Raising Young Men, The Case for College in the AI Age, and Relationship Red Flags

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0:27When things get hard, how do you talk to yourself? I'm Robin Arson, VP of Fitness Programming and Head Instructor at Peloton. And this week on my new podcast, Project Swagger, I'm sharing my strategies for how to build better self-talk. It's time to work on befriending yourself. Follow Project Swagger wherever you get your podcasts. Megan Rapinoe here. This week on A Touch More, we've got something for everyone. We're talking about the U.S. women Olympians taking home more medals than the men, the U.S. women's national team roster heading into the She Believes Cup, and the latest on the WNBA-CBA negotiations.

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1:40Scott Galloway:Our first question comes from leftinvestment1759 on Reddit. They say, Hello, I'm hosting a book club later this month featuring notes on being a man. We are a group of working married moms with kids living in the illusion of protection from the state in the suburbs of Minnesota. The majority of us have sons in elementary school. I pitched your book as let's use Scott's lens to think about how we're raising our boys and what we should be paying attention to as our children eventually choose partners. If you were facilitating this discussion with our group, what would you want to hear from us? Or what question do you wish more moms asked after reading it?

2:15Scott Galloway:Thanks for all you do. Thank you.

2:22Scott Galloway:It's funny. It's like the questions you should expect are the hardest ones to answer. What do I want moms to think about? Well, one, so my mind immediately goes to the following. Some of the differences between boys and girls, if you were to reverse engineer when a man or a boy comes off the tracks to one single point of failure, it's when he loses a male role model. so what happens in homes where there's we have more single-parent homes now than any nation in the world and depending on what survey you look at it's either 82 or 88 percent are headed by a woman and what happens with girls in single-parent households is while there's some they more they might be more likely to be depressed they oftentimes are more promiscuous because they're looking for attention male attention the wrong places they have similar outcomes on educational attainment, on future income, on actual suicide.

3:19Scott Galloway:So you could argue that they actually do okay. It's an entirely different experience with boys. The moment a boy loses a male role model through death, abandonment, or divorce, at that moment, he becomes more likely to be incarcerated than to graduate from college. He becomes twice as likely to kill himself, twice as likely to be a substance abuser. So it ends up that boys, while being physically stronger, are neurologically and emotionally much weaker and much more susceptible to the absence of a male role model. So in terms of what I, my advice is more for single mothers, and that is make sure that you have males involved in the boy's life.

4:02Scott Galloway:And even saying that five years ago was, well, what, Scott? Women can't raise good men? Yeah, of course they I was raised by a single immigrant mother, lived and died as secretary. I didn't have, my dad wasn't very involved in my life. But it's really important that, one, you have men involved in the young man's life. What else would I suggest? Gosh, a recognition that they just mature later. I try to, I mean, dumb stuff. I try to roughhouse with my boys. I try early on to set up guardrails. This is more parenting advice. I love what First Lady Obama said. You've got to be an asshole now such that there are not assholes later.

4:38Scott Galloway:What I have found as a parent, and this is probably more advice for the man, I thought that being a dad would be a series of Hallmark commercials where I did something and I got more love back. And what I've realized is that being a dad, or I guess just being a parent, means quite frankly just giving a shit ton more than you get back. And it took me a few years to learn that, that this wasn't about me, about rewarding moments where my kids decide that they love the Los Angeles Rams because I did or send me a nice note. No, I mean, there's some of that. But being a parent, the way I try and think of it is that every time my son says something really rude to me or is expectant, that basically what he's saying is, dad, right?

5:18Scott Galloway:That's your role as a parent. You just give more than they get. But also just, and this is more advice for dads than moms, I think the best thing you can do for sons is to try and be really respectful, kind, and affectionate to the mother, even if you're getting divorced. Because I think a lot of my shortcomings in terms of how I approach relationships or the way I acquitted myself with women as a young man was I don't think I had a great role model in terms of how you treat relationships for my father. So I think it's especially important that the parents try to be really kind to each other. If you do end up in a situation where you end up splitting with your husband, try and make sure that there are men and do everything you can to make sure that the dad can stay involved in the son's life.

