Uncensored - Piers Morgan - 20240530_scott-galloway-masculinity-is-a-wonderful-thing
Aired: 2024-05-30
Duration: 34:03


=== Finding Your True Passion (05:33) ===

[00:00:00]  I think a lot of young people mistake hobbies for their passion.
[00:00:03]  The sexier the industry, the lower your return on invested capital.
[00:00:08]  Pursue your dream.
[00:00:09]  Yeah.
[00:00:09]  Philosophy.
[00:00:10]  You think that's bullshit?
[00:00:11]  100%.
[00:00:12]  Here's what creates passion, mastery.
[00:00:14]  We have the most anxious, obese, depressed, and addicted generation in history.
[00:00:19]  People today, by comparison, have it easy.
[00:00:21]  Why should they be entitled to have a better life than I have had in mine?
[00:00:25]  They do not have the same opportunities economically that we had at their age.
[00:00:30]  The cohort that has fallen furthest the fastest is young men.
[00:00:33]  Four times more likely to kill themselves, three times as likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated.
[00:00:38]  The ultimate expression of masculinity is that you can take care of yourself, you can take care of others.
[00:00:43]  If we want better men, we need to be better men.
[00:00:47]  Scott Galloway is a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business.
[00:00:51]  Fittingly, the New York Times once called him the Howard Stern of the business world.
[00:00:55]  He says, older generations in the West have waged an economic war on the young, sparking many of the radical or rebellious ideologies we see today.
[00:01:03]  He argues that masculinity needs to be rescued, perhaps even by teaching young men in schools how to approach women in the real world.
[00:01:10]  His new book, The Algebra of Wealth, promises a simple formula for success.
[00:01:14]  And he joins me in the studio now.
[00:01:16]  Well, great to see you.
[00:01:17]  I didn't actually even know you lived in England.
[00:01:19]  So great to have you on set with me because we've both done, we're just talking about the Bill Maher show in LA and so on.
[00:01:27]  Let's start with that premise really about it's simple to be successful in life.
[00:01:33]  Because you believe it is if you do it or you pursue the right thing, which is not your passion, which I've often told people to do, pursue your passion, but to pursue your talent.
[00:01:43]  Explain the difference and why it's important.
[00:01:45]  Well, anyone who's telling you to follow your passion is already rich.
[00:01:49]  And that person typically made their billions in iron ore smelting.
[00:01:52]  Here's your job.
[00:01:53]  Your job is to find your talent.
[00:01:55]  And as importantly, find it in an industry that has a 90 plus percent employment rate.
[00:02:01]  I think a lot of young people mistake hobbies for their passion.
[00:02:05]  And that is the kind of the vanity the romance industries, the creative, the arts, Hollywood, sports generally have about a 99% unemployment rate.
[00:02:14]  And what I can tell you is that if you become great at something, if you develop mastery, the accoutrements of that mastery, economic security, camaraderie, relevance, prestige, will make you passionate about whatever it is.
[00:02:27]  In sum, I'm passionate about being able to take care of my kids.
[00:02:30]  I'm passionate about being able to help out my dad.
[00:02:32]  I'm passionate about being able to live a wonderful life in London.
[00:02:36]  And that came from analytics and business strategy.
[00:02:39]  What's your talent?
[00:02:40]  My talent is storytelling.
[00:02:42]  It's the same as yours.
[00:02:42]  Right.
[00:02:43]  And that is the one talent you want to ensure that your kids know how to do.
[00:02:46]  It's not Mandarin.
[00:02:46]  It's not computer science.
[00:02:47]  It's the ability to craft a narrative that convinces people to invest in you, convinces people to grab a coffee with you, convinces people to come to work with you.
[00:02:55]  Storytelling is successful.
[00:02:56]  It's really interesting you picked up on what my talent, obviously it's similar to you, because I think that's so right.
[00:03:02]  Everything I've done, whether it's doing this show, whether it's doing a morning show I did for a while, I was a judge on America's Got Talent, you know, I replaced Larry King at CNN, I did Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump.
[00:03:14]  And actually the common theme of all of it, even back to when I was on a local newspaper, editing a tabloid here, actually it all, the common theme was storytelling.
[00:03:24]  You know, whether it's people performing on stage, telling their story and picking up on why that would resonate with people or choosing a story for a front page or whatever it may be, it is about storytelling.
[00:03:36]  But I've not heard anyone look me in the eye and say, that's your talent before in that way.
[00:03:40]  So you have a talent also for assessing people's talent.
[00:03:44]  Well, Jeff Bezos, Winston Churchill, and, you know, Martha Stewart, they're storytellers.
[00:03:50]  Right.
[00:03:50]  They're also great at what they do, but if they can't craft a narrative that convinces people to take a harder look at what it is they do, You'd rather be a great storyteller and mediocre at what you do than be great at what you do and a mediocre storyteller.
[00:04:04]  Storytelling is the marketing and it's the core competence.
[00:04:07]  I sat with Jeff Bezos, I think it was about 2000, just when Amazon was beginning to get going.
[00:04:12]  And apart from the fact he had this hilariously manic laugh, which he used to explode into, which I found very contagious.
