“It’s An Emergency!” The Number Of Men Having No Sex Increased 180%! - The Relationships Professor

1. 0:00 – 2:46

   Intro

   1. SBSteven Bartlett0:00

      Someone dies in the UK every 90 minutes. 76% of these are male. What is going wrong?

   2. SGScott Galloway0:06

      If you were to point to a single point of failure, it would be the- Scott Galloway. Entrepreneur. Best-selling author.

   3. NANarrator0:11

      Professor.

   4. One of the most desired minds when it comes to business and life. He is about the obsession of how to be better as individuals and as a society.

   5. SGScott Galloway0:21

      Society tells you, especially, I think, as a man, that your worth is highly correlated to your economic success. But for the first time, a 30-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents. Men under the age of 40 are 24% less wealthy. The average age of a first-time homebuyer is 47 now. So, on online dating, you have to swipe right 1,000 times to get a single coffee. It's one in seven men doesn't have a single friend. We're gonna have men having relationships with machines. The most dangerous person in the world is a lonely, young, broke male. And we're producing millions of them, and that can lead to very ugly places for the economy and society.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett0:54

      What is the impact this is having on women?

   7. SGScott Galloway0:56

      Women have become better educated and they're making more money. It means that the, quote-unquote, "pool" of viable mates for women is going down every year.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:04

      And a lot of these men are finding role models online.

   9. SGScott Galloway1:07

      Yeah. This is a real issue, that this is a group that's struggling. On the far right, people like Trump, a criminal. Putin, murderer. On the far left, as far as I can tell, their vision of masculinity is to act more like a woman. I don't think that's right either. We need a new vision for modern masculinity.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:21

       Do we need individual solutions, or do we need societal solutions?

   11. SGScott Galloway1:23

       My solutions are pretty straightforward, and this is the one I'm working through and will definitely get me in the most trouble.

   12. NANarrator1:30

       (Instrumental music)

   13. SBSteven Bartlett1:37

       Scott, it's quite clear that there is a crisis in society in different areas.

   14. SGScott Galloway1:47

       Mm-hmm.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett1:48

       I called a friend of mine who is called Simon Gunning before this conversation, literally 10 minutes ago.

   16. SGScott Galloway1:53

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett1:53

       He heads up one of the largest mental health charities in the UK, and they specifically focus on suicide, they do a lot of work with men. And I said to him, "Can you tell me the latest stats on suicidality amongst men-

   18. SGScott Galloway2:06

       Mm-hmm.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett2:06

       ... and purposeless and those kind- kinds of things?" And he said to me, "Someone dies by suicide in the UK every 90 minutes. 76% of these are male. Th- there's 25 attempts for every death. It's the single biggest cause of death for men under 45, and it's the single biggest cause of death for 15 to 49-year-olds. And the category of 19 to 35-year-olds is twice as likely to report being in a crisis, personally, than any other group. And lastly, 16 to 24-year-olds are currently the fastest growing group in history to exhibit suicidality."

   20. SGScott Galloway2:41

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett2:42

       What is going wrong in the way we've designed and the way that we're executing upon

2. 2:46 – 5:18

   Understanding Men's Struggles & Addressing societal issues

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:46

      this vision of society?

   2. SGScott Galloway2:48

      I think even the way we frame the problem is incorrect. And that is, when we talk about... If you were to say, um, that women are three times as likely as men to kill themselves, I think we would talk about the problem through the lens of it being a societal issue, and we would immediately move to what investments and change in behavior and education would address that problem. When we say young men are killing themselves at three times the rate as young women, we- h- use terms like accountability or say things, "Well, if they just opened up more about their emotions," or, "They need to get their act together." And that is, we've decided when it comes to men, compassion is a zero-sum game, and that if you feel bad for men, it immediately kind of outs you as someone who might be anti-women or who's gone red pill. Because the void... The- the statistics are just staggering. Four times more likely to be addicted, 12 times more likely to be incarcerated. And because nobody was talking openly and honestly about those very real issues, that void created opportunity for what I think are some unproductive voices to fill that void and start speaking to these men. And naturally, a lot of people now have a gag reflex when they hear people talking about the problems around men. So, the first is we need to frame the problem as, this is a real issue that requires and deserves compassion and our sympathy. You know, it's not a zero-sum game. Civil rights didn't hurt white people. Uh, gay marriage didn't in any way diminish heteronormative marriage. And so the first is to have a conversation that this is a group that's struggling and to stop using terms like accountability and somehow blaming them for their own problems here. A 19-year-old male should not pay for the sins of his father or grandfather. Now, and my Yoda on this is Richard Reeves, uh, but basically, it comes down to kind of three things. The first is biological. Uh, our prefrontal cortex does not mature as fast as a woman's. An 18-year-old woman, from an executive function standpoint, is like a 20-year-old male. So... Or put another way, uh, two seniors in high school applying to college, the woman is essentially competing against a 16-year-old. And that is, her prefrontal cortex had that executive function that he has, uh, she had it at 16. So, we're seeing, uh, double the number of women graduating from US colleges as men,

3. 5:18 – 16:53

   Exploring biases in the education system affecting boys.

   1. SGScott Galloway5:18

      because it's 60/40 ratio when they start, and then the ratio only gets worse because more men drop out. That still is an incredible on-ramp to influence and economic security, and these men aren't getting on that on-ramp. So, there's biological reasons. There's also, I think the education system is just biased against men. Uh, boys are five t- ex- excuse me, a boy is twice as likely on a risk-adjusted basis or a behavior-adjusted basis to be suspended for the exact same activity as a girl who's brought into the principal's office for the s- exact same infraction. You're sitting in front of me as a, as a guy, you're twice as likely to be suspended for cheating on your chemistry test as if you... as a girl coming in. Uh, Black boys five times as likely to be suspended as a girl. So, we still have, we have a real bias. Now, part of that is that 90% of primary school teachers are women. There are more...... fe- there are more female fighter pilots per capita than there are male kindergarten teachers. Men are not going into early-stage education. And this is really important because you have an entire cohort of boys who grow up. The single... If you were to point to a single, a single point of failure where all of this starts, if you said, "Where did this young man come off the tracks?" If you try to identify one signal through all the noise, it would be the following: when the boy no longer has a male role model. And with incarceration, with male abandonment, and with a lack of teachers in primary school, you have an entire generation of young men who grow up having never had a male role model. And so, a lack of male role models and education system that is biased against them, and then I think, um, economic policies, whether it's the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, the transfer of wealth from young to old people. And you think, well, the fact that someone over the age of 70 is f- 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago, and someone under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy, that affects men and women. I think it's especially hard on men because I think men are still, uh, primarily evaluated in terms, uh, through the lens of their economic, uh, vitality. So they're biologically behind women, have an education system biased against them, and we have economic policies that have created a great deal of shame and rage. And the last point I would just say is for the first time in Europe and America's history, a 30-year-old is not doing as well as his or her parents were at 30, and that creates just tremendous shame and rage. I mean, look at the housing market. The average age of a first-time homebuyer is 47 now. In 1980, the average age of a first-time homebuyer was 29. Young people have been sequestered from whatever you call, you know, loosely speaking, the American dream or the, or, or, you know, the, the UK dream. So the odds are just, uh, uh, the, the, the forces in the face of young men have just become, uh, greater and greater, and it's manifesting in a lot of different ways: lower marriage rates, lower birth rates, and a, a skyrocketing in suicide. I should also add that suicide is way up among teen girls because of social media. So different challenges at different ages.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett8:38

      You're committing a lot of your time to both talking about this, but writing about this subject matter.

   3. SGScott Galloway8:42

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett8:43

      Why? Why does it matter so much to you, personally? Of all the things... 'Cause you're one of those individuals, and I spoke to your team and they kind of echoed this, that is very diverse in their ability to speak about subject matter. You could talk about investing or money or, um, business or happiness. But for some reason, you've honed in, it seems, uh, in part, to solve this challenge that young men specifically are facing. Why? Why you?

   5. SGScott Galloway9:13

      Well, w-... Did you have two parents?

   6. SBSteven Bartlett9:16

      Yes.

