This Past Weekend - E547 Scott Galloway

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

Scott Galloway is a marketing professor at NYU, author, and host of the Prof G and Pivot podcasts.  Scott Galloway joins Theo in NYC to talk about some of the biggest issues facing young men in today's world, how these issues also impact women, balancing career goals and relationship goals, and why he believes younger generations need a financial boost.  Scott Galloway: https://www.instagram.com/profgalloway/  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ  Blue Chew: Go to http://bluechew.com and use code THEO to get your first month free - just pay $5 shipping. Shopify: Go to http://shopify.com/theo to sign up for a $1-per-month trial period. Manscaped: Go to http://manscaped.com and use code THEO to get 20% off and free shipping.  Acorns: Go to http://acorns.com/theo to sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $20 bonus investment. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [e-mail] Hit the Hotline: [phone] Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know, I've, sometimes I put on them nighttime underpants. You know what I'm talking about. Cause who sleeps naked, baby? A criminal, that's who, not I. Tommy Johns, that's what I'm wearing. I like Tommy Johns. I like them, the male negliges they got for you in them underpants because they smooth.

You can feel them and they feel good. God, you can't even believe you're feeling yourself when you got them TJs on baby, them Tammagents. God, they feel so good. I want them on right now. I'll put them all over myself. What I love about them is the waistband isn't super tight on them.

Some underpants you get them, the waistband's so tight. So I have one sip of water and then I got to go pee pee. I don't like doing that. Tommy John, let you feel comfortable and casual inside of your own skin. Exclusively for our listeners, you can shop Tommy John's amazing Black Friday sale early right now. Save 30% off site wide only at tommyjohn.com slash Theo with code Theo. That's 30% off for a limited time.

Excuse me. That's 30% off for a limited time at TommyJohn.com slash THEO with code Theo. See site for details. I have some new tour dates to tell you about for 2025. I'll be in Toledo, Ohio, O-H-I-O. I'll be in Ramah, Ontario in the Canada. I'll be in Pittsburgh, gunk, gunk, gunk. Eugene, Oregon, we pulling in. Kennewick, Seattle, Washington, Victoria, BC and the Canada, Belton, Texas, San Antonio, Durant, Oklahoma, Amadio, Texas, Oxford, Mississippi over there, Tuscolouse,

Alabama, Tallahassee, Florida and Rosemont, Illinois. That'll still be the return of the Rat Tour. I want to let everybody know, it's the return of the Rat Tour. Yes, some of it changes over time, but it's not a new tour. So hopefully we'll get it done soon. We just, there's places to go, you know? So get all your tickets at thetheovon.com slash T-O-U-R.

And thank you so much for your support. I am excited to announce that I'm starting a foundation. I'm starting a foundation. So thank everybody for coming out and seeing the live shows and stuff. And yeah, we're gonna have a foundation. And so it's gonna be exciting that next year we'll be able to do things through that.

So it's one step at a time, but I just wanted to say, just thank you guys for the support and I'm excited to see what else is possible. Amen, baby. Today's guest is a professor at NYU. He's the host of the Prof G Markets podcast. He's a marketing and business expert and a public speaker. I'm most interested personally in his work that often explores the issues that young

men are facing in the changing world. I'm really grateful for his time today. It's one of the reasons that we're in New York City. Today's guest is Mr. Scott Galloway. Scott Galloway, thanks for coming man. I can't tell you how excited my staff is that I'm here. I've never literally, when my chief of staff found out I was coming on, she wanted to come with me. I said, what is it about your content? You like?

He said, no, I just think he's really hot. Oh, hot? And my, my. And is it a man or woman? Yeah, yes. Okay. No, Mary Jean Rebus, friends for 20 years, wonderful woman. And my, my Prop G Markets co-host, Ed, who

I can't get to come into an office, decided he was coming to this with me. So you're a legend at ProfG. Work from home, Ed. They always show up, right? Yeah. Thanks, man. Yeah.

I got to get over to ProfG then, man. The next time I come into this city, we'll have to get over and have some experience over there. That'd be cool, you know, and I appreciate that. And yeah, I feel lucky to have an audience to know. I think it's sometimes it kind of blows my mind, you know? And I think I mostly just keep working. That's like the only feel like the thing

I know how to do best. Like my biggest relationship is probably with my work. And I was thinking the other day, somebody's like, you're gonna get a wife? And I'm like, well, I have, you know, 40 hours a week, I have this, you know, I have this, work is like, feels like my wife, you know, a lot of times. But I just did press pause there.

I think that's, I think young people have to have a sober conversation with themselves around trade-offs. And that is, I ask my kids, I say my kids, my students, where they expect to be economically and in terms of influence, and 70% of them expect to be in the top 1% within 10 years. And what I have found is that if you want to be in the top 1% from an influence, from a real spiritual reward from your work, from a financial standpoint, You pretty much have to go all in for 10 probably 20 years The capitalist society is very good at figuring out who's really in you know in it for the full 110 percent I don't know anyone who's reached the level of success you've reached without pretty much

Going all in on work and it comes at a trade off. It comes at a trade off of relationships. Comes at a trade off in terms of your own fitness, your own mental wellbeing. But from the age of like 25 to 45, I really don't remember much else than working. Really? Yeah, and I'm not saying that's the right way. Right, yeah, no.

But it was my way. It was my way. Yeah. And I don't regret it. Oh. Yeah, it's funny, cause I think I do, I think I lament sometimes not like it's so funny You say that like this afternoon. I know I have like about two hours

You know and I'm like do I go to an AA meeting or do I stretch right? Those are like my two Like which one is gonna help me more? for tomorrow like you know like But really like it's like it do I do some type of a fitness thing or do I do like a wellness thing? You know, like a recovery thing. But yeah, it's funny. I just, I thought about that a lot recently, like, cause work was like something that I think was like,

I knew what the return could be, right? So it was a manageable relationship. Whereas I think other relationships for me, and I'm not getting into self-pity, those have been tougher to manage or I didn't have as much luck. And not luck in meeting women, but luck in actual managing relationships.

And so then I was like, well, but this relationship I can manage, and I know what the return can be based on my investment. And there's not a ton of emotional pain involved in it for me or other people, you know, unless you work for me. Sometimes I can get a little heady, you know? Yeah, and this is gonna sound crass, but the opportunities, your selection set for mating

will broaden as you become more successful professionally. That's the cruel truth of capitalism. The trade-off will become the relationships with your parents, your relationship with God. I know you're a spiritual person, the relationship you have with yourself. But the world is unfair as it relates to men, and that is as long as we, our trajectory of success

professionally and economically is upward, we are afforded a disproportionate number of mating opportunities. So, wait, so say that part again, the end part again? If you have money, you can get laid. Okay. Yeah. Okay, yeah, if you have money, you can get laid. OK. Yeah. OK, yeah, if you have money, you can get laid.

But then, but there's trade-offs too. Huge trade-offs. Yeah. One of the things I wish I'd done, I wish I had started with kids a little bit earlier. I have two boys. One of my biggest regrets is I wish I had a third. I wish I had a daughter.

I think a lot about how much I'm enjoying it. And I was working so hard that I didn't have a lot of time with them. And you know, they're gone. You know, that eight year old that, you know, used to come in and sleep in my bed with me on Sunday mornings, he's gone. And I see the kind of the gentleness my friends have with some of their girls. You know, I really messed up and I'm blessed to have two boys. I'm a glass half empty kind of guy. I look at stuff. I know rationally I'm blessed to have two boys,

but I look at it like I wish I'd had more kids. How old are you? Yeah, I'm 44. I need to get some children. I'd like to get some. I mean, I don't know much about you, but I would argue that I'm not one of these people that says you can't be happy without kids,

but I didn't want to have kids. I wanted to be rich and awesome. Those are my priorities in that order. And what I found is all of that is a means to an end. In a capitalist society, you have to be able to be economically viable. Otherwise, your kid's going to feel that stress. It's going to put stress on your partnership.

But for the first time in my life, there's these moments Theo, where you're watching Premier League football and your kids roll in and they jump on the couch and the docks come over and your kids just sort of naturally throw their legs on yours. And it's the only time I've ever had this feel and maybe you've had it other places where I'm like, this is enough.

When I was your age coming to New York, staying at a hotel like, this is enough. When I was your age, coming to New York, staying at a hotel like this, I wanted, every afternoon I'd start thinking, where am I going tonight that's cool? I was at Equinox yesterday, is there a cooler gym? I'm at Zero Bond, is there a more exclusive club? I'm hanging out with this interesting, hot group of people. Tomorrow, can I hang out with more interesting,

more hot people? This is how much money I made this month, can I make more? It was just like more, fuck it, I want more. Where did it come from? Sorry, go on, and the only thing? The only time I've ever been like, okay, this might be enough,

is usually in the presence of my kids. That's interesting, man. You know, I have moments of, yeah, I think there was, like I do remember like leaning against my dad when he was on the couch or something in like a shirt that he would wear. Or that's probably the fondest memory I have of him, of just leaning in.

And it didn't really matter what was going on. It was just being right there. Or of your dad touching you on the back of the neck. That kind of stuff, I think, is very important for kids. It's such a safe position that a dad can put their son in, kind of like not choking, but just one hand. And what made you create that first idea

that more is the thing? Because obviously you've seen that, guys, we want to feel like the hunters that gathers. You want to feel like the create, the person who can put it together, the provider, right? But what made it, you think, so crucial, like in that next thing, like that higher, was it almost like an addiction kind of to achievement?

A little bit. I know the exact moment I got my act together and I got really motivated. Growing up, I had, I described my childhood as remarkably unremarkable. It wasn't especially good or especially bad. I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. But it wasn't a bad life.

But the moment that changed everything for me was my mom got very sick when I was in graduate school. And she called me and said, you need to come home. And my mom's not a dramatic person. And so I flew home and went into a situation that was she'd been released early, she we were kind of underinsured. She just had her second mastectomy, she'd been through chemo in the hospital, basically booted her out kind of prematurely. And I walked into a situation I just did not know how to handle. Wow. And I started calling nurses and nurses were 35 bucks an hour. And we just didn't have that

kind of money. And that feeling, you'll feel this, and maybe you feel it now with your staff and your parents. But as a man, I think you have a very healthy instinct around protection. And this woman who'd been so good to me, I couldn't take care of her. And to be honest, Theo was humiliating.

And that was when I said, OK, I got to get care of her. And to be honest, Theo was humiliating. And that was when I said, okay, I gotta get my act together. I gotta be able to take care of my mom. So that was really sort of my driving. I thought, okay, I didn't wanna save the whales. I didn't wanna be a good person. I didn't want a close relation with God. I wanted economic security for me and my mom.