[00:04:18]  I've always remembered it.
[00:04:19]  We were talking about several things.
[00:04:21]  If I caught up with him a couple of years ago at a party in Hollywood, of course, in which I reminded him of our conversation.
[00:04:26]  He did remember bits of it.
[00:04:27]  And one of them was that I was editing a newspaper and he said, you do realize that within 10 years, people will be reading newspapers on little pads like electronic.
[00:04:36]  I said, no, they weren't.
[00:04:37]  Ridiculous.
[00:04:38]  He, of course, was right.
[00:04:39]  And then he talked about Amazon.
[00:04:40]  I said, what is the business principle you have for Amazon?
[00:04:43]  He went, oh, it's very straightforward.
[00:04:44]  I want to give anyone anything they want whenever they want it.
[00:04:47]  And we're going to deliver it when they want it.
[00:04:49]  He said, that's it.
[00:04:50]  I said, anything.
[00:04:51]  He said, anything.
[00:04:52]  Anything.
[00:04:52]  And I want it to be delivered to them when they want it.
[00:04:55]  He said, that's the key.
[00:04:56]  And he had it completely mapped out that this was not just going to be, as it was at the time, predominantly a books company, which is how it began, and then began to morph out.
[00:05:05]  He had a clear vision.
[00:05:06]  I want everyone to have everything, but crucially, to be really reliable on delivery.
[00:05:13]  But here's where I would slightly question your premise because he had not only a great talent for storytelling, I think for marketing, he had a visionary talent, all these things, but he had a clear, abiding passion for it as well.
[00:05:26]  So it's the sweet spot where you have a talent and you're also incredibly passionate about what that is.

=== The FOMO Trap for Youth (12:50) ===

[00:05:33]  Yeah, but I've seen you say it's actually better to find something boring.
[00:05:39]  Well, here's the thing.
[00:05:40]  If you're the top 10% of tax lawyers, you're probably going to fly private and have a broader selection set of mates than you deserve.
[00:05:47]  But you'll be bored.
[00:05:48]  No.
[00:05:49]  You know what's exciting, Pierce?
[00:05:51]  Going to Cannes, going to Wimbledon, and you're not playing, but you get to watch.
[00:05:56]  You would rather be Piers Morgan.
[00:05:58]  You'd rather be Raphael Nadal or Federer than Piers Morgan.
[00:06:01]  But you'd rather be Piers Morgan than the number seven ranked player in the world because you get to go to Wimbledon because you make money elsewhere and you get to enjoy the spoils of these incredible passions.
[00:06:11]  So find something that has a 90 plus percent employment.
[00:06:14]  If you're in the top 10 percent of a boring field, you're going to live a really nice life, which will make you passionate about whatever it is.
[00:06:20]  If you're in the top 10 percent of basketball players, you play JV basketball in high school and never make any money.
[00:06:26]  180,000 actors and actresses in Sag After, these are the most talented actors in the world.
[00:06:32]  87% of them last year didn't qualify for health insurance and made less than 20%.
[00:06:36]  I saw you say that on Bill Mott.
[00:06:37]  I have a son who's an actor and I know how tough that business is, but I also know a lot of actors who are quite happy with those odds because they believe they're living their dream and living their passion.
[00:06:47]  They don't actually mind that it's hard.
[00:06:49]  So again, that line between, yeah, you can be talented at something that's very dull.
[00:06:56]  Is that ultimately going to bring you as much joy in life as chasing a passion, which may bring a lot of frustration with it?
[00:07:02]  Well, these are existential questions.
[00:07:04]  If your brother gets a lot of psychic income from being in something that he's just passionate about, right?
[00:07:09]  I would like to coach Little League.
[00:07:11]  And if I could move to a low-cost neighborhood and coach Little League and be reasonably happy, there's nothing wrong with that.
[00:07:16]  But what I'm suggesting is that young people have a sober conversation.
[00:07:19]  And that is where do they expect to be economically?
[00:07:21]  What weight class do they expect to be in?
[00:07:23]  How much money do they expect to have?
[00:07:24]  Where do they expect to live?
[00:07:26]  And what is the likelihood they're going to find an industry where they'll be able to maintain that standard of living?
[00:07:32]  And what I suggest is in certain industries, being in the top 10% will afford you an amazing living.
[00:07:37]  And being in the top 10% is a recipe for unemployment.
[00:07:39]  The sexier the industry, the lower your return on invested capital.
[00:07:43]  So I'm not here to crush your brother's or anyone's dream.
[00:07:47]  My son, actually, yeah.
[00:07:47]  Your son, excuse me.
[00:07:49]  But if they're not getting bright green signals from a very early age that they're not in the top 1%, then I would suggest finding a place where they can find a greater return on their invested capital.
[00:08:00]  But this flies in the face of the whole pursue your dream philosophy.
[00:08:04]  You think that's bullshit?
[00:08:06]  100%.
[00:08:07]  Really?
[00:08:08]  Yeah, the person telling you to do that made his billions in iron ore smelting.
[00:08:12]  Look, here's what you're going to be passionate about.
