The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
00:15:33 · Scott Galloway
[00:15:33] S0: Welcome back. Our next question comes from a listener on Reddit. AliveShallet6780 says, greetings professor G. I'm a 35 year old man and my wife and I left New York to move to Portland, Maine to start a family. We've been trying to start a family for three years now, and I can say that infertility has been the hardest experience of my life. While we're blessed with financial security thanks to good luck and hard work, two rounds of IVF have been unsuccessful and we're considering pursuing surrogacy. The most challenging part of this experience has been the social aspect as it is quite frankly painful and dull to hang out with parents and their young children. As someone who became a father in his forties, what kind of advice could you offer someone who's likely to become a parent later in life? Thanks for everything you do. I'm choosing my words carefully because I think this is so important. And I don't know if my experience is the same experience as anyone else's. So according to the CDC, about one in five married women ages 15 to 49 with no prior birth are unable to get pregnant after a year of trying. It's so weird, we spent so long trying not to get pregnant. And then what's strange is as we get into our 30s or 40s, then we have trouble getting pregnant. So this is something that as people are having kids later and later, this is something that is very common across households. And people are becoming parents later. The average age of first time fathers rose from 27 in 1972 to 31 in 2016. I just read a crazy stat that there's more women having babies over the age of 40 now than under the age of 21. Teen pregnancy is way down, which is a good thing. Lower birth rates are they're a bad thing for the economy. If you want to look at a country that goes into recession, just look at the ratio of young people to old people. We do better actually than most nations, because people are still having kids here, and immigration is a means or a pressure valve if things get really serious you let in more immigrants, although our current administration doesn't seem to get the memo on that. But demographically The US is quite frankly is less screwed than many nations in Europe, Japan, and China. Anyways, what is the advice for having kids later than life? I got lucky. I think it was really good for me. I had kids at 42 and 45.
00:17:52 · Scott Galloway
I didn't want to have children. I like being selfish. I'm a naturally selfish person. I didn't like enjoy other people's children, so I wasn't against it, but I just wasn't for it. I liked my life. And I met someone who I fell very much in love with, who wanted kids, and I said I don't want kids. She said I'm not going to be with someone, or I can't be with someone long term that doesn't want kids. I said, wait, I've reconsidered. I want kids. And we got pregnant almost right away. I said to her, I don't want to get married. She said, I don't need to get married. It kind of called my bluff. And in the next three years we had two kids. Look, I feel like there's never a good time to have kids. Whether you're in your twenties or too young, in your thirties you're working your ass off, in your forties you start to feel like you're too old. I liked having kids a bit older for the following reasons. One, I just think I'm a better dad. I'm older. I realize that life isn't about getting a return on your relationships. It's about being on the right side of the ledger. And then if you exit this world having given more than you've gotten from your relationships, which sounds weird, but, you know, a pretty good obituary might be the vast majority of people in his life felt there was no way they could be as good a friend, as good a spouse, as good a son as this guy was, you know that wouldn't be a bad obituary, right? So you just get more perspective. I think you get more generous. I think you get more patient. And also, just to be blunt, having kids later in life meant I could spend more time with them, and I wasn't as freaked out, because I had more economic security. Now when my kids were born, was my first kid was born in 'seven, and just as the market was crashing came kind of marching out of his mom. And the first thing I felt was economic security. Had I felt that economic security when I was younger and I didn't have kind of currents in the marketplace, I just think it would have been incredibly stressful raising kids in a home not of economic stress, but where I'm basically working all the time trying to build economic security and didn't have a lot of money. I was pouring all my money back into the business. So more perspective, more maturity, more generosity, and some economic security.
00:20:08 · Scott Galloway
You know the downside is the following: I may or may not be around to see my grandkids. I think I will. It's an incredible motivation to try and stay healthy. I do think kids keep you younger. And there's some studies that show that having kids in the house kind of slows the aging process and you do, you know, picking them up and running them around and playing football in the backyard is just good for you. And it's incredibly motivating for me in terms of staying healthy. Also I think it just makes you a better person. You know that saying be the man your dog thinks you are? That's nothing compared to I really want my sons to admire me. And I had Senator Murphy on the show a few years ago and he just said something. I asked for his advice around what he tells his sons or his kids, he says I don't really tell them much. They don't listen, they observe. I try to just model good behavior. That sounds very simple, but it's just so true. And that's made me a better man. Trying to be trying to just set a really good example, right? Try to be polite, kind, try to walk the walk, you know, be good to their mom, be really respectful of women, constantly talk about and model and give money to people less fortunate such that they realize their privilege. It's great to have kids when you're young if you have the support system and a great partner, because it would be awesome to have kids my age and be in my 40s. It would just be fantastic. I would love that. But at the same time, you know life is just trade offs. At the same time being a little bit more economically secure and generous with my own emotions is also a huge advantage. In sum, my brother, what I am sure of is that despite the anxiety, despite the resource commitment, despite the real moments of, you know having kids as a surgical procedure, as Jimmy Carr says. And that is you're going to have your heart taken out and it's going to live outside your body for the next eighteen to twenty five years. I've never worried about anything a fraction as much as I worry about my kids. But at the same time, I love the saying grief and anxiety are receipts for love. You're just never going to have something that you feel, in my opinion or most people, more purpose and more investment in. It's a long winded way of saying there's a trade off. There's some good, there's some bad about having kids when you're older.
