Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 2: And I'm Nate Silker.
Speaker 1: So today on the show, we've got a fun one
Speaker 1: for you. We'll be playing a game that we've played
Speaker 1: on the show before, Good Call, Bad Call, and we're
Speaker 1: going to be starting up by talking about wealthiest man
Speaker 1: in the world, Elon Musk, who's about to become even
Speaker 1: wealthier because Tesla has given him quite the compensation package.
Speaker 1: So we'll discuss whether that's a good call or a
Speaker 1: bad call.
Speaker 2: And we'll be talking about the purported crisis of masculinity.
Speaker 2: I am trying not to add skeptical inflection to my voice.
Speaker 2: In fact, as we'll hear, you know, I don't think
Speaker 2: there's any particularly good reason to be skeptical, but maybe
Speaker 2: maybe Aria disagree. We'll have a fun segment, I predict.
Speaker 1: All right, Nate, le let's get into it. But before
Speaker 1: we do, I want to welcome you back to the
Speaker 1: United States.
Speaker 2: Thank you. No, I mean I if I had learned
Speaker 2: a word of Norwegian or Finnish, I would greet you
Speaker 2: in that language, but they're very fluent in English, and
Speaker 2: so it was not necessary to be honest.
Speaker 1: You and I were both abroad, but I came back
Speaker 1: a week before you from Barcelona, and you were in
Speaker 1: northern Europe. Was summer over in northern Europe.
Speaker 2: It was quite pleasantly temperate. I was in Norway. Saw
Speaker 2: some fjords, pretty good fucking fjords.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The first day we kind of drove around. We're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is nice. Looks like Maine or something, right, And
Speaker 2: then the next day we took a fucking cruise on
Speaker 2: the real fjords. One of the most spectacular natural things
Speaker 2: I've ever seen. Hawaii is up there, but you know,
Speaker 2: top top three in terms of things that will hopefully
Speaker 2: outlast the human race. That sounds pessimistic, but you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, right, Eternal, I do know what.
Speaker 1: You mean, and I do I hope they outlast as well,
Speaker 1: and I hope that they last long enough at least
Speaker 1: for me to see them, because those are one that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've never seen that I
Speaker 1: would love to see one of these days.
Speaker 2: Then, since sent some time in Helsinki, Finland, you can
Speaker 2: tell I have some pronouncing it Helsinki, not Helsinki, which
Speaker 2: is how uneducated Americans say, very nice town, great food,
Speaker 2: which I wasn't expecting. And then Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: Briefly, where there's also delicious food. Hmm, you didn't agree.
Speaker 2: No, I think I like Amsterdam and Robbie and I
Speaker 2: have some friends there. I have visited a number of times,
Speaker 2: had a great visit. I think Amsterdam is pound for
Speaker 2: one of the worst food cities.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: And it's good like Nipalese and stuff, there's good. It's
Speaker 2: mixed at Nikolie right uh. And so like you know,
Speaker 2: the international food's good, but the Dutch food, the continental food,
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: So. So I think this is where you and I
Speaker 1: kind of differ because someone as someone who grew up
Speaker 1: eating hariring, I absolutely love it. And you can get
Speaker 1: really incredible hairing.
Speaker 2: And you get hair. We took the boat, the ferry
Speaker 2: from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia for a day too. Pretty
Speaker 2: good fucking haring on that boat.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I'm sure. I'm sure it was delicious. Well,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the United States. You were missed. I
Speaker 1: think New York missed both of us. But but now
Speaker 1: we're now we're all back.
Speaker 2: How did how did Barcelona but the Barcelona? How did
Speaker 2: Barcelona go how the epint go.
Speaker 1: It was fine. You know, it's very funny because I actually,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm normally pretty good at not cashing and
Speaker 1: then like having one big score when it comes to these.
Speaker 1: I actually cashed in I think half of my event
Speaker 1: and had no big scores, so ended down for the trip.
