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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Masters in

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Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ritholts on Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 2: This week another Master's in Business Live, this time with

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Speaker 2: Michael Lewis. I've been fortunate to interview the poet Laureate

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Speaker 2: of Finance I don't know, maybe a dozen times, ten

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Speaker 2: times over the years. I've interviewed him after each of

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Speaker 2: the last few books. I've interviewed him live at a

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Speaker 2: couple of conferences and events. I've had dinners with him.

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Speaker 2: I've gotten drunk with him at a bar late at night.

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Speaker 2: Imagine the greatest storyteller of your generation and then sitting

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Speaker 2: at a bar and having a couple of drinks with him.

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Speaker 2: It's every bit as spectacular as you would imagine. So

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Speaker 2: when I read that his new book was coming out,

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Speaker 2: I said, Hey, if you're interested in speaking to a

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Speaker 2: small group at a local theater, I'd be happy to

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Speaker 2: set that up. And his pr people said great. So

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Speaker 2: at the Main Street Theater in Port Washington, to a

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Speaker 2: crowd of just three hundred people, he regaled us with

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Speaker 2: stories for ninety minutes. You will hear almost know me

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Speaker 2: in this because my job was just to give him

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Speaker 2: a nudge and then stay the hell out of his way.

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Speaker 2: You could tell the audience loved it. It was so

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Speaker 2: much fun. There were plenty of you know, stories I

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Speaker 2: had never heard before, including listen for the story about

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Speaker 2: Billy Bean and the F bomb. It really is special.

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Speaker 2: I thought this was a blast. I think you will

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Speaker 2: also with no further ado. Michael Lewis on his new

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Speaker 2: book Who Is Government and his career as a writer. Welcome, Welcome, Michael.

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Speaker 3: It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to uh, the north shore of Long Island, so gatsby,

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Speaker 2: Long Island.

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Speaker 3: I've seen none of it. It was dark and rainy,

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Speaker 3: is it?

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Speaker 2: It's so let's let's start out. How you doing. How's

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Speaker 2: the book to going? People pulled in.

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Speaker 3: Saying it's who is Government?

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Speaker 2: Who is Government?

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Speaker 3: You said, what is government?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the same thing, who is going?

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Speaker 3: And and it's an odd it's an odd. So there,

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Speaker 3: if we're going to be honest, here their books and

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Speaker 3: their book like objects. And this is closer to a

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Speaker 3: book like object because I didn't write the whole thing

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Speaker 3: I wrote. I wrote a third of it. I love it,

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Speaker 3: but I but I got I am I have six

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Speaker 3: other writers that I hired to do this with me. So,

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Speaker 3: so you I'm answering this is the way of answering

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Speaker 3: your question. The book tours. It's normally my least favorite

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Speaker 3: part of what I do for a living. It's and

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Speaker 3: and I don't know why that is.

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Speaker 2: I just because it's a slog.

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Speaker 3: It's it's I don't like being on TV, but you

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Speaker 3: got to do that. I don't The business of presenting

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Speaker 3: yourself this way is so different from the business of

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Speaker 3: writing the book that it's jarring in the first place,

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Speaker 3: and then the worst thing happens you start to like

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Speaker 3: it and and then you get you get going back

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Speaker 3: into like being a writer. Book is jarring. But the

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Speaker 3: thing that is usually a problem is that you know

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Speaker 3: you're kind of on the line. You know it's your book.

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Speaker 3: It's just you're out there alone. Now if people say

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Speaker 3: it sucks, I can just say it's the other people

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Speaker 3: who are responsible and so and so I feel it's

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Speaker 3: kind of it's kind of a it's kind of a

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Speaker 3: pleasure this one compared to the others going out and

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Speaker 3: talking about it.

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Speaker 2: So I've only seen you with some of the other

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Speaker 2: authors once or twice. You on some show with Kamano

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Speaker 2: Bell and I don't think you were. I haven't seen

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Speaker 2: you with any of the other cole.

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Speaker 3: Did you see that? Did you see it was Morning

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Speaker 3: Joe with Camal Bell?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: All right. So camal Bell is a six foot five inch,

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Speaker 3: three hundred and fifty pound black man, and he shows

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Speaker 3: up at Morning Joe in a sweatshirt that says immigrants

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Speaker 3: aren't criminals, but the president is one and and and

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Speaker 3: they say, they say, you can't wear that on TV.

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Speaker 3: Joe is not there, he's remote, and so they they

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Speaker 3: try to find something that will fit comeal Bell. Nothing

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Speaker 3: will fit come out.

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Speaker 2: Why it was inside out? Is that what he did? No?

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Speaker 3: What he did? No, it gets worse than that. They

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Speaker 3: then tried to get him to flip it around, and

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Speaker 3: it looked ridiculous. Then they put it right side the

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Speaker 3: right side out again, and they put black tape over

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Speaker 3: just the bottom part of that. And then when they

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Speaker 3: by the time we got he got finished, we'd lost

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Speaker 3: our segment. They'd run out of time, and Joe was

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Speaker 3: heading off to drive. There's this another hour and Joe's

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Speaker 3: head off to drive his kid to school, and they

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Speaker 3: called him and said that we can't have him on

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Speaker 3: because you know, we can't figure out what we do

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Speaker 3: with the sweatshirt. And Joe interceded and said, have him

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Speaker 3: wear the sweatshirt. He can make sure everybody can read it,

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Speaker 3: and put him on and what was But what was

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Speaker 3: really weird about it is that though Joe was comfortable

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Speaker 3: making that statement on his on his show, none of

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Speaker 3: the authorities in the actual studio were And so they

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Speaker 3: framed come out. It's like this giant head and you

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Speaker 3: can't see anything. And the whole time he's talking, he

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Speaker 3: keeps going, he goes, He's going like this with a sweatshees.

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Speaker 3: Did you see that?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it it's incredibly distracting. I was trying to

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Speaker 3: have a conversation and he's this man is doing this

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Speaker 3: thing with this sweatterer. But yes, mostly it's been I mean,

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Speaker 3: I've done some stuff with some of the co authors,

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Speaker 3: mostly stage stuff. I've been on stage one way or

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Speaker 3: another in one city or another with all of them

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Speaker 3: or each of them. But most of most of the

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Speaker 3: other stuff, the TV stuff, I've had to do on

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Speaker 3: my own.

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Speaker 2: So I want to get to this book in a minute,

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Speaker 2: but first I want to set the stage with the

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Speaker 2: Arc of the two prior.

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Speaker 3: Books, because that are related to this.

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Speaker 2: Well exactly, that's what I'm teeing up. Don't get ahead

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Speaker 2: of me, just trying to help. So the premonition was

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Speaker 2: how the you us really did a mediocre job during

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Speaker 2: the pandemic. You focused on Charity Dean and the pandemic

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Speaker 2: emergency Response team and the mess they had to clean up.

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Speaker 2: I'm curious how that book led to the Fifth Risk,

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Speaker 2: which was the book that was the predecessor to this.

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Speaker 3: So I'm gonna have to help you. The fifth Risk

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Speaker 3: is before this, before the before the premonition, it goes

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Speaker 3: fifth Risk Premonition.

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Speaker 2: This then withdrawn. Okay, so the Fifth Risk is the

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Speaker 2: predecessor book to this? How did that lead?

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Speaker 3: Yes, so there we go. Sorry, I got the order rum. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: sorry about that. And your wife, Wendy is here somewhere

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Speaker 3: in the front row. I'm so sorry you're feeling poorly. Thanks,

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Speaker 3: thank you for coming.

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Speaker 2: By the way, wouldn't be the first time you've embarrassed

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Speaker 2: me in public, and we could save that conversation for later.

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Speaker 2: But okay, how did those books lead to?

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Speaker 3: So this is how it happens. It's really simple and

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Speaker 3: it is all none of it all seems worthy from

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Speaker 3: a distance, like I have some great political or social purpose.

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Speaker 3: In fact, it's all literary opportunism. Trump is elected. The

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Speaker 3: first time. Trump fires a day after his election his

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Speaker 3: transition team and enterprise. I didn't know existed until I

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Speaker 3: read he'd fired it. But it was five hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty people that Chris Christy had assembled for him to

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Speaker 3: go into the government and receive from the Obama administration

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Speaker 3: the briefings that a thousand people in the Obama administration

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Speaker 3: had by law spent six months preparing. So given its

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Speaker 3: Obama's probably like the best academic course in the history

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Speaker 3: of the government on the government. And Trump fired the

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Speaker 3: people who are going to go listen to this like

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Speaker 3: they just said, we don't need any he told Chris Christy.

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Speaker 3: Chris Christy told me, he said, we're so smart that

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Speaker 3: it'll take us an hour to figure out how the

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Speaker 3: government works. We don't need that. And I thought, this

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Speaker 3: is like a great comic premise that I can go

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Speaker 3: and wander around the government, get all these briefings that

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Speaker 3: he didn't bother to get, and the reader will feel

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Speaker 3: rightly like they know more about the government than the president.

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Speaker 3: And the president's supposed to be running it. And that

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Speaker 3: book it was a series again, it was more of

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Speaker 3: a book like object. It was three long vanity fair

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Speaker 3: pieces plus a piece that so it just happened to work.

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Speaker 3: Is that when you glue them all together. But I

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Speaker 3: picked intentionally the departments that nobody paid any attention to,

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Speaker 3: so not State or Treasury or anything like that. I

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Speaker 3: picked Commerce, Agriculture, and energy ones where if I turned

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Speaker 3: to my neighbors in Berkeley, all of whom have are

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Speaker 3: inflicting their political opinions upon me constantly. If I say

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Speaker 3: what does the Commerce Department do? I get a blank

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Speaker 3: stare they have no idea. And I found in those

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Speaker 3: places one really good material. Like all of the places

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Speaker 3: sort of like matter. There's stuff going on in each

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Speaker 3: of them that's really, really, really important, but unbelievable characters.

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Speaker 3: Can I tell you about one character? Sure, but I

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Speaker 3: don't want I don't want to get get you got

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Speaker 3: your train is on the track, and I don't want to.

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Speaker 2: Well, you're you're just skipping the best part of how

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Speaker 2: did you get access to all these people? You kind

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Speaker 2: of left out. If there's this giant transition team that

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Speaker 2: was supposed to be for the incoming Trump administration, and

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Speaker 2: he fired them all. How did you get asked?

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Speaker 3: He fired the ones who were going in to listen

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Speaker 3: to the briefings, So you just briefings were still there

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Speaker 3: in some ways, like in some wayss like the turkey

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Speaker 3: sandwiches are still moldering, and you know that they had prepared,

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Speaker 3: they'd figured out what drinks they might want. It was

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Speaker 3: all all set up.

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Speaker 2: So you reach out to reach out to.

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Speaker 3: In the first place, people inside the Energy Department. I

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Speaker 3: got some names of officials in the Energy Department, started

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Speaker 3: with the outgoing Obama people, but quickly got into the

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Speaker 3: civil service because the civil service does the briefings. Uh,

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Speaker 3: I mean, they're the ones who are I mean in

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Speaker 3: the Energy Department, for example, run a fifty billion dollars

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Speaker 3: cleanup of the nuclear waste left behind in eastern Washington

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Speaker 3: from the building of the atom bomb in the nineteen forties.

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Speaker 3: It's still going on. You know, there's like that thing.

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Speaker 3: There are all these things. There's a nuclear arsenal. I

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Speaker 3: went and I went and met with the people who

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Speaker 3: managed the nuclear arsenal arsenal, and they couldn't tell me

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Speaker 3: that there was classified stuff. But they could tell me

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Speaker 3: a lot, and their attitude was was so grateful. Someone's

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Speaker 3: come to listen, like we did all this work to

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Speaker 3: like explain how it all works. And and I started

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Speaker 3: with energy, but not not you know, it could have

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Speaker 3: gone anywhere, but I started with energy because I don't

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Speaker 3: know if you remember, but Rick Perry, oops, was Donald

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Speaker 3: Trump's pick for Secretary of Energy because he because he,

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Speaker 3: I mean, Trump's mind is looks like oil Texas looks

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Speaker 3: good on television. But Rick Perry had called for the

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Speaker 3: elimination of the Energy Department when he was running for president.

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Speaker 3: And that's a little awkward. You're going to go be

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Speaker 3: running this place when you said it shouldn't exist.

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Speaker 2: Tough first day.

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Speaker 3: But he had no idea what was in it. And

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Speaker 3: the minute he found I was in it, he went

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Speaker 3: into the Senate, his Senate hearings and said, God, I'm

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Speaker 3: really sorry, like I was wrong. You shouldn't get rid

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Speaker 3: of this place. So I went there because he was,

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Speaker 3: because I just thought, this is like, this is the

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Speaker 3: reductiono ad absurdum of this ignorance. And the pieces, the

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Speaker 3: pieces really worked like they I mean, the material was

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Speaker 3: so good. But what happened as I crept my way

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Speaker 3: through the obscure parts of the federal government. I kept

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Speaker 3: meeting incredible people, like people who I was not. I

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Speaker 3: did not have a picture in my head of who

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Speaker 3: the federal employee was. What I was meeting was very

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Speaker 3: different from what I had imagined. And so the book

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Speaker 3: comes out, it sells half a million copies, and it's

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Speaker 3: glued together Vanity Fair articles which told you that there

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Speaker 3: is an interest in a Civics lesson, which is what

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Speaker 3: it was kind of, and I got the problem of

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Speaker 3: having to write it as you will soon have and

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Speaker 3: afterward to the paperback. It comes out a year later,

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Speaker 3: and I thought, you know, I kind of Although it's

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Speaker 3: worked so far, it bothers me that I've not done

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Speaker 3: a deep dive into one of these people. Because the

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Speaker 3: people they were a mission driven, usually very expert in

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Speaker 3: some very narrow thing, completely incapable of telling their own stories,

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Speaker 3: walled off by political people, so they weren't allowed to

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Speaker 3: tell their own stories, oblivious to the sense any themselves

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Speaker 3: as characters. But that's great. Characters don't know their characters.

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Speaker 3: I mean the fact that you don't know you're a

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Speaker 3: character makes you an even better character. And I thought,

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Speaker 3: I'm just going to pick one of these people, so

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Speaker 3: who Now, when I had this problem, Trump had then

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Speaker 3: shut down the government. It was the first it was

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Speaker 3: a government shut down in eighteen and nineteen, early nineteen

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Speaker 3: it was. It was early twenty nineteen, and he had

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Speaker 3: furloughed sixty percent of the civilian workforce, sent them home

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Speaker 3: as inessential workers who without pay. So I got there

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Speaker 3: is an organization in Washington called a partner Ship for

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Speaker 3: Public Service that tries and fails over and over to

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Speaker 3: get positive attention shined upon these federal workers. And they

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Speaker 3: give an award called the Sammy Award to people who

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Speaker 3: do something good in the civil service. It's been going

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Speaker 3: on for this has been going on for two decades.

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Speaker 3: And still know when he pays it any attention. But

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Speaker 3: there've been lots of nominations for those awards, thousands of them.

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Speaker 3: So I cross referenced, like anybody who's been nominated for Sammy,

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Speaker 3: and that was like eight thousand people or something with

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Speaker 3: who's been furloughed. And the list came back and it

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Speaker 3: was like five thousand three. It was some huge list,

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Speaker 3: And what the hell am I going to do with this?

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Speaker 3: It was alphabetized. I just took the first name on

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Speaker 3: the list, Arthur A. Allen. He was the first film

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Speaker 3: on the list, and I found his phone number. I

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Speaker 3: called him up and said, I want to come talk

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Speaker 3: you about what you do. And I didn't really know

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Speaker 3: what he did. So this is the beginning of this

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Speaker 3: book because what happens with Arthur A. Allen. I go to

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Speaker 3: see him. He is the lone oceanographer in the Coastguard

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Speaker 3: Search and Rescue Division. He's been at it for thirty

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Speaker 3: something years. And he pretty quickly tells me that like

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Speaker 3: Americans have this unbelievable ability to get lost at sea,

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Speaker 3: to just like we just do it better than anybody else,

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Speaker 3: and and and it's and so the Coast Guard Rescue

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Speaker 3: is constantly occupied. He he he figures out. A few

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Speaker 3: years into his career, he witnesses a tragedy. He's he's

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Speaker 3: out in the field. He's at the Chesapeake pay station.

