The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Scott Responds to the Paternity Leave Backlash, Patriotism in America, and more

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

 Scott Galloway revisits his controversial comments on paternity leave, discusses masculinity and patriotism in today’s political climate, and reflects on his favorite memories with Pivot co-host Kara Swisher. 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

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All right. The best of the best stories now with even more from Hulu. Amazing. Have it all with 3-1 Disney Plus. Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, pick-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 of Proptumia.com.

Again, that's Office Hours of Proptumet.com or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. Question number one. Hi, Scott. This is Taylor from Atlanta. You often talk about how much you cherish your time with your sons. and how that time is fleeting. Considering the stance, I was surprised and disappointed

to hear your recent comments regarding paternity leave. For context, my wife and I are both physicians in our mid-30s. We have an almost three-year-old son and welcome to baby girl at the start of the year. I had the opportunity to take a few weeks of paternity leave, and I took it without hesitation. I do challenging work well and am compensated accordingly, but I have no illusions about my importance in the workplace. Things continued on just fine without me,

and I was able to recently jump back in without missing a beat. I understand your premise that men cannot contribute in the same way that women can in the newborn stage. However, men can still provide indirect contributions in other ways to make life easier for their partner and help them as they recover from the physical and psychological stressor that is childbirth. And even though you don't get the same feedback from a newborn that you do from a toddler or a teenager, it is still finite time that allows for some bonding with a child that you never get back. research shows that millennial fathers are more involved than previous generations of fathers by a variety of metrics. Considering this, as well as what I assume, is quite a number of critiques you have received regarding your comments about paternity leave.

Have your opinions on this changed at all? If you could go back in time and take a few weeks off when your sons were born, would you? Thank you for listening and for your time. Thanks for the question. I wasn't expecting this, and it's going to be hard not to come across as defensive. So what happened essentially was I was doing a podcast with Derek Thompson, who's a friend. He said he was on paternity leave, and I ribbed him and gave him a hard time and said, dude, fathers are useless in the first few weeks, get back to work.

Your job is to support your wife and make sure and keep the child away from a large body of water. First off, let me just say, my comments were stupid. Occasionally I try to be provocative and I cross the line to just saying something stupid. That was a stupid statement, and I regret saying it. I do have a bottom line. I think it was totally taken out of context in that I was giving Derek a hard time. People's views in how they believe or what their belief is around something, if you want to understand or put a Wonder Woman's Golden Laser on them,

look at their actions, not the words, and here are my actions. With respect to parental leave, all of my companies have offered parental leave, and I'm a fan of it. I think it's important. As is often the case in this keyboard virtuous society, I felt like it was initially a blogger, made a cartoon of my comments on opportunity to virtue signal and in my view totally misrepresented me.

But let me just talk about or give you my views on parental leave. It's mostly a conversation amongst affluent privileged people in the lunchrooms of Reddit and Google, and in your case, in the hospital, because three quarters of Americans do not have access to paid parental leave. Again, if we have an honest conversation about it, instead of a bunch of Democrats who see an opportunity to say you're holding the gun wrong and kind of virtue signal each other, let's have an honest conversation, 90% of Americans do have access to unpaid parental leave. So the question is, how do we put more money in the pockets of child-bearing age adults and then let them decide what they're going to do with respect

to their child. So expanded child tax credit, which I have advocated for. Universal child care, which I have advocated for. Stopping this bullshit tax code that just transfers money from earners, a young people, to owners, old people who are no longer having kids. This isn't about ideology or this next people. It's about biology, and that is breastfeeding. The the oxytocin, physical touch, is just dramatically more important for the relationship and the bonding between the child and the mother. And I can prove this biologically. Having said that, I think it's great. There is some research showing that men who are more involved early in the infant's life tend to be better fathers moving forward.

But some of that might be correlation, not causation, in that the kind of person that's more involved early on is going to be involved later. So, brother, I'm with you. Take as much time as you and your wife and how you divide that time and who goes back to work sooner versus later. In my instance, I think the way I provided the most, if you will, emotional care for my partner was, quite frankly, to show her that I was going to be making a living and focused on work. So after a few weeks, I was back at work and then after, I think it was at two months, three months she got from Goldman, she went back to work and I tried to pick up the slack and I was home early or I was home for bath time because my partner was working exceptional hours. But if we want to have a serious conversation around parental involvement in kids, and I think there's few people who have been more outspoken about the importance of presence of a male in a child's life. It's simple. It's not virtue signaling and arguing amongst the 27 percent of us who have access to corporate America and get paid parental leave. 27 of the 29 people who've become millionaires in my firms when I've sold them are either LGBTQ or women. And I have been, I think, exceptionally generous and supportive of people with

flexible schedules. Everyone has been entitled to maternity and paternity leave should they choose to take it. But I stick with my statement that I think the mother is more important to the child early on. What I do think we need, though, is to give parents and people of child marrying age more economic flexibility such that they can decide what is right for them. But congratulations. on your newborn. I think it's great that you have the option to take that kind of paternity leave, paid paternity leave, which puts you in one and four adults in the United States. I very much appreciate the question. Question number two. Hi, Scott. Andrew from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was wondering your thoughts on the controversy following the U.S. men's hockey team Olympic gold medal win.

