We now worship at the altar of innovation and youth, versus character or kindness.

Scott Galloway is a famous professor at my school (New York University), who teaches brand strategy at the Stern School of Business. He is also the cohost of Pivot, a weekly podcast about recent events, tech news, and finance. In The Algebra of Happiness, Galloway digs deeper into what he defines to be the formula for a life well lived. While it is impossible to define happiness and a perfect route to achieve it for everyone, Galloway explores his definition and guides the readers through some of life’s toughest questions.

This book is essentially a longer version of the podcast/class version that he previously taught. While this book doesn’t cover anything revolutionary, he throws in a lot of insightful anecdotes to drive in certain points. He opens about his relationships with his parents, his failures throughout his career, and how he tries to teach his children. Additionally, the connections that he draws through simple mathematic equations is also quite clever. For instance, the chapters are titled: “If (Money In) - (Money Out) > 0, you are rich” to “Serendipity = a function of courage”. As someone who loves math, I found the analogies that Galloway drew to be very thoughtful.

I can see though that despite liking the overall message of this book, some might find his style of writing to be more so targeted to men and brash. His ego does show quite a bit, and often times it can feel that his personality can come off poorly.

Overall, this book felt like a short collection of stories with a couple insightful messages embedded into it. As someone who always feels stuck in life, I really admired this book and the overview it provides from someone much older than myself.

Overall Rating: 6/10