WEBVTT - Scott Shay 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.640 Welcome back to another episode of Big Money Energy, where 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:09.520 we talked to super successful and self made people to 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.640 find out exactly how they did it, how they went 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.600 from nothing to something. I'm Ryan, Sirhanton. Today I'm joined 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:21.920 by chairman and co founder of Signature Bank, Scott Shay. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.480 We talk about what it takes to start a bank 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:29.280 from the ground up, how religion could possibly tie into banking, 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.720 and what influenced his decision to write a book about faith. 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:41.880 Let's get into it. Welcome to another episode. Today is 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.760 a very very special day because I'm not sitting down 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.720 with just the insanely successful and intelligent Scott Shay from 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.680 sitting down with somebody who started a bank, and I 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:54.560 want to I want to pick his brain a lot 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:56.560 on that. But if you don't know Scott, you should. 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.320 He is a leading businessman, author, speaker, co ounder and 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:02.640 chairman of Signature Bank, which is one of the best 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.720 and most notable banks in New York for private business owners. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.200 And not to mention, he's also an author, which we're 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.200 gonna get to. Uh, You're easily one of the most 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.280 knowledgeable people in your field, and I'm honored to have 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:16.480 you here and for those of you who are also 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.280 watching the podcast. This is the first time we've done 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.000 this in our first floor office is our conference room. 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:25.240 We're all kind of back from COVID. Scott's here without 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.880 a tie. We are living it up. So Scott, thank 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:30.760 you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.480 be here. And by the way, flattery will get you everywhere. 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.479 So thanks for that wonderful that's it. I'm gonna say. 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.080 You look great, You're a great shape. You know, you're 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.200 killing it. It's awesome, it's great. You know, we negotiate deals. 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.600 We uh, we do something called the positive sandwich. So 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:47.560 the only way you can ever give anybody, not that 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.640 there's negative information here, but the only way you ever 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.240 give anybody tough information is you gotta gotta have those 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.280 positive pieces of bread there and it works. The first 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:56.840 question I have for you, which I think will really 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.480 really kick us off, is how do you start a bank? 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.960 So I had this crazy idea in the nineties that 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.160 New York was over branched but under bank. There were 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.480 plenty of big banks. There was JP Morgan, there was Chase, 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:14.760 there was many Haney, there was Chemical, there was long 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.360 online Trust, there was Westchester Trust. By the way, those 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.400 nineteen other banks merged to create JP Morgan Chase. You know, 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.120 all these banks merging, and these big banks, these mega banks. 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:31.160 They were good at servicing A T and T, PepsiCo, IBM. 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:35.000 But I thought there was really a niche to focus 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.520 on middle markets, small and medium sized business. So we 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.400 started a bank, not doing retail, not focusing on the 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.520 big business. And people thought I was crazy. I mean literally, 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.120 I I had two co founders, and they just thought 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.040 I was crazy at first. And but I'm a persistent 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:54.079 sort of guy. Did you did you work with these 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.800 guys all together? So I knew them from a public bank. 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.520 And when HSBC decide they were going to buy Republic Bank, 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.320 the first thing I thought is this is an opportunity. 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.480 I'm going to find these two guys because the best 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.120 two guys at HSBC, and we're going to start a bank. 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.079 Unfortunately they didn't know that. That's what I thought. And 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.920 I we had breakfast and they thought I was, you know, 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.760 inviting the breakfast over something else, and I said, let's 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.560 start a bank. You can ask they'll they'll cheerfully admit 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.720 they thought I was crazy, And that's what I worked on. 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.280 It's not something that that most people. I mean, you 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:29.840 don't see new banks every day. You see new companies, 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.320 you know apps. Everyone's an entrepreneur right now, everybody. But 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.960 you do not see people get together over breakfast and say, 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.800 you know what we should do, we should start a bank. Ye, 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.080 very few. So what did you guys? You know? Because 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:45.520 that was what it was. Two No, this wasn't This 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.240 was when we had the breakfast. It was they thought, 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.120 you know, let's try to buy a bank. Let's try 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.119 to get some money together. Will buy a small bank, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.520 will build it. And I said to them, Joe Depolo 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.280 and John Tamperline, who are two partners and dear friends 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:02.160 at this point, through dear friends, that was our first 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.320 real getting to know each other. I said, we gotta 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.560 started from scratch because we've got to make our own culture. 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.840 The big bank culture. It's it's just not going to 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:12.520 get us where we need to go. We had applied 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.040 to nineteen different institutions. We started with a white board. