“I’m overexposed at this point,” Scott Galloway tells me over Zoom as he paces around his hotel room in San Francisco. And it’s true that the NYU professor, investor, and podcaster is seemingly everywhere these days. Galloway is on tour promoting his book, warning anyone who will listen that the young men of America are in deep trouble, falling behind their female peers every which way, and becoming increasingly undateable in the process.
His latest book, Notes on Being a Man, is part of Galloway’s solution to the problem. “The book is for young men who I think need a code,” he said. “I think men aren’t attaching to church. They’re not going into work. They seem to be attaching less to romantic relationships.”
Part memoir and part self-help book, Notes on Being a Man just landed in the top spot on the New York Times “Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous” bestseller list. It’s full of good, time-honored advice for the basement-dwelling, porn-addled young men of 2025: Get out of the house, get an education, get a job, work hard, work out, ask a girl out, and create “surplus value.”
The advice in the book is blunt, while the autobiographical passages are a reminder of the old adage that one learns more from failure than success. Galloway also leans into his reputation as a prickly sort. “Outside of work, I barely remember my 20s and 30s,” he writes. “Work cost me my hair, probably, my first marriage, and arguably my sanity. But for me, it was worth it.”
I spoke to Galloway about his book, his life, his advice for young men, and why he’s so worried about them. Here’s an edited and condensed version of our conversation.
Will Rahn: So, who did you write this for?
Scott Galloway: I wrote it for young men. I would say that my target audience, or my fans, are young men. My biggest supporters are single mothers who are sometimes struggling with their boys.
I tried to write it as if my sons were going to read it in 20 years and better understand the world that they grew up in, and better understand me. And I try to refuse the temptation to do land acknowledgments or be worried about being shamed. I try to just write exactly what I feel and where the data takes me, regardless of who at that moment might find it distasteful. I try to write as if I’m dancing while no one’s watching.
