WEBVTT - 4: A Beautiful Mind 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.600 It is time for us to realize that we're too 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:08.240 great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:19.200 It's the nineteen eighties. Ronald Reagan is President, Wall Street 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.720 is King. Bob Watchdell, then in his forties, was on 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.240 his way home after a long day on the Philadelphia 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:28.560 Stock Exchange. 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.680 I saw a young guy with another guy and they 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:35.480 were on the doorstep of one of these pretty houses. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.600 They were playing Go, the Chinese game. 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.279 Bob was a clever guy. He majored in chemistry, had 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:47.000 a PhD in philosophy, was a competitive backgammon player, and 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:51.480 an ex professional gambler. He stopped to watch the two 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.120 young men in their twenties compete. 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.600 And this one guy, strapping young fellow was giving the 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.720 other kid he was playing a big handicap, a nine 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.800 stone handicap, which is sort of like giving somebody a 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.280 queen in chess or something like that. It's a huge, 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:12.039 huge handicap, and beating him easily. And that got my interest, 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.000 and I started talking to the kid, and that was 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:19.199 John Bender. He was kind of attractive. He was six 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:23.880 feet tall, burly, curly hair, and he had a nice, 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.839 you know, sardonic way about him. Where it was clear 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.039 that to him, ninety nine point nine percent of the 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:31.320 world were idiots. 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.759 Bob told him he was working in finance trading options. 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.320 Then he said, oh, you know, that's what I've always 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.160 dreamed of doing. I said, well, maybe I can do something. 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.839 So Bob called his financiers, most of them professional gamblers, 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.280 and told them about this brilliant kid he'd found they 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.960 should take him on. That, in short, was how a 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.000 twenty year old John Bender, a physics major who turned 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.920 down a place at Harvard, got his first job on 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:07.080 the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Bob had made another good bet. 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.280 His guy would prove to be one of the most 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:16.959 successful financiers on Wall Street. John would make millions, reportedly 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:23.079 six hundred million dollars of personal wealth. That chance encounter 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.799 would change the course of John's life. Those millions would 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.800 pay for the Bender's place in paradise, but they would 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:35.359 also be fought over, bitterly fought over by business associates, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.360 and crucially, those millions would be presented as a motive 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:54.119 when one of the Benders was accused of murder. From 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.720 Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts produced by Blanchard House, 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:24.680 this is Helen Heaven. I'm Becky Milligan, Chapter four, A 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:34.239 Beautiful Mind. Anne and John were traumatized by the ambush 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:39.640 outside Rosemary's house. We know that the couple were increasingly reclusive, 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:45.320 John was obsessed with orchids. They've hired a former police 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.720 chief to protect them. Meanwhile, Anne's health keeps getting worse 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.560 despite John's attempts to find a cure for her. And 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.240 still no one in the valley really knows anything about 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:01.640 these two except that money is no problem. So what 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.920 kind of man makes six hundred million dollars? Well, let's 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.960 rewind the beginning. When John was a schoolboy. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:18.120 I remember one conversation I had with him about a 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.880 multiple choice tests which he did not do well on, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.599 and I talked to him about it, and he explained 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.960 to me how the question was wrong and the answer 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.240 that they were giving was wrong, and they didn't understand 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.400 what they were doing. And I said, John, if you 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.080 want to do well on his test, what you have 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.279 to do a cigurette? What the people did test want 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.640 you to do? What's the answer that they think is right. 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.560 I'm at Paul and Margi Bender's home in Phoenix, Arizona. 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.560 John's parents paul Is a distinguished legal academic, and Margie 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.520 a teacher. Back then in the nineteen seventies, they knew 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.680 they had a bright kid on their hands, not just bright, 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:01.599 but with an insatiable curious to the point of being 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:06.040 easily frustrated. And from the outside it might have appeared 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:07.920 he was a little arrogant. 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.400 He was always very critical and combative. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.839 In that way, I knew he was very intelligent. 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.080 One of his old friends and colleagues, Jonathan Kaplan, wrote 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.240 this on his blog about John. It's voiced up by 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:21.960 one of our team. 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.359 I never saw anyone do puzzles as well as him. Ever, 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.000 John would hear or read the puzzle, then give you 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.400 the answer. I never ever saw him hesitate, no matter 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.320 what the source material. He always had the right answer immediately. 