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.839 We're here in your conference room. The office that we 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.719 started and was no more than a third of the size, 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.600 ended at five people in it, no more. And there 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.760 was a white board and We listed everything we needed 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.000 to do and we did it from from the number 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.880 of adding machines to the you know what we needed 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.280 in terms of people person people positions. We opened with 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:42.480 five offices. You opened what you opened with five officive offices, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:44.960 which is where did you and started to cut you off? 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.760 It just this is really interesting to me because we 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:49.760 just started a brokerage. You know, I've been with the 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.800 same company for twelve years and throughout COVID and you know, 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:55.680 this year we did the same thing. We had a 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.880 big white board, we had this little office with sheets 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:00.760 of paper everywhere with the things we need to do 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.120 and all that. But starting a brokeradge is very, very different. 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:05.920 So what did you get the money together? Was a 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:08.279 personal money? Did you go and raise money to be 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.120 able to start a bank and to start lending. So 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.039 that's a great question. So we thought about should we 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.240 raise personal money or do we need a big backer 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.560 because if you start a bank, people are a little 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.640 bit afraid to put money in your bank. At the time, 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.240 the insured limit was a hundred dozen dollars. We wanted 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.680 businesses to bank with us, who generally have much more 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.560 than a hundred dozen dollars. In the bank, so we 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:31.840 got a big bank backer. At the time, I was 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.599 on the board of Bankapo Lim, which is the largest 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.760 bank in Israel, and we convinced them to invest forty 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.279 two and a half million dollars in our new bank. 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:44.880 We started out. First month we lost two and a 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.119 half million dollars, and twenty one months later we broke even. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:51.960 We cut our lost every month. The first month we 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.920 made like two thousand dollars and we were so happy, 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.120 like we're making, you know, like this little bit of money. 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.840 But we were just deliriously thrilled. By month thirty four, 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.560 we went public. We've never done an acquisition in the 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:09.840 history of the bank as we sit here today, as 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.920 of last June, as of this past June thirty we 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.960 were sixty one billion dollar bank. And every single person 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.040 who has coming the door has opened an account with 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.080 us because they want to open an account with us. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.680 We've done no acquisition, so we haven't. We haven't. It's 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.640 not like chemical bank got the got the clients from 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.720 Anny Hanny or Manufacturer's Hanover. You have to want to 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.640 join us. So at this point I think hypothesis that 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.159 I thought, which is there was a need for a smaller, 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.080 medium sized business bank in New York. I think the 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.600 tenantive conclusion is it's it's it was correct, But you're 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.480 not a retail bank. No, That's why most people haven't 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:50.640 heard of us, even though we're the biggest. We have them, 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.560 but they're on the twelfth floor, the eighteenth floor, you 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.799 won't even you you we have an office on Union Square, 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.039 you won't even know what's there because you have to 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.240 take an elevator up in. If you're a private business REPP, 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.880 you're doing it. We have an office south of you. Again, 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.840 you've probably walked by it a thousand times on Broadway, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:08.560 but you're not going to get in an elevator, go 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.160 up to the twentieth flour and uh find our office. 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.720 We're not retail. Most of our clients who are retail 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.920 clients are owners of private businesses that they're already banked 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.720 with us, and so they're small businesses. Like, what's the 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.880 biggest type of client you have and what's the smallest type? Well, 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:30.480 our sweet spot is twenty five to employee firms. That's 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.640 our sweet spot. If you look, that's probably of our 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.200 clients we have bigger, we've smaller. We'd be happy to 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.480 bank you. You know, we're happy to bank anybody, but 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.720 that's our sweet spot, that's where we're best. How has 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.920 COVID been on the co founder of a bank. So 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:53.120 it was very strange that before Governor Cuomo wrote the 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.560 order of closing, essentially shutting New York, I got a 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.680 call from So I remember the day of a little 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.000 bit before because I got a call from the Deputy 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.080 Superintendent of Banking and in New York who said, this 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.000 is gonna come down, but don't forget your an essential service. 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:15.120 And it was very strange getting that call because I 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.560 knew we were an essential service. Money is important and 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.040 the transfer money is important. We're not a hospital, We're 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.000 not a thought. You know, we're not doctors. We're not 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.360 We're not We didn't I didn't conceptualize us in that way. