Why Going Bald Was an Erotic Journey for Me: Scott Galloway

Scott Galloway, serial entrepreneur and the author of the newly released Notes on Being a Man, has a lot to say about the bald experience.

The famously clean-shaven 60-year-old New York University professor talked all things grooming as he walked through London’s Marylebone neighborhood. His destination: the barber he frequents once a week, where he has “a big hairy man manhandle his head and rub [his] arms and burn hair out of [his] ears.”

Galloway spoke to Joanna Coles, the Daily Beast’s Chief Creative and Content Officer, about wellness, makeup, GLP-1s, and the “kind of erotic” experience of finally shaving his head.

Galloway, who hosts “The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway” podcast and touts 1.3 million followers on Instagram, informed Coles that he used to have “Cher-like” hair in his youth, even long enough for a ponytail, which gave him confidence.

Then, his built-in confidence booster started to fall out. “I remember in graduate school, studying finance, and thinking, ‘I don’t remember underlining this chapter,’” Galloway said. A realization rapidly dawned on him, though: “It’s not underlined, it’s my hair.”

Eventually, Galloway got into the habit of cutting his hair shorter and shorter as it kept receding and thinning. When asked whether he ever spoke to people about his experiences with hair loss, Galloway said no.

“As an alpha male, raising money and starting companies, I had no vulnerabilities or weaknesses, so I would never admit I was insecure,” he said. “I just started wearing hats all the time.” Galloway also confessed to using minoxidil, an over-the-counter hair loss treatment at the time, but keeping it quiet.

Galloway recalled a night in Hawaii with his wife when the pair, “under the influence of a ton of alcohol and marijuana,” purchased a clipper and seven razors. “We shaved my head…it was somewhat like, illuminating and kind of [an] erotic experience.”

Post-shave, Galloway said, his baldness rapidly went from being a bug to a feature, as he joked that he could raise more money for his companies. “When you had a shaved head in the nineties in San Francisco in the internet generation, people assumed you were much smarter than you were.”

His advice to currently balding men: commit.

“Lean into it,” he urged. “Having hair is great, being bald is great. It’s the in-between that sucks. Get rid of the in-between.”

Galloway also told Coles about the importance of appearing well-groomed professionally and socially. “Fitness and grooming are the easiest ways to signal you have your shit together and people can trust you to procreate with or to be fiduciaries for their capital or be a responsible employee,” Galloway said. “It’s kind of like saying, ‘I show up for me, which means I can show up for you.’”

Galloway touched upon the rise of weight-loss drugs. “I think the most impactful technology in terms of impacting people’s emotional well-being and maybe even their financial well-being is not GPT-5, it’s GLP-1,” Galloway told Coles.

Galloway went on to say that “if you look at the $300 to $400 billion a year in obesity-related healthcare costs...the best thing we could do, the most accretive thing we could do economically and emotionally for Americans, would be quite frankly, to address how overweight we’ve become,” noting that more than 70% of Americans are categorized as overweight or obese.

When it comes to his beauty routine, Galloway keeps it simple. “I wake up and I splash water on my face. And then once a week, I go to Ted Baker and again, have some big man groom me,” he said, referring to the London-based salon that features Turkish grooming techniques such as the theatrical flame-in-ear hair removal.

Galloway isn’t afraid to use the occasional bit of makeup, too. “Sometimes I do use bronzer if I’m going out and want to do away with the grayish ‘near-death’s-door’ look,” he told Coles.

His current health stack includes vitamin A, vitamin D, NAD, and creatine, and he works out four times a week—a regimen any longevity expert would admire. As for his plans for aging, Galloway isn’t ruling out facelifts in the future: “100 percent, I will absolutely do one.”