Scott Responds to the Paternity Leave Backlash, Patriotism in America, and more

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1:45Scott Galloway:Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehoursofpropgmedia.com. Again, that's officehoursofproptoomedia.com or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. Question number one.

2:06Kara Swisher:Hi, Scott. This is Taylor from Atlanta. You often talk about how much you cherish your time with your sons and how that time is fleeting. Considering the stance, I was surprised and disappointed to hear your recent comments regarding paternity leave. For context, my wife and I are both physicians in our mid-30s. We have an almost three-year-old son and welcomed a baby girl at the start of the year. I had the opportunity to take a few weeks of paternity leave, and I took it without hesitation I do challenging work well and am compensated accordingly, but I have no illusions about my importance in the workplace Things continued on just fine without me, and I was able to recently jump back in without missing a beat I understand your premise that men cannot contribute in the same way that women can in the newborn stage However, men can still provide indirect contributions in other ways to make life easier for their partner and help them as they recover from the physical and psychological stressor that is childbirth.

3:00Kara Swisher:And even though you don't get the same feedback from a newborn that you do from a toddler or a teenager, it is still finite time that allows for some bonding with the child that you never get back. Research shows that millennial fathers are more involved than previous generations of fathers by a variety of metrics. Considering this, as well as what I assume is quite a number of critiques you have received regarding your comments about paternity leave, have your opinions on this changed it all? If you could go back in time and take a few weeks off when your sons were born, would you? Thank you for listening and for your time.

3:31Scott Galloway:Thanks for the question. I wasn't expecting this, and it's going to be hard not to come across as defensive. So what happened essentially was I was doing a podcast with Derek Thompson, who's a friend. He said he was on paternity leave, and I ribbed him and gave him a hard time and said, dude, fathers are useless in the first few weeks, get back to work. Your job is to support your wife and make sure and keep the child away from a large body of water. First off, let me just say my comments were stupid. Occasionally, I try to be provocative and I cross the line into just saying something stupid.

4:04Scott Galloway:That was a stupid statement and I regret saying it. I do have a bottom line. I think it was totally taken out of context in that I was giving Derek a hard time. People's views and how they believe or what their belief is around something. If you want to understand or put a Wonder Woman's golden lacer around them, look at their actions, not the words. And here are my actions. With respect to parental leave, all of my companies have offered parental leave. And I'm a fan of it. I think it's important. As is often the case in this keyboard virtuous society, I felt like it was initially a blogger made a cartoon of my comments on opportunity to virtue signal and, in my view, totally misrepresented me.

4:51Scott Galloway:But let me just talk about or give you my views on parental leave. It's mostly a conversation amongst affluent, privileged people in the lunchrooms of Reddit and Google and, in your case, in the hospital, because three-quarters of Americans do not have access to paid parental leave. Again, if we don't want to have an honest conversation about it instead of a bunch of Democrats who see an opportunity to say you're holding the gun wrong and kind of virtue signal each other. Let's have an honest conversation. 90 % of Americans do have access to unpaid parental leave. So the question is, how do we put more money in the pockets of childbearing age adults and then let them decide what they're going to do with respect to their child?

5:39Scott Galloway:So expanded child tax credit, which I've advocated for universal child care, which I have advocated for stopping this bullshit tax code that just transfers money from earners, i.e. young people to owners, old people who are no longer having kids. This isn't about ideology or this next people. It's about biology. And that is breastfeeding, the oxytocin, physical touch is just dramatically more important for the relationship and the bonding between the child and the mother. And I can prove this biologically. Having said that, I think it's great. There is some research showing that men who are more involved early in the infant's life tend to be better fathers moving forward, but some of that might be correlation, not causation, in that the kind of person that's more involved early on is going to be more involved later.

6:28Scott Galloway:So, brother, I'm with you. Take as much time as you and your wife and how you divide that time and who goes back to work sooner versus later. In my instance, I think the way I provided the most, if you will, emotional care for my partner was quite frankly to show her that I was going to be making a living and focused on work. So after a few weeks, I was back at work. And then after I think it was two months, three months she got from Goldman, she went back to work and I tried to pick up the slack and I was home early or I was home for bath time because my partner was working exceptional hours.

7:00Scott Galloway:But if we want to have a serious conversation around parental involvement in kids, and I think there's few people who have been more outspoken about the importance of presence of a male in a child's life. It's simple. It's not virtue signaling and arguing amongst the 27 % of us who have access to corporate America and get paid parental leave. 27 of the 29 people who've become millionaires in my firms when I've sold them are either LGBTQ or women. And I have been, I think, exceptionally generous in support of people with flexible schedules. Everyone has been entitled to maternity and paternity leave should they choose to take it.