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Speaker 3: A storm, summer storm comes out of nowhere. The Coast

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Speaker 3: Guard is pulling people off the Chesapeake Bay. They discovered

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Speaker 3: that they got everybody but this one boat missing. And

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Speaker 3: it's got a woman who was Art's wife's age and

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Speaker 3: a little girl who was his daughter's age. And there

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Speaker 3: they know because they know when the storm kicked up,

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Speaker 3: when the boat likely capsized. They were on a sailboat,

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Speaker 3: and so they know, and they know where they were

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Speaker 3: when they capsized kinda. But what they don't know, presuming

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Speaker 3: that they are on the upside down boat, is how

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Speaker 3: that upside down sailboat drifts at sea. Objects drift differently,

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Speaker 3: like if you're in an inner tube, it's you will

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Speaker 3: move in the ocean differently than if you're an upside

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Speaker 3: down sailboat, then you would if you were on a

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Speaker 3: life raft, you know, and so on, and they find

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Speaker 3: the girl and the mother dead the next morning, and

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Speaker 3: Art says, that's never going to happen again. When he's

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Speaker 3: telling me this story, like what he's done with his

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Speaker 3: career a bunch of things, but he has basically invented

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Speaker 3: the science of studying objects drifting at sea. And he's

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Speaker 3: told me at this point in our interactions, i'd been

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Speaker 3: I was there a couple of days before. I said, like,

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Speaker 3: why did you even bother to do this? And he

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Speaker 3: goes over to his bookshelf and he pulls the yellow

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Speaker 3: newspaper article from the Norfolk Whatever about this mother and child.

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Speaker 3: He starts to cry. He said that that could have

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Speaker 3: been my wife, that could have been my child. And

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Speaker 3: when I so, when that happened, I said, it's never

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Speaker 3: going to happen again. So he starts studying how objects

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Speaker 3: drift and throwing them into the Long Island Sound from

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Speaker 3: he lives in Connecticut, and and he classifies a couple

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Speaker 3: one hundred objects the results they and reduces their drift

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Speaker 3: patterns to mathematic mathematical formula, like ten days after the

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Speaker 3: coastguard gets his formula. A three hundred and fifty pounds man,

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Speaker 3: this is a very American thing to do, runs out

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Speaker 3: of his window on a cruise ship in the Carnival

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Speaker 3: on a Carnival Cruise Line cruise eighty miles east of Miami,

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Speaker 3: and isn't discovered missing for like several hours. And he

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Speaker 3: does it at night because they have cameras on the

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Speaker 3: side of the boat. They know when they can go

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Speaker 3: back and say, oh, this is when he went off.

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Speaker 3: But Art had studied fatman at sea, and that's a

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Speaker 3: thing that he had a fat He actually stayed large

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Speaker 3: and smaller people. He had fat guy at sea, And

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Speaker 3: which will turn turn out to come in very handy

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Speaker 3: in future years. But this is the first time fat

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Speaker 3: guy at sea who goes over off a boat and

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Speaker 3: isn't discovered missing for a few hours in human history.

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Speaker 3: He's dead. Like it's like finding a person at sea

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Speaker 3: is like finding a soccer ball in the state of Connecticut.

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Speaker 3: You just it's it's almost impossible. They plucked this dude

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Speaker 3: out of the water like seven hours. Because he's fat,

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Speaker 3: he can live forever. You know, you're not no hypothermia.

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Speaker 3: The risk is someone so it's gonna swallow him. But

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Speaker 3: that's it. And it's really a huge advantage to have

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Speaker 3: that fat. And they pluck him out and he's sort

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Speaker 3: of like kind of cool. It's like like he's not

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Speaker 3: panicked or anything. He's just floating at sea. But they

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Speaker 3: they pull him out, and there are all these articles

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Speaker 3: about like how great the search and rescue people are

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Speaker 3: who pulled him out of the sea. No one asked

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Speaker 3: how they find him. The coastguard themselves are shocked, like this,

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Speaker 3: how well this worked? And this goes on. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I taught interviewed another fat guy who fell off another

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Speaker 3: boat in the Pacific, and I who was saved miraculously

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Speaker 3: after like eight hours, and I said, like, how do

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Speaker 3: you think they found you? And he said, what saved

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Speaker 3: you or something? And he says, when I was floating

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Speaker 3: in the ocean, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord

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Speaker 3: and savior and that's why I was saved. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: You're a saved because of Arthur A. Allen. You know,

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Speaker 3: that's who saved you. But nobody paid, had paid any

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Speaker 3: attention to this dude and what he had done. So

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Speaker 3: I spent a few days with him, listening to the

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Speaker 3: I mean the whole intellectual stuff about how what he did,

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Speaker 3: how he did what he did. It was riveting, but

357
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Speaker 3: the motive, like this deed, I'm not going to let

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Speaker 3: another American die because they we don't know this. He

359
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Speaker 3: fixes the problem. Thousands of people are alive today around

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Speaker 3: the world because of what he's done. He's been honored

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Speaker 3: by other countries, Taiwan and Australia. Uh, but we don't

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Speaker 3: even pay We pay him no attention. So I gather

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Speaker 3: my stuff to go write the end of my book

364
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Speaker 3: and I'm on my way back to the airport and

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Speaker 3: he after I've spent the time with him, and he

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Speaker 3: calls myself. This is the moment this book starts. He

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Speaker 3: calls myself and he says, hey, you're a writer. And

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Speaker 3: I said, I've been there with my notepad. You know,

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Speaker 3: I've been like I've been. I know I had said

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Speaker 3: something when I called him, but I said, and he said,

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Speaker 3: he said, and he said, I just talked to my son.

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Speaker 3: He says, like you've published books and one of the

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Speaker 3: books became move a movie. And he goes, are you

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Speaker 3: gonna are you gonna write about this? You can write

375
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Speaker 3: about me? And I said, yeah, Art, I mean, why

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Speaker 3: do you think I flew across country and spent three

377
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Speaker 3: days interviewing your wife and children and all the rest.

378
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Speaker 3: He said, I just thought you were really interested in

379
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Speaker 3: how objects drift and and and and this is this this,

380
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Speaker 3: this is your one an essential worker to your public servant.

381
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Speaker 3: You're a civil servant. They have no sense like they

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Speaker 3: deserve any kind of attention. The stories that come out

383
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Speaker 3: of them are amazing. And I thought, man, I should

384
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Speaker 3: have done the first time. I should have been diving

385
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Speaker 3: into these people's lives. So the next time, if I

386
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Speaker 3: ever come back, I'm going to come back focused on

387
00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:50,560
Speaker 3: the people. And uh. And when I I was on

388
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Speaker 3: a hiking trail with David Shipley, who was once until

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Speaker 3: recently the opinion editor of the Washington Post, and he

390
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:59,240
Speaker 3: had space, and he had money, and and we could

391
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Speaker 3: write as long as wanted in his pages. He said,

392
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Speaker 3: I said, let me. I'm worried that if I go

393
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Speaker 3: do this, it'll just be either, oh, this is Michael

394
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Speaker 3: Lewis's take on the federal government, or I made it

395
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Speaker 3: up or whatever like whatever. Whenever people don't want to

396
00:20:12,600 --> 00:20:15,240
Speaker 3: hear the message, it's very easy to come after the

397
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:17,119
Speaker 3: writer and try to undermine.

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Speaker 2: The whatever is is that why you picked? That's what

399
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Speaker 2: I did.

400
00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:24,520
Speaker 3: Say, And also to get a little bit of a

401
00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 3: bigger kind of sample, like not going to tell him

402
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Speaker 3: what to do. I didn't even tell him why, I

403
00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:31,000
Speaker 3: what what I was going to do. And I've done

404
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,720
Speaker 3: two of these big profiles in here, and the material

405
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:37,320
Speaker 3: is as good as ever. But I said, we're just

406
00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:40,560
Speaker 3: gonna you just go into federal government and wander around

407
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:44,560
Speaker 3: and find a story. And six out of the five

408
00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:47,520
Speaker 3: out of the six other six did much of what

409
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Speaker 3: basically what I did. They found unbelievable character studies, individuals

410
00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:57,160
Speaker 3: doing things that were just to shock them one. He's

411
00:20:57,160 --> 00:21:00,879
Speaker 3: a wonderful right John Lanchester, English writer, decided instead that

412
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:04,760
Speaker 3: his character was the consumer price index, which is a challenge. Uh,

413
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:07,240
Speaker 3: but he actually makes it work. It's because it is

414
00:21:07,280 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 3: an amazing achievement. But he writes so he he went

415
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Speaker 3: off of the reservation a bit.

416
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Speaker 2: I'll push back on the characterization when we come to

417
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,159
Speaker 2: that chapter, because I have a different spin on that. Oh.

418
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Speaker 2: But but let's talk about some of the chapters in here,

419
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Speaker 2: starting with Ronald Walters of the National Seminary.

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Speaker 3: I can't start with myself.

421
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Speaker 2: You want to start that way, I mean other other peoples.

422
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:32,880
Speaker 3: I edited it, but other people, other people. I give

423
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Speaker 3: you such a shit, I will tell you.

424
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Speaker 2: So you want to start with the coal mines, Let's let's.

425
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Speaker 3: Start with No, no, no, I don't want to. I've already

426
00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:42,119
Speaker 3: muscled you around too much. You're I'm the fish and

427
00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 3: you're the fisherman landing me. But but it's uh, Ronald Walters.

428
00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 3: So this is the one. The one writer who came

429
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 3: to me after I had employed them all and said,

430
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Speaker 3: is there anything on your cutting room floor that you

431
00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:59,600
Speaker 3: would like to have written about that you didn't write?

432
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Speaker 3: I said, well, that's funny, you say, but yes, it's

433
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 3: Ronald Walters. Casey Sepp, who's a wonderful New Yorker writer.

434
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 3: She wrote a book about Harper Lee called Furious Hours,

435
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:11,080
Speaker 3: and we met because I reviewed that book for The

436
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:13,639
Speaker 3: New York Times so favorably. She got in touch and

437
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:18,159
Speaker 3: sent me toffee boxes of toffee. But when we became friends,

438
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 3: Ronald Walters, this I'll be brief because I didn't get

439
00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:24,680
Speaker 3: to know him. You know, I'm just reading. I'm reading

440
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 3: it like you. But what it intrigued me Ronald Walters

441
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:30,760
Speaker 3: is in the Veterans administration. I think he's the only

442
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:33,680
Speaker 3: one who still has his job securely. But he may

443
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 3: be insecure now too. But he took over these National

444
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 3: Cemeteries Association, the cemeteries that where we bury veterans, and

445
00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 3: there are like fifty five of these things around the country.

446
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 3: Like four million veterans are buried in them. They're burying them.

447
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 3: It's an astonishing rate, and it's sort of like it's

448
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:53,920
Speaker 3: a sacred duty. It's where we bury our war dead.

449
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 3: It's where we bury people who've made great sacrifice for

450
00:22:57,280 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 3: the country, and it's a tribute to the country that

451
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:02,120
Speaker 3: we take it seriously that the Veterans Administration even has

452
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:07,720
Speaker 3: this program. But when he inherited it, it was struggling

453
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 3: in it's a weird way to put it, consumer satisfaction.

454
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 3: The consumers in this case were the loved ones of

455
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:17,119
Speaker 3: the people who were being buried, and he took it

456
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,320
Speaker 3: from And we know this because the University of Michigan

457
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 3: measures customer satisfaction across the society. It's all institute, big institutions.

458
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 3: Not just it's private sector, but also government agencies. And

459
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,880
Speaker 3: it was kind of like most of the government agencies,

460
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:36,200
Speaker 3: kind of high sixties. It was like a mediocre thing.

461
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 3: And in a period of a decade, Ronald Walters took

462
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 3: it to being not just the enterprise in the United

463
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:47,440
Speaker 3: States government that had the highest customer satisfaction, but the

464
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 3: enterprise in the entire country, more than Costco, more than

465
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,119
Speaker 3: Amazon or FedEx or the other ones that people like it.

466
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 3: And he never No one knew his name, no one

467
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 3: knew who, how he did it, or why. And I

468
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 3: had when I was fiddling around with picking someone to

469
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 3: write the afterwards for the Fifth Risk, i'd heard his

470
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 3: story and I almost I tried calling, and actually they

471
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 3: didn't even return my calls. The veteran of his administration

472
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:17,919
Speaker 3: wouldn't talk to me. So so it was there and

473
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 3: I said, go go find that out out about that,

474
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 3: and so she writes about how he did what he did.

475
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 2: It's an it's an absolutely beautiful chapter. It actually made

476
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:28,880
Speaker 2: me cry. Didn't only chapter in the book that that

477
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 2: brings tears to your eyes. Let's talk about coal mining

478
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,880
Speaker 2: and how dangerous it is. Let's talk about your first show.

479
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 3: So another case. So this is I mean it it's

480
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 3: so unusual to find such a rich vein of material

481
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:52,159
Speaker 3: that is basically unexplored, that is so predictably yielding gold.

482
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 3: And this So this is number This is number two

483
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 3: for me. I've done our alan, I've done the agencies.

484
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 3: I'm going to go pick another person. So I went

485
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 3: back to kind of it the way I did it before.

486
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 3: I got a list of the people who were nominated

487
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 3: for Sammy's Awards this year or last year. And this

488
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 3: list was almost six hundred people. And because it's they

489
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 3: don't know what they're doing. I mean, they know what

490
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:14,919
Speaker 3: they're doing in some ways, but they just don't know

491
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 3: how to create interest in people. All these this list

492
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 3: of the people who've been nominated for the award, it

493
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:23,439
Speaker 3: just said their name and what they'd done, and you

494
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 3: looked at the accomplishment and they were often amazing. It

495
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 3: was like, you know, you know, but it would never

496
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 3: say how they did it. No, cured cancer, but that

497
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:36,959
Speaker 3: was it kind of thing. John Smith at the National

498
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 3: Institute Health Cured Cancer period. End of story. I was

499
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 3: going through this listen. It was all just cold blooded.

500
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 3: You know. It was just like until I get to

501
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 3: Christopher Mars solve the problem of coal mine roofs falling

502
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 3: in on coal miners, which has killed fifty thousand American

503
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 3: coal miners in the last century, leading cause of death

504
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 3: in the most dangerous occupation in the country. Uh, occupation

505
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 3: is so dangerous that it was more dangerous being in

506
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 3: a coal mine than being in the Vietnam War. That's

507
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 3: how That's how dangerous it was. And and it's but

508
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 3: it's said the last sentence was a former coal miner.

509
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 3: They finally gave me something to think about. And so

510
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 3: I looked and I thought, man, there has got to

511
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 3: be a story here. I mean, I'm thinking grew up

512
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:27,960
Speaker 3: in West Virginia, like dad was injured or killed or so,

513
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 3: you know, this son, how this person gets out and

514
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 3: does this? So I had spun this whole tale up

515
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 3: in my head. Uh, And I find his number, and again,

516
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 3: like ourd Ali, he lives in Pittsburgh, I call him,

517
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 3: I coal call him. In this case, he knew who

518
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 3: I was. He'd read Moneyball and it turned out that

519
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 3: he thought of himself as Moneyball in coal mines. But

520
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 3: that's a whole separate thing. But but he he's I say,

521
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 3: I just want to hear I just want to hear

522
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 3: your story, like, give me the the ten minute version.

523
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give you the five minutes of the ten

524
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 3: minute version because it hooked me. He says, I grew

525
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:09,439
Speaker 3: up in Princeton, New Jersey, and my dad was a

526
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 3: professor at the university. And I thought, oh, like, my

527
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 3: whole movie is different. I know, I don't know what

528
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 3: the movie is, but this this not and I thought, oh,

529
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 3: my interest went cool. And then he started to tell me.