Yeah. And that was, and also the other flip side of it isn't nearly as noble. I also noticed that my male friends whose parents had homes in Aspen and were driving BMWs, were hanging out with higher character, better looking women than I was. Yeah. And that women weren't drawn to men with resources,

not only because they could offer them a better life, but because it reflected discipline and character and that they might be better dads. But the bottom line is the thing that motivated me was women wanting to take care of my mom and wanting to be more attractive to a potential mate. That's when I got my act together. And I guess that's really probably the truth for a lot of, and some of that's nature, right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, because women want to be felt safe, you know?

Oh dude, I remember this dude, Mr. Willie, put a fence up on his fucking house in our neighborhood. And people were like, look at this fucking hero over here, you know? Cause nobody else had it. That's what takes a fence? It was one of those double door fences. And we're like, this guy's, they think

they live in a damn estate, you know? But yeah, I think there is something about that, about being able to provide. So it makes you feel, especially if you don't know anything else, I think it's the first and most, I don't want to say the easiest thing to do, but it's something you can immediately start to do. Well, I think everybody needs a code, right?

It sounds like you get a few codes from different places, whether it's your spirituality, your church. I think AA has a nice code. Yeah, that's probably my biggest one. And it's a powerful one, right? And it's a construct that works for millions of people. And the thing I like about AA is it's both an opportunity to improve yourself, but immediately move to how you help others.

Being in the service is something bigger than your self-help. It feels to me like a really strong code. I'm trying to figure out how, if masculinity can be a code for young men. I feel like a lot of young men now, they're not attaching to church, they're not attaching to school, more single parent households than any country but Sweden. They're not attached to school, more single parent households than any country but Sweden. They're not joining the service. They're not in a relationship. Only one in three men under the age of 30 is in a relationship, whereas two and three

women under the age of 30 is in a relationship. Why? Because women are dating older because they want more economically and emotionally viable men. So if a guy has, is not going to church, he's not playing sports, not in college, not in a relationship, and he doesn't have a male role model, where does he get his code?

And I actually think that while masculinity has been conflated incorrectly, in my view with toxicity or something bad, how can we better define a modern form of masculinity such that it can serve as a code for young men, a guiding light the same way kind of AA has for you. And I think very loosely, and I'm writing a book on this and I still haven't figured it out

and I'm curious if you have any thoughts. I think the kind of the three legs of the stool are provider, we live in a capitalist society. I'm not talking about the way the world should be the way it is. Men are disproportionately evaluated based on their economic viability. If your son lives in a, or your daughter lives

in a household that's economically strained, he or she is going to have a higher resting systolic blood pressure. Stress from economic stress invades everything in a capitalist society. You're expected to be a provider. And by the way, sometimes that means getting out of the way or being some more supportive of your partner who

happens to be better at this money thing than you. More women are graduating from college, two out of three jobs now need college degrees. But you should start from a position of, I need to be economically viable. I need to learn to trade, to skill, get certified, show up, work hard, and try and have some discipline around saving, develop a savings muscle. Don't be that idiot that orders bottle service.

Try to show you have your act together economically. Two, protector. I think a really nice default setting for a man bottle service, you know, try to show you have your act together economically. Two, protector. I think a really nice default setting for a man should be an immediate movement to protection. Like real men break up fights at bars, they don't start them. Real men protect their country, they don't shitpost it. You know, real men don't complain, they're there to absorb, they add surplus value, they create more revenue for the government than they consume. They help people more than maybe they require help.

And sometimes that can go off the rails because some men feel like it's not masculine to express vulnerability. So there's a downside to that. Maybe you don't understand the LGBT community. Maybe you don't believe in all this what's going on with the focus on trans rights. But your first instinct should be,

if you see a community that's being demonized, whether it's migrants, the LGBT community, your first instinct as a man, I think should be to protection. You hear someone talking shit about someone behind their back, your first instinct should be to protection. So I like that notion of protection. And the final one that's more controversial is procreator. I think the desire,

where I am now, most rewarding thing in my life I'm talking about is my boys. If we reverse engineer it, it's them, it's my partner having birth, it's us living together, it's us getting a dog, it's us spending a lot of time together,

it's us having a relationship. But if I reverse engineer it to the source code of the most rewarding thing in my life, it's me seeing this very attractive woman at the hotel pool at the Raleigh hotel. And I didn't think, oh, she's going to be great at buying land and developing it. And she's going to be economically viable and she's going to be a great mom. It started with me really being physically attracted to her. And I think men need to look at themselves and say, how do I put myself in a position

where I can be not only attractive to women, but get the skills where I can express physical desire while making them feel safe? And it's a very basic question. Would you want to have sex with you? Would you want to be romantic with you? Are you in good shape? Are you a good person?

Are you kind? Or do you have your act together professionally? Are you in good shape? Are you a good person? Are you kind? Or do you have your act together professionally? Do you listen? Do you give notice to their life? But protector, provider, and procreator, I would like to figure out a way to develop a more aspirational model for masculinity that serves as a role model or a code for young men. The book that you're working on now is something that you're saying that that kind of addresses some of that space, you know? Like figure, like kind of almost giving a, like kind of charting a course, but you know, adding some coordinates to a course for young men.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. Young men, there's no group in the world that's ascended faster than women. Right. More women are seeking tertiary education globally than men now. Yeah. Twice as many women have been elected to some sort of form of parliament in the last 30 years. More single women own homes in the US than single men. In urban centers, women are making more money

under the age of 30 than men. And by the way, we should do nothing to get in the way with that. Yeah, no, dude. That's amazing. I'm in a league of their own fan, you know? That's amazing. But the second order effect we were planning on,

and we don't like to talk about this, is that 50% of women say they want to date a guy shorter than them. I bet it's 80%. They're just embarrassed to admit it. And metaphorically, every year, women are getting taller, and men are getting shorter. Yeah.

So is that true? Well, metaphorically, if you look at how many, oh, 100% women are killing it right now, 50% more women will get college degrees this year. More than men? They'll be at 60-40. It used to be 40-60. Got it. So that's about the same.

Yeah, it's about 50% more in a couple of years. One in three men walking down the street under the age of 30 hasn't had sex in the last year. So in mating, if we're going to have an honest conversation about mating, we have to have an honest conversation. Women mate socioeconomically horizontally and up, men horizontally and down. Three out of four women say economic viability

is key to a mate. Only one in three men state that. So when the pool of horizontal and up of men is shrinking, there's less household formation. There's less relationships. And the weird thing about a lack of a relationship is that when a woman doesn't have a romantic relationship, she finds more productive uses for that additional energy. She'll channel it into work. She'll channel it into her friends, into her family. Guys come off the rails when

they don't have the guideposts of a romantic relationship. I know I did. I was getting high every night. I love marijuana. And I remember my girlfriend saying to me, basically, what it came right down to is she said, if you don't stop getting high every night, I'm going to stop having sex with you. And so I decided to stop getting high every night. Because I really enjoyed what we were doing,

and I enjoyed the relationship. I think guys need that guidepost of a relationship. And oftentimes when men don't have the guideposts of a relationship, they become insecure. They start becoming more prone to conspiracy theory. They start blaming women. They start blaming other people. I mean, some of the skills to maintain a healthy relationship

are some of the same skills required to be professionally successful. And so single men are basically the most dangerous thing in the world. A young single broke man. And I don't want to pathologize every guy that doesn't have a girlfriend. If you look at the most violent unstable societies in the world, they have a preponderance of one thing and that is young men without a lot of economic or romantic opportunities. And you're saying we're creating more of those now? Oh, 100%. Wow.

Twice as many women under the age of 30 are in a relationship versus men under the age of 30. Three million millennial men have given up on dating. They're not even trying. Yeah, I'm in groups with a lot of them. Here's one thing I would... So how does it start? So let's say, like, how does it kind of start? So if a lot of them. Here's one thing I would, so how does it start? So let's say like, how does it kind of start?

So if a lot of people are growing up, because it feels like a lot of times that a lot of our media or our society has wanted to break up the nuclear family, right? And I don't know if that's sometimes like, I buy into that. You know, I grew up outside of a regular family like you did, and so, you know, you definitely see the side effects of that. I grew up outside of a regular family like you did. And so you definitely see the side effects of that.

I have siblings that went kind of errant ways and found hope and purpose and friendship in people that were making poor choices. I got kind of lucky and found some friends that were doing the opposite kind of. But not having that role model, I think, in the home probably is probably a big start. So if that's something big that's going on, how do we, like, where do we even start with that?

Like, how do you start to fix the family first, I guess? I mean, what do you fix first? Well, like role models? You've exactly zeroed in on the ground zero of it. If you look at, so first off, let's look at the problem. If you go into a morgue and you have five young people who've died by suicide, four of them are men. Wow.

But women aren't, I mean women aren't, women don't want to, they would rather have somebody kill them I think. Or, you know what I'm saying, that's crazy to say, but it's like... I agree with you, that was crazy to say. But they love Dateline, you know what I'm saying? Like women, there's something... Well, they like crime dramas.

There's a difference between like crime drama. Yeah, but they want a guy to unexpectedly come over type of shit. Well, there's some weird shit. So, for example, women are just as prone to try to commit suicide. Unfortunately, men are more comfortable with gunplay and are more successful at it. But if you look at where a boy comes off the tracks, it's when he loses a male role model. Right.

More single parent homes than any country except for Sweden. And the interesting thing is, is that a girl in a single parent home, when we say single parent, we mean 92% of the time headed by mom. Right, because usually children stay with the mom. The family court is very biased towards women for a lot of good reasons, some less good reasons.

So a girl in a single parent home just living with mom has the same college attendance, the same levels of self-harm and depression, the same likelihood of depression. She's fine. Once a boy loses a male role model, he becomes dramatically more likely to be incarcerated, less likely to go to college,

more likely to engage in self-harm. What most of the studies show is that while boys are physically stronger, they're mentally and emotionally much weaker than girls. They mature later. They mature later, they're more prone to violence. They're more prone to self-harm. They're literally 18 months behind their prefrontal cortex.

They're biologically less mature. And without the male role model, the deep voice, the admiration, the virtuous role model of a man, they come off the tracks. And when you look at a lot of our communities with how many single parent homes they have, when you look at a lot of our communities with how many single parent homes they have, when you look at a lot of kids aren't in after school programs, kids are obese, not playing sports as much,

so they don't have as much interaction with a coach. Maybe they don't know a pastor because they're not going to church or temple. There are millions of young boys who grow up in the first male role model they have as a prison guard. And so the solution, if you were to try and win with programs, it's all right. I think of another, I think of, I go back to masculinity. The

first circle of masculinity is you take care of yourself. You're in good shape. You have good self-care. You are economically viable, right? You take care of yourself. Next ring out, you can start taking care of your family. Help out your parents, help out your siblings. You can start taking care of people at work. You overpay them. You're concerned about them. You're empathetic with them. Yeah, don't listen. You start taking care of your community. And then, yeah, things that make you feel good. Things that make you feel purpose, surplus value.

