Author, Troubled: Rob Henderson

Auren Hoffman (00:00.89) Hello fellow Data Nerds. My guest today is Rob Henderson. Rob is the author of the best selling book Troubled, which was the best book I read in 2024. He's currently a columnist for the Free Press and also the Boston Globe. Rob, welcome to World of DaaS.

Rob Henderson (00:17.228) Hey, Auren. Thank you. It's great to be here.

Auren Hoffman (00:19.15) Really excited. Now there's this Mark Andreessen quote that says something like, CEOs are not actually concerned with profit. They're concerned with being seen as good people. Unpack that for a bit. Like, what does that say about status and the tech world?

Rob Henderson (00:35.694) think that a lot of people have this misconception that money is the prime mover of the world. We have these phrases like, is the root of all evil, money makes the world go around, follow the money. That's a pretty good heuristic often to use that profit is a motive for a lot of people, sort of financial profit and incentives.

That Andreessen quote, I think, highlights something that I've been concentrating on for a long time, which is also this, the importance of social status of the esteem in which we're held by the people whose opinions we respect. And so often people will take a pay cut for that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's exactly right. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people, they care more about

Auren Hoffman (01:13.282) And in some ways that is why people make money in general. Like you don't make money for money. You often make money to convert it into status, right?

Rob Henderson (01:26.274) what other people think about them than how much, you know, the number on their, on their bank account. There was a really interesting study a couple of years ago, which found that socio-metric status is a stronger predictor of wellbeing than socio-economic status. And socio-economic, or socio-metric status in particular is essentially respect and admiration from your peers. People who are well-liked and admired by the people around them, by their social circle.

are happier than people who make lots of money. And I think that's what that Andreessen quote captures, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (01:54.648) Makes sense? Yeah.

And when we talk about elites, like what, do we define that? Like what is an elite?

Rob Henderson (02:04.832) Yeah, that's a thorny question.

Auren Hoffman (02:05.678) And are there more elites today than there were in the past or there are fewer?

Rob Henderson (02:10.134) Yeah, well, it's interesting. Peter Turchin, you know, his idea of intra-elite conflict and how that sort of cultivates political instability. I mean, he says that there are more elites now and whenever sort of cyclically throughout history, whenever there are too many elites or elite aspirants, this can give rise to instability in societies. And he points out that, you know, if you define elite by say the number of people who are in at least $10 million a year or something like that, then there are more elites now.

And, he's, he's adjusting for inflation, of course, but he points out that, you know, if you compare like the 1980s to today, uh, adjusting for inflation, there are more, there are more millionaires in America than there have ever been. Um, but one thing that I, I try to point out in my book and in some of my writings is that, you know, there's more to class than money alone. There's a really great book that came out, uh, decades ago by this author, Paul Fussell called class, a guy through the American status system.

And he points out that really there are three particular ingredients of class. So obviously there's money. You have to have a certain amount of wealth to be to sort of rise and achieve upward mobility or to be sort of accepted in higher social circles. But money alone isn't enough because if you win the lottery, it's not as if, now you're the elite. know, I, I, I work at a band. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like overnight you don't join the elites.

Auren Hoffman (03:30.06) Right. That Beverly hillbillies back in the day. Yeah.

Rob Henderson (03:38.83) And then the second component is education. know, did you receive an education at certain institutions, of exclusive institutions? And then finally, the third ingredient is cultural capital or habitus. You know, your tastes, your opinions, you know, how refined and cultivated your manners are. Do you fit in with this group? And so those are the three ingredients.

Auren Hoffman (04:02.554) But is like 100 % of people who go to Yale in the elite or is it 20 % or something like?

Rob Henderson (04:10.11) Yeah, well, it's interesting. mean, there's one of one way that sociologists measure social class is not your particular level of education as an individual, but your parents level of education and that your parents level of education is a stronger predictor of your political views and how you think about the world and your tastes and your habits and your interests more than your own level of education.

And so Ivy League institutions, something like 80 % of the students there are continuing generation students, meaning they had at least one parent who graduated from college and they've made efforts. mean, 20 % of the students now are first generation students at a lot of these institutions. And so I think under that sort of classic definition of social class though, that 20%, they are not members of the elite. Their children might be, you when I have kids, maybe someday they'll join the American elite, but you personally.

Auren Hoffman (04:54.36) Yeah, but they might not be when they graduate, but 10, 20 years after, there's a high likelihood they'll join the elite, right, or no.

Rob Henderson (05:05.402) Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, again, it depends on how you how you define the league because, there are always these fuzzy boundaries with social categories. But the thing is, so even if you track those students, those first generation students who went to Yale and compare them with continuing generation students who went to Yale and you track them over the course of their careers, those first generation students will always lag slightly behind in terms of their income, their earnings, occupational prestige, how quickly they get promoted, simply because they aren't as well equipped.

with all of the knowledge and all of the kind of exclusive access to information and the right social circles. I mean, I had friends who were first generation students at Yale who, for example, really wanted to get a finance internship. You they wanted to work at JPMorgan in one of these places, but they didn't know, you know, when the deadlines were to apply and who to ask for and how to prepare for interviews. And so on paper, their resumes looked the same as their peers, but they just didn't have the requisite information to rise in those kinds of organizations the way that the peers did.

Auren Hoffman (06:03.928) Remember that like varsity blues scandal where people were paying to get their kids and it was really interesting. I thought it was interesting. So they were like, let's say their kid was getting into like the number 30 school in the ranked school. They weren't going like a terrible school. Usually they're going to let's say the number 30 school. And then they would pay like a hundred million dollars or $20 million or something like that, or know, $5 million to get them to go from the number 30 school to the number 20 school or something like it always was interesting.

What was, what's, obviously like these are people already in the elite, if they could afford that much money, they were already, their kids are already going to be fine. Like they're already going to at least a number 30 school plus like their parents all had over a hundred million dollars. Like it's like, can't cry for these kids. Like what's going on in their mind? Like, why are they breaking the law and doing all these crazy things just to go up like 10 spots on the us news and world report for banking.

Rob Henderson (06:36.942) Hmm.

Rob Henderson (06:56.02) Yeah, well, I think it goes to your point earlier about how people will pay money in exchange for status, right? Like if money was the only thing that mattered, you know.

Auren Hoffman (07:01.976) And is that status is like, because you were saying before the status conferred about your parents. think for so many parents, the status is almost conferred about how good their kid is doing. It like goes the other way.

Rob Henderson (07:13.038) yes, yeah, there's this kind of cyclical, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, well I think that's what it is where, because a lot of these Hollywood stars, probably, you know, they may be treated as kind of Hollywood royalty, but you know, if they wanted to get their kids onto a certain kind of ladder among the ruling class or something, then it helps to go to an elite university. And so they were willing to shell out all this money.

Auren Hoffman (07:29.966) By the these weren't just Hollywood. a lot of those people, a lot of those people varsity blues for like, yeah, the number two or three guy at TPG, which is one of the biggest, you know, private equity funds that there were like serious people who are doing this thing.

Rob Henderson (07:38.349) AF.