   7. SGScott Galloway9:17

      Okay. So I had a single mother. I was installing sho-... I'm k- because I'm that guy. I'm that guy that, that as a kid, like lost... didn't have, didn't have a male role model. Um, we were in what I affectionately call an upper-lower-middle-class household. My mother lived and died a secretary. Um, I just could have easily come off the tracks, and almost did a few times. And because government stepped in and because, because of things like Pell Grants, which are, um, financial aid for kids in the lower, I think, quartile of income-earning houses, because the University of California, uh, saw themselves as public servants, not as luxury brands, and they let in 76% of applicants, you know. And I got rejected the first time, so I was one of the 24% that didn't get in, and then I got in again. But the big hand of government lifted me up. And also, I had men, a lot of strange men step in, a stockbroker, a baseball coach, a neighbor. I had all these wonderful men kinda step in. And between the warm embrace of government, in America, the used-to-love, unremarkable people, um, men who stepped in, you know, this is nothing. But for me, I relate to these young men and I see an opportunity. There aren't a lot of people... I think, I just think the problem is so much greater than the emotion and the bandwidth and the resources being allocated to it. And it's just simply, you know, kind of a nod to, uh, the, the institutions and the men that helped me. Um, so, a- and also, to be blunt, it's a commercial opportunity. It's a chance to talk (laughs) about something that's... It's a white space. It's so obvious. If you think of y- yourself as a thought leader, you wanna be fearless and you wanna move the needle on stuff. So this, for me, was just, you know, slowly but surely, you just look at the data and it all leads to one place, and that is, um, young men have fallen further, faster than any cohort in America and Europe. And, and it needs to be addressed and talked about.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett11:28

      This idea that it all comes back to, do you have a male role model in your life-

   9. SGScott Galloway11:32

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett11:33

       ... links, interestingly, to a lot of the data that says we're less likely to be married than ever before. We're less likely... Uh, even though I was reading some stats around when our first kiss happens.

   11. SGScott Galloway11:42

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett11:43

       And a, a man's first kiss used to happen, I think, it was around 18. It's now, on average, into their early 20s.

   13. SGScott Galloway11:48

       Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett11:48

       Everything seems to be moving further and further and back. So from that, I deduce that the chance that a young man would have a male role model in their life is probably deteriorating as well, because there's less marriages. There's... seems to be, um... the prospects of dating seem to have dropped as well. So is there correlation between these two things in some, in some re- respect?

   15. SGScott Galloway12:11

       Yeah, there's... What's strange is, so you don't have kids, right?

   16. NANarrator12:15

       No.

   17. SGScott Galloway12:16

       What's weird about raising kids now is that my mom was worried about me getting into too much trouble. I think what's fairly common now among parents is we're worried our kids aren't gonna get into enough trouble. And that is, we see the power of unsupervised play. We see the power of maybe sneaking into a movie and getting caught. You know, we see just, uh, the, the, that it's important that at some point kids are gonna experiment with alcohol and drugs, and the kind of better they ease into it as opposed to never do anything and then end up at college their freshman year and just can't, you know, can't handle the, the onslaught of it. So, you know, I think that there's something about the concierge and bulldozer parenting that where we use so many sanitary wipes on a kid's life that they don't develop their own immunities. Um, 40% of Harvard's incoming freshman class are virgins. And, uh, I worry that... I, I mean, this is gonna sound strange, we have too little teen pregnancy. What do I mean by that? (laughs)

   18. NANarrator13:19

       (laughs)

   19. SGScott Galloway13:19

       Um, unplanned teen pregnancy is a bad thing. But we have, we have had such dramatic falls in that and, uh, drunk driving accidents, which is great, but what it signals, quite frankly, is that kids are so over-programmed and have such a lack of, um, socialization now. The number of high school teenagers that sees their friends every day has been cut in half, that we're slowly but surely sequestering from each other. And when we do that, we become less mammalia. We're, we're mammals where literally if you have dogs, dogs are happiest when they're lying on top of you. The worst thing you can do to a dog is leave it alone all day. And what we're doing to young people is we're kinda... They are leaving others and themselves alone all day. We're separating from each other, we're becoming less social. And there's a group of men who, um, aren't received well at school, don't find a source of pride. Auto shop, metal shop, wood shop's gone away. They, they go online to date. They... The majority of them get rejected. If your average attractiveness in online dating, you have to swipe right 200 times to get a single coffee. If you set up five coffees, you'll get one will actually show up. Four of the five will ghost you and decide later on they don't actually wanna meet up. So, a young man of attractive, of average attractiveness in online dating has to swipe right a thousand times. So he gets validation for one coffee. He gets validation that he has no worth to the other sex. He loses confidence, he starts engaging with people because he has less opportunities for random encounters where he has to develop those skills. And slowly but surely, he sequesters from society, and at some point, he just is not, not really saveable. He just never develops those skills, those skills around friendship or romantic relationships. In the United States, one in seven men doesn't have a single friend. One in four, uh, one in four can't name a best friend. In addition, marriage has become now a luxury item. If you're in the upper quartile of income-earning households, there's a three in four chance you're gonna get married. If you're in the lower quartile, the lowest quartile, there's only a one in f- there's a three in four chance you will never get married. So, you, we have a group of the most dangerous person in the world, we're producing millions of them, and that is a lonely, young, broke male. And, uh, just bridging into AI, I think the biggest danger in AI that people are worried about it becoming sentient, I don't buy any of that, or super weapons. I think that's a problem but we've managed through those things, bio-weapons, et cetera, before. I think the biggest problem that AI presents is that big tech presents a series of low calorie, low risk entry points into what feels like a reasonable facsimile of a relationship. "I, I think I'm making friends online." No, you're... But you're not really experiencing friendship. "I think I'm in a relationship with somebody." Well, are you? Are you really? "I'm learning." No, you're not. You're gambling on Coinbase or Robinhood. And rather than endure the rejection and try and develop the skills and make the effort, and it is an effort and involves rejection, of going out into the physical world and revealing yourself as someone who would like to be friends with another man, express romantic interest, take those risks, we're developing these digital analogues of life that create low entry, low risk relationships. And you think, "Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing." But it is because it leads to depression. Because the reason why romantic comedies are two hours and not 20 minutes is that life is about the victory of taking risks, enduring rejection, and having a

4. 16:53 – 22:24

   The impact of AI-driven relationships.

   1. SGScott Galloway16:53

      small business that works, about, about, um, approaching someone and getting the interview, cold emailing someone and getting, getting a coffee, and quite frankly, pursuing someone and developing the skills and deciding to put on a clean shirt and maybe shower more often and maybe hit the gym every once in a while and maybe text when you're not sure how this person feels about you and figure out a way to interact with someone around the nuance, nuance and develop the skills around human sexuality such that you can develop a relationship. That is the victory. That's the payoff after the two hours. And fewer and fewer men are engaging in those risks and that victory, and I think that AI in combination with sex bots is gonna create an industry where men start having relationships with algorithms and dolls. Supposedly, the sex bot industry is gonna be bigger than the domestic box office receipts of all movie theaters in the US within five to six years. So we're gonna have men having relationships with machines and dolls as opposed to, as opposed to other, other, uh, humans. And I think it's just... It creates a, a level of depression. I think Her should be required watching for every teen male, and I think every, every teenager in, in high school should have a course as part of health on mating dynamics, where they teach especially young men-... that approaching a woman and expressing romantic interest, while making her feel safe, is a skill and there's nothing wrong with that. And that the endgame, a relationship, a partner, a romantic, uh, partner is one of the keys to a happy life. And I think most studies bear that out. And we are sequestering, for a variety of reasons, men from the opportunities to have those relationships. And it also impacts women. But what we're seeing with women is two in three under the age of 30 have a boyfriend. Only one in three men have a girlfriend because women are dating older. They want more economically and emotionally viable men.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett18:57

      On the point of sex bots, it's almost- it's almost impossible for me to see how that doesn't become a huge part of male dating. You know, I was speaking to Mustafa Suleyman who was the, one of the co-founders of-

   3. SGScott Galloway19:11

      I know Mustafa.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett19:12

      Yeah.

   5. SGScott Galloway19:12

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett19:12

      Yeah. One of the co-founders of ma- uh, DeepMind-

   7. SGScott Galloway19:15

      Yep.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett19:15

      ... which sold to Google. And in his new book, The Coming Wave, he talks about how all of these breakthroughs in technology, one of which is AI, one of which is robotics, is going to sort of intersect with the ability to have literally someone in your house who can not only clean, you know, clean your house and do the dishes and m- make your lunch, but also can love you.

   9. SGScott Galloway19:36

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett19:37

       In whatever artificial form that love comes. They can agree with everything you say, they can encourage you, and they can have sex with you.

   11. SGScott Galloway19:43

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett19:44

       And dare I say-

   13. SGScott Galloway19:46

       (laughs)

   14. SBSteven Bartlett19:46

       (laughs) And I'm sure this might be clipped by somebody-

   15. SGScott Galloway19:48

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett19:48

       ... there is a certain cohort of men-

   17. SGScott Galloway19:50

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett19:50

       ... who would rather choose that than nothing. And when they're faced increasingly with that choice, it feels really inevitable to me to see how they would choose, um, some of them would choose a sex bot or s- something to that effect to fill that void.

   19. SGScott Galloway20:06

       We can all relate to that. We all, we all make that type of decision in different increments. A lot of times it's easier to say, "I'm just gonna stay home and watch Netflix and take an edible and-"

   20. SBSteven Bartlett20:16

       Pwn.

