Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business show about making better decisions.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Kanikova. Nate Silver is not with us today,
Speaker 1: he is on a book tour, but we have an
Speaker 1: amazing guest instead, one of my dear friends, Brian Koppleman,
Speaker 1: who is everything I mean. He is a writer, he
Speaker 1: is a director, he's a producer, he is a musician,
Speaker 1: he is an actor. He is a kindred spirit and
Speaker 1: someone who thinks about risk in a lot of the
Speaker 1: same ways that I do. Because he also plays poker.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you know him. I originally knew
Speaker 1: who he was, as many of you probably do through Rounders,
Speaker 1: people who come to Brian more recently, probably no billions
Speaker 1: before Rounders, so many other things. That's just like the
Speaker 1: tip of an absolutely massive iceberg that we'll be talking
Speaker 1: about today. Brian, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2: My absolute pleasure. And I think people now might know
Speaker 2: me from The Bear.
Speaker 1: Ah yes, and people might know you as the computer
Speaker 1: on the third season of The Bear. I just want
Speaker 1: to point out that you have a bicycle helmet on
Speaker 1: the table, So did you ride your bike here? Since
Speaker 1: we're talking about risky decision making, we're in New York
Speaker 1: by the way, we're in Manhattan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in Manhattan. I made a decision a while ago.
Speaker 2: You know how you can come home and you're either
Speaker 2: whether you have somebody who you live with, or you
Speaker 2: talk to a lot of family member friend and they
Speaker 2: ask you if you had a good day. I decided
Speaker 2: a while ago that I wanted to be able to
Speaker 2: like understand what that meant for myself, not just leave
Speaker 2: that up to sort of an emotional thing or something
Speaker 2: that would happen in the middle of my day. So
Speaker 2: I decided, you know, if I do certain thing, if
Speaker 2: I journal, if I meditate, if I exercise, and I
Speaker 2: spend time with people that I love, I've had a
Speaker 2: good day because I've written something, I've moved my body,
Speaker 2: I've hugged somebody like those things. Well, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: Six months ago, some months ago, I decided, anytime I
Speaker 2: don't have to be on public transportation or in a
Speaker 2: cab or an uber in New York City, it's a
Speaker 2: great New York City day. And because it adds to
Speaker 2: all these other things, so and in looking at all,
Speaker 2: honestly looking at various risks, the rewards of riding a
Speaker 2: bike all the time and walking are really great. There's
Speaker 2: but there is this risk inherent in riding a bicycle
Speaker 2: in New York City. But you can really mitigate the
Speaker 2: worst of it. You can't eliminate it. You can mitigate
Speaker 2: the worst of it by wearing a helmet. Downside is
Speaker 2: you got to walk around looking like a goofball and
Speaker 2: it's really confusing, like what to do with the helmet
Speaker 2: sometimes and sometimes I put the helmet on and like
Speaker 2: there's not you know, socially, it's not great, especially if
Speaker 2: you like the older guy in the office complex or
Speaker 2: whatever and you get off the elevator still wearing your
Speaker 2: bike helmet. You know you are the fool for the day.
Speaker 1: You're someone who's from a creative industry, right, Like you
Speaker 1: don't come from the statistical background, and yet your way
Speaker 1: of thinking aut the world. You're someone who Your poker
Speaker 1: game was the first poker game I ever saw in
Speaker 1: my life because Rounders was the only time I had
Speaker 1: ever seen poker played because I wasn't into poker. You
Speaker 1: were into poker, right. The reason Rounders to this day
Speaker 1: is like the Poker movie is because you're actually a player.
Speaker 1: You love the game. You understand the game, you went
Speaker 1: to the clubs, you did the leg work, you did
Speaker 1: the research. But I think that the way that you
Speaker 1: think about the world actually does mirror that.
Speaker 2: So I just want to say, my creative and business
Speaker 2: partner and lifelong best friend, David Livina, and I did that.
Speaker 2: It's not just me. I just important for me to say, Well,
Speaker 2: it's right, but it's true.
Speaker 1: It's very important for you to say. And actually I
Speaker 1: would love to ask a question about that that was
Speaker 1: a risk at the beginning of your career, to say,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do this by myself. I'm going
Speaker 1: to have a partner, because if you think about it,
Speaker 1: like creative partnerships are fraught, and you and David have
Speaker 1: been partners for how many years now.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, professionally almost thirty years, and but best
Speaker 2: friends since we were kids, and I think you look
Speaker 2: back on it and yet if someone knew they were
Speaker 2: going to be able to really have this career at
Speaker 2: that time, though, you're not really thinking about downside risk
Speaker 2: other than to your friendship because your best friend like
Speaker 2: your brother, and so you're thinking about that. So you
Speaker 2: have to make you just sort of talk through a
Speaker 2: process but also we wrote that script together, and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, each of us just decide to go into
Speaker 2: it really open minded and open hearted, and it was like,
Speaker 2: let's let's write this thing together. And then as we
Speaker 2: did that, and as we felt like this creative partnership
Speaker 2: was what we'd hoped it would be, we were bringing
Speaker 2: out kind of the best of each other, it just
Speaker 2: made sense to roll in and continue. We've never had
Speaker 2: a signed piece of paper.
Speaker 1: I was I was just about to ask that.
Speaker 2: And you know, people will say you have to. We've
Speaker 2: signed many agreements together with other parties, meaning if a
Speaker 2: studio or network wants to engage us, we both have
Speaker 2: to sign that document, and we've signed leases, toget, We've
Speaker 2: signed many many things together. But David and I have
Speaker 2: never had more than a handshake and a hug agreement
Speaker 2: with each other.
Speaker 1: So you've never actually talked about and said this is
Speaker 1: going to be a fifty to fifty partnership.
Speaker 2: And yet well we've said those words to each other,
Speaker 2: everything's fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1: Of course, we've never written it down, never.
Speaker 2: Written it down. In fact, I think those conversations we
Speaker 2: didn't even email that to each other. I mean that
Speaker 2: was just like, we're fifty to fifty and everything, and
Speaker 2: they would it was.