530
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 3: He says, if you looked at us a little bit,

531
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 3: you'd find my dad was kind of famous. Robert Marx

532
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 3: was his name, and Marx had been brought to Princeton

533
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:36,439
Speaker 3: without a PhD. To help Princeton. He had devised a

534
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 3: mechanism for stress testing. He was stressed testing fighter planes

535
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 3: for the Navy and the Air Force before they built them.

536
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 3: He'd take the design, build a little model, and he

537
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,479
Speaker 3: had this complicated way of just testing whether or not

538
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 3: this design was going to actually work in practice. And

539
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:55,159
Speaker 3: Princeton had brought him into test little nuclear reactors they

540
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 3: wanted to build to see if it were earing crack.

541
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 3: And Robert Mark one day was teaching an engineering class

542
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 3: at Princeton when an undergraduate walks in from an art

543
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 3: history class and says, this device you have, could you

544
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:12,199
Speaker 3: use it to like figure out what's holding Gothic cathedrals up?

545
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 3: Because they just told that no one understands how the

546
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,920
Speaker 3: roofs of Gothic cathedrals don't collapse. There's no records left

547
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 3: by the builders. Then they're built over a century. No

548
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 3: one knows what's decorative, which is actually holding the weight.

549
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 3: And he said yeah, And he became famous because he

550
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 3: became the guy who figured out how they built the

551
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:32,399
Speaker 3: Gothic cathedrals and what was keeping them up, what was

552
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 3: keeping the roof up. So that's Robert, that's the dad.

553
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 3: Chris is telling me this in the first fifteen minutes

554
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 3: I'm talking to him. So so that was my dadd

555
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 3: He said, I had a problem with my dad's life.

556
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 3: It was a Vietnam War. I got kind of radicalized.

557
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:47,959
Speaker 3: I thought, I saw it wasn't Princeton kids who were

558
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 3: fighting and dying, and that really bothered me. And he

559
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 3: said I He started throwing words around the house like bourgeois,

560
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 3: and pretty soon he said, I'm not he could have

561
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 3: gone to Harvard or Princeton. I'm not gonna do that.

562
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go join the working class. So he breaks

563
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 3: with his dad, big break. He goes on the road.

564
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 3: He works in an autofactory, works in a ups plant,

565
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 3: finally ends up with several fellow radicals in a coal

566
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 3: mine in West Virginia. The other three radicals all quit

567
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 3: at the end of the first day. It's that brutal.

568
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 3: He finds it interesting. Why he finds it interesting is

569
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 3: still a bit of a mystery. But he stays in

570
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 3: the mind for a year and almost dies twice that

571
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 3: he sees how dangerous it is. He crawls out of

572
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 3: the mind, goes and gets a PhD, a undergraduate and

573
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 3: a PhD at Penn State in rock engineering, and begins

574
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 3: the process of figuring out there's all his data that

575
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 3: the US government has collected on that they've observed the problem.

576
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 3: It's like the CDC does with the disease, that they've

577
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 3: observed the problem without actually trying to stop the problem.

578
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 3: So they've all his data on when Rufe's fell and

579
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 3: what the conditions were. He starts to study it, and

580
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 3: over a career, a really really interesting career, figures out

581
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 3: how to stop this from happening and stops it from happening.

582
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 3: So he's telling me this on the phone, and it

583
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 3: does give me all the details of his work. But

584
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 3: and I stop him and I say, oh, so you

585
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 3: rebelled against your dad and then you just went and

586
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 3: had your dad's career. He was figured out how to

587
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 3: keep what was keeping up the rules of Gothic cathedrals,

588
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 3: and you figured out how to keep the rules of

589
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 3: coal mines up. And I mean, this is someone I've

590
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 3: just started talking to on the phone. He gets outraged.

591
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 3: It's like both, you know, like I'm calling you know,

592
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 3: and that has nothing to nothing did what I did

593
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 3: had nothing to do with my father's career. We have

594
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 3: nothing in common. Completely different thing. If that's your theory,

595
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 3: like go away kind of thing, and I said, just

596
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 3: seems a natural observation, right, So so two things. When

597
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 3: I went and spent a lot of time with him,

598
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 3: we rolled around West Virginia. He took me into coal mines,

599
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 3: and he doesn't mention till like the third day that, oh,

600
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 3: you know, it was funny. Were you reconciled? How did

601
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 3: you reconcile with your dad? And I asked him because

602
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 3: they had become reconciled before his dad died, and he

603
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 3: said it was gradually, he said, but there was this moment,

604
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 3: he said, the National Cathedral. The federal government thought the

605
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 3: National Cathedral in Washington might be falling down. This was

606
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 3: in the year two thousand. One of the towers was

607
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 3: subsiding faster than the other and they didn't know why.

608
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 3: So they called his dad to test to see how

609
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 3: the load was moving through the National Cathedral. And the

610
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 3: dad figured out that his stuff didn't work because whatever

611
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 3: was going on, it wasn't above ground, it was below ground.

612
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 3: So he called the son, and his son had the

613
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 3: stuff to go figure out what was going on the

614
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 3: low ground, and together they wrote a paper about how

615
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 3: the National Cathedral, what was going to happen, and we

616
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 3: didn't have to worry about it falling down. But they

617
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 3: studied it together and put everybody's minds to rest. Now,

618
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 3: when you have that to navigate too in a story,

619
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 3: you got a story. I mean, it's just like that.

620
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 3: And and so Art Allen had the Yellow Wing newspaper, uh,

621
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 3: Christopher Marks had the had the the dad I met.

622
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 3: But I got to say, I've met lots of people

623
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 3: in like the Storm Center and the National Weather Service

624
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 3: who lost loved ones to tornadoes or that that this instrument,

625
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 3: fel government is filled with all of all this purpose,

626
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 3: all these things. That it's where the problems of the

627
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 3: private sector doesn't want to deal with go. You know,

628
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 3: it's like there's no money to be made in it.

629
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 3: But we've decided to a society we want to address it.

630
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 3: That's where that's where we that's what we use to

631
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 3: address it. Who is attracted to these problems, People who

632
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 3: have a particular interest in this problem for whatever reason,

633
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 3: and that quality like caring about the problem. It's outside yourself.

634
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 3: I'm going to fix the problem. Tends to come from

635
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 3: a deep place, and that's where literature comes from. You know,

636
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 3: it's the the motives of the characters are are are

637
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 3: in our government. These are rich and interesting people with

638
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 3: rich and interesting backstories. And you know, every time you

639
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 3: kind of start scratching it one, you get it this.

640
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 2: So let's address that a bit because I want to

641
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 2: discuss your process a little bit, which I'm fascinated by.

642
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 2: You once said to Malcolm Gladwell at the ninety second Street.

643
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 2: Why the subjects choose me? I don't go looking for books.

644
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,719
Speaker 2: The stories wander into my life and they get to

645
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:36,479
Speaker 2: the point where they can't not be written. The stories

646
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 2: kind of find me. A relationship develops between me and

647
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 2: the story. I have no choice, that's true. So expound

648
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 2: on that a bit.

649
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 3: You want the three minute of the five minute.

650
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 2: Version, whatever you're comfortable with.

651
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 3: All right, I mean this goes back to who I am.

652
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm basically I grew up in New Orleans,

653
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 3: was raised to be a decorative object. I was raised

654
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 3: what does that mean useful? Okay, Like nobody around me

655
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 3: did anything useful and no one planned to and hence

656
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 3: you end up on Wall Street. No, yeah, well that's funny.

657
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 3: But but but there's a certain charm you acquire on

658
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 3: the streets. Of New Orleans that are very useful when

659
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 3: you're trying to sell a bond. But it's that. But yes,

660
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 3: there's a lot of New Orleans make their way to

661
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 3: Wall Street. They do quite well on Wall Street. You

662
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 3: get the gift of gab kind of thing. But you

663
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 3: learn to tell a story, which is very valuable in

664
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 3: the financial markets and also very valuable to writers. But

665
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 3: I I'm basically lazy. Like that is true, you know,

666
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 3: it's it's it's core in me, like the working part

667
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 3: of me has been added on somehow, But the deep

668
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 3: meat I would just sit around scratch myself for the

669
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 3: rest of my life.

670
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 2: If you've written fourteen books, how is that lazy?

671
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 3: So so so this is I'm not lying. This is this.

672
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 3: I'm telling you the truth. You just can't to figure out.

673
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 3: You got to make sense of it.

674
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 2: Okay, My father, my fault.

675
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 3: This is God's truth. My father when I from the

676
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 3: age of about seven to the age of when I

677
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 3: was eighteen, had me persuaded that there was Latin. We

678
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:17,879
Speaker 3: had a coat of arms, Lewis, and there was always

679
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 3: a Latin under it. He persuaded me that what that

680
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:25,280
Speaker 3: Latin said you translated was do as little as possible,

681
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 3: and that unwillingly, for it is better to receive a

682
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 3: slight reprimand than to perform an arduous task. My father

683
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 3: raised me to be lazy, you know. I mean that that.

684
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 3: He was like, don't try, don't sweat it, you're working

685
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 3: too hard. It was it was, this is the environment

686
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 3: I was raised in, and I took to it.

687
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 2: But you didn't.

688
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 3: But I did.

689
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 2: Up to every book you've written, you embed yourself in

690
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 2: an unfamiliar place.

691
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 3: It's no, it's true. It's I'm curious. I got that too.

692
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 3: I'm actually curious. I see something and I want to

693
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 3: know about it, and and it happens a lot. It

694
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 3: just happens a lot. And so it's with pleasure I

695
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 3: find I pursue a curiosity. I ask curiosity, why are

696
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,320
Speaker 3: the Oakland A's winning baseball games with no money?

697
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 2: Like?

698
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 3: How is that possible? That's the beginning. That's a curiosity.

699
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:18,439
Speaker 3: And so I go to the truck.

700
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 2: Most people have that thought and go who knows? And

701
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 2: you spend, You spend weeks and weeks.

702
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 3: So it is not it is true that I do

703
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,359
Speaker 3: the work. It is true that I eventually do the work,

704
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:37,919
Speaker 3: but I do from a place of deep laziness. It's deep,

705
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 3: it's like that it is. I get curious, I start

706
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 3: to get involved. I realize, oh my god, this is

707
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:48,879
Speaker 3: look at this story and it is it is got

708
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 3: to it really does have to rise to the level

709
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 3: in my mind that this story is so important and

710
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 3: it's delusional, like is any story that important? But it's

711
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 3: the story is so important that I have an obligation

712
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 3: to do it. So now I have to do it.

713
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 3: Because I have an obligation, I make myself feel that way,

714
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 3: and when I feel that way, then I'm off. Then

715
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:11,799
Speaker 3: I forget about the laziness and I do the work.

716
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 2: So you have this incredible knack of finding yourself in

717
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:20,720
Speaker 2: the right place at the right time before everybody Else's

718
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 2: probably lucky thing. Okay, so i'll give you that. This

719
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 2: one's lucky. Liar's poker. You're there early in the Rise

720
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 2: of Wall Streets. Okay, you're working moneyball. No one had

721
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 2: any idea what was going on with Sabermetrics and how

722
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 2: this scrappy, little broke team was able to put together

723
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:43,320
Speaker 2: a competitive run going infinite. You in bed with STX

724
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 2: and Sam Bankman Freed.

725
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 3: That was kind of cool. That was a year, right,

726
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 3: but you know I didn't know that was happening.

727
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 2: You didn't know that was happening. And then the whole

728
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 2: undoing project with Danny Kahneman, who just coincidentally lived down

729
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 2: the street from you. You have this ridiculous act to

730
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 2: finding yourself at the head of a wave that's about

731
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,879
Speaker 2: to crash over society. I mean, once or twice is dumb.

732
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 3: Luck.

733
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 2: How do you do it six times in a row?

734
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 2: That's not exactly luck.

735
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 3: I think it is. I mean in that you know

736
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,399
Speaker 3: you and I. So he's just published a book too,

737
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 3: How Not to Invest. It's really good and and you

738
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 3: you say eighteen different ways in the course of this book,

739
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 3: how skeptical you are of the ability to predict the future.

740
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 3: Sure I am too. Everybody wants you to predict the future,

741
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 3: and you just shouldn't do it because it's just you know,

742
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 3: you can't who knows where this is?

743
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 2: But you're always skating to where the puck's going to be.

744
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 3: Explain that it's maybe I think the puck is just

745
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 3: coming to where I happen to be. That so I

746
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 3: don't think I really think Sam Begman fried Lands on

747
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:58,280
Speaker 3: my front porch after someone asked me to just interview

748
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 3: him and evaluate him from I didn't go looking for him.

749
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 3: He walked up and I said, this is interesting. I'm

750
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 3: going to follow I'm just going to follow him around this.

751
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 3: I had had this nagging sense that I left all

752
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 3: this gold in the mind. I still feel that way.

753
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 3: There's gold in that mind still. And I left the

754
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 3: gold in the mine. Let's go back there and get

755
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:19,360
Speaker 3: it and bring some friends and they can have some

756
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 3: of the gold too. And I mean, I had no

757
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:25,479
Speaker 3: idea that Trump was going to do what he's done

758
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,400
Speaker 3: to the government. None. I did have a sense like

759
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 3: he didn't care about it, that he was going to

760
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 3: just completely try to gut it. I had no sense.

761
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:39,839
Speaker 3: So in every case, I know how much accident there was.

762
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 3: I will say, if I were trying to make the

763
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 3: case that I have I know something that other people don't,

764
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 3: or there's something about me that leads to being a

765
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 3: little ahead of the curve, I'd only say that the best,

766
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 3: the closest thing to the best way to predict the

767
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 3: future is just pay attention to the present. That you

768
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 3: pay closer attention to the president than other people are.

769
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:03,399
Speaker 3: You See, it's the future is there, and so it

770
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 3: is uh, I do pay attention to the present. I

771
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 3: observe and and and I also so this gets back

772
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 3: to the laziness, that that when you're lazy, it's an actor.

773
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 3: It's not necessarily a bad thing to be a little lazy.

774
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 3: Amos Tversky. Amos Tversky, my character in The Undoing Project,

775
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 3: had a great line which I which which I tell

776
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 3: every kid who asks for advice, I just repeat it.

777
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 3: He says, people waste years of their lives not being

778
00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:32,880
Speaker 3: willing to waste hours of their lives. That people get

779
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 3: so worked up about making being busy, moving their career up.

780
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 3: They don't let anything. They don't let things in. They're

781
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 3: like always achieving. And if you just back away and

782
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 3: let the world come into you, it's that's a helpful

783
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 3: approach to a writer. Also, if if you're a little lazy,

784
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 3: like you would rather basically not be doing anything, it

785
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 3: takes a level of interest to move you. I know

786
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 3: a lot of writers who just go They can always

787
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,439
Speaker 3: find something to write about because they know they feel

788
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 3: like they have to be writing, so they just force it.

789
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,959
Speaker 3: Before I sit down and bother to put a word

790
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 3: on the page I've gotten, so I've had to get

791
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 3: so excited about it to offset the natural tendency not

792
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 3: to do anything, and so that it's it's like the

793
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:24,040
Speaker 3: material is leaping over higher hurdles to get to the

794
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 3: place with me that I want to write about it.

795
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 3: So maybe that's that has something to do with this.

796
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,359
Speaker 2: Can can I float a theory to sure I think

797
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,800
Speaker 2: it's going to be you can do it well well,

798
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 2: Malcolm Gladwell's glad brand unified theory of Michael Lewis books's

799
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 2: biblical allegories? Right, that's yeah, that is right, Daniel in

800
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,360
Speaker 2: the lines, Then is Liar's poker? The blind side is good, Samaritan,

801
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 2: David and Goliath moneyball, Like, you're not doing biblical allegories, No.

802
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:55,399
Speaker 3: I mean you can. The truth is you can find

803
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 3: almost any you can map almost any story onto the

804
00:41:58,640 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 3: box right right.

