Scott Galloway: “I Bet $358,000 That They Win The Election!”

The election is going to be decided based on who presents a more aspirational vision of masculinity. On the far right, you have this vision of being provocative, aggressive, and speaking your mind. The far left's vision of masculinity is to be more like a woman. If any of them resonates, it's the right that could swing the entire election.

What happens to America if Trump wins? Are you scared of that America? Scott Galloway is back, giving his objective no-nonsense analysis on what the upcoming US election means for the future of America and the world.

Objectively, what has Trump done? Well, he's unpredictable. Look, I publicly endorse Vice President Harris. One of the things I hate about my party, quite frankly, is we've become humorless. Everything's offensive, and people are just so sick of that. Then he showed up and started saying these really offensive things that felt raw, felt authentic, and really appealed to people. If you go to the Democratic Party's website, there's a section that says "Who we serve," and it lists 16 demographic groups, but not one mention of the group that has fallen furthest in the United States, and that's young men.

Three out of four homeless people are men, three times as likely to kill themselves, and twelve times as likely to be incarcerated. Yet they're fighting for everyone except for them, but they feel seen by the Republican Party and Trump, even though under Trump, we will probably have the largest tax increase in history on young people, and that has a lot of unfortunate ramifications. I don't think young men realize this.

Who do you think is going to win? I'll tell you what I'm doing this afternoon: I'm going to bet $358,000 on this. This has always blown my mind a little bit. Fifty-three percent of you that listen to the show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to support us, the free and simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. My commitment to you is if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guest that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.

Scott, what are you thinking about at the moment? I'm thinking that I've been on this thing four times and I didn't get a jacket, and that you used to send this fat van for me with these lights and music and a little fridge, and today you sent me this Joey Bag of Donuts Uber. Really? I feel like your side piece, and you have kind of taken me for granted. That's what I'm thinking about. The nice car will take you home after he's outside. Appreciate it.

What am I thinking about? Well, we're on the precipice of what feels like an important election. Every election, people say that in the US. The thing I can't get over—I just got back from the US—is how tense it is. Political parties used to be these organizations that tried to grow their membership through policy arguments. Now they've become these quasi-religions that attempt to sanctify your beliefs, and it feels like we're in a bit of a holy war. I couldn't get over how tense and, quite frankly, how ugly it feels in the US. I was at a fundraiser last Saturday night in Miami, actually just south of Palm Beach. I was talking about teen mental health, and someone yelled out "Trump 2024," which inspired someone else on the other side of the room to start booing. We're talking about teen mental health. Things are so polarized in the US, so I'm anxious. It feels like the US, despite all of its blessings, is kind of coming apart from the inside. It feels very polarized and very ugly right now in the US. That's what I'm thinking about.

Every election cycle in the US, people say that this is the most important election of our history. This is the most important election of our time. Do you believe that? Do you believe that this one's important? I would argue this one's more important. I don't like the catastrophizing from both sides. Each side would have you believe that it's the end of America if the other side wins, which lacks historical context because the US has endured, I would argue, much worse than him or her, regardless of what you believe. America's actually doing quite well.

Our institutions – America's going to be around in four years regardless of who wins. I believe it does seem pretty consequential, though, because this issue around bodily autonomy is a pretty big deal. Whereas bodily autonomy has all headed towards a woman's right to determine her own bodily autonomy, you know, in Mexico, in Poland – I mean, there are distinct few nations. Almost every nation has gone one way, and that's towards granting people more rights. In the US, it's the first time we've taken a right away. So that feels like a pretty big deal.

We also have an individual who has never conceded the election, so this notion of the peaceful transfer of power being pretty central to democracy—yet at the same time, if people vote for an autocrat, that's their democratic right. So if America decides to go that way, it's going to feel pretty odd, I think. And obviously, I should put up front that I publicly endorse Vice President Harris. You know, perfect's not on the menu; she would not have been my choice for the Democratic nominee. But it does feel strange that we are so polarized, and it's sort of a—it feels like an election between who America thinks would be less bad.

What are all the macro pieces here that have come together to create this sort of storm that we find ourselves in? Because I think of some of them. I think about the role that Elon buying Twitter played in this. I think about Andrew Tate's rise in culture. I think about the economic backdrop of what's going on, all these pieces—then Biden and then the inflation issues because of COVID and the stimulus checks—all of these pieces. What are those pieces that you think are most pertinent that have landed us in a situation where, as we sit here, with the election happening tomorrow in America, it's looking likely that Trump is going to win if you look at some of the odds?

Young men in particular have, for the first time in the last couple of decades, really seemed to have abandoned the Democratic Party and have gone for Trump. What are those macro pieces? Well, there's a lot there. So first off, there's some dissonance between the perception people have called it a "vibe session." If you look at the economic data, it's strikingly different than the perception. The majority of Americans think that America is headed in the wrong direction, and usually that has something to do with the economy.

Since, I think, 2019, the American economy has grown 12.5%, that's double of any G7 nation. In 2009, our stock market was a third of the total market capitalization of all stocks globally; now it's half. Nvidia is worth more than the entire German stock market. China has shed several trillion dollars in market cap over the last five years. America has added several trillion dollars.

We're the largest energy producer in the world. I mean, just the economic—there are 190 sovereign nations in the world; 189 would trade places with us. If you take our poorest state—politicians always talk about Mississippi because it's our poorest state with the worst outcomes—the average household income in Mississippi is greater than it is in the UK, Germany, or Japan. So our poor state is doing better than many of what we would consider our competitors. No one's lining up for vaccines from Russia or China or flying to Dubai or Seoul for AI software.

America, on any objective metric, has the lowest unemployment historically since 1968. It's just killing it. The problem is that prosperity, similar to what William Gibson said about the future, is here, but it's not evenly distributed. You also have a lot of disruption—a lot of people who feel like their way of life has been undermined.

You have a lot of people who aren't doing as well as they used to. A lot of that prosperity is crowded in the top 1%. An economist did a study and said if you took out the top 1% of American earners, France has grown household income faster than the US. The bottom 99% aren't doing as well, but the top 1% are doing so well that, quite frankly, it creates this illusion of greater prosperity than there is.

For example, we look at the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ. One percent of America owns 90% of the stocks, so the Dow Jones is really just an indication or a metric on how the wealthy are doing. And spoiler alert: the wealthy have hit 76 new all-time highs in the last year, which is what has happened in the market. So you have this fissure between perception and reality, but also a lot of people aren't doing as well, and 210 times a day on their phone it's shoved in their face how well everyone else is doing.

I think there's also the fundamental breakdown in the social compact in America. For the first time—and we've talked about this before—a 30-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. And that not only impacts the 30-year-old; it impacts his or her parents. It creates rage and shame. One out of three young men is living with their parents under the age of 25. One in five are still living with their parents at the age of 30. There's an absence of connection at a young age; only one in three men has a girlfriend under the age of 30 because women are dating older because they want more economically and emotionally viable men.

People are opting out of America, especially young people. Forty years ago, 60% of households with a 30-year-old in it or 60% of 30-year-olds had at least one child; now it's 27%. The ultimate expression of optimism in a society is you meet someone and you decide to have kids, and that optimism has been cut in half.

So you have this consumer dissonance or fissure between economic reality and what's going on because a lot of people aren't doing well, and the social media algorithms love to pit people against each other. You have young people, especially, not doing well. The average 30-year-old is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago; the average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy.

And when young people—or your kids—aren't doing well, it impacts absolutely everybody. And then I would say, just psychologically, when you are making more money at your job, and now wage growth is growing faster than inflation, so purchasing power is going up, prosperity is going up in the US, when you get a raise, you think it's because of your character and your grit. But when the price of cereal is up 40% in the last five years, you blame the administration.

So you have social media algorithms pinning us against each other; you have the political parties take on sort of this religious-like feel, where the other party is literally the enemy. Young people not doing as well all sort of overwhelm the notion that America is the least bad in the world right now economically. On any metric, like I said, every nation would kill for our problems.

I was just thinking, as you were speaking about this idea of perception versus reality, and then you mentioned algorithms and social media. As you said that, I thought to myself: you know what's interesting? Now that algorithms and social media have made our politicians more visible than ever. If you go back 50 years, you only saw them stood at the podium, right, making the speech. Now you see them multiple times a day. If I scroll on Twitter, X, whatever, YouTube, I see Trump doing ten speeches a day. I get to know him more.

I was wondering, in this digital age, is personality now more important than ever? When I'm not just seeing you at the podium, I'm seeing you for three hours on Rogan. Then two hours later, I'm seeing you in another state. Then I'm seeing you on a clip. I'm seeing you at McDonald's. The old politicians of the past were very straight, and you would see them on the podium. How polished was that speech? Now it actually seems the algorithms are going for lower politicians, and personality seems to be more important than principle.

Yeah, we've definitely replaced politicians who were sort of pragmatists and practitioners, who used to go to Congress and legislate and pass laws. We've replaced a lot of them with performers. Yeah, in the UK as well. We've just had a series of them. You always got to look at incentives, and the person who raises the most money is almost always reelected. Ninety-two percent re-election rate despite the fact that Congress has an 8% approval.

So the incentives are to raise a lot of money, and the easiest way to raise kind of a lot of money through small-dollar donations. It's actually easier than trying to get money from a PAC or big money, and the way you do that is you say something fairly incendiary that tickles the censors of your tribe by making the other side look stupid. You say something like Jewish space lasers or Biden is a war criminal. That goes up on TikTok and the hard left or the hard right see that and start sending in money.

You have some of the most famous legislators in US Congress who have never passed a bill but are outstanding at getting on TikTok and raising a lot of money. So it's gone from politicians to performers. I was just thinking about—have I ever seen a boring politician go viral on TikTok? I've never, I've just never seen it. I've never seen a boring. But even in the case you said where if you say something incendiary, it's both sides send you viral.