And then I think also we need to create a kind of a gestalt or default or a zeitgeist in our society where one of the ultimate expressions of masculinity is you take an interest in the well-being of a boy that's not yours. And unfortunately, because of some very unfortunate instances in the Catholic Church or well-publicized stories about- Chuck E. Cheese's or Michael Jackson. Oh, yeah. I was on Bill Maher and I said, more men like you,

Bill, need to get involved in a young man's life. He's a single guy. He's a good role model. And he's like, I can't get involved in a 15-year-old boy's life. Do you know what they'd say about me? And that's the problem. Because there's a lot of men out there with a lot of love

to give who feel a lot of fraternal and paternal love. And if you just did a quick survey of the people in your work and your neighbors, you're gonna find single mothers or a lot of your friends whose sons are struggling. And you don't have to be a baller, you just need to be a virtuous guy trying to live your life. And my mom was really good at that.

I had a guy down the hallway come over with his girlfriend and say we're going horseback riding And he took me and he would start taking me my mom a couple of my mom's boyfriend stay involved in my life after They were broken up. I had a stockbroker Theo when I was 13, I walked into Dean Witter Reynolds with $200 My mom's boyfriend had given me and I bought 12 shares of Columbia Pictures for 16 bucks a share. And every day for two years, I'd go to Emerson Junior High Paybooth, put in two dimes and call him.

I wasn't a very popular kid. Two or three times a week after school, I'd go to the stock brokerage. If you're buying stocks at lunch, yeah, you're not popular. You know, hey, you're forward thinking. Sure, sure, it's paid off now. I get that part. Got me cool, made me cool later in life.

Yeah, at a certain point, yeah, for sure. This guy, Sy Sarrow, this 30-year-old guy working at Dean Winter, and 46 years later, I got a text from Sy yesterday. We're still close. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, we were out of each other's lives for 30 years, and then we reconnected.

I actually asked my class to try and track him down, and they did. But if you're, you know, I love the statement. I think the true expression of manhood or being a good person is planting trees, the shade of which you'll never sit under. But I think more specifically for men, well, I'll ask you straight up.

Are you mentoring any young men or boys? Let me think about that. Maybe one of my nephews, but I mean he has his father, you know, but I think I keep a constant relationship with him because I want to be a part of his life, but in a more local environment in my community, no. Do you realize in New York there's big sisters and big brothers? There are three times as many applicants for big sisters than there are for big brothers? And why is that? Because young men, mothers don't get there, or the kids, the boys don't apply?

I think men have been told that if you take an interest in the life of a boy, that there's something wrong and people need to be suspect of it. Yeah, people would definitely question it. Oh, it's crazy. I remember this started maybe about 10 years ago. If I saw somebody's kid or something and I wanted to give them a compliment,

you feel like you couldn't. You gotta be careful. Yeah, and couldn't. You gotta be careful. Yeah, and then like suddenly like, You gotta be careful. Everything, there's a legal issue or you can't. Or people are suspicious. Yeah, there's a famous case of this kid, Greg Kelly, can you bring that up?

Who was, his mother was watching children. She ran a home in their after school care in their home. And one of the kids accused him of something and they don't, it seemed very flippant, but he ended up going to jail for three years and it seemed like a witch hunt, you know? Yeah, there was that childcare place in California where it ended up it was all made up.

But Theo, what you were talking about with your nephew, you can still play a huge role because I can attest to this. There's research showing your nephew right now, especially once he hits 15 or 16, he's more inclined to listen to you than his dad. Wow. So I noticed this. Yeah, you noticing?

Yeah, who were some people that? Yeah, because sometimes I do, I think about a voice that could be just like, dude, sometimes it was like, I remember one of my mom's boyfriends bought me and my brother tickets to go see a Saints game. And we were so excited. It was like a big adventure for us. So it is funny how little things that somebody shares

with you or moments that they have. I remember there was a teacher that would sit outside with me and talk to me sometimes after class. That was huge to me. Yeah, it's amazing the effect that you can have, I guess, you know, that you don't realize. Who were some of those people for you? I was really lucky.

I played sports, so I had coaches, a couple of my mom's boyfriends, like I said, after they broke up, stayed involved in my life. I had Cy, the stockbroker. And also, I'm a big fan of the Greek system at colleges. I joined a fraternity. And while people talk about, everyone's gotta find their tribe.

You gotta find your brothers or your sisters. You gotta shrink the world down to a small group of people. And for me, I don't think I would've graduated from UCLA had I not joined a fraternity. I merely got something called a big brother. I had roommates. We all kept tabs on each other. We all gave each other a tremendous amount of shit,

but it was sort of like a guiding guidepost. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. Oh dude, there's so much fun, there's nothing better than when you think about the times you were on a team of some sort, right? 100%. Just like the feeling, you know?

Did you play sports growing up? Until I was 11 years old, I didn't do much sports. I played a little bit of baseball, but it was like this field was like uneven in our town, you know And so the fucking every ball went to the same guy Yeah, we had a bad field over there and so all this dude and I was they couldn't get the guy with the radical They like the amazing fence to to give you the new shield. Yeah, that's a bad idea, right? But it doesn't have to be sports, it can be band,

it can be chess club, it can be church, but everyone's gotta find your tribe. Right, so now we're looking at some solutions to some of the things you're talking about for young people and even for mothers that have single, because a lot of times with moms, it's hard to find that space, like how do I put my kid in a place that's gonna be safe

or what's the type of thing to get him involved in? And yeah, I think that was one thing that was tough for my mom. She just didn't have as much time. I was fortunate I had a basketball coach that would give me rides home from practice. And so that changed a lot of things because then as long as I could get to practice

and I could get home. So that was like an amazing role model that I had this guy coach Steve that was really awesome. Yeah, I think, and then yeah, you're right. Like how can I do that in my own community? Like what are ways that I could start to do that? But yeah, so creating a group for your kid, finding a group for your kid to be in. Well, there's a lot of and there's a lot of more systemic things we could do. So for example,

yeah, I'm a big fan of vocational programming. In America, we have this kind of zeitgeist that if your kid doesn't go to Dartmouth and end up at Google, then not only is the kid failed, but you failed as parents. And two thirds of our kids are not going to end up with a college degree. 3% of LinkedIn profiles in the US say apprentice. It's 11% in the UK and Germany. We need more of an apprentice culture, and we need to stop

shaming kind of trades jobs. I think we should start boys, we should redshirt them. We should start them a year later in kindergarten because they're literally biologically less mature than their female counterparts. You don't notice this as much because you don't have kids, but I have a 14 year old. My 14 year old just had a Halloween party,

15 boys, 15 girls. The boys are 14. A couple of the girls look like they could be the junior senator from Pennsylvania. They look 35 and they act that way. senator from Pennsylvania. Yeah. They look 35. Yeah. And they act that way. They act that mature. They literally mature faster.

I think if a college isn't growing its freshman seats faster than population, it should lose its tax-free status because it's no longer a public service. It's a hedge fund with classes. I'm a big fan of the idea of mandatory national service. I've spent some time in Israel recently. Despite the existential threats and the problems in Israel, there's less young adult depression in Israel than almost any Western country.

And I think it's because of national service. They're serving the agency of something bigger than themselves. They're outside, they're in great shape. They're learning how to handle weapons, equipment. It's where they meet co-founders of businesses. It's where they make lifelong friends. It's where they meet potential mates. So I think mandatory national service would be huge for us.

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. And for decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. Get all your jobs done well at Angie.com. Many of you know that I used to have a job in my hometown and it was off the books. I would clean the coins out of wishing wells for the city of Covington. Well, Acorns lets you start investing with the money you've got right now, even if it's just spare change. Sounds like a match made in heaven, doesn't it? I know firsthand how much spare change can start stacking up.

Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start investing with the money you've got right now. I like that. That's right, you don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you.

You don't need to be rich. Start with just $5 a day or even your spare change. That's it. When I look back in my life, the one, the most invaluable thing that I had is time. And if I'd been investing small bits at certain moments, man, that would have built up quick. And here's the best part, sign up now and Acorns

will boost your new account with a $20 bonus investment. Thank you. All for only available at Acorns, A-C-O-R-N-S.com slash theo. That's acorns dot com slash t-h-e-o to get your $20 bonus investment now. Paid non-client endorsement.

Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Investing involves risk. Acorns advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash theo. For some, it's the most wonderful time of the year. And for others, it's just another round of dodging questions about your love life while trying not to look like

you just crawled out of a cave. Enter the Performance Package 5.0 Ultra by Manscaped. To save your dignity this holiday season, Manscaped will be there. Don't be that family member who shows up solo and scruffy to yet another holiday gathering. Iron your shirt and trim your life. Get your winter overgrowth under control with the Weed Whacker.0 and the lawnmower 5.0 ultra. Help you seal the deal this cuffing season. Join the over 11 million men worldwide who trust manscaped. They help. I use them. That weed whacker 2.0 ear and nose hair trimmer. God, clean me out.

They do it, get in there smooth trimming every time. Oh God, me. Get 20% off in free shipping with code Theo at manscaped.com. That's 20% off in free shipping with the code THEO at manscaped.com. Stay on top of your grooming game and be ready for anything the season throws your way. It feels a lot of times like there's an attack

on being a man. 100%. You know, you're like, you feel like these days, if you're a kid that's not bi, then you're not even gonna be welcome at school. No, there's- And I don't know if that's true, I don't talk to kids. I don't know that, but it's like,

you get this feeling sometimes like, I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about. Well, to your point, did you have the Presidential Fitness Awards when you were in? Yeah. I got badge one, you got a number on it. I got badge one, badge two, and I had a growth spurt

and I couldn't do the pull-ups. And I trained for a year, pull-ups, and I got strong again. And now the awards are done away with because it was sauce fat shaming. So, and if you walk down the halls of NYU, you're gonna see all these support groups for women. Black women in consulting, golden seeds,

women in venture capital, there are no support groups for men. And I don't think men have a place in our political world. I think the far right is kind of telling men to be, quite frankly, a little bit coarse and cruel. It's toughness and strength gone a little bit overboard. But on the far left, their definition of masculinity and their advice to men

is to be more like a woman. That doesn't work either. So we need to re-embrace the notion. I mean, I say jokingly, when Russian troops come pouring over the Ukrainian border, you want some of that big dick energy. Oh, yeah. There's nothing wrong with being physically strong.