Speaker 1: My mind is breaking right now, by the way, at
Speaker 1: that level of trust. Right, you know the types of
Speaker 1: topics that I write about, right, Yeah, you know. I've
Speaker 1: written about con artists. My next book is about cheating,
Speaker 1: and I have just come across so many instances where
Speaker 1: that just sours. And you've been doing this for thirty
Speaker 1: five years, You've never had a written piece of paper.
Speaker 1: You took that risk, and yet here you are. You're
Speaker 1: just such a beautiful testament to like the fact that
Speaker 1: not everyone sucks and that there's actually there are humans
Speaker 1: that you can take this risk with. But there's part
Speaker 1: of my mind. The reason I said my brain is
Speaker 1: breaking is because I would think that someone like you,
Speaker 1: who I respect so much and you're so smart, and
Speaker 1: you're so smart about these risks, I would think that
Speaker 1: you would say, you know, just in case, let's just
Speaker 1: sign this little piece of paper.
Speaker 2: I understand that way of thinking, and I would advise
Speaker 2: I might advise somebody, but I think if you can
Speaker 2: try to silence the voices that aren't your own inside you, right,
Speaker 2: if you can try and actually listen to the truth,
Speaker 2: you kind of do know, like your body kind of knows.
Speaker 2: Not in a woo woo way, I mean your instinct
Speaker 2: knows because of your brain sending these signals. And if
Speaker 2: I think about what the battle in life is, it's
Speaker 2: to become comfortable in your own skin. Because when you
Speaker 2: are able to have these moments of them and they're fleeting,
Speaker 2: and then maybe as you live a little bit and
Speaker 2: you work on it, they can last longer. But if
Speaker 2: you can get to a place where you have moments
Speaker 2: of actual calm, moments where you can actually listen to
Speaker 2: the best part of yourself, most alive part of yourself,
Speaker 2: you know when you need a piece of paper and
Speaker 2: when you don't. And especially for someone who studied consure,
Speaker 2: so now, well, I don't want to This is a
Speaker 2: proby Privo caster because I don't want to. I don't
Speaker 2: want to become willis shown in The Princess Bride and
Speaker 2: use search a logic. But it is true that if
Speaker 2: you know about cons it's easier to con you on
Speaker 2: a surface first level, meaning if you're someone who thinks, oh,
Speaker 2: I know what the wise guys do, then it's very
Speaker 2: easy for a wives guy to use that and play
Speaker 2: you sure, but I'm not talking about that kind of situation.
Speaker 2: But basically, I think David and I knew enough about
Speaker 2: each other to trust each other. And it wasn't a
Speaker 2: thin knowledge, it wasn't a quick knowledge. It was we
Speaker 2: had been through enough things and been there enough for
Speaker 2: one another and knew that that was the primacy, was
Speaker 2: to do right by the other person. Our wives were
Speaker 2: incredibly supportive, and nobody ever would have thought about those
Speaker 2: risks other than, like I say, to the friendship, but
Speaker 2: writing rounders are such joy. And then the way that
Speaker 2: it all came together, that we just knew we were
Speaker 2: off and running it, and it was actually David who
Speaker 2: had the inflection point. We finished the script and he
Speaker 2: sent it to a young manager in LA and the
Speaker 2: manager said, I know you wrote this with a partner.
Speaker 2: I can spin it one of two ways, and Dave said, no,
Speaker 2: I spin it like I wrote it with my partner
Speaker 2: and we wrote it together, not like that guy. I
Speaker 2: know about poker, And what I see is like this
Speaker 2: is we did this together, and I wanted to reflect.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, and that's amazing, and that actually, I think
Speaker 1: is a really important reminder for listeners of our podcast.
Speaker 1: Because we always talk about the herd statistics and kind
Speaker 1: of those types of things, and so it is a
Speaker 1: good reminder that the human element is very much a
Speaker 1: part of it, you know, And that's I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: a psychologist, Nate's the numbers guy, so to me like that,
Speaker 1: that is an important thing to have in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind because it's so easy to get lost
Speaker 1: in the numbers, in the statistics, and it's it's really
Speaker 1: good to have that sort of a reminder.
Speaker 2: You can't be in the art. So but if you're
Speaker 2: in the arts, So what you said is true.
Speaker 1: You went into the arts.
Speaker 2: Yes, what you said is true that on the one hand,
Speaker 2: you know me as your friend. You understand that I've
Speaker 2: made a study of strategic thinking, that I can read people,
Speaker 2: I can read situations. But when you make a decision
Speaker 2: that you won't be happy unless you're in the arts,
Speaker 2: and for me, it was you know, I knew if
Speaker 2: I at a certain point in my life, like if
Speaker 2: I didn't try, I wouldn't be a good father or husband.
Speaker 2: And because I knew that I would have turned bitter,
Speaker 2: and that if I turn bitter, you know, I knew
Speaker 2: if I let the kind of a creative block happen,
Speaker 2: it would be like a creative death, and like any
Speaker 2: other death, the toxicity would lose onto those I love.
Speaker 2: Then I just didn't want that. So I think there
Speaker 2: are times where you have to turn off rationality and
Speaker 2: reason in a way that you can make function for
Speaker 2: your life. So you know, so as I hear people
Speaker 2: like Scott Galloway, who's a smart guy but with say
Speaker 2: it's not about what you want to do. You got
Speaker 2: to pick something you're good at, and well, I disagree.
Speaker 2: I think figuring out what brings you joy, Like guess
Speaker 2: this thing I said about where you're working from the
Speaker 2: most alive part of yourself is valuable. But like, I
Speaker 2: didn't quit my job to write the first script. Somehow
Speaker 2: I was, I think lucky enough to figure out, well,
Speaker 2: if I just take two hours a day and really
Speaker 2: give it everything I have for those two hours a day,
Speaker 2: I don't have to put all the pressure on myself
Speaker 2: that I've quit my job or that I've put my
Speaker 2: family in jeopardy. I can just work. And I knew then, Okay,
Speaker 2: I feel really alive doing that. I'm going to keep
Speaker 2: doing this whether this thing sells or not, whether we
Speaker 2: can make a career out of this or not, And
Speaker 2: in fact, doing it allows me to do my job
Speaker 2: in a much better spirit, more effectively than when I
Speaker 2: was doing it and daydreaming about being something else. So
Speaker 2: I could not make it an all or nothing proposition.
