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Speaker 1: Masters in Business is brought to you by the American

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Speaker 1: dot org. VI is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts

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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. This week on the podcast, I sit

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Speaker 1: down with author and journalist Duff McDonald. He has written

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Speaker 1: such seminal books as Last Man Standing, The Ascent of

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Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond, and JP Morgan Chase. His second book was

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Speaker 1: The Firm, The Story of McKenzie and its secret influence

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Speaker 1: on American business. And what's shocking about that book not

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Speaker 1: only that McKenzie is as influential as it is in

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Speaker 1: government and finance and business in general, but given their

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Speaker 1: storied history and their power and influence, this was literally

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Speaker 1: the first book ever written on mackenzie. That that's pretty shocking.

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Speaker 1: Full disclosure, I myself have referenced Duff's work, and about

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Speaker 1: half a dozen years ago I wrote something called is

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Speaker 1: Mackensey the Root of All Evil? And the answer turned out,

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Speaker 1: in my opinion, to more or less have been yes.

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Speaker 1: His book is really a deep and detailed UH read

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Speaker 1: into the storied firm, and it's quite fascinating. His most

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Speaker 1: recent book is The Golden Passport, Harvard Business School and

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Speaker 1: the Limits of Capitalism and the Moral Failure of the

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Speaker 1: NBA Elite. It is also a deeply researched and highly critical,

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Speaker 1: UH look at one of the most significant institutions in

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Speaker 1: the world of filling the blank, government, finance, business, etcetera. UH.

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Speaker 1: What I love about Duff's work is that it's not

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Speaker 1: just opinion or vis rule, like or dislike. These are

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Speaker 1: really deep dives, richly researched pieces of work into an institution,

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Speaker 1: the people involved, the impact it's had on not only

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Speaker 1: the world of business and finance and government, but just

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Speaker 1: how it fits into the overall um skew of society

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Speaker 1: and including things like what's the impact of our business

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Speaker 1: school on economic inequality? And he approaches this from a

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Speaker 1: very very objective, nonpartisan approach. I found all of his

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Speaker 1: books to be absolutely fascinating, and I think you'll find

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Speaker 1: the conversation we had quite interesting as well. So, with

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Speaker 1: no further ado, my conversation with dof McDonald's my special

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Speaker 1: guest today is Doff McDonald. He is a contributing editor

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Speaker 1: at The New York Observer. He has previously contributed as

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Speaker 1: an editor at New York magazine, Fortune and other fine publications.

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Speaker 1: He has written pretty much for every major business publication,

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Speaker 1: from Fortune, Business Week, conde As Portfolio, g Q, Wired.

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Speaker 1: He has won numerous national magazine awards and is the

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Speaker 1: author of numerous books. The one that caught my attention

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Speaker 1: was The Firm, The Story of McKenzie and its secret

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Speaker 1: influence on American business. But he has also written Last

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Speaker 1: Man Standing, The Ascent of Jamie Diamond and JP Morgan Chase,

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Speaker 1: and his most recent book is The Golden Passport Harvard

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Speaker 1: Business School, The Limits of Capitalism and the Moral Failure

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Speaker 1: of the NBA Elite. Duff McDonald, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for having me. Let's start out talking a little bit

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Speaker 1: about your career in journalism. What attracted you to writing

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Speaker 1: about out business? It's funny you should ask. I went

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Speaker 1: to Wharton as an undergraduate a little unwittingly. I was

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Speaker 1: from Toronto and I did not have a sense of

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Speaker 1: Wall Street at the time. I was interested in, uh,

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Speaker 1: being a businessman was which is what I told my

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Speaker 1: guidance counselor. So he told me to go to a

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Speaker 1: business school. So I did, and I did well enough

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Speaker 1: there and got a job at Goldman Sacks out of undergrad.

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Speaker 1: It's not that you wanted to, but it's the law.

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Speaker 1: You come out of Wharton and there there's a line.

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Speaker 1: You could go to Goldman Sacks. Here, you could go

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Speaker 1: to McKinsey. There, there's a whole bunch of options exactly,

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Speaker 1: although I kind of stumped to my classmates, I only

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Speaker 1: got one job offer from a real Sacks and apparently

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Speaker 1: if you get one from Goldman, you're supposed to have

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Speaker 1: gotten one from everybody else too. But I worked there

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Speaker 1: for two years in corporate finance, and while impressed with

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Speaker 1: the quality of the talent and the you know, they

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Speaker 1: know what they're doing there, it wasn't for me. And

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Speaker 1: I actually tried to get a job in book publishing

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Speaker 1: first and couldn't get hired. So there was nothing available

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Speaker 1: in steam engines. You were looking into businesses that were

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Speaker 1: soon going to collapse, exactly, So thank you publishing industry

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Speaker 1: for not hiring me and merely hiring me later. And

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Speaker 1: then a friend suggested journalism, and I looked into so

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Speaker 1: you had never really been thinking about writing. Has there

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Speaker 1: been previous authorship, any writing casually? Not on the side,

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Speaker 1: like I was a capable writer, But I know, I

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Speaker 1: don't think I ever once said I want to be

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Speaker 1: a writer. And so back to your question, how did

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Speaker 1: I get into business journalism, It's because to get into journalism,

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Speaker 1: I need I needed to write about business. So that

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Speaker 1: you and, UM, that's that's pretty fascinating. What does your

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Speaker 1: process look like? How do you figure out what you

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Speaker 1: want to write about and how do you begin covering

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Speaker 1: a specific topic? The areas you have written about, both

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Speaker 1: in print and in books is pretty broad cross section

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Speaker 1: of American finance. Yeah. I basically tend to follow my interest,

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Speaker 1: you know, wherever it lands. Um, you know, maybe I

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Speaker 1: shouldn't say that my my choice of topic is somewhat random,

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Speaker 1: but I after a point in my career, got to

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Speaker 1: a point where I could, uh, you know, I knew

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Speaker 1: enough editors that I could get assignments with good story ideas.

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Speaker 1: So it was just about a good story and we

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Speaker 1: were pitching ideas to them and most of the time

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Speaker 1: they liked it. Yeah, and I and and in the

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Speaker 1: other direction, So you know, it's following. Uh, just sort

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Speaker 1: of my interest. But if you look at the three books, uh,

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Speaker 1: they all sort of follow each other. Jamie Diamond was

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Speaker 1: the first one because I had a cover story in

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Speaker 1: New York Magazine after the fall of bear Stearns, which

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Speaker 1: we we sold as a book, and then Mackenzie followed that.

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Speaker 1: Because Jamie himself, who's uh and no notoriously anti consultant.

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Speaker 1: It didn't resonate enough with me at the time that

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Speaker 1: I thought, oh, that's my next book, but enough that

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Speaker 1: it was in the book about Jamie and my editor said,

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Speaker 1: what what what about what he said about Mackenzie? What

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Speaker 1: do you think? And I looked into and I was like,

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Speaker 1: I can't believe no one's written a book. I was

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Speaker 1: about to say, it's astonishing that they've been around as

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Speaker 1: long as they have been and are as influential as

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Speaker 1: they are. No one has really called them to test.

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Speaker 1: I think it's because they probably never cooperated and uh,

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Speaker 1: did they cooperate with you? They did? They did not.

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Speaker 1: At first We used the age old this book is

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Speaker 1: happening anyway, thing that we use in magazine journalism. You

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Speaker 1: could either help shape it or just come out and

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Speaker 1: you can read it with everybody else, and I promise

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Speaker 1: you won't be happy. And the shocker is that Mackenzie

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Speaker 1: came around. And then you get to the third book,

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Speaker 1: Harvard Business School, and that came about just because you know,

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Speaker 1: Mackenzie and Harvard have been connected for a long time,

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Speaker 1: for a long time, and they are the only one

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Speaker 1: of the three subjects that refuse to speak to me

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Speaker 1: at all. That's interesting is your process. I know some

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Speaker 1: people research research, research, and then they finished the research

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Speaker 1: and they write right right, and other people research right,

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Speaker 1: research right. How do you approach covering a subject I

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Speaker 1: mean broad like McKinsey and Harvard Business School to fairly

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Speaker 1: giant subjects. I'm more of the former, where I sort

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Speaker 1: of try to frontload the research. I found through the

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Speaker 1: three books that the hardest part of writing a book,

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Speaker 1: at least for me, is the middle part, organizing what

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Speaker 1: you know and getting ready to write. Because reporting, if

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Speaker 1: you enjoy it and have a whatever capability at it's

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Speaker 1: not that hard. You're just talking to people and you're

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Speaker 1: doing a thousand words and it's a fairly clear structure.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, a hundred thousand words so like,

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Speaker 1: so the first time I did that it nearly you know,

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Speaker 1: broke my mind. I was like, I don't even know

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Speaker 1: how to like take this word file and start cutting

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Speaker 1: and pay. Like the sort of just manual challenge was

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Speaker 1: was uh so terrifying. But um and you know, so

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Speaker 1: I I do do research at first organization than writing.

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Speaker 1: But you know, you by the time you're writing is

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Speaker 1: when you know the most about the subject, So you know,

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Speaker 1: you do go back and look into things that you

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Speaker 1: stumble on at that point in the process. How how

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Speaker 1: much of Harvard Business School is part of that group

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Speaker 1: that the national populist movement around the world is tilting against.