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.000 I never saw anyone do puzzles as well as him. 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.559 He would do well to get with raising the test, 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.159 but it was not the enthusiasm with which he would 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.520 go after the things that really struck him as worthwhile 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.240 or really interesting or complicated, and they were. 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:57.599 Mostly complicated things in mathematical type of things he was on. 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.920 There was a math team at school. What they competed 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.280 around and they did very well, and the timulation enjoy that. 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:07.800 It was natural then for John to go from maths 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.839 to physics, a subject his dad had studied too before 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.599 law school, but hadn't found that easy. For John, though, 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:16.800 it was a breeze he saw. 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.799 It was not a surprise that he measured in physics 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:22.720 and that he was working in a lab with some 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.120 physicists that seemed to be comfortable for him to do. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.360 His parents saw a life in academia for their son. 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.479 The idea of that pleased them. He was going in 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:39.800 the right direction, and how did this super clever student relax? Well. 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:44.279 He liked playing games, but only ones that stretched his mind, 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:52.080 like go. Go was invented by the Chinese two five 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:54.839 hundred years ago, and it's thought to be the most 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:59.039 complex game ever devised by man. There's a checkerboard and 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.760 the competitors play with white and black stones. You have 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.320 to be really brainy to play well, so naturally it 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.440 appealed to John. There was even a go club a 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.840 few blocks away, run by Phil Strauss, who fancied himself 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:17.320 as a pretty good player. 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.360 We met at the breakfast room table in my house. 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.920 Somehow John showed up and wanted to learn how to 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:31.520 play Go, and I taught John how to play. I'm 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:37.440 a smart, analytical guy, and within a year he was. 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:42.320 Significantly better than I. I mean, it took my breath 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:44.119 away how fast he got good. 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:46.920 I mean just amazing. 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.880 This is a peculiar game, and it appeals to peculiar people. 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.440 If you were really committed. The highlight of the year 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.040 was the Go Congress, where the best players in the 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.320 world would gather to talk, shop, play tournaments, and hang 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.840 on the words of the game's masters. John being the guy, 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.840 he was moved seamlessly from student to teacher. It would 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.800 become a pattern in his life. So this new player 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.239 wasn't in the audience he was giving the lecture. 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.240 It was very unusual for an amateur to give a talk, 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:24.680 but John was an unusual person and gave a talk 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.920 on how he approached Go. I remember his style as 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:33.040 a Go player, and what I remember that I think 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.480 is significant, probably in terms of the rest of his life, 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:42.280 is that he was only concerned with ideas and go, 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.000 and to be an expert Go player you need to 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:50.240 do ideas and details. You know, to a Go player, 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.800 he seen arrogant because he was fixed in his view 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:56.439 of this is what's important. 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.280 He also had high expectations of his own nobilities, that 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:05.240 he could solve everything and by using his immense intellect, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.600 he could always win. It explains why he believed he 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.840 could find and develop a cure for Anne's lymes disease, 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.559 which he never did, and when it didn't work out, 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.600 he was hard on himself, seeing it as a failure 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.480 that he had let himself and everyone else down. And 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.920 at these times he could spiral down into a dark 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.800 place which he would find difficult to pull himself out of. 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.880 There's something else we heard a lot about John. He 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.320 didn't like being told what to do. 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:44.640 You know. 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.760 He had what is sometimes called a problem with authority. 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.600 I was teaching in all law school then, and I 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.480 was talking to about something, and he got really upset 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.240 about the fact that people were telling me what to do, 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.000 my clients, or the cord was telling me. He was 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:02.640 very uncomfortable with that. 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.400 That problem would exist in the science lab too. 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.840 If you go into a physics department at a university, 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.240 you're in an apartment and you've told what to do 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.640 by the chairman and the mean and all that kind 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.880 of stuff. And he was always uncomfortable with that kind 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:19.559 of arrangement, so. 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:21.960 In the end, when it came to a career choice, 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.760 he went in an entirely different direction, turning his back 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:30.360 on academia and his parents' expectations, leaving them baffled. 