805
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 2: But but here's what's not is every Michael Lewis book

806
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 2: features a character and the archetype Michael Lewis character quirky

807
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 2: outsiders pushing against the grain because they've discovered some interesting

808
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:23,840
Speaker 2: insight or truth or previously unknown thing that is against

809
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 2: the consensus, and then they apply that to their field.

810
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:30,720
Speaker 2: And either they make a lot of money shorting stocks

811
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 2: or they save fat guys who've fallen off a cruise ships.

812
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 2: That's those are the same characters.

813
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 3: But every who's that character in Liar's Poker You think that's.

814
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 2: Me, Well, you show flashes of you. It was your

815
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 2: first book, so we'll cut you a little slack. But

816
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 2: you know, in fact, let's let's talk about Liar's Poper. Yes,

817
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 2: so we we did a podcast on the thirtieth anniversary.

818
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 2: You had to go reread it, just reread the book,

819
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 2: but read it out loud for the audio version.

820
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 3: I hadn't re read it since I wrote it.

821
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 2: So so first, what was that experience?

822
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 3: Like awful? I mean, I don't know if you've ever

823
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 3: gone back. And but I was twenty six when I

824
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 3: wrote that, and I'd never written anything. I mean, I'd

825
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:17,320
Speaker 3: written letters to my mother and a few articles in

826
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 3: the Economist, and I mean there was a it was

827
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 3: just work. I was really raw, and I'm still.

828
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 2: There are flashes of the future. Michael Lewis the writer throughout.

829
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:30,920
Speaker 2: Hey listen. First of all, for a first time book,

830
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 2: it was great, but.

831
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 3: You know it's fun.

832
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 2: You were twenty six, so there was some things.

833
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 3: Some things I noticed. One is there was just general infelicity.

834
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 3: But I noticed that whenever I thought I was being funny,

835
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 3: I wasn't funny. And whenever I didn't, I was like,

836
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 3: oh that's funny. But I didn't know it was funny.

837
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 3: You know, it was bad. It was embarrassing, you know,

838
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 3: there was I was. I thought there were lines that

839
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 3: were clearly like designed to get people to laugh, and

840
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 3: then I shouldn't have been doing it, and there were

841
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 3: structured So it was But but yeah, I mean, I

842
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 3: feel finely towards it got my launched my career. I'm

843
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 3: still stuck on your theory.

844
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 2: So but let me just point out that you wrote

845
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 2: that book while you were working full time at Solomon Brothers.

846
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 2: You were doing this nights and weekends, right at least

847
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 2: that's when you started sketching this. This wasn't Michael Lewis

848
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 2: the full time writer, correct, Right, So so when you

849
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 2: look back at that, you got to give yourself a

850
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 2: little first time.

851
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 3: I know it wasn't. It's fine. It's not bad for

852
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 3: first book. I agree, it's not bad for first book.

853
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 3: But the when I think about your description of what

854
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 3: of my book, the quirky of the line. That's right.

855
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 3: I think of it this way because they're not. Billy

856
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 3: Bean's not quirky. Billy Bean's like the coolest guy in

857
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 3: the room. When he walks into a room, he is, Yes,

858
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:51,319
Speaker 3: he's got We're all quirky, like underneath, we all have

859
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:55,320
Speaker 3: little things that things going on. Then we're all neurotic

860
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 3: or a little We all have stuff. But you're right,

861
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 3: aaracter have a lot of stuff, like sometimes they have

862
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff. But the the thing what I

863
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:09,360
Speaker 3: think of I think of it as more as I

864
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 3: get excited by someone who could teach me, and all

865
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 3: my characters are are teaching me something about the world.

866
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 3: And now the kind of person who's teaching you something

867
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 3: about the word often is someone who has been challenging

868
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 3: the world. So that's true too. They're often in kind

869
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 3: of conflict with the world. But what's attracting me to them?

870
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 3: I never think, oh, quirky great. I never think that

871
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 3: Brad Katsuyama is not quirky. He's a nice Canadian boy

872
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 3: and the last boy Flash Boys that he is the

873
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 3: least quirky person who ever carried a book. He is normal.

874
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 3: It's like as normal as they get, and there's some

875
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:48,799
Speaker 3: stuff there with what there is is nice Canadian boy

876
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 3: collides with Wall Street and is upset when he sees what's.

877
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 2: Going on, but and figures that a way around.

878
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 3: And figures out, Yes, figures out that.

879
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:02,479
Speaker 2: He's the least quirky of your characters. But let's stick

880
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 2: with money ball. But how did you gain access to

881
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 2: the A's How did they, you know, grant you keys

882
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 2: to the kingdom?

883
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 3: This often happens too, that you have a question and

884
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 3: the question is equally interesting to the subject. So I

885
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 3: called Billy Bean, went and go see him. I said,

886
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 3: I just look, it doesn't make any sense. You're spending

887
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 3: one fifth with the Yankees are spending. How can you

888
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 3: be competing? If this market is efficient, the Yankee should

889
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 3: be buying all the best baseball players and you would

890
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:29,319
Speaker 3: just lose all the time. And he said, no one

891
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 3: has asked me that question. Is what I think about

892
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 3: all the time. The sports. He's just covered by sports

893
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 3: writers and the sports the baseball writers at the time

894
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 3: paid no attention to the financial disparities. They weren't thinking

895
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:41,399
Speaker 3: of the money on the field, and that's all they

896
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 3: thought about was the front office was the money on

897
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 3: the field, so he was interested in the question in

898
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 3: the first place. And also I didn't tell him I

899
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 3: was writing a book. I told him I thought I

900
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 3: didn't know what I was going to write. Maybe a

901
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 3: little magazine piece, maybe nothing. And it got more and

902
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 3: more interesting, and I disguised how interesting I was. And

903
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,080
Speaker 3: when I just divulged, you know, two months in and

904
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 3: do it that I was thinking about writing a book,

905
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 3: it was too late. He couldn't get rid of me.

906
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 3: I knew too much. But but there was and I

907
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:12,240
Speaker 3: had found ways to insinuate myself into into their lives.

908
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:15,360
Speaker 3: I mean, this is like, how do you make yourself?

909
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 3: How you how you get them to let you hang around?

910
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 3: That's the important thing. You've got to hang around. You

911
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:22,759
Speaker 3: got to be kind of in the you know, just

912
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 3: they they forget you're there, kind of hang around. So

913
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:28,919
Speaker 3: that was the trick there, you know in that book

914
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,160
Speaker 3: that ever told I told you when that book became

915
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 3: a book, Like when I came home at late at

916
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 3: night and I said, wrote my publisher and said, this

917
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 3: is going to freak you out, but I'm going to

918
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 3: write a sports book. I was. I was, I was

919
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 3: in the locker room of the Oakland A's interviewing telling

920
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:48,440
Speaker 3: the players. I was interviewed the players one by one

921
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 3: and telling them what why they were they were playing

922
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 3: first base, or why they were the leadoff hitter they

923
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 3: in front off no idea. The race front office regarded

924
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 3: it as a science experiment and they were the lab rats,

925
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,399
Speaker 3: and it just confused their lab rats if you told

926
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 3: them what the experiment was, and they told me, like,

927
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 3: don't talk to them about it. They just not they

928
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 3: won't handle it well. And but the players were really interested,

929
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 3: so I was they. I was welcoming the clubhouse and

930
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 3: and they were coming out of the showers. I was

931
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 3: waiting for my guy to talk to them. And for

932
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 3: the first time I saw the Oakland A's naked, and

933
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 3: it was such a disgusting sight. It was it was

934
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 3: it was like it was just I mean not not

935
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:31,359
Speaker 3: it was just professional athlete. It was like they had

936
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 3: cankles and they had they were all fat. They look

937
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:37,400
Speaker 3: like a Beer League team. They looked like And I

938
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 3: had the thought, which I related to the front office,

939
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 3: it was like if you line those naked bodies up

940
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 3: against a wall and asked anybody what they did for

941
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 3: a living, nobody would guess professional athlete. That they would

942
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 3: guess like you know, Wall Street guys. They could they

943
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 3: could be Wall Street guys. They could be accountants, they

944
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,760
Speaker 3: could be flight attendants, they could be not professional athletes.

945
00:48:57,120 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 3: And the front office said, it's funny you say that

946
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 3: because we are aware of how unattractive they are without

947
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:06,239
Speaker 3: their clothes on. Uh that that that that they said

948
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 3: that we and the andres that we get excited when

949
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 3: they are unattractive without their clothes on and they don't

950
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 3: look when they don't look right because the market we met,

951
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 3: we are evaluating them blind. It's just we're providing. We're

952
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,960
Speaker 3: looking for performance statistics. And when we find the player

953
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 3: whose statistics are are promising but they look wrong, we

954
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:30,600
Speaker 3: know why the market's misvaluing them. They're miss being the

955
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 3: value because of the way they look. And I remember,

956
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:36,320
Speaker 3: I just it blew my mind. I remember going driving

957
00:49:36,360 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 3: home and thinking, oh my god, this is when you

958
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 3: have a duty to write it like never inlind Baseball,

959
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:45,359
Speaker 3: this thing of this as a corporation, and they got

960
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 3: these employees. They've been doing the same thing for one

961
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 3: hundred years. Millions of people will watching them. Stats attached

962
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 3: to every move they make on the job. If those

963
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 3: people can be misvalued because of the misvalue because of

964
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 3: the way they look, who can't be everybody can be.

965
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 3: So this is a universal story. It's that feeling like

966
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 3: this is a universal story. And uh and so I

967
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:07,879
Speaker 3: got very excited, and I wrote my publisher note and said, sorry,

968
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:09,759
Speaker 3: here it comes. I'm going to be writing a book

969
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 3: called Moneyball. And now the flip side of this is

970
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 3: none of my subjects ever know what I'm doing. They

971
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 3: really don't. They know I'm hanging around, but they days,

972
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:22,759
Speaker 3: I mean, like, okay, they saw me. I spent a

973
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:25,240
Speaker 3: week with the Blue Jays, I spent days with the Rangers.

974
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 3: I spent days with the Marriage I spent time with

975
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 3: the Red Sox. And I had to do that to

976
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 3: know that they were special, like know that nobody else

977
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 3: was doing this and and so but so from their

978
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 3: point of view is like, what's he doing? Like Billy

979
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 3: and so when Billy Bean got the book, and my

980
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:44,479
Speaker 3: subjects only get the book when everybody else gets the book,

981
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 3: you know, I don't want them. I don't want them

982
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 3: bothering me.

983
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 2: Uh.

984
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:51,239
Speaker 3: And he got the book. He was furious. It was

985
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 3: like he was angry because you two things. One was like,

986
00:50:57,600 --> 00:50:59,759
Speaker 3: since when am I the main character could have told me?

987
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 3: You know? Is that kind of thing? It's like, I'm not,

988
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 3: I was not. I didn't sign up for this kind

989
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 3: of thing. But the second thing, he says, I thought

990
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:10,280
Speaker 3: he was going to be pissed off because I had

991
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 3: revealed their secrets. That's what I was worried about. I

992
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 3: was worried that was the betrayal. He says, He's on

993
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 3: the phone, he's like incoherent, And I said, what is

994
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:22,359
Speaker 3: bothering you? And he said, you have me saying all

995
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 3: the time. And I said, you do say what am

996
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 3: I supposed to do there? And he said, you don't understand.

997
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,720
Speaker 3: My mother is going to be so upset. And I said,

998
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 3: your mom, you know, like really it's like a sigh

999
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 3: of relief. That's what we're worried about here. Low level

1000
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 3: problem and turned out not to be a low level problem.

1001
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:45,440
Speaker 3: She was furious. She is still furious, and she's angry

1002
00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 3: at me. She's still angry at me. I swear to God,

1003
00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 3: she's angry about it. And but but I said to Billy,

1004
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:55,799
Speaker 3: I said, I started laughing, and I started said, like

1005
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 3: if I was so worried you were going to be

1006
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 3: angry with me for for stitching together this narrative that

1007
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:03,759
Speaker 3: revealed all your secrets. I found out as much as

1008
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:05,319
Speaker 3: I could, and I put as much of it into

1009
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:06,919
Speaker 3: the book as I could. And it's going to blow

1010
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:09,479
Speaker 3: your competitive advantage. I thought, that's what you were angry

1011
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:11,960
Speaker 3: about it. And his pause on the other end of

1012
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 3: the line, and he says, you don't think anybody in

1013
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:17,319
Speaker 3: baseball is going to read your book? He says, it's

1014
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:19,879
Speaker 3: like they're always going to read your book. They don't

1015
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 3: know how to read, he said. But he said, like,

1016
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 3: we've been doing this for years, nobody's asked a question.

1017
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:29,360
Speaker 3: And he was kind of right. He was right about

1018
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:31,800
Speaker 3: that it was too narrow. He was right that nobody

1019
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 3: ever reads a book who thinks they know what they're

1020
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 3: doing and changes their mind. Like no GM at the

1021
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 3: time was going to say, oh I learned something from

1022
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:41,359
Speaker 3: this book, or oh we've been doing it the wrong way.

1023
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:43,760
Speaker 2: Well, didn't the GM have the Red Sox.

1024
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:48,800
Speaker 3: No. While I was working on the book, John Henry

1025
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:51,720
Speaker 3: had just bought the Red Sox and he was saying

1026
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:53,759
Speaker 3: he actually said, what do I got to do to

1027
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 3: prevent you from writing this book, because he said, we're

1028
00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 3: about to do this here and he wanted to hire Billy,

1029
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:01,360
Speaker 3: and I became it was kind of fun. I remember

1030
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 3: doing this on payphones in the airport. I became they

1031
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 3: weren't allowed to negotiate, right, so they negotiate through me.

1032
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 3: So I helped organize Billy's contract with the Red Sox

1033
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,719
Speaker 3: and Billy was going to go and then changed his

1034
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 3: mind last minute, and theo Epstein becomes the GM at

1035
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 3: the Red Sox. The THEO was trying to hire Billy too.

1036
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 3: He was part of the group inside and but the

1037
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 3: rest is history, and THEO leads the Red Sox to

1038
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:28,400
Speaker 3: victory and Billy Bean is written out of that story.

1039
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:32,279
Speaker 3: But the Red Sox were about to do it. New

1040
00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:36,400
Speaker 3: owner like new owner who had background in finance, so

1041
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 3: he gets this, he gets statistics and data and all that.

1042
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 3: What happened was other owners read the book, like the

1043
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 3: head of Goldman Sachs at the time, I know, talk

1044
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:50,160
Speaker 3: to the owner of the Mets and said, you're being

1045
00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 3: ripped off by your own management, like they don't know

1046
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 3: what they're doing. And at the ownership level they started

1047
00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:58,800
Speaker 3: to change things so that that's that was how the

1048
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:00,880
Speaker 3: change happened. It would have happen anyway. What would have

1049
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 3: happened if I hadn't read written the book is the

1050
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 3: Red Sox would have done this. They would have won

1051
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 3: the world series using sabermetrics or statistics. They would have

1052
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:11,399
Speaker 3: gotten total credit for revolutionizing the sport and no one

1053
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 3: and Billy Dean would have been a footnote.

1054
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 2: That's what would have happened of all your books that

1055
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:21,239
Speaker 2: became a movie. That's probably my favorite film version is it?

1056
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:26,280
Speaker 2: What was that process like watching? Do you just essentially

1057
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:29,360
Speaker 2: sign the papers and that's it? Or did they retain

1058
00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:31,759
Speaker 2: you for script consulting or anything?

1059
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:35,920
Speaker 3: Right, So what happens is what happens is for sure

1060
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 3: the movie people would rather the author be dead, There's

1061
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:43,040
Speaker 3: no question. Like all you can do from their point

1062
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 3: of view is cause trouble, like complain or give advice.