Rob Henderson (07:44.782) Yeah, well I remember there was a friend of mine who, he's a college professor and he posted on Twitter something like, know, so he went to Yale and he was thinking, okay, am I gonna pay money to send my daughter to Yale? And he was doing the math, you the back of the envelope math of, well I'm paying X amount for tuition, X amount for living stipend, this, that and the other to get her there, or I could put this into some kind of trust and when she's, whatever, 35, she'll have, you know, some X number millions of dollars.

So is it worth it to pay half a million to send her to Yale now or wait 15 years and she'll have several million dollars without the degree? And the comments were like, but there are all these intangible benefits to going to a place like Yale, the circles, the privilege, the access, the kind of career ladders you're able to climb. What it does for, basically opens up all these doors for you that money alone can't open. And I think there is, that's probably going on a lot of people's minds when they're willing to literally break the law to send their kids to these institutions.

Auren Hoffman (08:20.538) Mmm.

Rob Henderson (08:37.802) and paying professional test takers to take the SAT for their kids and that kind of thing. was just, yeah, that was a crazy scandal.

Auren Hoffman (08:45.23) Now you, you originated the term luxury beliefs for, for our listeners who don't know what that is. Can you just like kind of quickly summarize it?

Rob Henderson (08:52.992) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I coined this term luxury beliefs, which are ideas and opinions that confer status on the affluent while often inflicting costs on the less fortunate members of society. And a core feature of a luxury belief is that the believer is sheltered from the consequences of his or her beliefs. And there are different kinds of sociological frameworks that I introduced to explain the idea, but you can trace it back to 1899.

They spoke the theory of the leisure class by Thorsten Weyblen. And Weyblen, who was an economist, he pointed out that, you know, in his day, elites would exhibit their status with luxury goods, know, expensive and delicate and restrictive clothing, tuxedos and evening gowns and those kinds of things, top hats and pocket watches. And then if you fast forward to the mid 20th century, Pierre Bourdieu and other sociologists pointed out that elites would often convert their economic capital into cultural capital.

which is kind what you and I have been discussing where, you know, wealthy people would take their money and then convert it into, you know, access to exclusive educational institutions and social circles, learning intricate and arcane knowledge about wine and art and exotic locations. And basically expressing this kind of knowledge meant that you were raised in an upper class family and that you had access to, you know, the right kinds of institutions and social circles and whatever.

If you fast forward to the present, my claim is that luxury beliefs are the latest expression of cultural capital. And there are specific examples we can get into, in example after example of a luxury belief, when I dig up survey data and statistics and so on, where you find that often the highest income Americans are most likely to espouse certain beliefs and opinions and support certain movements, while ordinary Americans and lower income Americans are the least in favor of these kinds of luxury beliefs.

In part because they are the ones who are going to be the most likely to bear the brunt of when those beliefs are implemented into policy or into culture.

Auren Hoffman (10:52.844) And you had a couple of examples, like defund the police or maybe like not promoting marriage or other types of things like that. are there, and most of those beliefs would be like, let's say somebody on the left more likely believing them on the rich person on the left. there, are there kind of like luxury beliefs that are more on the right?

Rob Henderson (10:59.372) Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Henderson (11:07.886) Mm.

Rob Henderson (11:16.462) Yeah, yeah, I think there are. And it's interesting, like when I, you when I left the military when I was 25 and I stepped foot on the campus of Yale in 2015, you know, at that time, there was this strange reconfiguration of our politics where, you know, a lot of people are familiar with the fact that in 2012, wealthy people generally tilted toward Romney over Obama. But then over the last decade or so,

there's been the shift in our politics where more and more high income people are voting for Democrats, whereas more working class people are tilting toward the Republican side. And so by the time I, you know, had access to elite institutions, I saw this, you know, reconfiguration. So it's possible that, you know, had I entered Yale 15 or 20 years ago, my examples of luxury beliefs would be very different. But it just so happens that, you know, a of the beliefs tend to be sort of more left coded. I suppose you mentioned defund the police disbelief that it's not important for children to be raised by two married parents.

and there are, think even, even now these, more kind of right coded conservative luxury beliefs, trickle down economics would be one example. You know, this belief that if you just let, you know, very, high income people keep all of their money, that somehow those benefits will redound to the benefit of other people. another example, and, and, you know, I know that like, you know, Silicon Valley, there's, I think generally people who work in tech tilt Democrat, but we're seeing more and more of them support the Republican side.

And the view that you can profit from selling lots of addictive technology to the masses, but then privately exercise very careful control over how you and your family use screens and devices and digital technology at home. And you see a lot of them. Yeah, exactly. Yep.

Auren Hoffman (12:52.398) Yep, that's a common one. Yep.

Yeah, that's really, that's, that's interesting. Now, now, you know, tech has gone through some sort of, at least some sort of ideological vibe shift. I think even just like a decade ago, think Peter Thiel and David Sachs, which are both previous world guests, they apologize for writing the diversity myth, which they wrote when they were in college. And then more recently they've apologized for apologizing. Like, how can you like break down this transition?

Rob Henderson (13:20.238) Hmm.

Rob Henderson (13:25.134) Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. you know, I think people are likely to respond to kind of political and ideological shifts with time. I mean, we saw this with Zuckerberg, right? After the 2016 election, Zuckerberg apologized for his policies and how he was handling Facebook and promised to identify misinformation and fake news and so on. And then more recently, he's been more favorable to Donald Trump in 2024. And now he's sort of

shifting his attention away from misinformation and adopting that kind of community notes approach that Elon Musk took with X. And I think that, you know, if you're, you know, economic elites often will respond to the political moment in order to form stronger alliances with whoever has power among the political elite. And so I think that's kind of what's happening now where, you know, now that we have a new administration and there's a, you know, mention the vibe shift that, you know, it may be wise to

to not piss off the existing administration too much, especially because I think the general belief and the general feeling, I think, of Trump the second time around is very different than the first time. I think the first time it was seen as a fluke and that we're just gonna sort of get through these four years and that was a blip in history and we'll get back on track. But now that he's been reelected, I think people recognize that this is a political movement that has some staying power and it may be wise to not...

support these politically correct woke movements as much anymore.

Auren Hoffman (14:55.844) Now a lot people say like, wokeness is peaked. Has luxury beliefs peaked?

Rob Henderson (14:59.342) I think wokeness generally has peaked. I don't think it's peaked in academia. I have friends who are still academics and they tell me horror stories that are as bad as ever. But generally in the culture I think it's peaked.

Auren Hoffman (15:13.05) And why do you think it's peaked in society but that hasn't trickled down to academia?