I think any man under the age of 30, our bone structure and that double twitch muscle with this amazing substance called testosterone poured over it is a fucking amazing thing. You're going to look back on your physique right now and your strength, and you're going to wish, and you kind of look this way, that you were a monster. Any man under the age of 30 should be able to walk into any room and know that if shit got real,

they could either kill and eat everybody or outrun them. And that is a wonderful feeling. It'll make you less prone to mental illness. It'll make you more attractive to mates, less likely to be depressed. And you'll be that guy that breaks up fights at bars, not that's insecure, right? This is strength, re-embracing strength, re-embracing protection, re-embracing initiating relationships.

I force my kids, I don't do this anymore because I've had enough of it, but when we left the house, I used to say, I'm not gonna let them back in unless they talk to a stranger. And it was easy for one of them, it was hard for the other. I'm like, just go up to them and pet their dog and say what kind of dog it is.

Because your ability to initiate contact is key to finding a job. It's not easy to email strangers or go into a strange interview. Your ability to express interest, romantic interest while making someone feel safe, right? Demonstrating excellence. Where does a guy demonstrate excellence right now? Doesn't go into work, doesn't go to church, right?

Isn't playing sports, right? Isn't going to college. So where do men demonstrate excellence and attach to relationships? But there is, we talk a lot about misogyny. It's a huge problem. It has been for a long time. What we don't talk about is misandry.

And that is- What is misandry? A hate of men. There's generally- Yeah. If you were to talk, have you ever heard the term toxic femininity? People don't use that term.

But toxic masculinity, it's almost like it's become one word. Oh, I feel there are places I feel embarrassed even being because I feel like people look at me and think like, oh, this guy thinks he's some kind of man or something, you know? That would be true. But that happens to me in New York City sometimes. You feel that way here. Yep, there's certain places I'll walk in.

And just by the ambiance of the people that work there or something, I'll think that. And I'm not saying that that's real, but it could just be perceived in my head. But I feel like I almost have to play down being a man's or if I'm going to be like accepted in this space, you know, or feel welcome here. Yeah, there's definitely, but there's definitely, and if you look at, if you look at the stats though, men are really struggling. Like we don't have a male homeless problem. I'm sorry, we don't have a homeless problem. We have a male homeless problem. Yeah, we have an opiate problem, but we really have a male opiate problem. Three out of four homeless, three out of four addicts are men. And if you had four out of five people killing themselves, they were in any one special interest group,

we would do something about it. And there's a lack of empathy. Because of the 2000 year head start we've had on women, there's a lack of empathy for men. Who had it mended? Oh yeah, we've been. How? Oh, come on. Even when I grew up, Theo,

when I came of professional age in the 90s, 98% at least of venture capital went to the 24% of the population that were white heterosexual males. Okay, so men had that, I see what you're talking about. Until the last 30 years, men have had literally a 2,000 year head start. But because of my advantage, does that mean a 19 year old male should be punished for it? Right.

There just isn't a recognition that a 19-year-old male with a single mother in Appalachia, he's got no advantage. As a matter of fact, he's kind of disadvantaged right now. Oh, well, there's certainly an attack on white males, it feels like. And then if you're white, you can't be like, hey, can we do a white help group? You know what I'm saying?

Because suddenly you're racist. There's definitely this shaming of being in white skin, and it's like, we're constantly doing that, reliving the past or refocusing on the past and using it as a scope to aim at the present. And it's not very fair, and I definitely see it as a lot of people feel embarrassed to be white. And that's a shame, because you didn feel embarrassed to be white, you know? And that's a shame, you know,

because you didn't choose to be white. And a lot of people, white people, we didn't have shit, dude, you know what I'm saying? Like, at least when I was growing up, I felt like if you were black, people like, like you at least had the like, well, I'm fucked because of society, you know? But if you were white, you're just like,

people were like, you didn't even have an excuse, you know? If you weren't doing good, you're like, well, how do you not do good, you know, I don't know It's a nuanced conversation that they'll because yes, I know it's nuance. I'm being you know, I'm kind of generalized I'm not trying to correlate anything. I'm just saying yeah, you can't make a hey white people need help also group But but we're talking about the bias against males. Mm-hmm our the business I'm in, is highly biased against men or boys. 70 to 80% of primary school teachers are women. Who are they gonna naturally champion? Someone who reminds them of themselves. What are the behaviors we promote in school?

Be organized, be a pleaser, sit still. You're basically describing a girl. They're more per capita female fighter pilots than there are male kindergarten teachers. We don't need male kindergarten teachers, I don't think. Oh, sure we do. You think so? Young men need male role models.

Right, I agree with that. I think we need a PE teacher with some short shorts, you know, saying he's kind of, you know, who doesn't want to go home to his wife. But I don't know if we need, if I'd have walked into a kindergarten, you know, I mean, but I still keep in touch with a lot of my teachers. I had a lot of affinity for them,

whether they were male or women. I did have male middle school teachers. I don't know what I'd be alarmed if there was a male kindergarten teacher. But an example of that, the bias, a boy is on a risk, on a behavior adjusted basis is twice as likely to be suspended. You have a girl and a boy two different times,

same infraction, cheating on the chemistry test. The boy is twice as likely to be suspended as the girl. The black boy is five times as likely to be suspended. So a lot of the issues we're talking about, self-harm, depression, lack of success in school, is really difficult among young boys, and it's even more acute among non-white. Now when you get to college, the whole DEI thing, right?

60 years ago, there were only 12 black people at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale combined. That was a problem. So giving them the advantage or a lift up with race-based affirmative action was the right thing to do 60 years ago. Now, this year, two thirds of Harvard's freshman class identifies as non-white.

70% of those people, however, come from dual parent upper income homes. So when you're letting in the daughter of a private equity Taiwanese billionaire, that's not diversity. That's not helping anybody. So what I would argue is affirmative action is a wonderful thing, but it should be based on color, but that color is green. And that as a white kid from Appalachia, I'm a beneficiary of affirmative action. I got Pell grants in 1994.

Oh yeah, I got them. There you go. I think that's the way to go. Because the wonderful thing about America today, and we don't celebrate America's progress enough. Young people want to shitpost it as if we've made no progress. We've made extraordinary progress and as fucked up as we are, we're less fucked up than I believe any nation in the world. You would rather be born in America, and this is a good thing, you'd rather be born today, and the stats show this, you'd rather be born gay or non-white than poor. The people who need a hand up, the best way to identify who is most screwed and is going to face the biggest obstacles and deserves the most additional resources and kind of unfair help is a poor kid.

We need to get out of identity politics and focus on economics. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good point, man. I don't know how, you know, I know we're looking at a lot of the issues. It's like, how do we get into solution and also keep it positive? Because sometimes I'll get in this space where I'm just looking at the problems, right? So how do I start looking at the solutions to like,

I mean, I guess you said you can get involved in your community. You can try to take care of yourself as a young man. But then it just also feels like a ton of pressure on young men, you know? Yeah, but you feel that pressure, right? I mean, you're here in New York, you gotta get gas. You gotta, you feel pressure, I'm sure. That's part of it. Oh yeah, I definitely feel pressure.

I guess I'm thinking like as a young man, you know? Like how do you start to create masculinity if you were just a young, if you're, you know, say you're 20 years old and you were raised by a single mother and you're out in college right now, how do you start to, I guess, define your world of, you know, staying, feeling masculine and creating more masculinity in your life?

And maybe you've outlined some of those things already, you know? I think, again, it's come back, masculinity is a social construct. We get to decide what it is. And by the way, it's not sequestered to people just born as males. Before my shoulders got all fucked up, I used to get a CrossFit.

And I noticed over 20 years more and more women showing up. Some women demonstrate wonderful masculinity. I'm drawn to men. My closest friends are more feminine. They're more caring. I have male friends who kind of take care of me. But I think using those things as a code could be a great guidepost for young men.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be strong. There's nothing wrong with wanting to have sex and wanting to find romantic and sexual partners and using that as a guide. Why are women, for example, why are women drawn to men? What are they attracted to in reverse order? And there's research around this.

Number three, kindness. They want a guy that's nice to his parents. They want a guy that treats strangers well. They want a guy that thinks about other people even when they're not in front of them, that treats them well even though they'll never see them again. Number two is intellect.

And this goes way back anthropologically. The guy who makes good decisions for the tribe, the tribe's more likely to survive. At some point, typically throughout history, women are much more vulnerable because they give birth, and they're much more physically vulnerable. So a woman wants a man who is smart and makes good decisions.

By the way, the fastest way to communicate intellect is humor. Yeah. I jokingly say my impression of a woman is, I'm laughing, I'm laughing, I I jokingly say my impression of a woman is I'm laughing, I'm laughing, I'm naked. If you can make a woman laugh. Wow.

If you can make a woman laugh. Yeah. Look at you, you're looking guilty. No, I'm thinking to some laughing, I'm laughing. And then, oh, you're missing, you know? That's more, cause it's like, I'll always won't close a deal. You know what I'm saying?

I'll literally be fucking. I don't, I don't buy that for now. I'll stand on the curb and I will not get in the Uber, dude. I just, there's, I just, I mean, I just, I get afraid the other day. I talked to some girl, right? I saw her at the fricking Whole Foods, dude. She was getting, I thought it was spaghetti or something. I was like, oh, you like spaghetti?

But I had looked at the wrong thing or whatever and she was buying flowers, right? And she's like, what is this guy talking about? But I guess she thought it was cute or whatever. And so then I kept talking. And then I was like, oh, do you know if there's a hot bar around here? And she's like, what is this guy talking about? But I guess she thought it was cute or whatever. And so then I kept talking. And then I was like, oh, do you know if there's a hot bar around here? And she goes, it's on the other side.

So I went, then I'm like, fuck, now I have to go to the other side, away from her, right? Then she comes over there and I'm like, this is it, you know? And then I just kept looking at her and then she left, you know? Yeah, but this is a good segue to the number one thing. Okay. And that is the ability to signal resources.

Yeah. And it's not necessarily you have to be a baller at that moment, but you have to have a plan. Yeah. You have to be the guy that's disciplined. One of the reasons women are attracted to men who are in good shape is it shows you show up, it shows you have discipline.

So if I could give you any advice in that specific situation, it would be, oh, hi, are those flowers? By the way, I have one of the 10 biggest podcasts in the world. Boss, that's how, anyways, but you get my meaning. Three, kindness, two, intellect, and one, your ability to signal resources.

I see. Would you like to go to Holland where they have tulips year round? I could say that. I'm leaving tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then I'm not, but still. Take her to holland.com.