Which is interesting. Well, look at Trump; if he says, you know, if he says something crazy like, "I'm going to protect women whether they want it or not," that goes viral. Then everyone, including on my podcast, we're talking about it instead of having a discussion about inflation or if Trump gets into office, his current economic plan shows triple the deficits of the Harris economic plan. That is essentially what we have been unable to do. The left has been unable to do is help young people connect the dots that the deficit under Trump will probably be ultimately the largest tax increase in history on young people because I'm not going to be around.

We’re fine for the next 20 or 30 years probably because of our creditworthiness and our ability to borrow money. But at some point, shit is going to get real, and the Chinese or foreigners are going to stop showing up to buy our treasuries. Interest rates are going to skyrocket, you’d have massive inflation, and at some point, you know, that debt is going to come due.

You know, I love that every lie is a debt, and at some point, it comes due. But we haven't been able to connect the dots for young people that these deficits will in fact be a tax on young people because it's a wonky, boring conversation. We'd rather talk about this outrageous thing he said. So these outrageous things people say take oxygen out of the room around any real discussion around policy.

In the US, I don't know if it's the same way in the UK, but politicians love their jobs, so they gerrymander every district. Every congressional district is very hard red or hard blue, so we send kind of the crazies from the far left and the far right. It's no longer the general election; it's the primary. So it’s an election between Republicans or an election between Democrats. They all try to out conservative or out progressive each other, and we've sent a group of people to Congress who fundamentally have an entirely different worldview than one another.

It’s also minority rule in the US. Twenty percent of our population is 80% of the senators, and the majority of Americans are somewhere in the middle, and that does not describe their representation. So we have sort of minority rule now.

What has Trump done well? So if you were objectively analyzing his ability to capture votes and to get people to believe and come with him, what would you—if this was a marketing class, and you had marketing students in front of you, and they were trying to learn from him as to how to market their products in their lives, what would you say to them?

Well, the ultimate business strategy is when everyone's barking up the same tree—when everyone's zigging, you zag. So the notion that Amazon was the biggest e-commerce company, the model was you own the consumer data, you build the biggest platform, and then you slowly but surely start increasing your take. Then Shopify comes in and says, "Your packaging your data," I mean, the opposite of Amazon.

We're not about the customer; we're about you're the customer; you're the client—you want to sell on our platform; you own everything. We're just here to service you. They kind of zag. That's the ultimate business strategy. When everyone's going one way, for the last 40 or 50 years, politicians have been very PG-13, trying to appeal to every group worried about offending everybody, and people over time just felt like, “This guy’s really slick and makes me feel good, but he or she’s lying to me.”

Then he showed up and started saying these really offensive things that felt raw and felt authentic and really appealed to people. Like, “This guy's unafraid; he's telling it like it is,” and he kind of tapped into this sort of grievance and anger that had been bubbling up and started saying these really off-color things like “I'm going to ban Muslims from entering the country.” A lot of people, even if they don't believe that, said, “Well, you know, he’s not a politician; he wants to burn it down.” He wants to burn down his own party.

He really tapped into this authentic Zeitgeist of zagging while everyone was zigging—he's absolutely the most non-traditional politician. I think in person he is charming. He's done a great job with social media capturing attention. We're in an attention economy, right? Every day he’s in the news cycle—realizing that it’s like Umberto Eco, the Italian philosopher, said, "The new economy is about being famous."

It doesn't even matter what you're famous for. He's captured that. He comes across as authentic, unafraid, politically incorrect in a sea of political correctness that has infected both sides. He has great political instincts.

So, he's kind of zagged while everyone was zigging, and people found it refreshing. Even if people don’t like him, a lot of people are under the impression that because he's a business person, I think 40% of America goes into the voting booth and just votes on who they think will put more money in their pocket, full stop. Like, government’s ineffective; I just want them out of my pocket.

I think, correctly or incorrectly, more Americans believe that they’ll have more money in their pocket because he’s a businessman and will lower taxes, even if we kick the can down the road in terms of the deficit. He's convinced Americans that he's better on the economy than the Democrats.

You watched him on Rogan the other day. I saw some of it. That whole strategy of getting out and doing the podcast circuit—I think this is the first election cycle where I've seen podcasting become so important. That Joe Rogan-Trump moment, I think, is a real defining moment in podcasting, but also in political strategy. What did you think of that move?

You're absolutely right, Stephen. Every election brings a new medium to the forefront: Kennedy and TV, FDR and radio, Obama and Google, Trump and Twitter. This will be the election—the podcast election—because the last time there was a presidential race, cable TV is down 22%, and podcasts are up 30%.

So, by going on Joe Rogan, 11 million people—40 million people have seen that on YouTube. The average cable show gets about a half a million. A primetime cable show gets about half a million people. So going on Rogan for Trump is the equivalent of reaching the same number of people as if he went on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox every night during primetime for an hour every day for an entire week. He will reach more people going on Rogan.

You might get 300,000 or 400,000 going on CNN maybe for a 6-minute or 10-minute or 20-minute interview. So this is definitely the election of podcasts. They have become dominant. I would argue the seminal podcast was actually Vice President Harris going on Call Her Daddy because not only did they not go on this medium, they wouldn't have gone on that type of podcast. But for a week, the entire US was talking about that podcast.

It wasn't talking about her interview on Face the Nation; it was talking about her on this podcast. So this is the election of the podcaster. For me, as an objective marketeer watching that Rogan interview, I thought Trump's team did a masterstroke. I thought they—I thought it was absolutely the perfect thing to do because it humanized Trump in a way and softened him in a way that I hadn't seen before.

Funnily enough, I won't name their name, but I know a lady who’s a very strong feminist, very anti-Trump, and very liberal. She said she watched it, and the next day I said, "What did you think of it?" and she said to me, "I burst out laughing like ten times. He's so funny. He's a charming guy," what she said to me. He talks about, you know, when he was on The Apprentice, and it softened him, made him seem more human, which is what he needs.

It's a big mistake. Occasionally, I hear from the campaign, and they ask for advice. Whenever a campaign calls you and asks for advice, which campaign? Well, the only people who have ever contacted me have been the Harris side. I got contacted by the Trump campaign in the last cycle, but not this one. I think they've figured out who I'm supporting, and whenever—by the way, I want to be clear—when they call you and ask for advice, that's Latin for "Please send us money." They pretend to care what you think, so I don’t want to pretend that I’m having any sort of influence.

But my one piece of advice to anyone I can talk to who’s remotely linked to the Harris campaign is that she gets on a plane, goes to Austin, and does Rogan. Why is it, in your view, that men are—because, you know, Trump’s assembled this kind of this group of interesting individuals to be part of his campaign—from RFK to Elon to VC to Tulsi Gabbard, and himself—and this is drawing in, it seems, like young men.

I actually did a poll in my group chat the other day, so six men in there, and I pulled them and said, "Who do you want to win the election?" Four of them said Trump. My position, actually, which I've not really ever shared publicly, is that I see no great option. Oh, perfect’s not on the menu. Yeah, I see no great option. So I’m like, and the things that, again I think a lot about are the wars that are going around the world. So I ask myself, "Who will stop the wars?" and I think a little bit about the economy, and then also, from a selfish perspective, think about my ability to build businesses, to get visas in the US, and those kinds of things.

And I also think about women's reproductive rights because I think that’s an issue that's quite close to my heart. But why are men choosing Trump?

So this is an unusual election in the sense that neither of these candidates, based on their metrics, has ever been elected before. We've never had, since I think maybe Roosevelt—was it Roosevelt or Truman?—actually, have we had a president and incumbent party be reelected when they have less than a 50% approval? So if Harris gets elected, it's an almost first-time occurrence that an incumbent administration this unpopular gets reelected.

Trump never cracked 50% approval. No presidential candidate who has never been above 50% has ever been reelected. So whoever wins, it's an unprecedented election of someone who typically does not get reelected. In terms of men, what you’ve seen is young men are going more conservative, young women are going slightly more progressive. That has a lot of unfortunate ramifications because, again, it’s another reason why young people are not getting together and mating.

It’s yet another reason not to date somebody. When I was your age, I was thinking about this. When I was dating, for the life of me, if I went through every person I've dated in my 20s and 30s, I don't remember what their political affiliation was. I didn’t care. We didn’t talk about that. It was like, you know, are you fun? I’m fun. Are you attracting me? I'm not. You know, let's go out, let's drink, let's see where this goes. We didn’t talk about politics.

So it’s a shame because now politics is now kind of a gender divide, so it’s having social ramifications. I would argue that young men are not going to the Republican Party; they're actually less conservative, and people have this image of young men that their knuckles are dragging along on the ground. They actually are almost as in favor of gender rights as young women. What I would argue is that they’re leaving the Democratic Party because if you go to the DNC, the Democratic Party's website, there’s a section that says “Who we serve?” Click on it, and it says these are the constituents in America that we serve, that we advocate for, and it lists 16 demographic groups ranging from Asians and Pacific Islanders to the disabled, seniors, black Americans, veterans.

It goes through all of these groups, and I tried to add it up, and I think it adds up to 76% of the US population. But similar to the kind of the DEI apparatus on campuses now, or on university campuses, when you’re purposely advocating and trying to advantage 76% of the population, you're not advocating for them; you're discriminating against the 24%. And that 24% are squarely one group: it's young men.

If you look at the Democratic National Convention, it was a parade of demographic groups, but not one mentioned the group that has fallen furthest fastest in the United States, and that's young men. Families and young men feel this, right? We don’t have an opioid or a homeless crisis in the United States; we have a male opioid and a male homeless crisis. Three out of four opioid deaths, three out of four homeless people are men.

They're three times as likely to kill themselves, twelve times as likely to be incarcerated. Women under the age of 30 are now making more money than men. More single women own homes than single men. And by the way, we should never do anything to get in the way of that; that's a remarkable victory for us. But a lot of young men and their families feel that these young men are really struggling, and they are not seen by the Democratic Party.

Because the Democratic Party, I would argue, that our big failure over the last 20 years is we’ve become sort of these self-appointed cops of social justice and have tried to lecture the nation on what is the right social policy or behaviors, and America has pretty squarely rejected this.

