WEBVTT - Michael Lewis on Why the World Is Still Reading “Liar’s Poker” 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:15.280 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.400 I'm Joe Wisental and I'm Tracy all Away. So, Tracy, 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.079 one topic that we actually don't talk about that much 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.720 that we have a few times is like Wall Street itself, 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.600 Like we talked about markets all different kinds of talk 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.239 a lot about e cons and like theoretical finance like 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.960 actual Wall Street banking, etcetera. We probably could talk about 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.240 it more. I feel like we do quite a few 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.680 markets structure episodes, but you're right, we don't get so 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.960 much into I guess the experience of actually working in 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.080 those markets. No, we don't um And of course it's 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.440 an interesting time. I mean it's always an interesting time. 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.560 But so many of the banks are doing extraordinarily well. 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.120 And I feel like for both of us our careers 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.600 post Great Financial Crisis, we like I think the standard 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:06.479 thing is like each year it's like a bonuses are 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.120 down at this bank or trading is down or left, 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.720 and it feels like that, at least right now for 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.440 the moment, it's a very lot of up arrows on 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.560 Wall Street. But I do feel like there's a weird 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.760 dichotomy at the moment in the sense that the banking 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.440 and trading results have been excellent and it's definitely boom 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.800 times for Wall Street. But on the other hand, a 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:33.440 lot of people are expressing unhappiness about the actual job 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.800 at the moment. Right, you have a lot of younger 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.639 bankers especially who just don't seem that into Wall Street 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:41.360 at the moment. No, you know, they all want to 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.280 go work on Crypto there. You know, they're the probably 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.840 everyone else is traveling and working from saloom or something 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.360 like that, and their bosses are telling them to come 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.800 into the office and they're not having as much fun. 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:57.840 And so, yes, there was a great our. Colleague Max 0:01:57.840 --> 0:01:59.920 Sableson wrote a great piece recently, is or It's like 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.120 everyone's making a lot of money on Wall Street, but 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:06.200 no one's having at any fun. Yeah, exactly. So today 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.280 we are going to get into the actual experience of 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.840 working on Wall Street and how it's changed and why 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.640 fewer people seem to be enjoying it and why everyone 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.040 wants to go into Crypto I guess. Yeah. So we 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.760 have an amazing the perfect guest for it. We're going 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.200 to be speaking with the author Michael Lewis. Of course, 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.440 he is the author of numerous books. But of course 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.440 one of his most famous liars Poker about Wall Street, 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.160 came out in the most recent book is The Premonition. 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:38.000 He's he also has his own podcast Against the Rules, 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.399 and he's also, while we're talking about Liars Poker, done 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.600 a new audio book and come out with a new 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.720 sort of five episode mini series podcast sort of that 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.519 goes along with it called Other Pupil's Money. So really 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.639 just a real treat to have him on. Let's get 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.040 right to it, Michael, thank you so much for coming 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.640 on a lot. Hey guys, thanks thanks for having me. 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:04.440 So why why now to revisit Liars book? So two 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.960 things happened at once. One was the audio rights of 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.520 the book reverted to me. They reverted to me at 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.600 a time when I've been because of the podcast, I've 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.799 been talking to my podcast company, Pushkin Industries, about how 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.600 we would do audio books, informed by what we've learned 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:23.880 about podcasts, like the audio books typically are just you 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:25.840 just read them and nothing nothing else is going on. 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.640 And they really are starting to produce audio books, and 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:30.520 we were looking for an excuse to do a fun, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:35.200 a more fun audio book, and this thing never got done, 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.680 I mean never even you know, back when Liars Booker 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.280 was published, there was really not a market. There was, 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.400 like they sent out these cassettes, you know, and it 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.720 was it was an abridged, very abridged version. So the 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:48.680 fact that it hadn't been done that so many more 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.040 people are kind of listening than reading it just seemed 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.120 like And the thing still sells, like, I don't know 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.680 how many copies a year, it's still so they still 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:00.440 was a market for it. But the other thing that 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.880 happened was my eldest child is a junior in college, 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.360 and she has now three times said my friend just 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.280 came back from an internship on Wall Street and they 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.920 were made to read Liars Poker to understand the which 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.600 makes no sense. But the fact that this thing is 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.920 being now handed out as sort of like a work 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.680 manual it interested me. And I just thought, plus the 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.599 asterix to all this was I never read the book again. 