Speaker 1: The deepest I went was well, actually I got fourth
Speaker 1: in one event, but I missed out Nate on a
Speaker 1: thirty seven thousand euro page jump and it was really
Speaker 1: it was really heartbreaking. Had I just made it and
Speaker 1: had I lasted, and had I been in third, I
Speaker 1: would have been way up for the trip. So we
Speaker 1: were very close. And you know, we've talked on the
Speaker 1: show before about butterfly effects and how you know one
Speaker 1: thing affects another. There was a player who was the
Speaker 1: short stack, so people who don't play poker. He had
Speaker 1: the fewest chips, and it seemed pretty likely that I
Speaker 1: would end up outlasting him, and he ended up getting
Speaker 1: it all in with ACE five off suit and getting
Speaker 1: called by Ace King or actually Ace three, not ACE five,
Speaker 1: Ace three getting called by Ace King, and he hit
Speaker 1: his three and ended up doubling, and then he knocked
Speaker 1: me up out a little while later, so you know
Speaker 1: butterfly effects.
Speaker 2: It was it was a good player or bad player.
Speaker 1: Incredibly wealthy player who doesn't really care. He is capable
Speaker 1: of playing well, but at that point he was not
Speaker 1: playing well because he was kind of in and I
Speaker 1: don't give a fuck, but you guys all care about
Speaker 1: the money type of mood. He is a businessman, he's
Speaker 1: not a professional poker player.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes people with a fucket attitude toward ICM. ICM.
Speaker 2: If you don't play poker, is the strategy the changes
Speaker 2: you make when you're trying to cash a tournament I've had,
Speaker 2: By the way, this is probably cashed a lot and
Speaker 2: nothing too exciting beyond that, right, But like, if you're
Speaker 2: really rich, though, and you just care about winning, then
Speaker 2: you don't have to play with ICM. And it's like
Speaker 2: annoying to all the other knits at the table who are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a t shirt that some poker players like
Speaker 1: to wear that says ICM is for poor people. That
Speaker 1: means that people who care about the independent hip model.
Speaker 1: You know, the value of your of your chips actually
Speaker 1: changes as these huge payge ump sloom. That means you're poor.
Speaker 1: And if you can say fuck it. Sometimes that's that's
Speaker 1: the way to do it, and you know, there is
Speaker 1: It's a it's an interesting analogy kind of to to
Speaker 1: life because there are definitely moments in life where you
Speaker 1: know it pays to hang around a little bit, but
Speaker 1: sometimes you're like, ah, fuck it, I want to play
Speaker 1: to win, right like I want to I want to
Speaker 1: get I want to take a big swing. I really
Speaker 1: want to go for it. And sometimes that feels really good,
Speaker 1: even if it's not necessarily correct, and you have to
Speaker 1: just try to think, you know what, what risks? Am
Speaker 1: I willing to take? What's the reward here? Is it
Speaker 1: worth it? And am I I think this is actually
Speaker 1: really important? Am I willing to walk away? Right? Like?
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the fuck you money type of
Speaker 1: type of concept, where will I walk away? Like if
Speaker 1: this doesn't go right? And ICM as for poor people,
Speaker 1: that person says, I am willing to walk away, right,
Speaker 1: I am willing to forego you know, forty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand dollars. It doesn't matter because I'm not
Speaker 1: poor and I don't care, and you do and.
Speaker 2: Your time is valuable too, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I mean obviously, sometimes you're just giving up thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars by not adapting your raine is right, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's anything wrong with we're saying opportunity cost
Speaker 2: is high. I mean, it's a very very very very
Speaker 2: very slippery slope, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly is. And on that note, Nate, maybe
Speaker 1: we should talk about someone who has the most fuck
Speaker 1: you money in the entire world, Elon Musk. So we
Speaker 1: play a game good call, bad call? You know, is
Speaker 1: this a good call? Is this a bad call? And
Speaker 1: right now we're going to be putting that lens not
Speaker 1: on Musk, but on Tesla's board because earlier this week,
Speaker 1: so we are recording on Monday, September eighth, So I
Speaker 1: guess it was last week that Tesla offered it's CEO,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, a new compensation package that's going to be
Speaker 1: worth one trillion dollars over the next ten years and
Speaker 1: by the end of it if he actually earns out
Speaker 1: this compensation package, which is an if, right, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things that have to go right, but
Speaker 1: he would own almost twenty nine twenty eight point eight
Speaker 1: percent of Tesla's stock because that's how his compensation would
Speaker 1: be paid out, which is huge, right, and that's a
Speaker 1: lot more than most CEOs ever get to earn of
Speaker 1: their of their company's stock, which would put him in
Speaker 1: a really interesting position. So basically, you know, the board
Speaker 1: has thrown money at him to try to get him
Speaker 1: to stick around. Nate, do you want to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the things that he has to do or
Speaker 1: should I just go through that quickly?