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Speaker 1: Before I looked into it, I would have I I

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Speaker 1: think I if you'd asked me, I would have guessed

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Speaker 1: that HBS was, you know, dominant in both business and

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Speaker 1: government leadership positions. One of the things that's really interesting

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Speaker 1: about them, as opposed to say Harvard Law School or

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Speaker 1: or other places, is there are precious few Harvard m

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Speaker 1: b A's that ever have a career in government. You know,

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Speaker 1: they go in at the top, like Hank Paulson or

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Speaker 1: something like that. But like, if you look at the

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Speaker 1: top one thousand people in the federal government, you'll probably

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Speaker 1: find five Harvard NBA's. Yeah, so they are not. They

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Speaker 1: are not part of the governing elite, except if you, uh,

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Speaker 1: business that corporations are essentially ruling this country well to

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Speaker 1: a large degree they have, Yeah, so in that regard

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Speaker 1: they are. I think the FT came out with a survey,

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Speaker 1: its latest survey of the five thousand largest companies in

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Speaker 1: the world or the thousand or something, and MBAs were

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Speaker 1: not dominant as c as a percentage of CEOs, But

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Speaker 1: of those CEOs that were MBA's, Harvard was totally dominant.

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Speaker 1: They had more than twice as many as the closest one,

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Speaker 1: which I think was Stanford or Inciot. So uh. They

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Speaker 1: have a long history of accelerating people's climb to the

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Speaker 1: top of whatever greasy pole they're climbing. Let let me

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Speaker 1: throw a quote of yours at you and see what

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Speaker 1: you have to say about this. Harvard Business School has

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Speaker 1: not only proven an enormous failure, but it's very success

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Speaker 1: has made it positively dangerous discuss. I think that one

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Speaker 1: of the things that they have consistently failed to do

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Speaker 1: is to teach their students that hierarchy and success does

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Speaker 1: not equal. That does not mean that you are right

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Speaker 1: and does not mean that you are wise. And part

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Speaker 1: of that as to do with the fact that you

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Speaker 1: can't pitch yourself as a graduate school of Harvard where

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Speaker 1: your where, your mission is to make boatloads of money.

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Speaker 1: So what they sell themselves as as educating enlightened leaders,

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Speaker 1: and these enlightened leaders are convinced of their own destiny

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Speaker 1: as leaders from the get go, and they confuse all

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Speaker 1: sorts of other inputs for their essential correctness and rightness,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, make decisions based on that. And

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it's like they've confused the ability to make

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Speaker 1: money with wisdom. So let me throw another of your

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Speaker 1: quotes back at you. Harvard Business School has contributed to

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Speaker 1: pretty much every bad thing that has happened in American

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Speaker 1: business and the economy over the past century. Now is

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Speaker 1: that a fact or a slight execut Uh? That's that's

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Speaker 1: on paraphrases. Okay, So I wouldn't want to like, you know,

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Speaker 1: a couple of reviewers have said that I blamed the

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Speaker 1: recent financial crisis on them. I did not. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: in the book what I took issue with was Dean

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Speaker 1: Jay light in the media aftermath of the crisis saying, uh,

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Speaker 1: we won't. We don't want to spend time looking to

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Speaker 1: fix blame. That's not interesting. But we must be part

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Speaker 1: of the solution. And if you look at the list

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Speaker 1: of HBS grads who are in positions of authority in

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Speaker 1: the lead up to the crisis, you have George W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: you have Christopher Cox, you have Hank Paulson, you have

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Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond, you have down whoever. I'll take Coldman sax

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Speaker 1: So Lynch, John Thayne, John Paulson. So you have it

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Speaker 1: like that. In no way was I like it's their fault.

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Speaker 1: But it's like, wait a second, when we're making a

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Speaker 1: list of people to figure out how to not do

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Speaker 1: this again, I don't think you have earned the right

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Speaker 1: to be uh at the head of that line. You

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Speaker 1: were at the head of it leading into this thing.

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Speaker 1: The metaphor I I like is when a surgical procedure

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Speaker 1: is botched, you always send in a fresh surgeon to

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Speaker 1: fix it, who is not looking to cover up the

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Speaker 1: previous snaffo. He's just going in or she's just going

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Speaker 1: in to do what they need to do. When you

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Speaker 1: send somebody to fix something where they may have had

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Speaker 1: hand a hand in the creation of the problem you're

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Speaker 1: not going to get And and that's been a pretty

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Speaker 1: fair criticism of having Geithner and Larry Summers as part

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Speaker 1: of the clan up crew. Are they there to clean up?

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Speaker 1: Are they there to clean up their reputation? It's hard

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Speaker 1: to tell. Yeah, And Hank Paulson, you know, credited with

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Speaker 1: stabilizing a clearly precarious situation, but he that was not

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Speaker 1: his only motivation at the time. He was motivated to

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Speaker 1: save Goldman sacks. He was motivated to Uh, there were

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Speaker 1: sweetheart deals with gold all over the place. So again,

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Speaker 1: was it their fault? Who's you know who? We can't

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Speaker 1: really blame anyone, but they certainly weren't without fault to say,

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Speaker 1: to say the least. So here's a question that I'm

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Speaker 1: curious about. So you you reference Stanford, you went to Wharton,

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Speaker 1: There's the Booth School at Chicago, Columbia, talk at Dartmouth.

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Speaker 1: You go down the list of high ranked MBA programs,

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Speaker 1: it seems like there's a lot of competition. Is is

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Speaker 1: Harvard Business School still it or have some of these

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Speaker 1: other really well regarded entities cut a little bit into

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Speaker 1: their space. I can answer that question with a quote

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Speaker 1: that's in the book. I can't remember who said it,

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Speaker 1: so i'm I apologize to its source now. But they said, um,

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Speaker 1: if you want your grandparents to be impressed, uh, go

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Speaker 1: to Harvard Business School. If you want your grandkids to

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Speaker 1: be impressed, go to Stanford. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I read recently there are seventy six thousand Harvard NBA alumni,

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Speaker 1: with a third of those living outside of the US.

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Speaker 1: That's a pretty potent network of for any graduate school

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Speaker 1: has Has Harvard Business School graduates become the new Illuminati?

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Speaker 1: H I think I I'm I say in the book

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Speaker 1: that it may be the most powerful alumni network that

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Speaker 1: ever has been right. They are uh uh. They have

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Speaker 1: significant representation among the world's wealthiest and among leadership at uh.

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Speaker 1: In the corporate world overseas, they are in more government

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Speaker 1: positions because that, you know, people tend to send their

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Speaker 1: kids to the States to get that snamp of credibility.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about Jamie Diamond. Warren

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Speaker 1: Buffett has described him as one of his favorite CEOs.

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Speaker 1: What what's your take on Mr Diamond. Readers of the book,

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Speaker 1: we'll see that I was impressed with him Uh, he's

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Speaker 1: one of the most charismatic CEOs I've ever met. He

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Speaker 1: clearly endears people to him, and you know, loyalty is

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Speaker 1: one of his strong suits. I think his management of

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Speaker 1: JP Morgan Chase pretty much, you know, stands for itself.

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Speaker 1: I know that you haven't always you know, you've been

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Speaker 1: a critic in the past, but as as far as

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Speaker 1: as as managed as if your job is not so

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Speaker 1: much a critic of him as the banking industries begging

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Speaker 1: to be bailed out? How fortuitous was it that they

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Speaker 1: had their big sub prime disaster years before the financial crisis?

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Speaker 1: It so when they had a liquid date, there was

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Speaker 1: a bit there for them to get out. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: selling into the panic or am I giving them too

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Speaker 1: much credit? You know. One of the things that I

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Speaker 1: criticized the case method of teaching at HBS four is

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Speaker 1: that they allow corporate executives to claim foresight when it

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Speaker 1: was just circumstance and luck. I think, uh, in Last

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Speaker 1: Man Standing at talk about the fact that they were

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Speaker 1: just they were trying to get the pieces of the

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Speaker 1: conveyor belt all moving at the right time, and uh,

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Speaker 1: we're a step behind. Uh. Some of the other players

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Speaker 1: like Meryl and uh uh so, yeah, there was luck there.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, I had numerous people tell

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Speaker 1: me from inside the company that Jamie and and the

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Speaker 1: people who work with him had sort of suddenly feeling

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Speaker 1: on alert a little before everyone else. Well, I'm doing

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Speaker 1: this from memory, and in my book, when I was

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Speaker 1: researching bailout Nation back America was a disaster, Merrill Lynch

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Speaker 1: going down less countrywide Morgantown. Notably missing from the parade

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Speaker 1: of terribles was JP Morgan. And when you do the

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Speaker 1: deeper dive, you find out, well, they had a derivative

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Speaker 1: snaffoo when they had these problems with C d O s.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't right in the middle of the O

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Speaker 1: eight oh nine where the bids went away. I want

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Speaker 1: to say it was three or five years earlier. So

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Speaker 1: when they had to clean that up, the housing market

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Speaker 1: was still there. They were able to go out to

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Speaker 1: the market and work their way out of whatever it was.

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Speaker 1: And I apologize if I'm getting that wrong of doing

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Speaker 1: this for memory, but clearly their derivative snaff who predated

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Speaker 1: Bear and Lehman and A. I. G. And everybody else.