Rob Henderson (15:18.808) Yeah. Well, academia just attracts a very certain type of person and, they're driven, I think, often by ideology. There's no, think, unlike journalism, like you probably saw recently, like Jeff Bezos announced, you know, the opinion pages of the Washington Post are going to shift to a more sort of pro-liberty, pro-free markets stance. And even journalism, which attracts a similar type of personality to academia.

there's still a bottom line with journalism, right? You either have subscribers and you're making a profit or you aren't. Whereas in academia, there's no concern with profit. It really is this kind of, it's built on reputation. It's built on these kinds of citation rings. It's built on, know, do you get invited to the right conferences? Do you get your papers published in the right places? And so it's very different there. And people are just as vehement and ideologically driven as ever. But I don't think luxury beliefs have

I think maybe the specific beliefs, the specific examples may change over time. Like, defund the police, for example, that peaked maybe four four and a half years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I compare the luxury beliefs idea. I draw this parallel to fashion, where the idea of fashion will always be with us. What's fashionable? What's trendy? What's in style? That will be with us, but the specific clothing will change from season to season and year to year.

Auren Hoffman (16:22.326) Yeah, because it was a was a fad. It was more of a fad belief in a way.

Auren Hoffman (16:36.142) Yep.

Auren Hoffman (16:42.594) In fact, it almost has to be for luxury release because if it gets too popular, then you can't signal your class anymore. And so you have to move on to something else, right?

Rob Henderson (16:52.428) Yeah, yeah, I mean, know, like, like wokeness itself, you can trace that as a kind of luxury belief where I remember the the mid 2010s on elite college campuses, where the word woke was considered cool. Like people would say, like, stay woke, as in like, you know, you know, this is a cool term, we're all kind of in this clique. Let's let's stay woke. And then, you know, fast forward five, six, seven years later, and you have Sean Hannity on Fox News railing against the woke. It's like, that

Auren Hoffman (17:06.424) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (17:17.932) that term isn't cool anymore. Now, you the boomers know about it. Now the uncool people are talking about wokeness. we're, you know, then the line became wokeness doesn't exist or what's woke or I don't even know what you're talking about. And they move on to something else.

Auren Hoffman (17:20.768) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (17:30.712) Now, three of my favorite books are your book Troubled, Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance and the other Westmore by Westmore. And they all kind of tell almost a very similar story of someone kind of picking themselves up and learning over time and overcoming obstacles. It's almost like a truly American story. Like why, why does this resonate so much in America?

Rob Henderson (17:54.784) Yeah, we have this, you know, Horatio Alger, rags to riches, know, great Gatsby mythology. I just wrote this essay about F Scott Fitzgerald. think it'll be in the free press soon. And, you know, I just, have this, you know, this longing for those kinds of stories in fiction and in nonfiction of someone who starts from humble beginnings and just through, you know, a lot of effort and, you know, if you're fortunate enough to be blessed with some talent.

and a lot of luck and assistance along the way that, you know, we can achieve something and become greater than what we were. And I think like a lot of people, especially, the American dream is, you know, maybe you yourself can improve your life circumstances, or if you work really hard, your children can do better than you. And one thing I've noticed with readers of my book, a lot of the older readers who had similar circumstances to me, but they didn't.

have that sort of upward trajectory. Their lives started out not so great and never really got better, but they're doing everything they can to help their own kids to achieve a better life than they had. And, you know, they read books like mine or books like Wes Moore's or JD Vance's in order to learn the lessons and sort of remind themselves of the kinds of mistakes and pitfalls that you can experience when you're in those circumstances and then to help their children avoid them.

Auren Hoffman (19:14.252) One of the things is there's, there's kind of like two types of stories, both in fiction and in nonfiction that people gravitate to. One is the story, like the troubled, story where you have someone who really comes from nothing and, and, like legitimately comes from nothing and then it kind of makes it. The second one is almost this other story of somebody who, like they were born into royalty, but then by dint of their circumstance, they're like, they're, they're, they're poor.

and then they, know, but they have these like famous parents somehow or something. And then they, know, kind of like the Cinderella story or the Luke Skywalker story, or, know, they actually were born with these powers, these magical powers that have been, or something like that. and they just had to like someone else helped to help them realize it. And to me, the former one is so much more appealing than the, than the latter. because it's, it just seems, you know, cause most of us aren't

Born with anything. We don't have like secret. We're not like a secret prince or princess or something. Right.

Rob Henderson (20:17.486) Yeah, yeah, well, you yeah, it's funny like that that trope of like, you know, the the child who is born in seemingly humble beginnings, but then you discover that they have these, you know, they're born, you know, they're like Superman or something, they have these super powered parents on Krypton. You know, that's not that's not the reality. You know, I pointed out in my book that real life isn't a fairy tale. It's not a comic book. We somehow Yeah, that's appealing to us where, you know, I wrote this sub stack post a while ago.

Auren Hoffman (20:32.132) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (20:44.994) you know, I use the Captain America movies as an example, where you have this scrawny kid and then he just meets this magical scientist who injects him with this super soldier serum. And now he's this big buff superhero. And I'm like, that's not how reality works. And not only did he get injected with the serum and he's super strong, but then he suddenly knows like, like expert level hand to hand combat and combat arms training. And he knows how to use every weapon and that's just not the reality. And you never see him like sitting around.

like reading the US Army field manual or reading Klausowitz or Sun Tzu or anything. He just like knows everything about war and combat. yeah.

Auren Hoffman (21:19.5) Right. Like the Matrix is like that too. Like all of a sudden it's like, what, this is so silly. It's like he didn't even do that. He played a video game for like three hours and now he's like expert level fighter.

Rob Henderson (21:25.528) Yeah,

And it's not yeah, that's yeah, the reality is like obviously if you want to achieve something you have to have some base level of raw ingredients and talent and ability but it just takes you know endless amounts of hours to cultivate that and to bring that out in someone but even if you have a really bright little kid, you know, if they're not stimulated in the right way if they don't have role models and access to resources and those kinds of things that ability is never going to express itself and

I talk in trouble about how at one point in one of the foster homes, I I never learned how to read. And so, you know, they sent this psychologist to administer this IQ test and I scored way below average on the verbal section. And it wasn't cause I was dumb. It was just cause no one read to me and there were no books around and I was changing schools all the time. And so I think like that's, you know, that's like the, the, fantasy is one thing, but the reality, even if you have a kid with talent, it's, it's very different. It still requires a lot of effort and hard work.

Auren Hoffman (22:23.268) Now there's so many kids who have either one parent who's just completely overworked or they don't even have parents that are that are with them on a regular basis. Like how should we, what can society do better for these kids?

Rob Henderson (22:41.038) Yeah, well, you know, I think there are a few different things. mean, one that comes immediately to mind since we've been talking about, you know, spotting talent would be, I think the, well, there was this movement against standardized testing, which was another luxury belief that I could rip about. But I think that every high school should essentially make standardized testing, SAT or ACT mandatory and free.

I remember in high school, I never took the SAT because I learned that there was a testing fee and we didn't have much money when I was growing up. And so I didn't want to bother with the financial aspect of it. then like now I know that there are waivers and fee reductions and all these things for low income families. But the funny thing is like that information is like the least available to those very families, like how college works, how to apply and all those kinds. So I just think like, let's just make it free.

Auren Hoffman (23:31.002) Totally. Yeah.