7:40Scott Galloway:But I stick with my statement that I think the mother is more important to the child early on. What I do think we need, though, is to give parents and people of childbearing age more economic flexibility such that they can decide what is right for them. But congratulations on your newborn. I think it's great that you have the option to take that kind of paternity leave, paid paternity leave, which puts you in one in four adults in the United States. I very much appreciate the question. Question number two. Hi, Scott.

8:12Kara Swisher:Andrew from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was wondering your thoughts on the controversy following the U.S. men's hockey team Olympic gold medal win. If you or anyone listening didn't see, the players were celebrating in the locker room following their win against Canada, and FBI Director Cash Patel put President Trump on speakerphone, who made a joke about the women's team and how he would have to invite them too to the White House, and most of the men's team laughed, and this was caught on video and sparked a lot of debate online and in the news. As someone who has said and written a lot about what being a I'd rather hear from on this story, particularly the men's reaction and the lack of support for their female counterparts at the Olympics.

8:56Kara Swisher:As a personal aside, I watched the game with my dad. He's just the best dad, and we've loved hockey forever. I found it really deflating to have to balance enjoying this moment with my dad in a country I love dearly with complex feelings about the country right now. So if you have time, I'm also just curious how you balance patriotism with the disillusionment of the current moment. Thank you for all you do. I really appreciate you.

9:28Scott Galloway:Okay, so men's hockey team behavior and balancing disillusionment with patriotism. I think 110 % of the fault here lies with the president, not with a bunch of 23-year-olds celebrating and then caught off guard when he says something stupid. As a matter of fact, during, and I watched the clip a bunch of times when he made those stupid or that stupid remark, you know, that we have to invite the women. So when the president makes what is just a sexist, stupid fucking comment, it goes to a broader picture. And that is my reductive analysis of masculinity is to be a provider. I do think it's important that men have a plan economically and that they're economically viable.

10:10Scott Galloway:We'd like to think that doesn't matter anymore, that it's an equivalent responsibility. That's bullshit. A man needs to be a provider, at least at the outset of his career. And by the way, some of that might be deciding I'm gonna be more supportive of my partner as I was. My partner was working at Goldman Sachs. She was making a lot more money than me. So I felt that it was part of my role as being a provider to be more supportive of her, to handle the finances, have our shit together, take up some of the slack around some of the emotional and domestic labor. I've always handled our finances, but I wanted to be economically viable.

10:39Scott Galloway:And some of that, when I was making less money than her, was to be more supportive or be a support system for her. I also think that's a form of masculinity. Then it goes to, and this is where the Trump family, I think, misses the boat. And a lot of our role models, including Musk, missed the boat. The whole point of establishing economic or physical or intellectual strength and skills is such that you can move to protection. You wanna move from your strength, if you will, to protection. We wanna celebrate the victories of our sisters. That is that right. That reflects strength. That means you're evolved.

11:14Scott Galloway:That means you fucking get it. And when the president makes this stupid remark, well, the women have to come. I don't hold this is gonna be an unpopular take. I don't hold the men's team responsible for in the moment when they're drinking champagne and they get the president on the fucking phone for laughing. I don't hold them liable for it. Do we wish all of them had stopped laughing and said, sir, according to the seventh amendment, you know, no. And as a matter of fact, if you listen to the tape, one or two dudes immediately said two for two, meaning that the women and the men had won. So I think the president not only diminished women, he diminished the men in that room.

11:52Scott Galloway:He put them in a fucking impossible decision. He caught them flat-footed. And so I think the criticism of a bunch of 23 - and 25-year-old men from the Midwest who in the moment didn't have the presence of mind to say something crisp. Well, how are you going to get back in the president's face thoughtfully and respectfully in the moment? I'll tell you how. You're not. This was entirely the president's fault. And also it was a missed opportunity. First off, I have no idea why the director of the FBI was there acting like a total frat bro. But he should have. The opportunity was he absolutely should have celebrated with the women.

12:33Scott Galloway:That would have been the smart move politically for the Trump administration or celebrate with both. But in sum, this reflected poorly on the president is another indication of this right wing conflation of masculinity and coarseness and cruelty. Any stupid solution of how to fix the masculinity problem or the male, quote unquote, the young men's crisis by taking us back to the 50s. That is not the answer, folks. And by the way, neither women nor men are going back to the 50s where women and non-whites had less opportunity. It's a more evolved sense of masculinity. We still recognize men and women have different predetermined behaviors or an easier time leaning into behaviors.

13:13Scott Galloway:We should celebrate femininity. We should celebrate masculinity. By the way, I am drawn to men that are more feminine. My friends tend to take care of me and be more nurturing and more observant and have better relational skills. And that's OK. There are some wonderful traits of masculinity that a lot of women have. But let's celebrate both and recognize that young men do very hard, dangerous things. Sometimes we view them as reckless. I see that oftentimes as valor. When Russian troops come pouring over the border in Ukraine, we want some big dick energy. So let's celebrate both without diminishing either as it relates to the hockey.