Speaker 2: Why don't you go You know, I'm still on finish
Speaker 2: time here, so why don't you go through it? Maria?
Speaker 1: All right? So, basically he needs to meet some milestones,
Speaker 1: which include everything from profits that have to increase over
Speaker 1: twenty four times to one million autonomous taxis that are
Speaker 1: going to be deployed, one million humanoid robots, and car
Speaker 1: sales obviously, so there are a lot of things that
Speaker 1: have to happen. So Tesla has to reach four hundred
Speaker 1: billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization annually,
Speaker 1: and right now it is earning less than seventeen billion
Speaker 1: dollars a year, so that's quite a high number. He
Speaker 1: needs to have an eight point five trillion dollar market cap.
Speaker 1: Current market cap is about one trillion. The robotaxis is
Speaker 1: a huge ask, right because right now they're way behind
Speaker 1: schedule on that. So they have to deliver twenty million teslas,
Speaker 1: which is actually probably the most attainable, but I don't
Speaker 1: know we can talk about that.
Speaker 2: I could deliver fourteen million teslas, and.
Speaker 1: And they're humanoid robots. Optimus is another one where they've
Speaker 1: had a lot of issues, including in their demos. The
Speaker 1: Optimus robots have not hit their benchmarks over time. I
Speaker 1: think Elon has been over optimistic with all of these,
Speaker 1: including the robots. But these are the things that have
Speaker 1: to happen for him to get his compensation. Except and
Speaker 1: this is one big except. So I was reading all
Speaker 1: of this and I was like, huh, interesting thing that
Speaker 1: they put in there. If there are factors quote outside
Speaker 1: Tesla's control end quote that hurts Tesla's ability to reach
Speaker 1: these milestones and reach these delivery targets, then Musk will
Speaker 1: still get compensated. And it seems to me that that's
Speaker 1: a pretty big out right that must can say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know this was up might.
Speaker 2: Have the best lawyer billing cycles in history. If there's
Speaker 2: a dispute over this, I would think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. So that's kind of the that's
Speaker 1: the one caveat This will come to a vote on
Speaker 1: November six. Listeners might remember as well that Musk already
Speaker 1: has a prior compensation package that is in courts right
Speaker 1: now because it was challenged. So yeah, so that's where
Speaker 1: we are. And the question is right, like good call
Speaker 1: or bad call on the part of the board of Tesla.
Speaker 1: Everything is going down. Profits are going down, Tesla's market
Speaker 1: share is going down. Is it a good call to
Speaker 1: just throw money at Elon and try to kind of
Speaker 1: get him to hit all of these targets to get
Speaker 1: his attention back? Do we think this is a good
Speaker 1: use of capital? Do we think Elon will be motivated
Speaker 1: by it? He's already the world's richest man. Do we
Speaker 1: think he's going to perform? Like? What do we think
Speaker 1: about all of this? I think it's actually a really
Speaker 1: kind of interesting psychological question about someone who's already insanely wealthy.
Speaker 1: You know, how do we motivate someone like that? And
Speaker 1: is this, you know, is this the way to do it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think it's a smart package. Actually, so you
Speaker 2: can burn me at the stake for being such a capitalist.
Speaker 2: But no, the reason why it's smart is because it
Speaker 2: would seemed to me like these targets are a not
Speaker 2: terribly easy to hit, notwithstanding the ambiguity of some of
Speaker 2: these you know, acts of God clauses, right and b.
Speaker 2: If the company is doing that well, then there's a
Speaker 2: lot of wealth to go around, right. We're talking about
Speaker 2: much higher than market growth. The fact that Tesla you know,
Speaker 2: is facing more competition from Chinese automakers. It's products you're
Speaker 2: not seen as innovative. They are all these things they
Speaker 2: are trying to do, robo taxis and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: but they're kind of like not as market leading right now.
