Why Scott Galloway Wants Us To Celebrate Masculinity, Not Diminish It | On With Kara Swisher

Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And we have something extra special for you this holiday. More of me and Scott. We're like an extra jerky with dressing on the side. Scott joined me on with Cara Swisher earlier this month and we're dropping it in your feed as you feed today. Scott, it was a really good episode, don't you think? It felt like I was staying at your house. It felt alien. But you're an okay interviewer. Oh, thank you so much. You're learning. You're getting better. You're getting better. At some point, you'll get to interview important people. Oh, okay. Good. Keep trying. It's about Scott's fantastic book notes on being a man. And we had a really good discussion. I thought it was really important and I thought we had some very good discussion about you as a person, about your parents, and of course about some of the advice you've been giving, which is really getting a lot of pickup. I have to say, all around the country, people are really noticing this young guy. I have brought in Scott Galloway and I'm very pleased. Did you say young guy? Yeah, I did. Did you say...you've been so generously, man. I think you're micro dosing MDMA. I know, but I actually, in my head, I'm thinking old guy actually, but I'm trying to butter you up. Thank you. Butter you up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Yeah, that's right. Anyway, enjoy all your pie. We'll be back in your feeds after the holiday. When it comes to home improvement, even the most experienced DIYer has a limit. I'm not going to come in here with the blow torch and get it hot and solder and put the copper pipes to come. I'm not doing it. I call it a very nice man to handle it. When to call the experts and when to do it yourself. That's This Week on Explain It to Me. Find new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Did you miss me? 100% Yeah, there's going to be a lot of Kara coming up for you. Just get ready. You'll be like, I'm so sick of this bitch. Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. If you listen to Pivot, then you know today's guest very well, Scott Galloway, my Pivot co-host and host of ProfG and Raging Moderates, a marketing professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, the founder of several successful marketing firms and author of many bestselling books. He has a new book coming out called Notes on Being a Man. Scott's been sounding the alarm about the problems facing young men for a long time now. In his book, he offers some of his own advice on what it means to be a good man. He shares stories about his own life, how he was raised by a single mom, almost didn't graduate from college, went on to make millions and is now the proud father of two sons of his own. It's part memoir, part self-help book for boys at a time when algorithms are pushing more of them towards the regressive masculinity of MAGA and the far right. I have had a very surprising and wonderful relationship with Scott and one of the topics we do talk about a lot is young men. I have three sons myself and he has been a great mentor to them in many ways. And it's been a real journey for the two of us, the friendship itself and how men and women get along and how we affect each other. And to me, it's been really positive. Scott can be very feminine in many ways and I can be very masculine. And I think we're trying to upend the ideas of that and how you can add to each other's life. I suspect he's made me more kind and I think I have made him just better. He's just a better man from knowing me and that's the facts. All right, let's get to my interview with Scott, one of my favorite people in my life. Our expert question comes from someone he loves, comedian Michelle Wolfe, his favorite comedian. Scott is incredibly sharp and thoughtful on this topic, so stick around. Scott, welcome to on, welcome to my side hustle. Yeah, so this is, I was trying to think, you stay at my place a lot. I've never stayed at your place. This is what it must feel like to stay at your place. It feels a little bit uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. I have invited you to my homes. You're not interested because they're not fancy enough. No, it's not that. I like to be able to call someone and yell, where is my fucking breakfast? And I can't do that when I stay at friends' places. Yeah, I can bring you breakfast. We can do that. I can handle that. I can make some nice eggs. But you know what we're here to do? We're here to talk about your new book. All right. Right? Yeah. You've written a whole bunch of books and we met through your first book, The Four. How did you come to this subject? Because this has been something that's happening over the past couple of years since we've had a relationship. And when did you go from, I'm worried about raising my two sons to the bigger concern about young men in general? So, look, I relate to this. As you get a bit older, you start thinking about like, how can you use your platform to talk about issues? Other people aren't talking about it recognizing enough and how can you have a, maybe even a bit of a positive impact. And the data was just so overwhelming. And it was also a dangerous thing to talk about. It's gotten less dangerous to talk about it. But five years ago, if you did anything that kind of resembled advocating for young men or highlighting their problems, there was a understandable gag reflex that you were one of those people. And that is the people who initially filled this void. To the far rights credit, they recognized the problem earlier than anybody, but their answer was to take non-whites and women back to the 50s. They blamed special interest groups for the dissent and troubles of men. And so there was a really understandable gag reflex. But what I saw was so striking, you know, you go into a morgue and five young people have died by suicide, four men. There's several million men now in America that are neither employed in education or in training. And some men now, a decent number of men in their 20s spend less time outside than prison inmates because they become so addicted to their phones. So I saw an opportunity to talk about this stuff. I've been talking about it for five, six years, and I wanted to take a more methodical approach to it. I relate to these young men who are struggling. I think thereby the grace of God go I. I wasn't a remarkable young man. I didn't have a ton of economic or romantic opportunities. So I just sort of relate to it on a personal level raised by a single mother. And I saw an opportunity and the opportunity, I think, is the following or the need. I think every young person needs a code to help them sort through and navigate the thousands of decisions they make every day. And you can get your code from religion, from your parents, from the military, from your patriotism. There's a lot of places to get a code. But I think a lot of young men lack that. They lack a real basis of principles for making decisions. And I think that masculinity can serve as a code when it's described in an aspirational updated way. And also I think it's easy for a lot of us to lean into those attributes that we feel naturally that can be channeled in very positive ways. Right. But was there a thing that you noticed? I mean, these are all statistics, but I think it must be something more personal, correct? Well, I have boys, right? And you have boys. I do, three. And you just kind of see what's going on. Like my 15 year old has a party. The boys are kind of dopey. They're nice, but they're dopey. They can't even make eye contact, a lot of them. And some of the girls look like they could be the junior senators from Pennsylvania. Girls are just pulling away from boys. And we don't