Rob Henderson (23:36.404) and make every kid take it. And that's like a quick way, I think, to spot gifted young people who are, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There was a study out of the Chicago school system where they identified a lot more gifted kids once they started requiring kids to take standardized tests. And so before this implementation of the test, gifted students were identified through, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (23:40.986) Or low income, schools with low income, they could just pay for it, you know, through the school or something or whatever.

Auren Hoffman (24:01.011) Don't all schools, don't all schools in all states have some sort of standardized tests that even like second graders take and stuff like.

Rob Henderson (24:08.59) Probably, But I think like, something like the, well, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, and then I think e should, and they should administer something like the SAT to identify these kids and get them on track. But then the other thing I think is to concentrate more on family and what's really important for kids and supporting the emotional stability and security of young people. And that's one thing I try to point out in Troubled is that even if you have

Auren Hoffman (24:11.524) but they don't use it.

Rob Henderson (24:38.168) kids who grew up out like I did, whether in poor or dysfunctional or unstable situations, foster homes or what have you. Even if every single one of those kids goes off to college and earns a comfortable middle-class living, they're still carrying all of those really difficult experiences with them. And ideally we want to get to a place where fewer kids have to experience that in the first place. So I think we have to, people who have a lot of...

political or economic or social influence could do more to prize and prioritize things like marriage, things like, you know, supporting young families, supporting kids and ensuring that people are putting the needs of young people first to help them to be sort of emotionally secure and stable. And even if we focus only on that, more kids as a byproduct would end up going to college and achieving upward mobility.

anyway, know, Melissa Carney in her book, The Two Parent Privilege, she points out that the number one predictor of graduating from college is being raised by two married parents. I mean, that outperforms everything socioeconomic status, whether your parents went to college, anything like that. And so, you know, whether we're focused on what happens after the age of 18 or what is going on before, I think we should focus more on the family question too.

Auren Hoffman (25:55.386) No, you know, a lot of people talk about the decline in birth rates, but at least in the U S married women are having like roughly the same number of children as they were 25 years ago, but unmarried women are having like way fewer children. And of course fewer people are getting married. So there is this kind of like, it's both a problem, like we're having fewer kids as a society, but then at the same time, uh, as a percentage of kids, fewer of them are born to unmarried people.

Rob Henderson (26:09.901) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (26:21.038) Yeah, this is a fascinating analysis in The Economist that came out late last year, I think especially among people who spend a lot of time online and who read legacy media and college-educated people, they are focused on their own group. And they think, oh, the reason why the birth rate is declining, a lot of them think this, is because women are going off to college and they're delaying child rearing, and so fewer children are being born. But actually, college-educated women are having

just about not quite but just about as many children as they've ever had. Whereas it's poor and low income women who aren't having as many children. And it's funny a lot of people because I've been sharing this online and people will applaud this and say, oh, that's great that you know, if you're poor and unmarried, maybe you shouldn't have kids and this is a good thing. But I think there's another way to think about this, which is, you know, maybe by you know, we should be promoting marriage because if you're married people tend to not be as poor as as unmarried people.

And I know there's this discussion about, is it that wealthier people are more likely to get married or does marriage help you to make more money? I think it's a little bit of both. There is evidence of a treatment effect of if you get married, you are more likely to go and have higher earnings for lot of different reasons. And so if we promote marriage, then as a byproduct, we'll end up having more kids anyway, because most people want to get married first before they have kids. But there's been this interesting kind of generational shift where

You know, when I was a kid, there was a period in my childhood where I lived with two teenage girls, both of them were teen moms. you know, they had multiple kids with multiple different fathers, you know, didn't have a relationship with them. and now here we are, this is, know, 20 plus years later, those kids of those girls grew up and they're their twenties and they don't have any kids.

And, you on the one hand, it's great. Like you don't want to have kids if you're not ready for it, if you're not in a position in your life to have them. But on the other hand, if we as a society want, you know, people, children being born into healthy and happy circumstances, then we should promote people to form strong, sturdy relationships with one another.

Auren Hoffman (28:26.115) How do we promote, like what What What do we do to promote marriage? is that, like what could we do to do that?

Rob Henderson (28:33.378) Well, I think there are different ways to do it. think, you know, because I thought about this, you there have been successful public awareness campaigns that have changed the behavior over time. Like smoking, for example, you know, in the 1980s, about 40 % of Americans smoked at least one cigarette per day. And then through sort of a concerted effort to share information and knowledge with people.

a smoking is bad for you and sharing the statistics in the data and so on you know smoking doesn't just affect you it affects your people around you secondhand smoke and so on and grab their now today i think the number dropped from something like forty percent in nineteen eighties to about fifteen percent today i think we could do something similar some kind of public awareness campaign you know i when i was a kid in the nineties i remember turning on the tv and it was like every third commercial was like smoking is bad for you smoking is bad for you if we did like the reverse of that with marriage

which was like, know, marriage is good for you if you find the right partner, right? If you find the right partner, marriage is good for you. Marriage is good for you. And I also wondered, you know, a lot of governments are paying people to have kids, you know, to give people a stipend or some kind of financial incentive to have children. And it's been met with a very limited success with the exception, I think of countries like Hungary, but generally it's been, it hasn't been as successful as people thought it would. But I wondered if we could instead pay people to get married, you know, essentially like

Auren Hoffman (29:28.207) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (29:53.74) Yeah, we've been talking about status if we could like attach it to some kind of status thing like, you know, people do this with like, like grants, for example, but if we have like the the marital matrimony fellowship, and if you're a recipient of this, you get money, you get status, maybe you get featured in some magazine or something. And so now you know, you get the money, you're you're now a named fellow and you find a partner.

Auren Hoffman (30:06.074) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (30:18.158) And think this would incentivize people. I'm not talking about like enforced marriage or some kind of arranged marriage, but just find a partner. And if you find someone you like and you get married, you're going to get a, you know, a hundred thousand dollars deposited in your account and you'll be a fellow of whatever. And I wondered if that might be more effective because you get the financial incentive and the status increase.

Auren Hoffman (30:23.395) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (30:39.428) Cause what I mean in marriages in general, we're seeing at least in the U S the rate of marriage has gone down dramatically, but the rate of divorce has also gone down dramatically. So the people who are getting married are presumably happier in their marriages and there's, cause divorce is still just, is even easier to get today than it was in the past. So presumably they're happier. They're staying in a longer, like they're more fulfilling.

even though the marriage rates have gone down. So maybe just like the more committed people who really want to be married or getting married. and you know, getting divorced is not necessarily the best thing either in a child's life or, or, or sometimes people who get divorced don't even have kids. So we don't want this marriage. want marriages ideally that last at least for some period of time, right?

Rob Henderson (31:27.916) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think like, at a minimum, you want to, if you have kids, I think like, I guess I'm an up of a libertarian that if there are no kids involved and you enter a contract with another adult and then you want to break it, like, you know, fine, you're mutual agreement. But I think if there are kids involved, then you have to start prioritizing their needs. But then, you know, once they leave the house, you know, I guess like from that point, you know, again, like it's, you know, just adults making decisions, but

Yeah, think, you know, we would want, you're right, that I think the reason why divorce rates have declined is because fewer people are getting married in the first place and the people who are getting married tend to be conscientious and, you know, lot of self-control, you know, willingness to commit to something.