1063
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:50,279
Speaker 3: And I was aware of this quite early, like I

1064
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:52,399
Speaker 3: know they don't care what I think. It was really

1065
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:54,840
Speaker 3: clear they didn't care, but they were trying to pretend

1066
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:58,080
Speaker 3: like they'd sort of cared. And this was blindside. Actually

1067
00:54:58,120 --> 00:55:02,920
Speaker 3: it was the first one. And and I thought, but

1068
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 3: they wouldn't leave me alone, like I couldn't just say here, really,

1069
00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 3: just give me the money. I'll give you the book

1070
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:11,480
Speaker 3: and whatever you do, no, whatever you do, see you

1071
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 3: see at the opening and if it just just make it,

1072
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:16,920
Speaker 3: don't suck and uh and and it's on you if

1073
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:19,000
Speaker 3: it does, because it's yours, it's gonna be. It's not

1074
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:22,799
Speaker 3: my movie, it's your movie. And they refuse to accept

1075
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 3: that blunt relationship, I think because they don't believe that

1076
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:28,799
Speaker 3: I actually think that. And so what happens is they

1077
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:29,760
Speaker 3: pretend to be interested.

1078
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:30,880
Speaker 2: They don't know you're lazy.

1079
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:33,400
Speaker 3: They don't know I'm lazy. I really like they pretend

1080
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:35,400
Speaker 3: to be interested in what I think. I have to

1081
00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:37,759
Speaker 3: pretend to be believe they're interested in what I think.

1082
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:40,280
Speaker 3: We have this false interaction where I give them advice

1083
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 3: and they ignore it all and and but out of

1084
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:47,880
Speaker 3: this some really lovely friendships have sprung, like it's a

1085
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:50,439
Speaker 3: social relationship. So I'm friends with all the directors who've

1086
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,320
Speaker 3: made the movies, really friends, And some of the actors

1087
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:55,839
Speaker 3: are still in my life, and like Jonah Hill will

1088
00:55:55,880 --> 00:55:56,920
Speaker 3: just call me up out of the blue and say,

1089
00:55:56,960 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 3: I got problem. I'm we just talk this through, and

1090
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 3: that kind of thing, and and that that is great,

1091
00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:06,319
Speaker 3: that's been great. Can't take a story about the Moneyball movie? Sure,

1092
00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:11,279
Speaker 3: it's it's the Moneyball movie. Was this sort of so you.

1093
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:12,760
Speaker 2: Guys want to hear a story about Moneyball?

1094
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 3: Right? So the Moneyball movie? So Billy being an addition

1095
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 3: to being pissed off at me, because I had him

1096
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:22,359
Speaker 3: saying all the time he was he was put I

1097
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:24,239
Speaker 3: really admire the guy. He was put in a really

1098
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:27,800
Speaker 3: difficult position. The book puts him in opposition to his industry.

1099
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:29,879
Speaker 3: He knows something everybody else does, and all the other

1100
00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:32,880
Speaker 3: gms hate him. All of a sudden when he's he

1101
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:38,120
Speaker 3: didn't deserve this, but he instead of instead of throwing

1102
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 3: me under the bus, he just fought. He said, there's

1103
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 3: not nothing in the book that's not true. So you

1104
00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:45,239
Speaker 3: want to you want to fight about it, come fight.

1105
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 3: And he's brave. He's basically a very brave person. However,

1106
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:55,360
Speaker 3: it was so unpleasant, the book among the most maybe

1107
00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:59,040
Speaker 3: the most unpleasant publication, and that all of baseball was angry,

1108
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:03,880
Speaker 3: really angry. And he said he called me one day

1109
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:06,959
Speaker 3: says like Sony Pictures is trying to buy my life

1110
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:08,920
Speaker 3: rights to make a movie. And he says I just

1111
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:11,080
Speaker 3: want to tell you I'm not doing this. Like I

1112
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:13,279
Speaker 3: didn't want the book, I don't want a movie. I

1113
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,640
Speaker 3: don't need this. And I said, Billy, you don't understand.

1114
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:18,959
Speaker 3: They never make the movie. They just give you money

1115
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 3: for your rights that I've sold, I don't know, a

1116
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 3: dozen magazine articles, five books. Money just comes out of

1117
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 3: Hollywood and they never make anything, because they hadn't made

1118
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 3: anything at that point. And when I gave him the

1119
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 3: list of like the amounts I'd raked in from Hollywood

1120
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 3: for doing absolutely nothing, he sort of said, like, this

1121
00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 3: is free, and I said, yeah, it's free, And so

1122
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 3: he took a bunch of money for his life rights.

1123
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:43,840
Speaker 3: It was an option that renewed every eighteen months, and

1124
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 3: every eighteen months he called me. He goes, you're a genius,

1125
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 3: Like this is unbelievable. You're right, they're not going to

1126
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 3: make this movie. It goes on for years, you know,

1127
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:53,479
Speaker 3: like seven years. But and then one day he calls

1128
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 3: me up. He says, you, he said, Brad Pitt just

1129
00:57:57,200 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 3: called me, and he says he's coming over the house.

1130
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:02,600
Speaker 3: He says, my wife is putting on makeup, and the

1131
00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 3: babysitters going home to get a dress and it was like,

1132
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:07,880
Speaker 3: he said, you said this wouldn't happen. I remember it.

1133
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 3: He was like, you said this wouldn't happen. And I said,

1134
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 3: I don't know what to tell you, like I'm a

1135
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 3: little shocked this is happening. So flash forward, I don't know,

1136
00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 3: a year, six months. They're shooting in the Oakland Colisseum

1137
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 3: and I've gone to the set a couple of times.

1138
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 3: This is the cool thing I brought my kids because

1139
00:58:28,400 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 3: they had eight thousand extras in the Oakland Coliseum and

1140
00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 3: they've gotten body doubles for the two thousand and two

1141
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:35,840
Speaker 3: Kansas City Royals and Oakland A's so like Barry Zito

1142
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 3: looked more than like Barizedo than Barry Zito. And they're

1143
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:41,439
Speaker 3: replaying this game and they're moving the eight thousand people

1144
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:43,560
Speaker 3: around the colosseum make it look like it's full. It's

1145
00:58:43,600 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 3: a great drama. Before I go over to see this,

1146
00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:52,240
Speaker 3: they call me and say Sony calls me and says,

1147
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 3: Billy Bean is refusing to have anything to do with anybody,

1148
00:58:56,320 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 3: Like he's not visited the set. He let Brad Pitt

1149
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:01,360
Speaker 3: come to his house once and that was it, and

1150
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:04,440
Speaker 3: that he's like everybody's worried. He's just angry about this.

1151
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:09,440
Speaker 3: Could you get him down? His office is at the stadium.

1152
00:59:09,720 --> 00:59:11,600
Speaker 3: Could he just walk down and shake a couple of

1153
00:59:11,600 --> 00:59:16,080
Speaker 3: hands and make everybody feel good? And so I called him.

1154
00:59:16,120 --> 00:59:17,919
Speaker 3: I said, Billy, like, it's not that big a deal.

1155
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:19,480
Speaker 3: Just come on over. And he said, are you going

1156
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:20,920
Speaker 3: to be there? And I said yeah. He says, okay, then

1157
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 3: I'll come. I'll come, and I just send ten minutes.

1158
00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 3: I don't want them to think I'm into it, though,

1159
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:26,480
Speaker 3: so I was like, Okay, they know you're not into it,

1160
00:59:26,520 --> 00:59:28,919
Speaker 3: Come on over, shake some hands. So we get there.

1161
00:59:29,800 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 3: I'm there on the field and he comes walking out

1162
00:59:33,520 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 3: and this production young male production assistant comes running out

1163
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 3: of left field and he's got the head gear and

1164
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:41,680
Speaker 3: he's got a hes got a notepad, and he comes

1165
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:45,360
Speaker 3: running up to Billy and says, mister Bean, mister Bean,

1166
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 3: you've been my hero ever since I read your book.

1167
00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 3: I just want I want to tell you how you

1168
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 3: change my life. And Billy's like, it's not my book.

1169
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 3: He wrote the book. He points to me. He goes, no,

1170
00:59:54,680 --> 00:59:57,040
Speaker 3: this is your book. The guy is so it's like weird.

1171
00:59:57,040 --> 00:59:59,240
Speaker 3: He says, will you just please sign my book, and

1172
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:01,120
Speaker 3: Billy says, right, I'll sign your book, and so he

1173
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 3: opens the notepad. And there were two Billy Beans in

1174
01:00:04,600 --> 01:00:08,000
Speaker 3: the major leagues at the same time, and they both

1175
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 3: played at the same outfield on the Tigers, and I

1176
01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:12,919
Speaker 3: think the twins. I mean, it's weird. They were both

1177
01:00:12,960 --> 01:00:15,160
Speaker 3: there on the field same time. And the other Billy

1178
01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:17,720
Speaker 3: Bean was gay, and he came out of the closet

1179
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:21,400
Speaker 3: and wrote a memoir and it called like hitting from

1180
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:23,840
Speaker 3: the other side of the plate. And so this guy

1181
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 3: has has the Gay Billy Beans memoir and Billy, the

1182
01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 3: straight Billy Bean is He's like, there's nothing good is

1183
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 3: happening right now. It's like, he's like, what do I say?

1184
01:00:37,600 --> 01:00:40,440
Speaker 3: What do I do? You don't say I'm not gay.

1185
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 3: You don't say you don't There's nothing you can do

1186
01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:45,320
Speaker 3: in this situation. And I look over and in the

1187
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 3: A's dugout, Brad Pitt's rolling around. He set the whole

1188
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 3: thing up, and he had Sony Pictures call me to

1189
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:57,160
Speaker 3: talk Billy to come into the field so he could

1190
01:00:57,160 --> 01:00:59,440
Speaker 3: play this. He had thought of this joke, and so

1191
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:02,600
Speaker 3: he could play this joke on Billy on Billy b

1192
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:05,040
Speaker 3: and it worked, It really worked.

1193
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:14,080
Speaker 2: So that is a great story. Before we open this

1194
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:16,160
Speaker 2: up for questions, I want to ask one or two

1195
01:01:16,160 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 2: more questions, including another story you told about a name

1196
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:28,280
Speaker 2: confusion when you had spent some time in Israel with

1197
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 2: Danny Khanneman. Oh, that's funny, and you you similar story.

1198
01:01:33,800 --> 01:01:38,640
Speaker 3: You go to Danny Connoman, the great Israeli psychologist who's

1199
01:01:38,680 --> 01:01:40,600
Speaker 3: one of the main characters of the Undoing Project.

1200
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:42,600
Speaker 2: I was one of the two main characters.

1201
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:44,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the two main characters. And he and

1202
01:01:44,160 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 3: Amos both had done a lot of work with the

1203
01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:51,960
Speaker 3: Israeli military, hid moneyballd Israeli Israeli troops to determine who

1204
01:01:51,960 --> 01:01:55,640
Speaker 3: should be a an officer and devise whole these these

1205
01:01:55,680 --> 01:01:57,920
Speaker 3: metrics so you can measure it rather than just do

1206
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:00,520
Speaker 3: it by an interview. So he was there very early.

1207
01:02:00,640 --> 01:02:02,440
Speaker 3: The reason I ever even wrote that book is I

1208
01:02:02,480 --> 01:02:05,280
Speaker 3: came back to that book after Moneyball because when Moneyball

1209
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:11,280
Speaker 3: comes out, Richard Thaylor, economist Cass Sunstein's writing partner reviewed

1210
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:14,120
Speaker 3: it and said, Michael Lewis has written a really interesting story,

1211
01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:16,400
Speaker 3: but he doesn't know what it's about. And they said

1212
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 3: it's a case study in the work of Economen and Teversky.

1213
01:02:19,320 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 3: That's how I even heard that these guys existed. Anyway,

1214
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:25,200
Speaker 3: I go to Israel. We're going to the military base

1215
01:02:25,200 --> 01:02:27,800
Speaker 3: where Danny did that moneyballing work for the for the

1216
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:32,400
Speaker 3: Israeli army. And we get we get there and they

1217
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:36,320
Speaker 3: are four hundred of the best looking young women I've

1218
01:02:36,360 --> 01:02:39,120
Speaker 3: ever seen and just waiting for us, like waiting in

1219
01:02:39,160 --> 01:02:42,320
Speaker 3: a mob behind the gates. When we come through, and

1220
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:44,000
Speaker 3: they look at us and they just kind of like

1221
01:02:44,120 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 3: melt away. And at first I thought, Wow, Danny's got

1222
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:48,400
Speaker 3: it going on, you know. I mean, it's like, we

1223
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:50,120
Speaker 3: are there here for Danny. And it turns out this

1224
01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 3: an Israeli underwear modic model named Michael Lewis, and he's

1225
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:57,600
Speaker 3: got like he's got like unbelievable abs. And so they

1226
01:02:57,640 --> 01:03:00,680
Speaker 3: they'd seen Danny knnom Is coming with Michael lie and

1227
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 3: they thought it was the underwear model.

1228
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, unbelievable. So so there's a question I want to

1229
01:03:09,280 --> 01:03:11,000
Speaker 2: I've been wanting to ask you for a while and

1230
01:03:11,040 --> 01:03:13,400
Speaker 2: I just never get to it. So I'm going to

1231
01:03:13,520 --> 01:03:17,320
Speaker 2: force it early. You have, I know, you have all

1232
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:20,400
Speaker 2: these stories that are half told and all these things

1233
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:24,680
Speaker 2: that are future projects. I'm always curious if there was

1234
01:03:24,720 --> 01:03:27,960
Speaker 2: a loose thread in a story that you said, I

1235
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:30,760
Speaker 2: really want to pull that and see what happens in

1236
01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 2: some of the books you've published, But you haven't gotten

1237
01:03:33,520 --> 01:03:34,920
Speaker 2: to what what.

1238
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:35,040
Speaker 3: What do you mean?

1239
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:39,720
Speaker 2: What characters? What lines of thought that you kind of

1240
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:42,240
Speaker 2: briefly go over and sort of say in the back

1241
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:44,920
Speaker 2: of your head, Gee, I should really circle back to that.

1242
01:03:44,920 --> 01:03:48,160
Speaker 2: That looks really interesting. But just haven't gotten around to

1243
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:50,680
Speaker 2: from any of your books, because I know you have

1244
01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:55,760
Speaker 2: dozens and dozens of things that you've started new. You

1245
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 2: have all your research and folders and stuff.

1246
01:03:58,240 --> 01:03:59,920
Speaker 3: Right, is there any you mean, what do I have

1247
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:02,160
Speaker 3: on the back burner that might go on to the

1248
01:04:02,160 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 3: front burner?

1249
01:04:03,200 --> 01:04:07,280
Speaker 2: Well, that's another questions. It's what kind of loose thread

1250
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:09,720
Speaker 2: has been out and about from some of the books

1251
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 2: you've written that.

1252
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:12,800
Speaker 3: You just you're thinking something?

1253
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:18,480
Speaker 2: No, nothing in particular. This was literally a Twitter question.

1254
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 2: I said, give me some questions for this was the

1255
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:22,160
Speaker 2: only one that I thought was half I thought you

1256
01:04:22,200 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 2: were asking me.

1257
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:25,040
Speaker 3: I was wrong, No, no, no, But it's funny because I

1258
01:04:25,040 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 3: don't know I have books that there are books that

1259
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 3: I started and stopped because they didn't work. There's book,

1260
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:35,400
Speaker 3: a book that got away that would have been a

1261
01:04:35,440 --> 01:04:38,520
Speaker 3: shot at a masterpiece. But the subject tossed me out

1262
01:04:38,680 --> 01:04:40,480
Speaker 3: because I made the mistake of writing something in a

1263
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:42,280
Speaker 3: magazine about him before I wrote the book.

1264
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 2: And what was that?

1265
01:04:43,680 --> 01:04:47,960
Speaker 3: George sorows It was nineteen ninety and Soros was interested

1266
01:04:48,000 --> 01:04:51,760
Speaker 3: in me for a bunch of reasons. He I had

1267
01:04:53,600 --> 01:04:56,440
Speaker 3: Sorrows had somebody he really admired as a money manager,

1268
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:01,000
Speaker 3: like he was Soros's Soros. His name was Neil's Taub.

1269
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:04,160
Speaker 3: He ran Jacob Rothchild's money in London, and he was

1270
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:07,400
Speaker 3: he was He's the smartest person I've ever met in

1271
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:09,760
Speaker 3: the financial markets about the financial markets. He had just

1272
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:12,360
Speaker 3: that he had. You know, Soros has those jungle instincts.