13:49Scott Galloway:scandal or hockey gate. All of the fault lies with the president, who is at a minimum a sexist. A lot of people would say misogynist. That means you hate women. I think that term is overused, but at a minimum, he is a sexist and he is a terrible role model for young men. So, and I'm just sad that this in any way diminishes the incredible athleticism demonstrated by both the U.S. women's and the U.S. men's team. Balancing patriotism with this type of behavior, I struggle with it. I got to be honest with the, I forget what was the last big tournament where the Canadians won. I was rooting for the Canadians.

14:29Scott Galloway:I'm hoping we invade Canada and then do a reverse merger and have their management team take over management. Can Mark Carney run North America? I mean, the guy is reasonable. He's smart. By the way, first non-Brit to be appointed the head of the Bank of England. I mean, this guy understands the economy. He's empathetic. I'm a huge fan of the prime ministers. So I was rooting for Canada. I struggle with the line between patriotism and resentment of our current policies. And where I land is the following. The truest bluest flame form of patriotism is for me is to move back and get very involved in restoring and strengthening some of our great American values.

15:15Scott Galloway:Rule of law, respect for immigrants, the advancement of special interest groups, including non-whites and women and gay people and whoever it might be. This is one of the one of we are the least racist heterogeneous culture in the world. but we still have a lot of work to do. And that's one of the wonderful things about America is we recognize the challenges facing special interest groups and we work to make them better together. And we recognize that all this prosperity that mostly white male heterosexuals registered for the first 3 ,000 years, that when we invite other people into it, it feels really good.

15:50Scott Galloway:It's the right thing to do. And it's also the economically really smart thing to do. If women had not gotten, if we had not protected women's rights in their entry into the workforce through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, still have work to do. They fall when they have children in terms of compensation. Some people would argue with it, but I hold to it. Then we would be a second-rate economic power to China. So I think there's just a ton of reasons why America was on an incredible move of momentum and that we have had a bit of a dip here. Not a bit of a dip, a real dip in terms of bodily autonomy, blatant sexism, blatant racism, blatant anti-immigration policy.

16:28Scott Galloway:Everything that is made or many of the things that have made America great is under attack. So how do I think you balance, create that balance? You get involved and you restore the momentum and the great American values, right? In other words, I think the way to demonstrate America, I think the way to demonstrate patriotism right now isn't to get fed up and do what all these actors threaten to do and leave America. I think this is time for the American diaspora to come home and we focus our efforts, our skills, our time, our treasure, and our talent on making America, America again. Thanks for the question.

17:05Scott Galloway:We'll be right back after a quick break.

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20:48Scott Galloway:Welcome back onto our final question, which comes from Deegan JT on Instagram. They ask, what's your favorite personal or professional memory so far with your Pivot co-host Kara Swisher? That's a generous question. a couple things just popped into my mind. She came and stayed with me. Kara and her wife Amanda came and stayed with me with Kara's two, or one of Kara's older adult children, Alex Swisher, and their two youngest. And there were just a couple moments that struck me. First off, Alex is like white LeBron. He's just fucking enormous. And he works out. and he's got just a ton of energy.

21:31Scott Galloway:I remember us working out in the backyard and the guy's like so crazy strong. And then he's like, oh, it's the ocean, I'm hot. And he like sprinted into the ocean. But we were watching some ridiculous, unfortunately I made the mistake of letting Karen and Amanda decide what we were gonna watch. We ended up watching like some PBS museum heist thing. And Alex came over and he sat down on the couch. I'm not exaggerating. We all popped about two feet into the air. I remember that. And I remember the next morning he did something that upset her and she's a parent. She was lecturing him with her finger and he looked like an eight-year-old.

22:06Scott Galloway:And just the juxtaposition of what looked like Billy Barty, the famous little person actor, like berating and castigating Shaquille O 'Neal, the image was just so funny. uh so and generally speaking i do get a lot from kara or i find a lot of grace in how she i learned from her a lot from her as a parent about how to be a really good engaged in parent and still work as hard as she does i think she's a wonderful parent so that and then uh she did something really nice for me when we were on our pivot live tour i mentioned once on the pivot live tour that my first girlfriend was a girl named Debbie Brubaker.

22:52Scott Galloway:And Debbie and I were also, we used to, they used to pull us out of third grade and send us to fifth grade for math and English. And anyways, we're at this pivot live tour. I think we were in San Francisco and we turned up to Liza to ask questions. And she put a picture of me and Debbie on the stage because we were kind of gifted kids. We ended up in the local San Fernando Valley newspaper. And this woman came up and asked a question and said, I'm Debbie Brubaker. And I hadn't seen Debbie in 50 years. But just that she went to the trouble to track Debbie down, invite her to San Francisco, get her there and ask a question.