Auren Hoffman (32:06.938) Yeah. And those people are also getting married later and maybe later they're a little bit more mature. Sometimes if you get married when you're 21, you may, you may have, you may be more immature or just may, you may pick the wrong partner or other types of things.

Rob Henderson (32:10.734) Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Rob Henderson (32:20.682) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, now we have this, everyone used to follow the very same life script, regardless of class, regardless of political orientation, money background that, you you, you know, you reach a certain age, you go to college, high school, maybe college, you get married and you have kids and you have that family. And now marriage is just one option among many. And, you know, the sad thing is that once it became an option among many, there are like, I talked to a lot of young people now where they tell me that

they would like to find a partner, they would like to get married. Like I talked to especially young women in particular, college educated young women are having a really tough time finding a partner and they want marriage, but it's just, you now that we've removed marriage as like the default goal of dating, you you don't date just to date and have fun. People used to date to find someone, settle down and get married. And people I think out there are having some difficulties with, you know, these sort of upheavals.

Auren Hoffman (33:13.338) But when you, when you talk to these college educated women, they say they want marriage, but then when you ask them like, who are you looking for? They're looking for this like narrow unicorn almost, you know, there's very, very hard to find and assume that narrow unicorn has gazillion options. So, it's, it's almost like asking, okay, who do you want to marry? I want to only marry a supermodel or something. Okay. Well, like good luck. and so there is something like where people have to, they have to

Rob Henderson (33:25.774) Mm.

Rob Henderson (33:34.562) Hmm.

Auren Hoffman (33:41.558) There, there's like, if someone is, is 40 years old and they really want to get married for 10 years and they're not married, like it, there's something, it's not necessarily the market. It's something about them too, they're choosing right or no.

Rob Henderson (33:53.582) Yeah, no, no, I think that's right. mean, I think we've had, this is this is like any kind of deregulated system, power laws tend to apply. And so, you know, generally let the gains accrue to a small percentage of people. And this is true in like, like, completely like, like, know, an anarcho capitalist society, like, know, you play Monopoly long enough, one person ends up with all the money. And I think with we had something similar happen with relationships.

where we have a more like an increasingly deregulated dating marketplace. And now with the introduction of apps where, you there's like this frictionless way to meet more and more people, you know, like guys who, like you mentioned this unicorn, you know, the guy who's really tall and really handsome and really successful. A lot of women would like to date that guy, but because so many women want to date him and because men being how they are, are reluctant to settle down when they have lots of options, then, you know, this creates this, this frustrated, you know, for frustrated group of large, young women.

who are trying to find a guy. I think there's also this message in society about how you shouldn't settle. You should find someone, you should find someone who you like, and you shouldn't go for anything less than that. And I think there's this, that's at odds with reality where whether it's a job or a partner or where you live or anything, there are always going to be these bounded constraints as far as how great something is going to be. And you have to be realistic about yourself and your resources and your means.

And then from that point, you can, think, make a more reasonable decision instead of waiting for that, you know, the dream job or the dream partner or the dream house or something.

Auren Hoffman (35:28.602) Yeah, it's interesting when you talk to people who are like looking to be in a relationship and you ask them, okay, like what are your deal breakers? And they'll sometimes name like the most trivial thing. You know, it's one thing it's like, okay, yeah, like, okay, the person comes and they're, you know, they're high on heroin and they beat me all the time. Okay. That, that seems like a legitimate deal breaker or something. They'll be like, ah, they, you know, they don't like the right comedy or something. Yeah. Or they don't like to ski or it's like,

Rob Henderson (35:54.814) I'm just kidding.

Auren Hoffman (35:54.894) People have so many random deal breakers that are out there that just seemed like pretty crazy.

Rob Henderson (36:00.832) Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, there's this whole discourse, you know, I don't know how online it is, but I will say like, when I talk to young people in real life, you know, social media bleeds over. And so like, you know, this whole red flags and, you know, giving someone the ick and all this kind of stuff, like, they don't, yeah, they don't like to ski or they eat their food in a certain way or their favorite movie is X and

Auren Hoffman (36:21.582) Yeah, totally.

Rob Henderson (36:23.342) you all these red, or like, you you may have seen some of these on Twitter where it's like, I saw this guy, he had these books on his bookshelf, that's a red flag, you need to get out of there. And the books are often like very inoffensive. It's like, he has George Orwell on his bookshelf, that's a red flag. I don't know, it's strange. yeah, Orwell's a red flag now. But I think, yeah, people need to be a bit more reasonable about this. And when I talk to...

Auren Hoffman (36:36.057) Right.

Are you sure? Really? Yeah.

Rob Henderson (36:48.354) You know, when I talk to especially reflective and smart young women, they're aware of this. But a lot of people, know, they just haven't, that thought hasn't arisen in their mind and they haven't really reasoned with it yet that, you know, every, like there's no perfect person. You know, we all have flaws, we all have imperfections and shortcomings. And if you want a partner to settle with, especially as you grow older, you're going to have to make compromises along the way. And so, yeah, that's not a message though that we often hear.

Auren Hoffman (37:17.486) Now, now, at the flip side, men are reporting like way higher rates of loneliness than women. Like, why is that happening?

Rob Henderson (37:24.393) Hmm. Well, I mean, there are individual personality differences between men and women, which may explain why there's this loneliness gap where men are generally lonelier than women. know, women tend to be a bit more sociable. They tend to have larger friend groups. You know, this is an interesting finding from the Oxford psychologist, Robin Dunbar, where he finds that, you know, women tend to have like a tight knit kind of group of friends, like a friend group.

Whereas men are more likely to have like a best friend or like one or two friends. when women have friends, they are more likely to stay in touch with them. They'll text them, they'll call them, they'll be sort of more involved with their friends' lives. also tend to form deeper relationships with those friends because they're more likely to talk about personal topics. Whereas men are more likely to shy away from personal topics and talk more about work or talk more about topics that don't necessarily help to like cultivate those deep, deep relationships.

And then when men have friends, yeah, yeah, sports or yeah, when they hang out with their friends, it's usually an activity. There's this phrase, like face to face relationships versus shoulder to shoulder relationships. And guys, we tend to do shoulder to shoulder. I mean, it's interesting, even when two guys talk to one another, they're more likely to stand at like a 45 degree angle where they'll kind of be tilted like slightly towards each other, but still facing forward, like away from each other. Whereas when a man and a woman communicate with one another.

Auren Hoffman (38:23.066) sports or something or whatever.

Auren Hoffman (38:35.48) Yeah, yep.

Auren Hoffman (38:51.416) Like a Parisian cafe kind of thing. Like you're kind of like looking at the sidewalk, but looking at each other. Yeah.

Rob Henderson (38:53.71) Yeah, yeah.