[00:08:16]  You're going to be passionate about having economic security and being able to be a DG on the weekends and to go see Kaigo because you can afford the best seats.
[00:08:24]  You know, I'm really passionate about economic security.
[00:08:27]  And the thing that gave me economic security and ended up I was really good at.
[00:08:30]  Here's what creates passion, mastery.
[00:08:33]  If you become the best in the world at building this set, you're going to become passionate about it because you're going to get prestige, you're going to get economic security, and you're going to get a lot of pride out of being at the best in the world at building this set.
[00:08:44]  But okay, let me throw something back at you.
[00:08:46]  So I can mow a lawn really well.
[00:08:49]  Okay.
[00:08:49]  And I can sort of enjoy it a bit if I'm one of those, I'm one of those sit-down lawnmowers, okay?
[00:08:55]  But I'm never ever going to feel passionate about it, however good I get at that.
[00:08:59]  I could be the best lawnmower in the world.
[00:09:03]  And I'm really quite talented at it, right?
[00:09:05]  I could pursue my talent mowing lawns, but I'm never ever going to feel that searing passion I have for what I'm doing now, interviewing an interesting guy about the big existential issues of the world.
[00:09:18]  But your philosophy would almost drive me to set up a lawn mowing business because I'm talented.
[00:09:23]  You're 100% wrong here, Pierce.
[00:09:25]  You're in the top 0.1%.
[00:09:27]  If you were in the top 0.1% of every other industry, you would own this network.
[00:09:32]  And not only that, if you're great at lawn mowing at an early age, then hire two other guys and start a landscaping company.
[00:09:38]  And the guy living next door to you that is living an amazing life and flying private and has a very attractive mate, bought other landscaping companies and is printing money.
[00:09:48]  The millionaire next door who's having a wonderful life is killing it in industries that don't have an overabundance of human capital because they're not sexy.
[00:09:57]  And he or she started aggregating more landscape companies.
[00:10:00]  There are five people leaving the trades for every two that are going into it.
[00:10:04]  That is the biggest opportunity in our economy right now.
[00:10:08]  The sexier an industry is, the harder it is.
[00:10:12]  Go where the waves are huge and the snow is amazing, a less sexy industry.
[00:10:17]  And all you have to be is good to have a great life instead of amazing to just have an average life.
[00:10:22]  I mean, it is a fascinating philosophy.
[00:10:25]  You haven't quite convinced me, but I'm not saying you're wrong.
[00:10:29]  In other words, I think you're probably right.
[00:10:31]  I just don't want you to be right.
[00:10:33]  Understood.
[00:10:34]  Because I like sexy.
[00:10:35]  I like daredevil.
[00:10:37]  I like risk-taking.
[00:10:38]  I like triumph and failure.
[00:10:40]  I've had it myself in my career multiple times, the roller coaster.
[00:10:43]  And I've learned so much about myself from the ups and the downs, probably more from the downs, actually.
[00:10:50]  But you really only get that if you got out of your comfort zone.
[00:10:52]  Boss, for every Piers Morgan, there's 99 people who thought they were going to be in broadcast journalists and never got to that seat.
[00:10:58]  And what I'm suggesting is be in an industry where, again, if you're just good, you can have the accoutrements of a Piers Morgan life.
[00:11:06]  They're pretty good, actually.
[00:11:08]  That's right.
[00:11:09]  Let's turn to the war on young people.
[00:11:11]  So you believe there's a war on young people.
[00:11:13]  I've got four young people, my children.
[00:11:15]  My sons are 30, 26, 23.
[00:11:18]  My daughter's 12.
[00:11:20]  And they certainly don't have economic problems of the kind that you're talking about here.
[00:11:23]  But there's no doubt that even just trying to help my middle boy buy his first home, you now need a 25% deposit in this city right now to do that.
[00:11:33]  When I bought my first home in London with a couple of friends, zero deposit was required.
[00:11:38]  You just had to have a parent who would sign up as a guarantor for the money.
[00:11:42]  That's just, that's the change in four decades, which is pretty terrifying, actually.
[00:11:47]  So I get that it's economically tough, but I also would argue that there's probably never been a better time to be a young person.
[00:11:54]  I mean, statistically, we're living longer, we're living healthier, there are actually fewer wars, despite perception.
[00:12:03]  There's less child poverty, there's better dentistry, you know, and so on and so on.
[00:12:07]  There are all sorts of metrics which you could argue make this the best time to ever be alive.
[00:12:12]  And yet, lots of economic problems for young people.
[00:12:16]  I get that comparative to certainly when I was young.
[00:12:19]  But also a lot of anxiety.
[00:12:22]  And I'm really, I don't know if you see Jonathan Haight's book about this.
[00:12:25]  Really interesting book.
[00:12:27]  What is the problem?
[00:12:29]  Why can't young people have a perspective?
[00:12:32]  And that's why I think when you come up with the war on young people, in a way, I would argue that you're exacerbating that anxiety.
[00:12:39]  You're making them feel like, yeah, yeah, I am a victim after all.
[00:12:43]  You know, the professor tells me I'm a victim.
[00:12:45]  Sure.
[00:12:46]  Well, I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.