want to do anything to get in the way of that. We want to celebrate it. But the fact that we're probably going to have pretty soon two to one female to male college graduates and a lack of economically viable men. Men mate horizontally or socioeconomically horizontally and up, men horizontally and down. And when the pool of viable males, horizontal and up, keep shrinking, there's a lack of mating opportunities. And for me, what I want for my boys, I used to think I wanted them to be economically successful. Now I've realized that the whole shooting matches, I want them to have really strong partnerships and have kids someday. That's what I would want for them. And unfortunately today, that probably means being economically viable for a male. But I think it was having boys and seeing the contrast between boys and girls their age and just wondering what kind of world waits for them. And my biggest supporters, a lot of young men come up to me and they're very nice, but my biggest supporters are single mothers. And these are feminists. So a lot of them are feminists who say something's going on. And the email or the message goes something like this, I have three kids, two daughters, one boy, one daughter's in Chicago, working for a PR firm, the others in graduate school at Penn and my 27 year old son is in the basement playing video games and vaping. So I thought, okay, I think I understand these young men. I'm raising two boys and I think there's a lot of data. And I think that masculinity also needs to be transitioned from being something that's seen as a negative to something that's a positive. Because a lot of the sort of maniverse, I guess, has been very negative and anti women. You know, there was a, or women are the blame or something like the focus has been on that. It's also been a very performative masculinity, which is, it's not a pleasant version of a man, right? It's a very unpleasant version of a man, essentially. Well, naturally, the two role models that are going to be role models, whether we want it or not, are going to be the president of the United States and the wealthiest person in the world. In a capitalist society, people are going to, who's number one and who's the most powerful person in the world. And we should, we should model those attributes. And I think a lot of young men look to Trump and Musk. And what I would argue is that they've conflated masculinity with coarseness and cruelty. I just can't think of anything less masculine than cutting off A to HIV positive mothers. Yeah. We'll talk about politics in a bit, but one of the things, of course, I think it is about, having read it, is about your life and how you evolved from, you know, yourself to scrap skinny kid with acne who got average grades in school to who you are now. And I think one of the things I've noticed when people are like, what's he really like? I'm like, I think he's kind of the skinny kid from school, still in a weird way personally. But you didn't grow up with a strong father figure in your life. Your dad left your mom when you were a boy, moved to Ohio and quickly you married. Talk about your mom because I think that to me, it shaped a lot of your idea of masculinity. Well, like I talk about my mom a lot. I always say I'm a six-year-old man that's gotten over the death of his mother. Nor should you. Yeah. My boys miss me terribly. So, you know, I was raised by a single immigrant mother, lived and died a secretary a lot of my life. And I've always said, you know, I like to reverse engineer. I have a 0.1% life. And a lot of it is my fault. And so I like to reverse engineer to the things that weren't my fault and then try and reinvest in those things. And what, you know, the first thing you realize is that if a kid has someone who implicitly and explicitly every day tells them, I love you and you have worth and I just think you're wonderful. And I can't help but sort of start to believe it. So even if you are physically very attractive, even if you don't get great grades, even if you don't have some of the benefits of wealthier households have, you do grow up with a little bit of a fire of confidence. And I got that from my mother. And she was a great role model for me. She was always a really good friend. She always worked really hard. And she was always kind of common sense. I lacked male role models in my life. And I think it really hurt me. And I think the research bears out that in the United States, what's interesting is that we have the most single parent homes in America. And what's interesting is a girl, the outcomes are largely the same. Boys it's totally different. The moment a boy loses a male role model through death, disease or abandonment, he becomes at that moment more likely to be incarcerated and graduate from college. What it ends up in all the research points this way is that while boys are physically stronger, they're emotionally and mentally much weaker than girls. And they don't know that that's because women have had to endure childbirth or menstruation or quite frankly, they've just taken more shit and have become more resilient throughout history. But boys are neurologically and emotionally much weaker. And when they lose a male role model, they quite frankly, that's the point of when they come off the tracks. So I feel like I almost didn't go to college. I wasn't as good as sports as I could have been. I wasn't as kind as I could have been. I had bad manners. I had what I would call fairly mediocre character. And I think a lot of that is because the depth and physical presence and mentorship of a male was absent in my life. Was there anybody? Was there actually? Oh, yeah. Some of my mom's boyfriend stayed in touch with me. I had coaches, a camp counselor stayed in touch with me. I have this wonderful story when I was 13, eighth grade, big public school, not very good at anything, not a ton of friends. Both my friends left to school because my school had started busing and my two friends had money and so their parents immediately pulled them out and sent them to a Tony school called Windward. But, and I talk about this very openly. In media, they talk about someone with a second family. You find out in the show that the guy has an entirely different family in addition to his first family, but media never talks about the second family. I was the son of a woman. We were the second family. My primary role model was my mom's boyfriend who had a family in Arizona and used to come spend time with me and my mom every other weekend. And he was actually a good man. You know, you may only think this is not a good person. He was very good to me. And one Sunday night, I said, what's the stock? And you said, you kind of explained it to me. And then he pulled out $200 bills, which I'd never seen before and said, if by the time I'm not back here in two weeks, I'm taking it back, I want you to go buy some stocks, go down to one of those fancy brokerages. So I walked into Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith. I sat in the lobby. I got very self-conscious, walked out, walked across the street to Dean Witter. And I had these $200 bills. I still remember the cellophane envelope and seeing Benjamin pick out. And I said, I'm here to buy stock. And I pulled the dollars out and they went flying everywhere. And this 31-year-old guy with a big Jew fro, for lack of a better term, named Sycero came up and said, hi, I'm Sycero. And he told me about stocks. I got my first lesson in stocks. And there's more people who want to buy a stock than want to sell it. The sellers raise the price. You know, he gave me my first lesson and we decided to buy Columbia Pictures because I really liked this close encounters of the third kind and I like movies. And every day for two years, I would go to the payphone booth, put two dimes in and