6:05Scott Galloway:I think sports and chores and what a man—I have this practice called what a man does. But more than anything, the thing I would want to say to mothers is forgive yourself. and to recognize that a boy's prefrontal cortex is 18 months behind a girl's. Sometimes they don't do well in school. Sometimes they roughhouse. They can be totally self-absorbed, inconsiderate. Your noise, they begin literally drowning out. There's studies showing that their mom's voice starts to sound like that Gary Larson cartoon, which is blah, blah, blah. So if you're having a difficult time or you don't have the relationship with your son you thought you were going to have, realize that they do come back to you.

6:44Scott Galloway:When I was in 11th and 12th grade, I wasn't mean to my mom, but I wasn't very kind and we weren't getting along. And that's a natural instinct because it's time for them to leave the pack. So quite frankly, they start acting like assholes, which makes it easier for both of you to separate. But within a couple of years, I was back. I was at UCLA and I was coming home once, twice a week to have dinner with my mom. And, you know, I couldn't, nothing, nothing cemented, nothing good happened to me unless I called my mom and told her about it. Oh, I got a B, which was good for me in biology. Oh, that's great.

7:21Scott Galloway:A B is great. Oh, I got a job interview with Morgan Stanley. That's fantastic. Tell me about it. And now still, I would say I'm a middle-aged man that hasn't gotten over the death of his mother. Good things sort of happen to me, but they don't really because my first inclination is to call my mom and boast and have her cement it. This is all a long-winded way of saying the investment you're making now, the frustration, sometimes the lack or the unrequited affection, effort, and love, trust me on this, it comes back to you. The relationship, I especially think, between a single mother and her son, I just think it's singular.

8:04Scott Galloway:It's the defining relationship in my life. I'm friends with a lot of men who were raised by single mothers. And there's the rest of the world and there's our mother. Full stop. That's it. We may not even like each other, but this is what we protect at all costs is our mother. So if you're spending a lot of time on effort that you don't feel is rewarded raising your son, if you don't feel like you're getting nearly the love or regard back that you're investing, just trust me on this. He comes back to you. Question number two comes from Christian Robin on LinkedIn. They ask, in a world where AI makes knowledge and skills basically free, what's the real value proposition of higher education now?

8:49Scott Galloway:I just think this narrative that AI is going to destroy higher education is such ridiculous bullshit. Effectively, what you have is, and Justin Wolfers, the economist, said this, that AI can be a substitute or it can be a complement. So technology was a substitute for secretaries. My mother was a secretary. And now basically there are no more secretaries. There's word processing and manual dictation or whatever it is. But at the same time, the number of bank tellers has actually gone up because technology has become a complement. And now they, instead of doling out money because ATMs can do that, they say, would you like a mortgage?

9:25Scott Galloway:Or can we talk to you about single premium variable life? Or should we be talking about your financial planning? So it ended up being a complement. So I believe that college higher education, if it's reasonable and you get into a decent school and you're cut out for it, is still kind of the ultimate complement to your life. One, you're going to learn a lot, even if it's how to use AI or not use AI or how to write thoughtful prompts. Two, you rise or fall to the level of your peers, and college kind of scoops off the highest level gene pool foam. And that is athletes who manage to study, who manage to be able to work in groups, who don't have mental illness, who maybe have matured at a decent rate.

10:05Scott Galloway:quite frankly, who come from wealthy families oftentimes. And that's sad to say, but oftentimes they're better prepared for the world. And you'll make, you know, a lot of my friends were wealthy at UCLA and I benefited from that. It was aspirational and they had contacts. If that sounds unfair, yeah, it is. It's called capitalism. At the same time, capitalism reinvests in people who don't have access. So I got Pell Grants, which helped me get through college. it's an incredible we don't educate kids we certify them we say okay if you get through four years at the university of north carolina you have decent eq you can look people in the eyes you know how to study you know how to connect effort with success you have basic understandings of the key principles of you know reading and arithmetic you can get along with others and you get exposed to different domains, you know, the classics help you understand investment banking.