[00:12:49]  And that is, if you just look at the data, for the first time in the history of America, a 30-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents.
[00:12:57]  The price of a house.
[00:12:58]  Why should they?
[00:12:59]  Why should they?
[00:12:59]  Because that's the whole social compact.
[00:13:01]  But that's not been the history of the world.
[00:13:03]  It's the history of America.
[00:13:04]  Right, but my grandmother was 19 in World War II.
[00:13:06]  What is more important to you than your kids doing better than you?
[00:13:09]  No, no, I agree.
[00:13:09]  Of course.
[00:13:10]  But here's my point about the entitlement factor of what you've just said.
[00:13:14]  My grandmother was 19 when World War II started.
[00:13:17]  26, actually, when it ended, just before 26.
[00:13:20]  She lost five, six of the best years of her life in a world war.
[00:13:25]  People today, by comparison, have it easy.
[00:13:28]  Why should they be entitled to have a better life than I have had in mine?
[00:13:32]  It's not entitlement.
[00:13:33]  It's the reality is that if you play by the rules, the whole social compact you have with a society is that if your kids are good kids and they do what they can, that they should have a better life than you.
[00:13:42]  For the first time, that social compact has been broken.
[00:13:45]  Look at the two biggest tax deductions in the United States.
[00:13:47]  Mortgage interest and capital gains.
[00:13:49]  Who owns homes and makes their money from selling assets?
[00:13:52]  People our age.
[00:13:53]  Who rents and makes their money from current income?
[00:13:55]  Young people.
[00:13:56]  The average 70-year-old in the United States is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago.
[00:14:00]  The average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy.
[00:14:04]  Meanwhile, education is four times as expensive and housing is twice as expensive.
[00:14:09]  So they look up and they see tremendous prosperity across our generation.
[00:14:13]  They look sideways and they do see some people doing extraordinarily well, but they are having a tougher time.
[00:14:18]  And we have the most anxious, obese, depressed, and addicted generation in history.
[00:14:22]  So that anxiety is not being driven, I don't think, by FOMO of their elderly relatives.
[00:14:27]  It's actually being driven by what they're seeing on their phone, which is FOMO of lifestyles, wanting to get rich quick, all that kind of thing, coupled with, I believe, massive dopamine overexposure.
[00:14:39]  Agree.
[00:14:40]  You know, take, for example, the Gaza war.
[00:14:43]  Take the Ukraine war.
[00:14:44]  When I was young, Britain invaded, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, and Britain went out to combat them in the middle of nowhere.
[00:14:52]  And I remember it all, but only remember what the BBC told me I was allowed to see.
[00:14:57]  It was a very sanitized version of war.
[00:14:59]  Now, if I click on my Instagram or I click on my Facebook or I click on my X feed, up will come the most appalling imagery from these wars.
[00:15:08]  Horrible videos all day long.
[00:15:11]  And I think this is part of the problem with kids.
[00:15:14]  I don't think it's actually that the anxiety is driven by, I want to be like my dad.
[00:15:20]  I think it's more like, I want to be like my richer mates who are doing really well here.
[00:15:24]  And I want a bit of show off on Instagram.
[00:15:26]  And coupled with this sensory overload of really negative, damaging stuff, it's scrambling their brains, as Jonathan Haight said.
[00:15:33]  Well, I think it's both.
[00:15:35]  One, they don't have the same opportunities economically, the average American, as they did 30 and 40 years ago.
[00:15:41]  The average 25-year-old 40 years ago was making $85,000 a year on an inflation-adjusted basis.
[00:15:46]  20 years ago, it was 65.
[00:15:48]  Now it's 50.
[00:15:50]  At the same time, they're reminded 210 times a day that they're failing.
[00:15:54]  And that if they aren't at the Amen and parting and can and have a really hot boyfriend, that somehow they've failed.
[00:16:00]  That's the FOMO bit from Instagram.
[00:16:02]  Well, it's both.
[00:16:02]  It's speedballed by this bigger, better deal economy or bigger, better deal society where you feel like everyone around you is making money and doing really incredible things except for you.
[00:16:14]  And also there's some reality there.
[00:16:15]  They do not have the same opportunities economically on average that we had at their age.
[00:16:21]  Really?
[00:16:21]  Is that true?
[00:16:23]  Oh, the facts are undeniable.
[00:16:26]  Look at the price of housing in the U.S.
[00:16:28]  It's gone from $290,000 to $410,000 pre-COVID to post-COVID.
[00:16:31]  Interest rates have gone from 2.5% to 7.5%.
[00:16:33]  The average mortgage has gone from $1,100 to $2,300.
[00:16:37]  When we were growing up, two out of three people in the U.K. and America could afford a home.
[00:16:41]  In the U.S., it's now one out of three.
[00:16:43]  One out of three men under the age of 30 has not had sex in the last year.
[00:16:47]  That is a massive problem.
[00:16:49]  30 to 34-year-olds in America, 63% of them used to have at least one child.
[00:16:53]  Now it's 27%.
[00:16:54]  Is it because they're expectant or jerks?
[00:16:56]  No, it's because they don't have the money to have kids.
