The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Scott on Losing His Dad, Family Traditions, and Handling Criticism

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Scott Galloway reflects on losing a parent and what grief teaches us, shares the traditions he’s building with his sons, and explains how he’s learned to deal with public criticism. Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to [e-mail], or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for the show comes from VCX, the public ticker for private tech. The U.S. stock market started history's greatest wave of wealth creation. From factory workers in Detroit to farmers in Omaha, anyone could own a piece of the great American companies. But today, our most innovative companies are staying private longer, which means everyday Americans are missing out. Until now. Introducing VCX, a public ticker for private tech. Visit getvcx.com for more info. That's getvcx.com.

carefully consider the investment materials before investing, including objectives, risk, charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the funds perspective at getvcx.com. This is a paid sponsorship. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start, Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is.

With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. This usually shocks people. I have run 27 marathons plus a few ultramarathons, all while fueling my body with plants. Yes, I get plenty of protein. I'm Robin Arson, BPA fitness programming, and head instructor at Peloton.

And this week on my podcast, Project Swagger, the fundamentals of a plant-based life With nutritional takeaways for you to apply to your own life, no matter what your preferred diet is. Follow Project Swagger wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to Office Hours at Proptchimedia.com. Again, that's Office Hours of Propgitmedia.com.

Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it on our next episode. Question number one comes from Manuel Rapada on Instagram. Manuel asked, How are you doing seven months after your dad passed? Any advice for someone who just lost their dad? It's a generous question. The reality is I'm fine. I sort of mourn my dad's passing for the last five years of his life.

And this is going to sound, this is going to sound harsh, but my dad got a lot more from our relationship than I got from our relationship. My dad wasn't, he wasn't a bad father. I think my father, I've always said that if you rated childhoods in America, I would come in exactly at the 50th percentile. We were upper, lower middle class, raised by a single immigrant mother, lived and died of secretary, didn't have much money, money was an issue. But at the same time, I lived in Los Angeles, I had friends, you know, we weren't hungry.

My mom loved me a great deal. You know, it just wasn't that bad. I played, you know, my parents got divorced. And it was just like not terrible, not great. It was just sort of, I would describe my childhood as remarkably unremarkable, just perfectly average. But my mom invested hugely in me. And my mom's death, really, I'm still 22 years after my mother's death. I am more impacted by it than my dad's death seven months ago.

You know, my dad basically, you know, started his third. marriage while he was still married to my mom, his second wife, and he tried. There was some moments where he did make an effort. You know, he'd haul his ass in a car over the hill to get me every other weekend, but then it was a different age. He just left for Ohio, and he just wasn't very involved in my life. He tried, but we weren't, you know, we had a nice relationship. We were more like friends as a adult man, but I still struggle with, I still miss my mom. And I've decided it's a feature, not a bug, and that I hope my kids, 20 years after I passed, they'll get emotional when they talk about me and miss me. But I'm fine. I appreciate the question. You know, I don't know

if I have any real advice to you. I think this stuff is so individual, but what I would say is try and register the emotions and just in general, you know, grieving loves receipts, are anxiety and grief. I get, I'm that parent. My 15-year-old wasn't home to really late the other night. I'm that parent now up, anxious, you know, want him to have a good time, so don't want to bother him via text, but checking the Uber app to see if he's in an Uber or checking, you know, wondering when he's going to be home and I basically can't sleep. And then I have another son. I've been a fucking mess this year over my son applying to college. I think I was more stressed out about it than him. And that's because for the first time in my life, I care more about something more than I care about me, someone or someone. And it's incredibly taxing. It's just, Jesus Christ, anxiety and worry. But that's the receipts for love, and that is the receipts are the tradeoff for purpose. For the first time in my life, I have purpose. My purpose as a younger man used to be, how can I be more rich and more awesome. And how can I have more experiences, more cool friends, more women in my life,

more fame, more admiration. And it led to a series of deep, kind of, or what I would say, kind of shallow and meaningless experiences. But as far as shallow and meaningless experiences, it was pretty good at times. But anyways, that's neither here or no there. But for the first time, I really feel as if I have a purpose. And that's when, not even when my kids were born, but slowly but surely. I love what Frazier Crane said about his son or when someone else. By the way, Frazier Crane was a shitty father. Did you ever notice that? He sees his dad like once every two seasons. But he said something that really struck with me and it really held true for me. And that is, I didn't love my son. I wasn't in love when they first came out of the womb. I fell in love with my kids.