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Speaker 1: It's always better to sell into an upmarket than into

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Speaker 1: a panic. And also you know and their their next

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Speaker 1: derivative snaffoo, the London Whale was after and I think

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Speaker 1: it might be out of a little nivete on my part,

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Speaker 1: But what Jamie said, and what Sandy while had said

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Speaker 1: before him, is their focus on the Fortress balance sheet

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Speaker 1: to be able to stand anything to or buy when

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Speaker 1: the streets are running with blood or whatever it is. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's you know that that was a stated intention long

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Speaker 1: before they did so. And look what they did. They

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Speaker 1: picked up bear Sterns Sterns for a song, originally two dollars,

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Speaker 1: ultimately ten dollars a share. They ended up getting that

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Speaker 1: brand new bear Sterns building, which was probably worth at

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Speaker 1: that point more than the rest and and and Washington

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Speaker 1: Music if you remember was it was it city. Someone

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Speaker 1: was maneuvering to get WOMBO and somebody who had a

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Speaker 1: let's call it a dubious balance sheet, And when JP

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Speaker 1: Morgan showed up, it was yeah, you guys are done.

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Speaker 1: We're going there. And I will tell you from personal

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Speaker 1: experience at the time, we had a Washington Mutual account,

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Speaker 1: my a t M credit card where I used to

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Speaker 1: get charged a dollar or two dollars that chase. I

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Speaker 1: want to say the deal took place on like a

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Speaker 1: Saturday or Sunday. By Tuesday or Wednesday, the fee was

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Speaker 1: gone from you. It was in forty eight hours, and

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Speaker 1: they were often running. It was a pretty seamless transition,

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Speaker 1: and that was a pretty substantial purchase. And that was

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Speaker 1: when in October it was like it was still in

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Speaker 1: you know, Lehman frenzy. A lot of people rained a

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Speaker 1: lot of hate down on the guy as as as

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Speaker 1: their favorite you know, boogeyman from the financial crisis, but

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Speaker 1: as a manager and as a you know, just from

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Speaker 1: what I know him as a person and stuff like,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't be more impressed. A couple of people wrote

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Speaker 1: online that how do I square a positive biography of

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Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond with a searing critique of Harvard Business School?

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Speaker 1: And it's simply not everybody who comes out of there

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Speaker 1: is Yeah, that's the point. It's like, I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: everyone out of there is evil, and everyone out of

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Speaker 1: there doesn't know what they're doing. Is they're clearly very

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Speaker 1: good at teaching people of things they need to do

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Speaker 1: to get to the top. But as Henry Mintzburg at

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Speaker 1: McGill says, getting to the top is what matters to

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Speaker 1: the student and the school when it's selling itself to

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Speaker 1: prospective NBA students. What matters to the rest of us

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Speaker 1: is what they do once they're there. And in that

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Speaker 1: group I'm in, clearly is a standout. How secret is

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Speaker 1: Mackenzie's influence? Yeah, I got mocked and from a couple

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Speaker 1: of quarters for that saying it's no secret, uh, to

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Speaker 1: which I responded, Um, we're trying to sell books and

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Speaker 1: and the two points were honest. The secret part about

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Speaker 1: Mackenzie's influence is that when it is not for public

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Speaker 1: institution or governmental body or something like that that has

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Speaker 1: to disclose it, none of their work is disclosed by anyone,

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Speaker 1: by the client, by Mackenzie. So uh, some of it

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Speaker 1: comes to light when there is scandal or when people

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Speaker 1: want to brag about it, but the large proportion of

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Speaker 1: their work is happens in complete secret. And hence the

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Speaker 1: Mackenzie mystique you write about. Absolutely. Yeah. So these guys

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Speaker 1: are behind the scenes interviewer or behind the scenes consultants

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Speaker 1: who I make a point in the book that they

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Speaker 1: what they do is they sell credit to their clients

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Speaker 1: for their ideas, right, So mckensey that again, they sell

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Speaker 1: credit for their ideas. In other words, they'll give the

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Speaker 1: client the idea and say, hey, you can take credit.

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Speaker 1: They never claim credit for it, right because no CEO

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Speaker 1: wants to hire them, say tell me to do acquisition

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Speaker 1: A or B, and then they do A and mackenzie

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Speaker 1: is over there saying that was our idea. Then that

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Speaker 1: doesn't happen. But the trade off is that mackenzie says,

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Speaker 1: we will take no credit, but we will also take

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Speaker 1: no blame, no blames. So let's talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: bit about that blame. You and I were chatting, Um,

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Speaker 1: I not looking to sell books headlines. A column one's

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Speaker 1: called from two thousand eleven is McKinsey and Company the

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Speaker 1: root of all evil. I must have read something you

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Speaker 1: had written before you had written the book. Tell me

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Speaker 1: if this quote sounds familiar. McKenzie, the global consulting firm,

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Speaker 1: has created dubious strategies for all manners of companies, ranging

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Speaker 1: from Enron to General Electric. Indeed, wherever there has been

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Speaker 1: a financial disaster in the world, if you look around,

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Speaker 1: somewhere in the background, McKenzie and Company is nearby. And

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Speaker 1: let me throw some of these out at you and

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Speaker 1: you tell me your thoughts, side pockets and off balance

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Speaker 1: sheet accounting, leading it to become known as the firm

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Speaker 1: that built en Ron. Jeff Skilling was Mackenzie also, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: before Enron, so he hit for the cycle. Yeah, hbs

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Speaker 1: Mackenzie and then Enron and then Jail perfect right, that's

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Speaker 1: the full foursome. So and and while he was at Enron,

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Speaker 1: he continued to use Mackenzie to the tune of ten

395
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Speaker 1: million a year in fees. They hired MBA's mostly Harvard

396
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Speaker 1: NBA's and had Mackenzie consultants at right, fawning articles and

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Speaker 1: books like The War for Talent and and uh stuff

398
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Speaker 1: about their off balance sheet accounting, talking about how this

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Speaker 1: new asset light company was the company of the future

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Speaker 1: and they were cheerleading all the way. Mackenzie argued that

401
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Speaker 1: New York City was losing derivative business to London and

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Speaker 1: therefore should more aggressively pursue derivative underwriting. How did that

403
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,679
Speaker 1: work out? And in the firm I talked about in

404
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 1: the fallout from the crisis, Mackenzie was advising almost every

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Speaker 1: single institution that collapsed. So back to the secret part.

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Speaker 1: We don't know what their advice was, but it certainly

407
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Speaker 1: wasn't go in the direction of less not more. It's

408
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 1: not just financial firms they've advised that collapsed. They gave

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Speaker 1: some advice to British railway company rail Track. The advice

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Speaker 1: was spend less on infrastructure, which led to a series

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Speaker 1: of fatal accidents and eventually rail Track collapsed. Swiss Air

412
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 1: implemented a m Z strategy, which was very helpful in

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Speaker 1: eventually pointing them to bankruptcy. Now we could argue is

414
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Speaker 1: that just a coincidence or not. All State did a

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Speaker 1: auto claims payout reduction. It was a Mackenzie and Company strategy.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't that they were helping them manage how to

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Speaker 1: do their payouts. They were reducing their legitimate claimants payouts.

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Speaker 1: And they lost a bunch of business over it, and

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Speaker 1: and had some states. Look, I don't remember the outcome

420
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Speaker 1: in the book, but there was states that had reviewed

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Speaker 1: all States State and that I I talked about that

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Speaker 1: in the book. That is that's probably the most disgusting

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Speaker 1: piece of consulting I came across from. Well, the one

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Speaker 1: that I think had the most the biggest financial impact

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Speaker 1: and we'll come back to all state. So ge followed

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Speaker 1: their advice before the crisis and lost a billion dollars.

427
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Speaker 1: But the one that blows my mind a little company

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Speaker 1: called Bell Labs out of a T and T. Eventually

429
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,719
Speaker 1: they changed their name to Loosen invented the cell phone,

430
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: but they didn't pursue it because mackinsey advised them ain't

431
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: no future in mobile phones. I mean, stop and think

432
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: about that. How is that not justify a corporate death

433
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: sentence When you managed to say to somebody like if

434
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,640
Speaker 1: your advice is this whole mobile future technology thing ain't

435
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:27,479
Speaker 1: going anywhere? Who would ever hire you again with that

436
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: sort of expertise? It's a great question. I make that

437
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: point in the book that there's there are ten reasons

438
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 1: or to hire Mackensey. Only one of them is the

439
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: advice that they give you. What are the other nine?

440
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: Give us? Give us some highlight. Let me see if

441
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 1: I have nine. One is to show that you can

442
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: afford them, so they are a luxury good. Okay, it's

443
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: a signaling. That's funny. If you are the CEO, uh

444
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: and you aren't sure what to do, You're not gonna

445
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,199
Speaker 1: ask your number two or at least you're not going

446
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: to display your level of uncertainty. They are a great

447
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: use of corporate money for personal, you know, decision making help.

448
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 1: If you are the CEO of a company who needs

449
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: to get rid of your number two because you're feeling

450
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: him getting a little close to you, they are a

451
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: wonderfully effective way of having a knife stuck in their

452
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,239
Speaker 1: back that does not have your fingerprints on it. You

453
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: can restructure that person out with McKenzie's advice. If you've

454
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: made a decision, you need to get it by your board.

455
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 1: Mackenzie told us to do it if you want to

456
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: have the McKenzie works for everybody, right, so if you

457
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: want the benefit of that knowledge that I'm sure they

458
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: don't go around sharing one client stuff with another client, right,

459
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: that would be we have some insight into They have

460
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: insight because they're talking to everybody else. So if you're

461
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: the only one who's not talking to them, you're the

462
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: only one who's not getting the best advice to me.

