Scott Galloway’s Notes on Being A Man (2025) is a hybrid memoir and work of social commentary that examines the challenges facing boys and men in contemporary America. Weaving personal narrative with data-driven analysis, Galloway uses his life story, from a middle-class California childhood with a single mother to his career as an entrepreneur and professor, to explore what he diagnoses as a crisis of masculinity. He argues that a confluence of economic, social, and technological forces has left young men isolated, economically nonviable, and emotionally adrift. The book explores key themes including A Pro-Social Code of Masculinity, A Broken Social Contract, and The Value of Hard Work and Taking Risks.

Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, a serial entrepreneur, and a prominent media personality known for his podcasts Pivot and the Prof G Pod. He is the author of several New York Times bestselling books, including The Four and The Algebra of Happiness, which blend business analysis with cultural critique. Notes on Being A Man represents a more personal work, directly inspired by his experience as a father to two sons. The book’s intellectual framework is heavily influenced by the work of scholars such as Richard V. Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men, and Jonathan Haidt, whose research on youth mental health informs Galloway’s critique of the digital age.

This guide refers to the 2025 hardcover edition published by Simon & Schuster.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, antigay bias, mental illness, addiction, substance use, and cursing.

Summary

Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and father of two teenage sons, structures this memoir as a loosely chronological account of his life from boyhood to his 60s, interwoven with data-driven analysis of the crisis facing American boys and young men.

Galloway opens by surveying alarming trends: boys face an educational system biased against their later-maturing brains; young people under 40 are 24% less wealthy than the same cohort was 40 years ago; 60% of young men aged 18 to 24 live with their parents; and deaths of despair disproportionately claim unemployed males. He argues that terms like “toxic masculinity” have conflated cruelty with masculinity. He contends the 2024 election was influenced by struggling young men, noting Donald Trump gained 16% with young male voters. He asserts that men Protect, Provide, and Procreate. The overarching goal, borrowed from Richard Reeves’s Of Boys and Men, is to create “surplus value,” meaning one gives more than one gets.

Galloway’s origin story begins in Orange County, California. He was the only child of two European immigrants. His father rose from a sales position to a vice presidency, while his mother, Sylvia, raised Galloway as a single mother. Galloway describes an early academic and athletic peak, which faded when, at age nine, his parents divorced. Galloway and his mother moved from an ocean-view home to an apartment in Tarzana, dropping to lower-middle-class life with little to no child support from Galloway’s father. Galloway credits his survival to his mother’s love, calling having “someone irrationally passionate about my well-being” the primary factor in his success (27).

He notes testosterone’s role in delaying maturation of the male prefrontal cortex, which develops up to two years later in boys than in girls. This biological delay explains much of the academic and behavioral gap between adolescent boys and girls.

Galloway became “unremarkable” after puberty. Terry, his mother’s boyfriend, became a stabilizing male presence, while the Boy Scouts offered camaraderie and structure. His high school peer group included Brett Jarvis, from a Mormon family, who provided protective influence, and Drew Sheldon, a Black classmate and star athlete, who taught Galloway about relative privilege when an injury ended his athletic prospects. Galloway also discusses the acute challenges facing young men of color, citing sharp disparities in suspension rates, incarceration, and life expectancy.

He credits his kindness toward a teacher, Ms. Kelson, with the successful appeal that earned Galloway admission to UCLA. At UCLA, he joined Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT), a Jewish fraternity that provided affordable housing and socialization. Despite landing on academic probation three times, he graduated in five years after pleading with professors to change failing grades. He mourns his freshman roommate Pat, who was a gay man and died of complications from AIDS. Physical transformation through Accutane and rowing crew marked the first time women showed romantic interest, and he began a relationship with Margaret, whom he later married.

Galloway worked at Morgan Stanley after graduation, where he learned discipline and focus. He then attended UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, after which he founded Prophet, a brand strategy firm. He advises young men against following their passion, urging them instead to follow their talent, and acknowledges that his success was substantially aided by being a white, heterosexual male born in 1960s California with access to elite education at minimal cost.

When Galloway was 38, he was finally able to oversee his mother’s care for breast cancer, which he calls one of the first times he felt like a real man. 

Galloway provides advice and thoughts on health, friendship, sex, and marriage. Galloway prescribes exercise as an antidepressant and introduces SCAFA, his personal coping framework: Sweat, Clean eating, Abstinence, Family, and Affection. He identifies addiction as the central threat to young men, citing phones, social media, sports gambling, and pornography as primary threats. He presents data on the male friendship recession: Since 1990, the percentage of Americans with fewer than three close friends has doubled. He describes a decade of isolation after divorcing Margaret, recognizing it as a death trajectory given that single men die 8-17 years earlier than married men. His road back involved intentional emotional practice and was accelerated by meeting his wife, Beata, and having children.

Galloway describes his first marriage to Margaret as 12 good years undone by the seduction of a new lifestyle. He calls choosing to leave her the most he ever hurt another person. Galloway was a hesitant father, but he says he grew to love his sons. Being a father added financial stress at a time when another of Galloway’s companies, RedEnvelope, had sunk his net worth to negative $2 million. He advocates for physical affection with sons and introduces the concept of “garbage time,” borrowed from author Ryan Holiday: the random, unplanned moments that allow genuine intimacy. He argues fatherhood is a “negative game” in which giving more love than one receives is necessary, recalling his idea of surplus value. He also champions mentorship as an expression of masculinity, lamenting that older men taking interest in younger men’s development has been unfairly stigmatized.

In his late 50s, the deaths of two friends prompt Galloway to conclude he has enough money and luxury. He reflects on his father’s decline in his mid-90s, married and divorced four times, likely to die alone. He finds growing respect for religion’s role in providing community and code, and now gives away more than he spends each year, treating generosity as a form of patriotism.

The book closes with a letter to his sons, Alec and Nolan. Galloway urges them to limit time alone, embrace the protector role, stay physically strong, practice kindness, and be reckless with their emotions. He tells them his love is impossible for them to grasp now but will become obvious when they have sons of their own.