Speaker 2: I could mitigate certain parts of the risk so that
Speaker 2: I didn't have to think about the risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really important lesson. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick ad break and then we will come back
Speaker 1: to talking about why sometimes to take the biggest risks,
Speaker 1: you need to actually not take the risk that other
Speaker 1: people talk about. So, Brian, I think that that's an
Speaker 1: incredibly important point. I also so did not quit my
Speaker 1: day job when I was working on my first book.
Speaker 1: I knew that I wanted to write. And you know,
Speaker 1: the advice I give to young writers when they ask
Speaker 1: me is I'm like, unless like you know that you
Speaker 1: can't not do it, don't do it because if you
Speaker 1: don't have that fire, it's a shitty way of making
Speaker 1: a living. Right you don't have I mean, so you're
Speaker 1: in the director's guild, the writer's guild, so you have
Speaker 1: health insurance, but you know, if you're just becoming a
Speaker 1: freelance writer, no health insurance, no W two like no security.
Speaker 1: I have to plan for like a year ahead because
Speaker 1: I might have a month where I have an insane
Speaker 1: amount of income and then a month where I have
Speaker 1: zero income right where I just don't make anything, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm going to you know, I can't.
Speaker 1: It's to this day, right, I have this kind of
Speaker 1: variation in what I earn, and so I have this,
Speaker 1: like I have to have this in savings, I have
Speaker 1: to have this. I have to have this, like I
Speaker 1: need to know that I can pay my mortgage for.
Speaker 2: The next because you're making this big real yes.
Speaker 1: Because I'm making this big risk. And when I was
Speaker 1: working on my first book, so I went to grad
Speaker 1: school for psychology and everyone's like, Oh, that's amazing. You
Speaker 1: wanted to be a professor. I was like, no, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a writer. I did that so that
Speaker 1: I had the stability and the brain space to be
Speaker 1: able to work on my first book. And that's why
Speaker 1: I went to grad school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. I don't think about it in the
Speaker 2: terms of de risking, but it is. You can take
Speaker 2: this giant risk if you can find ways to d
Speaker 2: risk along the way to it. But you know, you're
Speaker 2: you can be in the Writer's Guild, but to keep
Speaker 2: your health insurance, health insurance the whole time, so you can,
Speaker 2: I'm saying, I can, I can. I know you're I
Speaker 2: could have now. Yeah, you know we sold Rounders in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven. Wow, so like so since then, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's amazing, But we managed to stay in the whole
Speaker 2: time and to you know, always have it, but you
Speaker 2: have you're aware of it. In the years that are bad,
Speaker 2: you're really aware of being able to work enough so
Speaker 2: that you get credit for that core so that that
Speaker 2: goes toward your health and benefits. And then if you're
Speaker 2: in it long enough, you have lifetime. But it you know,
Speaker 2: takes twenty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that those are all important things
Speaker 1: to realize. So you knew that you wanted to be
Speaker 1: in a creative field, and a creative field is an
Speaker 1: incredibly These aren't the risks that we normally talk about
Speaker 1: on this show. But I think it's so important to
Speaker 1: realize that you're taking huge risks and the things that
Speaker 1: so Rounders you wrote on spec so for people who
Speaker 1: don't know what that means, you weren't paid.
Speaker 2: Well we had there's a yeah, we weren't. But there's
Speaker 2: a great little story that's perfect for this show, which
Speaker 2: is because I was in the music business before that.
Speaker 2: I knew some people who were attendant to the movie business.
Speaker 2: And Dave and I had the idea for rounders, and
Speaker 2: he met somebody who we told the idea to a
Speaker 2: director producer, and that director producer offered us five thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: and Dave was bartending and offered us five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I bartended too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, five thousand dollars if we would write the script
Speaker 2: and then he and his partner, the director producer guy.
Speaker 2: He and his partner would own half of the script.
Speaker 2: So if we then wrote the script and they were
Speaker 2: able to sell it, we would split it fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2: And there was all this other stuff. Oh no, well,
Speaker 2: it was very exciting. You know, someone offered money, and
Speaker 2: David had been wanting to do this and he met
Speaker 2: this person, and you know, he'd wanted to have a
Speaker 2: career at this. I came through it a little later,
Speaker 2: but I knew someone who worked. I knew someone who
Speaker 2: connected me to a woman named Rachel Harvitz, who was
Speaker 2: at Fine line, which is part of a new line.
Speaker 2: She's a great Academy Award winning producer now, but at
Speaker 2: the time she wasn't. She was an executive at a
Speaker 2: company and her brother was in the Beastie Boys, and
Speaker 2: her dad he's famous playwright, oh dad, And yeah, but
Speaker 2: Rachel's super smart. And I smoke got a meeting with her.
Speaker 2: David and I went up and met with her, and
Speaker 2: she's like, tell me the situation, but don't tell me
Speaker 2: your idea. Just tell me the situation. And we told
Speaker 2: her the situation and she said, Okay, well, I can
Speaker 2: tell that like the twenty five hundred bucks would be
Speaker 2: good for EACHU coppleman. You need it less you have
Speaker 2: a job, but I could see that it would be
Speaker 2: like a good thing. But I'll tell you this, if
Speaker 2: with you all having done nothing and having no track record,
Speaker 2: you have a story and an idea that somebody who
Speaker 2: also isn't someone who's like filled with money, they're not
Speaker 2: a huge person. If they're willing to give you five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, you should risk losing that five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and write that script on spec because if you then
Speaker 2: sell it and you guys control it, you'll have a
Speaker 2: whole career. And we left her office and just looked
Speaker 2: at each other and went, well, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: That's such great advice. You're you're so you know that
Speaker 1: the role of luck is something that I think about
Speaker 1: a lot. Of course, that I think is so crucial.
Speaker 1: What a lucky kind of moment that that that you
Speaker 1: had that connection and that you had that conversation, because
Speaker 1: your career would look so different if you had sold
Speaker 1: fifty percent from the get go.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, it would have been a different ways.