call Sy and he would talk to me about my stocks and would say, the stock's down today because Casey's Shadow is a bomb or whatever. Just one stock. You were one stock, young man. I was one stock. $200. And I grew it to I think $208 in two years. But you know, I didn't have, I had friends, but I wasn't very popular. I used to two or three days a week, maybe one or two days, go to Dean Winter in Westwood and hang out with Sy at his little bad cubicle. Wow, Sy. What happened to Sy? Well, it's interesting. One, I've made a lot of money starting and selling businesses, but 70 or 80% of my worth is because I've always invested in stocks and think I understand the market's better than your average bear and understand the power of compound interest. And I got that at the age of 13. I got a passion for stocks. So lost touch with Sy and I tell the story in my class and every year I would give them the task of trying to find Sy's arrow. And about 12 years ago, someone used Facebook and they found him and he owns a store selling furs in Stockton and he's retired now in his 80s and we text each other probably, you know, once every month. Oh, that's great. But I did have some wonderful men in my life, but like it goes back to sort of an action item and that is unfortunately, I think because of abuse in the Catholic church and Michael Jackson, there's this reticence of men to get involved in a boy's life. And what I would suggest and encourage young men or men to do is that if we want better men, we have to be better men. One, because men just aren't stepping up and two, because I do think there's a taboo. There's a lot of men in their 30s who are good men who maybe haven't had a chance to get married or have kids of their own who have fraternal and paternal love to give and don't get involved because they're worried people will suspect them. They're worried that people will look a scant at them when they say, I'd like to get involved in a young man's life. And we need to do away with that because there are wonderful men out there that have love and concern to give. And also there's a lot of them when I've talked to them, feel like, well, I'm not a CEO. I'm not that interesting. I'm not that successful. The wonderful thing about being a man or two a boy is it's super easy to add value because the decisions they try to make on their own are such bad decisions. It's just super easy to weigh in and add value. You know, I'm mentoring a kid right now and he called me three months ago and it has a good job in Baltimore and announced he was moving to Alaska. And this is a few questions. Why are you moving to Alaska? Well, I saw a program on it and it looks amazing. Okay. So, good job. Yeah, okay. You're gonna have a job in Alaska? Okay. Isn't your mom sick? I mean, just a few questions, right? Yeah. Before he moves to Alaska. Yeah. One of the things you're up front about is the fact that you have no training on the subject of boys or men either as an academic or a therapist, you are a marketing professor at NYU. But there are people who do and who have also written about this topic. There's a social scientist, Richard Reeves, who you call your Yoda on the subject and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, your colleague at NYU. What are you bringing to the table that people like Reeves Haidt and other authors who've written about this topic aren't? You know, a lot of the stories are like where I got wrong and what I've learned. A lot of the things I talk about are that they're building blocks of being a man. I didn't demonstrate until much later in life and it's something I'm not proud of. What I think I bring is a transparency around where I've screwed up and such that boys can relate to me. And I'm trying to say, look, this is what I got right. This is what I got wrong. And this is my way. It might not be the right way, but here's another guy when he was young, could have gone. Things could have turned out much differently for me. And these are some best practices and some worst practices based on my life experience. And also I do try to do a lot of research from people who actually know what they're talking about. We'll be back in a minute. Support for the show comes from Quince. It's hard to get everything you want, especially when it comes to your clothes. 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A lot of firms love to highlight their star portfolio managers like it's all about that one brilliant mind making the magic happen. Vanguard's philosophy is a little different. They believe the best active strategy shouldn't be locked away with one person, they should be shared across the team. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for yourself at vanguard.com slash audio. That's vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. When your kids were born, you noted being a dad meant working all the time and making money and we've talked about this and you write about missing a lot of the first few years of your son's lives because you were so significantly focused on providing for them. Your big provider comes out of your mouth quite a lot. Talk about when that changed as a parent and shifted because there's a mistake you corrected. Although it's not a mistake to want to provide for your kids either. Yeah, I've been. So I think it's important everyone does an assessment of their addictions and that is things you continue to engage in that hurt other parts of your lives. I think everyone has a certain amount of addiction, even it's not substances. I'm addicted to money and the affirmation of strangers and that is at a very young age, I had very, you know, money was always, I've always said if you have money, you don't really know what it's like to not have money. You can have sympathy, but it's really hard to have empathy. One of the worst days of my childhood was when I lost my second jacket in a week because we just couldn't afford the $30 for a jacket and I knew my mom was going to notice and she was going through a very difficult time and I knew the house was going to come crumbling down because we didn't have $30 for a jacket. Do you remember the type of jacket it was? Oh, it was just a nothing nice, not like a eyes out or lacoste or Nautica, which was a big brand when I was a kid. I think fancy, but jackets for some reason all cost $30 from Sears or J.C. Pennies. And also, I would say my driver desire for money was based on women, specifically two different examples. My mom got very sick when I was a young man and I remember coming home, she called me. I was a first year in business school and called me and said, my mom was not dramatic, said, you need to come home. I'm doing really poorly. And she'd had a mastectomy and they discharged her early, which hospitals do because having someone in a hospital is expensive. And I walked in, Kara, to the situation in my house that was just, for me at that time, was just unthinkable. I'd never experienced anything like someone so violently ill. And I called and they said, she needs to go back to the hospital. So they're like, well, we need to send an ambulance and they're going to take her to county and trust me on this. You don't want to take her to county. And I'm like, so what do I do? And they said, get a nurse. So I called some services and nurses were $35 an hour. And I had about $400 in my checking account. So I'm like, I can afford a nurse for 12 hours. And to be a 25 year old male who, you know, your protective instincts kind of kick in, who's supposed to be smart, going to business school, interviewing with, you know, Intel and Microsoft for the summer. And I can't take care of my mom when she's that vulnerable. Up until that point, I've been kind of sleepwalking through life. That really focused me on getting my shit together and trying to make money. And