1273
01:05:12,600 --> 01:05:17,560
Speaker 3: He had them times too. And older guy. He took

1274
01:05:17,600 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 3: me under his wing. When I was at Solomon Brothers.

1275
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:22,680
Speaker 3: I co called him and I said, basically, I know

1276
01:05:22,720 --> 01:05:25,160
Speaker 3: you're I know that there's no reason you want to

1277
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 3: talk to me. I've just arrived, I'm twenty four. I said,

1278
01:05:28,440 --> 01:05:30,800
Speaker 3: I'm a new guy here. Kind of take you out

1279
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:34,400
Speaker 3: to breakfast. And something about the interaction caused him to say, sure,

1280
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:36,160
Speaker 3: you can take me out to breakfast, and we went

1281
01:05:36,160 --> 01:05:39,440
Speaker 3: out to breakfast, and he said, you're not going to

1282
01:05:39,480 --> 01:05:40,880
Speaker 3: try to if as long as you don't try to

1283
01:05:40,880 --> 01:05:44,880
Speaker 3: tell me anything, sell me anything, pretend do you know something,

1284
01:05:45,320 --> 01:05:48,120
Speaker 3: I'll do my business through you. And for the next

1285
01:05:48,120 --> 01:05:50,800
Speaker 3: two years. Over the next years, he became the second

1286
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:52,760
Speaker 3: biggest customer at Salomon Brothers. And I didn't never have

1287
01:05:52,840 --> 01:05:54,680
Speaker 3: to do anything. I just picked up the phone and

1288
01:05:54,720 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 3: I would describe to him, like what I'm seeing on

1289
01:05:56,800 --> 01:05:59,200
Speaker 3: the trading floor, I describe what I was seeing in

1290
01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:01,720
Speaker 3: the markets. Said you should do this because it would

1291
01:06:01,760 --> 01:06:05,720
Speaker 3: been folly. And he appreciated that, and he told Soros

1292
01:06:05,760 --> 01:06:09,280
Speaker 3: about me when I left to write Liar's Poker, and

1293
01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:11,760
Speaker 3: so Soros was very receptive to me, and he took

1294
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:14,560
Speaker 3: me on a private trip. You know, when the Berlin

1295
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:17,800
Speaker 3: Wall fell, he built all these institutes for democracy around

1296
01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:20,120
Speaker 3: eastern Europe. He took me on a private trip through

1297
01:06:20,160 --> 01:06:23,400
Speaker 3: these places. And there was a book to do about

1298
01:06:23,520 --> 01:06:27,400
Speaker 3: both his fear about the threats to democracy, which seemed

1299
01:06:27,480 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 3: very prescient right now and like this isn't forever, these

1300
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:33,400
Speaker 3: places don't don't They have to learn democracy and we

1301
01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:35,920
Speaker 3: have to help them. And what he was doing in

1302
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 3: the financial markets, and he was going to let me

1303
01:06:38,040 --> 01:06:42,320
Speaker 3: write about both, and like an idiot, I wrote because

1304
01:06:42,360 --> 01:06:44,160
Speaker 3: I was at the New Republic. I wrote for the

1305
01:06:44,160 --> 01:06:47,240
Speaker 3: New Republic a piece about the trip. And it was

1306
01:06:47,280 --> 01:06:51,240
Speaker 3: not rude about him. It was what I thought of him.

1307
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:54,880
Speaker 3: But I did make fun of his writing, like all

1308
01:06:54,880 --> 01:06:57,440
Speaker 3: the theories he has, all these theories about why how

1309
01:06:57,520 --> 01:07:01,919
Speaker 3: markets work, reflexivity. Yeah, all that this intellectualizing me, which

1310
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:04,800
Speaker 3: is it's he is a jungle animal, and it's like

1311
01:07:05,080 --> 01:07:07,840
Speaker 3: the layers on top of it, a complicated explanation. And

1312
01:07:07,880 --> 01:07:10,920
Speaker 3: he was so vain about his philosophy that he was

1313
01:07:10,960 --> 01:07:13,400
Speaker 3: really irritated when someone didn't take it seriously. And that

1314
01:07:13,440 --> 01:07:15,320
Speaker 3: was it didn't want to see me again. And that

1315
01:07:15,400 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 3: was that was the one huge one. I'll want to

1316
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:20,920
Speaker 3: make that a mistake again. It was gold the material,

1317
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:22,800
Speaker 3: and no one else was going to get it, and

1318
01:07:22,840 --> 01:07:24,520
Speaker 3: no one did. No one wrote the book. The book

1319
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:27,040
Speaker 3: never got written, and that book could be could have

1320
01:07:27,040 --> 01:07:29,240
Speaker 3: been a very valuable book. But I have that. I

1321
01:07:29,240 --> 01:07:31,520
Speaker 3: have those kind of things I don't have, and I

1322
01:07:31,560 --> 01:07:33,560
Speaker 3: have I think I'm not going to talk about what

1323
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:35,280
Speaker 3: they are, but I think I know what the next

1324
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:37,560
Speaker 3: two books are. I think I know what I'm about

1325
01:07:37,600 --> 01:07:42,680
Speaker 3: to go do, but I don't have anything. I don't

1326
01:07:42,720 --> 01:07:46,800
Speaker 3: have anything where I think, oh, oh, I wished i'd written.

1327
01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:48,400
Speaker 3: If I wanted to do it, i'd go do it.

1328
01:07:48,560 --> 01:07:52,040
Speaker 3: You know I have. I sold Moneyball as two books.

1329
01:07:52,040 --> 01:07:53,800
Speaker 3: I thought the second book was going to be about

1330
01:07:53,800 --> 01:07:56,760
Speaker 3: the kids they drafted that year using algorithms. And I

1331
01:07:56,800 --> 01:07:59,080
Speaker 3: spent two years in the minor leagues chasing around after

1332
01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:03,400
Speaker 3: these guys. Two years I was in uniform as a

1333
01:08:03,440 --> 01:08:07,640
Speaker 3: Midland Rockhound in Midland, Texas and kept shagging fly balls

1334
01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:10,919
Speaker 3: before the game, like I put a no go. It's

1335
01:08:10,960 --> 01:08:14,640
Speaker 3: just all notes in under my office. Yeah, no go.

1336
01:08:15,120 --> 01:08:17,519
Speaker 2: So you know I always come with like four hours

1337
01:08:17,520 --> 01:08:18,560
Speaker 2: worth of questions.

1338
01:08:18,920 --> 01:08:22,000
Speaker 3: But how may did we not get to?

1339
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:25,360
Speaker 2: Oh? Three quarters? But it doesn't matter. I want to

1340
01:08:25,360 --> 01:08:26,599
Speaker 2: bring the house lights up.

1341
01:08:26,720 --> 01:08:28,240
Speaker 3: You never expect me to talk so much.

1342
01:08:28,760 --> 01:08:31,280
Speaker 2: No, my job is to give you a nudge and

1343
01:08:31,320 --> 01:08:33,559
Speaker 2: get out of the way. Okay, So I think I

1344
01:08:33,560 --> 01:08:36,439
Speaker 2: I mostly accomplished what I wanted to. Why don't we

1345
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 2: bring up the house lights? They are up, and let's

1346
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 2: see if there are any questions from the audience. I'm

1347
01:08:43,439 --> 01:08:47,080
Speaker 2: not gonna just say say your name and it's hard

1348
01:08:47,120 --> 01:08:50,320
Speaker 2: to see you and where you're from. Liis Michael's from California.

1349
01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:53,320
Speaker 2: We'll give him a long island geography.

1350
01:08:55,400 --> 01:08:59,240
Speaker 4: Go ahead, Uh, mister Lewis, My name is Andrew MINNACOUCHI

1351
01:08:59,560 --> 01:09:03,600
Speaker 4: huge fan of yours, all your books and your podcast

1352
01:09:03,600 --> 01:09:07,120
Speaker 4: Against Rules as well. I'm from just up the street,

1353
01:09:07,240 --> 01:09:11,360
Speaker 4: so very very convenient commute. I have a question for

1354
01:09:11,400 --> 01:09:15,360
Speaker 4: you related to Losers The Road to any Place but

1355
01:09:15,520 --> 01:09:19,160
Speaker 4: the White House, one of your I believe criminally underrated books.

1356
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:24,080
Speaker 4: Can you expand upon your relationship with John McCain as

1357
01:09:24,120 --> 01:09:27,080
Speaker 4: well as what you think he means to American politics?

1358
01:09:27,160 --> 01:09:30,000
Speaker 3: What a question, great question. I never get asked about

1359
01:09:30,080 --> 01:09:33,559
Speaker 3: John McCain. But if you ask me what the most

1360
01:09:33,680 --> 01:09:38,439
Speaker 3: influential thing I ever wrote was, I might say the

1361
01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:41,519
Speaker 3: first thing I wrote about John McCain. I met John

1362
01:09:41,600 --> 01:09:44,880
Speaker 3: McCain so I was assigned to cover the ninety six

1363
01:09:44,920 --> 01:09:48,160
Speaker 3: presidential campaign for the New Republic. I was learning my craft.

1364
01:09:48,280 --> 01:09:51,000
Speaker 3: I'd written Liar's Poker, but I had not. I mean,

1365
01:09:51,040 --> 01:09:54,759
Speaker 3: I never written for a school newspaper. No English teacher

1366
01:09:54,800 --> 01:09:57,400
Speaker 3: ever thought I was worth more than a c. You know,

1367
01:09:57,439 --> 01:09:59,760
Speaker 3: I was just like there was no I had no

1368
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:02,760
Speaker 3: oh background for this, and the New Republic at the

1369
01:10:02,760 --> 01:10:06,599
Speaker 3: time was filled with the most talented collection of writers

1370
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:10,200
Speaker 3: I've ever seen in one place and editors, and the

1371
01:10:10,320 --> 01:10:13,280
Speaker 3: editor at the time was Andrew Sullivan. And andrews shipped

1372
01:10:13,320 --> 01:10:15,720
Speaker 3: me off to just go do what I would do

1373
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 3: on the road, and I got in a car and

1374
01:10:17,000 --> 01:10:18,479
Speaker 3: I never got out of it. I was all over

1375
01:10:18,520 --> 01:10:23,719
Speaker 3: the country for the next nine months, and it quickly

1376
01:10:23,800 --> 01:10:26,720
Speaker 3: became clear that the ninety six presidential campaign was the

1377
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:30,800
Speaker 3: most boring presidential campaign in human history, and around Bob

1378
01:10:30,880 --> 01:10:33,880
Speaker 3: Dole and Bill Clinton were armies of communications people who

1379
01:10:33,920 --> 01:10:35,960
Speaker 3: were going to make sure you never saw anything interesting.

1380
01:10:36,439 --> 01:10:40,519
Speaker 3: And so I just started writing about what was interesting

1381
01:10:40,680 --> 01:10:42,680
Speaker 3: rather than what I was supposed to write about. And

1382
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:46,120
Speaker 3: I started to pick up characters who resonated with me

1383
01:10:46,280 --> 01:10:48,920
Speaker 3: and with in small groups of voters. So I made

1384
01:10:48,920 --> 01:10:51,559
Speaker 3: the I flipped it. I made minor characters the main

1385
01:10:51,640 --> 01:10:54,680
Speaker 3: characters and put Dole and Clinton in the background, and

1386
01:10:54,680 --> 01:10:56,799
Speaker 3: it really worked as a series in the New Republic,

1387
01:10:57,200 --> 01:10:58,920
Speaker 3: and then it pop brought it out as a book.

1388
01:10:59,800 --> 01:11:02,559
Speaker 3: But in the course of this I was in an

1389
01:11:02,720 --> 01:11:07,759
Speaker 3: air a terminal in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at eleven o'clock

1390
01:11:07,760 --> 01:11:10,479
Speaker 3: at night, told the Dole campaign was going to land

1391
01:11:10,479 --> 01:11:12,679
Speaker 3: to pick me up. And no question was why would

1392
01:11:12,680 --> 01:11:13,920
Speaker 3: they do that? And why they would do that was

1393
01:11:13,960 --> 01:11:17,120
Speaker 3: McCain was in the same terminal and I recognized him vaguely.

1394
01:11:17,160 --> 01:11:18,880
Speaker 3: It was just the two of us, and they came over,

1395
01:11:18,960 --> 01:11:21,880
Speaker 3: just said hi, and we started talking. And he was

1396
01:11:21,920 --> 01:11:25,479
Speaker 3: at that time disgraced. He was part of one of

1397
01:11:25,479 --> 01:11:28,640
Speaker 3: the Keating Five. He'd been involved in the savings and

1398
01:11:28,680 --> 01:11:32,920
Speaker 3: loan scandal. He'd barely won his re election, and he

1399
01:11:33,520 --> 01:11:36,040
Speaker 3: was just different than any politician I met. He was

1400
01:11:36,080 --> 01:11:40,800
Speaker 3: like real and I just started getting interested in him.

1401
01:11:41,320 --> 01:11:43,280
Speaker 3: And then I learned his story about how he had

1402
01:11:43,320 --> 01:11:46,320
Speaker 3: been he'd been held in prison and his limbs had

1403
01:11:46,320 --> 01:11:48,840
Speaker 3: been broken during the Vietnam War, and that they were

1404
01:11:48,880 --> 01:11:51,960
Speaker 3: torturing him. This was the amazing thing. The Vietnamese were

1405
01:11:52,000 --> 01:11:56,160
Speaker 3: torturing John McCain to get him to accept early release.

1406
01:11:56,320 --> 01:11:58,479
Speaker 3: They were trying to let him go because his father

1407
01:11:58,560 --> 01:12:01,120
Speaker 3: was an admiral, and they thought they undermine the morale

1408
01:12:01,200 --> 01:12:03,920
Speaker 3: of the American troops if they started letting the fancy

1409
01:12:03,960 --> 01:12:07,720
Speaker 3: people's kids out of prisoner of war camp and he

1410
01:12:07,880 --> 01:12:10,759
Speaker 3: and so he got beat up over and over because

1411
01:12:10,760 --> 01:12:13,760
Speaker 3: he refused to go home before the people who have

1412
01:12:13,880 --> 01:12:19,559
Speaker 3: been who had been captured before him. Now, it so

1413
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:24,120
Speaker 3: the piece that create I found it by just I

1414
01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:26,200
Speaker 3: was just hanging with him because I was interested in him.