00:22:29 · Scott Galloway
But the one thing I can tell you, or recommend and urge, is if you have a good partner, some economic security, oh yeah, for God's sakes, don't think about that stuff. Just do what you can to have kids, even if it means IVF, even if it means a surrogate. Know, adoption is a wonderful means of participating. I just I am shocked. Literally shocked. Not how much I enjoy, but how much reward and purpose I've had from having kids. All of this is to say, my brother, don't overthink it. Just get on with it and have kids. Our next question comes from Jake who texted us. He says, hi professor G, I'm a 27 year old guy living in Chicago. I work at a job I absolutely love and am fairly well compensated. That said, I've always had the entrepreneurial bug. Recently my dad came to me with a generally intriguing business idea in his field. He has been a practicing physician for twenty plus years. I'm excited at the prospect of starting this company and working closely with my father. That said, I'm struggling to take the leap because of how much I generally love my current job. Any advice for someone in my shoes or insights on starting a company as a father son duo? Appreciate the consideration. Okay, this is where I likely am going to give you a different answer. And that is we romanticize entrepreneurship and people are really generous with your economic security and your money, and we'll say go for it, start a business. I think it depends on what type of if it's a raw startup with your dad, no matter how good of an idea it is, startups, the infant mortality is just crazy. So many moons... No business makes sense. No new business makes sense at the time. Otherwise, it would already exist. So it's crazy, but sometimes it ends up being crazy genius and carves out a niche. And in exchange for taking that incredible risk, there's more incredible upside. But be clear, five to six out of seven new businesses aren't around in like seven or eight years. So if it's a raw startup, that's a different risk scenario. If it's your dad has a business that's already going and he wants you to take it over, you want to go into the family business.
00:24:35 · Scott Galloway
I teach a lot of kids at Stern who are going into the family business, but first they and their parents want them to go work at IBM or somewhere else, get some skills, learn how to navigate a place where people aren't going to kiss your ass because of your last name, right? So if it's an existing business that's already succeeding, I think that's a different risk profile. Now what I'm going to tell you is I'm going to assume this is a Roth startup and a great idea, but you have a great job. I would stick at the great job for a while. I think there's no wealth creator like The US corporation or existing platforms on a risk adjusted basis. If you're kind of on, I'm gonna call it a rocket ship, but a plane that's ascending and they like you, and you have senior level sponsorship, you have stock options, you have good benefits, you like it, you don't go into a deep funk on a Sunday night, I think you want to ride that out. I think if you're fortunate enough to be at a platform that brings resources, intellectual property, other people, an environment and culture where it leverages the whole to make it greater than the sum of its parts, I think we romanticize entrepreneurship and diminish the value and how much reward psychologically and economically you can get from being associated with a bigger platform that is doing really well. Also, you need to speak to a bunch of people about this. Be very honest and open about the opportunity with your dad. Be very open and honest about what you're doing right now, your compensation, how you're accelerating. Also family businesses, especially a Roth startup. Roth startups are so emotional and so stressful. And I worry that if things don't go well, through no fault of your own, the market is bigger than any individual. But if things don't go well, then it might put stress on your relationship with your father. Both the opportunity you gave up, you know disappointment, the thing you're doing together isn't working. Family businesses make me a little bit or starting a business with a family member makes me a little bit nervous because you're putting a lot of eggs in one basket. So I have a bias towards if you're out of corporation and doing well, to stick there as a young man and see where it goes. And then if things begin to flatline, maybe revisit.
00:26:52 · Scott Galloway
I would imagine this opportunity with your dad will be there for a while, that it's not perishable. But I think again we inflate and romanticize entrepreneurship and don't appreciate how powerful it can be if you have figured out a way to be good in a corporation. I worked at Morgan Stanley in the late eighties right out of college. That was an incredible opportunity, a growing platform, but I was awful at it. I was politically immature, and I wasn't good at the source material. I mean, I wasn't good at it. It just was so obvious. I did not know how to operate in a big company. It sounds like you have those skills, and those are real skills. Navigating the bullshit of a corporation of which there's going to be an infinite amount, establishing the right relationships, getting along, playing well with others, living in a state of disinformation or misinformation. I remember once my company got acquired by Gartner, they shut our website down. I couldn't even find out who made the decision, And that was very frustrating for me. Anyways, long winded way of saying pull together a kitchen cabinet, outline both scenarios, but I personally have a bias towards sticking with the greatest wealth generator in history on a risk adjusted basis, and that is platforms called US corporations. Anyways, it sounds like you're cursed with opportunity, and a great problem is the problem of not what to do, but what not to do. I appreciate the question. We'll be right back after a quick break. Support for the show comes from I m eight. Everybody's already busy. Keeping track of your supplements shouldn't feel like a second job. IM8 is a way to simplify your supplement routine once and for all. IM8's daily ultimate essentials has 16 supplements in one drink for $2.61 a day. Co founded by David Beckham and built by leading doctors and researchers, iM8 was designed by the world's best. Ninety five percent of people who tried it for twelve weeks felt more energy. And that's from a clinical trial conducted by the San Francisco Research Institute. Our very own Ed tried I'm eight.