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:31.440 But then when the shutdown happened, I realized how essential 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:36.520 we were and they had we We're getting calls immediately. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.600 We banked some hospitals in New York who immediately needed money. 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.040 The people were coming in who were who were serious, 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:47.240 having serious issues, and they needed to immediately have their 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.280 lines expanded. I mean, ultimately, the government, the federal government 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.880 gave the money and all worked out fine, but not 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.880 day one. We had all sorts of clients who had 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:01.000 their supply chains from China disrupted. So one a day 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.840 they had paid for materials or final product in most 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.360 places from China and that was gone. It was shut 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:09.760 off that those products weren't getting in. So immediately they 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.280 had to go and try to get alternative products by 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.360 it in the United States, by it somewhere where they 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.800 could get at it, where they could supply all of 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.000 those things. It erupted. I mean literally, I was working 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.360 twenty four by six. We had calls. We had a 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.880 daily call at nine at three and then a nine 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.280 pm at night among senior management because of just it 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.960 was like incoming from all directions. And then p p 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.960 P happened. Well at the time in between people you know, 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.079 non essential workers don't get to go to work. Essential 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.520 work stept to stay and then the city gets shut down, 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:45.599 the country gets shut down, and then P p P 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.679 was kind of like a month ish give or take. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.920 Were you ever nervous about a like a run on 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.120 the bank where you nervous that everyone with the credit 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.800 line was going to come and just call for cash 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.280 because they were going to freak out. What do you 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.200 what do you do in that scenario when COVID was 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.880 just starting to be an emerging issue before the shutdown, 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:11.920 It's like February, you know, early February, we decided we 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.360 just want to have a ton of cash, so we 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:18.560 had we just had. We just kept in the federal 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.040 reserve essentially, which sounds like a lot of money. Three 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.959 billion dollars of cash at all times something like to 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:30.240 three kept our lines clean because we know it's possible 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.599 that people who are gonna gonna want to draw it 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.880 on cash. So we just wanted to be out there 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.400 so there was no issues, and we have stayed so liquid, 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.800 which is earning us nothing. I mean literally cash it 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.800 the feed is earning us nothing. Just sitting there. We 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:45.840 just felt we needed to be there, and thank thank 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.599 Heaven's thank God, we never needed it. P p P 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.920 was a totally different story that was there. There's gonna 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:53.960 be a movie made about it at some point, I think. 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.959 And how is signature involved in p PP are you 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.440 guys people came to you for it and you're handling 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:03.040 those PPP so as you as you learned just about 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.240 the majority of our clients are small and medium sized 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:10.080 businesses who all qualified. So essentially every single client of 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.720 the bank applied for p p P. What happens was 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.640 is we said it was overwhelming. I mean it was 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:19.840 truly everybody that it was discussed I think on like 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.920 March and by April three again it was like a 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:29.480 mushroom cloud. So we did is we we decided to 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.960 redeploy about twenty of all the employees of my colleagues, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.640 all of our colleagues, into working on p p P. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.800 So you might have been and you know, working as 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:45.920 a and why your transfers or client services or cash management. 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.200 We said, we're moving into p p P and we 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:55.080 had people working literally all night creating systems, taking the 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:59.160 applications so that we could get and I'm really I'm 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.560 so proud say this. We got every applicant, every compliant 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.120 application through. That was our motto, is that we wanted 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.880 to get everyone through and we did. And that's the 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:14.400 way you actually build quient loyalty is because people realized 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.720 I mean people were filling out applications and talking to 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.160 senior vice presidence in the bank at three am, I 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:34.679 mean I was up behind. People were nervous. How do you? 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.880 And this ties into your book which I have right here, um, 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.120 which is which is a lot to it? First of all, 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.760 it is five hundred pages easy reading. Though yeah, no 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.040 it looks good, but it is. I mean, this is 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.240 this is a good amount of book. And it seems 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.520 like you touched on a lot of different things. What 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:56.920 what pushed you to to you run a bank like 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.640 you run like a really like a big bank, have 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:01.440 a couple billion dollars at the fete so you can 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.560 have good liquidity, like that's sixty one billion in assets. 