I don't know where you got that. But still, yeah, that could be interesting. Yeah, I think there is that, but yeah, that confidence, it's a good point, you know, to signal that you just have confidence in yourself. That's really what that is, you know, is just saying I have some confidence enough in myself. And sometimes I'll,

sometimes I will make the extra step, but it's just like, I have to just practice it more. And I have to realize that if that one girl says no, it's not that every girl's saying no, man, that this is just a, it's just a momentary, it's just a momentary challenge. What would you say to mothers who have children, right? Single mothers who have children, how can they do that for their kids? You know, one thing I, that I will think is put your kid into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class.

I think it was the best place that I ever went. I trained for like maybe a year and a half, right? It was the first place I ever went where you would be wrestling one second, but then having an emotional conversation with somebody the next second. Because it was very- You and Lex Friedman, you're both religious, right?

No, he's really, he's still doing it, practicing, right? I just kept getting hurt so bad and it was affecting my ability to work. Yeah, yeah. But it was like, you were like monkeys, you know? Like you would like be battling against somebody, but even if you lost, they still cared about you. So there was this element of safety

that you started to learn, right? And that felt like years of manhood in months that I was learning. But you said something really important and that is I was asked, so I'm an entrepreneur, I've registered some success and I get a lot, what's the secret to your success? I'm like, one, it was being smart enough to be born in America. There's just more opportunity. You'd rather be good in America than great in almost any other country. Wow. There really is.

You have more agency here if you work hard and you're a good person to be successful than any place in the world. And none of that was my fault. It was my parents' fault. They got on a ship, a steamship in the 60s from Europe, take a huge risk, which paid huge benefit for me. I came of professional age in California

where I got free education that was accessible, came of age in the internet. And when I was your age, I was like all my success in my mind was because of my character, my grit. And then as you get older, you realize a lot of your successes isn't your fault. But if I've done one thing well, it's what I call failure. And that is I ran for sophomore, junior and senior class presidents, I lost three times. And based on my track record, I decided to run for student body president where I went on to wait for it lose. I've started nine businesses,

seven have failed. I can't tell you how many women in Whole Foods and other places and other retail establishments I've been rejected by. Yeah. But the reason I get to live the life I lead, the reason I'm to live the life I lead, the reason I'm with a very high character attractive person is because I have always been able to endure rejection. And that is the key. That is the skill.

Because one of the great things about America is we don't embrace failure. That's bullshit. But we tolerate it. If your business fails, but you're a good person, usually your investors will back you again. And if you approach a woman and express interest and she's not interested, you're both gonna be fine.

And show me a guy, show me a guy. You know, we all know that guy. You think, okay, he's a nice guy. He's modestly successful. He's not that attractive. And he's with just such a high quality woman. That guy is not afraid of rejection. That guy cycled through nine women who said,

get the fuck away from me before he found that one woman who gave him a chance to be funny, kind. She was drawn to his smell. She liked the way he treated his parents. The key to success in America is what Winston Churchill said and that is the willingness to fail, or your ability to fail and not lose your sense of enthusiasm. And the one thing about jiu-jitsu and about sports

is, quite frankly, it teaches you how to lose and show up the next day. So I think you've got to put your kids and mothers got to put their sons in an environment where they- This is off and it's ringing, so that's the government. I'm not even joking. It happens a lot. Go on.

Anyways, your willingness or your resilience, your ability to move through rejection without losing your sense of enthusiasm. Yeah, it's funny. A lot of times, if I felt rejection, it attached to some old feelings inside of myself that were of rejection. And that would be, it felt demoralizing at times.

But I agree with you. Yeah, we've seen those guys who are like, how did that guy do it? How did he figure it out? How was he able to just show up for himself in the face of rejection? But I bet rejection does get easier the more you start to swim in it.

You realize that, I mean, here's the thing. So I know you're religious. I'm an atheist. I think at some point I'm going to look into my kids' eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end. And it's empowering. It's one of the biggest unlocks in my life. Because I realize if I fuck up on this podcast

and you don't think a lot of me, I'm bummed. But you're going to be dead soon. And so am I. It really doesn't matter. Everything we're worried about, we're a group of mites on an unremarkable rock in one of a billion universes in 10 billion galaxies. We're not even here for the blink of an eye. So why on earth wouldn't you squeeze as much lemon or juice out of this lemon as possible? Because the moment you think you've done something embarrassing, the moment you're worried about approaching that woman at Whole Foods,

everyone who saw you, everyone you're worried about, she, they go on to thinking about themselves right away. And it doesn't matter, because you're both gonna be dead soon. I find that liberating. Why wouldn't you go up to someone and tell them you admire them? And it's also an unlock for me emotionally. I started that liberating. Why wouldn't you go up to someone and tell them you admire them? And it's also an unlock for me emotionally. I started telling people I love them. I started

telling people I care about them. I started when I was single going up to people outside of my weight class and telling them I was interested in them romantically. Most of the time they'd say no and guess what? We're both going to be fine because we're both going to be dead, Theo. It doesn't really matter. So this ability to get back your embarrassment, get over your fear, for me, that sounds strange, but it comes from a recognition that I'm just not gonna be here that long and either or they. It's this enormous unlock.

Because if you think about what you said about, I mean, for God sakes, you're like this baller. You're a handsome guy who's got a top 10 podcast and you're intimidated by some woman at Whole Foods. Can you imagine how most men feel? Yeah. So what you gotta do is, and what I'm trying to do with my sons,

is I'm trying to encourage them to say, okay, get up, talk to strangers, talk to strange women. Also, kind of a segue here, try and modulate your use of porn such that at some point you become so fucking horny, you're willing to take those risks. Yeah, now that's it. We can definitely go there, brother.

Cause yeah, I think that was something that I got sidetracked with pornography for sure, man, you know? And I'll tell you why too. For pornography, for me, it was a relationship that I could manage, right? It was the first kind of interaction with women, it felt like, that I could manage this. It's like...

It's low risk. It's low risk. It's available when you need it to start and when you need it to stop, right? It was like, that was something that was very manageable for me, but then over time, it starts, you realize that it kind of devalues women. It makes you think of sex, like,

in just like still frames and instances, right? And he would see sex as individual scenes of things. I would have a date set up, then I would end up masturbating and then I wouldn't even go on the date. Cause I was like, well, now I don't feel any fire inside of me. Who's your mojo?

Yeah, and then you do that for a decade and your mojo is a ghost. But we were talking about school and society and a bias against men that hurts men, right? And what I would say is that one of the biggest obstacles men face right now is the most talented, deepest resource companies in the world that attract the brightest minds and the most capital

and have the best technology are all trying to do the same thing. They're all trying to give men the false impression they have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen with an algorithm. You don't need friends. What's a facsimile? I'm sorry. They can have a fake life. They can have a life on a screen with an algorithm. Oh, yeah. So you don't need friends. Having friends is hard. Remember making your posse of friends and in elementary and junior high trying to break into the right the right pecking

order of friends. It was high barriers of entry, but it was high barriers of exit, right. And you learned a lot together and we used to take off. You know, I think parents over protect their kids now I used to leave my mom's house at nine in the morning on a Saturday with a Schwinn bike and Abba's Abba bar and 35 cents and she wouldn't see me for 14 hours. But what are tech companies?

What are the brightest companies in the world that are the most well-resourced? You don't need friends. He got Reddit and Discord. You don't need to go through the humiliation of trying to get a job and buying a suit and showing up on time. Trade crypto or stocks on Coinbase or Robinhood.

You don't need to go through the humiliation, the rejection, the perseverance of trying to establish a romantic relationship, going on dates, being funny, trying hard, enduring rejection, following up. Why? Why would you do that? You got you porn. And what we gotta tell men,

what we gotta convince them of is over the longterm, nothing wonderful is gonna happen to you on a screen, ever. And also, you porn is a distant second to your porn. I'm convinced I wouldn't have graduated from UCLA if I didn't think there was a reasonable probability that if I went to class and went on campus at UCLA, I might meet someone. That was my far.

And I quite frankly, if I had you porn at home and I had these new AI girlfriends, I'm not sure I would have ever gone on campus. So this is what young men are facing. They're facing a low risk, low barrier of entry, reasonable facsimile of life, that over time they get depressed and lonely. Because the reason romantic comedies are two hours

and not 15 minutes is this shit is hard. But here's the good news, it's worth it. It's absolutely worth it. Well right now I think you have like, even with like elections, like you're almost people are trying to vote that back into, I think there's a little bit of like, well we need to get something masculine going on, you know?

100%. Because it's definitely, this world, it has to get something masculine going on, you know, because it's definitely this world, it has a big labia on it, you know, and we need to, and that's fine. You say that like it's a bad thing. No, I don't. Look, we're happy with a decent amount of labia, but we need to make sure it's, you know.

Hey, are you buying flowers? Yeah. Oh, that's pasta. But here's what I think. I think people are expecting the government to rescue them. That's what I mean with some of the voting, right? But how much of that is us having to govern ourselves? And how much of that is do we need some changes in our actual laws and stuff like that?

What is realistic of one to expect? Does that make sense? I've been thinking about this election. Well, like what is realistic of one to expect? Well, I've been think sense I've been thinking about this election. Yeah, I do But I've been thinking a lot about this election and I was vocal I supported Harris I was shocked she got beaten and she got beat she got destroyed. She just kept being she got destroyed She went seven of the she lost seven of the seven swing states as I looked at the data I would describe this election as the testosterone election. And what do you have?

You have men doing more poorly, men under the age of 30 doing more poorly than they have in a long time. And it all, the election all zeros down to one piece of data for me, or the results. For the first time in our nation's history, for the first time in 275 years, a man or woman at the age of 30 isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That's never happened before. Okay, so let's say that again,

getting a little bit slower, Scott, just so we can really digest that a little bit. A man. For the first time in our nation's history, a man or woman at 30 isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. Wow. It's always been your kids are doing better

than you on average. And when that doesn't happen. You start to feel like a failure as a child, especially in light to your parents, for sure. Not only your self-esteem, but it creates rage and shame in the household. And who's doing really poorly under 30? Men.

The average 70-year-old is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. The average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy. And 210 times a day, they get a notification on their phone reminding them that they're failing, because it seems like everyone is at the Amman Hotel or flying in a Gulfstream. But everyone's telling me that the economy is good.

I keep hearing about crypto going to $80,000, stock market hitting 71 highs in the last 12 months. All these things are true. But I'm living at home home and I can't afford rent Well, if I'm you one more little coin pussy running around about this Bitcoin stuff I'm gonna fucking eat my own nuts off my body That stuff I lost two thousand dollars in it like every one of my friends did about four years ago And I didn't touch it since then I'm a new pointer to this is a pyramid scheme

It feels like I'm a new coiner. are? Yeah, I've never owned a coin. Well, it just seems like it's like, oh, I can sit here and win this thing from home. Easy money. And that's more to part of the trap that you're saying, is you can't sit here and win this thing from home, probably. But when your kids aren't doing well, you're not interested in hearing about territorial sovereignty

in Ukraine. You're not interested in talking about trans rights. Your kid isn't doing well. And when your kid isn't doing well, you don't want change. You don't want a Democrat. You not only don't want change, you want disruption. You want chaos. Oh, yeah.

