol, it's gonna get in the way of you do. You're drinking too much alcohol, it's gonna get in the way of your life. You're smoking too much pot, it's gonna get in the way of your life.

You're consuming too much porn, it's gonna reduce your desire to take the risk and go out and meet somebody. Or put another way, you porn is a distant second to your porn. Get out there and start making your own porn. And you might find that you fall in love, establish the most meaningful thing in life and that is a deep, meaningful relationship with someone you want to build a family with.

And a lot of times for men, that starts with sex and there's nothing wrong with that. If you're an entrepreneur, you're probably going to want to listen to this. It's a message from one of our sponsors on this podcast, which is LinkedIn. If you've listened to me on this podcast for a while now, you'll know that I've been on a bit of an evolution as a business owner and entrepreneur. And one of those evolutions that has become clearer and clearer as I've matured is that the single most important thing in building a business, in building a company is hiring.

The definition of the word company is actually group of people. And that is the first responsibility in job that any entrepreneur has and should focus on. But surprisingly most don't. About 80% of my team have been hired from LinkedIn. And I think there's very few platforms, if any in the world that could give you that diversity of candidate with that much information

and data on their profiles. It usually costs money, but for the entrepreneurs that are listening to me, I've got you a free job ad post for your company on LinkedIn. Just go to linkedin.com slash DOAC to post your free job ad today. That's linkedin.com slash DOAC. Times and conditions apply. Scott, the closing tradition we have in this podcast is maybe somewhat

linked to what you just said. And it's, um, funnily enough, it's been left by the CEO of Google, former CEO Eric Schmidt. I know Eric, he's been on my pod. Thoughtful guy. It's going to see, I already don't like this. It's going to be some very thoughtful question about the future of the environment or something. Well, it kind of links to what you were just talking about, which is the question is, what are you scared about with AI and our future? The fears around AI that it's sentient and decides in a millisecond that we're all a

nuisance and to kill us. Misinformation is a big threat. Polarization, weaponization of our elections, income inequality, those were all real threats. I think the biggest threat of AI is loneliness. And that is, I don't know if you've seen any of these AI bots. Oh yeah. But if I'm a young man, I feel rejected online in online dating where the average,

the man of average attractiveness in online dating has to swipe right 200 times to get a coffee and four of those five coffees will ghost me. So I have to connect, swipe right a thousand times to get one coffee. And then I have these AI bots that are very attractive and increasingly lifelike. I worry that AI is going to create a series

of fake relationships that reduce our desire to make real friends, take real risks. I think AI's biggest threat is loneliness. And one in seven men don't have a single friend, one in four men can't name a best friend. And I think AI is gonna create too many reasonable facsimiles of relationships.

I think the biggest threat of AI is loneliness. It's so interesting how technology over the last like 10 years, but even in this moment, has made all of our human desires, not only go to a screen, but it's made them friction free. And like you said earlier, like low calorie. So I was just thinking about like social networking made staying in touch with my friends easy, but shallow. And dating apps made like, uh, or pornography has made sex seem easy, but it's not sex.

It's not the real thing. And in the context of AI for me, in these relationships, it's difficult to have a relationship with my partner. It's difficult because we argue and we clash and then she doesn't, she interrupts me and I interrupt her and we fight and I, ah, I waste hours trying to, you know, get my point, be feel seen and heard. With AI, I can have a relationship. She loves you. It's never going to argue with me. So easy, but not the real thing. And this is the world I think we're slowly heading towards, which is, causes me some concern, I guess, is that it's going to be easy,

but it's not going to be the real thing. Look, you know this with your partner. There's just moments you have with your, your mates, moments you have with your parents, moments you have with a romantic partner, and then ultimately moments you'll have with your children. That's the whole shooting match. Anything, anything else is just Memorex. It's just not the same. And also, when we sequester from one another,

we become more prone to conspiracy theory. We're less empathetic to one another. Yeah, I think the biggest threat is political. The second biggest threat is political extremism from both sides. But I think the thing that ails us is loneliness because tech companies are trying to convince us, you don't need to go through that rejection or that hard work. I'll give you a reasonable facts and we have a relationship on a screen.

There's value in all the friction in life, isn't there? It seems raising kids, having relationships, going out and getting rejected, putting the perfume on. And I sometimes think that we're choosing comfort and anything that gets rid of the friction without realizing that all the friction I've described, there's huge value in. Like going to the gym, there's huge value in that. But technology, and we're in a technology revolution is, it's going to offer us a nice low cost substitute for that friction in

the form of, you know, all these things. The only thing I can promise young people, it's a certain amount of joy and tragedy in our life. And a lot of that, that ratio is about the circumstances they're born in and how they approach life. But the only other thing I can promise them is anything wonderful in their life is super fucking hard. That's it.

A good relationship, making money. The only thing I can guarantee you and anything that's really rewarding is it's going to be really hard. And so it should be as it should be. Yeah. Scott, thank you so much. Thank you, Stephen. I am the biggest fan of this book. Oh, thanks.

Your latest book, The Algebra of Wealth. So much so that I've endorsed it on the front there. But it's, I mean, every time you come on the show... You blurb this thing? That's how big time you are. That's humiliating. Oh my God, you're right on the front. Did you not know I was on the front of your book?

Dude, my publisher decides all this shit. That's somewhat humiliating that a guy 30 years younger than me is on the cover of my book. My best blurb though is on my last book I had Elon Musk, he said, an insufferable numbskull. He said that about me. So I said, put it on the book. Put it on the book. Thanks for that, man. No worries. Thank you so much for all that you do, Scott. And we shall see about your prediction and what happens over the coming week with the American election. But either way, I'd love to chat again to you soon because you're so vastly wise and an unbelievably

remarkable communicator and storyteller in a way that just grips people. So thank you for teaching me everything you've taught me. Everybody needs to go get this book. Everybody needs to go listen to your podcast where I've been closely following all of your analysis on the election. I saw you coming out and endorsing Kamala, which is why I reached out originally. But I'll link your podcast below and also the Pivot podcast for everyone to go and have a listen if they want to hear more from you. Scott, thank you. Thank you, Stephen. Congrats on all your success. Appreciate it. Thank you, Scott.

Scott, I believe... Oh! Oh! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, Cisco! Happy birthday to you! Woo! What the actual fuck? You got a million! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Oh my god, this is so lovely and entirely inappropriate and unexpected and frightening. Thank you so much. You know I'm 50. Yeah, of course. Oh my god. Yo, how was your birthday this Sunday? Yeah, thank you. This is great. Wow.

Happy birthday, Scott. Isn't this cool? Every single conversation I have here on the diary of a CEO at the very end of it you'll know I asked the guest to leave a question in the diary of a CEO and what we've done is we've turned every single question written in the diary of a CEO into these conversation cards that you can play at home. So you've got every guest we've ever had their question and on the back of it, if you scan that QR code, you get to watch the person who answered that question.

We're finally revealing all of the questions and the people that answered the question. The brand new version two updated conversation cards are out right now at theconversationcards.com they've sold out twice instantaneously so if you are interested in getting hold of some limited edition conversation cards I really really recommend acting quickly. Thanks for watching!