   21. SGScott Galloway20:16

       "... order in and maybe, maybe watch porn instead of go out and engage in the expense, the emotional trauma, the effort, the skills I have to provide to try and establish something resembling a real world relationship." And rejection is enormously painful. And, you know, (sighs) I think teaching young people rejection, and my son didn't make the football team, uh, last week, and he's 13 years old, and it was a big deal. He was really upset. He thought this was the way he integrated into the UK. He loves football, tried out, tryouts are going really well, really well, came home, threw his bag down, tears, didn't make the football team. And of course, his mother's totally freaked out, "What do we do?" And I'm like, uh, "This is a awful day for all of us and it's a great day for him because this is what's gonna happen. He's gonna wake up tomorrow and he's gonna realize, he's fine. And he's gonna develop a little bit of callous over that- that emotion." And I think you're an entrepreneur and- and I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I was single most of my adult life. I don't know, I don't know your relationship status, but if you're an entrepreneur and you're single, you're used to enduring rejection and that is the key to success. That's the absolute key. Because the only thing you know that- that has happened in someone who's very successful professionally and personally is they have developed the skills to endure rejection. (laughs) That- that's just it. No one bats a thousand. You approach strange women in a strange place, most of the time it's gonna be awkward and sometimes it's gonna be humiliating 'cause you're gonna get rejected. You wanna start a business, you keep asking people for money, you keep asking employees to join you, you keep asking for customers and clients, and the only thing I can guarantee you is a shit ton of rejection. The ability to endure that rejection is absolutely the key to success. (laughs) More so than talent, more so than I even, I wouldn't say hard work, I'd say grit is right up there, but your ability to endure rejection is the... You- you know, if you wanna punch

5. 22:24 – 26:33

   Tips for building real-life connections amidst online distractions.

   1. SGScott Galloway22:24

      above your weight class economically or romantically, then get out a spoon and get ready to eat shit. That is a prerequisite to that kind of success. And technology is enabling people to say, "Well, why subject yourself to that risk? You can, you can engage in something that feels sort of similar without any risk at all." And over the long term, it's just such a bad trade. I- I mean, you were talking about porn. Porn is the largest unsupervised experiment on young men that we've ever had. And it's largely unsupervised because there isn't a lot of academic research on it 'cause most academics don't wanna be known as the porn professor. So there really is a lack of research around it. And when I coach young men, the first thing I do, kind of my go-to is I get their phone, I look at screen time. I'm like, okay, let's think of your, what do you have as a young person? You have a lack of financial capital, but you have a lot of human capital and that's really important, time. So we're gonna think about your time as money and we're gonna decide how we're gonna invest it. Let's look at your current portfolio of investments. And I ask them to unlock their phone and I say, "I won't be judgmental." In between Twitter, TikTok, porn, Coinbase, it's so easy to find a minimum of 10 and sometimes up to 50 hours a week and we're gonna reallocate it and we're gonna reallocate it to other things. And one of the things we're gonna reallocate it to is like first we gotta make some money. Are you making any money? You gotta make some. I don't care if it's flipping on an Uber app, I don't care if it's becoming an Instacart, a Dasher. The best way to make a lot of money is to start making a little bit 'cause you start developing the skills and the hunger for more money, right? The second is we're gonna take some time and we're gonna try and invest in, uh, organizations or activities that put us in the company of random strangers. Not just potential romantic interests, but friends, mentors, you know, that's- that's super, you know, that's super important. And one of the keys to developing what I'll call the mojo...... to, m- take those risks around romantic relationships is to moderate your consumption of porn. One of the only reasons I graduated from UCLA was because one of my motivations for going to class was not only that I wanted to learn, not only that I nee- needed to learn to graduate, I was a terrible student, but the prospect of potentially meeting (laughs) a woman who I could take to one of my fraternity parties or that ultimately might be interested in me romantically and sexually. And if I'd had the access to porn that young men have now, I'm not sure that mojo would've been as great to get out of the house as often. So just, to tell young men not to engage in porn I think is sort of ridiculous. But look at it analytically and think, okay, would you be more inclined to get out of the house, take those risks, engage in the victory, engage in what it is to be a man and be a mammal, um, if you had reallocated some capital and ensured that that fire was still there? Uh, so modulating, I think modulating porn and more generally spending less time online. Every digital version of your life is a shittier vision of the analog version that could happen. Uh, but everyone said, "I'd rather have, I'd rather have shitty, shitty kind of okay TV that's just mind-numbing as opposed to putting in the effort to, to, to do something great." But, um, I think it's more than just porn. I think it's all of it. Why leave the house? Why endure that sort of rejection, effort, expense? It's not- it's just so expensive to go out.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett26:01

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SGScott Galloway26:01

      Right? So, but I think porn is one of those things that young men need to modulate and find in, you know, such that they get their mojo.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett26:10

      This all has knock-on effects for women. And I think, and the data's also suggesting that the crisis amongst men is causing, in many situations, a crisis for women as well.

   5. SGScott Galloway26:21

      (exhales)

   6. SBSteven Bartlett26:21

      Because we both, you know, men and women exist in an ecosystem that needs to be somewhat balanced.

   7. SGScott Galloway26:26

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett26:27

      Um, so I'd like to talk about the impact this is having on women. One of the things I, I f- I found

6. 26:33 – 28:55

   Exploring the crisis in romantic relationships among men.

   1. SBSteven Bartlett26:33

      interesting, it's actually because of a young w- a young woman came up to me in a bookshop, I was just there looking for my own book as you do-

   2. SGScott Galloway26:37

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett26:37

      ... just 'cause it'd just come out. And she said something to me that a lot of women that have approached me or DM'ed me have said quite frequently, which is, she's over the age of 30 now.

   4. SGScott Galloway26:46

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett26:47

      She's committed much of her life to her career. She's single.

   6. SGScott Galloway26:51

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett26:52

      She's tried dating apps and she-

   8. SGScott Galloway26:54

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett26:54

      ... uh, doesn't enjoy it. And I, uh, part of me started to think about the fact she might be caught in a sort of generational gap where-

   10. SGScott Galloway27:01

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett27:01

       ... they used to meet in person but now the, the generation below her meet online. Um, and she concluded what she was saying to me with the fact that she believes, or she's starting to believe that maybe there's something wrong with her. Because she's over the age of 30, she's single, she can't find a partner. She told me she's never had a boyfriend.

   12. SGScott Galloway27:19

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett27:19

       She's killing it in her career.

   14. SGScott Galloway27:21

       Mm-hmm.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett27:22

       And she was in that bookshop looking for advice from a book.

   16. SGScott Galloway27:25

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett27:27

       And I feel compelled, 'cause I know she listens to this podcast, to ask as many people as I can the question to find an answer for her. Because there's someone very close to me in my life who I literally text when I l- left the bookshop-

   18. SGScott Galloway27:39

       Mm-hmm.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett27:39

       ... and I said, "I've just met you in the bookshop."

   20. SGScott Galloway27:41

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett27:41

       Every sentence that that woman said to me in the bookshop is the exact word-for-word, even like, "I've tried going to the gym and that's not working-"

   22. SGScott Galloway27:48

       Mm-hmm.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett27:48

       ... is the same as a close friend in my, my life, one of my best friends, has said to me as well. And there's not just one in my personal life, there's three or four.

   24. SGScott Galloway27:57

       Well, we all know women, I'm sure this happens to you all the time, really interesting, high-character, successful, attractive women, usually in their 30s, sometimes in their 40s, who will say, "I can't find anyone to date." And it's not that they can't find anyone to date, it's that they can't find anyone they want to date. And there's some dynamics here. The first is-

   25. SBSteven Bartlett28:18

       Can I just interject to-

   26. SGScott Galloway28:19

       Sure.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett28:19

       ... validate your point there? She also said to me, "I'm not willing to drop my standards."

   28. SGScott Galloway28:23

       Well, and, and, and it's like Warren Buffett said, "The key to a healthy marriage is low expectations." (laughs)

   29. SBSteven Bartlett28:29

       (laughs)

   30. SGScott Galloway28:29

       The, w- what's happening is, and I think his name's Chris Williams, he kinda reminds me of you, he's this handsome young podcaster who's blowing by-
7. 28:55 – 31:41

   Analysing societal expectations affecting women's relationships.