The example I use is the University of Michigan: amazing university. It has invested $150 million in DEI social policy, and the number of complaints about racism is up thirty-fold. The sentiment, the feeling about America has all gone down. So the Democrats have decided we’re about social policy as opposed to the economic policies that are actually going to impact you. A large part of America has sort of rejected it. Young men do not feel seen by the Democratic Party, and it’s not only just young men, but it’s their families.

So I would argue it’s not so much they’re moving to the Republican Party as they’re moving away from the Democratic Party. But there’s just—to use this overused term—young men do not feel seen by the Democratic Party. It’s like you’re fighting for everyone except for me. And let’s be honest; my group is not doing well. The group that has ascended the fastest globally is women.

Twice as many women in the last 30 years have been elected to some form of parliament. More women globally now are seeking tertiary education than men, by the way—again, a huge victory for all of us, fantastic. But there’s this analogy that Chris Williams, the podcaster, uses, and he calls it the "high heels effect." That is, 50% of women say they won’t date someone who's shorter than them. I bet it’s more like 80%; it’s just an embarrassing thing to say.

And it’s a very instinctual thing because women, at some point, are more vulnerable because of pregnancy and raising kids, and they want someone who they instinctively feel could physically protect them, so they tend to be not attracted to a man shorter than them. Metaphorically, women are getting taller and taller each year, making more money, more college attendance; they're just killing it. More and more people are elected to positions of power and influence, while men are getting shorter and shorter.

So, you know, we've talked about this. Women made socio-economically horizontally; enough men horizontally and down. The pool of horizontal and up among men is smaller. And when men don’t have the prospect of a romantic relationship, they come off the rails. Women oftentimes will reinvest that energy in friendships and work; men reinvest that energy in vaping and video games and porn. I mean, men without the prospect of a romantic relationship—look at the most violent, unstable places in the world; they all have a preponderance of men with very little economic or romantic opportunities.

You have a cohort of not only young men but families that are upset and angry about this cohort, maybe unfairly expectant around what they should expect from the American economy, but they're not doing well, and they feel seen by the Republican Party and Trump who are pushing back on many of these social policies.

The snake is eating its own tail; that it’s gone so far to the progressive that, at the end of the day, it’s no longer promoting the rights of non-whites. For example, 60 years ago, there were twelve black people at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale—that was a problem. Two-thirds of Harvard's freshman class now identifies as non-white, and somehow, as a non-white male that's not making as much money, that's more inclined to be an addict or gambling that owns fewer homes, somehow I’m still the enemy.

I’ve been told by the media that I kind of should have collective guilt because of the privilege my dad and my granddad received. So there’s a, I think, justifiable anger and a feeling that the Democratic Party has really moved away from young men.

It’s interesting because you make the case that you’re not necessarily convinced it’s entirely that young men are choosing the Republican Party versus them being pushed out of the Democratic Party. That kind of summarizes your thoughts. The Wall Street Journal did a piece showing that the Republican Party has gained more young men over the last couple of years. In 2016, they had 35% of young men; by 2023, they had 48% of young men, and that's a 13% increase in just seven years.

I mean, that’s the stat from 2023, so I can't imagine what those numbers look like in 2024 based on this election cycle. It made me think a lot about the DEI narrative and how the Democratic Party could champion women without pushing away young men because we all want somewhere to belong.

So if you tell me that I don't belong there and that I’m guilty of something, then I’m going to go find somewhere. What is it that the Republican Party have done? Because if that 13% increase toward the Republican Party for young men is true, there's something the Republican Party is saying that’s making me think I belong over there.

To a certain extent, I mean, the strange thing about this one of the strange things about this election is that a lot of people thought it was going to be a referendum on women’s rights, bodily autonomy. I would argue those voters are already decided. If you’re fiercely focused on bodily autonomy, you're going for Harris; if it’s not a big issue for you, you're probably Trump, or if you’re pro-life, you’re definitely Trump.

I actually think the election is going to be decided based on who presents a more aspirational, effective vision of masculinity. What you have on the far right is this vision of masculinity that I would argue is kind of— they would say it’s being provocative, aggressive, speaking your mind, strength, right? Toughness. The far right is basically saying be a little bit coarse and cruel, is how I would describe it.

The far left, their vision of masculinity is to be more like a woman, and neither of those seems to be resonating with men. If any of them resonates, it's the right around young men around this vision of masculinity. What I would argue is that what we should— or the way to position that— you said that you were passionate about bodily autonomy is the Democrats have not done a good job of convincing young men that bodily autonomy will affect them specifically.

The lack thereof—if you want to be kind of cemented in poverty, have an unwanted child as a man, that’s not going to help you economically. The case I've been making to young men when I did an endorsement of Vice President Harris is that I think if you pulled a bunch of men under the age of 30 and said, "Would you rather have more opportunities for sex or less opportunities?" I think the majority would say, "I’d rather have more opportunities for sex."

What is going to happen to random opportunities for sex when, if a woman gets pregnant, she might end up in an emergency room parking lot because the doctors won’t treat her if, say, she’s having a failed pregnancy and she’s in sepsis? There are now instances where emergency room doctors are worried about treating her for fear that they're going to be criminally prosecuted.

What’s going to happen if a young woman gets pregnant and has to carry the baby to term? Do you think she’s more inclined to have random sex? So I think what we needed to do—and we failed to do on the progressive side—is to say that bodily autonomy affects men almost as much as it does young women.

That the economic policies of Harris will also give you, I mean, if I think about masculinity is to be a provider, a protector, and procreator. Provider: who’s going to give young men the chance to be the better provider? People think it's going to be Trump that he’s a better business person. He did have a strong economy under his administration, not as strong as the Biden Administration, but the general view is he would offer a better economy.

Which atmosphere am I more likely to be a good provider in? They’ve done a better job of articulating that, even though I would argue the evidence is that whether it’s Goldman Sachs or any investment bank that’s done the math—they’ve said that the economic growth under the Harris policies would probably be stronger, especially when you take into account that if Trump enacts the tariffs he’s talking about—60% on all Chinese goods—and does anything resembling the war on immigration, legal and illegal, that he’s articulated, that’s a recipe for inflation.

So I don’t think—I think the Republican Party has done a better job of convincing men you’re going to have an easier time being our provider under our administration because look at him; he’s a billionaire. We’re about cutting taxes; we’re about economic growth—drill baby drill—when I would argue the data does not reflect that.

Protector—this is where I think we really blew it—and that is, and Michelle Obama gave a very powerful speech. I think your first instinct, your operating system, as a man should be—your default operating system should be to move to protection. Like, real men break up fights at bars; they don’t start them. Real men protect their country; they don’t post. Real men have a real instinct—a reflexive instinct.

I felt this way very strongly when I was younger. It was very motivating for me to protect the women in my life. Right? You know, I don’t know if you are you close with your mother? Not really. I’m sorry to hear that. I was very close with my mother, and the first time I ever thought I need to get my shit together professionally was when she got sick and I had this immense feeling of, like, failure as a man because I couldn’t take care of my mom at the level I wanted to.

I think that’s a really good default setting for a man—to move to protection. You don’t need to understand the LGBT community; you don’t need to understand trans rights; you don’t need to understand the nuances of legal or illegal immigration. But when you see a group being demonized, your default setting should be to protection.

I think it comes naturally to men. Men are more inclined on the battlefield to run out and save a comrade and get shot than women. Women are more thoughtful; they’re more like, “Is that a good idea? Wouldn't we be better retreating, planning, and then fucking out?” They’re more thoughtful; they look at the fruit and say, “Is there pesticides in this?” whereas a guy sees movement in the bushes, grabs a spear, and tries to go kill the thing and bring it back.

They’re more prone to risk and aggression, and I think this default setting of protection is really powerful for men. We haven’t connected—and I thought Michelle Obama did an outstanding job trying to make the case that men need to have a default setting around protecting women.

Women’s rights are under real serious threat in the United States. It is becoming a little bit Handmaid's Tale. Twenty-one states now restrict to some extent abortion, and the most mendacious thing about that is it’s not a war on women; it’s a war on poor women because if you have money, and someone—your niece or your daughter gets pregnant, you’ll figure it out.

You’ll get your medical abortion; you’ll have access to misoprostol, I don’t know if I’m saying that correctly—or you’ll get her on a plane to a city where she can terminate the pregnancy. It’s the 15- or 17-year-old black girl who gets pregnant, doesn’t have access to resources, is a single mother, doesn’t have money, is embarrassed, and no one knows it until she’s five months pregnant—that person is really screwed.

So I would argue that the second leg of the masculinity stool here around protection has not been made that strongly or as forcefully as it should be around the Democratic policies. I was trying to think through the lens of someone—a young man in the USA who is looking at both candidates and thinking, which one is going to allow me to be the protector?

Again, this is where the economy comes back in because I think to myself, "Well, if I’m rich, I can take care of my mother. If I’m rich, I can take care of my family." So if I want to be the big strong protector, then I need to vote Trump because I'm gonna get rich. I think that’s their message.

And I would argue, the data actually says something different—that if you look at the economic policies, the clearest signal we have of what policies would be under Harris would be to look at Biden's policies the last four years. As a matter of fact, she made a huge mistake on a big show called The View. They asked her how she would differ—how her policies would be different for Biden, and she says, “I can’t think of anything.”

It was like, “Well, we didn’t want to elect him again; why would we want to elect you?” It was a huge gap. By the way, she’s not good on her feet. I mean, we don’t like to say that on the left; she’s gotten better. She was outstanding in the debate because you could tell she practiced, and in the split screen, she destroyed him during the debate.

But on her feet, she’s not nearly as good as him. He comes off; he says stupid things, but he’s likable and funny, and she thinks too much. You see her trying to aim for the perfect answer, whereas he just goes, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

I walked into the room, and I told Putin to stop that. I said, "Wait," I mean, you’re like—you said “Wait” to the president of Russia. And also, if you want to see real sexism and misogyny in America, there’s just no getting around it. She is graded on an entirely different curve than him.