[00:16:58]  Elon Musk thinks the whole population debate is completely screwed up because actually the real problem is not enough people on the planet.
[00:17:04]  And that in 30, 40 years, we're going to see the way that countries like Japan and others are already going.
[00:17:10]  It's going to be everywhere and we're going to be a massively underpopulated world.
[00:17:14]  Do you share that view?
[00:17:15]  If we don't have more younger people supporting a fairly unproductive and expensive senior population, society is going to recession.
[00:17:23]  In the U.S., 40% of our entire federal budget goes to the support of seniors.
[00:17:27]  It's about to be 50%, which crowds out other investments.
[00:17:29]  You want to take that away from them and give it to young people.
[00:17:31]  I want it to be means tested or call it senior security, not Social Security.
[00:17:35]  Why does the wealthiest generation in the history of the planet have $1.4 trillion each year redistributed to them from young people?
[00:17:43]  Why should we punish old people simply because today, comparative to 100 years ago, people are living an extra 20, 30 years?
[00:17:49]  We don't need to punish them, but you shouldn't get Social Security and nor should I. That's true.
[00:17:53]  So why wouldn't we means test it and why wouldn't we have something called, if it's truly Social Security, not senior security, why wouldn't we help young people who live in the richest nations in the world where if they have children, one in five of those households are food insecure?
[00:18:06]  Have you had this conversation with your elderly relatives?
[00:18:09]  How does it go down?
[00:18:13]  I think that the argument across seniors is that they paid into it and they should get their money out.
[00:18:17]  Slightly dodging the question there.
[00:18:18]  Well, my mom's passed away, my dad's 94.
[00:18:21]  Have you had the chat with your dad?

=== Why We Must Intervene (10:10) ===

[00:18:24]  Have I had the chat?
[00:18:24]  My dad gets Social Security, his Royal Navy pension, and money from washing machines that are in trailer parks.
[00:18:32]  I think he shares the same concern that young people don't have the same opportunities he did.
[00:18:38]  I think he shares those concerns.
[00:18:39]  But how do we have this debate in the way that you've articulated without further empowering their sense of victimhood?
[00:18:47]  That it's just my generation.
[00:18:50]  When actually, comparative, again, you take a 19-year-old kid in 1939 in this country or the United States or all around Europe.
[00:18:58]  They were being shipped off to war.
[00:18:59]  That's not going to happen again.
[00:19:00]  That argument falls flat.
[00:19:02]  If you and I were born in 1920 Germany, we'd end up dead on a Russian field and you should be grateful that you're not.
[00:19:07]  That's not how people's psyches work.
[00:19:09]  So should they be made to understand perspective better?
[00:19:13]  It seems to me they've lost all track of perspective.
[00:19:15]  Okay, you mentioned Gaza.
[00:19:16]  There's a lot going on here.
[00:19:17]  I think they have absolutely no historical reference.
[00:19:20]  And by the way, I think the protests in the U.S. campuses have very little to do with the Middle East.
[00:19:24]  I think they have everything to do with America and their frustration around a lack of opportunity.
[00:19:29]  And what they see is injustice or this weird orthodoxy of oppressed and oppressor.
[00:19:34]  Or the explosion in virtue signaling, which has now become, in my view, an epidemic and a scourge on society, where you attach yourself to whatever the latest woke theme may be, whether it's Black Lives Matter, whether it's Gaza, whether whatever it is, and you're completely intransigent to any other views about any of these issues because your tribe, and it applies right and left, by the way, your tribe has determined this is what you must be thinking.
[00:20:00]  And everyone walks around in these weird tribes where they just want to attach their virtue to something without understanding the background, without understanding the details.
[00:20:08]  I listened to some of these interviews at Columbia.
[00:20:10]  They didn't know what they were talking about.
[00:20:12]  They wouldn't have known the foggiest about the history of the 75-year conflict between the two people.
[00:20:16]  Yeah, the revolution should be catered.
[00:20:18]  Yeah, that's their demand.
[00:20:19]  Look, we can hold two thoughts in our mind at the same time.
[00:20:22]  And that is, are some of these kids a little bit expectant because of the extreme wealth they see online?
[00:20:27]  But I'm with these kids.
[00:20:29]  I teach, I've taught 5,500 kids over the last 22 years.
[00:20:34]  They get more impressive every year, Pierce.
[00:20:36]  They're harder.
[00:20:37]  More intelligent.
[00:20:38]  Harder working, better with technology, more socially conscious.
[00:20:41]  The frame through which we are seeing American youth right now is a totally perverted, non-representative sample.
[00:20:46]  It's just 2,300 kids arrested on campus.
[00:20:49]  Less than half of them are students.
[00:20:50]  99.9% of students are going to school, doing the work.
[00:20:54]  And young people, generally speaking, similar to our generation, get up, want to work hard, want to be successful, want to take care of their kids, want to be good citizens.
[00:21:01]  Are they a little bit expectant?
[00:21:03]  Yes, but when they are more obese, more depressed, more addicted, more likely to kill themselves than any previous young generation in history, and at the same time, don't have the same earnings power, and everything's more expensive, then it's just not their fault.