Speaker 2: But like, but if he turns it around, then I
Speaker 2: think it strikes me as like fairly rational if it's
Speaker 2: unlikely to be hit these benchmarks. Although Elon has bet
Speaker 2: on himself before and been right, it's part of why
Speaker 2: he is already the world's richest man, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1: Well, so theoretically, I don't mind, you know, great compensation
Speaker 1: packages if there's a good end result. I'm wondering, though,
Speaker 1: if you want to get you know, the world's richest
Speaker 1: man right to focus on Tesla, even though his attention
Speaker 1: has been elsewhere, his ambitions have been elsewhere. You know,
Speaker 1: he's interested in X and SpaceX and all these other things.
Speaker 1: Is just like throwing dollar signs at it. Is that
Speaker 1: really going to be the best motivator? And the reason
Speaker 1: I asked that, and maybe the answer is yes, but
Speaker 1: the answer could also be no, because there is a
Speaker 1: lot of really great psychological research about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times the reason that games players
Speaker 1: want to play, you know, are four flow states and
Speaker 1: kind of things that are intrinsic to the game, right,
Speaker 1: Like they want to do better, they want to level up,
Speaker 1: they want to do this, they want to get that,
Speaker 1: like things that make them a good player within the game, right,
Speaker 1: that convey some sort of prestige on them.
Speaker 2: And it fits.
Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about people for whom like this
Speaker 1: is their profession and like they just need to get paid.
Speaker 1: But when you start replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation,
Speaker 1: right when you start putting dollar values on everything, sometimes
Speaker 1: motivation actually lacks. So there can be this you know,
Speaker 1: ironic effect where where when you actually get money, like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's not fun anymore. And that's
Speaker 1: why a lot of people. You know, you sometimes hear
Speaker 1: the advice like keep your hobbies, your hobbies right, don't
Speaker 1: try to make everything into a side hustle, because you
Speaker 1: might find that you no longer enjoy the types of
Speaker 1: things that you used to really enjoy when you feel.
Speaker 2: Like you have to experience. Yeah, I'm curious, Nate.
Speaker 1: Why don't you actually say a little bit more about that,
Speaker 1: because I think that that is part of the question
Speaker 1: here right about whether this is the best motivator.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I'll talk about the two big things that
Speaker 2: I find very motivating, and maybe they're not so different
Speaker 2: than the way Elon thinks about the world.
Speaker 1: Right. You know.
Speaker 2: One is just to build a product that you think
Speaker 2: is really great. Right, to do something that nobody else
Speaker 2: has done, to differentiate, to add intellectual value, artistic value,
Speaker 2: aesthetic value, whatever it might be. Right, But it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: here's the world. Nobody is building a good election model
Speaker 2: or writing a book like the book I wrote, or
Speaker 2: whatever else, right, and so I am going to do
Speaker 2: that really well. Right, And I think Elon is or
Speaker 2: maybe was motivated by that type of thing, right, he
Speaker 2: definitely has vision. I think you have to be pretty biased,
Speaker 2: not to give him credit for that, right, And the
Speaker 2: other big motivator is like the desire to prove people
Speaker 2: wrong and the fact that you'll have people like us say, oh,
Speaker 2: these targets seem very hard to achieve. They're kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: It can't be done. How can he do all these
Speaker 2: things where they're not even like leading the robotaxi market
Speaker 2: for example, Like, like that could be very motivating too,
Speaker 2: I think I think more so than the money, really, right,
Speaker 2: It's like they're not like that. You have very many
Speaker 2: anyone in Silicon Valley, be the founders or vcs or
Speaker 2: whatever else. They don't like just go and say, Okay,
Speaker 2: well I made a lot of money. I'm going to
Speaker 2: go right in the sunset and hang out at my
Speaker 2: private villa in Tuscany and show up and go to
Speaker 2: really nice three star Michelin restaurants. Right, They usually are
Speaker 2: still motivated to prove their doubters wrong, which makes them
Speaker 2: assholes sometimes. And I don't think anybody would would shy
Speaker 2: away from accusing Elon of that either, right, But yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that that is a very powerful
Speaker 1: motivator for people like Elon, Right, like, prove the hater's wrong.