And you also, you want some of that what I'll call male energy back. And look at how Trump positioned himself. What did he do? Crypto, Embrace of Cars and Rockets, Elon. What medium? Did he go on MSNBC and CNN and Fox? He went to UFC fights. And he went on podcasts, your podcast.

Yeah, I wonder if that affected a lot, I don't know. Oh my gosh, are you kidding? The UFC is what did it, and the guy didn't fucking stop. People can say whatever they want. That's a 70 or eight year old dude who for four years, the guy, I don't know if he doesn't sleep, but the guy works hard. He got killed a couple times.

He climbed back out of the coffin or whatever. He kept dying and getting up and go. He didn't stop. There's something, at a certain point, you just have to be like, I'm not betting against that dude, you know? And you got Elon, people love Elon. He got, you know, I just feel like the parties have changed.

I used to feel like a Democrat. I don't even know what, nothing really embodies me anymore, it feels like, I don't know. It's all changed now, it feels like. But look at, let's just use some examples. MSNBC, which is considered like the left or a big political network, average a million, it's most popular shows get a million viewers.

You know what the average age is of MSNBC? 70. Wow. And of years towards women. Podcasts, Joe Rogan, Trump goes on Joe Rogan, 40 million views on YouTube, 15 million downloads, average age 34, 55 million 34 year old males versus 1 million seven year old women.

And what do you know? Let me guess, he was on your podcast, right? Yeah. Okay, he was on who the boys that call him the whoop. His strategy was I'm gonna take the top 10 podcasts, right, eight of them lean right and lean male. I'm going to take the top 10 podcasts, right? Eight of them lean right and lean male. I'm going on every one of them.

I'm not going on CNN or Fox. I'm going, I am flying into the testosterone storm and the media of men right now is podcasting. It's where young men are going. Yeah, that's probably true. Yeah. I mean, I like watching podcasts and podcast clips and stuff like that more But it's also you look at Rogan used to be a Democrat. He was a leftist. I'm a Bernie fan It's like these people fucking alienated my heroes in the Democratic Party. It's gotten like, you know, it's very bizarre

I mean the poll the political part of it is very bizarre to me But I do think there's a lot about what you're saying is like, yeah, a man wants to feel like it's okay to be a man. And you're like, sometimes you leave the house, like, is it okay to be a man? Do I have to put my, do I have to check my dick at the door of this restaurant or whatever? Like it's, it feels like that sometimes, you know?

And it's not how somebody should feel. So yeah, I think it's, I think it's great that we're talking about this and that we're thinking about that stuff, you know? What do you think the effects of social media are on young men? Oh, it's a disaster. There's my colleague at NYU, Jonathan Heide,

he wrote this book called The Anxious Generation. Jonathan Heide? Heide, Jonathan Heide, H-A-I-D-T. Essentially, there's a lot of peer-reviewed research, including research that just came out of Oxford, showing that there's about a 60% increase in self-harm, eating disorders, and anxiety for people who spend too much time

on social media. Imagine, did you have social media when you were in school? No, dude, you had to yell at somebody, right? But imagine the cafeteria. The graffiti, that was the only social media we had, dude, you'd be like, you know, Larry likes dudes. And it was like, whoa, who knows, bro? But it never told you their last name.

It was very, and it would be like, but now even graffiti, dude, especially like in Brooklyn, it's so, it's like Larry likes dudes, but only if he's okay with it. I read that. And I was like, that's not, what is it? Everything's fucking confusing, dude. Nobody cared if Larry liked dudes or not.

It was just the fact that somebody got to say it, you know, and then now it's like only if he's cool with it It's like who's right? Anyway, so you say the bottom of social media is bad It's bad for teen girls and it's bad really bad for young men. There's a direct There's a linear correlation between anxiety eating disorders with young women anxiety with men Because it's like you never get to leave the high school cafeteria. And it's especially hard on girls in high school because boys bully physically and verbally,

girls bully relationally, and we put these nuclear weapons in their hands. They're actually a little bit, they can be a little bit meaner. And so, and then you take online dating. Anytime you digitize a sector, it becomes a winner take most environment. So-

Okay, say that one more time. Anytime you digitize a sector, like what does that mean? Anytime a sector becomes all about the internet. So retail used to be stores, it becomes online. Amazon now controls 50% of all e-commerce, right? We used to go to the Encyclopedia Britannica, to the library, to Microfeature, to different newspapers. Now we go to Google.

Google has 93% of search. Social, Facebook and Metta owns 2 thirds of all social media. Online dating, everyone has access to everyone. You think that's good? It's not. Because women all want the same dude. And if you have 50 men on Tinder and 50 women, 46 of the women will show all of their attention

to just four men. Wow. So that leaves 46 men fighting over four women. And the reality is those women can have sex with the top 10%, but they're usually not going to have a relationship. And because that top 10% of men get 80% to 90% of the opportunities, they can engage in what I refer to as Porsche polygamy.

And that is, it doesn't encourage long-term good behavior. It doesn't encourage them to settle down. Whereas when we were kids, you went to your church, your temple, your high school, and you kind of figured out your weight class. There were eight single women at your temple, eight single men, and you sort of paired off.

And men had an opportunity to demonstrate excellence at some point. If you talk to married couples that have been together longer than 30 years, 75% of them say one was much more interested in the other and was always the man who was much more interested. But over time, she saw that he was kind. She worked with him.

He was good at what he did. So where do men demonstrate excellence now? And then a man goes online, here, check out this stat. On Tinder, a man of average attractiveness has to swipe right 200 times to get one swipe back for one coffee. And then four of five of those coffees will ghost him. Her screen will come up again

and she'll decide not to show up for a coffee. So a guy of average attractiveness on a dating app has to swipe right a thousand times to get a coffee so he feels rejected by women. He becomes much more prone to misogynistic content online, prone to conspiracy theory, less likely to believe in climate change. And he's hopped up on caffeine too because he's been fucking sitting there sipping by himself, you know? In some he becomes a shitty citizen.

So social media and online dating have been really bad for young men and women. I think online dating has been especially rough on men. Yeah, yeah, I don't like to be online dating. I haven't been on, I'm like seven years off of it. Raya won't let me on there because I told an awesome joke on Twitter that they got offended by, I guess.

So fuck them anyway, dude. But I also, I didn't want somebody to be able to say no to me when I wasn't there in person. That's how it felt to me. I just didn't want to give somebody that pleasure that they could say no. And even though it's not a real no, it's all very hypothetical,

but I just didn't want to allow somebody to have that. But then also by not doing that, it is hard, you have to meet people in real time, in real life, you know? And so it is more of a challenge, but it's also, you know, it is, I guess, you just feeling like you're not getting rejected. When I started podcasting and online stores, the furthest thing from my mind, the last thing,

I was thinking about other stuff, hot air balloons and making love and different stuff like that, and mostly women and other stuff that's good desserts. Now we have an online store and we're selling different things. In fact, we just put a couple new items in there and it's so easy all because I use Shopify. That's who helps me. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage to the first real life store stage, all the way to the, did we just hit a half a million

orders stage? Shopify is there to help you grow. Whether you're selling scented soap or, or dang raccoon fur, hats, or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash T-H-E-O, all lowercase. Just go to Shopify.com slash Theo now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash T-H-E-O.

Our next sponsor needs no introduction because you know I've talked about them a million times and if you really want to feel them, if you really want to get that cane going for you and help you run up off that limp, baby, Blue Chew. That's right. Put that viking in your striking, daddy. This isn't your grandpa's blue pill.

This is the one, the OG pill, this is the one. The OG chewable tablet for better sex. Bluechew is a unique online service that delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra, but at a fraction of the cost and in chewable form. Does it work? Yep. Do you think you need it? Talk to them. You can try it free also for a month and see. You're going to love it. I like it.

Boom. Bluechew wants the entire country rock hard. They told me that's the mission. They will not stop until every man is bricked up. Like a brick house. Till every 10 is pitched, till every rod is raised. Discover your options at blueChew.com. And we've got a special deal for our listeners.

Try BlueChew free when you use our promo code THEO at checkout. Just pay $5 shipping, that's it. That's B-L-U-E-C-H-E-W.com, promo code THEO, to receive your first month free. Visit BlueChew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank blu2 for sponsoring the podcast. How do we prevent moms from just having to raise these young men by themselves?

Like what would you say to a young couple that's starting out if the male is listening or the female to help give them the best chance to stay together, which would seem like would help affect other Positive things along the way So again, we we have a tendency in our society to assume that all divorce is the man's fault that the man is either a Predator or not a good person and the woman has no agency and she's the victim And the reality is 70% of divorce filings are filed by women. And the majority of those divorce filings, if you look at why the woman is filed for divorce,

it's not infidelity, it's not a lack of shared values, it's the man has something happens that makes him less economically viable. A mental breakdown, a loss of a business, a bankruptcy. Women still look at men primarily as being providers. And once a man, a man going through divorce, so young men are four times as likely to kill themselves, a man two years after divorce is eight times as likely.

He no longer serves a role in his church, he no longer serves a role in his primary relationship, he might lose his kids. One out of three men have no contact with their children after six years. So he has literally no role. After six years of a divorce, you mean? After six years of divorce, one out of three men has have no contact with their children after six years. So he has literally no role. After six years of a divorce, you mean? After six years of divorce, one out of three men has absolutely no contact with their children.

No way. Oh man, that's heartbreaking. Well, it's hard when you're not around a lot. So what I would suggest is that, one, I think we need to level up young people economically. And I don't think you can just target men for economic programs. I think it's too political. But I think we need to restore the child tax credit. I think we need a massive program to build more housing. I think we should have national nuclear energy projects similar to what Truman did in the 50s with the National Highway Act.

It'll create hundreds of thousands of good millions of good paying jobs for young men. So what do you mean talking about like space mountain going everywhere? What do you mean? You mean like a train system? No. So if you look at what's happening in our economy with AI and some of the innovations around digital,

the choke point or the friction is energy. We're not going to have enough energy. We're not going to. So nuclear energy is, in my opinion, the cleanest form of energy. And we're going to need a massive number of nuclear power plants built. Those are good jobs. The National Infrastructure Act, 70% of those jobs are for young men.