If you or anyone listening didn't see the players were celebrating in the locker room following their win against Canada, and FBI director Cash Patel put President Trump on speakerphone who made a joke about the women's team and how he would have to invite them to the White House, and most of the men's team laughed, and this was cut on video and sparked a lot of debate online and in the news. As someone who has said and written a lot about what being a man really means, I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather hear from on this story, particularly the men's reaction and the lack of support for their female counterparts at the Olympics. As a personal aside, I watched the game with my dad. He's just the best dad, and we've loved hockey forever. I found it really deflating to have to balance

enjoying this moment with my dad in a country I love dearly with complex feelings about the country right now. So if you have time, I'm also just curious how you balance patriotism with the disillusionment of the current moment. Thank you for all you do. I really appreciate you. Okay, so men's hockey team behavior and balancing disillusionment with patriotism. I think 110% of the fault here lies with the president, not with a bunch of 23-year-old celebrating and then caught off guard when he says something stupid. I just, as a matter of fact, during, and I watched the clip a bunch of times when you made those stupid or that stupid remark, you know, that we have to invite the women.

So when the president makes what is just a sexist, stupid fucking comment, it goes to a broader picture, and that is my reductive analysis of masculinity is to be a provider. I do think it's important that men have a plan economically and that they're economically viable. We'd like to think that doesn't matter anymore, that it's an equivalent responsibility. That's bullshit.

A man needs to be a provider, at least at the outside of his career. And by the way, some of that might be deciding I'm going to be more supportive of my partner as I was. My partner was working at Goldman Sachs. She was making a lot more money than me. So I felt that it was part of my role as being a provider to be more supportive of her, to handle the finances, have our shit together, take up some of the slack around some of the emotional and domestic labor. I've always handled our finances. But I wanted to be economically viable. And some of that when I was making less money than her was to be more supportive or be a support system for her.

I also think that's a form of masculinity. Then it goes to, and this is where the Trump family, I think, misses the boat and a lot of our role models, including Musk, missed the boat. The whole point of establishing economic or physical or intellectual strength and skills is such that you can move to protection. You want to move from your strength, if you will, to protection. We want to celebrate the victories of our sisters. That reflects strength. That means you're evolved. That means you fucking get it.

And when the president makes this stupid remark, well, the women have to come, I don't hold, this is going to be an unpopular take, I don't hold the men's team responsible for in the moment when they're drinking champagne and they get the president on the fucking phone for laughing, I don't hold them liable for it. Do we wish all of them have stopped laughing and said,

sir, according to the Seventh Amendment, you know, no. And as a matter of fact, if you listen to the tape, one or two dudes immediately said two for two, meaning that the women and the men had won. So I think the president not only diminished women, he diminished the men in that room. He put them in a fucking impossible decision. He caught them flat-footed.

And so I think the criticism of a bunch of 23 and 25-year-old men from the Midwest who in the moment didn't have the presence of mind to say something crisp, how are you going to get back in the president's face thoughtfully and respectfully in the moment? I'll tell you how. You're not. This was entirely the president's fault. And also, it was a missed opportunity. First off, I have no idea why the director of the FBI was there acting like a total frat bro.

But he should have, the opportunity was he absolutely should have celebrated with the women. That would have been the smart move politically for the Trump administration or celebrate with both. But in some, this reflected poorly on the president as another indication of, of, this right-wing conflation of masculinity and coarseness and cruelty, any stupid solution of how to fix the masculinity problem or the male, you quote-unquote the young men's crisis by taking us back to the 50s. That is not the answer, folks. And by the way, neither women nor men are going back to the 50s where women and non-whites had less opportunity. It's a more evolved sense of masculinity, but we still recognize men and women have different predetermined behaviors are an easier time

leaning into behaviors. We should celebrate femininity. We should celebrate masculinity. By the way, I am drawn to men that are more feminine. My friends tend to take care of me and be more nurturing and more observant and have better relational skills. And that's okay. There are some wonderful traits of masculinity that a lot of women have, but let's celebrate both and recognize that young men do very hard, dangerous things. Sometimes we view them as reckless. I see that oftentimes as valor. When Russian troops come pouring over the border in Ukraine, we want some big dick energy. So let's celebrate both without diminishing either as it relates to the hockey scandal or hockey gate. All of the fault lies with the president who is at a minimum a sexist.

A lot of people would say misogynist. That means you hate women. I think that term is overused. But at a minimum, he is a sexist and he is a terrible role model for young men. So, and I'm just sad that this in any way diminishes the incredible athleticism demonstrated by both the U.S. women's and the U.S. men's team. Balancing patriotism with this type of behavior, I struggle with it. I got to be honest with the, I forget what was the last big tournament where the Canadians won. I was rooting for the Canadians.