Speaker 1: Prove that I can do it, prove that I'm better
Speaker 1: than they think I am because I know better now.
Speaker 1: He has shown a pension for overconfidence. Right. He has
Speaker 1: failed to hit very ambitious targets in the past, but
Speaker 1: they're actually you know, you know, I mean this is
Speaker 1: and listeners of the show no, no fan of Elon,
Speaker 1: but this is something that is actually pretty not smart,
Speaker 1: but like it is something that can work when you
Speaker 1: do set these ambitious targets, right, even if you don't
Speaker 1: actually hit them, you might hit a much higher target
Speaker 1: than you otherwise would have done in trying to hit
Speaker 1: this crazy target. Right. So it's kind of the opposite
Speaker 1: of customer service business or consulting when you say under promise,
Speaker 1: over deliver, right, Like, that's how you get people to
Speaker 1: be really happy. Like you tell them a little bit
Speaker 1: less than you think you're capable of doing, and then
Speaker 1: once you hit what you're actually capable of doing, they'll
Speaker 1: be like, holy shit, this is even better than I thought.
Speaker 1: And he is kind of doing the opposite, right. Historically,
Speaker 1: what he's done is over promise and underdeliver. That's not
Speaker 1: necessarily great for Tesla's stock in the short term, but
Speaker 1: it might not be necessarily a horrible strategy for motivating
Speaker 1: people within the company to actually strive to hit kind
Speaker 1: of these other milestones. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I think that probably the board wants him there and
Speaker 1: is willing to kind of do any throw anything at
Speaker 1: the problem to get him there is that anecdotally, Musk
Speaker 1: does have a very strong motivating influence on workers when
Speaker 1: he's present, right, and when he's not, motivation tends to sag. Like.
Speaker 1: It is a very kind of cultive personality type of
Speaker 1: business from what we've heard and from what we've seen,
Speaker 1: and so maybe they're just trying to do everything they
Speaker 1: can to try to get him physically there and really
Speaker 1: trying to motivate people directly. I'm torn, right, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Obviously, I don't think they should be throwing
Speaker 1: this amount of money at anyone, but like, let's just
Speaker 1: put that aside and just think about.
Speaker 2: Type of socialists are you running your rand moom Donnie's campaign?
Speaker 1: I know, I know, right, but so let's let's just
Speaker 1: put those considerations aside.
Speaker 2: And you believe billionaires shouldn't exist? Are billionaires Okay.
Speaker 1: I'm fine with billionaires existing, but but yeah, so so
Speaker 1: the I think the question here is is an interesting
Speaker 1: one in terms of how do we, you know, how
Speaker 1: do we get people like that to perform at peak? They,
Speaker 1: I think, are trying to throw everything into the equation,
Speaker 1: you know, all these targets, money, all all of these
Speaker 1: different things. The one thing that does worry me is
Speaker 1: that out clause that I read to you, right, because like,
Speaker 1: if he can just get the money without doing anything,
Speaker 1: I think that there's a good chance that he is
Speaker 1: going to potentially go there. So I might be worried
Speaker 1: about language, but that's my biggest that's one of my
Speaker 1: biggest Oh.
Speaker 2: Look, I assume that, I mean, Tesla's stock was up
Speaker 2: on this, right. I assume that, like the lawyers have
Speaker 2: thought about how that clause might be interpreted in their
Speaker 2: outclauses and in clauses. And I'm making that term up right.
Speaker 2: I assume that, like it's not just you know, writing
Speaker 2: things up on a white board, that they thought this
Speaker 2: through a little bit. But yeah, look, to me, the
Speaker 2: question is also, you know, does elon add that much
Speaker 2: marginal value over another CEO? That kind of thing is
Speaker 2: very hard to test, right if you go and I
Speaker 2: asked my handy assistant Claude the AI. But I asked Claude,
Speaker 2: what's the empirical literature say on whether CEO pay packages
Speaker 2: are worth it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And Claude wasn't sure. There does not seem to be
Speaker 2: a clear consensus on this question in general and specifically.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Elon got very distracted by politics
Speaker 2: for some period of time. Well, that's stracts the right word.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think most people would say that XAI
Speaker 2: is doing interesting things behind kind of the big three
Speaker 2: AI labs, but is a serious player, right, there's SpaceX
Speaker 2: There's a lot of things, so yeah, you know. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Elon has also been accused of recreational drug use in
Speaker 2: well sourced stores in the Wall Street Journal. He is
Speaker 2: a polarizing figure. I don't believe that his approval writing.