[00:21:18]  This isn't just about expectant young people.
[00:21:20]  There's something bigger here and more mendacious going on that is purposeful from our generation.
[00:21:25]  Every law we pass economically is a transfer of wealth from their generation to ours.
[00:21:30]  We can't just say they're a bunch of expectant jerks.
[00:21:33]  That's true of some of them.
[00:21:34]  It makes for a good TikTok.
[00:21:36]  It's not the reality.
[00:21:37]  Generally speaking, every generation, including ours, is a little bit better than the previous generation.
[00:21:42]  That's the basis of evolution.
[00:21:44]  And people will cherry-pick an expectant jerk at Columbia demanding that the revolution be catered.
[00:21:50]  But for the most part, every year they get more socially conscious, they get harder working, they get better with technology, they get more productive.
[00:21:56]  But they look up and they look sideways and they think the same people making the same amount of effort had a better life than me.
[00:22:03]  Now, maybe they didn't have an espresso in Netflix, but they had the money to form a household.
[00:22:08]  They had the money to have kids.
[00:22:10]  They had the money to buy a house.
[00:22:12]  They had the money to not feel like they were indentured servants the rest of their lives because of student debt.
[00:22:17]  So this is a bigger issue that our generation needs to recognize, that no one has done better than our generation.
[00:22:23]  And for some reason, we've decided not to pay it forward to this younger generation.
[00:22:27]  And every piece of economic data shows that the greatest wealth transfer in history was COVID, where a million people dying would be bad.
[00:22:34]  But I know I have a better idea.
[00:22:35]  Let's flood the market with stimulus such that the incumbents that already own stocks and houses see their assets skyrocket.
[00:22:41]  But the people saving for a house or trying to buy stocks, nope, they're too expensive.
[00:22:46]  The reason I'm wealthy now is because we let the markets fail in 2008.
[00:22:50]  I got to buy Apple, Amazon, and Netflix at $10 a share.
[00:22:53]  They're trading at $180 to $600 an hour.
[00:22:56]  Where does a young person find disruption and opportunity now?
[00:22:59]  When you bail out the baby boomer owner of a restaurant, all you're doing is robbing opportunity from the 26-year-old graduate of a culinary academy that wants her shot.
[00:23:08]  The intergenerational theft here has been consistent for the last 40 years.
[00:23:12]  Let's talk about masculinity.
[00:23:14]  I agree, by the way, a lot of what you just said.
[00:23:16]  On masculinity, it's interesting to me that the interviews I've done, which have had probably most pickup from people in the street, and I mean a particular section of people, young men.
[00:23:26]  Jordan Peterson, who I've interviewed a few times, Andrew Tate, I've interviewed a few times.
[00:23:32]  Joe Rogan, I'm sure, would get the same thing.
[00:23:34]  Young men are gravitating to these guys.
[00:23:38]  And they're all different.
[00:23:38]  I'm not trying to lump them all in.
[00:23:40]  But what they think they're doing is they think they're standing up for men and for masculinity.
[00:23:46]  Well, it's been never more under attack.
[00:23:49]  A, do you think that is a correct assessment that masculinity and being a man has never been under more attack?
[00:23:56]  Is it long overdue that masculinity was reined back a bit?
[00:24:00]  Is everything now toxic?
[00:24:02]  Has the pendulum gone too far?
[00:24:04]  And is it therefore a surprise or not that these young men are gravitating to people who put their chest out and beat them a bit, form men like them, and say, this is how you can be a man and be proud of it?
[00:24:17]  Globally, no cohort has ascended faster than women over the last 30 years.
[00:24:21]  There are more women seeking post-secondary education than men right now globally.
[00:24:27]  The number of women elected to parliaments around the world has doubled in the last 30 years.
[00:24:31]  In America, the cohort that has fallen furthest the fastest is young men.
[00:24:35]  Four times more likely to kill themselves, three times as likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated.
[00:24:40]  And I think people felt that and saw it going on and so saw no one addressing it and using words like accountability and wishing they were more in touch with their emotions and ignoring these problems that if they afflicted any special interest group, they would get a lot more empathy than young men.
[00:24:54]  These young men are paying for the sins of their father and their grandfather's generation and the privilege they enjoyed, but they didn't enjoy.
[00:25:01]  They shouldn't be held back or held guilty for it.
[00:25:03]  Masculinity is a wonderful thing.
[00:25:06]  It means protection.
[00:25:07]  It means service.
[00:25:08]  It means being strong.
[00:25:09]  It means initiating contact.
[00:25:11]  It means being risk aggressive.
[00:25:12]  These are wonderful things.
[00:25:14]  Unfortunately, the void has been filled, but what I would call are some thinly veiled misogynistic voices.
[00:25:20]  I would not include Jordan Peterson in there.
[00:25:22]  Jordan deserves credit for bringing up the argument.
[00:25:24]  But some of the other people you mentioned, quite frankly, their vision of masculinity was treating women like property.
[00:25:29]  Well, Andrew Tate is a misogynist.
[00:25:31]  There's no question.
[00:25:32]  But masculinity needs to be re-embraced.