463
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: It sounds like if someone could say, as a corporation,

464
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: like why do I feel that Apple and Amazon don't

465
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: listen to mackenzie or am I technologically naive? Uh? No?

466
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 1: You know, the companies that know what they're doing and

467
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: or sort of know what their plan is. Yeah, they

468
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: don't need them as much, except if you want to

469
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 1: use them as the great in their most modern incarnation,

470
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: which is the great rationalizers. They are the people you

471
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: bring in to cut costs so that you can point

472
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: your finger and say, I didn't want to do this mackenzie.

473
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, So as an investor, why would I want

474
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: my company to spend all those millions of dollars to

475
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: doing what the management has been hired. That's a good point.

476
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: That was what I was saying that Jamie was talking

477
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: about when he was criticizing general use of consultants. But no,

478
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: it's what Mackenzie's business model is about personal relationships, right,

479
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: They have relationships with the CEO. Uh. Yes, they burrow

480
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: into companies, but it's very it's about personal things. So

481
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:10,479
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right that if you're a shareholder like I

482
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: I say in the book, no CEO is an idiot

483
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: for hiring them for all the reasons I just listened,

484
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you somebody else's money? But yeah, shareholders, unless

485
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: unless you know it's one of those situations where you

486
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: need the hiring of Mackenzie to signal that you're serious

487
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: about your reorganization or your cost cutting and you want

488
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 1: the market and to know that you really mean it

489
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: because you're gonna spend the money and then you're not

490
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: just giving lip service. Hey, and this time we mean it. Yeah.

491
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: So what's the relationship with Mackenzie and Harvard which goes

492
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: back Harvard Business Review was where they were publishing early on.

493
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 1: How how did that dynamic develop? Marvin Bauer, who was

494
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: the you know, longtime spiritual godfather and leader of Mackenzie

495
00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: after James Mackenzie died, was the one who had the

496
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: insight early on. Consulting firms hired experienced professionals. So if

497
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 1: you're an airline company you want advice, they had like

498
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: a retired airline CEO on the staff and you'd ask

499
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: him because he knew what he was talking about, and

500
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: v our his contemporaries. In the maybe forties or so,

501
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: we're like, wait a second, why don't these NBA schools

502
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: are popping up all over the place. Why don't we

503
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: hire them? They're cheaper, way cheaper. We can mold them

504
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: into our own image and create this army of whatever

505
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: the case studies and we can have them learn on

506
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 1: the clients dime, right, So why why wait till they retire?

507
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: So mackenzie was one of the first companies to really

508
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: hire out of HBS with in earnest and ever since

509
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 1: then has been in some there is no company that

510
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: has hired more B. S. Gradson, Mackenzie Goldman. I think

511
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: would be second, maybe not, It might be like Ge

512
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: or something, but Mackenzie's number one, and they hire them

513
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: because the case method is the perfect education and preparation

514
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: for being a consultant. You're supposed to stand up in

515
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 1: front of a group of people and talk about something

516
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: that you don't really know a lot about and sound convincing.

517
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 1: We have been speaking with Duff McDonald's. He is the author,

518
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: uh most recently of The Golden Ticket about Howeverard Business School,

519
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: and previous to that the firm The Story of McKenzie.

520
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us

521
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Check out

522
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: my daily column at Bloomberg View dot com. You can

523
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at Ridholts. I'm Barry Ridholts. You're

524
00:32:48,920 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. If you're

525
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: having a business dispute, the process can be slow and

526
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 1: drawn out, especially if you rely on litigation. In the courts,

527
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: you can wait for years before your case is resolved,

528
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: and the longer your case proceeds, the more your case

529
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: can cost. Not with the American Arbitration Association. Arbitration or

530
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: mediation with the American Arbitration Association is faster. In fact,

531
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: nearly fifty of our cases settled prior to hearings. Ad

532
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: er dot org resolve faster. Welcome to the podcast. You

533
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 1: know what question I forgot to ask you during the broadcast.

534
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,719
Speaker 1: If people want to find your work they could go

535
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: to Duff McDonald dot com. Yes, as well as Amazon

536
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: and find bookstores everywhere. Yes. So you have a list

537
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: of all of your publications and everything else. I have

538
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: my I have my books there and I have my

539
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 1: greatest hits journalism wise. There you go. So let's let's

540
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: go over some of the stuff, some of the stuff

541
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: that we missed. You know what I didn't get to

542
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: ask you that I wanted to chat about was the

543
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: ascent of CEO pay and who would you blame for it?

544
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: Is that Mackenzie as some people have said, and I

545
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: have a quote from you somewhere here about Mackenzie, which is, uh,

546
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: is Mackensey to blame for skyrocketing CEO pay? You go

547
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: back to the early um pay consultants. It seems that

548
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: Mackenzie was back part of that. Yeah, there was a

549
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: consultant at Mackenzie who who did a CEO pay study.

550
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: And it was post World War two. I think back

551
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 1: when the ratio between CEOs and the lowest paid people

552
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: on the factory floor. Yeah, yeah, in the double digits.

553
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:13,320
Speaker 1: And the one study that they did found that, ah, executive,

554
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:18,240
Speaker 1: over some trailing period five years or something, executive pay

555
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 1: had had risen more slowly than worker pay. And suddenly

556
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: that study was in very high demand by corporate boards,

557
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: and that led to the Harvard Business Review publishing an

558
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 1: annual study. And there you get your perpetual motion machine

559
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: being built. And now we're up to four hundred or

560
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:51,439
Speaker 1: so to one, and you have UH compensation committees made

561
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 1: up of fellow CEOs who think that they are worth

562
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: fifty million a year. So they are for why shouldn't

563
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 1: in this guy be and I call it in the

564
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: Golden passport? Ah, And we may have to cut this

565
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: for the censors. The one of the most intricately designed

566
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: circle jerks in business history, because everybody is is log

567
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:23,840
Speaker 1: rolling for the future. Everybody is. I remember back in

568
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: the day when Spy Magazine would show log rolling in

569
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:30,879
Speaker 1: our Time, and it's Duff McDonald says, Ridholtz's book is great,

570
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: and Ridholtz says, Duff Duff McDonald's book must read. And

571
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: they would always show the matching blurbs. And that has

572
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: stayed with me for all these years. Log Rolling in

573
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 1: Our Time. I'm old enough to remember when Spy Magazine

574
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: was actually, you know, the Onion before the Onion was,

575
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 1: so that that's kind of interesting. There's a really fascinating

576
00:36:52,880 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 1: NPR Planet Money about how a Clinton tax basically change

577
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 1: the dynamics of CEO compensation and led to people saying,

578
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 1: all right, let's give a lot of stock options because

579
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: that doesn't cost us anything. I talked about that in

580
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: the in the Golden Passport too, as uh one of

581
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: uh the greatest examples of unintended consequences ever. They tried

582
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:22,560
Speaker 1: to put a cap on ceo pay cash pay cash pay.

583
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: Was it like a million dollars ten million and above

584
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 1: that the taxes became onerous, right, So what two things

585
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 1: happened from that? One is, uh, average CEO pay was

586
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 1: not ten million at the time, but it quickly converged

587
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: on a million and stock options, so which became enormous.

588
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:49,280
Speaker 1: Which became enormous. So a well intentioned moved by Clinton

589
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: blew up in you know, the country's face. So you

590
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 1: have the tax policy and then on top of everything else,

591
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: you have the fast by accounting that basically says, well,

592
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,760
Speaker 1: stock options really aren't a cost. You know, just because

593
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: you have to actually go out and buy it in

594
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:06,800
Speaker 1: the market doesn't mean it's a cost to the show.

595
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:08,919
Speaker 1: And if they are, you should you might be able

596
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,839
Speaker 1: to reprice them anyway after the fact. It's so that

597
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: was just one of those things. And when people look

598
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: at how CEO pay has run away, that's one factor.

599
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: But there has to be. The consultants are one things

600
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,800
Speaker 1: that the tax changes is something else, the account and

601
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,919
Speaker 1: treatment is something else, any other factor H B. S M.

602
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: I lay some blame at their doorstep for helping be

603
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: build the CEO fame machine. Right, So the case method

604
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:44,760
Speaker 1: is teaches from the perspective of the CEO, what would

605
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 1: you do how would you save this company? You? You? You?

606
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 1: And then Fortune magazine Mackensey Harvard and and what we're

607
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: about to say about Fortune, then Fortunate puts on their

608
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: cover and tell you that you are the world's greatest

609
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 1: person because you uh know how to price pharmaceuticals properly

610
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 1: or something, right, You just crank them up towards a

611
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: hundred times more what you paid for them. And there

612
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: you go. Right, it's buy some patent protection from your

613
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 1: got to modify the pharmaceutical every year, so you extend

614
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: that your lipan you're and this is tricky stuff. So

615
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: you deserve the fame for doing it if you Now,

616
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 1: how do you explain that in Europe and in Asia,

617
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 1: we don't see the same uh enormous pay packages. They

618
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: might be starting to tick up, but they're noing near

619
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: what we do here. And I think so, I think

620
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 1: Martin Sorrel is overpaid. He's a w p P. Sorry sir,

621
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 1: Martin Sorrow. Well, once you're united, then whatever you deserve

622
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 1: it all. Uh. I think it's because, like as some

623
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: historians business historians point out, one of the ones who

624
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,919
Speaker 1: I found particular incifles a guy named Robert Locke, who's

625
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: been living in Germany for l C k E. And

626
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: he talks about the fact that UH, the you know,

627
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: there's there's there's two oppositional stances in American business. One

628
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 1: is business versus government and one is management versus worker right,

629
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 1: and uh um neither of those has to be and

630
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 1: in other variants of capitalism, like Germany, neither of them

631
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:38,240
Speaker 1: is nearly as UH polarized as it is here, and

632
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: management values the input of their UH employees, I think

633
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 1: a little more than they do in the States, especially

634
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:53,280
Speaker 1: if they've gone through the fame machine of a place

635
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: like HBS, where you're convinced that you are the reason

636
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: for all six sess and you blame government or or

637
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:07,239
Speaker 1: unions for your failures. So UM, I think UH in

638
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 1: at least the Japan as well as Germany, UM, they're

639
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 1: a little calmer about what constitutes success in what its

640
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: origins are, and they're not so obsessed with trying to

641
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:22,919
Speaker 1: take credit for it. So they they're easy, they're better

642
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: at sharing it. That's that's that's quite fascinating. I know,

643
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,479
Speaker 1: I only have you till about six for another half hour.