Speaker 2: And now that interestingly, because Dave's instincts are great to
Speaker 2: the person David met ended up becoming a very big
Speaker 2: person in Hollywood, and we have a great relationship with him.
Speaker 2: So Dave did spot up on somebody who was going
Speaker 2: to go the distance, but all of our careers would
Speaker 2: have been That guy then went and directed a small
Speaker 2: movie where the actress in it got nominated for an
Speaker 2: oscar and his career was off and running, and we've
Speaker 2: often thought about sort of how it all would have gone,
Speaker 2: could have gone differently. So there's the luck element, but
Speaker 2: also truly it was a risk question. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: like you know, and yeah, I remember was like, well,
Speaker 2: you guys could get ten grand, you know if you counter,
Speaker 2: but I wouldn't counter. No walk away.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: It's a hard piece of advice to give, by the way,
Speaker 2: for sure, a hard piece of advice to give, having
Speaker 2: been as you have on any other chair. But we
Speaker 2: were so grateful and I never miss an opportunity to
Speaker 2: thank Rachel for giving us that advice.
Speaker 1: It is. It is wonderful advice, and I think that
Speaker 1: it's advice that everyone can hear at every single stage
Speaker 1: of their career because that power to like to realize
Speaker 1: that you can walk away, that you actually have the risk,
Speaker 1: but you have the downside, but you also have the upside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important to say, like both Dave and I
Speaker 2: had college paid for and I think that that's a
Speaker 2: huge advantage that we had. We and I can never
Speaker 2: And that's not sort of like that's something I've thought
Speaker 2: about and said for a long time, sort of before
Speaker 2: it was in vogue to have to always sort of
Speaker 2: explain away these parts, you know, just but it is
Speaker 2: just the fact, sure my father was able to pay
Speaker 2: for college for me. That gave me, when you talk
Speaker 2: about luck, that gave me the ability to make decisions, yeah,
Speaker 2: based on a series of things that were quite different
Speaker 2: than if I had one hundred thousand dollars worth of
Speaker 2: debt that I had to satisfy. I did right, and
Speaker 2: that shapes certain decisions, right and absolutely so for me.
Speaker 2: That gift, it's a huge gift, is a gigantic advantage.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about earlier, not on this pod,
Speaker 1: but when you and I were just having a conversation.
Speaker 1: You had asked me about having gone to Harvard, right,
Speaker 1: and whether you thought that it still had some sort
Speaker 1: of cachet, some advantage because things are changing so much.
Speaker 1: And I thought about that question after you asked me,
Speaker 1: and my answer is that it depends on who you are.
Speaker 1: For someone like me, yes, it does. Because I wasn't
Speaker 1: born here. I'm generation zero, I knew nobody. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm an immigrant, like I'm a Russian Jewish immigrant, right,
Speaker 1: and having that degree confers a certain kind of it.
Speaker 1: Just it gives me a check mark that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: otherwise have that gets me through the door. How did
Speaker 1: I get into television? My first job in television was
Speaker 1: as a producer. Well, I didn't start as a producer.
Speaker 1: I became a producer for Charlie Rose, and that was,
Speaker 1: you know, that was my kind of before I went
Speaker 1: to grad school. And the only reason I was able
Speaker 1: to get that job was through the Harvard Network because
Speaker 1: there were Harvard people working at Charlie Rose who picked
Speaker 1: my resume and got me that interview, and then you know,
Speaker 1: I got in the I.
Speaker 2: Think it's magic. To me, those are still magic words.
Speaker 2: But I'm fifty eight years old, so I know that.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't go to Harvard, but I there
Speaker 2: are certain words in our in the world, in our
Speaker 2: language that are magic words. Whether they should be or
Speaker 2: shouldn't be as a different.
Speaker 1: That's a different question. But your question to me was
Speaker 1: are they still And I think for me they were,
Speaker 1: and they enabled me. I had I had student loans, right,
Speaker 1: I had no money. I grew up poor. Like my
Speaker 1: parents had to leave everything behind when they came here,
Speaker 1: including their passports. Right we had we got political asylum
Speaker 1: when we came to the United States, And like, I
Speaker 1: grew up actually poor, and I didn't realize that because
Speaker 1: my mom is the most amazing person and like never
Speaker 1: made me feel like we were poor, but we were right,
Speaker 1: and so I they always supported me and when I
Speaker 1: said I want to be a writer, Apparently I told
Speaker 1: them I wanted to be a writer when I was five.
Speaker 1: I don't remember this, but I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: writer my entire life. But when I was in college
Speaker 1: and I kind of went back and forth. I went
Speaker 1: through recruiting, corporate recruiting, and got jobs as a consultant
Speaker 1: and an investment banking because I was so nervous, you know,
Speaker 1: to because I didn't know anyone. I hadn't I was
Speaker 1: never able to do internships in the summer. I had
Speaker 1: to work because I made it to be paid, so
Speaker 1: I didn't have those legs up that you know, people
Speaker 1: who are able to do you know, Harper's internship and
Speaker 1: when you go up.
Speaker 2: When you got to Harvard, because I remember I was
Speaker 2: walking one day with my son and like five of
Speaker 2: his friends at Harvard, and one of his friends was
Speaker 2: the first not only in his family, but in his
Speaker 2: entire high school. He was the first person to apply
Speaker 2: to one of the four those four schools at Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, MIT.