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.599 I mean, I wrote it, and I published it. I 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.160 guess I wrote read little bits and pieces when I 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.920 was on book tour back then, but apart from that, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.120 I've never picked it up. And so it's just like 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.120 I was curious what was in it, and and when 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.760 I started reading it, I had all these reactions, and 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.360 the reactions led to the little podcast series that's alongside 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:48.039 of it. They were just kind of things I wanted 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.360 to do, like go talk to the people who were 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.640 characters in the book to see what they, you know, 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.640 when they look back on their lives, what they saw. 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.680 So all that's why there's no there's like, no real reason. 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.559 Nothing that just happened on Wall Street's triggering my interest 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.560 in my own old book. So I gotta say so, 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:07.920 I love audio books. I'm really looking forward to this, 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.839 and I really only started listening to them in the 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.000 past year, so I'm basically doubled my reading, which is awesome. Secondly, 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.719 I mean you mentioned the idea of Liars Poker being 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.440 like the go to book for people who are interested 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.719 in finance and economics, and it was certainly one of 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.400 the first books that I read when I first went 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.560 into financial journalism. I remember that many many years ago. 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.599 But as you said or suggested, Wall Street has changed 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.840 quite a bit since the nineteen eighties. Why do you 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.400 think Liars Poker seems to have this enduring legacy or 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.240 why are people still so interested in it and still 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.240 reading it as the first thing you know on their 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.680 reading list when they start thinking about Wall Street. It's 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.159 a really good question, because it's bewildering to me. I thought, 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.080 you know, when I wrote it, I thought it was 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.040 going to be dated at any moment, uh, And that 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:58.000 it was written as kind of like a message in 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.440 the bottle to people a hundred years from who would 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:02.360 never believe what happened on Wall Street in the nine 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:07.359 It was like this discreet period of insanity that was 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:09.520 coming to an end. So I think that there's two 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.239 answers to the question, and there's slightly contradictory. The first 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.039 answer is when you read the book, as I just 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.240 did and was reminded of all this stuff, I was 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.200 struck by just how much of what Wall Street became 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.520 was seated back then, like things that things that were 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.800 just starting to happen back then, we're telling you where 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.160 this place was going. I had no idea, but you know, 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:38.280 in retrospect, so the intellectualization of finance, that all of 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.640 a sudden, like we had a PhD in physics on 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.200 the trading floor and everybody thought, how bizarre is that. 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.279 Then there were a few PhD s, and then the 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.400 PhD s were actually in charge of most of them 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:50.800 were in trading decisions. I was just talking to someone 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:52.760 who graduated not that long ago from m I t 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.680 in the physics department, and he said, without thinking it 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.200 was even interesting, he said, Oh, my whole department just 0:06:58.200 --> 0:06:59.720 goes to wall went to Wall Street. Everybody in my 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.200 CLA physics departed in anamity everybody. And he said, I said, 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.160 don't some of them like become physicists And he says, physics, 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.080 Physics isn't interesting anymore. It's it's uh so it's just 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.320 understood that this is the path and that that I mean, 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.720 so that starts back then, finance starts to get sufficiently 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.320 complicated that it rewards that kind of intellect and drives 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.200 out a different kind of person. So like that's one 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.560 thing that you can see just starting to happen. The 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.360 hold the place has on the imagination of young people. 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.920 Like it wasn't if you go back to like the sixties, fifties, 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.400 sixties seventies, it wasn't the best and the brightest from 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.480 the best schools who went to Wall Street. It was 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.360 like the c student from Yale and guy's name Vinny 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:44.200 from Staten Island, who I mean, it was the trade. 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.720 You know, it paid well, but the status it didn't 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.720 have that same status. And then it's persisted, even though 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.800 the jobs have gotten i think probably even more horrible 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.120 in some ways, it still has this grip on the 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.400 imagination young people. Like it's if you went to Harvard, 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.160 the next thing you do that's a similar thing to 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.360 getting into Harvard is getting into Goldman's acts that that's 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:09.480 amazing to me. But that was amazing to me then, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.160 So there's like there's some things like that. There are 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.120 other things like that, just the financialization of the economy, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:19.040 which is related to the other two things that it's finances, 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.720 you know, it's it's never stopped growing as a part 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.119 of as a sharing the kind of all that's happened. 