also the second thing is much less virtuous. I always wanted a romantic and sexual partners. I just wanted that as a man. And I immediately connected the dots that in a capitalist society, your selection set of mates is broadened if you are economically viable. So where was the moment being apparent when you realized maybe spending more time? The time was what was valuable? Well, so the seminal moments in your life were pretty predictable. They're usually about life and death. My mom died, it changed everything for me. And also when my first son was born. And it wasn't a hallmark or a life insurance commercial. The first thing I felt when my son came marching out of my partner was fear and shame. I had been working so hard, taking so many risks. And I came of age in the nineties, you were there in the internet where you were supposed to go all in on a company. Put everything, borrow against your stock, because you're in it to win it. And I'm so fucking awesome that if I throw 110% at red envelope, they just went public and I was one of those idiots abroad money to buy more stock. And the VCs and your board loved that. And they don't want you to sell any stock because I thought you were in it to win it. And then when 08 came, I lost everything. I was broke. And my son is born. And the first thing I felt was not bright lights and angel singing. It was shame and fear. Like, oh my God, it's no longer. I could always take care of myself. I'm not a humble person. I'm remarkably talented. I work hard. I knew I could always take care of myself. And sitting there with a new kid who was going to be vulnerable with his mom who was going to need some time and need to focus on the kid, I felt like I had failed as a man. It was an awful feeling. I remember feeling so nauseous and so scared and just this feeling of dread. And it was very, very motivating for me. And I worked around the clock for the next five or seven years, maybe 10 years. And let me be clear, it came at a cost. I was not with my kids as little kids as much as I would have liked. They would have benefited from it. And quite frankly, carrot was worth it. And I'm not talking about the way the world should be. I'm talking about the way the world is. I have an exceptional amount of balance, an exceptional amount of involvement in my kids' lives now because I made the conscious decision not to. Now you can balance. It doesn't mean you don't see them. But I thought it was my job to make sure that in a capitalist society, my kids are going to, and me, we're going to have the opportunities that a capitalist society provides by being very focused on work. And one of my first kind of, I have this story, three legs of the stool of masculinity. I think the first is being a provider. And I think every young man should assume that he needs to take economic responsibility for his household. And let me be clear, sometimes that means getting out of the way and being more supportive of your partner who happens to be better at that money thing than you. That is also being a man. And a lot of women now who are attending college in greater rates have greater economic opportunities. And while women's economic contribution to the relationship is accelerated, men's contribution domestically and logistically has not kept pace. At the same time, we also have to acknowledge, not in all households, but in a lot of households, when the woman starts making more money than the man, usage of ED drugs triples the likelihood of divorce doubles. There are still expectations in heterosexual relationships that the man has a disproportionate responsibility to be an economic provider. Sure, but it comes at a cost, right? No doubt. There's no free lunch here. Right. You talked about the three, this three-legged stool that you talk about a lot and you said protect, provide, procreate. Explain how you're divining, because the big thesis of your book is how you're trying to reclaim the idea of masculinity to something to celebrate. You're also trying to reimagine what it means to be a man in society. So talk a little bit about what that, because those are sort of typical male... Yeah. ...viewpoints. Well, so I think you want to be emotionally, mentally, physically, and economically strong and you want to develop economic viability. It takes discipline. It takes credentials. It takes focus. But the whole point of that, that's a means. The ends is the second stool and that is protection. And that is, I've enjoyed making money. It was really rewarding to make it with someone else. We sacrificed a lot. My partner and I, she worked. And making it together was the fun part. But the real purpose, the real peace, I think you get as an adult. I think this is true of women in addition. But also, I think maybe more so for a man. The only time I've ever really felt peace and I've escaped the trap of more, I always wanted my whole life. No matter how much money I made, I want more. No matter how famous I got, I want to be more famous and awesome. No matter how many women I dated, wait, I could date hotter women. No matter how fabulous my weekends were, I want fucking more. All the time, my appetite was never sated. The only time I've ever felt sated is late at night, my kids are asleep, or they roll into the room and instinctively throw their legs over mine. I know my partner feels secure and safe and protected. And I feel like, quite frankly, I feel like a man. I feel like my life makes sense that I have taken skills and strength to become a provider, to become emotionally supportive, to notice their lives. I know they know I love them immensely. And I feel like my role as a protector has worked. That to me is the most satisfying thing. And I think a lot of men never get there. But you're not. Because some of the words protect, provide, and procreate sound musky. Like a little bit. Like it's in the aggressive kind of masculinity. And it's not, I think, what you're saying exactly, right? The most masculine jobs at a very basic level are considered fireman, cop, and military person. And at the end of the day, they protect. But I also think a form of protection is to notice people's lives. And when I think about, I've been married twice. And when I think about where I failed in my first marriage, everyone talks about people want a sensitive man. I'm not sure that's true. I don't. And I snarkily say that, do you really want a sensitive man that just leaves two people in the car crying in the parallel parking spot on park? But I think what men need to do a better job, and I think what also means to be a man, is that you slow down from yourself and your own ego, and you notice other people's lives. You realize that your partner needs distinct stages where strangers can clap for her. You need to understand what might be important to her, even if it's not important to you. It's important because it's important to her. You realize you notice how hard it is to work and take care of kids. Because I don't care what anyone says. Women almost always take on a disproportionate amount of child rearing. They just can hear the kid get up at night. You sleep like a log and the kid's upstairs and she's already up there because she can hear he's up there. You know, I sleep like a log, but go ahead. You sleep right through it. You just scream. When Amanda first started going out, the kids were yelling and I was sleeping right through it and she's like, are you sleeping right through this? I'm like, what are you talking about? You're like numbers three and four. Just don't care. Honey Badger, don't give a shit. I've been here. They'll be fine. I slept through the first two. They'll be fine. They'll be fine, exactly. But it's redefining what that means, right? Because I think you are talking about a sensitive man. You know you are. You're just not talking about