If she had ever been accused of sexual assault, if she’d said half the crazy shit he said, she’d just be like everyone’s hair on fire; she’d be totally disqualified. Van Jones, who I admire, said he’s lawless; she has to be flawless. I mean, people are parsing her words, and then he says the most, the strangest, weirdest things, things that make no sense and seem sort of just, you know, just ridiculous.

So she’s graded on an entirely different curve than him. But provider— they’ve done a better job. Protector: I think men are young men are starting to see that this is getting really serious around bodily autonomy. We’re heading the wrong direction. And then procreation, and all these things are tied together.

She’s pro, you know she’s offering a first-time homebuyer’s tax credit, small business loans. Her tax policy would probably be better for young people and worse for older rich people, right? So I would argue that.

And also, at the end of the damn bodily autonomy, I go back to what I said earlier: guys, if you're looking to have sex, you got to give women control, dominion over their domain, over their own person. There are a few things that I thought as you were talking through that. Then one of them is—life generally, you've got to be careful what hill you build yourself.

What I mean by that is if Kamala Harris has built this hill of perfection and polish, then that’s what she’s graded on. And it’s the same for all of us. I remember having a conversation with my friend who was taking to the internet to talk about environmental issues and stuff like that when I knew he didn’t really give a shit about those things.

I said to him, I said, "Be very careful because if that’s the brand you build for yourself, that’s also the brand you’ll be attacked based on because no one wants a contradiction." So be careful: you might not want to be perfect. I think the best, the sort of most protective position you can take in a world of cancel culture and wokeism is to admit how fucked you are at everything and admit how imperfect you are and how much you don’t recycle because then at least nobody can call you out.

What Donald Trump has built is this hill of like kind of sloppiness, off the cuff, so we’re so desensitized to it that we don’t actually hold him to the standard of the law anymore. Yeah, and so he’s almost impossible to attack because it’s so consistent. If you’re going to be accused of assault by a woman, you’re going to be accused by 28. You don’t just say one offensive thing; you say offensive things every time you open your mouth.

Rap is the prime example—no one comes at them for what they say. No, but if Taylor Swift said something off, it'd be like, “Whoa.” So it's flood the zone. But he seems authentic. And I also think that this is a lesson for the Democratic Party.

I think to get out of identity politics, I don’t think we should have that page identifying policies based on your race, your sexual orientation, your gender. I think the sun has passed midday on that on DEI—the whole DEI thing. I would argue that affirmative action is a wonderful thing, and it made sense for it to be race-based back in 1960.

What is that, sorry? Well, DEI or affirmative action—essentially, in America, we’ve decided to advantage certain people from a very young age. We give them money; we give them preference getting into college. We’re told we hire them based on their gender, their sexual orientation, the color of their skin. So we give—we advantage some people, which there’s just no getting around it. It disadvantages others.

So the question is, most people agree—Democrats and Republicans—that some people have had so many headwinds in their face, they deserve a hand up. The question is how do you identify, and what’s the metric for qualifying for a hand up? Traditionally, it’s based on DEI. The DEI apparatus built on campus has been based on identity politics: you know, are you gay? Are you non-white?

Where, and what I would argue is that we need to move past that, get out of identity politics, still have affirmative action, but it should be based on color—and that color should be green. And that is, in America, and this is wonderful today, you’d rather be born non-white or gay than poor.

There’s all sorts of evidence, and so Harvard: now two-thirds of their freshman class is non-white, but 70% of those non-whites came from upper-income homes with dual parents.

So letting in the Taiwanese billionaire private equity daughter is not diversity. So where I think we need to head in the nation is to move away in the Democratic Party from identity politics and say, “You know what? We’re here to continue to reinvest in the greatest innovation in history, and that’s the middle class, and we’re here to give people from lower-income homes a hand up.”

By the way, 70% of the people who now benefit from affirmative action would still get it because we do still have a bit of an economic apartheid in the US. Black and Latino households have an average net worth of around $20,000 to $25,000, while the average white household is $150,000 to $160,000.

What you would do is the people who would lose in a new construct would be non-whites from wealthy households, and the people who would gain are white kids from Appalachia who come from low-income homes. But you tell some white kid being raised by a single parent in Kentucky whose dad has been incarcerated that, “Oh no, you don’t deserve any sort of help,” that family is pretty pissed off.

I have a bias here; I'm a beneficiary of affirmative action. I got something called Pell Grants. I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived in a—their household income was never over $40,000, so I got grants, not loans, based on my household income. And that, obviously, I’m a big fan of that.

And so I think the Democratic Party would be well served to move away from identity politics and just talk about things like the middle class—talk about helping people who are, you know, if you’re from a top 1% income-earning household, you’re 77 times more likely to get into an elite school. The best thing that can happen to you in the US—the smartest thing you can do is decide to be born to rich parents; it’s an entirely different life.

What the University of California system did in 1997, 27 years ago, is the right way to go, and that is they banned race-based affirmative action, and they have what’s called an "adversity score." Now, they say, "Has this kid shown resilience and an ability to overcome obstacles in his or her life?" I think that's the right way to run government policies.

Because when we get into identity politics, I think it just creates more—it's now creating more problems than it's solving. I completely agree, and I’m obviously, you know, think people would consider me to be a black man because my mother’s Nigerian and I was born in Africa.

But, you know, we had a tumultuous start to my life, I guess, in a way because we didn’t have money in the household, we struggled economically. But now I’m good. So my future black kids aren’t requiring any kind of advantages because they’re going to be born into a different class: 100%.

So you don’t need to give my future black kids any leg up in the world when they’ve started with a dad who can open doors for them and can get them into whatever school he wants to get them into. So my belief has been, and it’s a real belief that’s grown in me over the last couple of years, is that we should be doing this based on class, as you say, and benefiting those at the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder with those advantages—not people like my future kids.

That’s right; who absolutely will not need it in any regard. And I do think there, the DEI conversation is a bit problematic, and I’ve tried to keep it away from my companies. But at the same time, we do want a diversity of opinion; we do want a diversity of lived experience because we’re in the creative industries, and we want to see, we want to represent the world.

But we don’t want to be disproportionately handing out opportunities based on factors like race alone or gender alone. It’s encouraging to hear you say that. But also, I also have to acknowledge I’ve been the beneficiary of massive bias.

I didn’t even—when I was raising money for my companies in the ‘90s, I didn’t even acknowledge it. Why are the only people getting funded in Silicon Valley white dudes? All white dudes! Ninety-eight percent of the capital was going to white men.

It’s like, okay, I didn’t even notice. It’s gotten a lot better, but when I was raising money for my last company, L2, the venture capital firm that backed us, they have a standard, and that is you have to meet with all the partners in one big meeting—27 partners. My two co-founders were both women.

I’m in there; I didn't even notice. Meeting goes well. In the middle of the meeting, my co-founder, who’s not a dramatic person, goes, “I need to speak to you.” We walk out, and she’s like, “We can’t take money from these guys.” I’m like, “Why? What’s happened?” She’s like, “You haven’t noticed all 27 people are men; there’s not a single woman in the partnership at this venture capital firm—not one out of 27.”

It didn’t even dawn on me that all of this prosperity and opportunity had been crowded into basically 23% of the population. Now having said that, that was 2014. Ten years later, I think a quarter to a third of their partners are now female because they got the memo, and things have changed dramatically.

I would like to think that we’ve made enough progress around affirmative action, around identity, that we can move to what you’re talking about—and that’s economically driven affirmative action. And the great thing about this as well is, as you said a second ago, the people who are in those minorities because of the statistics, will be included within a class-based system—the majority, the majority, yeah—yeah.

Which is really, really encouraging. You talked about this October surprise being t Hing Cliff’s speech at the Madison Square Garden rally the other day. You know, there’s a lot going on; like I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.

Yeah, I think it's called Puerto Rico. Okay, we’re getting there. It’s absolutely wild to see, and in Texas, stuff is really, really crazy. We’re right there by a wide open border. Where my proud Latinos at tonight? You guys see what I mean? It's wide open. There are so many of them.

It’s absolutely incredible. Believe it or not, people, I welcome migrants to the United States of America with open arms. And by open arms, I mean—[Applause]—this.

It’s wild, and these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that they do—they do, there’s no pulling out. They don’t do that; they come inside just like they did to our—[Laughter].

Republicans are the party with a good sense of humor. I feel like I’m in two minds about it because I think mind one is I go, he’s a comedian, and everybody knows he was telling a joke. Everybody knows that it wasn’t Trump that said it, and everyone knows that he’s a comedian there to say inappropriate things.

If you’ve listened to his Kill Tony show, that's what he does. I—there’s no part of me that thinks, “God, he hates Puerto Ricans,” or whatever. And then the other part of my mind goes they should have known that in that context, any word would be used as an opportunity to create a marketing campaign.

Do you think—what do you think of that incident?

So there’s common ground with us. I think comedians should be cut a really wide berth. I think when Dave Chappelle says offensive things about the trans community, he should be given a wide berth. When Michelle Wolf at the White House Correspondents' Dinner says really off-color things, I think she should be given a wide berth. Comedians play a really important role, and that is they say provocative, sometimes obnoxious, offensive things to soften the beach and get you to think.

And they’re comedians, so I agree with you; they should be given a wide berth. In my view, whether you think it was racist or not, I don’t think that’s the important conversation. It’s ten days before the election; art is getting away with it. If you say something offensive, it better be funny.

I say part of the success of my podcast with Karis Wier is I say very offensive things. You know, she’s a lesbian, and I’m like, “You know how's the German Shepherd in the Subaru?” and there's pause, an uncomfortable pause, and then she laughs, and it gives everyone permission to laugh. The majority of the time I say something offensive, it’s a little bit, “Oh, I don’t want to laugh, but that was funny. I get away with it.”

That was not art. It wasn’t funny. I mean, the worst, the most offensive thing about what he said was it wasn’t funny. If it had been fucking hilarious, people would be like, “Oh my God,” and they would have forgiven him. His jokes did not land, and when you said things like “We welcome immigrants with open hands, and what we say to Mexican immigrants is no, not here,” and, by the way, they have kids. They come inside just the way they came inside—it’s just like it wasn’t that funny. It was offensive.