Speaker 2: And he's like, they didn't even know how, he said,
Speaker 2: And then a bunch of these young men and women
Speaker 2: walked ahead and I was standing back with this other
Speaker 2: kid and he was like, I'll never catch up. And
Speaker 2: I was like, they're not that far ahead, and he
Speaker 2: was like no, no, no, I met geographically like they were
Speaker 2: going to the Hong Kong and I was like, no, no,
Speaker 2: they're just over there and he's like no, no, no, I mean,
Speaker 2: how do I catch up?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I went did you have that face? He's like
Speaker 2: because there he goes. They all have just and they
Speaker 2: were of wide, you know, very I mean, my son
Speaker 2: was the son of two New York writers and it
Speaker 2: was like before the show, like, you know, and some
Speaker 2: of the people that he knew there were you know,
Speaker 2: multi generational, sure wealth and so it you know, counts
Speaker 2: and things like that. But still they all had a language. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this young man didn't have that language. And he
Speaker 2: literally said to me like what do I have?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And this was freshman year and by the end, he
Speaker 2: of course had it. But did you feel that at all?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? And once again I'm going to say thank you mom,
Speaker 1: because I remember my freshman year I took a class
Speaker 1: and this was a totally different context, but I think
Speaker 1: it gets at the heart of this. I took an
Speaker 1: intensive Italian class for Romance language speakers, and I spoke
Speaker 1: fluent French, so you needed to speak you know, some
Speaker 1: And there was a kid there who spoke Italian because
Speaker 1: he had trained at Juilliard. He already had a degree
Speaker 1: from Juilliard as an opera singer. But he didn't know
Speaker 1: that grammar like he so he was in it. And
Speaker 1: you know, it was a tiny class, and you know,
Speaker 1: grades matter. I went to Harvard, right, Like, I'm really competitive.
Speaker 1: And I was talking to my mom and I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's so unfair. You know, I can't like, how do
Speaker 1: I you know, there's this kid and like, and she
Speaker 1: looked at me and she said, I never want you
Speaker 1: to say that sentence again. And she drilled it into
Speaker 1: my head. That's saying that's so unfair. That word unfair
Speaker 1: should not be in your vocabulary. She's like, life is
Speaker 1: fucking unfair. Deal with it. Don't worry about that kid.
Speaker 1: You work your ass off, you compete against yourself, you
Speaker 1: do what you need to do. Yet it's unfair. Yes,
Speaker 1: they have advantages that you don't have. My college roommates,
Speaker 1: who are now my best friends, had money, right, I
Speaker 1: had no money. I couldn't I couldn't afford like we
Speaker 1: would do like they would do during like parent weekend,
Speaker 1: like they would go to dinner and they'd invite me
Speaker 1: with their parents, and we couldn't go because the restaurants
Speaker 1: were too expensive for my family. And I never said
Speaker 1: that to them. And if they're listening to this right now,
Speaker 1: they're probably going to be horrified because I've never told
Speaker 1: this to them. And these are my closest friends in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: They figured it out by now, probably.
Speaker 1: Probably, but we couldn't afford it, Like that's why I
Speaker 1: never went to those dinners. And there were so many,
Speaker 1: you know, so many things. And then when I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a writer, and I admitted to myself that
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a writer, because I didn't at first,
Speaker 1: and then like I secretly applied to the fiction Summinar
Speaker 1: because it was an application process and I didn't want
Speaker 1: anyone to ask if I'd gotten in or not. And
Speaker 1: then after I got in that I could talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a scary thing, and that's it. So
Speaker 2: that's a giant risk. Absolutely one of the things people
Speaker 2: don't talk about a lot. And I think this stuff applies,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I would say, the risk of
Speaker 2: coming on this podcast and talking about this kind of
Speaker 2: fuzzy stuff versus the sciencey stuff is I know that
Speaker 2: some listeners all may be sort of not why they're
Speaker 2: interested in this pod, right. Absolutely, I listened to this
Speaker 2: podcast because I'm a geek about like learning out behavior
Speaker 2: and risk. I love it. Decision making is really like
Speaker 2: the such the most important thing, but a big risk.
Speaker 2: But it is. But I think this is broadly applicable
Speaker 2: because a huge risk to your own self image is
Speaker 2: a huge risk. Yes, and we have to be aware
Speaker 2: and so often well we will not tell ourselves that,
Speaker 2: but we won't take the risk, so we will downplay it.
Speaker 2: It's like I was talking to a group of salespeople.
Speaker 2: I was speaking at some company, you know, a big company,
Speaker 2: to a group of salespeople, and I say, like, is
Speaker 2: this true? I have a feeling this might be true
Speaker 2: because I can relate it to my own world and
Speaker 2: a job I really want it. I said, is it
Speaker 2: if you have a really like the day to day
Speaker 2: if you're a top worker, if you're if you're you know,
Speaker 2: the top of your field, the day to day meetings
Speaker 2: you can sell you know, one hundred units of something
Speaker 2: to somebody. It's it's very easy to do thorough, incredibly
Speaker 2: deep preparation, but when you have a giant opportunity to
Speaker 2: present to something where you could sell ten thousand units,
Speaker 2: it's harder to not procrastinate. It's because if you put
Speaker 2: everything you have into it and it doesn't work, you
Speaker 2: are crushed. And all these people agree that it's the
Speaker 2: bigger the opportunity, the harder it is to actually put
Speaker 2: the work in ahead of time, even though the reward
Speaker 2: is the greatest. But there's this feeling about that, and
Speaker 2: so we have to recognize. I think this is one
Speaker 2: of the things about behavioral economics in general decision making.
Speaker 2: Seth Godin talks about the choice and a decision, and
Speaker 2: like most things are choices, but anything that you recognize
Speaker 2: as a decision is worth taking some kind of inventory
Speaker 2: to figure out what is what you're adding up that
Speaker 2: you're not realizing you're adding up in the process of
Speaker 2: making that decision. Figure it out. You're stacking a bunch
Speaker 2: of stuff on the table and it's a seesaw, but
Speaker 2: you know you might not be able to see out
Speaker 2: of your peripheral vision, but turn your head and actually
Speaker 2: look at what's on the both ends of the both
Speaker 2: ends of the seesaw, and no, it's hard to do this.
Speaker 2: That's why journal. Like one of the things about morning
Speaker 2: Pages is if you do morning Pages enough, you find
Speaker 2: out what you really want. You find out what really
Speaker 2: matters to you. Same with meditation and the reason. So
Speaker 2: some of this stuff sounds like anti scientific, but it's not.
Speaker 2: All these things become to me their data generating things.
Speaker 2: They help you figure out, kind of like where you
Speaker 2: are on the hand, if I can return it to poker.