like the sensitive new age male, you know, imagery because this is a sensitive man. I think there's some consumer dissonance here. I really do think that, for example, 80% of women say they want men to initiate romantic contact. So for all this notion and all this fear about a man being a creep or, you know, men, a lot of women will come up to me in bars or in social situations and they will complain that no men approach them. They look great. They're out. They're obviously at a bar. They're ready. They're single and ready to mingle and men don't speak to them. And I think a lot of young men are not developing the skills and have gotten mixed messages around taking risks and approaching people and making them feel safe because say you're a guy and you approach a woman at a bar and it ends up she's one of the 300,000 people that works at J.P. Morgan and he says something stupid and he's drunk. He's now that guy. He's now that creep. So I think we have to, and this goes to procreation, I think in a weird way we need to re-embrace young men's horniness. And I use that word. It's because you like to say it because... But I think of sexual desires like fire. I think it can be very damaging. I think if men spend too much time on porn or start to think of women as just sexual objects, it creates unrealistic expectations and they start to develop misogynistic tendencies and they objectify women. But at the same time, wanting to have a romantic partner and eventually a sexual partner can be channeled like fire. If it's put into a steel casing with pistons, can move a much bigger vehicle in your life forward. You should use that desire to want to dress better, smell better, have a plan, demonstrate kindness. The secret weapon, and there's research around this, the secret weapon, if you want to find romantic and sexual partners for a man, the three reasons women are attracted to men sexually are one, they signal resources. And it doesn't even have to be of a Range Rover or Panerai at the moment. It can be that you have your act together and you're disciplined and you're smart. You don't buy another bottle of gray goose at 2 a.m. You go home because you have work the next morning. Two, you're intelligent and that's very instinctual. The people who make good decisions for the tribe, the tribe is more likely to prosper and survive. And the fastest way to communicate intelligence is humor. Ivo is jokingly said, this is my interpretation of a woman. I'm laughing, I'm laughing, I'm naked. And when I was younger, when I was younger, I try to be very raw about this stuff and I know it's going to trigger some people, but when I was younger, the only dates I ever got and there were few and far between Kara was with women I could make laugh. That was it. And then the third thing, and this is the secret weapon, and there's research just though that the third thing is kindness. Because instinctively women know they're physically smaller and they will go through periods of gestation where they will need someone kind. Oh, okay. On that note, every episode we have an expert question and speaking of laughing and women, let's listen to yours. Hi, my name is Michelle Wolfe. My question for Scott is based on a video I saw you did about how a man's secret weapon is kindness. You know, lovely, should kind of just be like a basic instinct, you would think, but glad we're getting there somehow. My question for you is, because I think this would be a real secret weapon for men, is why can't they find anything? They can't find anything from like a phone charger to like something in the fridge to their emotions. They can't find anything. And I just, why? Why is that? Why, Scott? I did. So I'm getting emotional. You're a huge fan of her. I was worried I was going to get emotional. I get emotional. That was so kind of you. I've been trying to track down Michelle. Michelle Wolfe is my favorite comedian in the world. I know. And I've been trying to track her down and she, I can't get to her. She won't return my emails. And you found her. Of course. So, my ex-wife used to say to me, if my dick wasn't attached, we'd find it on a card table next to a script of good fellas and so ho. I'm almost five minutes away from losing my keys. I cannot, I'm going to have to live in a single floor unit the rest of my life because I spent 30 minutes going back to find my sunglasses and my wallet. You have lots of them. Like, Scott has a drawer of AirPods to see, you know, which I've liberally borrowed from. One of the first things I did when I got money was I said to my assistant, I never want to have keys again. I can't have keys. Yeah. Go back to kindness. She was really saying it should be a basic instinct. Yeah. But here's the thing. I do think, and I coach young men around this, have a kindness practice. And it starts with manners. I try to get one of my favorite moments of my youngest was I said, you never pour your own water first. And you always look around the table and you pour other people's water. And we're in this restaurant. We just moved to London. So he was, I think, 11 and went to a restaurant and they brought over this giant pitcher of water and he got out of his seat, went over, picked up the pitcher of water, which was bigger than him, and whirled up to another table and poured their glasses of water. He thought that you were supposed to do that. You're supposed to scan the entire environment for empty water glasses. And I'm not, he's going to be a man. I think it starts with manners. It starts with saying to yourself, okay, how do I demonstrate acts every day from people who can't reciprocate them such that it becomes muscle memory? Because I got to be honest, Kara, I don't think I'm an innately kind person. I don't think I grew up with a lot of role models around kindness. So as I've gotten older, I've tried to just practice it every day such that it becomes second nature. And I think women notice this. Well, is that because women have to be kind? It's a survival instinct versus men who don't have to be. So I want to be clear. I'm not an expert on adolescent psychiatry. I'm definitely not an expert on gender studies. But I think women, a lot of women believe that the world and men and society judge them based on their nurturing qualities, which embedded in that is kindness. And the words we use for women who are tough and don't demonstrate kindness in the workplace are much more negative. If a guy's harsh and he's Steve Jobs, he's cruel but smart, he's a genius. If you had a female Steve Jobs in the 90s, I can't even imagine the words that would have been used to describe her. So I would have been worse than that. But I do think that a kindness practice and also one of the things that's unfortunate about mating is that if you talk to people who've been together longer than 30 years, they did a survey of couples who'd been together forever, 70 to 80% of them, one was much more interested in the other in the beginning. This kind of romantic comedy where people see each other and follow up, that's just not how it works or not usually. And almost always, like 90% of the cases, it was the man much more interested in the woman because men are much less choosy. We want to spread our seed to the four corners of the earth and women want to put up a much finer screen to pick the smartest, fastest and strongest seed. If you're in a room of 400 people, something like 300 of the men, if there's alcohol involved, would have sex with most of the women. Most of the women would have sex with none of the men. And so the way women fall in love or fall in like is if a man can demonstrate excellence. I worked with him and he was really good at what he did. Right. Well, I went to temple with him and he was kind to his parents. I like the way he smelled. I love his body language. We hung out, we were just friends and I found out he was really funny. You know, I like the way he danced. And the problem is now is there are very few venues to demonstrate excellence. We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. It's never too late to start protecting your online privacy. My wake-up call when I looked at the dashboard of Delete Me and saw how much crap was out there about me and a lot of my personal information all collected in really strange and weird ways by a lot of companies. I had no idea who they were and made me feel like that I was being stalked. I discovered a lot of inaccuracies also at the same time and I found an enormous amount of information about my life for dozens of years. So if you've ever thought I should really be doing something to protect myself from stalker scammers and hackers, but you're not sure what, here's what you do. Go to joindeleteme.com slash pivot and enter the code pivot. We get 20% off Delete Me. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online. You can get an individual plan for a little over $8 per month with an annual plan and discounts get even better with a two-year plan or whenever you enroll your partner or family. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now to special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash pivot and use the promo code pivot at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash pivot and enter code pivot at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash pivot code pivot. Support for the show comes from Bowl and Branch. The quality of your sleep affects everything. Energy, mood, focus and overall health. That's why it's extra important to assess your sleep setup and make sure it's actually letting you get the rest you need. You can upgrade your bedding with Bowl and Branch. Shop signature sheets, supported pillows, cozy blankets and luxurious comforters. Find exactly what you need to get better sleep. The result is a bed that looks beautiful and feels amazing the moment you get into it. Everything Bowl and Branch makes is designed to be breathable and incredibly soft. One of the most popular items is their signature sheets and it's not uncommon for people to buy a couple of sheet sets to rotate through. I've tried the sheets. They're amazing. They're very soft and they get better as you wash them. They're incredibly comfortable. They breatheable. They're variant of cotton. So they're really nice. They're not scratchy. They're very soft at the same time. And as everyone knows, I love my waffle blanket. It's so soft. Upgrade your sleep with Bowl and Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at bowlandbranch.com slash pivot with code pivot. That's Bowl and Branch B-O-L-L-A-N-D-B-R-A-N-C-H.com slash pivot code pivot to unlock 15% off exclusions apply. Let's move on to masculinity today in politics and pop culture. President Trump and MAGA movements strategically courted young men during the 2024 election by flying into the mannosphere. They filled the political vacuum with course language, Joe Rogan, UFC, meme coins. It's a regressive version of masculinity, which you're not writing about. But why did it work? And it's now not working, apparently. There's a lot like Rogan is sort of shifting back a lot of young men are they're showing polling. There was just a poll today, which is shifting towards where you are, I think more. But why did that work from your perspective? What was resonant? Risk aggression, a risk aggression, both they say things that are indelicate. They take risks. You know, Elon Musk is enormous in masking in the sense that men in order for our species to survive. They had needed to have a propensity to they see movement in the bushes. They don't overthink it. They grab a fucking spear and go and try and kill it and bring it back. That young men, the reason we have an unbelievable democracy is because a lot of mostly young men, but a lot of young women have a willingness to do really aggressive borderline stupid shit. And that is rush a pill box and try and take out the enemy. And a lot of people would describe that as recklessness, but there is valor involved. And that is the Carnegie award, which awards people who risk their own lives in the moment to save someone else from harm. You know, literally that's the rushing into a burning building. They give about 80 a year, 75 or men. Men are more risk aggressive. And some of that is very positive. Some of that can be channeled into a man on a combat field is more likely to put himself in harm's way to save a fellow comrade. A woman is more likely to say, let's think this about this and not be stupid. And quite frankly, you need both. You need both in combat. But risk aggression, again, if I highlight attributes that reflect women in a positive light, people nod their head and say, that's fine. If I highlight attributes that reflect men in a positive light, there's a bit of a check your notes and fear. And is this guy one of those guys? So you asked what the positive thing is. I'll say with Musk, the guy takes enormous risks and we need risk aggressive young males. That's an attractive trait, but then it veers into cruelty. Now, I want you to make a case to voters on the left. How do you overcome legitimate concerns of talking about boys right now? It's going to crowd out conversations that others have of losing rights, losing access, representation. How do you talk about both at the same time? Because it feels like it's been an either or. Right? Either we talk about women and others marginalized communities or we talk about men. I feel like, well, if men are mad, we're all fucked really in some fashion. But how does the left talk about it so that it's not someone has to lose? What's the positive way of talking about it? Well, this isn't a zero-sum game. Gay marriage didn't hurt heteronormative marriage. We can absolutely acknowledge women still face huge barriers. The moment a woman decides to use her ovaries, which is pretty important for the species, she goes to 73 cents on the dollar. Her career is much more difficult when she has kids. There's still huge issues. There's still just a fraction of medical research around the cancers affecting women. I mean, it's just like, okay, so we don't care about women's health. So there's still huge issues. But what I would say is, if I were to say, advise the next president on what the key word is, it'd be restoration. We need to restore our alliances with our great trading partners and other democracies. We need to restore the alliance between moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats to have a working middle. But I think the greatest alliance in history is the alliance between men and women. And unfortunately, both genders have done a great job of convincing themselves that it's the other gender's fault. And when we talk about the great civil rights acts, when we talk about women's rights, what we also need to acknowledge is there were a lot of very masculine men at the forefront of that. It was a collective effort. It wasn't just women threatening men like saying, we're not going to raise your kids unless you do this. There was enormous leadership among women that was needed who were fearless and drove these changes. But they also had a huge base of support from confident, loving men who realized this was really important. So we need to start conflating masculinity with the protection of special interest groups. You don't even need to understand the trans community. You may think it's ridiculous to have a third bathroom. You may think, okay, we shouldn't have transgender athletes in NC2A sports. But your immediate instinct should be if you see a community being demonized as the transgender community has been weaponized and demonized. Your default has to be protection. And I