Exactly, Whereas with men and women, like when a man talks to a woman, they are comfortable with face-to-face discussion. When two women talk to each other, they're comfortable with face-to-face discussion. But yeah, I think there are kind of personality differences and then just differences in the way we approach our friendships. you know, I think just, yeah, you're seeing this now with young guys where no one teaches you how to make friends too. So I think like once a lot of young people leave,

school once they leave college and they enter the work world. know, college makes things so much easier. This is something I tell young people too, is like, you know, there's this artificial environment where like everyone around you is the same age as you. So it's like easy to find a romantic partner. It's easy to find friends. It's just easy to like find your people that you're comfortable with and who have the same interests as you and are at the same stage in their life course as you.

Auren Hoffman (39:37.529) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (39:49.368) But then you enter the work world and not only are young people not fully equipped to find a partner, but also friendships. A lot of people have a surprising kind of difficulty with that because there isn't a lot of guidance on either of those things.

Auren Hoffman (40:01.466) The women are now way overrepresented in higher education. A lot of these colleges have 50 % more women than men. UCLA, think, has 60-40 women. Med schools are even more extreme. I think UCSF has two to one women. I think it's 66-33 women and men. What do you think is going to be like? And obviously, this is all very recent. This is all just happened in the...

you know, last decade or so. What do you think are going to be like some of these second order effects of that?

Rob Henderson (40:37.356) Yeah, it's going to be interesting. a lot of, I've talked to administrators and people who work in admissions committees at universities and they more or less freely admit now that they practice a version of affirmative action for male applicants, where essentially if you have a male applicant, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (40:52.65) yeah, I've heard it's like in many colleges, it's somewhere between 100 to 200 SAT point difference between men and women.

Rob Henderson (41:01.262) Yeah, which is like, it's wild because, you know, up until I think the 1980s, men outnumbered women, you know, for, you know, because of sexism and prejudice and so on, there were way more men in colleges. And then in the 80s, it reached parity. And ever since then, it's been tilting more and more towards women. But what I've also heard is that if a college campus dips below 40 % male, then that college attracts fewer female applicants.

Auren Hoffman (41:30.434) Of yeah, that's why they have to do the affirmative action. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Henderson (41:30.444) because women want to meet men too. They want to go to college to get an education, but you also want to go to meet a romantic partner and to date and those kinds of things too. And so as this goes on, because it seems like it's becoming harder to find those male applicants, and even if you give them an extra one or 200 points on the SAT in terms of how you treat their application, they still are having difficulties. So we may reach this point now where

College itself may become less important. We probably will see sort of mixed education marriages where women are more likely to date or to marry guys who didn't go to college but who are still successful otherwise in their careers. You know, we're already seeing kind of these interesting experiments and disruptions in higher education. And so, yeah, I just think like college as a status symbol.

in general, probably will weaken. You the signal of that degree will weaken over time. But for all probably, but like certain elite institutions, think like the cache will probably be there to some extent, but generally college itself will probably become less important. And then, yeah, I wonder if, you know, as I mean, I'm hoping this will correct itself at dating itself seems to be more increasingly difficult on college campuses because of that gender skew.

more women than men and that there will be a way to resolve that as well.

Auren Hoffman (42:59.096) It's also a lot of people, think men more likely than women tend to be later bloomers on the, though certainly a lot of women are that way as well. It's kind of unfair to like judge someone when they're 17. and kind of, you know, their whole trajectory of their life is judged by a few things that they do in their 17 where a lot of times people are still maturing. Then they're, you know, they're, they're, they're, they, I meet a lot of people.

who when they were 17, they were just in completely backward situations. they, you even when you read your book at 17, you never would have predicted your success, right? But even not even that extreme, I may have good parents, they may have other types of things when they're 17, but they're just not ready. And they go work at the local fast food place. And then, you know, and then just by dint of just their own curiosity, they later start reading and they later start, they weren't academic in high school or

middle school, then they, and then, and then slowly. And, probably so many people are not even given the chance to go do that. Like as a society, we're just, it's so hard if you're not on that track when you're 17 to like later get on it.

Rob Henderson (44:10.39) Yeah, yeah. And I've had this conversation with other late bloomers too that, yeah, like you mentioned, man, I think that in particular, that was one of the things that Richard Reeves has recommended as a policy proposal about redshirting boys, like starting them in school, I think one year later compared to girls. So, know, boys would start kindergarten at six instead of five or something like that. Whereas girls will continue to start at five because girls tend to be a little bit more mature and conscientious than the boys.

But yeah, this is like a surprisingly common, the late bloomer thing.

Auren Hoffman (44:39.726) And certainly at elite private schools that already happens quite a bit. yes, if you have like a, let's say you have a July cutoff, you may have girls who are born July, August, September who are still in that class, but it's like the first boy who's in that class is usually November or something like that.

Rob Henderson (44:44.708) interesting. Okay.

Rob Henderson (45:02.574) Hmm.

Auren Hoffman (45:04.001) And then the rest of them are kind red-shirted and they're kind of like they'll go with it. So they'll be like old for the other class.

Rob Henderson (45:10.734) Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in my case, it was the reverse where I was slightly young. I graduated high school when I was 17. And so, you know, that may have have contributed as well to kind of my, you know, delayed development. But yeah, I think there are a lot of young guys out there who are later bloomers, and it takes them a while to find their footing, especially when you, you know, are kind of raised in the kind of circumstances that I was if you grew up in a low income or deprived your dysfunctional environment where

Maybe there is some innate ability or something in you that wants to succeed, but you know, when you're young and a little bit immature and have difficulties with impulse control and you're surrounded by temptation all around you, it's just hard to focus. But I think that, you know, one way, one way to identify and maybe sort of accelerate success for even for late bloomers is to put them in a more.

stable and cultivated and rigid environment the way that I was in the military. I didn't really recognize my own curiosity and interest in those kinds of things until I was in a place that was predictable and stable and I had good mentors and role models and people around me. the whole time I was in high school or up until I was 17, really, I didn't meet, I don't think I met a single other young guy who liked to read books for pleasure. I was the only one among my friends and I wasn't like,

Auren Hoffman (46:18.618) Mm-hmm.

Rob Henderson (46:35.926) embarrassed about it. I would read, you know, but they thought I was a little bit of an oddball. They didn't like, it wasn't like merciless teasing or anything, but they would say like, Oh, you weirdo, you like to read. And then I get to the military and I met like smart guys in the Air Force who likes to read books and novels and fiction and nonfiction. And I have conversations with them and I'm like, Oh, like it just felt nice to be around other smart people who like to talk about ideas. And so, you know, I think that there's just, there's gotta be a way to find more of those kids and put them in environments where, they can flourish.

Auren Hoffman (46:54.947) Yeah, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (47:06.042) You have like in some ways in college, you have almost tail of two. You have the elite schools, the Yales, the Harvard's, the Stanford's of the world. my guess is there's still going to be a very important signaling thing in the future. And those will still be places people want to go. But then you've got maybe another tier down the, I don't know, the Villanovas of the world. Like they're good, they're fine schools, but they don't like confer the same type of status on someone unless you're like a big.

basketball fan or something. and those to me seem like they're going to have way less import in the future. Do you agree or kind of disagree?