644
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna see what else we skipped before

645
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: getting to my ten favorite questions. You know, we kind

646
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:42,000
Speaker 1: of blew through the journalism portion of of our first segment.

647
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk a little bit about journalism and you

648
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: explain how you sort of serendipitously happened into into writing.

649
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: What what are some of the things you really like

650
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:57,240
Speaker 1: about writing books? And what are the things that perhaps

651
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: you are not so enthralled with. Uh. It's great for me,

652
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 1: at least as a freelancer that this is a practical answer. H.

653
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: Freelancing got really I had a I sort of had

654
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: a nice three or four year run of freelance magazine

655
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:20,839
Speaker 1: writing before the crisis, and it was really fun. Uh.

656
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: When money got tight, freelance got a lot more difficult. UH.

657
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:32,320
Speaker 1: And writing books UH is uh is easier on UH

658
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 1: from a cash management persupative. So you you put out

659
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: three books in ten years? Yeah, And what's the next

660
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: book that's coming out? Where my agent is hounding me

661
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: to get it to the publisher now, because the reviews

662
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: for the Golden Passport are so good. You've been, by

663
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 1: the way, you've been everywhere the past by the time

664
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: this broadcast the past month or so, really nicely reviewed

665
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: in all sorts of major public occasions. So they want

666
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: to strike when the iron is hot. Is that the

667
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:06,879
Speaker 1: business side? Yeah? So so so financially it's been and

668
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 1: it's worked for me. As far as what do I

669
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: like about it? Um from the actual process itself. Uh.

670
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: If there is a criticism of of the latter two

671
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,879
Speaker 1: books that I just don't care about, it's that they

672
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 1: focus a little too much on the history. I love

673
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: the history. Yeah, I think it's I think it's fascinating.

674
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: Just tell me what happened Tuesday. Who cares? That's a

675
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: different Yeah, that's Bloomberg right right, And but that's for

676
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 1: two million companies, So it's it's a lot of volume.

677
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: This is one company. You want it to be a

678
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: mile deep. Yeah, and uh, I love uh, you know

679
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 1: the reporting part of it. Uh, there was a point

680
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:52,799
Speaker 1: in my career I think it was at Money magazine.

681
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: You know, when you're writing personal finance, it's hard to

682
00:43:55,600 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: get that motivated for it. I remember when I would

683
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:03,760
Speaker 1: be when I would be calling people, I would actually

684
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: be hoping they didn't answer their phone. That's a that's

685
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: a warning sign that you're doing that. You're in their

686
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: own job. Now it's like once I'm on to a subject.

687
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: I like, just all you're doing is reading and talking

688
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: to people who are introducing you to other people who

689
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 1: are introducing to other people. It's great, Like, all you're

690
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 1: doing spending your time learning stuff, and if you're interested

691
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: in it, you know what a way to make a

692
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: living writing the writing stuff. I've gotten more confident with

693
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: each successive book. This last one is a little uh

694
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: in places, uh in temperate, but uh that wasn't the

695
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 1: firm somewhat intemperate throughout? Yeah, Although I was amazed, there

696
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: were people who were confused about what my true opinion

697
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: of mackenzie. It's like, do you the root of all evil?

698
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: How confusing is that? When you say route? Do you

699
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: mean like, have you never read between the lines? But

700
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: for I thought it was pretty clear that it was.

701
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:05,879
Speaker 1: That's what I thought too. But so in this book,

702
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 1: I try to make sure that didn't happen in this

703
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 1: When you say they're terrible, do you mean they're like

704
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: pretty good? Or what do you mean by terrible? I

705
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: mean you did you really get pushed back on McKinsey boy.

706
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: There were people who said he asked a question are

707
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:21,759
Speaker 1: they worth it or not? And he doesn't give a

708
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 1: satisfactory answer and my response and bullet points as do.

709
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:30,319
Speaker 1: It's like it depends who you are, right, If you

710
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:34,359
Speaker 1: are the CEO, yes, If you're the shareholder maybe, if

711
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: your society probably not unless you rate efficiency as the

712
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:41,839
Speaker 1: highest value of all. Is that really what they do?

713
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 1: Are they really the efficiency masters? Yeah? All they do

714
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 1: is come in and optimize stuff for you, regardless of consequence. Yeah.

715
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: And you know they have a sort of a boilerplate

716
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:58,320
Speaker 1: approach to problem solving and thinking that works very well

717
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 1: in process situation. And if you want someone to come

718
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:06,760
Speaker 1: in who is outside of your organization, so who doesn't

719
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 1: come with baggage and can do stuff without uh you know,

720
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: personal bias, no ties, no roofs, and move on. It's

721
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: like hiring samurai to just okay, kill everybody their corporate samurai,

722
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: right and then leave. Yeah, that that's pretty interesting. So

723
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 1: journalism today, how do you feel about or think about

724
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 1: the rise of fake news? And is there anything we

725
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: could do about it? Ah? I think I think it's

726
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: horribly depressing that um ah, we are were able to

727
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 1: elect a president who uh so willfully it's like trampling

728
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 1: the press. That what just sort of the essence of

729
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 1: like what is truth? Like, Yes, we can all have

730
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 1: different opinions, right, but we should but not different facts.

731
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: We should be able to agree at what day of

732
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 1: the week it is, or what the temperature is outside.

733
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: And the fact that we've ended up, you know, in

734
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:15,400
Speaker 1: a situation where nobody believes anybody who's they have decided

735
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 1: is not trustworthy. It's horrible. There was just an interesting

736
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:23,319
Speaker 1: article I'm trying to remember who where I saw it.

737
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 1: It was either a p or McClatchy that said his

738
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:31,720
Speaker 1: tweets have lost influence. The president's tweets, they no longer

739
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 1: move markets, They no longer disrupt things. Even when he

740
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:38,479
Speaker 1: comes out as he did a month or so ago

741
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: and said, yeah, we should break up the big banks,

742
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 1: the market sputtered for about ninety seconds and then quickly

743
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: recovered all its losses. At one point in time, his

744
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 1: sort of free form, disruptive machine gunning had an impact.

745
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,840
Speaker 1: Because everyone's freaking out that we managed to elect him. Well,

746
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:02,399
Speaker 1: you know, it's if you look around the world, what's

747
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: been happening. You have the Brexit vote, you have the

748
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 1: Lapin vote, you have Donald Trump, the rise of popularism,

749
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: populism around the world has ramifications. You've railed against the

750
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:20,720
Speaker 1: financial elite. Many voters both here and abroad are doing

751
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: the same thing. And so what's kind of surprising is

752
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: a lack of pivot from Trump once he's elected, to say,

753
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:33,359
Speaker 1: all right, I have the wind on my back, let's

754
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:38,320
Speaker 1: do ABC. And instead it's this sort of odd alright,

755
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: let's check out Spicer gets great ratings, let's keep them.

756
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: Wait that you haven't figured out what your new job.

757
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:47,520
Speaker 1: You have a new job, figure out what you're supposed

758
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 1: to do, and try not to blow us all up.

759
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: That doesn't that transition doesn't seem to have happened. I

760
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:56,240
Speaker 1: think it's because he never expected to win. Any couldn't

761
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 1: agree with you more. That's why there are so many

762
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,359
Speaker 1: unappointed positions. Normally you go in with a list of

763
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:06,319
Speaker 1: these three thousand people, and here are top hundred that

764
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,400
Speaker 1: didn't happen. I think he's as surprised as anybody, you know.

765
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:12,359
Speaker 1: Back to the journalism thing and the fake news thing.