say, what we need to raise our boys around and masculinity around is that women cross the street when they see men on that side of the street because they feel safe. And the reality is they don't right now. Now I still cross streets. Yeah. But you did write that the 2024 election was a referendum failing young men. And we talked about that a lot on the podcast. So how can Democrats try to win back some of those voters who felt alienated by the party's perceived weakness and hostility towards men because we're dealing with more than just bad election cycle. There's a broader cultural shift that's happened here. What is the strategy? Well, I think your instincts are correct. And that is to develop the strategy up to diagnose the issue. And the reason we elected an insurrectionist president, I believe, was because of struggling young men. And that is if you look at the three groups that pivoted hardest from blue to red, it was one Latinos who don't want to be a lot of issues there. It's hard even to find them as one group. Numbers two and three were people under the age of 30. They just want change. They just want chaos. And then the most interesting thing is the third cohort that shifted hardest from blue to red was women age 45 to 64. And my thesis is that's their mother's care because again, this triggers some people, but there's still a lot of women in America who will vote for whoever they perceive as being in the best interest of their husbands or their sons. And when your son isn't doing well and your husband is out of work, you don't care about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender rights. You just want change. And Trump is a chaos agent. He represents change. Now, how do you move forward? The right has incorrectly and I think stupidly conflated masculinity with coarseness and cruelty. And I don't think that's working. At the same time, the left, Kara, has said the answer to masculinity is you should act more like a woman. Right. And I don't think that's right either. So who should men be modeling? Is it like Travis Kelsey, Pete Buttigieg? I don't know. I was with one of them last night, Van Jones, super strong, super smart, not afraid to say fairly provocative things, not afraid to go against the grain, but also a dad, a good provider. I think we have to say first, even acknowledging on the left that there's a difference in there's certain attributes that certain genders are more prone to is upsetting for some people on the left. Even acknowledging that our young men are struggling and that they deserve programs. Governor Moore, who I think is a great role model, came out and said that the focus of his administration was going to be on struggling young men. That was a very brave thing to do. Recognizing that the physical strength, the risk aggressiveness of young men, the valor they demonstrate plays a huge role in society and that it's needed. In investing in third places where young people can find each other, demonstrate excellence and fall in love. I think we absolutely need to embrace a modern form of masculinity, acknowledge that it's a good thing, that it's not a bad thing, acknowledge there is a difference. Acknowledging that 95% of us are binary and have an easier time leaning into certain characteristics more commonly associated with the gender you were born with does not mean that the middle 5% deserve any less respect or opportunity. Is there a what a man besides me? Who would be your male role models? A guy like Richard Reeves, outstanding what he does, handsome, strong. I said Van Jones, a guy like Obama. A guy like Muhammad Ali, who had a set of core principles that were non-negotiable for him. I think Hillary Clinton demonstrates wonderful masculinity. I think she's incredibly strong. By the way, it's a key point because I think femininity should be celebrated, but so should masculinity. Those attributes aren't sequestered to people born as men or women. I'm John and I've told you this. Most of my close male friends are very feminine. They are. They take care of me. They're very nurturing. Those are wonderful attributes. There are some women I know, including yourself, that demonstrate wonderful masculinity. I think it's okay to say we need to celebrate it and that young men have an easier time leaning into it and that we value our young men and we value these attributes. To tell young men it's okay. A, they have an obligation to be a provider, a protector, and a procreator and to be strong, to make money, to approach strange women, to demonstrate an interest, a romantic interest while making people feel safe, to want to make money, to want to be patriotic, to want to be strong. These are all wonderful things and you should lean into it. Let's finish up with talking about some solutions. A lot of your advice is great on an individual level, but some of the forces holding men back are going to acquire collective action or legislation even. No amount of telling your friends you love them is going to stop robots from taking jobs or making housing cheaper, for example. Some of the reforms we talked about on pivot, including regulating tech, including age-gating, social media and AI chatbots and stuff around porn, making schools phone free zones, talk about what to help boys and men. What are the most realistic reforms states or Congress or anything could make to make it happen? And, culturally, how do we create a positive momentum for boys at an early age that reverses some of the trends that plague them as they get older? Lack of meaningful friendships, higher addiction rates as united, higher suicide rates? Well, the incumbents, mostly technology and people who don't want to acknowledge the young men are struggling, will claim these issues are too complex. We have screwed this up. We can unscrew it. There are a lot of programs that we could enact pretty quickly. So let's start with schooling. Redshirt boys. Boys are 18 months behind women in terms of prefrontal cortex maturity. They're just immature relative to girls. Boys start kindergarten at six, girls start at five. More male teachers in high schools, more efforts to recruit them. It's now, it's verging towards one in four teachers in K through 12 are men. We need to acknowledge that boys are twice as likely to be suspended for the same behavioral adjusted behavior in schools as girls. We need to acknowledge that boys probably need more physical activity. When you have boys only schools, they have double the amount of recess. They're just different. Talk about what you want in school. Sit still, raise your hand, be a pleaser, be organized. I know. It's designed for girls. You just described a girl. Yeah. More vocational programming. There's a ton of vocational jobs. There's all these stories about kids who are 17, take out of shop, learn how to install an EV battery or HVAC, energy efficient HVAC and are making $110,000 by the time they're 18. Stop shaming vocational programming and weaponize our public universities. So I said at least 20% of their degrees are non-traditional certification, whether it's nursing. You've given money in this area. I have or building nuclear power plants, whatever it might be, especially construction, realizing that two thirds of our kids are not cut out to get a traditional liberal arts degree. If you are not expanding your freshman class size faster than population growth, you lose your tax free status. The universities are public servants, not the fucking Chanel bags. We need to stop this rejectionist exclusionary culture that makes it so expensive for people to go to school and disproportionately hurts young men because quite frankly, academically, they typically don't have their shit together by the time they're 18, seven to 10 high school of our auditorians or girls. If we were totally admissions blind at