Rob Henderson (47:47.726) Yeah, it's so hard now, and I'm sure you've been reading a lot and hearing a lot about AI too. And I just think like predicting the future is so like, I don't even know. I can see arguments on both sides. can see on the one hand, you could say, well, yeah, because education is shifting and because the signal is weakening that people are less likely to go. But then on the other hand, I could say like, you know, because AI is taking over and because we're going to need like some evidence of human competence.

Auren Hoffman (47:55.354) It's so impossible. Yeah.

Rob Henderson (48:16.822) in one form or another, even if it's imperfect, even if it's an inefficient way to signal that competence, you know, such as getting a four year bachelor's degree, that at least it's something. And so I could also see the argument almost going the other way where you want more people to go to college because otherwise, how else are you going to stand out and differentiate yourself in a world where, you know, things are increasingly controlled by robots? So, you know, I just, I just really don't know. do think like generally, at least in terms of a signal for like intelligence,

I remember growing up when I was a kid thinking everyone who went to college was smart. That was the belief because most of the adults around me didn't go to college. Whether in real life or watching TV shows, college was like, smart kids go to college. You got to get ace to go to college. Now I grew up and I meet people who went to college and I'm like, a lot of these people aren't that smart. I think it's increasingly true.

Auren Hoffman (49:10.586) Right, right. I don't even know if there's a correlation. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Henderson (49:14.476) Well, yeah, seems increasingly less, know, the correlation becomes weaker. So at least as a signal of intelligence, probably not, but maybe as a signal of like conscientiousness or as a signal of ambition or something else that college may still have some kind of value.

Auren Hoffman (49:29.658) And finishing college is also a whole, it's not just going, but finishing is, is that might mean like you need some sort of stability, maybe familial stability and other types of things to make it happen as well.

Rob Henderson (49:34.626) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (49:43.104) Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I also wonder if there's...

Auren Hoffman (49:45.06) So there's a class, there's a way of at signaling your class in some way.

Rob Henderson (49:49.578) Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I think like, you know, kind of like, middle tier universities, though, I don't think they're gonna go away. But I do I do wonder about like the degree mills, you know, these for profit predatory schools, like, you know, I think like those a lot of them did end up shutting down during during the pandemic anyway, but I think more and more of them, you know, they're going to attract fewer applicants.

Auren Hoffman (50:16.238) Yeah. Cause in some ways, the people would never pay for any of these things with, if you didn't get the piece of paper at the end. like they're not often paying for the learning they're paying for, know, when I buy your book, I'm not, I don't get a piece of paper saying I read the book, you know, and I can't brag to my friends about it. I'm paying because either it's entertaining or I'm going for the knowledge or, you know, et cetera. But when people are going to college, like the main reason they're going.

Rob Henderson (50:25.718) Yes.

Rob Henderson (50:34.637) Hehe.

Auren Hoffman (50:44.586) usually is because they want that piece of paper they can put in their resume.

Rob Henderson (50:50.806) Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've come across Brian Kaplan's work on the case against education. And he points out like, you know, if you're really paying for an education, then why do students cheer when the professor cancels class? You know, because you're technically being deprived of a lecture that day, you're being deprived of the education you're paying for. But really, if all that matters is that piece of paper at the end, then of course you're going to be happy that class was canceled because you get the paper without putting in the effort. And yeah, I think there's something to that.

Auren Hoffman (50:54.69) Yes, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (51:06.542) Right.

Auren Hoffman (51:13.347) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (51:19.788) I mean, I'm hoping, you know, there may be more, there may be other efficient ways of, you know, identifying promising young people without having to go through that, you know, kind of obnoxious four year process. I mean, there are ways to identify smart kids through testing, but then, you know, what you mentioned before, like one of the things about the four year degree is like class, conscientiousness, you know, who your family is.

And, you know, if there's a quick way to test that, it seems less clear because part of the signal of commitment and conscientiousness and willingness to stick with something is actually having to do that for solid four years. so, but I think, well, one thing that I think helped me quite a bit when I was applying to college at a much later age was because I had been in the military.

And that too is a kind of signal, right? Like you sign a contract, you serve it, you're honorably discharged, and that too kind of sends a signal. So I think like, you know, for a lot of young guys out there, and young women too, depending on your circumstances too, you for both men and women, that, you know, if you don't want to go to college right away and you have that kind of, you know, sense of wanting to do something interesting and exciting and, you there

Auren Hoffman (52:14.456) Yes, yep.

Rob Henderson (52:35.134) kind of the immediate direct experiences of enlisting, but then there are the kind of indirect experiences and the kind of signaling value of having served to that that goes a long way. And those things, think a lot of young people don't think too much about that. But, you know, in a world where increasingly fewer people are serving, it stands out, which may be another reason you pointed out, you know, Wes Moore's book, Jay Vance's book, and my book that, you know, something about the military, you know, it does do a good job of, of enhancing upward mobility. And one thing that I've pointed out in the past is that

a lot of colleges, you know, they claim to be egalitarian and they claim to help with upward social mobility, but often what they really do, especially the elite universities, is recapitulate social divides. You know, part of the reason why these institutions exist is to stratify people by class and education and socioeconomic status. Whereas the military, it's almost the reverse.

where the military is explicitly hierarchical. It's not egalitarian. They don't pay lip service to equality or anything. It's like literally a hierarchy. And if you're at the bottom of it, you get treated badly. And as you rise, you get treated better. And yet, despite the fact that it's an explicit hierarchy, it indirectly enhances upward social mobility. Because once you get out of the military, you're often in a much better position to enter the middle class. So there's this kind of interesting opposing function of

what it explicitly is versus what it actually helps to produce in the real world.

Auren Hoffman (54:01.452) Now, if you think of like a college degree, that still has just like a massive amount of value to people. But a master's degree, seems like that over the last 40 years, that value has declined. And maybe even the value today is negative in many cases. Like if you just saw someone with like a master's, like a BA in history, might be cool. A master's in history might be a big negative signal to a lot of folks.

Rob Henderson (54:08.941) Hmm.

Auren Hoffman (54:30.146) Like, and fewer and fewer people are getting master's degrees. the, the, it's certainly not economically advantaged for many people to go get that. Like what's happening there.

Rob Henderson (54:43.168) Yeah, well, I've actually seen interesting research on this that a master's degree may actually penalize future earnings depending on the discipline, particularly in a lot of the humanities and some of the social sciences that it's actually in terms of how much it costs to obtain the degree and then, you know, what your job prospects look like after. Yeah, but it actually may be negative. But yeah.

Auren Hoffman (55:04.046) and not being in the workforce during that time. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (55:09.892) I mean, even MBA degrees, like outside of a small number of schools, MBA is probably a net negative for almost, for most of the people, let's say 80 % of the people who get an MBA, it's probably at this point, it's probably negative where it used to be positive for almost a hundred percent. It's just really shifted. And then even like law degrees, like, okay, maybe the top 20, 30 schools, it's positive, but it's now negative for a lot. So it's real. So even those more technical degrees, seems like the

Rob Henderson (55:25.826) Interesting.

Auren Hoffman (55:38.798) those degrees are less good than they once were.