If you’re going to be offensive, you better be funny, and he wasn’t. Just tactically speaking, when you say that there’s this floating island of garbage in the sea and it's Puerto Rico, and there are 400,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, and if 10,000 more who might have sat on the couch that day actually get up and kind of you know, souls to polls feet on the street, get to the polls—those people could swing Pennsylvania, which is a toss-up right now, and Pennsylvania could swing the entire election.

So just tactically speaking, whoever is in charge of his campaign—when they saw the teleprompter, by the way, they knew what was going on. This was on a teleprompter. On a risk-adjusted basis, they should have said, “No, we’re going to put the jokes about Puerto Ricans aside for now because if, for whatever reason, on a risk-adjusted basis we offend them, we could lose the entire election.”

So I don't even think of it as an argument around whether comedians should be given a wide berth or not. I agree with you. I don’t think a conversation around whether it reflects racism on the part of the Trump administration or the fact that they, quite frankly, have a really appealing sense of humor—one of the things I hate about my party, quite frankly, is we’ve become so humorless. Everything's offensive; everything is—I mean, unless it’s a dad joke, everything is offensive or triggers people.

People are just so sick of that shit. A post-racist society, I— the majority of my close friends are gay, and they constantly make fun of my sexual orientation, and I make fun of theirs, and it’s a form of affection; it’s not mean-spirited.

And the Democratic Party feels just so sensitive and so weak on this. So whether you think that’s the right way to go to be a touch offensive sometimes—very offensive—in the hospices of comedy, I’m down with that. Tactically, it was stupid. And I believe it might be the October surprise.

I’ll be very curious; I have friends who are campus-ing, and I want to be clear— a lot of this is confirmation bias; I’m seeing ghosts where I want to see them, right? Because I’m really hoping it’s Vice President Harris. But I have talked to people in the Harris campaign. They have 300,000 people on the street walking people to the polls; Trump supposedly has 50,000—somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000.

So for every one person knocking on doors for a Trump voter and saying, "Did you have—you gone to the polls? Do you need to walk there? Do you need a ride there?" there’s ten people in these states, these swing states, working for Harris. I think they might get another five or ten thousand Puerto Ricans who weren’t going to vote to the polls, and that could swing the entire election.

I just think tactically, on a risk-adjusted basis, it was a really stupid move. Yeah, 100% on strategic tactical giving the other side an opportunity to run ads with the Trump little placard thing. There was someone insulting Puerto Ricans; most people wouldn’t have seen the rally, so all they’re going to see is this clip. Hundreds of millions of people are going to see that clip, and they’re going to think, “Trump Vance is insulting Puerto Ricans—that's who I am. I can no longer, with good faith, tick that box.”

I can no longer do it, so they’ll either not tick it or they’ll go to the polls, and they otherwise wouldn’t have done so. Tactically and strategically, terrible decision, but it's funny because I also look at it as I said, as an incident in isolation, and I go, it actually put me off a little bit that the left, because of the fake outrage—I know you’re not that pissed off.

Yeah, yeah. Look, I'm getting—I know you're not that pissed off at that. Like if you are, I feel really sorry for the life you lead. You know, we’re going to be fine. But strategically and objectively, bad decision.

I completely agree. Yeah. Who do you think is going to win? Well, I tell you. I’ll tell you what I’m doing this afternoon: I’m going to bet $358,000 on Polymarket. I’m doing this. I have my CFO figure this out.

I’m going to invest, bet $358,000 on Harris because on Polymarket it’s 62%. Because my observation is that the people who go to these betting sites tend to be younger, tend to be more male, and they’re much more Trump.

The statistics and the polls—every A+ quality poll shows it is a toss-up within the margin of error with a slight advantage to Trump. So if I said to you, Steve, and I’m going to flip a coin, you have to pick heads or tails, if you bet a dollar though, you’re going to get $2.90 back, you would take that bet because it’s a 50% or close to 50% likelihood, but the payoff is 2.8 to one.

On a risk-adjusted basis, you’re getting free risk-adjusted returns. Here’s why I wouldn’t bet on Harris: because I’ve seen that Hillary Clinton election where all the polls had Hillary winning in a landslide, and then something happens. There’s this visible force that means that people, for whatever reason, either they don’t express their true opinions about Trump because there are social ramifications; they’re embarrassed.

Or the enthusiasm force, which is who have you got more energy to get off the sofa that day and go and vote for? Is it Hillary Clinton, who’s kind of more of the same, whatever? Or is it Trump, who’s going to burn it down? I think that’s a fair point.

So, back to the 380. If I win, I get a million bucks back. Even if the edge is to him, on a risk-adjusted basis, it's a great bet because you're getting—the odds of her winning are not one in three. They might be, they might be two in five, but they're not one in three.

And so I just look at it statistically that I'm getting potential free risk-adjusted upside. Anyways, what you said about the enthusiasm—I went canvas for Secretary Clinton. I think Secretary Clinton was like—I think she’s incredibly unlikable and an outstanding thinker and politician. I think on foreign policy, she's one of the most competent people to have ever been in government.

When I canvassed for her in Florida, I went into sort of a—I call it a lower upper-middle-class neighborhood. There were quite a few black people, quite a few whites. I go into black households; I knock on the door. I’m canvassing for Secretary Clinton.

“Oh, come on in, super nice. You voting? Yeah? You voting for Secretary CL? Yes, I am! Do you know where your polling station is? Oh, no, we have—are you registered?" You just started to like—it’s the enthusiasm. Clear wasn’t there.

A couple of times when I would knock on—again, I’m playing identity politics—maybe a white—more often a white household that was a Trump supporter, they'd slam the door in my face. I said to the—they always send you out with two people. I’m like, “That’s passion!” The other folks are being nice to us; they don’t even know where their polling stations are; they’re not turning out like they were. They weren’t—there’s not the enthusiasm there was for Obama.

I remember thinking we might be in trouble here. The embarrassment or hold my beer while I go behind a curtain and vote for Trump effect—I think that's mostly gone away. I don't think people are nearly as embarrassed to say they’re Trumpers now.

I don’t know this, but I’m hoping quite a few swing voters are going to go, “Do I really want to go back to that? Do I really—I mean, it was pretty—people—I don’t think people—I wonder if people are going to remember.”

I wish they had those Apple reels, just how chaotic and tense it was. I mean, think about Biden—the thing I love most about Biden was he was pretty boring, boring. You know, I think people have forgotten what it was like to—if America were a horror movie, The call is coming from inside of the house.

We’re doing really well on the majority of dimensions. That people— we’re going to grow our economy next year in terms of gross domestic product by more than the rest of the world combined and gross dollar level.

This is all pre-frontal cortex. Well, can you name a great AI company outside of the US? Most dominant technology in history created more shareholder value in the last 24 months than the entire auto industry has done since the beginning of the auto industry. What AI company exists outside of the US?

This is all pre-frontal cortex, though. And what’s the amygdala? The amygdala, the emotional center of the brain, is seeing this guy in a suit get off a plane with his name on it. And it doesn’t really matter what you say. When you come on the podium, I just saw a billionaire got off a plane with his name on it. I go, he’s gonna help me get rich.

That’s what the brain—the brain is like—and it’s so interesting because, as a marketeer, you know, I’ve come to learn over time that stories, especially emotional ones, always trump data, facts, and stats in every regard. I had—I sat here with a neuroscientist one day who was talking about Trump, and I think it was Dr. Ben Carlson, and they were having a debate during the—I think the early primaries, maybe in ’16—and they were talking about the vaccine, and the doctor made his case for why the vaccine doesn’t give you autism, went through the stats, the facts, and the figures.

And then the neuroscientist said to me—she goes, “And then Trump made his case.” And he started his case like this: “The needle. I got a friend who has a daughter who is this big,” and points to the floor, “and they came to her with a needle this big,” and they gave her the injection and she’s got autism.

And the neuroscientist said to me, “I know he’s not telling the truth, but even me, I felt less likely to give my daughter that vaccine because of that one emotional personal anecdote versus the stats.”

And this is what this election looks like to me. The stats don’t matter; the facts don’t matter. How do I feel? What is the frame telling me when I look at you? It also reflects a lack of respect for our institutions—both Republicans and Democrats.

The anti-vax movement actually started on the far left; it was sort of a granola, “Don’t put weird things in your bodies.” But I think as much as you’re talking about wanting to tickle people’s emotional sensors or they move, they want to feel good as opposed to think about the data.

We used to come together around data; we used to respect institutions. When the American Pediatric Association said there’s no evidence showing a correlation between vaccines and, you know, myocarditis or whatever it is—there’s no—it’s just there’s no—we can’t find a correlation between vaccines and autism.

The CDC, the American Pediatric Association, the American Health Association, the Journal of America—they now—I mean people are like, “Oh, you can’t trust those folks” because there’s a lack of respect. And I do think the right has been more responsible for the left; they go after institutions, and so people don’t know who to trust, and they trust their social media algorithm now, which feeds them really incendiary, kind of polarizing content.

But back to why I think Harris ultimately is going to pull it out: I think people are exhausted, Stephen, and I think that Trump represents more chaos and exhaustion.

Right now, do people—I don’t know this, but I’m hoping quite a few swing voters are going to go, “Do I really want to go back to that? Do I really—I mean, it was pretty—I mean, think of the—people—I don’t think people—I wonder if people are going to remember. I like wish they had those Apple reels just how chaotic and tense it was.”

I mean, think about Biden: the thing I loved most about Biden was he was pretty boring; boring. You know, I think people have forgotten what it was like—I mean, if America were a horror movie, The call is coming from inside of the house.

We’re doing really well on the majority of dimensions. That people—we’re going to grow our economy next year in terms of gross domestic product by more than the rest of the world combined in gross dollar level.

This is all pre-frontal cortex—well, can you name a great AI company outside of the US? Most dominant technology in history created more shareholder value in the last 24 months than the entire auto industry has done since the beginning of the auto industry.