766
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:14,399
Speaker 1: One thing that has occurred to me though, is like

767
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 1: the Internet has allowed us to be aware of more

768
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:27,759
Speaker 1: people's opinions than the media's opinions, which you know, historically

769
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 1: or whoever was on TV and stuff. What does that

770
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: do for us? Well? It oh my My point is

771
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: just we might not have actually gone through such a

772
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 1: significant change with fake news, that we may have been

773
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 1: in this state before but didn't really realize it. So

774
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:51,400
Speaker 1: you have more opinions, some of which are paid hills

775
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: for one side or the other um, some of which

776
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:59,799
Speaker 1: are just clearly click hungry Macedonian teenagers but putting up

777
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: and websites, and some you know not every when two

778
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: people are having an argument, one says, well, the earth

779
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: is an obliq s vieroid. Any other person says, no,

780
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 1: the earth is flat. That's not a credible debate. And

781
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 1: on top of everything else, our cognitive systems are set

782
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: up so that even when someone is wrong, they don't

783
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:24,720
Speaker 1: and you correct them, they don't remember the correction. If anything,

784
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 1: it hardens. There are erroneous view and there's all sorts

785
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 1: of crazy. You know, it's funny. Is on that point

786
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: I say that one of my points in the Harvard

787
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 1: book is that they have spent so much time telling

788
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: themselves that they have moral righteousness to their leader there

789
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 1: as an aspect of their leadership. It's like you telling

790
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:50,840
Speaker 1: the story of something that happened so many times that suddenly,

791
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:54,160
Speaker 1: like on your fiftieth telling a thing that you weren't

792
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:56,920
Speaker 1: sure that sure about the first time you told it,

793
00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 1: you're suddenly it's a fact now because you've been to

794
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 1: my wife. She doesn't understand how the story gets better

795
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:07,720
Speaker 1: each telling, And I'm like, that is editing, of course,

796
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:12,760
Speaker 1: and in all seriousness when they do studies on memory

797
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,760
Speaker 1: and witnesses. When you tell a story to the cops

798
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 1: or whoever becomes your truth right the second time you

799
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:23,840
Speaker 1: tell that, you're not recalling what you witnessed. You're recalling

800
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 1: the previous discussion. And so the more you tell it,

801
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: the further and further gets away from the original experience,

802
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:33,279
Speaker 1: which is why you're supposed to take contemporaneous notes and

803
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:35,759
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. So I could talk about this sort

804
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 1: of stuff forever. Let's let's get to my favorite questions

805
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: so you don't end up keeping you here all night. Um,

806
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:45,720
Speaker 1: all right, so you told us what you did before

807
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: working as a journalist. You were Goldman Sacks for two years,

808
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:51,960
Speaker 1: nothing in between. From there, you went straight into writing.

809
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:57,279
Speaker 1: My first job after Goldman was at Derivatives Week so

810
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: you're covering derivatives as a journalist, as a journalist during

811
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:07,240
Speaker 1: the U when I think it was air products or something,

812
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:14,800
Speaker 1: one of the first big deritives blow ups in ninety four. Yeah,

813
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 1: and I the guy there said to me, um, what

814
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: are you doing? Uh? Every all of our the people

815
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:26,399
Speaker 1: who work here want to work on Wall Street. You're

816
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:31,000
Speaker 1: the first person who's ever come from Wall Street to Yeah.

817
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 1: And and then he said, he said, how do I

818
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 1: know You're not going to go back to Wall Street?

819
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm not going back to Wall stret

820
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,319
Speaker 1: Six months later, I left for Money magazine and he

821
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:44,319
Speaker 1: which was a Dow Jones publication, time in so he

822
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 1: pulled my Yeah, he pulled me into his office. He said,

823
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: you told me you weren't going to leave. And I said,

824
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: I told you I wasn't going back to Wall Street.

825
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: I didn't tell you I wasn't going to go to

826
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: a better publication. Um. So I then was at Money

827
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:59,760
Speaker 1: for five years and realized it was time to quit

828
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 1: when I had written the exact same story twice. Because

829
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 1: service magazines, if if you're actually good at what you

830
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:10,879
Speaker 1: do with a service magazine, you should write the same

831
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 1: story Price Jason's wife that his job is to write

832
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: the same story weekend, week out and not let his

833
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 1: readers or his editors know that he's doing totally. I

834
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:24,799
Speaker 1: worked with Jason and uh uh at that point I

835
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:29,040
Speaker 1: got uh an offer. Red Herring Magazine was growing during

836
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 1: the nineties. Yeah internet one point oh, and they hired

837
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 1: me as their New York bureau chief and um public

838
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:40,280
Speaker 1: markets editor because they were all VC in private equity.

839
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:43,279
Speaker 1: So so tell us about some of your early mentors.

840
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:49,399
Speaker 1: I can come up with three. One was a guy

841
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:55,920
Speaker 1: named Michael Civy at Money Magazine. Is familiar writer, writer

842
00:53:56,120 --> 00:54:01,759
Speaker 1: slash editor, but he was sort of the central financial

843
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:08,960
Speaker 1: writer for years. Uh. Fascinating guy. Uh a uh and um.

844
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:14,239
Speaker 1: He his his method of writing. It could you know,

845
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 1: could bore you two tears given its repetitive aspects, but

846
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:23,279
Speaker 1: it was very effective. So he was the one who

847
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 1: taught me sort of the simplicity and clarity were key. Uh.

848
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:33,280
Speaker 1: The next one was Jason Ponton, who was the editor

849
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:36,839
Speaker 1: of Red Herring Magazine. He's at M I T. Tech

850
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 1: Review now and he uh brought a flare to Red Herring. Uh.

851
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 1: That was eye opening for me coming out of a

852
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 1: service magazine like Money, and you know, he sort of

853
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:55,400
Speaker 1: prayed at the altar of the Economist, and um he

854
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:58,919
Speaker 1: made me realize when I just when I wasn't even

855
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:01,280
Speaker 1: sure of it, that writing could be like a joyous

856
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:04,760
Speaker 1: experience as opposed to a mind numbing one. And then

857
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:09,800
Speaker 1: the next one was, uh, someone who just died. Actually

858
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 1: Christopher Byron, who was he was at The Observer. I

859
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 1: had the good fortune to follow in his footsteps writing

860
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:22,680
Speaker 1: a similar column in The Observer. I hired him at

861
00:55:22,680 --> 00:55:24,279
Speaker 1: Red Herring to write for us because I thought it

862
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: was so great. And he was the one who, um

863
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:35,840
Speaker 1: uh showed me how to write with attitude, when without fear,

864
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:42,400
Speaker 1: and taking aim at uh the right targets. You know,

865
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:45,319
Speaker 1: I spent most of my early career, uh, you know,

866
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 1: doing positive stories. Here's something you should do, it's a

867
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 1: great idea. And at red Herring, here's some great technologies,

868
00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:54,200
Speaker 1: here's a great trend. These are all fascinating and awesome things.

869
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: And it turns out it's just as fun to call

870
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:02,960
Speaker 1: people to account for fun. Yeah, it's more fun. And

871
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:09,000
Speaker 1: I don't I can't think of another writer who inspired

872
00:56:09,120 --> 00:56:12,480
Speaker 1: me more with his writing than Chauser. Byronn't even comes close.

873
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: That's that's really interesting. Um, tell us about what other

874
00:56:18,640 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 1: journalists influenced how you write, Byron? It would be number one. Um,

875
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I have you know the guys who

876
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:32,480
Speaker 1: Grayden Carter has headed Vanity Fair doing business writing. It's

877
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 1: used to used to be the publisher of Spy and

878
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:40,840
Speaker 1: that's where the phrase short fingered vulgarian was published. And

879
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:45,239
Speaker 1: that has to be years ago. Yeah, and and he

880
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 1: is and it's a great like you know, it's like

881
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:52,880
Speaker 1: any publication has its ebbs and flows, but he is

882
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:55,960
Speaker 1: a great He's one of the great editors. And he

883
00:56:56,040 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 1: hires great writers. I mean only fair as a monster. Yeah,

884
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:05,120
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Lewis is there, Bethany McClean is there,

885
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 1: William Cohen is there, Brian Burrow is there. Uh you

886
00:57:09,480 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 1: know what else? Who else? You need me? Great? And

887
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: I'm available? Um so uh um. The way that they

888
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: do business stories at Vanity Fair, I wrote for them all. Yeah,

889
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,520
Speaker 1: I did like a decade's worth of work with them,

890
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: Gray and gave me, you know, it was awesome enough

891
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 1: to give me a lot of work for a while

892
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 1: when I was freelance. Um, that's how you do a

893
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: good business story. Those guys do it better than anybody.

894
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 1: They put a lot of I was quoted by them

895
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 1: in something. I think three different fact checkers called me.

896
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: It was nobody uses that does that sort of depth

897
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 1: of And if you read that stuff and put it

898
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:48,800
Speaker 1: up side by side with fortune, like the people had

899
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:51,680
Speaker 1: fortune where I've been a contributor, they should be embarrassed

900
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:55,280
Speaker 1: of themselves. So you're not gonna be a contributor. Uh

901
00:57:55,480 --> 00:57:59,400
Speaker 1: Like that's real storytelling, so Graydon. But then if there

902
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,520
Speaker 1: is like one name who I read, not with an

903
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:07,040
Speaker 1: eye too trying to write like him because it will

904
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 1: never happen, but who I read just because it brings

905
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 1: me a euphoric something is Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker.

906
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 1: He is the greatest, in my opinion, He's the greatest

907
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:27,080
Speaker 1: writer all the journalists. No kidding, Yeah, I get the

908
00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: New Yorker. I've seen his. By the way, they have

909
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:35,800
Speaker 1: a killer line Ryan Leason and go down just right.

910
00:58:36,560 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 1: The former Bloomberg person who just had the book out

911
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:45,680
Speaker 1: on hedgephone. Um sharks something I forgot the name predators something. Um, well,

912
00:58:45,720 --> 00:58:48,439
Speaker 1: we'll figure out what that is. They just have a

913
00:58:48,480 --> 00:58:53,560
Speaker 1: monstrous lineup. The problem is that the magazines don't stop coming.

914
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:57,040
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't get your vanity fair as monthly?

915
00:58:57,160 --> 00:59:00,840
Speaker 1: Is that right? New Yorker is like every other day?