Speaker 2: And you know when you asked me about poker. At
Speaker 2: the very beginning, I lost a bad I lost my
Speaker 2: whole canteen worth of money when I was in fourth
Speaker 2: grade and Sleepway camp the first time I learned to
Speaker 2: play poker. My dad had a carouselo chips at home,
Speaker 2: but he didn't teach me to play. And we played
Speaker 2: at camp and I lost everything. I had, like thirty
Speaker 2: bucks to get me through the whole summer, and I
Speaker 2: lost all thirty dollars and it I was like, I
Speaker 2: want to learn that game. I want to understand that game.
Speaker 2: And it was slow coming. Like that experience happened a
Speaker 2: couple of times because you know, you can learn the game,
Speaker 2: but then you still have to But at a certain point,
Speaker 2: I just became really, really fascinated by all the different
Speaker 2: things you had to be able to stay aware of
Speaker 2: in order to become decent at poker. And it was
Speaker 2: fascinating to me, and it was a way gambling is
Speaker 2: not great for me into any other kind of gambling.
Speaker 2: Poker I've always been able to keep as a separate thing,
Speaker 2: and it just brought me a tremendous amount of joy
Speaker 2: to think through those problems to be most most things
Speaker 2: in life, it's don't allow you to get to that
Speaker 2: place where you're hyper present. And yeah, if you know
Speaker 2: how to think about poker, I'm not great poker player,
Speaker 2: but if you know how to think about poker, you
Speaker 2: have the ability to be hyper president at the poker table.
Speaker 2: And that's a gift.
Speaker 1: Absolutely No people laugh at me when I say that.
Speaker 1: I became much more zen when I started playing poker
Speaker 1: because it just it put me in that state. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in a minute. So now, if you extrapolate
Speaker 1: from that, you you know, you took a huge risk
Speaker 1: gun rounders, and we talked about that and it kind
Speaker 1: of led to this whole career. But as you and
Speaker 1: I have also talked about it, it's not like your
Speaker 1: career has been like easy going and like oh like
Speaker 1: after rounders, everything's great, we can sell everything, everything works.
Speaker 1: I have money, pilon in you know, live in the
Speaker 1: high life. Right That's that's not how it works. And
Speaker 1: so I'm very curious to know whether there's a point
Speaker 1: in time where kind of you took And right now
Speaker 1: I think nobody can dispute that you're incredibly successful.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So I think you're welcome. But it's very well deserved
Speaker 1: and very well earned through a lot of hard work.
Speaker 1: So it's not like you went you know, from zero
Speaker 1: to I think that, but right now I think that
Speaker 1: that's kind of that's that's what.
Speaker 2: You don't No, I'm listening well lifef like I mean, well, honestly,
Speaker 2: if life tg anything, the moment you kind of think
Speaker 2: you're safe, you're not safe. Of course, I never am
Speaker 2: able to quite say yes, because at the moment I'm
Speaker 2: not worried about you know, like, getting to pay off
Speaker 2: your mortgage is a really big deal. I was able
Speaker 2: to pay off my mortgage.
Speaker 1: Congratulations.
Speaker 2: No, that's a giant thing in life. Yeah, because they
Speaker 2: can you know you, yeah, probably can't take it away
Speaker 2: from you anymore. But right before the show Billions, I mean,
Speaker 2: I thought we were gonna have to downsize and sell
Speaker 2: our apartment, and I wasn't sure if I was gonna
Speaker 2: be able to pay our mortgage. So you know, you
Speaker 2: never you just never know.
Speaker 1: It's I think that's really important, And that's a point
Speaker 1: that I always make, like, was that a moment where
Speaker 1: you actually had to kind of think about risk differently?
Speaker 1: Think about kind of what tell me about that and
Speaker 1: about that decision making process, and kind of where where
Speaker 1: you were before before you sold the show, and kind
Speaker 1: of how you thought about it, how you broke it down.
Speaker 2: We had had giant failures. We had written a movie
Speaker 2: that bombed, and we were supposed to make a television show,
Speaker 2: and through a series of things, we before we even started,
Speaker 2: we got fired and an agent called us and said,
Speaker 2: I just want you to know you're unhireable. And I
Speaker 2: was like, did you have to make that phone call?
Speaker 2: We realized it by the no phone call when you called,
Speaker 2: I thought maybe I was going to get hired, you know,
Speaker 2: And just I remember this phone call from this agent,
Speaker 2: and it was in Central Park in the winter, and
Speaker 2: I was sitting on a bench in Central Park when
Speaker 2: I got the call and it was snowy and gross,
Speaker 2: and I just remember it was such a good punch.
Speaker 1: And this is a bad scene.
Speaker 2: It was terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable, too many, too many negative.
Speaker 2: Things, that's terrible, true. And I remember exactly where I was.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. I would walk across the park
Speaker 2: every day. We lived on the west side. My office
Speaker 2: was at the top of this bridge club with like
Speaker 2: the top floor of a bridge club on the upper side.
Speaker 2: David and I and so yeah that at this like
Speaker 2: little tiny elevator mostly walked upstairs. The final thing was
Speaker 2: up that stairs. But it was great, loved it, loved
Speaker 2: this weird thing. But every day would walk to the
Speaker 2: park and h But we were off it was Christmas,
Speaker 2: but we had started this script, and I just remember
Speaker 2: thinking as soon as we started writing it, because it
Speaker 2: was really the lowest point of my professional life, and
Speaker 2: I really did start thinking about what else how to
Speaker 2: keep this thing going. But then as soon as we
Speaker 2: started writing the script, I started just feeling better. I
Speaker 2: started being able to walk quicker instead of like just
Speaker 2: slugging it out walking through the park, you know, in
Speaker 2: the snow, I was able to kind of like march
Speaker 2: through the park, and Dave was way on vacation, and
Speaker 2: I would go through Central Park and go to our
Speaker 2: office and I would work on the script and I
Speaker 2: would send him whatever pages I did, and then he
Speaker 2: would work on it when he got back to his
Speaker 2: like wherever he was, and send me stuff. By the morning,
Speaker 2: I would have stuff from him. And I remember just
Speaker 2: working on it over this period of time and knowing, Okay,
Speaker 2: I think this might be the thing. And to talk
Speaker 2: about risks so in what you're supposed to do in
Speaker 2: the TV business. And even though we were unhirable according
Speaker 2: to the film agents, we did have a couple people
Speaker 2: in TV at television companies who would have heard a
Speaker 2: pitch from us and paid us some fee to write
Speaker 2: a script if they were interested in it. And our
Speaker 2: agent said, if you are working on something and you
Speaker 2: want us to get you in those rooms, even though
Speaker 2: you're cold, you know, the traditional thing is go pitch it.