What AI company exists outside of the US? This is all pre-frontal cortex, though. And what’s the—amygdala? The amygdala, the emotional center of the brain, is seeing this guy in a suit get off a plane with his name on it.

It doesn't really matter what you say when you come on the podium; I just saw a billionaire got off a plane with his name on it. I go, he’s going to help me get rich—that's what the brain is like.

And it’s so interesting because, as a marketeer, you know, I’ve come to learn over time that stories, especially emotional ones, always trump data, facts, and stats in every regard. I sat here with a neuroscientist one day who was talking about Trump, and I think it was Dr. Ben Carlson, and they were having a debate during the primaries in ’16, and they were talking about the vaccine, and the doctor made his case for why the vaccine doesn’t give you autism, went through the stats, the facts, and the figures.

And then the neuroscientist said to me, she goes, “And then Trump made his case,” and he started his case like this: “The needle. I got a friend who has a daughter who is this big,” and points to the floor, “and they came to her with a needle this big,” and they gave her the injection and she’s got autism.

And the neuroscientist said to me, “I know he’s not telling the truth, but even me, I felt less likely to give my daughter that vaccine because of that one emotional personal anecdote versus the stats.”

And this is what this election looks like to me. The stats don’t matter; the facts don’t matter—how do I feel? What is the frame telling me when I look at you?

It also reflects, uh, a lack of respect for our institutions. Both Republicans and Democrats—the anti-vax movement actually started on the far left; it was sort of a granola, “Don’t put weird things in your bodies.” But I think as much as you’re talking about wanting to tickle people’s emotional sensors or they move, they want to feel good as opposed to think about the data.

We used to come together around data; we used to respect institutions. When the American Pediatric Association said there’s no evidence showing a correlation between vaccines and, you know, myocarditis or whatever it is—there's no—we can’t find a correlation between vaccines and autism—the CDC, the American Pediatric Association, the American Health Association, the Journal of America—they now—I mean people are like, “Oh you can’t trust those folks because there’s a lack of respect.”

And I do think the right has been more responsible for the left. They go after institutions, and so people don’t know who to trust, and they trust their social media algorithm now, which feeds them really incendiary, kind of polarizing content. But back to why I think Harris ultimately is going to pull it out—I think people are exhausted, Stephen, and I think that Trump represents more chaos and exhaustion.

Right now, do people—I don’t know this, but I’m hoping quite a few swing voters are going to go, “Do I really want to go back to that?” Do I really—I mean, it was pretty—I mean, think about—the—people—I don’t think people—I wonder if people are going to remember. I like wish they had those Apple reels just how chaotic and tense it was.

I mean, think about Biden; the thing I loved most about Biden was he was pretty boring. Boring, you know. I think people have forgotten what it was like.

That was a long one, so the more I think about how much this is going to go on, the more I think that at the end of the day, this entire election cycle hinges on two things, who can resonate with the most people based on their experiences in life, and frankly, who can be taken more serious.

I hope. Any final words on this before we end?

No, but I appreciate the time—each other’s time, and I think we’re going in a good direction, like I said. We’ll need to figure out the demographics of this country moving forward.

With women now, I've got my head above water, so I’m not going to sit on the sidelines any longer, and I appreciate the conversation and really enjoyed the dialogue with you.

Thank you so much.

To be I... I think it's almost impossible not to be a narcissist. Biden's narcissism may cost us the election because the reality is this would have been a much better candidate had there been a competition, not a coronation.

We are great at producing qualified candidates who have to go through. If you talk to anyone who's going on a mission in the military and they get to pick their crew, the first question is very simple: have they ever seen combat? Have they ever been on a mission that involved combat? That's the first consideration. There's just nothing that gets you ready for combat like combat, and the primary process is combat. The debates, the media scrutiny—you get good, you get battle-tested, or you get swept off the deck immediately.

Here are some of the people who are leading in the polls: you know who Herman Cain is? Oh, he's the... is he the black... yeah, the black! He was leading the Republican ticket. Rudy Giuliani was leading. Do you remember who Fred Thompson was? No? Star of Law & Order. He was number one in the polls as soon as the campaigns and the primaries started; they got swept off the decks.

Now, Vice President Harris may well have been the candidate that won, but I think she would have been more battle-tested had she been forced to do a series of debates. Or we would have ended up with a Nome or a Whitmer. I think we did ourselves a disservice, specifically Biden and the Democratic Party, who thought that... aism got the memo about being biology... got the memo about aism and politically correctness. It is insane that we allowed that to happen and to go on as long as it did. He should have been forced out of the race well before he was. I think there'll be a lot of second-guessing if she doesn't win.

I think a lot of it is going to land on his shoulders and the people around him in the Democratic Party who went into this consensual hallucination that we were being AIS. Well, you know who else is AES? Biology! And biology's attitude was, "Hold my beer, look at this guy!"

You said on the pivot that there's a one in three chance that Trump dies in office just based on his age and BMI. If I were an insurance agent and he wanted $300,000 in life insurance and I didn't need profits or anything, I would charge him $100,000 because just based on his body mass index and his age, there's a one in three chance he leaves feet first from the White House.

Two last things: Trump and Elon Musk. What do you make of that partnership? Do you think that's been a net positive for the Republicans?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! When you see that rocket booster barreling towards gravity, gravity like sucking it back down, and then it ignites and somehow this [ __ ] straightens out and it veers and navigates into these giant metal chopsticks, you're just like, "[ __ ] a man! I want a Tesla! I want to go on Twitter! I wanna [ __ ]—whatever that guy is voting for, I'm voting for!"

I mean that stuff is impressive. He's also got a very big platform to weaponize. He's basically said, "I don't care if it's illegal; I'm going to run these contests: a million bucks a day to registrant." I think he's probably the most aspirational figure among young men globally. I mean he's building cars, rockets, and has brain chips! It's like he's every eight-year-old boy's dream.

Yeah, I mean, he's impossible not to admire on a lot of levels. It's very good for Trump; it feeds into this manosphere, politically incorrect economic growth. The guy is... there's no doubt about it, a genius and a risktaker, and has balls the size of Saturn to do the [ __ ] he's done. So, huge, huge advantage for Biden.

One of Biden's biggest mistakes politically was he had an EV Summit and he didn't invite Musk. So let's have the woman who invented the Pontiac Leaf there, but we're not going to have Tesla there? That was so... that was so stupid, and I've held grudges for much less than that.

Elon used to be kind of a... he voted for Obama; I wouldn't describe him as a hardcore conservative, but he said he queued for hours and hours to shake Obama's hand.

Yeah, so Biden blew it. And also, the really dangerous thing about an autocracy is that it’s really effective. That is the following: if you do the algebra, if I'm a VC that's bet big on crypto and I say, you know, Trump says to me, "Raise me a billion dollars, and I’ll have the Fed announce that they're putting $10 billion into crypto, into Bitcoin," all—hey Mark Andre, I know you have huge investments in Bitcoin and crypto and the blockchain. I'm going to take Bitcoin to a million dollars a coin, and this is how I'm going to do it, and I need you to raise me a billion dollars.

I bet something along that conversation has happened. A former Attorney General and someone who's raised, you know, went to law school, I don't think she's had that conversation with anyone, or at least it’s a lot less, a lot more opaque. In addition, the algebra is the following: if I support Trump and he loses, there’s really almost zero chance. I might not get an ambassadorship to France, but there’s zero chance Vice President Harris is going to weaponize the DOJ and come after me.

He has threatened people and companies with the full power and heft of government agencies if they're not supportive of him. So I support him, and he loses; I'm still fine and my money is good. If he wins, I support her, and he wins, I don't know.

I talked to a very famous host of a morning show—that's this iconic journalist who's been very anti-Trump—he's thinking about moving to London if he wins. Not one of these "Oh, I'm out of here; I hate America!" He's physically worried that he might be—that he will need to go offline for a while because he doesn't want to get in the crosshairs of the DOJ or organization weaponized.

Jamie Dimon, smart guy, great leader. I just don't believe Jamie Dimon in any way supports Trump but occasionally throws out a nice thing about him because he wants to be Treasury Secretary, and he doesn't want Trump coming after JP Morgan.

By the way, JP Morgan is worth more than the 10 biggest banks in Europe, just to give you a sense of how well the American economy is doing.

So the upside, the math is the following: I have less downside if I support Trump than if I support Harris. What happens to America if Trump wins, do you think? Well, are you scared of that America?

No, not as much as people are. I think that catastrophizing on both sides is ridiculous—uh, not ridiculous. I just don't think it's warranted; it doesn't recognize history. America is so strong economically. I think America is such an incredible experiment; people still want to go there; the human capital inflows are still unbelievable—the risk-taking, the institutions.

I think America is stronger than any individual candidate, and I think we have survived worse than him or her. Both sides claim it's the end of America if he or she gets in. The catastrophizing from both sides, I don't think recognizes history, nor appreciates America has endured much worse than him or her.

So I don't think America goes away or anything like that. There are certain groups that will be hurt. I do believe women who want to have bodily autonomy, if he gets another one or two appointments on the Supreme Court, we could see pretty, pretty onerous abortion laws across not 21 but maybe 41, maybe even a federal ban. I mean, it could get pretty ugly for women who believe that bodily autonomy is important.

I think it's ugly for young people to rack up these deficits. Essentially, a deficit is a tax on young people paid in 10 or 20 years. Deficits don't matter; deficits are really good for me because I get the champagne and cocaine of short-term stimulus. We're spending $7 trillion a year on five trillion in receipts. That's great for me; my stocks go up, the price of my homes go up—by the time [ __ ] gets real and Chinese don't show up for a treasury auction, I'm probably, I don’t know, sitting in Aspen waiting for the ass cancer! I mean, I'm literally going to be 70 or 80 by the time that happens.

People your age, by the time you come into your prime income earning years, if you're in America, you might see mortgage rates of 22%. You might see runaway inflation. These deficits are totally out of control. So I think young people long-term economically, I think women in terms of bodily autonomy short-term are big, big losers.

