Episode 27

This week, Paul laments the Death of the Frontman. Years back, a handsome, well-spoken man in a suit could move mountains. He was in demand as the head of a company, the rainmaker at a law firm, a schmoozer in accounts at the Ad Agency – the many Don Drapers that greased the wheels of industry. Are there still roles like that in society? In an increasingly meritocratic and tech-driven economy, it seems substance is rising above style. Witness Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs or Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire creator of Facebook. Rare is the showman like Steve Jobs whose charisma and flair can entrance customers, employees and investors. Paul makes the case that the final two bastions of the handsome frontman are Hollywood and the Oval Office. Next, the guys discuss middle-age men getting back in the game, and the difficulty of developing a posse at that age. There are a number of reasons for this, and the men identify the challenges faced by men in such a position. Paul brings up a final point that men who really want to play the game after forty face a ton of social stigmatization (i.e. shaming – something that, in a classic double-standard, rarely affects single, middle-aged women) which affects those most “socially embedded” – an idea first touched upon in Episode 24.