916
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 1: It seems yeah, I used to, I used to. I

917
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 1: had given. I stopped subscribing to the New Yorker because

918
00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:09,280
Speaker 1: the piles would give me guilt. I just want the

919
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:13,120
Speaker 1: online access. Stop mailing me. Get that, get the um

920
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 1: the app that you know. There's an app called Texture.

921
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:18,680
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It's fifteen bucks a month. You've got every

922
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 1: magazine there is. Really Yeah, I'm done with getting don't

923
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:25,440
Speaker 1: get this straight up from them. Get it through Texture.

924
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: It's awesome. Usually I hate the expedious slash you know,

925
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 1: hotels dot com. I want to go directly. It's awesome.

926
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 1: This is all right. I will definitely check out Texture.

927
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 1: Um let's talk about since we're talking about writers, let's

928
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: talk about books. That's Charlie Pellett, voice of the subway

929
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 1: when you hear stand clear of the closing doors, that's him.

930
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 1: Um let's uh, by the way, for people who are listening,

931
00:59:52,320 --> 00:59:57,080
Speaker 1: we're in a glass uh terrarium the studio, and there's

932
00:59:57,080 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: an endless parade of people walking by, and some of

933
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:03,040
Speaker 1: them wave and you. I'm trying not to be distracted,

934
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:09,320
Speaker 1: but you know, to famous people like us in right stairs. Um,

935
01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:11,440
Speaker 1: so let's talk about books. What are some of your

936
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:14,600
Speaker 1: favorite books? Who are some of your favorite authors? By

937
01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:18,520
Speaker 1: the way, this is the single most requested question. So

938
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:27,439
Speaker 1: uh um. Before I was a journalist, I would say

939
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:31,480
Speaker 1: the balance of my reading was probably ninety percent fiction,

940
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:36,440
Speaker 1: ten percent nonfiction. And even these days, if you don't

941
01:00:36,520 --> 01:00:42,400
Speaker 1: include the reading I do for work, it's probably seventy

942
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:46,200
Speaker 1: thirty fiction. So give us some fiction names and give

943
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 1: us some nonfiction. Uh fiction Eileen to people like Boorhs

944
01:00:53,640 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 1: uh it, Tello Calvino, uh now some book titles. Borhes's

945
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:05,600
Speaker 1: book Labyrinths short Stories, It's fantastic it Tello Calvino's book

946
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:12,080
Speaker 1: If on a Winner's Night of Traveler, Invisible Cities, um, uh,

947
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:17,200
Speaker 1: Nabokov everything, Um. David Foster Wallace, I was a fan

948
01:01:17,280 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 1: of I thought the sort of verbal pyrotechnics there were great. Uh.

949
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 1: In recent years, I rediscovered Stephen King from when I

950
01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:30,080
Speaker 1: just had a long conversation I read I took into

951
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 1: under the Dome on a trip A couple of years ago.

952
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:36,640
Speaker 1: It's like his latest fat one, but like the size

953
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:39,120
Speaker 1: of the stand and stuff, he's still got it. Matt

954
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:44,840
Speaker 1: Wallert is a former principal at Microsoft Ventures and what

955
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 1: he we were talking about Stephen King. He said he

956
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:50,480
Speaker 1: likes to every now and then find an author and

957
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:52,960
Speaker 1: just devour the entire I used to do that all

958
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:55,560
Speaker 1: the time straight. I used to do that with science fiction.

959
01:01:56,520 --> 01:01:58,840
Speaker 1: My brother does that, right, We'll find an author and

960
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:00,760
Speaker 1: go all right, I've now read. I used to. I

961
01:02:00,880 --> 01:02:02,760
Speaker 1: used to do that with fiction writers, and then I

962
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 1: realized that I didn't want to do it anymore because

963
01:02:04,800 --> 01:02:06,280
Speaker 1: it's like you use it all up and you want

964
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:11,200
Speaker 1: to save her some of it for later. I like, um, oh,

965
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: there's a couple that are obvious ones that are what

966
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:18,720
Speaker 1: about what about nonfiction? I'm not, you know, considering that

967
01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:22,720
Speaker 1: I've read a written a biography, I'm not a huge

968
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:27,360
Speaker 1: reader of biographies. I thought The Power Broker, uh was

969
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:31,160
Speaker 1: one of the greatest on Robert Moses. You know, it's

970
01:02:31,200 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 1: a kind of composing book, but it is awesome. I

971
01:02:36,640 --> 01:02:40,800
Speaker 1: planned literally decades, you know what. I It was on

972
01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:42,960
Speaker 1: my shelf too, and then when I sold the Jamie

973
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:45,840
Speaker 1: Diamond book. I was like, I should read a biography,

974
01:02:46,120 --> 01:02:48,040
Speaker 1: and I took that out to a friend's house and

975
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:50,880
Speaker 1: emiganst by myself for a weekend and read it. At

976
01:02:50,880 --> 01:02:52,720
Speaker 1: the end of it, I was read that in a weekend.

977
01:02:52,960 --> 01:02:54,440
Speaker 1: Uh no, sorry, I was out there for a couple

978
01:02:54,480 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 1: of days a month and uh I was. As soon

979
01:02:57,320 --> 01:02:58,760
Speaker 1: as I finished, I was like, oh my god, what

980
01:02:58,800 --> 01:03:00,680
Speaker 1: have I done. I can't do that us. I can't

981
01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:04,160
Speaker 1: write anything close to this won the Pulitzer Prize, it's

982
01:03:04,200 --> 01:03:07,880
Speaker 1: been it's been lauded as one of the biographies of

983
01:03:07,920 --> 01:03:13,720
Speaker 1: all all time. Yeah, I'm more. I do more like uh,

984
01:03:13,760 --> 01:03:18,120
Speaker 1: I veer more into science and maths stuff than story

985
01:03:17,840 --> 01:03:20,640
Speaker 1: or give us, give us a few books. Um, you're

986
01:03:20,680 --> 01:03:23,080
Speaker 1: talking right in my sweet spots. I am you know

987
01:03:23,280 --> 01:03:27,120
Speaker 1: stuff like um all the pop science stuff like the

988
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:31,560
Speaker 1: History of Zero or um. Did you read The Information

989
01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:35,439
Speaker 1: by James Click? I have the Information by James Click.

990
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:38,040
Speaker 1: I haven't read it. Probably the best book I read

991
01:03:38,040 --> 01:03:41,280
Speaker 1: in the past decade, uh, Consciousness, explained one of my

992
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:45,240
Speaker 1: favorite books, Daniel Donne. Best book I've ever read in

993
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 1: the last decade was an Adam Gopnick book called Uh.

994
01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:50,720
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the name of it,

995
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:55,440
Speaker 1: but it's if Lincoln and Darwin or Darwin and Lincoln,

996
01:03:55,960 --> 01:04:02,320
Speaker 1: and it is like a dual biography palle parallel lives,

997
01:04:02,600 --> 01:04:07,480
Speaker 1: more like parallel thought and parallel uh. Changes in the

998
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:11,280
Speaker 1: way they helped the rest of us change the way

999
01:04:11,360 --> 01:04:13,919
Speaker 1: we think through the way they did what they did.

1000
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:17,479
Speaker 1: And I told people afterwards, I was like, I never

1001
01:04:17,560 --> 01:04:21,080
Speaker 1: would have read a biography of Darwin or of Lincoln,

1002
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:24,880
Speaker 1: and I certainly wouldn't have read a joint one except

1003
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:30,360
Speaker 1: it was Gothnick and it is one of the greatest books. Really.

1004
01:04:30,720 --> 01:04:33,880
Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm gonna add that to my list for sure.

1005
01:04:34,800 --> 01:04:38,240
Speaker 1: That's a decent number. Give me one more, because I

1006
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:46,080
Speaker 1: see you're thinking, oh, my favorite I think multi book

1007
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:49,600
Speaker 1: reading experience UH in the last twenty years or so

1008
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:54,520
Speaker 1: was Neil Stevenson's Baroque trilogy, UH, with each of those

1009
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:58,080
Speaker 1: books with a thousand pages long. And I was reading

1010
01:04:58,360 --> 01:05:02,840
Speaker 1: one of them when I moved UH at some point,

1011
01:05:03,360 --> 01:05:05,640
Speaker 1: and the book ended up in a box in the attic,

1012
01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:09,000
Speaker 1: and I forgot about it and found it a decade

1013
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:12,960
Speaker 1: later and then finished the trilogy. And it is just

1014
01:05:13,000 --> 01:05:15,720
Speaker 1: picked it up where you left off, and just I

1015
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:17,880
Speaker 1: don't know. I think I might have started again, but

1016
01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:20,480
Speaker 1: there was There's so much in it. He is a

1017
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 1: hilarious writer. Uh, it's all about money and the money

1018
01:05:25,760 --> 01:05:32,920
Speaker 1: book he wrote, he wrote cryptonomicon neuromanswerh uh. And but

1019
01:05:33,040 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 1: the Baroque cycle, the three of them, that is like

1020
01:05:36,880 --> 01:05:40,600
Speaker 1: it is uh. He he could have just set the

1021
01:05:40,720 --> 01:05:43,360
Speaker 1: pen down and retired. It is a piece of greatness.