That's a good thing. In sum, let me back up. Biggest innovation in history is not the microchip or the smartphone. It's the American middle class. And the way the American middle class happened, it's an accident. It's not normal throughout history to have American middle class. And the way the American middle class happened, it's an accident. It's not normal throughout history to have a middle class. The way the American middle class formed in America

was we had seven million men returned from World War II, and they had demonstrated excellence in uniform. They were in good shape. They were strong. They had demonstrated real heroism. And then Truman put in place a variety of programs that leveled them up economically, right? The GI Bill, FHA, or Subsidized Home Loans, National Transportation Act.

He created millions and millions of men who, quite frankly, were really solid citizens who were attracted to women. There was huge household formations, and it gave rise to the baby boom. And this created a number, millions of American households that thought, I wanna give other people this opportunity. I wanna bring women into this opportunity. I wanna bring non-whites into this opportunity. Eventually I wanna bring gay people in this opportunity. It created a more loving, generous,

what I'll call liberal society. We have to feed the middle class. And the part that's failing the middle class right now is young men. So the question is, how do we level up young men? Quite frankly, economically? And I think it's a variety of programs, national service, more job programs, more apprenticeship.

What does national service mean? Two-year mandatory national service to get out of high school. Oh, I see what you're saying. You serve either in the armed services, maybe going to senior care, maybe you help the, whatever it might be. Right, it could be like digging dam, installing stuff like that. Fighting know, whatever it might be. Right, it could be like digging dam,

or you know, installing like a- Fighting fires, whatever it might be, helping seniors. Wow, cause then first of all, you're gonna feel a attraction to your own country. You're gonna feel like you contributed. And once you feel like you contributed something, it means something to you. It's like whenever you used to, you know,

your dad would drive you through the neighborhood or your grandfather, and he'd be like, I built that house or I painted that, or you know, I used to, you know, your dad would drive you through the neighborhood or your grandfather and he'd be like, I built that house or I painted that or, you know, I used to, you know, eat sandwiches over there or something. This makes you feel connected to an area, right? But rather than you and me seeing each other, you go, okay, Scott's a, a libtard.

And I go, oh, this is a Republican pretending to be an independent. We just say we're Americans. The greatest legislation in history, or at least in America in the fifties and sixties, and the reason we had such a productive Congress and they got along was because they served in the same uniform. They weren't blue or red, they were Americans, right? Yeah, you go through those graves, cemeteries, you go through them, and it's all, it's different ethnicities, different religions, different... There's no red or blue. Yeah. It doesn't say Democrat or Republican. So

a massive leveling up economically of young people. I'd like to do what Portugal did. Portugal has said, we're turning into this retirement place for hedge fund managers, and the brightest young people in Portugal have one thing in common, they leave. So you know what they've done, Theo? They've decided, no taxes age 20 to 30. And it actually doesn't cost them that much,

because most people age 20 to 30 don't make much money. Don't make much money. Right, it's beyond that, you make your money. We need 40% of our budget goes to seniors, which leaves less money for education, programs, investment in R&D, which are more productive investments. We have a political system where old people keep voting and more old people who vote themselves more money, right? The $120 billion cost of living adjustment increase for Social Security flies right through. The $120 billion cost of living adjustment increase for Social Security flies right through.

The $40 billion tax credit to help young families, that gets stripped out of the Inflation Reduction Act. We need to massively economically lift up young people, which will disproportionately benefit young men who have fallen further faster and quite frankly make them more attractive and people are going to start having kids again. Forty years ago, 60% of 30-year-olds had a kid. Now it's 27%. The average age of a home buyer this year is 54.

40 years ago, it was 36. Are people not buying homes and not having kids because they don't want them? No, they can't afford them. And guess what? When a guy shows up and says, I am not economically viable, you are not going to be able to buy a home with me. I am not going to be able to protect you, able to buy a home with me. I am not gonna be able to protect you.

The woman doesn't want to pair with this guy. We need a massive lift up of young people and everything we do is nothing but a thinly veiled transfer of wealth from your generation to mine. COVID, $6 trillion in stimulus. 85% of it wasn't needed, 85% of it wasn't needed. 85% of it wasn't spent.

So where'd it go? It went into the stock market. Stock market hits all-time highs. Housing prices have gone from 290 average house pre-COVID to 410. That's great for me. I own stocks and I own homes. Ed, my co-host at ProfGMarkets, he doesn't own homes or stocks yet. So what's gonna happen?

We're not, we're spending it all on his credit card. We're running up these massive deficits, which he will have to pay back. So I get the champagne and cocaine with his credit card. We need to stop this crazy deficit spending that both the only thing that passes is bipartisan behavior right now is reckless spending. We need economic responsibility

and we need to transfer wealth back from the incumbents to the entrance and level up young people, which will disproportionately benefit the group that has fallen furthest fastest and is young men. We need to make young men more economically viable again, such that they can form households. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, almost if you're a young man

these days, you just want to just hide sometimes, I think. You know, and it's not even their own fault. That's one thing I want to say. Like, some of it is the society that we're in isn't really doing its best to support you. Is that okay to say that? Oh, 100%. One in three. Yeah, I just want, I don't want young men to hear this and feel like I'm a loser. Young men have it.

I mean, on one level, people have more agency in our nation than they than they've had in a long time. But young men, there's definitely in our society, a bias against them. If you go to the Democratic National Committee's website, there's a section that says who we serve, they actually spell out we're the Democratic Party. This is who we serve. and it lists 16 demographic groups, from Asians and Pacific Islanders, to Black Americans, veterans, the disabled, immigrants.

I added it up, it's 76% of the population. So when you're purposefully advantaging 76% of the population, you're not advantaging them, you're discriminating against the 24%. And who are the 24% that aren't mentioned? Young men. The Democratic National Convention was a parade of every special interest group,

but they never once mentioned the group that has fallen furthest, fastest, and quite frankly, in my view, needs the most help right now, and that is young men. So we need a more productive conversation that looks at the stats. Four times as likely to kill themselves, three times as likely to be addicted,

12 times as likely to be incarcerated. If that was happening to any other special interest group. It would be through the roof insane. We'd be weighing in with programs, with empathy. And here's the thing, empathy is not a zero sum game. Gay marriage didn't hurt. What does zero sum game mean? Well, there's a feel, when I talk about young men, people go to,

well, that's gonna hurt women. No, it's not. You know who wants more economically and emotionally viable men? Women. Women. Yep. Women. God. Civil rights didn't hurt white people.

No. Gay marriage, in my opinion, didn't hurt heteronormative. It didn't get in the way of me marrying a woman. And having empathy for men isn't going to hurt women. We can't, women are not, women in the United States are not going to flourish if men are flailing, and they are. And because it's men and because of the privilege I recognized, there's a lack of empathy for them.

And quite frankly, because some, I would argue, fairly unproductive voices entered that void about five, 10 years ago, a lot of people had sort of a gag reflex when you started talking about men. And you know who's leading the charge around this topic right now, who I get the most emails from?

Mothers. And it goes something like this. I have three kids, two daughters, one son. One daughter is in Chicago and PR, the other's in graduate school at Penn, and my son is in the basement vaping and playing video games. And if you look at the election, the two groups that swung most viciously away from blue towards Trump were two groups. People under the age of 30, young people aren't doing well. And the second group and the most surprising, 45 to 64 year old women are put another way, mothers.

So this was in my opinion, the kids are not all right or kind of the testosterone election. And that is if your kids aren't doing well, you wanna blow everything up. All you want, you don't just want change, you want chaos. And one guy was the chaos candidate. Yeah. Well, I think also though, one great thing that Trump did was when he brought RFK Jr. in, because RFK Jr. was also a very, was a rogue. Remember when people were like, this

guy is like a crazy guy or whatever. Like he's eating, you know, he's, you know, he didn't believe in, you know, he just got so labeled by the media. And so I think bringing him in was a great point, a great idea. Yeah, I agree with you that he's crazy. Yeah, you do? He's batshit crazy. Oh, he's a great guy, man.

Oh, dude. He's a great guy. Give me, I don't know if you're holding vaccines, but let's shoot up. No, no, no. There's nothing I love more than being high than not being sick. Vaccines are the best thing to happen in modern society. I don't disagree if you're holding vaccines, but let's shoot up. No, no, no. There's nothing I love more than being high than not being sick. Vaccines are the best thing to happen in modern society.

I don't disagree that they are. I just think that they just need to make sure that they are. He's great on the environment. I'll give you that. I think he's great on the environment. Yeah, that's fair. We don't have to agree on it.

Why do you, so let's, I know you're a professor here. Yeah, NYU. NYU. And why do you talk about, I've heard you talk about advising your students not to follow their passion, but to follow their talent. Is that right? Yeah. Okay.

I think anyone who tells you to follow your passion is already rich. I think this is your job. I think your job is to find what you're really good at. Okay. Because I think a lot of times young men mistake their talent for their hobbies, or mistake their hobbies for their passion. their hobbies or mistake their hobbies for their passion

Okay, they mistake their hobbies for their passion. I wanted to be a football player when I was 17. Mm-hmm And I wanted to be a pediatrician I mean What I found was I was really good at analytics and very few boys grew up thinking I'm really good with data And so the majority of the quote-unquote passion fields are really shitty industries because there's too many people going into them. There's 180,000 people in the SAG-AFTRA union, which is the union representing actors. 83% of them last year didn't qualify for health insurance because they didn't make over $23,000. They're not even making any movies anymore.

Try and be a DJ. Do you know what percentage of high school basketball players may get into the NBA? I mean, it's insane. I don't know. Yeah. There are very few. The more romantic or sexy an industry is, the lower the ROI on your effort.

This is your job. Find something you're good at instinctively, you have an affinity for, that you could someday maybe in the top 10% or the top 1%. And here's the key part. It has a 90-plus percent employment rate. Because if you're good, I'm renovating a house right now, and this guy comes in, he's the Soapstone guy.

He knows more about Soapstone than anyone. He's this Iraqi immigrant. And he got really into it. And he was very open with me. He makes 1.8 million pounds a year. He clears 800,000 pounds a year. Right? I don't think he grew up as a child thinking

I'm going to be the Soapstone guy in Marlboro in London. No one grows up thinking I want to be the best tax attorney in the world. The best tax attorneys fly private and have a larger selection set of mates than they deserve. And the guy telling you at NYU to follow your passion made his billions in iron ore smelting. The boring industries, the boring shit is where you can make a great deal of money. Yeah. Be a DJ on weekends. Be a welder on the week.

That's right. Find a job that you're good at, you become great at, that's got a 90 plus percent employment rate. If you're just good in that industry, you're gonna make it, and this is what happens. What does it mean, the 90 plus, I just wanna make sure that that's clear, that has a 90 percent, what were you saying that part? Employment rate. And what does that mean before you, I just wanna make sure that that's clear, that has a 90%, what were you saying that part?