[00:25:34]  And by the way, a lot of women demonstrate wonderful masculine attributes and a lot of men demonstrate wonderful feminine attributes.
[00:25:40]  And most women I know actually would like men to be masculinity.
[00:25:44]  100%.
[00:25:45]  They want men to be, for want of a better phrase, hunters, providers, and protectors.
[00:25:49]  Who wants more economically and emotionally viable men?
[00:25:51]  Women.
[00:25:52]  Right.
[00:25:52]  If you talk about mating, you have to have an honest conversation.
[00:25:55]  Men mate socioeconomically, horizontally and down, women horizontally and up.
[00:25:59]  And when the pool of horizontal and up, economically and emotionally viable men shrinks, there's less household formation, there's less kids, there's more isolation, there's more depression, and the economy goes into a tailsprint.
[00:26:10]  What do we do about young men who've come through a pandemic where they were literally made to sit in their room for several years, not able to socialize with anyone, let alone women, probably gravitated to porn more than they would have done otherwise.
[00:26:25]  Porn is now readily available to anyone that wants it, the click of a button and so on.
[00:26:30]  And as a result, we're seeing, I think, a direct correlation between a sort of disconnect from their ability to have normal relationships with women.
[00:26:39]  Is that right?
[00:26:39]  And what do we do about that?
[00:26:41]  I think you're zeroing in on what is the biggest threat to America.
[00:26:43]  I think we'll push back on Hamas.
[00:26:45]  I think we'll push back on Russia.
[00:26:46]  The biggest threat to America is the most dangerous person in the world, a lonely, young, broke man.
[00:26:51]  And we're producing millions of them.
[00:26:52]  The deepest pocketed, most talented companies in the world are trying to convince young men that they can have a reasonable facsimile of life behind a screen and on an algorithm.
[00:27:01]  They don't need friends.
[00:27:02]  Go on Discord or Reddit.
[00:27:04]  They don't need to get a job.
[00:27:05]  Trade stocks or crypto on Coinbase or Robinhood.
[00:27:08]  You don't need to go through the rejection, the humiliation, the showering, the working out, the risk, the enduring, the rejection, and the failure of going out and trying to find a date.
[00:27:16]  You have you porn.
[00:27:17]  So you have an entire cohort of young men who are in their basements, not socializing.
[00:27:23]  They become depressed.
[00:27:24]  They become angry.
[00:27:25]  They're much more prone to misogynistic content.
[00:27:28]  They become nationalists.
[00:27:29]  And in some, they become shitty citizens.
[00:27:31]  What do we do?
[00:27:32]  We need to expand the number of freshmen seats at colleges.
[00:27:35]  We need a massive investment in vocational programs.
[00:27:37]  We need mandated national service to get men out of their house to meet other men's, other frienders, other men's under other mates.
[00:27:44]  We need more big brothers and sisters programs.
[00:27:46]  We need investments in third spaces.
[00:27:48]  And more than anything, we need to change the zeitgeist.
[00:27:52]  The ultimate expression of masculinity is that you can take care of yourself, you can take care of others, and then you get involved in the life. of a boy's life that isn't yours.
[00:28:02]  If we want better men, we need to be better men.
[00:28:04]  We need to get more involved in their lives.
[00:28:06]  There are an entire generation of young men in America through single-family homes that are number two in the world just behind Sweden and the levels of incarceration and the fact there are almost no men in primary education who grew up without a male role model.
[00:28:19]  The single point of failure for a man, a boy, is when he loses a male role model.
[00:28:24]  He becomes three times more likely to kill himself, four times less likely to go to college.
[00:28:29]  Simply put, we need to put more men back into boys' lives.

=== Investing in Our Future (03:16) ===

[00:28:34]  I completely agree.
[00:28:36]  We've got an American election coming, and you gave a TED talk.
[00:28:40]  You said, part of the problem is old people vote for old people who then look after old people.
[00:28:45]  You see, Congress has become a cross between land of the dead and golden girls, which is indisputably true.
[00:28:51]  We now have a president who's in his 80s.
[00:28:53]  We have an opponent in Donald Trump who's heading to his 80s.
[00:28:58]  Is that part of the problem you're talking about?
[00:29:00]  I mean, it seems crazy to me and many people that in a land of 340 million people, many of whom are unbelievably young, dynamic, and creative and driven and everything else, that these are the two best candidates you wash up with, two octogenarians.
[00:29:15]  Let's go one level down.
[00:29:17]  Speaker Pelosi, when she had her first child, Fidel had issued martial law in Cuba and two-thirds of households didn't have a color television.
[00:29:24]  But she's supposed to relate to and empathize with a 17-year-old girl who's 5'9, 95 pounds, getting extreme dieting tips on Facebook.
[00:29:32]  She's supposed to relate to a 23-year-old male who has no romantic or economic opportunities and has been told every day by Kevin Hart or Charles Barkley to bet or wager on the Chelsea game that he has some sort of insight into it.
[00:29:45]  The demo in democracy, unfortunately, is working too well.
[00:29:48]  We have seniors, electing seniors, voting themselves more money.
[00:29:52]  We need a much, much younger elected population.