1415
01:12:26,240 --> 01:12:27,519
Speaker 3: I didn't know where it was going to lead. He

1416
01:12:27,560 --> 01:12:29,439
Speaker 3: didn't really belong in a book about the ninety six

1417
01:12:29,439 --> 01:12:33,240
Speaker 3: presidential campaign, except he was Dole's most popular surrogate. But

1418
01:12:33,320 --> 01:12:38,599
Speaker 3: that was that the one side he lets slip that

1419
01:12:38,680 --> 01:12:41,680
Speaker 3: he has this relationship, and it was it came, It

1420
01:12:41,720 --> 01:12:43,680
Speaker 3: came out very naturally. This guy I was coming over

1421
01:12:43,720 --> 01:12:46,240
Speaker 3: his office. This other guy was coming over his office

1422
01:12:46,400 --> 01:12:48,720
Speaker 3: named David if Sheen. And David if Sheen was a

1423
01:12:48,800 --> 01:12:52,360
Speaker 3: Vietnam War protester who went with Jane Fonda to Hanoi

1424
01:12:52,600 --> 01:12:57,599
Speaker 3: and piped anti war propaganda into John McCain's cell And

1425
01:12:57,800 --> 01:13:01,080
Speaker 3: if Shin had later in life things had changed since

1426
01:13:01,120 --> 01:13:04,600
Speaker 3: that time, and McCain had been celebrated for his war heroism,

1427
01:13:04,840 --> 01:13:08,000
Speaker 3: and if she had become kind of blacklisted by American

1428
01:13:08,000 --> 01:13:11,400
Speaker 3: politics because of his involvement, even though McCain kind of

1429
01:13:12,000 --> 01:13:16,960
Speaker 3: admired his conviction. And McCain saw if she ends up

1430
01:13:17,000 --> 01:13:20,320
Speaker 3: going to work for Clinton. And then someone came out

1431
01:13:20,320 --> 01:13:22,559
Speaker 3: with a story about how if she had done this

1432
01:13:22,640 --> 01:13:25,439
Speaker 3: with Jane Fonda, and Clinton was about to kind of

1433
01:13:25,479 --> 01:13:28,360
Speaker 3: release him, and McCain got involved and told Clinton, like,

1434
01:13:28,439 --> 01:13:30,120
Speaker 3: you keep him on, and I'm going to get up

1435
01:13:30,120 --> 01:13:32,920
Speaker 3: and give a speech about this guy on the on

1436
01:13:33,000 --> 01:13:37,840
Speaker 3: the scent floor, about he's my friend. They'd developed a relationship,

1437
01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:40,479
Speaker 3: and so I wrote the story about this relationship between

1438
01:13:40,520 --> 01:13:44,360
Speaker 3: the war protester and the war hero, and it was

1439
01:13:44,560 --> 01:13:46,559
Speaker 3: three thousand words in The New Republic, which ends up

1440
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:50,439
Speaker 3: in this book Losers, and McCain at that moment was

1441
01:13:50,479 --> 01:13:53,840
Speaker 3: sort of like untouchable by the journalist. Nobody it was

1442
01:13:53,840 --> 01:13:56,760
Speaker 3: paying much attention, and he was a little disgraced. Overnight,

1443
01:13:57,240 --> 01:14:00,400
Speaker 3: everybody wanted to write the same story, and he got

1444
01:14:00,640 --> 01:14:03,040
Speaker 3: his relationship to the rest of the world, to the

1445
01:14:03,080 --> 01:14:07,479
Speaker 3: media in Washington just changed. He would he we became friends,

1446
01:14:07,479 --> 01:14:09,920
Speaker 3: and he let me in on this process. He was like,

1447
01:14:10,200 --> 01:14:13,679
Speaker 3: that piece changed my life and it made it possible

1448
01:14:13,720 --> 01:14:16,800
Speaker 3: for him to go become the candidate he became. It

1449
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:19,080
Speaker 3: was it was amazing watching what a little piece of

1450
01:14:19,160 --> 01:14:22,120
Speaker 3: journalism can do. And it was very a very moving story.

1451
01:14:22,600 --> 01:14:24,960
Speaker 3: The wrinkle to it was when I wrote the story,

1452
01:14:25,040 --> 01:14:27,200
Speaker 3: if she was dying, he was dying of cancer. He

1453
01:14:27,240 --> 01:14:29,320
Speaker 3: was on his deathbed, so if she was telling me

1454
01:14:29,439 --> 01:14:31,800
Speaker 3: about how what John McCain had done from him, from

1455
01:14:31,800 --> 01:14:35,680
Speaker 3: it for him from his deathbed, and it was just powerful.

1456
01:14:35,920 --> 01:14:39,240
Speaker 3: And so I don't know what to say about this

1457
01:14:39,320 --> 01:14:44,160
Speaker 3: except that I found in spending time with him that

1458
01:14:44,800 --> 01:14:47,760
Speaker 3: even in politics, you could find these pockets of authenticity

1459
01:14:48,160 --> 01:14:52,839
Speaker 3: and if you and if you respected them, that they

1460
01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:56,120
Speaker 3: they they generated a different kind of response than most

1461
01:14:56,160 --> 01:14:59,360
Speaker 3: political writing. And I also found that, like if you

1462
01:14:59,400 --> 01:15:02,839
Speaker 3: found it was good good in someone in the political process,

1463
01:15:03,160 --> 01:15:06,280
Speaker 3: the readership wanted to hear it, like they were so

1464
01:15:06,479 --> 01:15:10,280
Speaker 3: used to the kind of distance, the critical distance, which

1465
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:12,680
Speaker 3: ends up being kind of anti septic. You don't ever

1466
01:15:12,760 --> 01:15:16,240
Speaker 3: really know the person. And McCain he wasn't really running

1467
01:15:16,240 --> 01:15:17,960
Speaker 3: for anything at the time. Yeah, I certainly wasn't a

1468
01:15:17,960 --> 01:15:20,559
Speaker 3: presidential candidate. I could get let the reader get close

1469
01:15:20,560 --> 01:15:24,680
Speaker 3: to him, and the reader really enjoyed that. And when

1470
01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:27,240
Speaker 3: he ran for president, you know, he almost knocked off

1471
01:15:27,280 --> 01:15:29,479
Speaker 3: Bush the first time. And I mean they started out

1472
01:15:29,520 --> 01:15:33,439
Speaker 3: really well, but that campaign he called me before and

1473
01:15:33,479 --> 01:15:36,120
Speaker 3: he said I want you to come with me, just

1474
01:15:36,160 --> 01:15:37,920
Speaker 3: be with me where you don't have to write about

1475
01:15:37,920 --> 01:15:39,200
Speaker 3: it if you don't want to write about it, but

1476
01:15:39,240 --> 01:15:41,600
Speaker 3: I want you to. I want you to watch. I

1477
01:15:41,640 --> 01:15:44,800
Speaker 3: want to see you watch this process up close, like

1478
01:15:44,840 --> 01:15:46,920
Speaker 3: in the middle of a campaign. And I said, how

1479
01:15:46,920 --> 01:15:48,280
Speaker 3: close can I get? And he said, you have the

1480
01:15:48,320 --> 01:15:51,400
Speaker 3: other bedroom in my place in Washington. We'll just we'll

1481
01:15:51,439 --> 01:15:53,479
Speaker 3: actually live together and you just go wherever you And

1482
01:15:53,520 --> 01:15:55,439
Speaker 3: we just had our first child, and I could not

1483
01:15:55,479 --> 01:15:58,040
Speaker 3: go to my wife and say, guess what, I'm going

1484
01:15:58,080 --> 01:16:00,519
Speaker 3: off with John McCain for the next year, and he,

1485
01:16:01,400 --> 01:16:03,599
Speaker 3: being an old school being a man of his generation,

1486
01:16:04,120 --> 01:16:07,559
Speaker 3: did not understand it. It was like, what, it's a kid,

1487
01:16:07,920 --> 01:16:10,559
Speaker 3: you know, he's a military guy too, Like they would

1488
01:16:10,560 --> 01:16:12,040
Speaker 3: breed and then go off on a ship for the

1489
01:16:12,040 --> 01:16:15,599
Speaker 3: next five years. And so he was just bewildered by

1490
01:16:15,600 --> 01:16:17,640
Speaker 3: the fact that I was not going to ride shotgun

1491
01:16:17,840 --> 01:16:21,880
Speaker 3: on his first presidential campaign because I had had this child.

1492
01:16:23,880 --> 01:16:25,920
Speaker 3: And that ended up being kind of the end. I mean,

1493
01:16:26,720 --> 01:16:28,920
Speaker 3: at that point I became a little more distant friend.

1494
01:16:29,920 --> 01:16:31,880
Speaker 3: But it would have been fun to watch it.

1495
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:34,080
Speaker 2: For sure. Let's get another question.

1496
01:16:36,200 --> 01:16:39,599
Speaker 5: I saw you today on Nicole Wallace's program.

1497
01:16:39,240 --> 01:16:40,920
Speaker 3: On the way Could you believe I got here?

1498
01:16:41,160 --> 01:16:45,799
Speaker 5: I couldn't believe. I was wondering if it would be canceled.

1499
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:50,040
Speaker 5: But you said one thing that had me fascinated. You

1500
01:16:50,120 --> 01:16:53,880
Speaker 5: said that most people don't know what government does. And

1501
01:16:53,920 --> 01:16:56,639
Speaker 5: you said, nobody knows what the Department of Commerce does.

1502
01:16:57,240 --> 01:17:03,080
Speaker 3: What does it do? Well, there's a book called the

1503
01:17:03,120 --> 01:17:05,639
Speaker 3: Fifth Risk, and there's a chapter in that book by

1504
01:17:05,640 --> 01:17:08,840
Speaker 3: me that explains it. But but you know, when you

1505
01:17:08,880 --> 01:17:12,280
Speaker 3: ask people who don't know, they kind of say commerce, business, business,

1506
01:17:12,320 --> 01:17:15,000
Speaker 3: of course. So eighty percent of the budget is the

1507
01:17:15,120 --> 01:17:20,960
Speaker 3: National Ocean Graphic and Noah, and seventy five percent of

1508
01:17:20,960 --> 01:17:23,320
Speaker 3: that budget is the Weather Service. So what they do

1509
01:17:23,520 --> 01:17:27,519
Speaker 3: weather prediction is at the center of the Department of Commerce,

1510
01:17:27,560 --> 01:17:30,320
Speaker 3: which is a little odd, but I mean the names.

1511
01:17:30,479 --> 01:17:33,000
Speaker 3: One of our problems in explaining our federal government is

1512
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:38,799
Speaker 3: the names of the places don't actually describe the places. Energy, Commerce,

1513
01:17:38,880 --> 01:17:42,160
Speaker 3: Agriculture should be Department of Rural. It's rural, it keeps

1514
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:45,960
Speaker 3: rural America afloat. Commerce should be the Department of Weather.

1515
01:17:46,280 --> 01:17:49,080
Speaker 3: That would be good. I didn't really oppose this idea

1516
01:17:49,080 --> 01:17:51,280
Speaker 3: of turning the Department of Defense into the Department of War.

1517
01:17:51,479 --> 01:17:56,519
Speaker 3: That's a little more on the nose, But that.

1518
01:17:56,760 --> 01:17:58,839
Speaker 2: Wasn't it the Department of War way back when.

1519
01:17:58,880 --> 01:18:01,920
Speaker 3: Energy is the Department of Science and Technology. That's what

1520
01:18:01,960 --> 01:18:04,200
Speaker 3: it is. It's it's it's amazing what is in the

1521
01:18:04,280 --> 01:18:05,719
Speaker 3: energy but all the national labs.

1522
01:18:05,920 --> 01:18:08,439
Speaker 2: In the fifth Risk, you tell the story that they

1523
01:18:08,479 --> 01:18:14,200
Speaker 2: want to privatize the Commerce Department all the energy reporting.

1524
01:18:14,240 --> 01:18:16,759
Speaker 2: And then once you do that, where are you getting

1525
01:18:16,760 --> 01:18:19,400
Speaker 2: the data for all these people saying, well, I get

1526
01:18:19,439 --> 01:18:20,439
Speaker 2: the weather on my app.

1527
01:18:21,080 --> 01:18:22,840
Speaker 3: They get it from ACCU Weather, but ACU Weather gets

1528
01:18:22,840 --> 01:18:25,439
Speaker 3: it from the National Weather Service, right, that's right, So

1529
01:18:25,560 --> 01:18:29,640
Speaker 3: it was they the ACU. What they Trump tried to

1530
01:18:29,640 --> 01:18:31,519
Speaker 3: do the first time around is give the Department of

1531
01:18:31,520 --> 01:18:35,000
Speaker 3: Commerce to the ACU Weather CEO and let him have

1532
01:18:35,120 --> 01:18:38,360
Speaker 3: his way with it. And what would have happened was

1533
01:18:38,400 --> 01:18:42,559
Speaker 3: he would have he would have created preferential access, probably

1534
01:18:42,640 --> 01:18:43,400
Speaker 3: to his own so.

1535
01:18:43,360 --> 01:18:45,599
Speaker 2: His own app would have gotten more. And you also

1536
01:18:45,680 --> 01:18:49,400
Speaker 2: describe in the book how much more accurate weather forecasting

1537
01:18:49,479 --> 01:18:50,759
Speaker 2: is getting tornado warning.

1538
01:18:50,880 --> 01:18:52,800
Speaker 3: So it's like, this is the thing about government. It's

1539
01:18:52,960 --> 01:18:55,920
Speaker 3: it's like when it does something right, people just it's

1540
01:18:55,960 --> 01:18:58,000
Speaker 3: like it's the way you treat your parents. When they're

1541
01:18:58,080 --> 01:19:00,759
Speaker 3: good parents, you don't even notice they get no credit.

1542
01:19:00,880 --> 01:19:03,400
Speaker 3: It's when they screw up you notice. And that's the

1543
01:19:03,439 --> 01:19:05,679
Speaker 3: relationship we have with our government. We're like a fourteen

1544
01:19:05,760 --> 01:19:08,320
Speaker 3: year old boy and our government is our mother. That's

1545
01:19:08,439 --> 01:19:13,439
Speaker 3: sort of the the how mature our relationship is. But

1546
01:19:13,479 --> 01:19:15,400
Speaker 3: the National Weather what they have done, if you go

1547
01:19:15,479 --> 01:19:17,120
Speaker 3: back and talk to a weatherman has been doing it

1548
01:19:17,160 --> 01:19:19,479
Speaker 3: for fifty years, he kind of say, like, you know,

1549
01:19:20,280 --> 01:19:21,720
Speaker 3: what I used to do is like wake up in

1550
01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:24,439
Speaker 3: the morning, go outside and say, sonny could be sunny

1551
01:19:24,439 --> 01:19:26,679
Speaker 3: for a while. You know that they could do almost nothing,

1552
01:19:26,920 --> 01:19:28,720
Speaker 3: you know, out a day or two kind of thing.

1553
01:19:29,040 --> 01:19:32,360
Speaker 3: These accurate forecasts out seven days, the you know, being

1554
01:19:32,360 --> 01:19:35,400
Speaker 3: able to figure out where which way a hurricane's going,

1555
01:19:35,479 --> 01:19:39,160
Speaker 3: getting better, a tornado prediction. All this stuff is huge

1556
01:19:39,200 --> 01:19:42,280
Speaker 3: achievement with huge effects, Like it really makes all our

1557
01:19:42,360 --> 01:19:45,519
Speaker 3: lives and has a big effect on commerce too, right

1558
01:19:45,600 --> 01:19:47,880
Speaker 3: on business your plane. Did you remember when you were

1559
01:19:47,880 --> 01:19:50,839
Speaker 3: flying as a kid and the plane was just always

1560
01:19:50,880 --> 01:19:54,040
Speaker 3: bumping around, Like it's not doing that nearly as much

1561
01:19:54,320 --> 01:19:57,120
Speaker 3: because the airlines have better data about from the National

1562
01:19:57,120 --> 01:19:59,640
Speaker 3: Weather Service about what's going on up in the with

1563
01:19:59,720 --> 01:20:04,920
Speaker 3: the with the currents. So that happens, and nobody says, wow,

1564
01:20:04,920 --> 01:20:05,680
Speaker 3: cool they did that.

1565
01:20:06,360 --> 01:20:07,000
Speaker 2: It's all taken.

1566
01:20:07,000 --> 01:20:09,719
Speaker 3: It's all it's all taken for granted, now what what

1567
01:20:09,760 --> 01:20:15,120
Speaker 3: the dystopia is. But it gets privatized and and and

1568
01:20:15,240 --> 01:20:19,439
Speaker 3: Barry gets the the premium gold or platinum or whatever

1569
01:20:19,479 --> 01:20:23,080
Speaker 3: it is Tornado forecast, and I get the I get

1570
01:20:23,120 --> 01:20:26,160
Speaker 3: the silver forecast. So my I'm in my house when

1571
01:20:26,200 --> 01:20:28,360
Speaker 3: it comes through, and you aren't. You know that that

1572
01:20:28,520 --> 01:20:31,559
Speaker 3: it's it becomes I mean a real matter of equity.

1573
01:20:32,280 --> 01:20:35,360
Speaker 3: If we're seeing, if we're getting different, I mean, it

1574
01:20:35,600 --> 01:20:37,240
Speaker 3: seems like that should be a public good.

1575
01:20:37,680 --> 01:20:41,800
Speaker 2: It makes plenty of sense. Let's balcony, let's get a

1576
01:20:41,840 --> 01:20:46,680
Speaker 2: question up top. Are fire away? Hi?