11:02Psychology helps you understand technology and how people behave

11:07Scott Galloway:and investor relations. All these things, you want to damage the muscle in between your ears such that it comes back stronger. And by the way, there's absolutely no evidence that the delta between the life you'll likely lead if you're fortunate enough to get higher education versus the life you lead if you don't is still dramatic. College graduates earn about 66 % more per week on average in high school graduates. Median weekly earnings are roughly$1 ,500 for bachelor grads versus$900 for high school workers or high school only workers. Unemployment is also about half as high. It's around 2.2 % for bachelor grads versus just over 4 % for high school grads.

11:45Scott Galloway:So the trade-offs are becoming harder, I'll acknowledge for some, and that is people say, should I go to college? It's situational. If you get arbed down to a shitty school with a Mercedes price and you're going to have to take out a ton of debt and maybe you have an opportunity to go work for your uncle and his vocational company and start at$70 ,000 or$80 ,000 a year because you have skills, that's a real question that you need to ask other people about. You get into Yale, go. You get into a good school, maybe not an amazing school, but you can afford it, go. But it's no longer a no-brainer.

12:22Scott Galloway:When I got into UCLA, it was a no-brainer. It was free. I could figure out a way. I showed up to UCLA with, I think,$2 ,300. I showed up to Berkeley Graduate School with$60 in 1984 Honda Accord, which is awesome. And I was able to get through with a minimal amount of student debt because the value proposition was incredible. Unfortunately, it's not that school isn't as valuable now. It's just that it's not the same value because the corrupt cartel known as higher education has raised the cost of tuition faster than inflation, created artificial scarcity such that young people are forced to take out debt, which, by the way, is not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

12:58Scott Galloway:So there is a mendacious fuck part of higher ed. But on the whole, this year, you know, you don't need higher education? Apps are up. They're mostly up across the big state schools, see above value, and two in the South, because people don't want to see a Palestinian flag when they show up for orientation. So the complexion of which schools, Vanderbilt and Duke are going to have lower admissions rates this year than Harvard. Schools including UVA, UNC, Tulane are now more difficult to get into than many of the Ivy Leagues. So do you have an opportunity to go into the trades instead of taking out student debt and you just don't enjoy school?

13:38Scott Galloway:Yeah, that's a decision that you should be thoughtful about. But the notion somehow that school has been disrupted by AI, give me a fucking break. Someone who tells me that, oh, their kid doesn't need college, that maybe they'll be the next Zuckerberg, or with AI, they don't need college. I'm looking at someone whose son just got a 22 on the ACT and they're trying to make themselves feel better when they realize their kid may not be cut out for college. Okay, fine. It's not for everybody. But if you have the opportunity and the economic wherewithal to go to a decent slash good school. Few things in life.

14:10Scott Galloway:We had a pharmaceutical that made you twice as likely to get divorced, half as likely to kill yourself, half as likely to be obese, 10 times as likely to run for political office someday. Okay, would we hoard that drug? And this is on us in the academic industrial complex. The key isn't making college more valuable to people. It's making it a better value. And that is expanding the aperture, the throttle in terms of access and lowering the costs. That's what we should be talking about, not whether AI is going to change education. And just to wrap up here on my rant, the head of Dartmouth, I was at the Atlantic Festival, and the president of Dartmouth was talking about AI and education.

14:49Scott Galloway:Fuck that. Here's an idea. You got an$8 billion endowment. You let in 1 ,100 freshmen. You're in the middle of fucking nowhere. Let in 11 ,000 and stop all this mental masturbation and distraction around AI. Here's an idea. Just let in more kids. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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18:31Scott Galloway:Welcome back onto our final question, which comes from D.H. Norberg on Instagram. What are the early indicators for success in a long-term relationship and red flags? Oh, my friend, if I knew this.

