Scott Galloway Is the Safest Edgelord in America

The manosphere’s sharpest advice wrapped in center-left bubble wrap—and it’s making him richer than almost anyone else in the space.

Scott Galloway is a gigantic podcaster with multiple shows, which he says pull in north of $20 million per year combined.

He’s someone who has established a brand as a brash, bold truth teller. He’s a noted critic of big tech, for example. I have highlighted some of his work before. His style is manosphere-ish, and he’s leaned into that image. A serial entrepreneur and professor of marketing at NYU, the New York Times once called him a “Howard Stern for aspiring M.B.A.s and restless middle managers, offering listeners permission to have feelings and assert mildly politically incorrect opinions.” His audience reportedly skews male.

He’s out with a new book of advice to men called Notes on Being a Man, structured as a hybrid memoir/advice book.

I am not a regular listener of Galloway, but what I’ve observed about him - and this book is very consistent with that - is that in line with the NYT saying his views are “mildly” politically incorrect, his statements are not actually especially controversial. He has adopted a brash style, but strategically channels his provocations into places where it is safe to do so, and avoids those where he might get into real trouble.

For example, he’s a rabid Never Trumper. He’s all in 100% on the claims that underpin DEI. In his new book, he makes a point to repeatedly to discuss racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, and discrimination against gays. But he never discusses any discrimination that white males such as himself might be experiencing today.

He notes that he was initially rejected from UCLA when he applied, and rightly so because his high school record wasn’t great. But he was able to get in on appeal due to his troubled family background:

There was an appeal process. It involved writing a one-page letter. I sent it in, and nine days before classes started in September, the phone rang. UCLA had reviewed my transcript, and despite my mediocre grades and SAT scores, they were letting me in, as I was “a son of a single mother and the great state of California” (no joke, those were the exact words). We’re going to give you a shot.

He says that getting into UCLA was the most important thing that ever happened to him.

State-sponsored education is who I am and how I got here. My admittance to UCLA is singular. No other event or action has had a more positive impact on my life and the lives of people around me.

Galloway never mentions the obvious: there is no way a white kid like him would get into UCLA today. His entire future life trajectory of success would likely have never come into being were he starting out 25 years later. He might well have ended up dead in a gutter from a drug overdose instead.

He wouldn’t even have to frame a discussion of this in an anti-DEI way. But the fact the doesn’t even mention it, and thus is willing to take the credibility hit from failing to address something that is a core aspect how American society affects a plurality of young men today - namely discrimination against not for white men - shows his extreme aversion to saying truly politically incorrect things.

You know what I call this? A stroke of genius. And we can see it in the gushers of money flowing into his bank account.

Galloway is clearly a world-class marketer. He’s been able adopt the manosphere, provocateur style but in a manner that’s brand safe, and thus much more readily monetizeable than most other men’s podcasters.

I’m not sure why more people haven’t followed the Galloway playbook. There are many immensely talented, charismatic podcasters who positioned themselves outside of the sweet spot for monetization. Perhaps they really do believe controversial things. Maybe they are too addicted to provocation and edginess. Or maybe they just lack Galloway’s message discipline.

Galloway’s Personal Ethos

Does Galloway himself really believe the things he says? There’s every reason to believe he does at some level. I’m sure he really is on the center-left as he says.

But we can’t be sure, because judging by this book, Galloway does not have a moral code, at least not as traditionally understood. This isn’t just because he’s an atheist. There are atheists who live by a strong personal moral code. Rather, his ethics appear to be almost entirely instrumental. The reason to do something is not because it is right or wrong but because it works.

Galloway, for example, thinks it’s not cool to treat other people poorly. At the same time, he doesn’t regret doing it when it worked to his advantage.