   1. SGScott Galloway28:55

      single women in the US own houses than single men. They're getting taller every year.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett29:00

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SGScott Galloway29:00

      And the u- reason he uses height is that 50% of women say they won't date a guy shorter than them.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett29:04

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SGScott Galloway29:04

      It's probably more like 80%. And even if they're not cognizant of it, just anthropologically, subconsciously, they're just usually not attracted to men shorter than them because they have something telling them that this, uh, individual is less likely to be able to physically protect you. So you're just at a disadvantage from a height standpoint. Now metaphorically, women are getting taller every year and men are getting shorter, right? Men mate socioeconomically horizontally and down, women horizontally and up. But when the pool of men who are socioeconomically, uh, uh, senior to women, it just means that the quote unquote "pool" of viable mates for women is going down every year. And women have been told they can have it all. And what I have found is you can't have it all. Um, or let me put it this way, you can have it all, you just can't have it all at once. And that, uh, to focus on their careers, which ri- by the way, I think is a good thing, I think economic viability is just super important for everyone, including women. Um, but the reality is as they have gotten taller, men have gotten shorter, so there's just less pairing. Society has a tendency to evaluate a woman's success through the lens of her romantic success. Not as much for men. People look at you and think, and I don't know your relationship status, but people are looking at you like, "Guy who's killing it, he's killing it, and he's single. Oh my God, it's good to be Steven Bartlett."

   6. SBSteven Bartlett30:21

      (laughs)

   7. SGScott Galloway30:23

      A woman in her 30s who's killing it professionally, is alone, it's like, super successful, but...

   8. SBSteven Bartlett30:29

      Mm.

   9. SGScott Galloway30:29

      Your- your single status is a feature. For women, it's seen as a bug, and you both might be just as lonely. But it's- it's... Or you might be engaging in (laughs) and I'm projecting here, I have no idea what your situation is here, but there's this dynamic where the men who are in the top 10% can engage in Porsche polygamy, and that is women, um, with online dating now believe, and there's nothing wrong with this, that... And I'm gonna be... This- this is gonna get me in trouble, but let's rate everybody. Most people will af- acknowledge that some people are more attractive than others, and they find certain people less and more attractive. A woman of average attractiveness can have a relationship, and when I say a relationship, that's code for sex, with someone who's in the top 10%, but that individual is probably not gonna establish a long-term relationship, and because of the lack of friction and connection and meeting people via text message or online dating, the top 10% of men are getting 80 to... 80+% of the opportunities for short-term relationships or sex. So, they can engage in what's called Porsche polygamy, in that there's not a lot of motivation for them to establish long-term relationships, which leads

8. 31:41 – 35:54

   The disproportionate focus on attractive men in online dating.

   1. SGScott Galloway31:41

      to bad behavior and a lack of household formation. So, the guys that most women want and believe that they should be in a relationship with are the least likely to establish a long-term relationship, and then the bottom 90 either have little or absolutely no interest from women. So, I wanna be clear, no woman is responsible for servicing a man, but what I think has happened is this dynamic where because online has given everyone access to everyone, the majority of women are all interested in the same group, and this group is now much less likely to engage in a long-term relationship, and the result is (laughs) just there's a disproportionate number of men and women who, quite frankly, are just lonely.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett32:28

      Mm.

   3. SGScott Galloway32:28

      Uh, but men have a tendency, when they don't have a romantic relationship, to not only not have that romantic relationship, but then they have fewer friends, they go out less, they're less professionally successful. You know, if I didn't have a mate who told me we need to save for a house, I'm not sure I wouldn't have been smoking pot and drinking every night.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett32:48

      (laughs) .

   5. SGScott Galloway32:48

      You know, she was like, "If you wanna continue to have a relationship and have sex with me, you've gotta get your shit together." That's a... Men, young men (laughs) need that. They need the guardrail of a romantic interest, the cocktail or the- the peanut butter and chocolate of a household where one person is more risk aggressive, you know, that's really important, and pushing the boundaries of what can be done, and then another person who's more practical. And that oftentimes goes into gender roles. Not always, and sometimes it's flipped, but that's a powerful combination. One plus one really does equal three, and across every species you see that the majority of really wonderful things, including offspring, but other things in terms of building a society, are a mix of different attributes. And so we have just fewer and fewer of that peanut butter and chocolate in households. There are now more people not only living alone, but living with their parents than ever before because they're not establishing those relationships. So it has... It's absolutely bad for women, but typically, typically, women still are economically successful, still find places to put that love, and quite frankly, don't start killing themselves or killing others. So, it's not that it's any- any- any- any less bad, but the knock-on effects tend to be less bad for society.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett34:10

      And I went through the research from... The Pew Research, but also from the sort of Centers of Disease Control just to clarify some of these numbers for women as well, and they- they cement everything you've said. Um, only 13% of women over 30 were married in 1970. That number has now risen to almost half. The divorce rate for women over 30 has doubled in the past 50 years. In 1970, only 10% of women over 30 were childless. Today, that number has risen to almost 30%. In 1970, only 28% of women over 30 were earning more than their husbands. Today, that number has risen to almost 50%. And in 1970, only 12% of women over 30 were living alone. Today, that number has riven- risen to 35%. And on the point of loneliness, I was looking at how many men versus how many women have a best friend, and it's- it's multiples more. So, multiple more women I find still have relationships regardless of this state of affairs because they- they're better at, as you say, forming social connections in, uh, non-romantic relationships with other women than men are. So, it's a pretty, it's a pretty, um, bleak picture. And maybe most importantly of all, there's a clear direction of travel here.

   7. SGScott Galloway35:20

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett35:20

      And if you extrapolate out that direction of travel, we don't get to a good place. Population decline you spoke of and- and how that lopsides society, depression, mental health, suicide. So the question becomes, for me, what would you advise young men? You talked about money.

   9. SGScott Galloway35:35

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett35:35

       I thought that was really interesting, so maybe we- we start there. Personal finance and establishing that. I'm a young man, so say 21 years old. Um, what do I, what have I got to do with my money? Where should I be putting it? How should I be earning it?

   11. SGScott Galloway35:50

       Mm-hmm. So, (sighs) I think the three legs

9. 35:54 – 43:13

   Tips for young men on making money and investing wisely.

   1. SGScott Galloway35:54

      of the stool, we're going back to it, realo- reallocating capital as a young man. One, start making some money. Two, put yourself in ran- i- uh, in environments where you might have a random encounter with a stranger. Also, and I know you engage in this, we're gonna reallocate four to six hours a week to physical fitness. Um, feeling strong, feeling, um, um, in shape is one. There's studies coming out now that it's supposedly 50% better than pharmaceuticals and talk therapy. Two, you'll be more attractive to mates. You'll feel better about yourself. You'll be more kind. Uh, I think that is incredibly, uh, powerful. But in terms of economic success, and I'm...I have a book coming out in March on this. I think there's a basic algorithm to financial security, or economic security. The first is focus, and that is focus, find something, I don't, I hate the term follow your passion-

   2. NANarrator36:48

      (laughs)

   3. SGScott Galloway36:48

      ... because typically people mistake passion for a hobby. And then they go, "I should be a DJ," or, "I should be an athlete," or, "I should open a restaurant." And they choose industries where the un- unemployment rate is 90+%. You know, the writers are on strike in Hollywood, the number, there's 180,000, uh, people in the a- a- actors' union, SAG or AFTRA. And the percentage of them that, uh, don't, or that make more than $24,000 a year to qualify for health insurance is, um, 12.5%. So I would argue that there's under or- or unemployment for nine in 10 actors. So find something you're good at that- that, where there's an employment rate of more than 90%. And I want to be clear, some people follow their passion and it pays off hugely. Jay-Z followed his passion, is now a billionaire. But I tell young men, "Assume you're not Jay-Z. Find something you're good at that has more than a 90+% employment rate, which is 99% of professions, and then in- invest the requisite 10,000 hours, perseverance, grit, willingness to break through hard things, willingness to suffer injustice, which is a guaranteed attribute of the workplace, and get really, really good at something. Or at least having, have a path to being great to something." Also, in terms of being attractive to potential mates, there's very few things that are more attractive, if you're not already economically successful, than a plan. This is my plan. Right? That's what I think romantic, potential romantic partners want. You don't need to be a baller, you don't need to be driving a Porsche, but you need to have a plan. And that plan might change. That plan might not work out, but you gotta have a plan. So the first is we're gonna focus and we're gonna find something we're good at, and not only something we're good at, but something people will pay us for. Um, that's the first thing. You gotta make money. But the second component, the key to wealth isn't- isn't as much how much money you make, it's your ability to live a little bit like a stoic and live below your means. And that's one thing I always did. I always lived below my means. I never had debt, I never used credit cards for stuff. And that is incredibly hard in our society where, um, every talented person, and now AI and algorithms are finding you at a moment of vulnerability and convincing you that you need a new set of on-trainers. That, oh wait, it's worth it to upgrade from economy to economy comfort to economy plus to business class. I mean, it's just, the- the market's ability in a capitalist market to find you a product you must have when you have any disposable income is just remarkable. There are so many amazing ways to spend money in London and New York, that to not spend it all and, or not spend more than all, is real discipline.