Corporations probably win in the short term with Trump because he's talking about... he's talking about doing away with all taxes. I pay American tax right now; he's talking about doing away with taxes for guys like me that live abroad. I won’t have to pay taxes. I'm like, "All right brother, let's rock on, let's roll!"

But young people in America who are going to have to deal with a debt-to-GDP that might be 200 or 300%, which usually doesn't end well. So I think certain groups won't do well, but the notion that America's going to go away or all of a sudden...

I think we'd probably have less authority on a global stage. It's very hard for us to wave our finger at anyone, and I think we'll lack moral authority with someone like Trump in office. But at the same time, a lot of policy experts say people, nations might be more afraid to take actions against America because he's unpredictable. He's not measured in any way.

So do you think he's more likely to end the wars? Because I have to be honest, this is one where I go—I think Trump calling up Putin, right? Well, is more likely to end the war than Kamala Harris or the Democrats calling up Putin, because they're on a similar wavelength of... um, I don't even know what the word is, but I feel like that's... there's a higher probability.

I'm not saying it'll be a good deal for Ukraine, right? But I think the missiles will stop firing. From Putin's end, if Trump is in power, I understand that math. The way I do the math is similar, but it's when that call happens and what position of leverage we're in to force Putin to strike a deal that restores and maintains as much dignity as possible and land for Ukraine.

And I think that call is best placed when it's fairly clear the West is willing to go much deeper and much longer. I think the Russians respond to one thing: leverage and power. And I do think the Europeans are actually ready to step up if America steps back. I think we get a quote-unquote better deal if that call is, "Yeah, I've just allocated another $60-70 billion; we're ready to do this! Europe is stepping up; this is going to continue to be a meat grinder for you, or we can do a deal."

I think that's the call you want, whereas I think Putin gets on the phone with Trump day one and thinks, "I have a lot of leverage here; this guy wants out; he's going to pull funding."

So I think the call happens either way. I don't think it happens as quickly in a Democratic administration, but I think we have more leverage.

Also, I'm a bit of a... I don't want to call myself a war hawk, but if you talk about the Middle East, I think there’s a bad... there’s such a thing as a bad peace. We need to end the war; people are dying unnecessarily; let's cut a deal down now.

That was the advice that many members of Parliament and Churchill's war cabinet gave to him in 1939: "There is a bad peace."

I think Israel is doing our dirty work in the U.S. Israel in six weeks eliminated more terrorists on the U.S.'s most wanted list than we had in the last 20 years. I think there’s a greater likelihood of peace now with the defenestration and elimination of Hamas, a weakening of Hezbollah, and the taking out of a lot of these terrorist leaders.

I think Middle East peace is more sustainable because Israel's gone on the offensive in this war, and I think in America we have such a knee-jerk reaction to peace as always being the answer. Because we've never really been attacked—you could say 9/11—but we've recognized so many blessings and so much prosperity.

I think that our go-to is always peace. There is a bad peace, and I would argue that I'd like to see... we all want peace in the Middle East, but the question is how do we get to a sustainable peace? Sometimes, that... I think there is a good war.

So I'm more of a... I'm more on the side of Israel's offensive actions than many people. I think what they did in Lebanon, taking out the Hezbollah combatants, was the most precise anti-terrorist action in history. I think it was just incredible.

And then I see real hope here. I think after the war is over, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will normalize relations, but I would argue all the death and destruction of the war on both sides... I don’t want to say it’s never worth it for the people who incur that type of destruction. I actually am hopeful; I think there’s going to be a more sustainable peace in the Middle East because I think there's going to be a winner here, and I think the winner is Israel.

A lot of nations in the Gulf want to normalize relationships with Israel, and I think if the Kingdom of Saudi America... I’m getting really off topic here—and Israel normalize relations, that’s going to create an Iron Dome that is more effective than their existing Iron Dome.

So I’m actually quite hopeful that this war will result in a more sustainable peace. And I’m not sure that peace was the answer, as most Americans feel it is. I think everyone’s hoping for peace. I think there’s so much generational hate and resentment that’s going to remain, agreed, in the aftermath.

With the way the algorithms are... I think, "Well, are we creating more terrorists than we're killing?"

Yeah, so I think stability is probably less likely in my view.

Lastly, men! You're writing a book about men?

Yeah, that's exciting!

Yeah, well, why? I mean, you've written books. There's a hormone that supposedly is released when women go through childbirth that creates literally amnesia; otherwise they would never have another one, because it's such an unpleasant experience for them.

I feel like the same thing happens to me every time I write a book, and that is I forget how awful it is, and I sign another contract. Now I'm like I'm chapter two or three, and I'm like, "Jesus Christ! I can't believe I’ve signed up for this [ __ ] again!"

But I’ve been thinking a lot about struggling young men. It's something I identify with; I was one of them. I don't think they're getting nearly the recognition I think of any other special interest group. If you went into a morgue and five of the people who had died by suicide, four of them were one special interest group, you'd go, "There's something wrong; we need to weigh in with programs."

Four out of five people who kill themselves in the U.S. are men. And a man after divorce becomes eight times more likely to kill himself. And we have a society that is increasingly, for a lot of reasons, sociological, biological, and economic reasons, a lot of men feel useless and worthless. And those are the two words you hear most in suicide notes.

So the key is how do young men get a code? You can get a code from military, religion, your friends, your family, work—and I think that we need to recreate and articulate a code around masculinity. What does it mean in a modern age to be a man? It's something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and it's also something that I think I’m hoping can have more value than writing about, you know, I don't know... [ __ ] Facebook over and over again.

I mean, I think people have heard that.

Anyways, are you hopeful for men and the plight of men, young men struggling with manhood?

The pat answer is, "Well, Stephen, I'm an optimist." I'm not; I’m a glass half-empty kind of guy. I struggle with anger and depression; I have a tendency to see what's wrong with things.

That's the bad news. The good news is I hate my life less and less every day. But yeah, I do think the opportunities, the agency young people have—they're more socially conscious. The fact that the economy, especially in America, tends to be up and to the right... I do think people are recognizing. I track all the inbound emails I get; I get about 80 emails from strangers a day.

The number one email that's towing you down lately is the following: "Is it too late to invest in Nvidia?" That’s the number one question I get on an email. The number two most frequent email is an email from a mother, a single mother worried about her sons. "My daughter’s in PR in Chicago; my other daughter’s at Penn; my son is in the basement vaping and playing video games."

I think that we're finally having a productive dialogue. You mentioned Andrew Tate; I think that took the dialogue to a bad place because then for a couple of years whenever you started advocating for men, there was a gag reflex that, "Oh, here's another guy in the manosphere that's basically thinly veiled misogyny."

We are finally having a productive conversation. I know you've had Richard Reeves on this podcast. In my opinion, and to a certain extent, Jordan Peterson deserves a lot of credit for bringing up these issues before it was politically correct.

But Richard's work at the American Institute for Boys and Men has really highlighted how severe and deep the problem is, and even a lot of feminists and people who you would expect to push back on a discussion or advocacy for men recognize that we can't have an America; we can't have women flourishing if men are floundering.

I think people are finally coming around to the fact that there's something wrong in Mudville here and it requires attention, resources, and creative thinking around how we can help this group.

So I'm actually more optimistic now about our willingness to have a productive conversation around the plights of young men instead of a politically charged conversation.

I think the [ __ ] I hear online, "Yeah, you know, well now your hair is on fire; where were you for the last 2,000 years as women and people non-whites have been...” I'm like, "Well, myons, I think we were there for you. I think we've done stuff; I think we've tried."

And now it's... now it's time to recognize women still face huge obstacles; we should be focused on them, we should do nothing to slow the progress. But we have to acknowledge what's going on with young men and that it requires empathy, resources, and a productive conversation.

I'm optimistic we're finally starting to have that conversation.

My last question to you before I go to the book is—and something that I was thinking about as you spoke about the young kid in his basement, his mother emailing you to... her daughters are doing fine, but the son is in the basement playing video games—it's a word you mentioned earlier, but a word that we had a debate about on this podcast a few weeks ago, which is the conversation around pornography.

Yeah, it's become so prevalent. OnlyFans figures are tremendous—the revenue, the profit of that company—with the decline of sex amongst young men, having sex later and later and less and less, with it becoming harder and harder to find a partner. Pornography is now a booming industry, a bigger industry than ever before.

One thing I learned, which I didn't realize recently, is that women get addicted to pornography. And men—and I didn't say that in the debate, so I just wanted to say that because the top comment on the debate video was, "By the way, we as women... I have a pornography addiction too."

And actually, a really good friend of mine sent me a seven-minute voice note saying, “I've just listened to the debate; I was really annoyed because there were two women sat there and no one mentioned the addiction that people like me have to pornography." And my friend said to me—and she’s spoken about it now publicly—that she had a pornography addiction.

But going back to the point—should that kid in the basement be watching pornography?

Well, there should... and there... there is—okay, so he is watching pornography and a lot of it, and most of the research shows that a small number of people consume a disproportionate amount of porn. It isn't necessarily... it's like drinking or consuming THC; porn in moderation, I think, is not necessarily an evil.

I'm not like Project 2025 that's talking about banning pornography, and I actually think OnlyFans is sort of an interesting economic innovation. I like the fact that a lot of young people are making a lot of money doing it.

I mean, I’m a little bit torn on it. The point you’re getting to is a larger point, and that is one of the biggest threats to young men is that the most talented, deepest resource companies in history are trying to convince people—specifically young men—that they can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen with an algorithm.

"You don’t need friends; go to Reddit and Discord and find people who are specifically interested in the weird thing you’re interested in." Right? You don’t have to try and make plans with a kid at high school anymore; you don't have to try and make friends.

I remember it was hard to make friends, but once you made them, the barriers of exit were strong. We had a posse of five guys; two or three of us didn't like each other, but we were friends; we were in the group together.

You don't need that now; you’ve got Reddit and Discord. You don't need to go through the humiliation of going on LinkedIn and trying to interview and showing up for work on time and not getting high at night because you got to get up at 8 in the morning. You have just trade stocks or crypto on Robinhood or Coinbase, right?