A good example of this is his first marriage. He married young. After making a pile of money in the dotcom era with companies like Red Envelope, he says saw that he had the opportunity to live the wealthy playboy lifestyle and wanted to spend some time doing it. He realizes this was a failure of character:

My own divorce was my first big personal failure—a failure of character. She, Margaret, was a wonderful person—salt of the earth, kind, ambitious, and really attractive. We were together from the ages of twenty-three to thirty-five, very much in love, very compatible, and together we built a really nice life. You scored out of your league, Scott, people always said. After business school, we got married. We were both working hard. We bought a great house in San Francisco, had great friends, a great life, and were starting to think about kids. It was a good first marriage, probably better than most enduring marriages.

Despite having a good marriage, the temptations to have another round of sowing wild oats were too great:

Back at home, it hit me: I wanted to be single and wealthy and living in a New York City loft, partying at Lotus and Pangea, vacationing in St. Barts, and occasionally advising a hedge fund. Maybe that made me a bad person; I don’t know. So I did the (again, incredibly selfish) math and concluded I needed to spend the next five to ten years scratching that itch. Basically, I broke a promise.

But how does he feel about having done this?

Getting divorced was the hardest decision I ever made, but also the smartest. It sounds harsh, but if I’d stayed married, my resentment would have infected everything. I would have become a serial infidel, an unkind, self-absorbed, untrustworthy husband.

…

I don’t regret getting divorced, but that moment in the counselor’s office is to this day the most I’ve ever hurt another person. Margaret went on to marry a really nice guy and have a kid. We both ended up better off, and a lot happier, too. [emphasis added]

His own personal pleasure trumped any moral consideration. And in effect, he says he’d do it again if he had the opportunity to do it over.

There’s no reason to think that Galloway would think of truth telling - or pretty much anything else - as a moral standard that one needs to live up to even when it’s personally disadvantageous. The reason to be honest would simply be that it’s the best policy in terms of your own personal outcome over the longer term. But there’s no reason to think Galloway wouldn’t lie for personal advancement if he felt it was necessary.

I don’t recall anything in the book suggesting that there are hard and fast moral rules of behavior, except perhaps implicitly those political correctness items like discrimination.

Reading Galloway’s book, I kept thinking that he reminds me of a bit more mature version of David Portnoy. Both are ambitious, entrepreneurial, and highly successful. Both reject traditional moral codes. Both are known for being generous to other people (a good point for both of them). Portnoy’s hedonistic approach is reminiscent of Galloway’s earlier days, which he doesn’t repudiate, but has simply moved on from into another life stage with a different set of (more refined) pleasures.

Galloway is certainly not a man to model your life after. And who knows what he really believes deep inside.

---

Don’t forget, you only have three more days to take advantage of my once a year 30-40% discount of my Member program. By becoming a Member, you’re supporting my work and the impact it makes, plus getting great benefits that include a Member only podcast and Zoom sessions and access to a private Slack discussion community. You also get all the benefits of being a regular paid subscriber here on Substack. Don’t miss out!

Become a Member annually for just $360/year - 40% off the regular monthly price.

You can join monthly for just $35/month - 30% off the regular $50/month price.

---

Remarkably Good Advice

Having said all of the above, Galloway’s advice is overwhelmingly good. I mean really good.

It is impressive the extent to which he has downloaded all of the manosphere thinking and “bro science.” The book is a fountain of useful advice.

For example, he talks about getting plenty of sunlight exposure. He also talks about fitness and working out as foundational. He advocates a mix of cardio and strength training. For cardio, he proposes a polarized mix of low intensity and high intensity. These are in line with best practices.

He also adopts the P3 “protect, provide, procreate” model for masculinity. This is something that’s very aligned with healthy historic practice, and especially the work of anthropologist David Gilmore in his book Manhood in the Making (Galloway should have credited the people he drew it from, either Gilmore, or someplace like Brett McKay’s huge Art of Manliness site, which I believe is what really popularized the “P3” language).

He talks about being on TRT (testosterone replacement therapy), which is also very common for men his age. I don’t endorse this personally, and have made a choice to avoid it. I think it can have iatrogenic effects. I suspect Jeff Bezos blowing up his marriage is likely in part due to TRT, for example. But it’s a standard manosphere element, and Galloway deserves credit for acknowledging that he’s personally doing it, something many people hide.