Speaker 2: We've been tracking favorability of branks for Elon. They haven't
Speaker 2: really improved very much. And see let the White House.
Speaker 2: In fact, if anything, Republicans are more mad at him
Speaker 2: now than they once were. Democrats haven't really you know,
Speaker 2: returned to admiration for him yet. So there are a
Speaker 2: lot of disadvantages too. But you know, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: one of the other options he owns somewhere in the
Speaker 2: range of fifteen percent of Tesla stock, right, so who's
Speaker 2: the largest shareholder. If you wanted to oust him, you
Speaker 2: would have to have the majority of other shareholders wanting
Speaker 2: him out, which is very difficult for lots and lots
Speaker 2: of reasons. So, you know, maybe it's not a choice
Speaker 2: between Elon and generic CEO so much as motivated Elon
Speaker 2: versus unmotivated Elon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so at the end of the day, night, good
Speaker 1: call or bad call. I think you know where you
Speaker 1: come down, all right, and I am it's hard going.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna waffle on this one. I'm going to say,
Speaker 1: I really I'm not sure I can see it going
Speaker 1: either way. And this is a very waffly answer, But
Speaker 1: that's at the end of the day where I'm coming
Speaker 1: out and yeah, I'm hedging, Nate, I'm hedging. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's where we are. Let's take a quick break now,
Speaker 1: and then when we come back, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about the Battle of the sexes or you know, is
Speaker 1: there actually a crisis of masculinity. We'll find out after
Speaker 1: the break. Nate. Normally, when I think of the Battle
Speaker 1: of the Sexes, I'm thinking game theory. Right, there's actually
Speaker 1: a game that's called Battle of the Sexes. But in
Speaker 1: today's segment, that is not what we're talking about, well
Speaker 1: sort of, but not really. We're talking about kind of
Speaker 1: the headlines that have been in the news over the
Speaker 1: last few years about kind of a crisis of modern
Speaker 1: masculinity that men are not doing as well as they
Speaker 1: once were. Basically, you know, suicide as up, education levels
Speaker 1: are down, loneliness is up. You know, we're seeing a
Speaker 1: loneliness epidemic. And that's actually true of both sexes, but
Speaker 1: more for men than for women's suicide actually is also
Speaker 1: true that it's going up for both men and women,
Speaker 1: but more for men, and on and on. So the
Speaker 1: question here is is this actually a crisis of masculinity
Speaker 1: or are these overblown headlines that basically are just like
Speaker 1: little data blifts that really do not tell the whole
Speaker 1: story where there's actually, you know, just as much male
Speaker 1: dominance as there ever was, and maybe on the margins
Speaker 1: certain things are changing a little bit, but it's still
Speaker 1: basically same old story. So that is that is the
Speaker 1: topic for this Battle of the Sexes. And obviously I'm female,
Speaker 1: you're male, but I'm gonna let you kick this one
Speaker 1: OFFN eight. So what is your kind of initial reaction
Speaker 1: and then we can get into some data.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, maybe I'm playing into the stereotype a little
Speaker 2: bit here. I think there's something real. I mean, one
Speaker 2: reason why I say that is because you can see
Speaker 2: it reflected in voting patterns too, which is something that
Speaker 2: I study quite a bit, where among young voters in
Speaker 2: the US and elsewhere, there are bigger gender splits than
Speaker 2: there ever have been before. Historically, gender is only mildly
Speaker 2: predictive of voting share. Usually women are a bit more
Speaker 2: liberal than men, but that's been more profound, for example,
Speaker 2: for Kamala Harris, for Donald Trump. And I think it
Speaker 2: reflects the fact that, like some men feel a little
Speaker 2: bit left out of the direction that society is headed, right,
Speaker 2: They feel society as too risk averse, They feel emasculated,
Speaker 2: They feel that, you know, institutions may be led. Well,
Speaker 2: I don't know certainly what I call the village in
Speaker 2: my book, right, the village is kind of academia and
Speaker 2: media and so forth. Certainly in that field you see
Speaker 2: more and more women leaders. Right in like democratic politics,
Speaker 2: a lot of people who work on campaigns you know,
Speaker 2: the women who ran Joe Biden's campaign was a woman.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think there's I think there's something there. Maria.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, having there be something there and having it
Speaker 1: be like a full blown crisis are two different things.