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.720 So these mega trends kind of thing make it feel 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.000 make the book feel like, uh, there's a little relevance here. 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.520 It's not completely dated, but I think this is other 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.760 thing that's going on. And I was when I was reading, 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.560 and I thought, this is why people reading Wall Street's 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.080 gotten so dull. I mean, just personally, don't it is 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:46.240 it's essentially, you know, a tech job. You go into 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.080 one of these places and it's totally silent. It's people 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.920 sitting at terminals, just in a little in a in 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.040 a bubble. For better or worse. It's lost a lot 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.280 of its color, and it's very hard to persuade a 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:00.800 young person that this is the fun job job. I mean, 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:02.840 it's a job that pays you well and it gives 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:04.400 you an answer to the question what are you doing 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.440 after you got out of Harvard. It's just like even 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.080 more soul deplating than it was. And I think the book, 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.000 you know, I didn't intend for this to happen, but 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.800 I was having so much fun writing it, and the 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.000 experience was there were aspects of it they were just funny, 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.360 you know, just it was. It was alive, people screaming 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.120 each other on a trading floor, people behaving in ways 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.720 that were outrageous. It was human and wet, and I 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.880 think that is part of the reason the book persists. 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.200 It's like, you can't write anything interesting about it now. 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.199 It's much harder. I mean, if you look at the 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.439 books I've written since, they're about Wall Street, Big Short 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.000 and and Flashboys, both those books. I mean, part of 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.240 it is a function of where I sit in relation 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.360 to Wall Street, but both those books dependent on kind 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:53.640 of outsiders crashing in on the system. It would have 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.760 been very hard, I felt, and I reported pretty heavily 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.240 inside the system to have brought the system itself to life, 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:04.080 because it felt kind of in funny ways dead, even 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:05.840 if it was making a lot of month, whereas long 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:07.440 as poker was sitting, you know, that was the right 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:25.319 at the heart of the system. How much of this 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.920 sort of more inert Wall Street is has to do with, 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.040 you know, the rise of technology, the fact that it's 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.160 not as much people necessarily streaming into phones and as 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.000 much of a people business, and how much would you say, 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.800 you know, how much is the last twelve or thirteen 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.679 years and the sort of like, however many this sort 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:48.040 of de risking of the banking system that occurred over 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.000 after the Great financial crest, So that's part of it. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:51.760 That's definitely a part of it. Right that if you 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.640 are going to a big bank is no longer the 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.920 place where you're taking the big interesting risks. So you're 0:10:57.920 --> 0:10:59.840 gonna if you're gonna take the big interesting risks, you're 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:01.599 gonn to be at a hedge funder. You're gonna be 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.240 at a venture capital funder. You're gonna be in private equity, 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:08.319 and and the and the rewards also have moved outside 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:10.319 of the kind of the heart of the system. I mean, 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.760 the highest paid people on Wall Street when I was there, 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.520 I'm trying to think, what I'm sure that sure, this 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.120 is not completely right. But they were barely hedge funds, 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:19.960 you know they were there were people, there were people 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:25.080 effectively doing what hedge funds did, but the compensation was nothing, 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.200 and the size was nothing. Was like today, and you know, 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.640 John good Friend making whatever three million dollars or five 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.360 million dollars or eight was considered just amazing. Uh. And 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.840 then and Milk and you know, milk and made a 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.280 billion dollars right inside of the bank. So I think 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:45.400 the actions moved outside of the banks too. It's it's 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:49.360 so that's happened. So the other things happened. I mean, 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.120 is that I'm probably partly responsible over this in a 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.439 small way. Is this must liars poker? That earraw must 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.199 have been the last time that someone like me could 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:04.760 roll in to a big bank without signing non disclosure agreements, 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.400 without having lawyers looking at everything you do, without being terrified, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.160 everybody being terrified of everything they put in their emails 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.160 and all that, and where people didn't behave as if 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.120 they were being watched, where even the boss is kind 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.079 of thought. I mean when I walked out, I told 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:20.599 him I was writing a book about Wall Street, and 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:22.920 they didn't. They couldn't have cared less. It was like 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.080 they worried. They were worried about my sanity in leaving 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.160 a really lucrative job for what they thought was penury. 