He tells men that they should be kind (even though he isn’t always this way himself). He says that shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. He talks about college still being important. He talks about the role a band of brothers plays in challenging you to step and meet the test of manhood (such as by actually asking women on dates).

There’s a firehose of this kind of material, mostly very accurate and useful.

One thing he doesn’t talk too much about is business and career, which is curious for a guy whose biggest successes have come there. This is an example of how the book overall doesn’t really work as a memoir. For one thing, his life was pretty prosaic, lacking the harrowing experiences that often make for popular memoirs today. You’re a child of divorce? Welcome to the club. He doesn’t talk much about his marriages, which is a matter of policy for him. I think that’s great actually, and in fact have the same policy. But it puts the juiciest stuff off limits. And he also doesn’t talk too much about his actual lessons from business (though perhaps he’s done that elsewhere). I’d really like to read an explicitly business memoir from him.

Still, his business/career advice in there is quite good. For example:

The slope of the trajectory for your career is (unfairly) set in the first five years postgraduation. If you want the trajectory to be steep, you’ll need to burn a lot of fuel. The world is not yours for the taking but for the trying.

He talks about how working at least one service job in your life is great training for business and life generally. He talks about doing what you are good at rather than following your passion. He talks about the importance of certifications and credentials. Again, mostly very good advice.

For a fully mainstream book on masculinity, Galloway’s is the best I’ve seen. It’s probably even better in terms of its advice than what you’d find out there on the internet, as he’s already pre-filtered out most of the garbage and fake news.

Galloway is definitely not going to appeal to serious religious or political conservatives. But in terms of practical advice for men under the age of 40, it’s hard to beat this.

This book is perfectly designed for the professional, metropolitan, apolitical to center-left male. Or to people who are looking to “graduate” from Barstool Sports into something more mature (in a sense, at least). This is a market that’s underserved, and Galloway figured out how to capture it.

It’s sad that there isn’t a really good book written from a conservative perspective that has practical advice that’s as good as what you can get from Galloway.

I’ve always said what most credentializes these manosphere figures is their giving true information and advice that works - and which their audience is not getting from traditional authorities like pastors, parents, politicians, and teachers.

When a young man gets advice on how to meet (or have sex with) women from a podcaster or blogger - and it works! - he is going to think that guy is a prophet. It’s the ultimate credential. (This not infrequently also produces rage against traditional authorities who lied to him about this primal area). And that leads to these young men imbibing the moral worldview of these manosphere figures as well.

Similarly, there are serious defects in Galloway’s moral worldview, but they are likely to be adopted by readers who find the advice accurate and useful - and who find his views simpatico with their pre-existing self-oriented ethos.

The Problematic Exceptions

There are two key areas where Galloway steers young men wrong. The first is his philosophy of what we might called “smart hedonism.”

Rather than saying that you shouldn’t get smashed in college, shouldn’t watch porn, shouldn’t do drugs, and shouldn’t sleep around, Galloway affirms these are all good things for young men to do, but that men need to keep from taking them too far, and avoid getting addicted. Galloway himself straightforwardly says that he watches porn and enjoys it (though sometimes has struggles with it), and consumes “edibles,” for example.

In a sense, Galloway is being realistic here. It’s easy for older men like us to tell young men not to do these things. But let’s be honest: we did them. The reason we don’t now - in his case, not to the same extent - is more due to us simply getting older rather than some great moral enlightenment on our part. Let’s be honest, there’s some hypocrisy in telling young men not to get drunk when you were at the bar every single night in college and in your early career.

The problem is that when we provide social approval to vice, the brakes come off. We’ve seen this with gambling, especially sports betting, and also with pot, where even the NYT is sounding the alarm on psychosis in teenagers, etc.