Speaker 1: So I do think that there's definitely I agree that
Speaker 1: there is dissatisfaction. I mean, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: what you're talking about is probably what got us you know,
Speaker 1: Trump two point zero, right, what got us to that,
Speaker 1: to that moment in time where a lot of people
Speaker 1: felt really disaffected. And by the way, you're seeing this
Speaker 1: in women too, where it's kind of a dovetailing that
Speaker 1: where you're seeing the tradwife movement right where women are saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to be at home and be
Speaker 1: wives and full time homemakers and cook elaborate meals and
Speaker 1: take care of our children and have lots of children.
Speaker 1: We've talked on the show a little bit about this
Speaker 1: movement in the past, but I think that these two
Speaker 1: things are kind of going hand in hand, right. So
Speaker 1: it's not just men who feel disaffected. There is a
Speaker 1: subset of women who think, oh, you know, it's good
Speaker 1: that women are staying at home. They shouldn't be in
Speaker 1: the workforce in the same numbers as men. Men should
Speaker 1: be the breadwinners. You know, we like traditional gender roles,
Speaker 1: So you definitely have this current, this subcurrent in society.
Speaker 1: That said, I think that some of the data that
Speaker 1: has been cited that shows that basically men are not
Speaker 1: doing as well as women. I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of those data points, if you dig a little bit deeper,
Speaker 1: don't hold a lot of water. So, for instance, when
Speaker 1: it comes to the workforce, we still do have quite
Speaker 1: a significant gender pay gap. So women on average make
Speaker 1: eighty three cents to eighty five on the dollar.
Speaker 2: Of what I'm going to I'm going to note for
Speaker 2: the record that I think people would be the.
Speaker 1: Causes of that, the causes of that. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: totally fine. I'm just saying that this that this still
Speaker 1: exists right when, because if we're posing the question of
Speaker 1: men are not doing as well as women, I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of saying that there is a still a gender
Speaker 1: pay gap that is in favor of men, and it
Speaker 1: holds true over all education levels. So basically, men who
Speaker 1: have no education are able to get better jobs and
Speaker 1: women who have no education. Women with PhDs are paid
Speaker 1: more than women with PhDs, and we still don't see
Speaker 1: women progressing into positions of power at nearly the same
Speaker 1: rates as we see men. So we do. We do
Speaker 1: have that sort of thing and the fact that, oh
Speaker 1: that there's a crisis in higher education, or that women
Speaker 1: graduate from college more often than men. This has been
Speaker 1: the case for kind of a long time, Like women
Speaker 1: tend to do better academically and have for a very
Speaker 1: long time. So this is not something new. It's not
Speaker 1: like all of a sudden we have different education.
Speaker 2: I've got to push back. I mean, it has gotten
Speaker 2: I believe significantly big. I mean in terms of like
Speaker 2: college graduation rates is going to like three to two
Speaker 2: women or might go to two to one, and eventually,
Speaker 2: I mean this kind of leads to interesting things like
Speaker 2: should there be affirmative action for men on campus? It
Speaker 2: also affects things like the campus dating scene potentially.
Speaker 1: That's actually so nate, that's actually the kind of a
Speaker 1: data point in the opposite direction. If this is If
Speaker 1: it's true that it has gotten worse and there is
Speaker 1: still a huge gender pay gap and that men are
Speaker 1: still getting paid more than women, even though women are
Speaker 1: pushing to get educated and are more educated than men.
Speaker 1: That that actually shows that men are getting even more
Speaker 1: privileged when it comes to how much they're being paid
Speaker 1: than women. Right, Because if.