1022
01:05:43,920 --> 01:05:48,080
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Let's let's move forward past books. Um, we've

1023
01:05:48,120 --> 01:05:52,280
Speaker 1: already spent enough time talking about journalism as an industry. Um,

1024
01:05:52,320 --> 01:05:55,440
Speaker 1: here's another reader question. Tell us about a time you

1025
01:05:55,560 --> 01:06:00,080
Speaker 1: failed and what you learned from the experience. You know,

1026
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:02,560
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that one because you sent it

1027
01:06:02,640 --> 01:06:06,200
Speaker 1: to me. Um, these are the ones that require recall.

1028
01:06:06,840 --> 01:06:10,160
Speaker 1: This one doesn't require what's recall? I like, I don't

1029
01:06:10,200 --> 01:06:15,920
Speaker 1: really have too many uh like career failures. I failed

1030
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:21,520
Speaker 1: in a marriage and I failed like I drank too

1031
01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:27,600
Speaker 1: much alcoholically at the same time. And no coincidence there,

1032
01:06:27,680 --> 01:06:31,800
Speaker 1: not not a random correlation. No no, And um, what

1033
01:06:31,920 --> 01:06:35,360
Speaker 1: did I learn that I better grow up? And like,

1034
01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:37,760
Speaker 1: you know I treated her I did not treat her

1035
01:06:37,760 --> 01:06:40,000
Speaker 1: well at the end of our marriage. And it was

1036
01:06:40,040 --> 01:06:45,360
Speaker 1: just a colossal personal failure on so many fronts about

1037
01:06:45,400 --> 01:06:49,600
Speaker 1: like responsibility and and doing the right thing and not

1038
01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:55,760
Speaker 1: blaming other people for the things that bother you. Luckily,

1039
01:06:56,000 --> 01:07:01,720
Speaker 1: my my ex wife is a forgiving person and um,

1040
01:07:01,760 --> 01:07:05,680
Speaker 1: so things things are okay. But it was like I

1041
01:07:05,800 --> 01:07:08,400
Speaker 1: just learned that how to not be a horrible person.

1042
01:07:09,280 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 1: And my last two and favorite questions, what sort of

1043
01:07:12,840 --> 01:07:15,480
Speaker 1: advice would you give to a millennial or a recent

1044
01:07:15,520 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 1: college grad who came to you and said, I'm thinking

1045
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:28,160
Speaker 1: about being a writer. That's a good one. Um, you know,

1046
01:07:28,400 --> 01:07:32,240
Speaker 1: if you have you know you're not going to accidentally

1047
01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:36,880
Speaker 1: end up in the situation I have, you know, been

1048
01:07:37,560 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: lucky to end up in uh anymore because I don't

1049
01:07:43,040 --> 01:07:45,440
Speaker 1: think that happens again. And and and it's not because I

1050
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:47,480
Speaker 1: can do something that I just think that the structure

1051
01:07:47,480 --> 01:07:51,200
Speaker 1: of the interstate everything's changed. You if you have a

1052
01:07:51,240 --> 01:07:55,320
Speaker 1: passion and a facility for writing, uh, you know, you

1053
01:07:55,440 --> 01:07:59,280
Speaker 1: got I think it's got. My advice would probably be targeted,

1054
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 1: you know, you how to figure out your thing? Uh?

1055
01:08:02,800 --> 01:08:05,960
Speaker 1: You know that hopefully the New York Times and and

1056
01:08:06,240 --> 01:08:09,600
Speaker 1: you know whoever will be around for a while. But um,

1057
01:08:09,720 --> 01:08:14,240
Speaker 1: the price paid per dollar spent or sorry. The price

1058
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:18,120
Speaker 1: paid per word is in free fall, and the only

1059
01:08:18,200 --> 01:08:22,880
Speaker 1: thing that is going to um retain its value is

1060
01:08:23,720 --> 01:08:28,160
Speaker 1: a great scoops and be great writing and see great storytelling.

1061
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:31,800
Speaker 1: So you got to refine to do great storytelling about

1062
01:08:31,880 --> 01:08:33,960
Speaker 1: any particular thing, you got to know enough about it

1063
01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:37,400
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. So, UM, you know,

1064
01:08:37,520 --> 01:08:39,280
Speaker 1: you got to figure out what your thing is and

1065
01:08:39,360 --> 01:08:42,599
Speaker 1: hone it. Although I don't think I should be in

1066
01:08:42,600 --> 01:08:44,880
Speaker 1: a position to be telling aspiring journalists what to do

1067
01:08:44,920 --> 01:08:49,120
Speaker 1: because I never was one, so I don't really UM,

1068
01:08:49,200 --> 01:08:52,120
Speaker 1: I don't know how they think, because I don't know

1069
01:08:52,200 --> 01:08:55,880
Speaker 1: how they thought back then. And a final question, what

1070
01:08:56,080 --> 01:08:59,040
Speaker 1: is it that you know about writing today that you

1071
01:08:59,080 --> 01:09:01,840
Speaker 1: wish you knew twenty or so years ago when you

1072
01:09:01,880 --> 01:09:05,880
Speaker 1: were first starting out? This is an easy one and

1073
01:09:05,880 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 1: and I could I could claim that I learned it,

1074
01:09:08,880 --> 01:09:12,439
Speaker 1: but my brother actually just said it to me. Uh,

1075
01:09:12,680 --> 01:09:15,880
Speaker 1: Like two years ago, I was getting ready to write

1076
01:09:15,920 --> 01:09:21,360
Speaker 1: the Harvard book and I was spewing out, you know,

1077
01:09:21,640 --> 01:09:27,559
Speaker 1: some endless rant about Elton Mayo, who was, you know,

1078
01:09:27,760 --> 01:09:32,479
Speaker 1: a father of human resources, also a fraud. Um, And

1079
01:09:33,280 --> 01:09:38,519
Speaker 1: I finished telling him the story and he said, he said,

1080
01:09:38,560 --> 01:09:42,400
Speaker 1: all right, don't take what I'm about to tell you

1081
01:09:42,439 --> 01:09:45,840
Speaker 1: the wrong way, please, and he goes, you should write

1082
01:09:47,800 --> 01:09:51,960
Speaker 1: less like you currently right and more like you speak.

1083
01:09:53,160 --> 01:09:56,320
Speaker 1: And the lesson there was I've been trying too hard.

1084
01:09:56,840 --> 01:09:58,600
Speaker 1: Not not that I've been trying to too hard to

1085
01:09:58,640 --> 01:10:01,880
Speaker 1: like sound smart or or right in a specific way.

1086
01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:08,200
Speaker 1: I just it wasn't coming out as easily and fluidly

1087
01:10:08,479 --> 01:10:11,800
Speaker 1: as loosen the grip a little. Loosen the grip, yeah,

1088
01:10:12,120 --> 01:10:17,280
Speaker 1: and and uh more natural, sound more natural? And storytelling

1089
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:20,600
Speaker 1: tell stories the way you tell stories, and don't you know,

1090
01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:24,160
Speaker 1: um change it because you're you know, in putting it

1091
01:10:24,160 --> 01:10:26,760
Speaker 1: in written form, and you know, part of that has

1092
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:28,960
Speaker 1: to do with the legacy of who you're writing for,

1093
01:10:29,080 --> 01:10:32,400
Speaker 1: like various publications will won't let you write in certain ways.

1094
01:10:32,479 --> 01:10:35,800
Speaker 1: But the main point was just like, relax, man, and

1095
01:10:35,920 --> 01:10:39,400
Speaker 1: say it the way you want to say it, because

1096
01:10:39,479 --> 01:10:42,880
Speaker 1: when you're effective that way and so find your true voice.

1097
01:10:43,160 --> 01:10:46,879
Speaker 1: Is that a good way to say it? Or uh yeah,

1098
01:10:47,040 --> 01:10:50,640
Speaker 1: or you know, just don't. It's not not take the

1099
01:10:51,280 --> 01:10:56,519
Speaker 1: job seriously. It's it's like, not get all wound up

1100
01:10:56,560 --> 01:10:59,320
Speaker 1: in what you're doing. Just do what you're doing and

1101
01:10:59,640 --> 01:11:04,640
Speaker 1: be easy about it. We have been speaking with Duff McDonald,

1102
01:11:04,760 --> 01:11:08,519
Speaker 1: contributing editor at The New York Observer and author most

1103
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:14,120
Speaker 1: recently of the Golden Passport, Harvard Business School, etcetera, etcetera.

1104
01:11:14,680 --> 01:11:17,639
Speaker 1: If you have enjoyed this conversation, be sure and check

1105
01:11:17,680 --> 01:11:22,120
Speaker 1: out iTunes, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot com and you could

1106
01:11:22,160 --> 01:11:26,479
Speaker 1: see any of our other hundred plus conversations. I would

1107
01:11:26,520 --> 01:11:29,000
Speaker 1: be remiss if I did not thank my head of research,

1108
01:11:29,120 --> 01:11:33,759
Speaker 1: Michael Batnick, and our producer, Booker Taylor Riggs for helping

1109
01:11:33,880 --> 01:11:38,719
Speaker 1: us put these conversations together. We love your comments, feedback

1110
01:11:38,760 --> 01:11:43,400
Speaker 1: and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at

1111
01:11:43,439 --> 01:11:47,320
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. I'm Barry Retults. You've been listening to

1112
01:11:47,520 --> 01:11:51,560
Speaker 1: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Masters in Business is

1113
01:11:51,600 --> 01:11:55,360
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1114
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Speaker 1: are inevitable, resolve faster with the American Arbitration Association, the

1115
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Speaker 1: global leader in alternative dispute resolution for over ninety years.

1116
01:12:04,600 --> 01:12:07,160
Speaker 1: Learn more at eight R dot org