It’s important to maintain an atmosphere of social disapproval on these things in order to keep them from spiraling out of control or into addiction. It’s unfortunately likely that at least some men following Galloway’s approach will end up addicted to drugs or some such sad event who may otherwise not have done so if we’d kept up the old approach of telling people not to do these things.

The second point is that he flirts with advocating the evangelical “servant leader” approach to dating, marriage, and fatherhood.

This is a straightforward result of his inability to make any politically incorrect statements about women. For example, he says that women initiate 70% of divorces - to his credit, something pastors rarely do - but talks about it exclusively in terms of unhappy couples being able to separate and “literally saving the lives of women shackled to abusive men.” He also says women “bear the brunt” financially in divorce. And of course his own divorce was by his own admission him dumping his wife for selfish reasons.

The idea that women sometimes unjustly divorce their husbands for selfish reasons somehow doesn’t rate a mention that I saw. That’s hard to sustain in an era of female divorce fantasy books selling big numbers and getting gushing reviews in the major press. Nor does he seem inclined to view family court as producing injustices against men. He acknowledges women typically get custody, but seems to suggest it’s mostly because men don’t want it. “It’s harder if you’re a divorced man, as moms are granted custody of the children 80 percent of the time. (Dads, I might add, seldom request full custody, for a variety of reasons).”

Basically, he’s not allowed to talk about women behaving badly.

He also does the routine where he talks about where women are better than men or contribute to men, but not the reverse. The only thing I noticed him talking about where men perform better was in the physiological realm of denser bones and stronger muscles.

And he talks about manhood, particularly when it comes to marriage and children, in terms of unilateral sacrifice and service. For example, he says, “Your goal is to provide surplus value, to offer more than you’re given without keeping score.” He also expects men to abide by retro standards of behavior from the past:

Women may be killing it at work and in higher education, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that men still have more economic opportunity and that the gender pay gap exists. So, men, pay for women if you can.

…

Even if a woman outearns you, your protective instinct should kick in. If you can afford it, pay for meals, also movie and theater tickets, coatrooms, taxis, everything but her car payments.

…

A second arguably sexist idea—a man should always hold a door open for a woman.

Suffice it to say, he doesn’t expect women to abide by any of these older standards. This is the manosphere’s “two sets of books.” Men are expected to live up to their responsibilities under the old system (though without the benefits that they received from it), while women are emancipated from their responsibilities and allowed to adopt a modern behavioral standard instead.

In his emphasis on giving money to women, Galloway even veers towards telling men to act like what the internet would call a “paypig” for the modern, successful, emancipated woman.

Sacrifice and service are part of what it means to be a man - a big part. But manhood cannot be reduced to that, and they need to be kept in their proper place and properly ordered.

He also offers a selective view of ideas like honor:

Etiquette books aimed at men historically emphasized honor, leadership, and sacrifice. Young men were encouraged and expected to facilitate conversation, avoid controversy, and serve as champions, lovers, and protectors of women.

Part of the idea of honor was that a man was expected to avenge insults to his own. Even the United States, we used to have things like dueling as a result.

I don’t think we should go back to dueling. But nor should men be expected give the same exact kind of treatment to women that would have been expected back then. We live in the 21st century, where gender relations and other social norms are quite different. Those old etiquette books are fun to read, but we aren’t leaving calling cards at each other’s houses anymore.

If we want to say that we should go back to the past, we can discuss that. But then women’s roles and expectations for women would need to be on the table as well. I don’t think Galloway wants to go there.

But with these notable exceptions, Notes on Being a Man has a lot of positive, accurate, and useful advice for men. If you can avoid being drawn into Galloway’s moral worldview, it’s very much worth picking up and reading. Recommeded.

Remember, if you haven’t already, don’t forget your chance to become part of my Member community at a steep discount today.

Become a Member annually for just $360/year - 40% off the regular monthly price.

You can join monthly for just $35/month - 30% off the regular $50/month price.

---

Cover image: Scott Galloway by Xuthoria/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0