   4. NANarrator39:33

      (laughs)

   5. SGScott Galloway39:33

      That is incr- that shows incredible character at a young age. You need to live like a stoic. Your- your advantage as a young person is quite frankly to live in a fucking shoebox and spend no money on rent. Spend no money. I used to make it a game. One summer at UCLA, and this was more out of survival or need, but if I didn't make $3,300 between my junior and senior year at UCLA, I wasn't going back to college. I owed the fraternity a ton of money. I wasn't gonna be able to pay my tuition so I had 11 weeks to make $3,300. And I figured out if I just lived in the fraternity in a shitty little room that I was paying no money for, and I only ate Top Ramen, bananas, and milk, I could save, I could, I could live on $110 a week. That was my total budget. And I could do it. And when you're a young man, and not only that, it was still a fun summer. I would still go, uh, we would pool money and go buy a- a case of Schmitty beer and then on Sunday, uh, Sunday nights, we'd go to Sizzler, this tacky restaurant in LA for a Bruins special, Malibu chicken, an all you can eat salad bar, and I used to go with the other members of the crew team and just clear them out and spend three hours gorging. But we still had a good time. But when you're young, I think you want to lean into this great thing where you don't have to spend money. It is impossible not to spend money when you get a little bit older and you start collecting dogs and kids.

   6. NANarrator40:56

      (laughs)

   7. SGScott Galloway40:56

      You can't sleep on someone's couch. You can't sleep in a shitty apartment. You can't walk to work. You can't live on Top Ramen and bananas. So the ability to gamify and really try and live below your means. And then that creates an army of capital, and that army of capital goes out for you and starts making money for you when you're in your sleep. And that goes to specific investment advice. The first is, and people don't like to hear this, do away with the notion that you are brighter than anyone else and gonna be able to figure out individual stocks or investments that'll outperform the market. I- I can't convince you of that 100% and some of it is fun, and if you want to learn about a stock and you want to buy NVIDIA or you want to buy Dogecoin, fine. But try not to do it with more than 30% of your saved money. Try to take two thirds plus of your saved money and put it in low cost ETFs and index funds. Because here's the thing, our flaw as a species is we don't realize how fast time goes because the majority of us for the majority of history have died before the age of 35. We can't process how fast time is actually gonna go when you go past 35. At the age of 39, we stop, we have, no longer have the ability to process the way we change in terms of our own physical appearance. So from the age of 39 on, and I can validate this, every time you look in the mirror you're like, "Fuck, what is that?"

   8. NANarrator42:18

      (laughs)

   9. SGScott Galloway42:18

      Because you can't process what is happening to you because for the majority of your species' history, you weren't around post 39. You and I hopefully will be sitting here in 20 years over a beer and I'm gonna look at you and I'm like, "How fast did it go?" And you're gonna be like, "Jesus, like a blink."And so if I said to you, "Steven, give me 20... Give me... Find out a way to save a thousand bucks, a thousand bucks, and in a blink it's gonna be worth 6,000 'cause I have this magic box," how hard would you try to get as many... as much of that capital to put in that box? The power, the power of diversification and time... Because if you diversify, I can get you 6 to 8% a year, right? Every day, 51% of stocks go up, 49% go down. But if you invest in any five S&P stocks over 10 years and don't trade them, no one has ever lost money.

10. 43:13 – 44:21

    Importance of diversification and starting early in investing.

    1. SGScott Galloway43:13

       85% of day traders lose money. If you buy five stocks, put them away, and never look at them again, 10 years later no one has ever lost money. So diversification, and this is where I really screwed up, I didn't understand the power of diversification. Successful people fall into the trap of thinking, "I'm a baller. I'm smarter than everyone. I'm going all in on Cisco 'cause everybody wants internet infrastructure. I'm going all in on Amazon." If you went all in on Amazon in '99, in 24 months you had lost 90% of your principal. Even Amazon, the best companies in the world, if you look back, the majority of them have had 24-month periods where they went down 90%. But if you'd held on, if you'd held on and you didn't day trade them and you didn't look at your stocks, you'd be up 30 or 50X now. So the power of diversification and also a recognition that time is just gonna go so much faster than you think. So focus, find something you're good at that people will pay you for, live like a stoic, save, you know, spend less than you save so you can develop an army of people who are killing it or killing people and invading the Earth while you're in your sleep, recognizing the

11. 44:21 – 50:09

    Role of mentors in the development of young men.

    1. SGScott Galloway44:21

       power of diversification, and then appreciating how fast time will go. And not trading stocks, just let time take over. If we give every baby... and this is a potential solution to what I think is gonna be an oncoming crisis amongst seniors, or too many of them that we can't take care of, if we gave... for $40 billion from the US budget, we could give every baby $7,000, and I think if we treat them like infan- infants and we put it in a savings account, ETFs, diversified, by the time they're 65, just with that $7,000, if you didn't let them touch it or trade it, it'd be worth a million bucks. So the fastest way to get every senior a million bucks, and granted it's 65 years from now, would be to give every baby $7,000. And that just shows you the power of compound interest and time and diversification. I think it's fairly simple, those four things, but they're not easy to do, easy to do. But everyone can do them. Almost everyone can do them.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett45:16

       And for anybody who really is, you know, they've got, I don't know, $3,000 in their savings account, they have never invested a penny before in their life-

    3. SGScott Galloway45:24

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett45:25

       They don't know any of the terminology we just used-

    5. SGScott Galloway45:27

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett45:27

       They don't know what Vanguard means, they don't know what low fees mean-

    7. SGScott Galloway45:29

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett45:30

       What is the simple way of getting them on the right track from that point of, "I, I drive taxis. I've got $3,000 in my bank account or $500. What do I do?"

    9. SGScott Galloway45:41

       Go to Charles Schwab or public.com, open an account and first off find out, um-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett45:47

        The equivalents in the UK are like Hargreaves Lansdown. Um, you can do a lot of this stuff on a lot of different apps, but you're picking a fund, right?

    11. SGScott Galloway45:56

        You go into SPY or go into an index or an ETF that buys a bunch of stocks for you, make sure it's low fees, and find out, and I wish I knew more about the tax law here, find out if your employer or the government offers you some sort of tax advantage vehicle. In the US it's, it's Roth and 401 (k) s.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett46:16

        We have ISA, we have a retirement, um, system where you can invest in your retirement and you get-

    13. SGScott Galloway46:21

        You have to understand that shit. And if you don't understand it, find your daughter or someone who can explain it to you. And then the key is just start and put it in an ETF or an index fund that tracks the entire market, low cost, low fees, and find out if you have access to anything that's tax advantage. But the key, the key is to start.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett46:44

        If I only have a hundred dollars?

    15. SGScott Galloway46:46

        Well, Christ, th- th- again, that hundred bucks in 20 or 30 years will be a thousand or more. And not only that, it gets you, it gets you a taste for flesh. You know, like I remember I went on my first safari (laughs) and they said, "The li- you know, unfortunately we had one lion attack a human and now all of them appear to have a taste for human flesh." They never used to go after humans before, but once they get a taste for human flesh, they're like, "Oh, this tastes pretty good. Let's start killing people, killing and eating people." Just a hundred bucks and then you wake up and you're like, "Oh, it's worth 108. It's worth 112," you get a taste for the flesh of how powerful money and time and investing is, and just start. I also think it starts to make you feel-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett47:33

        Hmm.

    17. SGScott Galloway47:34

        W- wha- in a weird way I think it makes you feel... and, and I, and, and I'm just saying this 'cause I can relate to it as a man, I think it makes you feel masculine to feel like I'm taking care of myself, I'm strong enough to live below my means.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett47:44

        Discipline, isn't it?

    19. SGScott Galloway47:45

        Yeah. I, I'm... it's like working out. You just feel better about yourself. And I think living below your means and creating an army of capital... Everyone talks about starting a business that scales so they can make money in their sleep. That's their goal. You can make money in your sleep by saving it and investing it. But the key is just to start.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett48:03

        Quick one. This is really, really fascinating to me. On the back end of our YouTube channel, it says that 69.9% of you that watch this channel frequently over the lifetime of this channel haven't yet hit the subscribe button. I just wanted to ask you a favor. It helps this channel so much if you choose to just subscribe. It helps us scale the guests, helps us scale the production, and it makes the show bigger. So if I could ask you for one favor, if you've watched the show before and you've enjoyed it and you like this episode that you're currently watching, could you please hit the subscribe button? Thank you so much, and I will repay that gesture by making sure that everything we do here gets better and better and better and better. That is a promise I'm willing to make you. Do we have a deal? Scott, every time you mention male role models, your demeanor changes.... little bit.

    21. SGScott Galloway48:46

        Say more.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett48:47

        And I, I see the emotion and passion in your face.