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.400 We were assuming he was going to go to graduate 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.360 school in physics because that's what he was measuring, and 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.400 he'd worked with people in the physics department while he 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:42.280 was an undergraduate. 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.480 But John told his dad that the physics lab wasn't 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:46.120 for him. 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:50.160 He decided to invark on a career as basically as 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:50.920 a gambler. 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:55.840 Yep, johna decided to forget physics and become a gambler. 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.360 It's not what his parents had planned for their eldest. 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:00.880 Asked them what was doing and he said he was 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.240 playing blackjack and he said, I said, well, what do 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.000 you do? He said you can make money that way 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.920 and I said, yeah, I guess you can, but it's 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.679 not reliable. He said, oh, no, it's quite reliable. And 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.960 I said how do you do that? And he said, 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.400 you card count and you just watch what cards are 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.480 out and then that changes the odds, and when the 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.520 odds are in your favor, you start playing, and he said, 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.280 I'll show you, and so we got a couple of 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.120 decks of cards and we went through a bunch of 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.160 hands and he kept winning. He got to be very 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:32.479 good at it, obviously. 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.280 So John would go to the nearby casinos and play 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:40.839 blackjack into the early hours and was making good money. Blackjack, 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:42.880 just in case you don't know, is a card game. 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.400 You need to get to twenty one or as close 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.800 as possible. If you go over, you lose. 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:54.040 I remember being in Atlantic City with John where he 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:55.280 used to card count. 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.120 Steve, one of John's old friends. 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.400 And they told him no that he had been body 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.520 and they kicked us out and he wasn't allowed to 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:05.679 go back to Atlantic City. 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:06.920 We laughed. 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:08.040 Was he good at it? 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:08.960 Amazing? 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.760 And it's that reputation that served him well in his 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.679 next career on Wall Street. 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:21.440 I think it was the gambling that attracted people to 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.679 invest with him. 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.400 Back to that street corner in Philadelphia, where this incredibly 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.720 smart guy who questioned authority and had an innate belief 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:38.120 that he could always win, bumped into stockbroker Bob Watchdow. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.400 A door opened on a new world, though it wasn't 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:43.760 actually completely new. 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.080 It turns out that he'd done a lot of work 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.360 in stock trading anyway, even when he was under age. 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:55.319 John was only seventeen. 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.320 There was an office of some brokers right at the 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.400 foot of the stock exchange, and he would sit in 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.560 that office watching the ticker and make trades. You know, 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.319 had made a good living, you know, just by himself, 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:10.319 with no bankroll. 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.720 And now in nineteen eighty five, age twenty and finance 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.720 by Bob's gambling friends, John embarked on his new career. 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.760 You're in what they call a pit, and it's like, 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.320 that's not a bad description of what it is, but 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.800 you had to stand the whole time, for seven or 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:34.400 eight hours in a crowd of idiots, screaming, marking out 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.560 their turf, cursing at you. Meanwhile, you're looking up at 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.600 a board that has a bunch of numbers, trying to 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.600 figure out patterns and trying to figure out prices. You 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.280 have brokers coming in and out with orders. 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.720 This is where John Bender found himself on the path 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:53.239 to making his fortune. 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.840 Before we knew it, John was down on the floor 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:02.040 and he was immediately just brilliant at it. One of 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.080 my friends who'd put the thing together the organizer of 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:10.320 the financial group. He said to me, well, Bob, you 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.280 have to teach John the ropes. So we're going to 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.240 give you eight percent of his winnings or whatever, but 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:19.680 you have to be there and you have to, you know, 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.240 explain things to him. And I said, there's no way 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.160 I can explain anything to him. He could only explain 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.440 things to me, and it would be futile for me 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:29.240 to even try. 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.280 At the time, there were regular seminars for the options traders. 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:34.680 Someone would give a. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:38.160 Talk and then afterwards there was a little quiz and 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.080 they'd say, well, okay, you have this spread. Now what 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:46.040 will happen in six months if volatility does this and 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:50.920 the price goes up and you know, And before anybody 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.200 else could answer, John had to answer every time. And 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.640 these were all pros. These were all people who'd been 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.960 doing it for years and years, they're doing it their 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.920 whole lives. Always knew the answer and it was right away. 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.240 Really, you didn't only spot his potential, but did you 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.040 suspect that there was some sort of genius inside that 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:08.600 young guy? 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:09.120 Yeah? 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.960 I mean I was lucky. I made a lucky guest. 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.680 So John put his brilliant mind to work, and this 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:20.120 time he started making serious money. But that wasn't the 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:25.320 only reason he got noticed. So what was he actually doing? 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:27.120 What is options trading? 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.920 Basically it's you against the public. You're a middleman between 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.280 buyers and sellers of these options, and options are very 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.880 complex and difficult to value. 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:42.000 It's complicated and risky. In short, an option is a 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.840 contract which gives the investor a right to buy something 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.400 at a certain date in the future at a pre 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:53.400 negotiated price. Basically, the investors make a bet on how 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.160 a stock will perform. If it does better than expected, 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.920 you're in the money. So it's suited x scam. And 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.440 for John he could use his brain to mathematically work 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.760 out how to reduce the risk, and he started to 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.280 develop all sorts of strategies and systems which would give 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.920 him an advantage over all the other traders, which I 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:20.840 guess by now you'd have expected him to do. Bob 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.520 and John began to hang out together outside work, despite 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.560 their age difference, John in his twenties Bob in his forties. 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.520 They became good buddies and went out on the town. 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.560 He wasn't a strange genius. He was not a you know, 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.520 Mozart or somebody like. I mean, he was fun to 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:44.000 talk to. And he was also great with the ladies. 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.240 When you say great, great with the women or whatever, 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:48.520 what does that mean. 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.200 Yeah, I mean he was. He just had a lot 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.400 of girls like them and maybe they, you know, had 0:16:55.480 --> 0:17:02.160 heard from their girlfriends that he was good, I mean sexually. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:04.200 He had a reputation. 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.600 Yeah, yeah, from what I know. Yeah, he was young 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:12.480 and handsome, and you know, he would tell me some 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.919 stories about them. He just thought of it as a 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.000 matter of fact, as that's the way life is. And 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.000 this is you know, I mean, this one's chasing me. 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.600 This one insisted that I it was sort of like 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:25.480 a bit of a you know, it's a bit of 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:26.080 a hassle. 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.680 So girls were basically beating down his door. Yeah, this 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.400 could all be locker room chat, of course. And all 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.960 this being a ladies man was before he met Anne. 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:37.879 When they weren't in the pit or out on the town, 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.280 John did a little modeling, and Bob says he sometimes 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.800 sat as an artist model and even appeared in porn films. 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.880 Although we didn't speak to anyone who saw the evidence, 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.159 both Bob and John spent the early mornings in the gym. 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.320 We actually did a lot of physical things like tennis 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.320 and working out. We did a lot of working out together. 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:04.760 He was quite strong, but terribly efficient when he was 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.360 working out. Could he never use the same muscle twice 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:10.600 without knowing why he was doing it. 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.919 Steve was twenty when he first ran into John in 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:14.520 the gym. 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.400 Of course, one day I walked into the gym at 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.199 seven thirty in the morning to work out. John was 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:26.280 in there working out. I had never met him, and 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.879 I said, what body parts are you working today? He said, 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.760 I'm doing legs. I said, well, I have to back 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:39.000 and biceps is today? Let's go do back and biceps. 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:45.560 John said, oh okay. And it was kind of crazy 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:49.880 because John looked at me, like, who's this black guy 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:50.720 that's taken over? 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:56.520 From that moment Tom. They were firm friends. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.560 And I would call John on a Saturday night and 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:00.760 tell him I have a poor aready that we can 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.760 go to, and he said, well, I don't know if 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.760 I can go. I said, come on, John, you're with me. 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.479 I'm black, you're a Jewish kid. I'll make sure you're okay. 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.320 And we would go hang out for the night to 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.679 see John. When a nightclub floor and dancing was funny 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.960 because John didn't know how to dance at all, and 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.120 we would be there for five hours. He was very 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.520 good at meeting girls, and I was the type that 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:28.840 wasn't good at that at all. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.640 Did you learn from John how to how to sort 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:33.719 of chat up girls? 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:35.800 Then, of course a lot. 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.399 John just would wink. He would looked at them, and 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.359 he would wink at them, and then he would turn 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.119 away and if sudly, look again to see if that 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.639 person's interested, and he would kick up one ed. And 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.480 as I got older, I learned to do that by 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.240 being around job. He had very few friends, but his 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.720 friends were very, very good friends. I don't think John 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.920 wanted that many people around. I remember one night John 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:06.560 telling me that money is only green paper, and he's 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.359 going to make as much of it as you want. 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:10.359 He told me that, he said, you'll come work for 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:12.600 me one day. It never happened. 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.080 Working out was one thing John continued to do in 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.879 Costa Rica, where he had a vast gym. But with 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.800 all that bravado, Bob never heard his friend raise his 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:29.159 voice or have a fight. He recalls John being quiet, kind, 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.280 He had a thoughtful side, so. 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:36.119 I remember him being incredibly gentle with some kind of 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:41.520 little insect where it was in his way or something 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.320 like that, and he just like, he's this big, strong 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:48.560 guy and he just moved it so gently. Like that 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.240 struck me. I never forgot that, you know, he didn't 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.879 swat it away or something like that or squish it. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.159 That was forty years ago, but Bob will never forget it, 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.000 because well, it wasn't what he expected John to do. 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.159 John was having a good time and he was making 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.640 a lot of money, but that was troubling for his parents. 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.360 One question kept coming up, Margue. 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:16.679 We keep asking you what he can do with all 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:17.840 this money? 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:19.600 What are you going to do with all this money? 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.359 It seemed to be in direct opposition to their fundamental 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:27.000 values in Arizona. Paul and Marghy reflected on it. 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:30.840 If he were into science or education something like that, 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:32.520 you would have been a lot more comfortable with that 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.400 than his going into a field that you know absolutely 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:37.040 nothing about him that seemed to have a lot to 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:41.360 do with money, because you have never been interested in no. 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:43.199 I mean that's one of the things about me that 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.639 I guess nobody understands. But having a lot of money 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:47.800 was never something I wanted. If I had had it, 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:49.480 I would have spent it on somebody else. 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.119 She is an affirmative dislike for worrying about money or 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.800 caring about it. And he's in this business and that's 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:56.520 all you do. 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:59.960 They found his desire to accumulate more and more money 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.520 working twenty four seven very hard to understand, and the 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.320 way they talk about it, I can see how much 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:08.400 it worried them. 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:11.080 All those people are like that. I mean they never 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:15.280 leave their job because their job is investing and they're 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.720 looking for things to buy and sell and it can 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:22.399 happen at any time, and so they always have something 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:26.520 with them that they can do business on. And yeah, 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.360 it was a very engrossing kind of thing to do, 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:34.800 and he really liked it. I mean it was a game, 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.919 it was a puzzle, it was something to win at exciting. Yeah, no, 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:42.600 I think so. And it keeps changing. I mean it's 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.120 a constant game to try to win that. I think 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.520 that's the way he looked at it, to try to 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:50.959 figure out what to do to win the game, and 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.119 he kept trying to do that. So, yeah, it was 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:55.360 all engrossing. When you do I don't think you can 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.600 do that and not be completely involved in it. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:04.760 The thing was that that desire to win it was insatiable. 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.240 It became all that mattered to John Well. 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:10.560 He just wanted to go for it and proved that 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.960 he was right that he was never satisfied no matter 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.320 how much money he'd made, no matter how well he'd 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:19.440 done it, because even if he'd made a winning trade, 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:23.119 he could have bet more, and he should have seen 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.680 what was going to happen when I knew him. That's 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:30.400 all that seemed to interest him was getting to the 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:33.480 next level and doing it better and playing with the 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:34.280 big players. 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:35.959