Rob Henderson (55:43.214) Yeah, yeah, that is well, yeah, I wonder if it'll just. Yeah, yeah, well, I wonder if it'll just take time for the market to correct itself because, you know, it's only I would say recently, maybe in the last five or 10 years that there's been this growing recognition that, you know, education is a kind of signaling arms race where if everyone has a bachelor's degree, then no one does, you know, and so when I was a kid, you know, high school 1520, you know, yeah, 1520 years ago now.

Auren Hoffman (55:44.942) And maybe because they're so much more plentiful.

Rob Henderson (56:12.716) where the belief was everyone should go to college, more education is always better. The more degrees, the better, and it's an investment in your future. And I think now people are recognizing slowly that actually, continuing to go to school, continuing to get degrees isn't necessarily the best move and that there are other ways to more wisely and efficiently spend your time. If getting a better job is the goal, I do know some people who just enjoy it.

getting lots of degrees and they just like going to school but most people aren't like that. Yeah, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (56:41.7) Sure, yeah, yeah, then great, good for you. A couple of personal questions. What is a conspiracy theory that you believe?

Rob Henderson (56:50.894) conspiracy theory that I believe. man. Okay, this is gonna be tough because I'm generally skeptical of conspiracy theories in general, although they do exist. I mean, it's funny. you know, yeah, we have, you know, there are cases in which they, they really do exist. You know, I, I don't have a, let me see, do I have a conspiracy theory that I, that I believe, you know, we've been talking about education. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (57:03.258) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (57:18.286) mean, in ways, in some ways, like luxury beliefs is kind of a conspiracy, right?

Rob Henderson (57:24.47) Yeah, although I guess the difference would be like, I'm not necessarily claiming like, like elites all get together in a smoke filled room and say here are the beliefs we're all going to believe to her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, kind of this weird organic situation where, you know, like very quickly for a moment, it was the fashionable belief to say we need to reimagine policing and change, change law enforcement. And that was like the prevailing fashionable view for like six months. And then we thank God we moved past that.

Auren Hoffman (57:30.554) Yes, yeah. Let's keep the masses down. Yeah.

Rob Henderson (57:52.686) And so I think like, you know, one possible conspiracy, and this is one that, you I guess by definition, you don't necessarily have evidence, is there is this weird thing where for a while, a lot of the GI bill money for military veterans was going to for-profit schools. Like the majority of people who use their GI bill were going to for-profit schools. The majority of it. Yeah. And I think I've tweeted about this. I could, I'll dig up that paper. But because it's the easiest, right? Like a lot of these for-profit schools,

Auren Hoffman (58:11.16) Majority? wow.

Auren Hoffman (58:21.432) Yeah, yep.

Rob Henderson (58:22.318) It's almost the reverse, like an elite college, the acceptance rate is like 4%, but the graduation rate is 99%. For for-profit schools, it's the reverse, where the acceptance rate is 99%, but the graduation rate is 4%. And so they'll take your money, and they'll happily allow you to take all the classes. But very few people end up graduating, in part because a lot of these classes are online, they're unstructured, there's not a lot of accountability. And I do wonder if there was some kind of a...

you know, some kind of a collaborative effort to basically say like, well, one way we can prop up this institution is to form a partnership with, you know, the military tuition and with the GI bill and with these government programs. And essentially it was a transfer directly from the government to these predatory colleges. And, you know, one thing I try to tell veterans because, you a lot of them will ask me about, you know, advice for college. And I would say, you know, go to a, go to a not-for-profit.

Auren Hoffman (58:52.91) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (59:15.842) College, go to your flagship state school, go to whatever school you can, but don't go to some weird degree mail that's online. So that's, I'm a little conspiratorial about that one.

Auren Hoffman (59:26.183) I believe that that that actually makes sense to me. last question we ask all of our guests, what conventional wisdom or advice, and we've already talked about a lot of these things. Do you think is generally bad advice?

Rob Henderson (59:37.646) conventional advice that's bad advice, know, one that comes to mind is, is never give up. You know, there are cases in which I think, you know, if you really want something and you want it more than anything, then keep going. But I think a lot of people, know, they, kind of, they mistakenly think that, I started it and now I got to finish it. And, know, you could, you could bring this down to something as small as a book, you know, well, I started this book, now I got to finish it. But there's, you know, there's always opportunity costs.

Auren Hoffman (59:59.162) Yeah.

Rob Henderson (01:00:06.732) And if the book you're reading sucks, just stop and read another one. There's better ways to spend your time and your effort and your resources and attention. Yeah. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (01:00:10.2) Yeah. Yeah. Even a movie, right. Or something like that. It's interesting. When my wife and I used to go to the theaters, we would have like us because sometimes you don't know then like whether you really don't like the movie or something like that. And so we would have like a signal to one another and we'd stay up like what at least one of us wanted to stay. But if like both of us wanted to leave.

And you don't want to find out after the movie. wow. was, I want to leave like halfway in or something like, then you should just like take out, you know.

Rob Henderson (01:00:42.402) Yeah, yeah, yeah. think that's, yeah, that's one. And then a related one that just came to mind was, you know, which is kind of related to how you spend your time. think like there are cases in which time can be worth more than money. Like if you can find ways to spend money to save time, depending on your circumstances, I think that's, that can be worth it too. I remember when I was in Airman Leadership School, I was 23 years old. So was going through this training program to become a non-permissioned officer. And the instructor for this class,

was this Filipino American guy who he had served some time in prison and then got out and then was able to get a waiver to enlist and completely change his life. And I remember I was telling him after class, like, he's like, what are your plans today, Henderson? And I'm like, I got to get back. I got to clean my apartment. And he was like, you why are you cleaning your apartment? He's like, how much is your time worth? You got to get a cleaner, man. Like, what are you doing? And I'm like, like that thought never even occurred to me to have a, it seemed like such an outrageous, outlandish luxury to have someone clean my apartment. And I'm 23 years old and I'm like,

Auren Hoffman (01:01:32.922) I

Rob Henderson (01:01:40.042) think I should get a cleaner and he was like, yeah, you know, you could spend that time, you know, doing other things. You could be studying for this class, you could be preparing for your career, getting promotion, whatever you're and I'm thinking to myself like, wow, okay. And I'm like, you know, at that point, I was like just in a financial position where I could do it. And so I ended up going through with it and I've never not had a cleaner since then. So it out to be a great, a great decision. And so, so I think that's another one is once you reach a certain point, it may be worth it to spend money to save time.

Auren Hoffman (01:01:49.155) wow, interesting.

Rob Henderson (01:02:09.528) But think there's a common conventional view out there that do everything you can to save every dollar you can, and that's not always the best choice.

Auren Hoffman (01:02:16.602) Well, this has been great. Thank you, Rob Henderson for joining us on world of DaaS. By the way, I follow you at Rob K Henderson on X. I definitely encourage our listeners to engage with you there. I encourage our listeners to access your sub stack, which I love as well. Uh, this has been a ton of fun and super interesting.

Rob Henderson (01:02:34.52) Thank you, Auren. This has been great.