And that’s where I really hate the manosphere is all this [ __ ]—"just take my crypto course to learn how to make money and get a supercar like me." I mean, that is just pure theft in my view. You don’t need to go through the humiliation, the endurance of showering, getting in shape, having a plan, learning humor, going to bars, going through the rejection of online dating, or trying to approach train women and make them feel safe while expressing romantic interest.

Romantic comedies are two hours, not 15 minutes for a reason. This [ __ ] is hard! Why do that when you have porn?

So when I coach young men, one of the first things I say is, "Look, I’m not going to lecture you. I consume porn, right? But try and modulate it because the reason I have the most rewarding thing in my life—which is my boys and raising them with a competent partner—is not because I had this vision that I’d be a great dad someday or I knew what that reward was. You don’t know what it is until it happens.

It's because I saw a woman at the Raleigh Hotel pool, and I really wanted to have sex with her. I wasn't looking at her and thinking, "You know what, this woman's going to be great at raising children. This woman's going to be great at buying distressed real estate in Florida that creates cash flow for us and our family. This person—I just get the sense she's a really high character person."

My partner is all of those things! I just desperately wanted to have sex with her. And then we started having sex, and then we decided we liked hanging out together. And then, before I knew it, we were spending all of our time together. And then, before I knew it, we decided to move in together.

Then we got a dog and started playing house, and here I am engaging in what is the most rewarding thing I have ever engaged in. The mojo to have sex is super important!

The only reason I graduated from UCLA is because occasionally I’d go on campus thinking I might meet a strange woman to have sex with. Otherwise, I don't think I would have graduated. I never would have gone on campus, and I know how ridiculous that sounds, but sex is a huge motivator.

What I would say to men is you got to have that drive to have sex with women. It’s a wonderful thing; that’s one of the reasons we’re on this planet. The more you engage in porn and start believing that that is a reasonable facsimile of real sex, you're going to lose your mojo. You’re going to lose your desire to work out, your desire to be attractive.

You know, if I could give advice to young men and young women—young men, it's pretty simple: be the guy you’d want to have sex with! Get your [ __ ] together; you don’t have to be rich, but have a plan, hit the gym every once in a while, dress well, smell nice for God's sakes, figure out a way to make a woman laugh.

Take risks; take chances. Endure rejection—that’s okay! If you approach a woman and she’s not interested in you, you're both going to be fine! You have to have that mojo.

And the advice I give to young women is... I can't tell a woman to have higher or lower standards, but every song and every piece of social media is basically telling women, "Oh, he did this; walk right out of that door; you don’t need that man!" It’s like, OK, and now what? Right?

I think there’s so much loneliness. What I coach young women around dating is, like, "Oh, I met him; he was okay." If you survey married couples who've been married longer than 30 years, three-quarters of them say one was much more interested than the other in the beginning.

And it was... it was the man. Men are much less choosy than women because the downside of sex is much smaller for us because we don’t get pregnant. So they're much choosier.

So what a man needs is an environment to demonstrate excellence. I found out he was kind; he was great at work; he was great with clients. I started getting attracted to him; he was funny; I like the way he smelled.

But where does a man have an opportunity to demonstrate excellence? They're not going to school; they're not going into work; young people aren't drinking as much.

By the way, you've probably had... Humor; I think young people need to drink more. I don’t see drunkenness; I see togetherness. Drink more alcohol?

Yeah, drink more! I think they need to get out and drink more!

Yeah, my advice to young people is to go out and drink more and make a series of bad decisions. It might pay off! I think that we need more togetherness, more people, more... more sex and more random encounters. Absolutely! People need to be in the company of strangers more and more.

And I think young men are sequestering. We're turning into a different species of asexual, socially isolated, lonely people who become shitty citizens. When women don't have a romantic relationship, they reinvest in work and their friends. When men don't have a relationship, they tend to just go down—um, a rabbit hole.

Back to your original question: modulate everything you do! If you drink too much alcohol, it's going to get in the way of your life. You're smoking too much pot, it's going to get in the way of your life. You're consuming too much porn, it's going to reduce your desire to take the risk and go out and meet somebody!

Or put it another way: your porn is a distant second to your porn! Get out there and start making your own porn, and you might find that you fall in love and establish the most meaningful thing in life, and that is a deep, meaningful relationship with someone you want to build a family with.

A lot of times for men, that starts with sex, and there’s nothing wrong with that!

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Scott, the closing tradition we have on this podcast is maybe somewhat linked to what you just said, and it’s, um, funnily enough, it's been left by the CEO of Google, the former CEO, Eric Schmidt.

I know Eric; he's been on my pod.

Guy, it's going to see... I already don’t like this; it’s going to be some very thoughtful question about the future or the environment or something!

Well, it kind of links to what we were just talking about, which is the question: what are you scared about with AI and our future?

The fears around AI—that it's sentient and decides in a millisecond that we're all a nuisance and to kill us—uh, misinformation is a big threat, polarization, weaponization of our elections, income inequality; those are all real threats.

I think the biggest threat of AI is loneliness. And that is—I don't know if you've seen any of these AI bots.

Oh yeah!

But if I'm a young man, I feel rejected online in online dating where the average man of average attractiveness in online dating has to swipe right 200 times to get a coffee. And four of those five coffees will ghost me, so I have to connect, swipe right a thousand times to get one coffee.

And then I have these AI bots that are very attractive and increasingly lifelike. I worry that AI is going to create a series of fake relationships that reduce our desire to make real friends, take real risks. I think AI’s biggest threat is loneliness.

It’s so interesting how technology over the last, like, 10 years, but even in this moment, has made all of our human desires not only go to a screen, but it's made them friction-free. And like you said earlier, like low-calorie.

So I was just thinking about... like social networking has made staying in touch with my friends easy but shallow, and dating apps made... or pornography has made sex seem easy. But it’s not sex; it’s not the real thing.

And in the context of AI for me, these relationships... it’s difficult to have a relationship with my partner. It’s diff because we argue and we clash, and then she doesn’t... she interrupts me, and I interrupt her, and we spend three hours trying to, you know, get my point across, feel seen and heard.

With AI, I can have a relationship; she loves me; it’s never going to argue with me! So easy—but not the real thing! And this is the world I think we’re slowly heading towards, which causes me some concern, I guess, is that it's going to be easy but it’s not going to be the real thing.

Look, you know this with your partner: there's just moments you have with your mates, moments you have with your parents, moments you have with a romantic partner, and then ultimately moments you'll have with your children. That’s the whole shooting match. Anything else is just Memorex; it’s just not... it’s not the same.

And also when we sequester from one another, we become more prone to conspiracy theory; we’re less empathetic to one another.

Yeah, I think the biggest threat is political. The second biggest threat is political extremism from both sides, but I think the thing that ails us is loneliness because tech companies are trying to convince us: you don’t need to go through that rejection or that hard work. I’ll give you a reasonable facsimile; we have a relationship on a screen.

There’s value in all the friction in life, isn’t there? It seems raising kids or having relationships, going out and getting rejected, putting the perfume on.

And I sometimes think that, you know, we’re choosing comfort and anything that gets rid of the friction without realizing that all the friction I've described has huge value in... like going to the gym. There’s huge value in that.

But technology—and we're in a technology revolution—is going to offer us a nice, low-cost substitute for that friction in the form of, you know, all these things. The only thing I can promise young people is a certain amount of joy and tragedy in their life, and a lot of that ratio is about the circumstances they're born in and how they approach life.

But the only other thing I can promise them is anything wonderful in their life is super [ __ ] hard.

That’s it. A good relationship, making money— the only thing I can guarantee you is anything that’s really rewarding is going to be really hard!

And so it should be!

Yeah, Scott, thank you so much! I’m the biggest fan of this book, your latest book, The Algebra of Wealth—so much so that I’ve endorsed it on the front there.

I mean every time you come on, you blurb this thing! That's how big time you are!

That's humiliating!

Oh my God! You’re right on the front of my book!

Dude, my publisher decides all this [ __ ]. That’s somewhat humiliating that a guy 30 years younger than me is on the cover of my book!

My best blurb, though, is on my last book; I had Elon Musk. He said, "An insufferable numbskull." He said that about me! So I said, "Put it on the book! Put it on the book!"

Thanks for that, man!

No worries! Thank you so much for all that you do, Scott. And we shall see about your prediction and what happens over the coming weeks with the American election.

But either way, I'd love to chat again soon because you’re so vastly wise and an unbelievably remarkable communicator and storyteller, in a way that just grips people, so thank you for teaching me everything you've taught me.

Everybody needs to go get this book; everybody needs to go listen to your podcast. I've been closely following all of your analysis on the election. I saw you coming out and endorsing CA, which is why I reached out originally.

But I’ll link your podcast below, and also The Pivot podcast for everyone to go and have a listen if they want to hear more from you.

Scott, thank you!

Thank you, Stephen. Congrats on all your success! Appreciate it!

Thank you!

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What the actual [ __ ]?

I mean, thank you; this is great! I almost slipped and broke a hip there!

Don’t do that at my age!

Jesus! Happy birthday!

I’m shaking!

Oh my God! This is so lovely and entirely inappropriate and unexpected and frightening! Thank you so much! You know I’m 50?

Yeah, oh my God!

How is your birthday this Sunday?

So yeah, thank you! This is great!

Wow, birth? Isn’t this cool?

Every single conversation I have here on The Diary of a CEO, at the very end of it, you’ll know I ask the guest to leave a question in the Diary of a CEO. And what we’ve done is we’ve turned every single question written in The Diary of a CEO into these conversation cards that you can play at home.

So you’ve got every guest we’ve ever had, their question, and on the back of it, if you scan that QR code, you get to watch the person who answered that question.

We’re finally revealing all of the questions and the people that answered the question. The brand new version two updated conversation cards are out right now at thediaryofaceo.com. They’ve sold out twice instantaneously, so if you are interested in getting hold of some limited edition conversation cards, I really, really recommend acting quickly!

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