    23. SGScott Galloway48:50

        Yeah, there, uh, I mean, I, I, like I said, I could have easily come off the tracks and all these wonderful men from different parts of my life, I mean, this is, um... One of my, one of my, uh, books, The Algebra of Happiness, was optioned to be turned into a series. And the series was gonna be, like, an R-rated version of Modern Family 'cause this was the reality of my life. I lived with my mother and her boyfriend for seven years, who was a male role model for me. We were that family that they don't talk about in movies or dramas, and that is, we were the second family. Terry was married with kids, and every other weekend, he used to come spend with me and my mom. And you immediately think, "This is a bad person." He was wonderful to me. He was a great role model, he was generous, he was kind. He taught me a lot about what it meant to be successful and a good person. And after him and my mom broke up, he reached out and kinda tried to stay involved in my life. You know, I had, I had men like that. I remember meeting men... I met a camp counselor who would just stay in touch with me, and he, he was in technology, and he taught me a little bit about programming. And here's the thing, here's the thing, Steven, and this is... I mean, the bottom line is, when we go to solutions, the number one solution for

12. 50:09 – 1:02:37

    Emphasising discipline and character in personal growth.

    1. SGScott Galloway50:09

       what ails young men is other men. And that is, uh, if we want better men, we have to be better men. And I think the ultimate expression of masculinity, where it shows you're powerful, you're strong, you're smart, is when you get involved and irrationally passionate about the well-being of another child. That is, that shows you have hit a certain level of success. And unfortunately, I was on Bill Maher, I'm doing a lot of name-dropping right now, and I said that, and Bill Maher immediately went, "Well, I, I'm not gonna get involved in every- any 15-year-old boy's life, they're gonna think I'm a pervert." And the reality is, the Catholic Church and Michael Jackson have fucked it up for all of us. And that is, 99.99% of paternal and fraternal love that men wanna display and get involved in a young man's life is positive. And society has taught us to be suspect of those men, and it's a real shame because those random, generous men who came into my life were, were, were instrumental, instrumental in, in my development and turning into a productive citizen. I think a lot of men have those, the inclinations and that desire to get involved. And the- and- and the good news is, these young men in need of guidance are everywhere. Sometimes it's just your friends' kids because biologically, uh, kids start pulling away from their parents because they need to, to get out, you know, leave the nest. So they start thinking anything your dad says is just wrong and stupid. But your dad's friend, when he says the exact same thing, you kinda nod your head and it makes sense. And young men who need guidance are everywhere. Everywhere. You know, my nanny's kid is struggling, your friends' kids are struggling, young boys are struggling. I get emails every day from dozens of young men who are clearly just, like, good kids trying to figure it out. They're just trying to figure it out, and they want a little bit of reassurance and a little bit of guidance and someone just to tell them that they matter, right? But yeah, the, uh, the- the number of men just randomly, with no self-interest, who got involved in my life was just, I mean, literally a gift. Several of them.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett52:28

       And a lot of these men are finding role models online, like Andrew Tate, who is, many people describe as a symptom of this, of this crisis. Um... Is there anything that Andrew Tate says that you fundamentally agree with?

    3. SGScott Galloway52:45

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett52:46

       I- I- I understand there's- there's a lot that you have a different opinion on, but what is- what is it that he says that you think has- holds merit?

    5. SGScott Galloway52:54

       Uh, I'll go further than that. I think the majority of what Andrew Tate says is probably positive.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett52:59

       Hmm.

    7. SGScott Galloway52:59

       It starts from a really good place, take accountability for your actions, be in great shape, be action-oriented, but it then (laughs) kinda comes off the rails in that one of the ways you kinda take accountability or take action is to try- start treating women as property, is to sign up for my class on how to trade crypto, which makes Trump University look like Harvard.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett53:24

       (laughs)

    9. SGScott Galloway53:24

       I mean, it's just, the- the- it's a bit of a grift. And I also think that it, th- that what starts off as positive, and that's most- the mo- quite frankly, that's the most dangerous thing about it 'cause you can imagine a young boy, a young man just agreeing with most of it. And so then they adopt the last 10 or 20%, which quite frankly is just really ugly. It's just misogyny. You know?

    10. SBSteven Bartlett53:44

        What do you think about the Bugatti and the Lamborghini and...

    11. SGScott Galloway53:48

        Hey, look, a young man wanting to acquire items that signal power and strength such that I'm wearing a Panerai watch that I haven't wound in 10 years. Okay, how's that any different, right? 'Cause I wanna signal my attractiveness and- and- and- and success to strangers, right? So yeah, that's... I- I get it. I get it, but you know... The baller, the guy who ends up with more, what I'll call lasting opportunities, and quite frankly, more mating opportunities, is the guy who buys a Toyota and is saving money and is the first guy in his cohort to buy a house. I think the majority of people are less impressed by your things than you think. They're thinking about your shit less than you're thinking about it. I think people are really impressed with discipline and a plan.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett54:34

        I used to believe, I think up until, uh, maybe two years ago that I no longer was in search of stat- status to some degree-

    13. SGScott Galloway54:42

        Mm-hmm.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett54:42

        ... well, maybe, like, 70% I believe this, because I no longer have lots of material possessions. You won't catch me in, I mean, you-... other than the car that you arrived here in-

    15. SGScott Galloway54:50

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett54:50

        ... that's the nicest possession I own. I don't have sports cars, I don't have luxury items or watches or anything. And then I read a book by a guy called Will Storr, who's been on this podcast, I'm sure the book's behind me somewhere, who told me that we just are the- the status games that we play just change over time.

    17. SGScott Galloway55:07

        Mm-hmm.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett55:07

        So instead of logos, we care about the size of the boat. Or even Jack-

    19. SGScott Galloway55:12

        Mm-hmm.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett55:12

        ... in his profession as the director of this podcast-

    21. SGScott Galloway55:14

        Mm-hmm.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett55:14

        ... is playing a status game of cameras and production quality. And that really un- changed my perception. I used to be quite judgmental once I'd lost all my Louis Vuitton and all their stuff that I used to buy, of people demonstrating status, and I arrived at the conclusion that it's actually innately human. It's- it's part of belonging and feeling valuable amongst our tribes, is playing these status games. And I guess that's what the Bugatti is a metaphor of, it's-

    23. SGScott Galloway55:39

        The- the wealthiest man in the world, uh, Bernard Arnault, and it's usually either Bernard or Musk, but the wealthiest man in the world figured out that, you know, we wanna feel basic instincts. The most basic instinct is survival, but a close second is propagation.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett55:56

        What's that mean?

    25. SGScott Galloway55:57

        Sex.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett55:57

        Sex.

    27. SGScott Galloway55:58

        And so the way you communicate your worth as a mate is by, one, showing that you have a Bugatti, 'cause what it means is I'm successful and strong, and if you have sex with me, your kids are more likely to survive than if you have sex with someone driving a Honda. And women spend a great deal of money on ergonomically impossible shoes and expensive creams and lotions that elevate the height of their cheekbones, because supposedly that means if you mate with them, their kids are less likely to be prone to infection. So this all comes to propagation. And s- show me any product that has a margin, gross margins of greater than 70 or 80 points, I'm gonna show up- you a product that does one of two things. Makes you feel closer to God. I think the slope on the back of a 911, I think the mesh in a Bottega Veneta bag, I think the, you know, sometimes great art that can really still you, you look at something and you think, "God, that just gives me a moment of presence here." That's because over time, the place we saw really, really beautiful things were sequestered to venues that had a religious overtone to them. The mosques, the temples, the churches, the most beautiful artisans in the world were commissioned to come in and say, "Paint the frescoes on the ceilings here, because we wanna give people the impression that this is where God lives." And people started believing them when they heard the music and they saw the beautiful robes and the candles and the art. So when we are around really beautiful things, we just feel closer to God. And then the- the other maybe more powerful thing is it signals our worth as a mate, and the desire to be more desirable as a mate such that the next generation is smarter, stronger, faster just never goes away. And the wealthiest man in the world... Or it abates as you get older, but it doesn't, I don't think ever really goes away. But the wealthiest man in the world has tapped into our need to feel closer to God or be more, um, attractive to potential mates. So I have a question back to you. Where do you spend your money?

    28. SBSteven Bartlett57:49

        Hmm. Great question. Businesses.

    29. SGScott Galloway57:54

        So investing?

    30. SBSteven Bartlett57:54

        Investing, starting companies, one of my f- new chapter of my life where I'm- I'm starting companies and appointing CEOs-
13. 1:02:37 – 1:03:30

    How moments of rock bottom lead to personal growth.

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:37

       correlation I've seen is that there's a moment of rock bottom or pain, where the incentive structure changes and people go, "Fuck, I have no choice now." The pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making the change.