[00:29:55]  And what do you know?
[00:29:56]  The $30 billion extension of child tax credit gets stripped out of the infrastructure bill, but the $140 billion a year increase in cost of living adjustment for Social Security, that flies right through.
[00:30:08]  There has been an implicit and an explicit war on young people because our representatives are representing the people who vote for them and that is seniors.
[00:30:16]  Give me something positive.
[00:30:19]  Make me happy about the world.
[00:30:22]  Well, you said it.
[00:30:23]  Our kids are going to live to be past 100.
[00:30:25]  I think America, I think that Britain and the U.S. and our European allies, we are pushing back on a murderous autocrat.
[00:30:33]  We are keeping calm and destroying Hamas.
[00:30:36]  We're pushing back on terrorism.
[00:30:38]  I think that when Europe and the U.S. join hands and get their act together, I think we're an insurmountable force.
[00:30:45]  I think there is nothing we can't push back on.
[00:30:47]  And we're pushing back on autocracy.
[00:30:49]  We're pushing back on terrorism.
[00:30:52]  There is no more formidable force than the West when we join hands and decide to fight together.
[00:30:59]  Are we all going to get killed by robots, rendering all of this beautiful theoretical discussion utterly pointless?
[00:31:06]  I mean, Professor Stephen Hawking, a quote I like to wheel out regularly because it just haunts me, when I asked him, how's the world going to end?
[00:31:14]  And he said, when artificial intelligence learns to self-design, it's all over because they'll render humans completely pointless.
[00:31:20]  I mean, that moment, according to people like Musk, who I think is a complete genius, that moment is rapidly getting nearer.
[00:31:28]  Are we all just going to get first replaced by robots and then killed by them?
[00:31:32]  I see it as another form of techno-narcissism where the people who invented these technologies think of themselves as inventing a single point of failure that's either going to save or destroy humanity.
[00:31:42]  I think AI is going to create more jobs than it destroys.
[00:31:45]  AI is not going to take your job.
[00:31:46]  Someone who understands AI is going to take your job.
[00:31:49]  We don't need to be worried about the machines.

=== AI and the End of Humanity (02:12) ===

[00:31:50]  We need to be worried about the people.
[00:31:52]  We need to be worried about investing in our youth.
[00:31:54]  This whole narcissism around AI destroying the world after I vested my 10 or 100 million in options is not a productive conversation.
[00:32:02]  And billionaires going into space is not productive.
[00:32:05]  They should spend their time and effort trying to make this planet a little bit more habitable.
[00:32:08]  Are you a fan of Elon Musk then or not?
[00:32:11]  I think he's an inspiration.
[00:32:12]  I think he's done great things for the world in terms of EV.
[00:32:15]  I was flying up the Florida coast and I saw a Starlinks.
[00:32:19]  I mean, there's just no getting around it.
[00:32:21]  On a net basis, he's been positive for the world.
[00:32:23]  The problem is with the word net.
[00:32:25]  And that doesn't mean we can't hold him accountable for being a poor role model for men, for being mean, for spreading homophobic conspiracy theory, for having 12 children by three women and sleeping with a gun next to his bed.
[00:32:36]  I don't think that's the role model we need for young men.
[00:32:38]  Has he been an inspiration?
[00:32:40]  Yes.
[00:32:40]  Should he be held accountable for spreading homophobic conspiracy theory?
[00:32:45]  Yes.
[00:32:46]  We can hold two ideas in our head at once.
[00:32:48]  Who's the most impressive person you've ever met?
[00:32:52]  If you could handpick your president of the United States, who would it be?
[00:32:57]  I think there's a ton of them.
[00:32:59]  Forget current politicians, just a person who could perhaps transform things.
[00:33:05]  I was really impressed with Madeleine Albright when I met her.
[00:33:09]  I think there's a, I do think you need, I'm a little bit worried about business leaders all of a sudden thinking they can cosplay a politician.
[00:33:17]  I thought Barack Obama was exceptional.
[00:33:19]  We have a ton of great people.
[00:33:20]  Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Michael Bennett.
[00:33:24]  I think they're fantastic.
[00:33:26]  I think Secretary Boutigij might be a great candidate someday.
[00:33:30]  I think Governor Newsom is fantastic.
[00:33:33]  I think we have a ton of fantastic people.
[00:33:34]  What about you?
[00:33:36]  Oh, no, I'm enjoying my life too much.
[00:33:38]  Professor, great to see you.
[00:33:39]  I've really enjoyed it.
[00:33:40]  Please come back.
[00:33:41]  I've loved this conversation.
[00:33:42]  Thanks for having me.
[00:33:43]  We need to hear more from you, actually.
[00:33:44]  Appreciate it.
[00:33:45]  Because I think also it just gives kids the right perspective.
[00:33:47]  They need perspective from people who actually know what they're talking about.
[00:33:50]  I feel too much they get this sort of TikTok version of what's going on in the world.
[00:33:56]  Little snapshots, which they take to be sacrosanct.
[00:33:59]  And it screws with their heads.
[00:34:01]  But thank you.
[00:34:01]  I appreciate it.
[00:34:02]  Good to see you.