Very selfish, struggled the first one or two years. But now they're my purpose. I feel in a weird kind of macabre sense that like if I died tomorrow, it would be sad but not a tragedy because I feel as if I found my purpose, I know I'm having a positive impact on their lives. I think they're going to be patriotic loving men. So that's where I am here. I finally figured out, okay, why I'm here and what is my purpose. My dad never found that in terms of parenting, and I never felt that emotionally involved or committed to my father. And also, he led a really nice life. He died at the age of 95 with basically his fifth wife was this really lovely Latino woman. He had a nice life. He swam every day up until the age of like 91. Last year was tough, but that's not terrible.

But I would say that if you're struggling, know that that's because you loved your father so much and your father loved you. And that's just part of the game, that that is what we feel. The depth of our emotions and our commitment and our love for someone and how much they love us is directly correlated to the grief

you're going to feel. So give yourself a statute of limitations. If you're still sad in six months, okay, fine. If you find it's getting away of your life as it was with mine in terms of inability to move on, then decide at some point you're going to seek outside help.

Either talk to friends about it, go to grief counseling, go to therapy, whatever is involved to try and get unstuck, if you will. So again, what do I wish for anyone moving forward? I wish them a great deal of joy, but also a great deal of grief. Because what that means is that you've had people in your life, as it appears you have, that you loved a great deal and loved you a great deal. That's just part of the game, my brother. Thanks for the question.

Question number two comes from Elizabeth Buchanan on LinkedIn. What's the most important and meaningful tradition in your home that you believe hope your sons will continue if they have families of their own? That's a really good question. We do, as a family, spend a lot of time and energy on family trips. That's our thing. We sort of, we do a lot of vacations together and it's freaked me out because my oldest is all of a sudden saying, you know, he's 18. He wants to be with his friend. So I don't know.

travel a regular thing. One is a little bit more selfish, and that is we just had a question about my father. My dad got me working out when I was like nine years old. He started taking me on runs, and he showed me this little Royal Navy fitness handbook that was this tattered thing. I wish I'd still have it. It's probably worth millions of dollars. Burpees, push-ups, pull-ups, air squats.

And he used to take me running on the beach. We lived in Orange County for a brief time, and he used to take me. running and because he was in the Navy and really, really was into his fitness. My father used to win 10Ks for like over age 50 groups in Arizona. And he did. My dad was, he kind of saw himself as being really funny and charming. Whenever he was called up to take a medal, he would go up with a lit cigarette. Kind of guy was. But my dad got me working out really early and something I do when my kids, the first thing, almost the first thing, like when my kid comes home from boarding school, is I try and either work out with him

or I take my sons on a run. But from a very early age, I got my sons working out and I want them, it's paid dividends for me my whole life. It's been kind of my antidepressant and made me feel better about myself. I am just, our family is just so extraordinarily genetically skinny,

which no one feels sorry for, but if you're in high school and you're 5, 10, 120 pounds with bad acne, it's not a great lug. And it would have been even worse. if I'd not started lifting weights and running. But it's been a real gift, and I've tried to bestow that gift for my kids. So when my kids are home for the weekend, they know we're going to be working out.

They know even if when we're traveling, we're going to do some push-ups. And I hope, and I believe that they will, like me and my sister, inherit that from their father, and it's just going to be hardwired into them. I'm sorry, I wish it was something a little bit more, I don't know, on Golden Pond. Do we watch a lot of streaming media together? Yeah, we watch a lot of football together, but I think people do that. I would say it's family vacations and working out. I'm like such a mediocre father right now.

Thanks for the question. Support for the show comes from IM8. Your 30s and beyond are all about building your wellness routine. And for a lot of people, that means leaning hard into supplements. Before you know it, your medicine cabinet is stuffed to the gills with horse pills and niche vitamins. IMA wants to help keep things simple with their daily ultimate essentials drink. What makes IMA stand out is how it can buy. science with nature. They use effective ingredients and back them with research. Plus, it's been through

clinical trials where 95% of participants feel more energetic and 85% said their digestion improved and less bloating. My market's co-host, Ed Ellson, has been drinking IM8 and no joke. He says it's fantastic, I think mostly because David Beckham is his hero. Anyway, start feeling your best self every day with IM8. Go to IM8health.com slash provg and use code prop G for a free welcome kit. five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. That's I-M-N-N-E-A-L-T-H-H-com-P-G-Rop-G-C-C-C-C-P-P-G for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets and 10% off your order. I-M-8Health.com slash Prop-G, Code ProP-G.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Support for the show comes from Vanta. If you're a business owner, you'll probably notice risk and regulation are increasing, and customers now expect proof of security before they'll even sign on. Building that trust is essential to closing deals, but it's often expensive, time-consuming, and complicated. Vanta says that's exactly the problem they've built to solve.