I'm hoping we invade Canada and then do a reverse merger and have their management team take over management. can Mark Carney run North America? I mean, the guy is reasonable, he's smart. By the way, first non-Brit to be appointed the head of the Bank of England. I mean, this guy understands the economy, he's empathetic. I'm a huge fan of the prime ministers. So I was rooting for Canada. I struggle with the line between patriotism and resentment of our current policies. And where I land is the following. The truest bluest flame form of patriotism is for me is to move back and get very involved in restoring and strengthening some of our great American values. Rule of law, respect for immigrants, the advancement of special interest groups, including non-whites and women and gay people and whoever it might be. This is one of the one of, we are the least racist heterogeneous culture in the world.

but we still have a lot of work to do, and that's one of the wonderful things about America. As we recognize the challenges facing special interest groups, and we work to make them better together. And we recognize that all this prosperity that mostly white male heterosexuals registered for the first 3,000 years, that when we invite other people into it, it feels really good. It's the right thing to do. And it's also the economically really smart thing to do. If women had not gotten, if we had not protected women's rights in their entry into the workforce through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, still have work to do. they fall when they have children in terms of compensation. Some people would argue with it, but I hold to it.

Then we would be a second-rate economic power to China. So I think there's just a ton of reasons why America was on an incredible move of momentum and that we have had a bit of a dip here, not a bit of a dip, a real dip in terms of bodily autonomy, blatant sexism, blatant racism, blatant racism, blatant anti-immigration policy, everything that has made, or many of the things that have made America great is under attack. So how do I think you balance, create that balance? You get involved and you restore the momentum in the great American values, right? In other words, I think the way to demonstrate America,

I think the way to demonstrate patriotism right now isn't to get fed up and do what all these actors threaten to do and leave America? I think this is time for the American diaspora to come home and we focus our efforts, our skills, our time, our treasure, and our talent on making America, America again. Thanks for the question. We'll be right back after a quick break. Support for the show comes from Quince.

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Welcome back onto our final question, which comes from Deegan JT on Instagram. They ask, what's your favorite personal or professional memory so far with your pivot co-host, Kara Swisher? That's a generous question. A couple of things just popped into my mind. She came and stayed with me. Kara and her wife Amanda came and stayed with me with Kara's two, or one of Kara's older adult children. Alex Swisher, and they're two youngest. And it was just a couple moments that struck me.

First off, Alex is like White LeBron. He's just fucking enormous, and he works out, and he's got just a ton of energy. I remember I was working out in the backyard, and the guy's like so crazy strong, and then he's like, oh, it's the ocean. I'm hot, and he like sprinted into the ocean. But we were watching some ridiculous,

unfortunately, I made the mistake of letting Karen Amanda, decide what we were going to watch. We ended up watching like some PBS museum heist think. And Alex came over and he sat down on the couch. I'm not exaggerating. We all popped about two feet into the air. I remember that. And I remember the next morning he did something that upset her and she's a parent. She was lecturing him with her finger and he looked like an eight-year-old. And just the juxtaposition of what looked like Billy Barty, the famous little person actor, like Barrett.

rating and castigating Shaquille O'Neal, the image which is so funny. So, and generally speaking, I do get a lot from Kara or I find a lot of grace in how she

I learned from her, a lot from her as a parent about how to be a really good and engaged in parent and still work as hard as she does. I think she's a wonderful parent. So that and then she did something really nice for me when we were on our pivot live tour, I mentioned once on the pivot live tour

that my first girlfriend was a girl named Debbie Brewbaker, and Debbie and I were also, they used to pull us out of third grade and send us to fifth grade for math and English. And anyways, we're at this pivot live tour, I think we were in San Francisco, and we turned up to ask questions, and she put a picture of me and Debbie on the stage

because we were convicted kids. We ended up in the local San Fernando Valley, newspaper. And this woman came up and asked a question and said, I'm Debbie Brubaker. And I hadn't seen Debbie in 50 years. But just that she went to the trouble to track Debbie down, invite her to San Francisco, get her there and ask a question. That was very moving for me. That was just a very thoughtful, I don't know. I very much appreciate our partnership. It's been very successful. We have a lot of times we don't get along. I got very pissed off at her and I'm sure she gets very pissed off of me. I find that, anyways, I've had some late-night text exchanges with her that have really pissed me off

and bum me out, especially around Israel. We just have different views on it. But that's a small, I would say that's a small price to pay for what is. I learn a lot from her about balancing parental and professional obligations. And she's also a very considerate approach. She's a very loyal friend. She has a group of friends that she has very loyal to. And I'm, I'm, I'd like to think I'm one of those people. But it's been a very rewarding professional relationship, but more than anything, I think the thing I get most from Kara, as I take notes from her on how to be so engaged as a parent while also being professionally very committed. It's a generous question.

Thanks very much. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to office hours of proptuemedia.com. Again, that's office hours of proptuemedia.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 Jenaire. Camryka is our social producer, Brad Williams, is our editor,

and Drew Burroughs is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropGPod from PropG Media.