Speaker 2: If nobody wants to pitch, they're not going to want
Speaker 2: the project, and you're going to save yourself time. Otherwise
Speaker 2: you're going to spend four or five months writing this
Speaker 2: script on spec, and the great likelihood is nobody is
Speaker 2: going to want it, and you will have wasted the
Speaker 2: time and the opportunity costs to find a way to
Speaker 2: be in business with these people, and they will. You
Speaker 2: will make some money over this time and now you'll
Speaker 2: make no money over this time period. But what David
Speaker 2: and I realized was if we wrote the script, and
Speaker 2: we wrote the first episode with andrewros Orkintwo was three
Speaker 2: of us. But Andrew was willing to go along with
Speaker 2: this idea, which was, well, write it on spec. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's possible. In fact, it's likely that nobody will want it.
Speaker 2: But the only way a writer in Hollywood can grab
Speaker 2: any power and control their future in any way is
Speaker 2: to have a piece of material that the business wants,
Speaker 2: because then you can set terms instead of having to
Speaker 2: de facto take their terms. And so we decided we're
Speaker 2: going to write it on spec so that we can
Speaker 2: create an inflection point. If somebody wants it, we can say, well,
Speaker 2: then you have to set a start date that you're
Speaker 2: going to make the show, that you have to be
Speaker 2: willing to give us the script back by this date.
Speaker 2: If you won't, we could gain momentum and kind of
Speaker 2: flip the paradigm, and we decided that that was a
Speaker 2: risk worth taking because of the asymmetrical upside, and so
Speaker 2: we did that and luckily, this wherelock comes in, like
Speaker 2: we had something that had the thing in it that
Speaker 2: made it the right thing at that time, so that
Speaker 2: all just added up in the right way, so that
Speaker 2: somebody did want it badly enough that we could set
Speaker 2: a situation up where we could put ourselves in a
Speaker 2: position to really succeed with it.
Speaker 1: That's amazing And in some ways I love the symmetry
Speaker 1: right where the beginning of your career and this particular
Speaker 1: point which has brought you to where you are today,
Speaker 1: there are some symmetries despite the fact that you're now
Speaker 1: you know, older, wiser, more mature, etc. But that thinking
Speaker 1: and that risk calculus, it has served you well.
Speaker 2: It's also about telling the truth to yourself. So like, yes,
Speaker 2: the agent said that to us undeniably, even though it
Speaker 2: sounds apocryphal, but it's true. I mean, I've all the
Speaker 2: email backup. But also at other times in one's life
Speaker 2: you could ignore it we had made because you look
Speaker 2: at me kind of incredulously, but we yes, I was
Speaker 2: incredulous about the fact that you mean this twenty year
Speaker 2: career of constantly making stuff that people want to make
Speaker 2: and see, like, you know, we had done all sorts
Speaker 2: of written Ocean's thirteen by them, it didn't matter. The
Speaker 2: business doesn't care. And it's a great thing to know
Speaker 2: that the business doesn't care. And so you have to
Speaker 2: make the business care. You have to create something undeniable,
Speaker 2: and you have to create a piece of work that
Speaker 2: is undeniable. Like your mother said, it's unfair. It's okay,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean yet that's the state of play, is
Speaker 2: that it's unfair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. It's the same thing in you know,
Speaker 1: the written realm, even though it's much more fair I
Speaker 1: think the than Hollywood. And we'll talk about this in
Speaker 1: a second, but you're only as good as your last
Speaker 1: book in terms of the advance you can get and
Speaker 1: like how people will listen to you. And I always
Speaker 1: know this when I'm working on my next book, I'm like, shit,
Speaker 1: if this book bombs, then I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: able to sell the next one. It doesn't matter that
Speaker 1: I've had three New York Times bestsellers. If the fourth
Speaker 1: one is a bomb, you know, like.
Speaker 2: I have a question that I haven't heard Nate ask
Speaker 2: you yet, or haven't heard somebody ask you and if
Speaker 2: they have, So you were in one of the best
Speaker 2: positions a human who wants to be a writer can
Speaker 2: be in, which is you were at the New Yorker.
Speaker 2: That's not something anybody ever kind of like cast aside
Speaker 2: in any way, meaning if you can say to somebody,
Speaker 2: I'm on staff writer at the New York No, no, no,
Speaker 2: the access that that gives you and the sense of
Speaker 2: security of like Harvard, I'm at the New York I lost.
Speaker 1: My New Yorker email last year, Brian, I had a
Speaker 1: Maria Kondacove at New Yorker dot com email address that
Speaker 1: I no longer have and I wasn't even warned that
Speaker 1: they were going to take it away all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I couldn't log into it. Really, yes, really, but I
Speaker 1: haven't written for them for years, so, like, I totally
Speaker 1: understand it.
Speaker 2: Were you worried about that?
Speaker 1: Though? No, no, it was No.
Speaker 2: I don't mean about losing the email address. I mean
Speaker 2: were you worried about kind.
Speaker 1: Of like sure, I went on book leave because in
Speaker 1: order to write the biggest bluff my last book. I
Speaker 1: had to immerse myself in that world one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: There was no other way it was going to work.
Speaker 1: I could just you know, stay at the New Yar,
Speaker 1: like do my weekly thing that I was doing, plus
Speaker 1: you know, learn poker and be able to do this,
Speaker 1: you know, understand this world. And so I kind of
Speaker 1: I made that calculated choice. And then you know, one
Speaker 1: thing led to another and I realized, you know, there
Speaker 1: are other things I want to be doing, and what
Speaker 1: am I happiest doing? That was also a question I
Speaker 1: asked myself, right, and I realized that longer for me
Speaker 1: is happier. So I'm happiest when I get to immerse
Speaker 1: myself in a book where I get to be in
Speaker 1: that world for a long time.