Vanta automates your compliance process to bring compliance risk and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform. They automate the process of achieving and maintaining compliance with over 35 security and privacy frameworks, including SOC2, ISO-2701, and HIPAA. that helps companies get compliant fast and remain compliant, opening doors to next level growth opportunities and freeing up valuable time. That means no more searching through audits and spreadsheets. Instead, you get a system that works in the background, keeping you compliant, reducing risk, and helping your business scale fast and with confidence. Companies including ramp and riders spend 82% less time on audits with Vanta.

That's not just faster compliance, it's more time for growth. You can get started to VANDA.com slash prop G. That's V-A-N-T-A-com slash prop G. Banta.com slash prop G. You know, they've said this about a lot of things. No other president could do some of this shit I'm doing. That's probably true. President Trump continues to give mixed messages about the war in Iran.

Mr. President, you've said the war is, quote, very complete. But your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be prepared for this war? Well, I think you can say it both. More clear is what's happening to the U.S. and global economies as a result of this conflict. like Liberation Day the sequel. Oil prices up, like we haven't seen in years. That means gas prices up. That means other prices will go up. Trump's supposed to be focusing on affordability.

His party has a midterm election to try to win. He talked to Republican lawmakers yesterday. So our message is simple. Democrats created the high prices and our policies are totally ending them and they're ended and we're doing better. We're even bringing them down further. Self-evidently untrue. Will the economic fallout of the war in Iran, catch up with Trump. Today, Explain, drops every weekday. Welcome back onto our final question from J.K. Skiy on Instagram. They ask, how do you deal with public criticism of your work?

Not well, but better. They used to really bum me out when it started about five, seven years ago, I started criticizing saying some private companies were just stupid and made no fucking sense. And that they, I remember like there was some meditation app. I don't remember it. but it was raising money at a billion dollar valuation. I said, this is a podcast, and they've tried to reposition it as a tech company,

and I'm raising money to billion dollars, and I wrote a post on it. I wrote a post on Oyo, remember that? The hotel company, or that was raising money. I wrote a pretty scathing piece of WeWork, and I sort of inflamed the venture community, and hell hath no fury, like a venture capitalist whose portfolio companies of septic tank crap,

you call out before they have a chance to sell their shares. And I got pretty seriously, not seriously, attacked by the venture capital community. And I remember it really rattled me at the time. It got me very upset and angry. And then I've kind of kind of grips with the fact that if you're going to be a quote unquote, thought leader, a commentator,

and you're going to speak your mind. And sort of my theme for 2026 is zero fucks given. I'm going to say what I think is right. I think bombing Iran is actually, it's absolutely the right thing to do. I think it's a historic opportunity with unbelievable asymmetric upside to bring long-term peace to the Middle East

and create an incredible political and economic ally for the United States. That is a very unpopular opinion across my progressive brothers and sisters. Only 7% of Democrats support that action or the military action in Iran. And there's so much pressure to sign up for political orthodoxy because online, they immediately want to position you as a far left or far right. And then what happens is if you

diverge from that orthodoxy, you're treated as an apostate. We thought we could trust you. And they come like, you know, used to listen to Professor Galloway, but he's really come off the rails, you know, blah, blah, blah. If you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally, of which I'm blessed with both those things, you have an obligation to speak your mind. So the criticism hurts, but it hurts a lot less. And also I've come to grips with the fact that if you're not getting criticism or pushback on a regular basis, you're not saying anything. You're just stating the obvious or you're just playing to the algorithms, which I find really gross. I think a lot of people sort of just put out shit and thread shit because they know it'll get. They're just kind of piling on a viewpoint that everybody has. Like, well, that's not that original. And also, quite frankly, I get it wrong a lot. You know, I'm putting out 10 hours of podcasts a week, trying to be funny, trying to be provocative,

trying to be irreverent, trying to push the boundaries of the conventional wisdom or the narrative out there to get people to think. And occasionally I just get it wrong or I say something really fucking stupid. And you deserve critical feedback. What bothers me the most about critical feedback is not the criticism.