18:46Scott Galloway:okay so i'm not sure i'm a serial monogamist and that is i'm usually in long-term relationships but i've been in a bunch of them and everybody has their thing right um i think and by the way i wasn't drawn to somebody i've never been drawn to women because i looked and thought wow i'd really like lower rates on health insurance or this person would be a good mother. The reason I entered into relationships and approached women is for one reason. I thought I would really like to have sex with this person. Now, what is that attraction? For me, one of the things I've always been drawn to women physically and sexually who are really, quote unquote, professionally impressive women.

19:32Scott Galloway:Not all guys are like that. My most serious relationship before my current one was with a surgeon. My current relationship is with someone who went to graduate school, worked at Goldman Sachs for five years. That turns me on. So being just really drawn to somebody is kind of table stakes, right? You just think, I would really like to kiss this person and hang out with them. In terms of red flags, the relationships that haven't worked out for me, where I should have seen red flags, was I think a person's friend group is really Just a fantastic indicator. The person you're with is a mashup of their friends.

20:09Scott Galloway:And so whether, you know, are they social? Do they have a lot of friends, right? What is the caliber of their friends in terms of kindness and success? Another thing I would look at if you're dating in terms of, especially with men, do they get along with their mother and their parents? I think the way a man treats his mother is a pretty good indication of how he's going to treat you and how he feels about women to begin with. Also, how they speak about their former relationships. It's a real red flag for me when I would date someone and they would immediately start shitposting and saying what a horrible person their boyfriend was.

20:46Scott Galloway:It was like, so which is it? You have terrible judgment or you're the terrible person in the relationship. I just don't. That's a red flag. Right. That somebody is not, I don't know, doesn't speak well of their past relationships, doesn't get along with their parents. And then there's the substance stuff. I have been really into women and noticed that they constantly disappear and go to the bathroom. And then I found out they were doing drugs. And I just sort of ignored it for a while. So substance abuse. A focus on, I don't know. this is this is going to sound sexist i've been out with some women who i think were very focused on just getting to a place of where they could have a bunch of material items as opposed to thinking about building a life with someone or kids um is that fair yeah i think it is so but at the end of the day i think it's do you really and then the ultimate kind of litmus test is when I was growing up and dating women, I would try and figure out what I thought they wanted and be that person.

21:58Scott Galloway:Like I thought, oh, I don't want to tell this person I really like them because then I come across as weak or I'm going to constantly boast and exaggerate my accomplishments because I think they want somebody who's impressive or rich. The ultimate limit to us for someone you want to settle with is someone you can kind of just be yourself around and who just really likes you, you know, who just thinks you're great because of exactly who you are. And that's just spending time with them. And also probably the best litmus test is see if you can travel with someone nonstop for two weeks. And if you don't want to kill each other by the time you get home, that's probably someone you should marry.

22:33Scott Galloway:So to just try and break it down, what makes for a good partnership? I distill it down to three things. The first is sex and affection. It says, I choose you. Young people are usually pretty good at figuring that out. Two, values. It's important to have conversations around where do you want to live? Does she want to live in the city, but you want to move back to the farm? What is the role religion is going to play in your life? You know, all that stuff. You don't have to get along politically, but you have to be able to have a conversation around these things. And then the third thing that people don't talk about is money.

23:02Scott Galloway:What's your approach to money, to earning it, to spending it? Do you feel like you have to create an illusion of having more wealth and you're worried that your partner is going to... I have friends in my life where the dude uses money for control and the female, and this sounds sexist and it is sexist, but it's true. And the female feels like it's a game to spend as much money as possible. And they don't partner. They don't align on economics. And the number one source of divorce isn't a lack of shared values or infidelity. It's economic strain. So truing up and getting alignment around economics is really important.

23:33Scott Galloway:Thanks for the question. That is probably the most important question. most important signal probably of your long-term success and your happiness is not your income it's who you decide to partner with