1577
01:20:47,520 --> 01:20:48,000
Speaker 3: Uh So?

1578
01:20:48,160 --> 01:20:50,680
Speaker 6: First of all, you talked about the ninety six campaign,

1579
01:20:50,760 --> 01:20:52,880
Speaker 6: and just so you know, I listened to some of

1580
01:20:52,920 --> 01:20:55,559
Speaker 6: your podcasts from that as well. You are in this

1581
01:20:55,680 --> 01:20:57,120
Speaker 6: American Life as well.

1582
01:20:57,520 --> 01:20:59,720
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember that back in nighty oh,

1583
01:21:00,320 --> 01:21:04,599
Speaker 3: So that's funny. Ira Glass was just starting This American

1584
01:21:04,640 --> 01:21:07,679
Speaker 3: Life when I was doing that, and he called and said,

1585
01:21:07,800 --> 01:21:09,599
Speaker 3: could you just I mean, this was back when they

1586
01:21:09,600 --> 01:21:11,880
Speaker 3: were a pretty low budget I would just go as

1587
01:21:11,880 --> 01:21:15,680
Speaker 3: an episode, go read the New Republic stuff. So I'm like,

1588
01:21:15,760 --> 01:21:18,360
Speaker 3: four or five of these things are early episodes of

1589
01:21:18,360 --> 01:21:20,920
Speaker 3: this American life. And he became a good close friend

1590
01:21:20,960 --> 01:21:23,880
Speaker 3: through that. But yes, so I've never listened to them,

1591
01:21:23,880 --> 01:21:25,320
Speaker 3: but yeah, you.

1592
01:21:25,240 --> 01:21:27,720
Speaker 6: Did a phenomenal job. You should listen to them again

1593
01:21:27,760 --> 01:21:30,559
Speaker 6: and maybe compile them. They were great you talked about

1594
01:21:30,720 --> 01:21:34,880
Speaker 6: besides from McCain in that story, you relate, you did

1595
01:21:34,920 --> 01:21:38,519
Speaker 6: something about some you did a lot about Dole, and

1596
01:21:38,560 --> 01:21:41,280
Speaker 6: you also did something about I don't know, some other

1597
01:21:41,320 --> 01:21:42,880
Speaker 6: guy in business who it was.

1598
01:21:43,120 --> 01:21:45,120
Speaker 3: It was a photo Trump it was. His name was

1599
01:21:45,160 --> 01:21:47,759
Speaker 3: Maury Taylor, and he was the businessman who was running

1600
01:21:47,800 --> 01:21:48,960
Speaker 3: to make government.

1601
01:21:48,760 --> 01:21:49,719
Speaker 2: Put up his own money.

1602
01:21:50,240 --> 01:21:53,600
Speaker 3: He spent seven million dollars, getting seven thousand votes in

1603
01:21:53,640 --> 01:21:56,040
Speaker 3: New Hampshire and Iowa, and he was in many ways

1604
01:21:56,040 --> 01:21:59,280
Speaker 3: the most reasonable candidate. He was like when you gave

1605
01:21:59,320 --> 01:22:01,400
Speaker 3: everybody what he stood for, everybody kind of agreed, and

1606
01:22:01,400 --> 01:22:03,240
Speaker 3: then they saw him and freaked because he did none

1607
01:22:03,280 --> 01:22:05,519
Speaker 3: of the artifice of the of the politician. But he

1608
01:22:05,560 --> 01:22:08,880
Speaker 3: was great fun. I remember him this well. So this

1609
01:22:08,920 --> 01:22:11,280
Speaker 3: is another moment the New Republic. For a moment thought

1610
01:22:11,280 --> 01:22:13,120
Speaker 3: what the hell is he doing. He's turning Morey Taylor

1611
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:16,360
Speaker 3: into the main character of our ninety six presidential campaign coverage.

1612
01:22:16,400 --> 01:22:18,919
Speaker 3: And I did. He was the main character of that story.

1613
01:22:19,240 --> 01:22:22,320
Speaker 3: But it was I went out with him just to

1614
01:22:22,360 --> 01:22:24,080
Speaker 3: see what the hell was going on. He was in

1615
01:22:24,120 --> 01:22:27,960
Speaker 3: Iowa and he had three r three huge RVs with

1616
01:22:28,080 --> 01:22:30,439
Speaker 3: speakers on the front, and he'd Blair Bruce Springsteen as

1617
01:22:30,439 --> 01:22:32,599
Speaker 3: he went into town, and he had kegs of beer

1618
01:22:32,640 --> 01:22:34,920
Speaker 3: on the back, and he'd get he'd throw a party

1619
01:22:34,960 --> 01:22:37,920
Speaker 3: in every town. But the day, the morning I was

1620
01:22:37,920 --> 01:22:41,080
Speaker 3: with him, he rolls into this the biggest public school

1621
01:22:41,120 --> 01:22:43,839
Speaker 3: in Iowa. I can't remember where it was, AIM's or somewhere,

1622
01:22:44,240 --> 01:22:47,640
Speaker 3: and it's and they've rolled out, They've made all the

1623
01:22:47,680 --> 01:22:52,080
Speaker 3: students go to the local the auditorium. It's huge to

1624
01:22:52,120 --> 01:22:55,639
Speaker 3: hear the presidential candidate. And Morey's been a presidential candidate

1625
01:22:55,720 --> 01:22:58,920
Speaker 3: for about at that point, like four weeks. And before that,

1626
01:22:58,960 --> 01:23:00,920
Speaker 3: he was the He was the Sea at the same time,

1627
01:23:01,040 --> 01:23:04,639
Speaker 3: CEO of Titan Tire and Wheel, a Midwestern tire company,

1628
01:23:04,880 --> 01:23:07,800
Speaker 3: and had no experience or knowledge of politics. He didn't

1629
01:23:07,840 --> 01:23:11,040
Speaker 3: know anything, but he except he knew about life. He

1630
01:23:11,120 --> 01:23:13,599
Speaker 3: was he was like you. He was like a great dad,

1631
01:23:13,880 --> 01:23:16,960
Speaker 3: but he didn't know anything. And so he gets up.

1632
01:23:17,360 --> 01:23:19,080
Speaker 3: I don't know what they're expecting, but it's sort of

1633
01:23:19,120 --> 01:23:22,000
Speaker 3: like the Civics lesson for the day, and they're they're

1634
01:23:22,400 --> 01:23:24,599
Speaker 3: a thousand kids out there, and they're all asleep because

1635
01:23:24,600 --> 01:23:26,400
Speaker 3: it's eight in the morning. He comes bursting through the

1636
01:23:26,439 --> 01:23:29,320
Speaker 3: doors and and he looks up and he said, and

1637
01:23:29,360 --> 01:23:30,519
Speaker 3: the first thing he goes is like kid in the

1638
01:23:30,520 --> 01:23:32,600
Speaker 3: pink hair. In my day, we used to get rid

1639
01:23:32,640 --> 01:23:35,720
Speaker 3: of the weirdos, and and and and and the kid goes,

1640
01:23:36,000 --> 01:23:38,000
Speaker 3: you know, and they're all alert, and he goes and

1641
01:23:38,040 --> 01:23:41,080
Speaker 3: then he says, I want someone here tell me what

1642
01:23:41,160 --> 01:23:44,559
Speaker 3: the most important thing in life is. And you could

1643
01:23:44,560 --> 01:23:47,479
Speaker 3: see all the teachers getting a little uncomfortable, but you're hope.

1644
01:23:47,479 --> 01:23:52,080
Speaker 3: They're hoping he's going to say, you know, love, family, country, something.

1645
01:23:52,760 --> 01:23:54,880
Speaker 3: And they're guessing these things, and they're they're guessing what

1646
01:23:54,920 --> 01:23:57,960
Speaker 3: they think a presidential candidate would say it. Nah, nah,

1647
01:23:58,120 --> 01:24:00,360
Speaker 3: that's nothing. You guys don't know anything. And he reaches

1648
01:24:00,400 --> 01:24:02,280
Speaker 3: into his pocket he pulls out a huge want one

1649
01:24:02,320 --> 01:24:05,559
Speaker 3: hundred dollar bills money. This is the most important thing

1650
01:24:05,560 --> 01:24:07,639
Speaker 3: in life. And you can see all the teachers going,

1651
01:24:07,680 --> 01:24:11,400
Speaker 3: oh my god. And he had me at that moment.

1652
01:24:11,439 --> 01:24:13,240
Speaker 3: He had me. I said, wherever this guy goes, I

1653
01:24:13,280 --> 01:24:14,320
Speaker 3: want to see what happens.

1654
01:24:15,680 --> 01:24:17,479
Speaker 2: Seven million dollars for seven thousand.

1655
01:24:17,720 --> 01:24:20,000
Speaker 3: Yes, and he still bothers me. I mean, he still

1656
01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:22,240
Speaker 3: calls me all the time to tell me why I

1657
01:24:22,280 --> 01:24:25,920
Speaker 3: need to love Trump. He loves Trump to tell me

1658
01:24:26,000 --> 01:24:29,599
Speaker 3: why I'm wrong. Like this thing drives him crazy. It's

1659
01:24:29,600 --> 01:24:31,880
Speaker 3: like government doesn't do anything good. You know, He's like,

1660
01:24:32,000 --> 01:24:33,680
Speaker 3: he's that kind of Republican.

1661
01:24:33,920 --> 01:24:35,800
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there are a lot of people who

1662
01:24:35,840 --> 01:24:41,880
Speaker 2: have that sort of philosophy ingrained in them since you

1663
01:24:41,920 --> 01:24:47,400
Speaker 2: know Reagan. What makes this book so interesting is how

1664
01:24:47,479 --> 01:24:51,800
Speaker 2: you're not taking a partisanside left or right. No, you're

1665
01:24:51,920 --> 01:24:56,080
Speaker 2: you're not talking politics. That's here are the people who

1666
01:24:56,320 --> 01:25:01,800
Speaker 2: do the people's business with your tax payer dollars. I

1667
01:25:01,840 --> 01:25:05,680
Speaker 2: love the story about the guy who is the tax collector.

1668
01:25:06,200 --> 01:25:09,920
Speaker 2: There's a line in the book that stuns me. There's

1669
01:25:10,040 --> 01:25:14,320
Speaker 2: six million people who are entitled to the earned tax

1670
01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:18,280
Speaker 2: credit that don't apply. And then there's something like twenty

1671
01:25:18,320 --> 01:25:21,719
Speaker 2: five thousand people who've made more than a million dollars

1672
01:25:21,720 --> 01:25:26,800
Speaker 2: that haven't filed their taxes. Since twenty seventeen. How come

1673
01:25:26,880 --> 01:25:29,880
Speaker 2: we're not trying to help the people who are owed

1674
01:25:29,960 --> 01:25:32,760
Speaker 2: this credit and collect from the people who can't be

1675
01:25:32,840 --> 01:25:36,040
Speaker 2: bothered to pay taxes. That doesn't seem partisan. That just

1676
01:25:36,120 --> 01:25:38,400
Speaker 2: seems administratively competent.

1677
01:25:38,479 --> 01:25:42,559
Speaker 3: That's right. No, No, the whole point. If you'd ask

1678
01:25:42,640 --> 01:25:44,719
Speaker 3: me what the point of the thing was when we started,

1679
01:25:44,840 --> 01:25:46,880
Speaker 3: it was just I know, they're great stories, and I'm

1680
01:25:46,880 --> 01:25:49,040
Speaker 3: going to use these writers to demonstrate it isn't me.

1681
01:25:49,360 --> 01:25:51,519
Speaker 3: It's like, these stories are there and they should be told.

1682
01:25:51,880 --> 01:25:55,759
Speaker 3: That was it After the fact. There is a purpose

1683
01:25:55,760 --> 01:25:59,720
Speaker 3: to it. And the purpose is you can have your

1684
01:26:00,360 --> 01:26:04,680
Speaker 3: about the government. You can have you can hold the

1685
01:26:04,800 --> 01:26:09,320
Speaker 3: stereotype of the lazy, indolent nine to five, doesn't care

1686
01:26:09,360 --> 01:26:13,639
Speaker 3: about anything, milking you, waste, fraud, abuse, deep state, whatever

1687
01:26:13,680 --> 01:26:15,640
Speaker 3: it is you think, but you're not allowed to have

1688
01:26:15,720 --> 01:26:17,960
Speaker 3: it without knowing this. If you want to read these

1689
01:26:17,960 --> 01:26:21,400
Speaker 3: stories and still think that, okay, but you got to

1690
01:26:21,400 --> 01:26:22,800
Speaker 3: know what. You got to hear these stories. And if

1691
01:26:22,800 --> 01:26:25,000
Speaker 3: you hear these stories, some part of you will think

1692
01:26:25,080 --> 01:26:29,040
Speaker 3: I shouldn't really think that that's dumb. It's more complicated

1693
01:26:29,040 --> 01:26:31,080
Speaker 3: than that. Sure, they're problems with the government, sure, the

1694
01:26:31,080 --> 01:26:32,920
Speaker 3: things that need to be fixed, sure, and a lot

1695
01:26:32,960 --> 01:26:35,559
Speaker 3: of it is like the way we administer the situation

1696
01:26:35,640 --> 01:26:39,120
Speaker 3: we put them in. But there are unbelievable people here.

1697
01:26:39,360 --> 01:26:41,880
Speaker 3: There are in many ways the best among us. They're

1698
01:26:41,880 --> 01:26:44,960
Speaker 3: there to serve and they found some purpose and in

1699
01:26:45,000 --> 01:26:47,800
Speaker 3: that purpose they found a purpose in life. They've learned

1700
01:26:47,800 --> 01:26:49,639
Speaker 3: how to lead their lives in a very meaningful way.

1701
01:26:50,080 --> 01:26:51,960
Speaker 3: And for us to go after them as if their

1702
01:26:52,120 --> 01:26:57,800
Speaker 3: enemies is it's very damning about us. And that's kind

1703
01:26:57,800 --> 01:27:02,800
Speaker 3: of what we're trying to get across.

1704
01:27:02,439 --> 01:27:05,120
Speaker 2: It's nine oh five. Is that a spot where we

1705
01:27:05,160 --> 01:27:05,439
Speaker 2: should do?

1706
01:27:05,600 --> 01:27:06,160
Speaker 3: That's what we say.

1707
01:27:06,520 --> 01:27:08,639
Speaker 2: Let's wrap it up. Thank you so much, everybody. Let's

1708
01:27:08,640 --> 01:27:11,720
Speaker 2: hear it. Thank you, sir Michael Lewis. That was my

1709
01:27:11,800 --> 01:27:15,640
Speaker 2: conversation with Michael Lewis. We went out to dinner afterwards.

1710
01:27:16,320 --> 01:27:19,160
Speaker 2: He had an early morning TV hits and we literally

1711
01:27:19,240 --> 01:27:21,840
Speaker 2: had dinner at nine point thirty ten fifteen. He had

1712
01:27:21,840 --> 01:27:25,240
Speaker 2: a run back to the hotel. But oh my goodness,

1713
01:27:25,240 --> 01:27:28,720
Speaker 2: that was just so much fun. And you can imagine

1714
01:27:28,880 --> 01:27:33,200
Speaker 2: just sitting down with him to dinner afterwards. It's just

1715
01:27:33,400 --> 01:27:37,479
Speaker 2: every bit as magical as you would imagine. Every time

1716
01:27:37,600 --> 01:27:40,000
Speaker 2: he comes into town and I have an opportunity to

1717
01:27:40,000 --> 01:27:43,439
Speaker 2: sit down and interview him, I jump at it. I

1718
01:27:43,479 --> 01:27:45,479
Speaker 2: hope you enjoyed this one as much as I do.

1719
01:27:45,640 --> 01:27:48,360
Speaker 2: Special thanks to the folks at the Main Street Theater

1720
01:27:48,479 --> 01:27:53,080
Speaker 2: in Port Washington, especially Karen, for allowing me to put

1721
01:27:53,080 --> 01:28:00,240
Speaker 2: this together. It was really a great time. Ye