    2. SGScott Galloway1:02:49

       I think that's right. I think most success involves sort of... It's not just sort of gradual, up and to the right. There's some shock value there. I think of George W. Bush, you know, talks about his wife, Laura. I think the same thing happened to his vice president at some point. They were, uh, you know, alcoholics, and basically their wives, their respective wives, both of 'em in both cases said, "I'm leaving you unless you stop drinking." And kinda once they stopped drinking, their lives, their professionally and personally just took off. Uh, for other people... I mean, I think it, I think there are moments like that for almost anyone who's been successful. Or maybe not. Maybe it's incremental, just high character people keep plugging away.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:27

       Alcohol, though. Interesting subject we've not spoken about.

14. 1:03:30 – 1:05:40

    Importance of moderation and self-awareness in personal development.

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:31

    2. SGScott Galloway1:03:31

       Yeah. So, I think a lot about alcohol. First, uh, so first off, it does mean acknowledge, I love alcohol and I'm really good at it.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:38

       (laughs)

    4. SGScott Galloway1:03:38

       Um, like Winston Churchill, I believe I've gotten more out of alcohol than it's gotten out of me. And I think there's this myth of addiction that everyone who drinks or does, you know, engages in THC, is probably gonna end up living under a bridge or be economically ruined. I don't think that's true at all. I think that the majority of people who engage with substances do so in maybe not a productive way, but in at least a way that's not gonna ruin their lives or their careers. And I'd like to think I'm one of those people. Having said that, if you look at the studies around happiness, especially the largest study, the Grant Study, where they segment people into quintiles, from the happiest to the least happiest, the most common attribute across the cohort of the least happiest was alcohol. And what I suggest, what I advise every person, especially young people, especially young men who are more prone to addiction to do, is to do an audit of your addictions. And to go through everything and say, "All right, everyone has a certain level of addiction. What are things I just do a lot of, that I could probably do a little bit less of?" And then decide what would happen... And the test isn't, "Well, am I living under a bridge or am I addicted?" That's not the test for addiction. The test is, "Would I be just a little less shitty at things if I did less of it?" When I got really serious about my career, when I got really serious about trying to develop the economic security to take care of my mother, I substantially decreased my intake of alcohol, and I didn't do any drugs. And I found that part and parcel of developing the professional and economic success I wanted at an early age involved a level of just sheer commitment that alcohol wasn't conducive to. It was when I got into businesses later, where they were more about relationships and I had more opportunities to go out, where alcohol kinda crept back in. But I don't think it's a bad strategy to decide that you're gonna work and work out and invest in trying to meet people. And that alcohol... Alcohol can serve as a decent lubricant as a young person to helping

15. 1:05:40 – 1:08:53

    Balancing career, fitness, and social life for holistic growth.

    1. SGScott Galloway1:05:40

       meet other people. It's just easier to approach strangers after one or two drinks. Um, but I don't think it's a bad strategy when you're trying, when you're on the up-curve, really trying to make a lot of progress fast. I mean, if you think of your professional career, it's like a rocket. The majority of the fuel is just m- is, is spent trying to get out of the soupy atmosphere. And then once, if you can get out of the atmosphere into the orbit, that professional momentum will take you a long way. But it's really hard and costly to get out of that atmosphere, the y- y- inner orbit. And when you're really trying to kill it and you just need to be kind of all in on your career, yeah, that's probably a point where you wanna err on the side of doing less rather than more. (pages flipping)

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:24

       Quick one. You guys know that for years now, my office has quite literally been everywhere. On a plane, in the back of my car, in a terminal in an airport or on a train. You name it, I've probably worked there. Ever since I started my first business at 19 years old, I've been working on the move. All I need is wifi, a desk and my headphones, and I'm set. And one of the places that has always had my back when I'm struggling to find an office is WeWork. I've been using WeWork for years now. Whether it's in Manchester, London, Manhattan or LA, WeWork is easy. It literally requires no thinking. There's no stress of finding the perfect working location. WeWork does it all for you. Plenty of desk space, meeting rooms, collaboration spaces, drinks, snacks, it's all there. So, for your next remote working trip away from the office, or if you want a new fresh space to work in, then don't just work anywhere. WeWork might just be your answer. And you can get 25% off your first six months of WeWork all access by using code CEOWORKS. That's one word, CEOWORKS. And to redeem this offer, visit we.co/ceoworks. (pages flipping) As you may know, this podcast is sponsored by Huel. If you're living under a rock, you might have missed that. I've come to learn over time, not all of the products they have are for me, but the ones that are for me have really, really changed my life in a profound way. All of the products are designed for different use cases and different people. For me, as you'll probably know, the ready to drink bottles are a staple of my life at the moment, um, and they have been for many, many years. But for a lot of other people, they have the Hot & Savory, which is a five-minute hot meal that's nutritionally complete and contains all the good stuff that all Huel products contain, which is the 23 vitamins and minerals, and the wonderful balance of sort of nutritional completeness. And then you have the bars as well. If you've heard about Huel on this podcast, you've heard me talking about it a lot, you're aware that I'm an investor in the company, you're aware that I'm on the board of the company, and you're not sure where to start, I would highly recommend starting with the bestseller bundle. Basically, we'll send you a package in the post containing all of the favorite products that people love, and then you try them all and stick with the ones that really, really fit you. The link is in the description below to try the bestseller bundle. One of the things I've always mulled with is, when we think about the stats we've discussed in the crisis and the issues in society-

    3. SGScott Galloway1:08:33

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:33

       ... um, the direction of travel and how we're living our lives, more digital-

    5. SGScott Galloway1:08:37

       Yeah.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:37

       ... more alone-

    7. SGScott Galloway1:08:38

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:38

       ... more lonely, um, more dependent on processed foods and sugars and other chemicals to keep ourselves s- seemingly balanced, there f- it feels like the solution must be quite deep, systemic in the way that we are designing our society.

16. 1:08:53 – 1:18:21

    Addressing societal issues through economic reforms.

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:53

       So I, I, the question I've always wondered is, do we have to just, like, rip up the entirety of the blueprint of how society is designed to solve for these problems, loneliness, depression, sexlessness, all of those subject matters?

    2. SGScott Galloway1:09:06

       I don't think so. I think the solutions are simpler, uh, than, than the incumbents want to admit in corporations. A key component of entrenchment is the delusion of co- complexity. You know, the, um, Twitter and Google and Meta will say that the hate speech and the polarization that they've created and the teen depression are kind of indicative of broader problems in our society and are these really complex problems, and they kind of stare thoughtfully into the camera like, "We gotta solve these problems together." Yet when they kick one account off of Twitter, the real Donald Trump, and election and misinformation goes down 40 to 60% in one day. If they age-gated social media, I think you would see a dramatic decline in teen depression. If you remove Section 230 protections, I think YouTube would find ways to stop radicalizing young men on YouTube. Uh, I think the solutions are simpler than, uh, they're, they're simpler, but they're expensive. And specifically, they're expensive against the people in charge, and that is rich people and corporations. And I'll give you an example. If you were to try and reverse engineer the problems in our society to kind of one blast zone, one ground zero, I think it's what we said before, I think it's that for the first time in our society, in a democ- in democracies, it's happened in the US, it's about to happen across the majority of the 28 countries in the EU- in the EO. For the first time, a 30-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents. That's a fundamental breakdown in the compact between a family and a society. And they get angry and they blame the government, or they start demonizing, and then someone fills that void and starts demonizing other groups and says, "Oh, it's not your fault, it's their fault." And that can lead to very ugly places in history. So my solution is, my solutions are pretty straightforward. If you have... the average 70-year-old is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago, and the average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy, and the percentage of wealth as a percentage of GDP controlled by people under the age of 40 has been cut in half, and a house is 12 times more expensive than it was 40 years ago, but their income is only six X what it used to be, w- w- w- we have too much money being crowded into not only the rich, but the old. And if you want, if you wanna solve, if you were to try and have one answer that would address, not all of it, but really take a dent out of obesity, addiction, deaths of despair, uh, male abandonment, divorce, depression, if we raised, and I don't know the numbers here, but if we raised in the United States the minimum wage, if we tripled the minimum wage, I think you would go a long way to solving a lot of those problems. I think putting more money in the pockets of young people, uh, and reducing the rage and the shame and the deaths of despair, uh, and the l- would go so far to solving loneliness. I think it's pretty basic. At the end of World War II, the top tax rate was 92%. We just decided rich people are here to reinvest in the middle class. When Reagan entered office and when Thatcher entered office, the top tax rates were about 70%. By the time Reagan left office, it was 27%. What we've seen across studies, Un- University of California, Riverside, and UC Berkeley did studies on minimum wage. In Washington state, California, and New York where they dramatically raised minimum wage, the incumbents will tell you, "The sky's gonna fall. Businesses are gonna go out of business. People are gonna stop hiring. It's gonna expedite them trying to figure out a way to buy the new Burgertron to, to make burgers, not humans." And what they found was the opposite, that when you increase minimum wage even dramatically, it grew the economy and jobs. 'Cause here's the wonderful thing about lower- and middle-income people. When you give them money, they spend it. And so the multiplier effect is more stimulative than when you crowd money into the top 1%. So if a magic wand, first thing, a dramatic increase in minimum wage, and there's very things, very few things we could do that would have this much impact without increasing the deficit, and it's time. We have employment, unemployment at historic lows. So the employment market could absorb an increase in mandatory minimum wage. As a percentage of, of GDP, wages have never been lower, yet corporate profits have never been greater. So yeah, uh, corporate profits would be hit. Yeah, the markets might go down, and it would absolutely be worth it. This is, this is ground zero. That's where we start. We're going... Capitalism is about a dignity of work.... and because there's such a demand, there's now 1.7 open jobs for every one person seeking a job in the US, I think it's 1.3 to one in the U- in, in the UK, we need to put more money in the hands of lower- and middle-income households, full stop.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:52

       How many kids have you got, Scott?