It's the source, and that is, I believe about a third to 50% of the really aggressive negative feedback are bots. I've ended up on the wrong list or a list or the right list of people who are supportive of Ukraine. And so there are troll farms and it's AI. It's dog lady 115 with seven followers. And it's always the same thing. Scott, I used to like your content, but this is wrong. And I was just like, okay, the platforms could get rid of these fake bots.

I believe everyone has a First Amendment right. I think anyone out there like me who's saying provocative things should be subject to criticism and learn how to absorb it and learn from it. But I don't think bots and trolls should have First Amendment rights. That's the thing that bothers me most about the really vile criticism. It's like, do the other readers realize this is not real? This is not a real person. So I'm still coming to grips with it, but I do think at some point I'm just going to go dark. My dad said something that struck me as or resonated with me and he said that the key to happiness in America is to be rich but anonymous because once you become sort of famous, there's industrial logic in ship posting you and criticizing you. And I have found a lot of online players, especially on TikTok, play to the algorithms where there's one person I've been following who just says, I hate and then name the person with the bestseller and attacks their philosophies.

And people love that because the algorithms recognize a bestseller and it gets juiced. And that person makes another, you know, $73 from AdSense or from their algorithms. So there's industrial incentives and economic incentives in not only checking back the powerful, which I think is healthy, but just constantly shipposting them. And as my footprint has grown, the level of criticism has gone up exponentially. Some of that is healthy because powerful people should be checked on what they say. but some of it is also just a function of the algorithms where if people recognize who they're criticizing, they click on it to see what they're saying about that person and it becomes sort of

a downward spiral of, I don't know, just coarseness and ad hominem attacks. So in some, it still bothers me. It doesn't bother me as much as it used to. I try with the comments, I read the first 10 or 20 to get a feel for what people think about something, and then I stop reading it. because it just doesn't, I don't ever want to be shaped by the comments. I want to be informed by them, but I think the algorithms and the orthodoxy of the far left and the far right

who are the loudest part of the political spectrum want to try and shame you or intimidate. You can't imagine the amount of shit I got when halfway through the Biden administration, I said he should not run again. He's too fucking old. He's a feeble old man. He has no business being president at this point.

Oh my God. You don't understand the assessment. assignment and, I mean, just advocating for men. There's just an immediate gag reflex from people who feel like, well, boss, you've had a 3,000-year head start. And if you're advocating for men, it must mean you're a misogynist and that you are one of, you know, part of the manosphere. But here's the thing. If you want to make a difference, can you imagine how much should Muhammad Ali? I'm not comparing myself to Muhammad Ali. My jab business is good. I have pretty good footwork, but my job isn't as strong. The amount of the amount of you should. I'm not comparing myself to Muhammad Ali. I'm not. I'm not

of shit he got, the amount of shit he got when he turned down or he refused to enlist for the Vietnam war, I think real leaders and the people that really make a difference are not immune, but they're not afraid of massive public criticism. The only thing you know about really making a difference is that you're going to get massive public credit. There is no change. Anytime you challenge the status quo, you're going to get the quo is going to criticize the quo. It's going to criticize the shit out of you. Anyways, let me wrap up this word salad. If you don't get critical feedback, you aren't saying anything you're just stating the obvious. That is part of the game. At the same time, you should learn from it. When you're wrong, you should acknowledge it. But here's what gives me

the greatest level of comfort and what is the neosporan for critical commentary. I'm going to be dead soon, and so are you. What I say comes from a good place. And that is I'm trying to be honest. I'm trying to catalyze a conversation that results in our ability to craft better solutions. And I try to be very data driven and, you know, pursue the truth, if you will. But I also try to be unafraid. And I recognize that sometimes I'm going to say something really fucking stupid or I'm just going to be wrong or people who don't share my interests or people have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo or pushing back on what I say, are going to attack me. And guess what? When I'm on my deathbed, I'm not going to give a I'm going to want the people who love me and I love around me, and I'm going to want to feel like I tried, and that I was unafraid, that I was dancing on tables like no one was watching, even if I don't have great rhythm, which I don't, which I don't, unless I'm drunk and there's 80s music, and then daddy is disco capital D. Thanks for the question. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to Office Hours of Proptionmedia.com. that's office hours of propitemedia.com.

Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Janair. Camryk is our social producer, Brad Williams is our editor. And Drew Burroughs is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropgeyPod from ProvG Media.