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:05.920 But then you sat around and you wrote a five 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:10.280 hundred page book for the betterment of mankind? Why would you? 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:12.320 Why did you do that? I think for most people 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:14.880 there's two important days. One when they're born, because then 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.240 they have a shot, and the second is when they 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:19.760 figure out why they're supposed to be here. For some 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.079 of us, there's multiple reasons why we're supposed to be 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.760 what we're supposed to do. And this book was actually 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:26.920 in me and I needed to get it out of 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.120 me because people would come to me. So I'm I'll 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.040 freely admit in New York I'm a believer. I believe 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.080 in God, and people know that in the bank, and 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.680 know that among clients, you know that among my friends, 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.679 and they would ask me things questions like, well, you 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:44.959 seem like a reasonable sort of guy, you actually built 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.640 this bank, And isn't God just like sort of Santa 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.800 Claus and the tooth Theory and the Easter Bunny. So 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.920 I started reading the new atheist books that all these 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:57.640 folks had read, Richard Hawkins, The God That Nations, Christop Richards, 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.800 Why God Poison Seven, Why God Isn't Great? Daniel Dennett 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.280 Letter to a Christian Nation, etcetera. And I looked for 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.520 a book that would respond to them, and I didn't 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:11.600 really find a good answer. So when nobody is doing something, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:13.640 that's the time when I tried to act and I 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.480 started writing this book, and I'm so glad nobody told 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.120 me it would take five years from me to write 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.200 this pose. I would never done it, but I started, 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.080 and I'm a persistent sort of you know, dogged fellow. 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.320 So once I started and I had the bone, you know, 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.480 I wasn't gonna let go. And so it took five years. 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:32.960 When did you We're getting a little off topic, but 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.880 it's curious to me, when did you know that you 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.440 believed in God. I gotta give you a little bit 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.280 of backstory. My father is a holocustomer. It was a 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.640 holocoustomer be passed away. My father was thirteen years old 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.520 and specs on Lithuania when the Nazis marched in and 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:55.160 they murdered his father, his brothers, his aunts, his uncle's, 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.920 his cousins. His mother had already died in childbirth giving 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.240 birth to my his brother, and he was taken for 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:06.360 slave labor and he was liberated from Doco. He was 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:11.120 less than seventy pounds. He was prior days weeks, certainly 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.760 not months away from death. And he made it to Chicago. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.720 It's a long story, we don't He made it to Chicago. 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.240 He got married at his son, and my father had 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.880 this very interesting belief that that in a way, that's 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.480 the back story to this book, is that he knew 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:30.480 there was God because had this cup with an S 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:35.840 been not here but six inches over there, my father 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.440 would have been dead. Had my father been standing one 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.960 position forward, one position behind, one position back, or one 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.200 position for it, he would have been murdered. There was 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.640 so many little things that were so amazing that they 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.280 were so different, he'd be dead, that he knew in 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.640 his heart of hearts that there was a God who 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.160 got him to Chicago. On the other hand, he was 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:00.720 angry at God because he survived. But what about his 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.880 father who he who has murdered, you know, a few 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.120 feet away from him, and his and again all of 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.560 his family. So he had this relationship with God that 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.120 clearly I you know, inherited some of the try I 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:15.840 don't want to call it trauma, but some of this 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.240 questioning is how can we believe in a God when 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:20.640 things like the Holocaust happen? What a good God allowed 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.200 at it? But on the other hand, that's evil for people. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.000 So I've been struggling with this all my life and 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.560 that's why it's spilled out into this book, trying to 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.480 understand that problem because to my mind, to be a nonbeliever, 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:34.960 there's a lot of questions to be answered. But to 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.360 be a believer, the hardest question is how can a 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:43.120 good God let things like the Holocaust, the rumand and genocide. 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:44.960 I mean, I can go on and on happen, and 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:49.080 that's a hard question. It is I think free will exists. 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.040 Were you religious when you were growing up? Or is 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.600 this something you came into later, something like my father 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:55.680 had this belief of God. He was so we went 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.360 to synagogue. But during services, he and I noticed this 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.720 among other or Holocaust survivors. During services, they would chat 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.440 when the rabbi gave his sermon, they would doze off. 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:07.720 Afterward they would go and have a look high and 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.280 you know, have a little afterward. But he made sure 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.560 they all made sure their sons and daughters were barned 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.880 by Mittzved. So he felt it was important have a connection. 