    4. SGScott Galloway1:13:53

       I've got two, 13 and 16-year-old boys.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:56

       What is you, y- the advice you give them about the world? They're coming into their, their adolescence and they're gonna be off dating and all of those things. If you, if you had to equip them with, I'm sure you do, what are the messages you're trying hard to either directly equip them with or indirectly i- i- infect them with, in terms of values and principles for life? Um, for your eldest, you said he's 13?

    6. SGScott Galloway1:14:17

       My oldest is 16, mine's 13.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:19

       16, 13. Okay, so 16 years old, Jesus. That's when it all starts happening.

    8. SGScott Galloway1:14:23

       Mm-hmm. So what I try and do is, like, I think about, all right, uh, I wanna show the, these kids that I wanna be kind to strangers, right? You know, just, I wanna be, I wanna work hard, I wanna, I wanna have good manners, I wanna try and occasionally someone says something, a service person or whatever is rude to me, and my ego is when I was your age, I felt like I always needed to restore the world's balance and no one could be disrespectful to me or I got back in their face. And now I realize, occasionally you just take it. Occasionally you just take it. That's what it means to be a man. I try to be physically strong. I work out. I try to get them working out. I'm just trying to show them stuff, 'cause I find it's very hard when they get to a certain age to advise them. They don't wanna hear it. So I'm trying to be that guy, um, and, you know, but it's not... I have an easier time advising other 16-year-olds than mine, because mine is he- healthfully pulling away from me. And it'll come back but right now, he's pulling away.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:26

       What is, what is masculinity? Isn't that... Y- you're writing a book at the moment, right? You're writing two books at the moment about various subject matters.

    10. SGScott Galloway1:15:31

        Mm-hmm.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:31

        What can you tell us about what you're writing about?

    12. SGScott Galloway1:15:35

        Yeah, well, I'm finished with the Algebra of Wealth book. I'm just starting the book on masculinity, but I think we need... For our previous comments, I think some unfortunate voices have filled this void around masculinity, and I think we need, um, a new vision for modern masculinity. On the far right, I would argue that those forces have conflated masculinity with cruelty. I think people like Trump and Putin and Elon Musk are looked to as role models for masculinity, for a lot of good reasons. But I think being a murderer, Putin, a criminal, Trump, or someone who has 11 kids, none of whom he's living with, Musk, I think that is exactly what it means to not be a man. (laughs) And when I try and trifurcate the three legs of the stool of masculinity, and I'm still working through this and I'm curious if you have any thoughts, but I come up... And then, so on the far right, let me back up. The wrong vision of masculinity. On the far left, as far as I can tell, their vision of masculinity is to act more like a woman. I don't think that's right either. It's like, well, how do men, how do men become better men? Act more like a woman. I don't think that's not only what men in society are looking for, I don't think that's what women are looking for. I think if there's a fire or Russian soldiers pour over the Ukrainian e- border, you want some of that big dick energy. And I also think that women are attracted to, generally speaking, this isn't true across the spectrum, we're having a really important conversation and everyone deserves respect, but I think demonstrating a certain level of, uh, unabashed masculinity is really important in, in romantic relationships. And for me, the pillars or the three legs of the stool of masculinity, trying to distill it down to three things, are first, protector. I think that... I was in Seattle at the Weston Hotel and I was checking in, and there was an alarm went off and they said, they closed the elevators and said, "We, a smoke alarm has gone off on the 11th floor." And these firefighters (laughs) about nine minutes later showed up, carrying, each of them must have been carrying 80 pounds of equipment and axes and all sorts of shit, and it was nine men and one woman, and they don't look at the cameras to see if there's a raging fire on the 11th floor, they just bomb to the 11th floor. They're just there to protect people. Like, yeah, we might die. A fireman is actually more dangerous than being a cop, it's more dangerous than being in the military. But they are there to protect you. And whether it's military or things or cops or people or e- or a head of household that's providing economically, I think being a protector is a key component of masculinity. And I also wanna say that masculinity is not isolated to people born as males. I think a lot of women demonstrate

17. 1:18:21 – 1:23:09

    Modern interpretation of masculinity and romantic relationships.

    1. SGScott Galloway1:18:21

       masculinity. I think it's a wonderful attribute. I personally end up being more drawn to friends who have more feminine characteristics, which are also wonderful. But generally speaking, if we're gonna have an adult conversation around gender and gender roles and masculinity, I think we need to acknowledge that 90, 95% of us will have an easier time embracing these types of behaviors more commonly associated with people born as males and born as females. But the modern vision of protection, the modern vision of protection needs some nuance, and that is the, the trans community. I think most men don't understand at their heart, don't really understand the trans community, don't understand the notion that parents and a doctor might decide that a 15-year-old should have surgery and go through transition with hormones. I think the majority of men don't, when that hits them, don't understand it. And I think that lack of understanding can lead to, um, unconscious discrimination and bias. And I think part of being a real protector is to acknowledge that you don't need to understand stuff to, um, protect people, and that is, I think our first inclination should be, as men, this is a community, maybe I understand this, maybe I don't, maybe, maybe I do know trans people, I don't know trans people. Clear out the politics of it-... clear out your misunderstanding. This is a community that is taking a lot of shit, even you could argue being persecuted. Your first role as a man in his masculinity is to move to protect them, full stop. That's what we do. We protect people, and we err on the side of protection. And I think that is a really- I think that's a really nice attribute, to start from a level of protection. When you see someone being hurt, you don't need to understand the situation. If you see someone getting, uh, beaten up in a subway, if you see a fight about to break out in a bar, you don't need to understand the situation. You move to protect- to protection, full stop. That's what we do as men. The second is provider. Um, 70% of divorce filings are from women, and it's usually a function of three things: the guy loses his business, has a mental breakdown, or goes bankrupt. Men are still looked to, to be the economic provider. And that's not to say that... And part of that is to embrace this wonderful progress women have made and sometimes acknowledge, many times acknowledge, that the woman or your partner is just better at this whole money thing, and being supportive and getting out of her way. 'Cause your job is just to ensure, play a role that you can provide for the family. Um, and then getting to a point where you can take care of yourself, take care of your family, and then start to expand the circle and start taking care of extended family, start taking care of the community, donations, philanthropy. I think that's a real... To be a provider for people that ultimately you don't know is a form of masculinity, right? To plant, to plant the seeds of, of trees or sh- you know, that, uh, y- you will never sit under, the shade of which you'll never sit under. And then the final one is procreator. And this is the one I'm working through and will definitely get me in the most trouble. But I do think that part of masculinity is being the initiator in a romantic relationship and pursuing romantic relationships. And there's a difference between pursuit and being a predator. And if you don't understand the difference, you've got much bigger problems. And because of some well-publicized and heinous abhorrent acts where men, um, abuse their power, um, now we conflate any sort of initiative or, or aggression around establishing a romantic relationship as predatory, and I don't think that's true. I think men's role in being more aggressive around romantic relationships, and even aggressive is a tough word. Being the initiator, I think that is part of masculinity. I think that's part of success. Um, one of the things, you know, I hope my boys... I try, and I think I told you this last time I was here. Uh, when I used to go down, I don't do it anymore 'cause it just got too much. But I used to force my kids, whenever we went out, to talk to a stranger. And we'd sit outside our house with my 13-year-old, very upset 'cause he hadn't talked to a stranger. I wasn't gonna let him back in the house. I'm like, "Just go pet the dog. Just say hi." Anything. But that ability to initiate contact, professionally, personally, whatever it is, I think it's fundamental to success. And so I think guys need to, early on, hopefully get comfortable with approaching strangers. Uh, including-

Episode duration: 1:55:19