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:30.760 But they didn't, you know, go write a book about 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.120 Wall Street? Who cares? Was kind of the attitude, the 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.760 access to un self conscious behavior it's got, it has 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.440 definitely shrunk. I mean that's another reason I think I 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.040 got the material was just sort of like that is 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.520 the last time it really had a lot of flavor 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.600 to it and you had total access to it and 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:48.880 you could write it up. I mean, there have been 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.040 other accounts from inside of Wall Street, but it's just 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.839 not as interesting. Were there. Do you think there were 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.719 any benefits to that type of culture, because nowadays we're 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.160 used to looking back at the nighteen eighties as this 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.000 era of excess. You know, you described in the book 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.760 basically like how much of a nightmare a lot of 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.559 the traders were. And I remember the trainees like sitting 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.959 in the back room and throwing things at the speakers 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.000 and stuff like that. So everyone looks back at that 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.320 sexism as well and thinks, wow, this was terrible. But 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.360 was there any upside to having this sort of unfettered Um, 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.040 I guess culture. I'm gonna give you not my answer 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.760 but the answer of one of the subjects of the 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.600 Companion podcast and Clark Wolf, who has just started she 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.360 started an investment bank, has been dubbed Solomon Sisters. She 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:40.440 was a Solomon Brothers when I was the Solomon Brothers. 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:42.280 She would she was there right when the book was 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.360 coming out. Rather, she said to me something that sort 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.840 of was on the tip of my brain, and I 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:50.760 was asking her. I was trying to get her basically 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.840 say how horrible it was for women, right because from 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.680 my point of view, it was appalling. I mean, you will, 0:13:57.800 --> 0:13:59.960 it's hard for you to believe, but here's a place 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.079 of work and it is routine and acceptable to call 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.200 a stripper in and have her take all her clothes 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.360 off on the top of a trading desk while everybody cheers, 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:11.920 or or to swat women on the rear end as 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.000 they're walking by your desk or I mean, it was 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.560 just one thing after another. I mean, it was just 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:21.920 outrageous sexual harassment, nothing subtle about it. And it bothered me, 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.720 you know. And it's that that it bothered me. Was 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.840 was behind between the lines of the books in places, 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:30.600 and I thought I would get someone on to talk 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.040 about this who actually endured it. And instead of saying 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:35.960 what I wanted her to say, or thought I wanted 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:37.640 her to say, she said, now, you got it wrong. 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.680 Now this is just one woman's perspective. But she said, yeah, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:47.240 there was that kind of stuff, but women could advance. 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:49.720 There might be that kind of stuff going on at 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.200 the same time. You got moved up if you were good, 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.280 and it was very open. There was there was a 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.200 kind of openness about it, like everybody wore their attitudes 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.240 on their sleeve up, but they kind of some to 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.040 move past those attitudes. And she said she found as 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.760 Wall Street kind of became more sanitized, the difficulty women 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.360 had moving up got worse. This is her talking to me. 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.200 But it was an interesting perspective, she said. And she said, 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:19.760 you know, one of the things that's happened is that 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:25.160 the male Wall Street person's fear of being in a 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:30.000 compromised situation with a female Wall Street has completely eliminated 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.120 the kind of mentorship that leads to uh, that leads 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.920 to people moving up. And I thought, wow, I mean 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.360 I've never heard that before. That was completely like no 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.680 to me. I thought, well, maybe it's more complicated than 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.920 I thought at the time. I thought, one of the 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.760 nice things about this place is that nobody's pretending to 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.880 be anything but what they are. That there's no that 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:57.200 that whatever vices there are here and their virtues and vices, 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:03.280 there's very little hypocrisy. And and it was refreshing and 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.400 it was filled. So this is related to this the 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.920 diversity of the characters which made the book work much better. 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:14.560 It wasn't all the same person there were there were 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.520 a lot of It was a huge variety of personality, 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.200 character types. It was sort of like a pool, a 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:24.000 random pool of talent. So that's kind of an appealing 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:26.960 trait in a place at the tolerance of a range 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:30.520 of a range of kinds of people. That's an argument 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:34.000 for how it used to be. I'd say the one 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:35.960 other argument, but this is kind of like what was 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.960 ending when I was there is there was this wet 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:45.040 relationship between the firm and its employees. It wasn't just 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.120 a corporate relationship. There was a residue of the partnership 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.560 and the spirit of the partnership, the idea that you know, yeah, 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:53.960 you worked in the mail room, but if you're if 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:55.880 your wife got sick and you couldn't afford to pay 