Employment rate. And what does that mean when you say that? Tax law, anyone with a degree in law, tax law. Oh, you're gonna get a job and at 90% chance, that's what you're saying. Employment rate. Okay, got it. Employment rate in basketball, DJ, art, modeling, sports, owning a club or restaurant,

I would bet the unemployment rate is 90%. Yeah. Because there's too many people pursuing too few jobs. Right. So I don't want to crush your dreams. If you want to be a DJ, you want to be the next Lionel Messi, just make sure you're getting bright signals very early that you're in the top 1%, which is

where you're going to need to be. Right, because certainly you have to play to the odds. Well, this is what you become passionate about. You're going to see this as you get older. You become passionate about taking care of your kids. You become passionate about. You're gonna see this as you get older. You become passionate about taking care of your kids. You become passionate about taking care of your parents. You become passionate about going to the Hotel DeKalb or going to F1 in Austin.

I went to Wimbledon for the first time. Oh yeah. And I'd rather be Roger Federer than me. I'd rather be named all than me. But I'd rather be me than the number five seed in the world. Yeah, who's that? I have no idea. Right, so I, but I'd rather be me than the number five seed in the world. Yeah, who's that? I have no idea. Right.

And all I know is the number five seed is in the 0.0001%. All I need to be is in the top 10% of my field, and I can buy my way into Wimbledon. Right. So find something you're great at. And if you're great at it and you can make money at it, you're going to have a great relationship with your wife and your kids.

We live in a capitalist society. Right. And that's not going to change, right? 100% no. America becomes more like itself every day. And that is it is a loving, generous place if you have money. It's a rapacious, violent place if you don't have money.

And I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but that is the way it is. So your job as a young person, what could I be great at that pays? It has a 90 plus percent employment rate. And this is where passion comes from. The accoutrements, the camaraderie, the economic relevance, the status of being great at something

where you're making good money, that will make you passionate about that thing. Mastery, artisanship, being a ninja-like warrior in anything, will make you passionate about that thing, regardless of how boring it may sound when you're nine years old. Yeah, it's funny, the better I become at some things, the more I like them. Is that what you're saying? 100%.

Yeah. That's cool, man. I've heard you also talk about the four horsemen, right? And like a lot of the dangerous collaboration of media, right? And like with Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Yeah, very good. And you've been a part of like

anti-trust act activation towards them. I think they should be broken up. I think they're too powerful. Me too. Yeah. It's very dangerous, right? Well, we don't have any choice.

If you're a parent and your kid is on social media, you don't have any choice. The kid doesn't have any choice. He's going to be on a platform. Right. And these companies are so powerful that they're able to make so so powerful that they're able to, and they make so much money that they're able to kind of weaponize government.

We've had 40 congressional hearings talking about child safety. We've had zero laws passed. And I think competition as a whole is a great way of bringing down costs. I think the best way to handle inflation is competition. And you have one company with 93% share of search Google, 66% share of social meta, 50% share of e-commerce, two companies control 93% of AI, AI LLMs and the GPUs that's open AI and Nvidia. So there's already monopolies forming in AI. It's unbelievable. Here's Australia wants to ban kids.

I saw this other day on 16th from social media as world government see to crack down on the addictive apps. I think that that's a great idea. I don't think that kids so and also especially if kids aren't going to be protected like did you see that moment where they had Zuckerberg with all the parents of children who were killed by adults on Facebook and they were allowed to contact them. Like, why should an adult be allowed to contact a child? You should easily, if you have all the data, you should easily know this is a child and this is an adult. There's no reason for them to contact each other without going through the parent.

There's no reason anyone under the age of 14 should have a smartphone. I mean, I've said this, I think Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook are basically crack dealers outside of junior high school. to have a smartphone? I mean, I've said this. I think Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook are basically crack dealers outside of junior high school. No one under the age of 14 should be on a smartphone. Could you have at 14 handled a casino, a betting, you know, an IMAX theater, a porn site in your pocket

all day long? I could handle it at 34, 37. Right? So, and then no, I don't think anyone should be on a social media app under the age of 16. And parents are stepping in. And a lot of this, again, is because of the inspiration of my colleague, Jonathan Hyde.

But entire countries are banning phones and social media. There's so much evidence around the mental. Think about what a place of perversion Instagram begins with. It encourages 15 year old girls to pose provocatively and sexualize themselves such that their peers and strange men around the world can evaluate and contact them. Imagine, imagine there was a park and there were 15 year old girls and they said to the park, we'd really like it if you

showed up and Hulk tube tops and mini skirts and then your peers get to sit around you and comment out loud and strange men from anywhere can come and comment and then contact you. Would we allow that? Not a chance. That's Instagram. Why do we allow that then?

Like, do we expect our government to save us or who's or do we have to save ourselves? Well, I think at the end of the day, I think it's our fault We haven't voted in the people who understand these technologies are willing to stand up to these companies. They're very savvy They spent a lot of money on lobbying and I also think in the back room They're probably doing deals around national security to help us kind of hunt down the bad guys I think it's a nuanced argument They're probably doing deals around national security to help us kind of hunt down the bad guys. I think it's a nuanced argument. But at the end of the day, our government has really let us down.

When we look back, Theo, on this era around big tech, I think we're going to regret the concentration of power, the monopoly power, the weaponization of some of our elections, some of the misinformation that's come out. But more than anything, we'll look back on this era and think, how did we let this happen to our kids? We failed our children. You don't have kids.

I should know better. My son developed device addiction. My kid hides in the bathroom so he can be on TikTok. I don't know what he's on on TikTok. There's been some instances of bullying, both him being bullied and bullying others. And I think we're probably not as bad as some households. This is literally, there is no addiction in America. 24%, two thirds of teens are on social media. 24% qualify as addicts.

Can you imagine any, we age gate pornography, the military, motorcycles, weapons, but we don't age gate social media. And 20, what other substance, what other company could get away with getting two thirds of kids on that substance and then having a quarter of them be identified clinically as addicts? We wouldn't put up, we wouldn't and haven't put up with it anywhere else, but these guys are so smart, have so many lobbyists, there are more full-time lobbyists. And there are representatives and senators.

Just at Amazon. Amazon has more full-time paid lobbyists living in DC than there are sitting US senators. We've been overrun. Our government's been overrun by money. And we haven't been able to vote in people that are able to stand up and pass laws. This shit is difficult and complicated.

And these companies have taken advantage of it. Also, they have the propaganda to turn up the pass laws. This shit is difficult and complicated and these companies have taken advantage of it. Also, they have the propaganda to turn up the dials. Because they own the information that's going out. They can manage it. 100%. God, God, I don't even know if I can fucking get out of this room today. Let's go to Whole Foods. Right before you leave, you said one of the biggest choices is the person that you will marry.

I've heard you say that. Have kids with. Have kids with. 100%. Yeah. And that goes back to a willingness to endure rejection such that you can find someone who's really high character that you're

attracted to. I have friends who on exterior metrics are really successful, smart, talented, ballers professionally, a lot of money, but they don't really have a partner. And I find that their life has an unnecessary amount of stress and disappointment in it. And at the same time, I have a lot of other friends who are not as economically successful,

but they have a real partner and everything burns a little bit brighter. And I hope, oh, I hope I'm around, but I hope we have the chance in 10 or 20 years, I'm confident you're gonna find someone to have kids. All of this, right? Podcast, AI, social media, GDP growth, Trump, it's all bullshit.

It's all a means. The ends, the whole shooting match is finding someone you care about and having kids. That's what I found. I didn't want to have kids. I didn't want to get married. So that actually disproved what your original thoughts and feelings were.

I got it wrong. And you can't, no one who doesn't have kids can fully understand it. And by the way, I want to be clear, there are other ways to find and receive love. I don't think you have to have kids to be happy. What I can tell you is that the majority of people I know who've had kids who've said,

it's a tremendous amount of stress, but it's the first time in my life I felt like I had real purpose and real meaning. And that's what our economy is supposed to do. It's supposed to give young people, specifically more young men right now, the opportunity to engage in loving, supportive relationships and have kids.

That's the whole shooting match. Everything else is the means. That's the whole shooting match. Everything else is the means. That's the ends. The G Prof podcast, it's your... Close, Prof G. I like that better. That sounds like a new Mercedes vehicle, the G Prof wagon. There we go.

We got it, co-branded. By the way, hashtag Prof G. The Prof G podcast, that's yours, Scott. Thanks for coming and just thinking with this man. And yeah, we don't wanna look down on young men. We don't wanna do that. We're just looking at stuff because part of it is to let young men know

and men know that some of the system that we're in and the environment that we're in is not set up to help us. So don't feel like ashamed of yourself. No. That's something I don't want to push that at all. At 24, I was limb with my mother. No economic prospects, no romantic prospects. I was broke at 34, then I was broke again at 42.

And the first thing, the first emotion I felt when my oldest son had the poor judgment to come marching out of my girlfriend. It was 2008 great financial recession. I'd lost everything was I felt shame and humiliation. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Everyone's been there right if you're not doing well. Be a good person, get in good shape. Start making some, even if it's just a little bit of money, right? The way to make a lot of money is to start making a little and get a taste for flesh. Be out of the house every day, be in the company, the agency of others, right?

Yeah. And work your ass off and try and show, like show up, get the easy stuff right, develop a savings muscle, see if you can save some money, and don't be afraid to approach strange women. The ability to make a woman feel safe while expressing romantic interest is not only the key to finding a great partner,

those same skills are gonna serve you really well and work. There's nothing wrong with that. You are a protector, you're a provider, and you're a procreator. Let's go, dude. I'm gonna, dude, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, Let's go to Whole Foods. No, I'm gonna, I Whole Foods. Where is she?

I'm going to approach so many strange women this year. Next year dude. That's a little scary. It's Strange Women 25 baby. Scott Yalloway, thank you man. Thanks for thinking with me. Thanks for being somebody that I find inspiring and educational. And also able to be

earnest about themselves and their own journey. I just appreciate that, man. Thanks, man. Congrats on your success. You're a nice role model for young men. You really do. You bring a different vibe.

I think it's important. Yeah, thanks, dude. I don't know if I feel like a role model, but it's nice you to say. I definitely feel like a young man, though. So I feel like we're going to keep going. It goes fast. Trust me, you're younger than everybody

and one day you'll show up and you'll be the oldest person in the room. It's really weird. Time goes fast. You're enjoying, you're really grabbing life by the balls and squeezing right now. So congratulations. Well, I work really hard.

That's one thing I do do, you know? I know that, I have learned that. You know, I learned that like just from my mom. If you, yeah, that you can do that. That's in my control. And the rest of the stuff we'll figure out along the way. And thank you for being here today and helping us think of and learn about some of it.

Thank you and welcome to New York. Thank you, brother. Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be cornerstone. I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of my life out I can feel it in my bones But it's gonna take a little