NYU, it probably be 70 or 80% female. So I'm not suggesting we have affirmative action for boys. I think we need more seats so we can lead in more Republicans, more gay kids, more trans kids and more men. I think we need a massive rethink about our tax policy because essentially our tax policy care just transfers money from young people to old people. I think we should have mandatory national service. Me too. I think that a lot of young men and a lot of young women, but especially a lot of young men just aren't ready for college or just haven't gotten their shit together. And I think having a very structured environment where they get to meet great people from different sexual orientations and come backgrounds, ethnicities, serving in the agency of their country. I think we need young people to just see how wonderful other Americans are and develop a greater fidelity for the flag as opposed to identify as Americans before they identify as a special interest group. I agree. And I think it would be great seasoning for them. And then another tax policy, I actually think we need to subsidize third places. I think we need to figure out a way to get people more incentive. You know what? People can't afford to go to bars. They can't afford to go out and drink and meet each other. Sports leagues, church groups are all closing down because people are inside. So I want to end my last question about asking about your dad. We haven't talked about your dad. Your dad passed away a few months ago. He had a lot of shortcomings as a father, which you pointed out. You make a lot of jokes about it. But in a lot of ways, he was a counter model to you and how you wanted to raise your sons. But I want to talk about what he might have done that was positive for you. And how do you want your sons to remember him? That's a generous question. Look, my dad checked the instinctive box that every adult, every parent, every man needs to check. And that is he was a much better father to me than his father was to him. His father used to come home drunk. And I didn't know this. His sister told me this. His father used to come home drunk when he was a kid and wake him up and beat him. And you think about the person who's supposed to be the protector in your life. And you get woken up and you get physically abused. He was never physically abusive to me. And he left school. He was pulled out of school to work as a messenger at the age of 13. So he just didn't have a lot of great role models. So he was and he did leave my mom and I. He made life much harder for us than he was probably needed. But at the same time, he did try. He would, he'd be in Chicago and try and figure out a way to fly me out there. And then he would take me to museum, which I could tell he had no interest in. And neither did I, but he thought he was supposed to take a kid to a museum. So, you know, he tried. And then later in life, you know, he, and it's never too late to do this. He became very loving. And what I would say to any man is that just because you, with your kid, if you weren't as sensitive or as affectionate or as emotive as you could have been, it's never too late because that's kind of the, the, the memory I have of my father was he, we, he would, for 10 years, the last 20 years of his life, whenever we talk on the phone, he'd say, I love you. And it took me 10 years to say it back. Cause it just felt awkward. I'm like, dad, I could have used this at eight. I didn't need it at 38. Right. Let me put it this way. I had a very basic level, Kara. He tried. He was better to me than his father was to me. And also I have made an exceptional living communicating. I got that from my father. My father could hold a room like no person. And I have to acknowledge, and just because he didn't try, he didn't give it to me on a silver platter. There's no reason he can't be grateful. And he also, he, I made the best decision I ever made was the decision my dad made. And that is he got on a steamship at the age of 19 and came to America. So his risk aggressiveness deciding to come to America paid huge dividends for me. I wouldn't be on this podcast with you if I'd been born in Glasgow, Scotland. I wouldn't be, you know, I just wouldn't have nearly the opportunities I had. So the risks he took, the DNA I inherited from him, the ability to be born in, you know, being born in San Diego and the fact that he tried and towards the end of his life, he really did try to be a decent loving man. You know, that's probably better than a lot of dads. And also what I would tell people, men or women who are parents of divorce, you have a tendency to sanctify one and demonize the other. And what you realize as you get older is, yeah, the one wasn't perfect and the other one wasn't Darth Vader. Right. Right. Right. Yep. That's a really good point. All right. Very last question. What's something you've learned from your sons about being a man? Like for me, what I've gotten from my boys is it's my purpose. I finally feel as if I have my purpose. I was used to think that somewhere my purpose was or what I was driving towards, try to be more awesome, try to be more wealthy, try to be more relevant. Yeah. And then when you have boys, it's like, okay, my job is to raise loving patriotic men. And so just the opportunity to raise them, you know, you learn a lot as a parent. One of the first things, one of the most upsetting, I learned, I'm not their friend, I'm their dad. I love Michelle Obama's parenting advice. Like you kind of have to be an asshole so they're not assholes. Like you have to have really hard conversations. I had a very hard conversation with my 15 year old before I got on the plane. Sometimes he's not cooperative or respectful with his mother when I'm out of the house. And I had to, you know, so you're not their friend. You want them to know you love them immensely. But what I have learned from my boys or what they've given me is I finally have a sense of purpose for the first time in my life. It sounds weird, but I don't want to say I don't fear death, but I finally feel like I could go and have meant something because I have really good, you know, as you do, I have really good sons who are going to be good citizens and are kind and they're nice and they're good to their mom. And I know they're going to take care of their mom. I know that they feel a sense of obligation to be good to society. So it's like I feel this sense of purpose and relief. Like all this kind of made me meant something. Yeah. Well, you've done a good job. They're nice boys. Thank you. Anyway, Scott, this is a wonderful book. I really appreciate you talking for so long. It's called Notes on Being a Man and You're a Good Man. Thank you, Kara. I appreciate that. And I'm blessed to have you in my life and all of the masculine attributes that you bring to the table. Me and Hillary Clinton. Today's show was produced by Christian Castor Rochelle, Kateri Yocum, Michelle Aloy, Megan Bernie and Kailin Lynch. The Shot Curva is Vox Media's executive producer podcast, special thanks to Catherine Barner. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following this show, you're a male role model. If not, turn off the porn and go outside. Go over, listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media podcast network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. Support for this show comes from Harvey A.I. The future of law is agintic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from the secure data sources, run subagents in parallel, and draft work product ready for your review. So you can delegate work and own the judgment. Trusted by more than 60% of the AM Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is an AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI, tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.ai