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:57.840 the household bill, some partner just came in to pay them, 0:16:58.000 --> 0:16:59.800 because that was just how you did it. That was 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.000 that glue was was loosening while I was there, because 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.240 it didn't cease to be a partnership and become a corporation, 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:08.400 and it was becoming what it would become a kind 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.800 of a much a much less kind of wet and 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:15.040 cohesive place and much more corporate. But that old, that 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.760 old feeling of like an emotional connection. I bet people 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.280 miss that. I bet I bet people who work on 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.320 Wall Street now just miss that. There's no pretense that 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.320 you have like love of the firm, and the firm 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.879 doesn't love you. So there's there are things to be 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.920 said about that era, probably more things that you said 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:34.960 against it and said things to be said for it. 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.760 You kind of anticipated or my next question, But this 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.520 idea of like Wall Street Banks becoming more like corporate 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.840 or maybe interchangeable, where an executive at a major bank 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:50.080 could leave and go work at Google or Nike or 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.240 FedEx or something like that. Why does that? Why did 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.920 that happen? I mean, like it feels like that. And 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.880 you know, obviously in the intro we talked about, yeah, 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.959 they're making a ton of money, but they it seems 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:03.840 like they're having less fun. And they're certainly not having 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.000 a lot of fun these days. Like why did why 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.040 why do these banks? Why are they just sort of 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.720 corporations in a way that they didn't used to me? Well, 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.680 because they weren't corporations, right, so they they I mean 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.200 I think that's the that was the thing that was happening, 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:19.960 you know. Again, like that gets back to why this 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.199 book still gets read. Part of it is just like 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.800 the moment in financial history captured. I walked into a 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.440 firm that was the first big investment bank to turn 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:33.800 itself to go public, and it was regarded as a 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.240 great active betrayal when it did to the two old 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.719 partners to the idea of the firm. There's a lot 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.240 of anger in the air even inside the firm when 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.840 I was there, And this has happened, and it But 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.040 what that does is it changes the relationship of the 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.800 employee to the place the employee is. The people who 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.560 run it are much less likely to be exposed to 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:58.280 its failure in a big way. They're they're they're much 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.480 less likely to be It's not a sticky relationship. People 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.320 more of their wealth comes in the form of of 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.119 just their annual bonus and less in the ownership of 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.480 the firm. So people just didn't stay as long. And 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:15.000 so what you had happened was free agency. That was 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:16.720 the period where you started to get the free agent 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.480 trader guys, you know, leaving from Marroll Lynch for three 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.840 million bucks that and that was regarded it was interesting 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:24.880 that would not know bat and I at that now, 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.160 right if some if you're a goldman and Morgan Stanley 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.480 offers you twice as much money, everyone going probably just says, 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.240 well you should just take it, you know, or vice versa. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:39.040 At the time, it was regarded as a betrayal. It 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.359 was regarded you would say that people were treated as 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.639 if they were traders if they left the firm for 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.600 a more higher paid job somewhere else. What you were 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:52.720 saying there was the residue of the partnership ethic and 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:54.879 their firms on Wall Street they are still you know 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.960 Brown Brothers. There there little firms that have kind of 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.919 kept the old structure and it really works for what 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.560 it does. It creates a lot of stability. It doesn't 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.640 work for big risk taking. Much better to be playing 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.880 with other people's money. So this is a very um, 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:15.439 I guess, guyste question. But you know, we're talking about culture, 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.959 and you mentioned this idea of Wall Street firms having 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.480 much um more cohesiveness during this era. You called it wetness. 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.080 And I guess nowadays there's this big push on Wall 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.520 Street to get everyone back into the office. Everyone went 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.920 to work from home during the pandemic. And I guess 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.359 two things here, Why do you think it's such a 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:39.000 big deal for a lot of the banks to have 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:44.560 people in the office. And then secondly, is there attention 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:49.320 between a work from home model and a business like trading. 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.480 Do you have to actually be physically present talking to 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.199 you know, your peers, your colleagues in order to make 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:57.160 it work or is it something that can be done 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:00.639 remotely nowadays? Well you probably know the answer this is 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.240 better than I do. But my, my sense. My sense 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.240 is that there's much less reason to actually have to 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.800