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.040 But he was so angry at God. He couldn't actually 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.920 pray so easily because he was giving God the silent treatment. 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.880 And I think God got it, you know, I think 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.159 God gets that. Yeah, my father had some things to 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.720 be angry about. And but I will say this the 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.399 one thing I've also learned and and one thing I 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.080 tried to do. In particularly section five of my book 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.800 is explained how to read the Bible, because just being 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:44.240 given the King James version is really tough. But if 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.560 you read stories where Judah is willing to become a 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:50.280 slave so that his brother can be freed, where Esther 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.440 has to convince the king to save the Jews and 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.120 takes on basically the risk of her life to do so, 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.720 all sorts of stories of heroism of what what is 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:04.800 really going on in the Bible? What is really being 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.080 tried to convey? It such an ancient book that we 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.600 need a little bit of background to to to really 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.480 engage with it. So I find sort of the less 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.919 people know about the Bible, the less they like it, 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:19.320 and when you give them some introduction to it, they 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.320 really recognize what a rich book. No wonder this has 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.159 been around for three thousand years, because before the Bible 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.080 things were pretty bad. You know, is the god king 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.679 Pharaoh who could chop off anybody's head, and he was 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.240 the decider of whether you were good you were bad, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.920 and he was the conduit for the real God raw 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:37.959 or whoever it was at the time. And the thing 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.240 people have forgotten, And this is one of the one 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.679 of the things I try to explain, is it the 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:49.240 whole twentieth century was a catalog of God King pharaohs 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.479 style and Mao Pulpat. The Assad family, the Kim family, 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:59.399 Hitler used the same tropes as Pharaoh doesn't change, parades, myths, theater, 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.879 all of course backed up by secret informers and powerful armies, 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.200 and because they were, they established themselves as king. That's 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.960 why as God king. That's why Stalin had his his 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.520 image put by the Soviet Space Agency into space. And 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:15.560 it's not just at a macro level, it's at the 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.680 level of our intimate encounters. So how did Kevin Spacey 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.919 and Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose and 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.359 unfortunately that there's a very long list. How do they 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.320 get away with what they got away with? Well, they 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:33.320 set themselves up in their industries as idols, unquestioned and unquestionable, 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.080 just like Pharaoh. What Charlie Rose said was the truth, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.359 that CBS, what Harvey Weinstein said was the truth. And 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.480 in the same way that the god king Pharaoh could 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.000 decide if you live or die, Harvey Weinstein, based on 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.280 his whim, could decide if your career was gonna work 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:48.919 and if it wasn't gonna work. And it's hard to 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.399 stand up tight doltry, but thankfully people did. Thankfully they 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.119 have in the past and they and that's what the 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.080 Bible tries to explain. And that's why in the middle 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.480 of banking, I thought, I gotta try to take my 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.400 shot to explain this How does religion then play back 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.360 into into the bank. You've just written a five hundred 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.159 page book called in Good Faith, Questioning Religion and Atheism? 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.679 Do you bring religion and faith into signature bank? So 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.520 here's how I do do that, and we do it. 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.760 Two things. First, I believe that the golden rule comes 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:22.879 from the Bible. Don't do one to others what you 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.080 wouldn't want on them too yourself. So when p p 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.719 P happened, we immediately knew some of the mega banks 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.119 were prioritizing clients. If you were bigger, if you were 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.040 in the private bank, if you were this, if you 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.200 were there, we'll take care of you. We had this 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:38.639 sing and I sort of hinted it this before. No 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:45.160 compliant client left behind, So we moved everybody from the bank. 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.080 We stayed up all night. I was up, even myself. 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.800 You know, I couldn't. I wasn't even that productive in 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:52.199 the middle of night. But we were up in the 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:54.000 middle of night. If you looked at my emails from 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.280 two to five am, you wouldn't know was two to 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.880 five pm. We said everybody, if they needed twenty five 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.920 thousand dollar loan, they're gonna get the same attention as 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.160 the company that needs a nine million dollar loan. So 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.320 it's the golden rule. And in our we have, like 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.080 every bank. Well, you're you're familiar from your father and 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.280 your brother a standards of conduct, so it's gate you 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:17.280 can't see it. But I'm I'm holding up man. It's 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:19.479