Speaker 2: You know what, something we didn't talk about because what
Speaker 2: you know, so I have to vote a lot of
Speaker 2: time the last five years to songwriting, and I h
Speaker 2: it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I follow you on Instagram.
Speaker 2: Yeah, once in a while I'll say something, but like
Speaker 2: I don't know, like sort of how that I At
Speaker 2: a certain point I started writing songs. I wanted other
Speaker 2: people to hear them, and I made a decision like
Speaker 2: I don't five years ago I was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: write with people, and I love like Guy Clark in
Speaker 2: Town Van Zanne. I love country music broadly. I'll say
Speaker 2: folk music songs that have stories in them that that's
Speaker 2: the kind of consonance with what I normally do. I
Speaker 2: come from a musical background, you know. My first career
Speaker 2: was as an an R person producer, record producer. I've
Speaker 2: always been around it, but a number of years ago
Speaker 2: I started really taking it seriously and I decided I'm
Speaker 2: going to devote time, like I'm going to devote a
Speaker 2: day a week at least to working on songwriting, making
Speaker 2: relationships with people in that business, going to Nashville, trying
Speaker 2: to write songs with people down there with an eye
Speaker 2: toward getting some artists to sing those songs. That's like
Speaker 2: really intense use of time and also at up time,
Speaker 2: and and like the constant risk of humiliation of rejection.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like if you want to do anything,
Speaker 2: that's like you're just going to deal with rejection. And
Speaker 2: even though one gets much better at understanding rejection for
Speaker 2: what it is, it's a complete lie to say like
Speaker 2: rejection doesn't sting. It's the only difference is it stings
Speaker 2: as opposed to it, like, you know, knocking you out,
Speaker 2: but a jab still hurts.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It's no longer a right cross or an upper cut,
Speaker 2: but a jab is still like, oh, that was not fun.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to get hit in the face. But like,
Speaker 2: I just and I've thought about it a lot, like
Speaker 2: what why? What made me keep me going? Because I
Speaker 2: had off the bat. A couple of people were like, oh,
Speaker 2: well that's a good song like come, but I had
Speaker 2: I could stack up the rejections and it just this year, finally,
Speaker 2: now there's an album coming out A really big country
Speaker 2: artist named Jackson Deine caught a song that co wrote
Speaker 2: and that I co wrote. And I've had a bunch
Speaker 2: of songs get cut by people, but this is the first,
Speaker 2: like and people artists who meant a lot to me,
Speaker 2: where it was like a really big deal to me,
Speaker 2: But this is like a song getting cut by somebody
Speaker 2: who's a really big deal and they just you know,
Speaker 2: he just put out the track listing and I know
Speaker 2: that this songs on the record. We wrote it together
Speaker 2: and congratulations, thanks, But it was I cannot tell you
Speaker 2: the amount of time, just hours, days, energy, focus, heart
Speaker 2: and all mostly where the writing of the songs feels
Speaker 2: really great, but the rest of it felt really bad.
Speaker 2: But I've just learned to chase This is to the
Speaker 2: point of like the curiosity something about something about the
Speaker 2: form of that particular kind of songwriting is hard in
Speaker 2: a way that's like poker. That's that draws me to
Speaker 2: wanting to solve it. It's not really solvable, but it's
Speaker 2: an artist the same kind of artistic spark that happens
Speaker 2: when I want to and this dialogue. It's the same
Speaker 2: sort of idea of writing, but the form is strict
Speaker 2: and you have to find a way to satisfy a
Speaker 2: bunch of different things. And it drew me to even
Speaker 2: though there wasn't gonna be really money in it. There
Speaker 2: was just going to be a time suck and I
Speaker 2: will pay. And people in my life really supported it
Speaker 2: and wanted me to do it as as now it's
Speaker 2: gonna and I know it'll look Whenever we all look
Speaker 2: at someone doing something where it's like, oh, that person,
Speaker 2: how did they go from that? It always looks in
Speaker 2: the outside like God, they that person must be that
Speaker 2: must be like a lot of talent, or that must
Speaker 2: be like that's an amazing connection. Or that must and
Speaker 2: almost always it's just like they were willing to risk
Speaker 2: failure and they were willing to try really really really hard,
Speaker 2: and they're ring the most out of like a talent
Speaker 2: that might not actually be greater than someone else is.
Speaker 2: It's just like the willingness to look ridiculous and the
Speaker 2: willingness to fall on your face and the willingness to
Speaker 2: feel bad because you're called to do it, and you
Speaker 2: stack those things. You're aware of it, especially as you
Speaker 2: get older. I was aware of it, and I am
Speaker 2: aware of it, and it's just like a problem that
Speaker 2: I'm drawn to. And that's the hallmark for all the things.
Speaker 2: And that goes back to the thing I started with
Speaker 2: about self knowledge. It's like the greater risk for me
Speaker 2: is not doing those things because I'll feel bad and
Speaker 2: I won't I won't feel like I could answer the questions.
Speaker 2: You have a good day, honestly because I didn't chase
Speaker 2: those I didn't listen to that spark. But I have
Speaker 2: to listen to it. I have. That's why I do
Speaker 2: morning pages, meditate because that stuff surfaces. You want to
Speaker 2: write songs, Go do it, take the risk. What's the
Speaker 2: worst that happens? Is you hear know a lot? Okay,
Speaker 2: you'll hear no and you'll try again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well I have many more questions, but I think
Speaker 1: that that is just such a beautiful place to end,
Speaker 1: so I could. I couldn't have thought of a better
Speaker 1: way to put it. Thank you so much for coming on, Brian.
Speaker 1: It's been such a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Maria, It's my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannakova and me
Speaker 1: Mate Silver. The show is a co production of Pushkin
Speaker 1: Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter.
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Jacob Goldstein. And if you want to listen to
Speaker 1: an AD free version, sign up for Pushkin Plus.
Speaker 2: For six seventy nine a month.
Speaker 3: You get access to ad free listening. Thanks for tuning
Speaker 3: in only f