Speaker 2: You're no, I don't think necessary, I mean, are there
Speaker 2: are a few things here right.
Speaker 1: This is, by the way, By the way, the reason
Speaker 1: we're going back and forth on this is even economists
Speaker 1: go back and forth on this, like the data is,
Speaker 1: the data is really complicated, and this is a very
Speaker 1: muddy subject with tons of confounds, and it's really really
Speaker 1: hard to control for all of the variables. So I'm
Speaker 1: I'm just doing a little bit of a caveat on that.
Speaker 2: Let me go through a couple of arguments that I
Speaker 2: think the kind of economists on the other side of
Speaker 2: this issue we'd go through, and some of them are
Speaker 2: are explanations liberals would like more, some conservatives would like more. Right,
Speaker 2: you know, one belief is that women often take more
Speaker 2: time out of their careers to care for children, to
Speaker 2: care sometimes for other like ailing family members, for things
Speaker 2: like that, and that you know, if you count for that,
Speaker 2: then there's questions about how much of the gender wage
Speaker 2: gap remains. You know. The more plocularly incorrect thing too,
Speaker 2: This is kind of what got Larry Summer's in a
Speaker 2: lot of trouble at Harvard University. Right, you know, there
Speaker 2: are some evidence that men have higher variance, that they
Speaker 2: end up in really bad circumstances, commit substantially more violence
Speaker 2: and more crime. Right, can crash out in different ways.
Speaker 2: But if there's more genetic variation in a population, then
Speaker 2: maybe the very top earners Elon Musk of the world
Speaker 2: to bring him up again might tend to be men more, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, those are those are theories that compete with this,
Speaker 2: I guess, right, you know, I think one could ask
Speaker 2: how predictive is college completion of success in career anyway?
Speaker 1: Right, yep, that's a very valid question, especially now when
Speaker 1: you have you know, also the Pewter teals of the
Speaker 1: world paying people not to go to college. You know. There,
Speaker 1: I think we are seeing a very very different society
Speaker 1: than even ten years ago, and I think that that
Speaker 1: shift is going to all the all the evidence shows
Speaker 1: that that shift is not a prairiy blip that people
Speaker 1: are putting less value on. Okay, where did you go
Speaker 1: to school? Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and tech, as you said, is like the field
Speaker 2: where this is most pronounced. Right, there's now a you know,
Speaker 2: anti higher education quadrant in tech I would see, right,
Speaker 2: But it hasn't spread to like finances much, which is
Speaker 2: still a bit more hierarchical. But like all this is
Speaker 2: tied together, right, the backlash against elite higher education and
Speaker 2: the backlash against women's roles in society. These things are
Speaker 2: tied together, I think to like a greater and greater extent, right,
Speaker 2: you know, and again you know, Look, my premise is
Speaker 2: always at like, it doesn't do anybody any good to
Speaker 2: pretend that, on average, that gender differences don't exist.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: If you look at measures of self reported well being,
Speaker 2: if you ask people are you happy or not? Basically? Right,
Speaker 2: First of all, there are enormous generational divides where a
Speaker 2: lot of gen Z reports very poor mental health, But
Speaker 2: there is a gender gap too. Men tend to report
Speaker 2: higher happiness, lower levels of anxiety and depression. If you
Speaker 2: look at like what circumstances, what life circumstances affect people's
Speaker 2: sense of well being? Right? For some types of things,
Speaker 2: men are more resilient, but not for work related stuff.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: If you ask kind of questions about like what would
Speaker 2: happen if you got demoted at work or you weren't
Speaker 2: performing expectations that you know, men have a bigger psychological
Speaker 2: effect from that than women do on average, all these
Speaker 2: our averages.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I will just add to that to kind
Speaker 1: of give a broader picture that usually the gender differences
Speaker 1: within genders are much much larger than the gender differences
Speaker 1: between genders on almost any data point you can find. Right.
Speaker 1: That means men differ more from men, and women differ
Speaker 1: more from women than men on average, and women on
Speaker 1: average differ from each other. That is something that is
Speaker 1: just basically true of almost anything you can find in
Speaker 1: the psychology literature. So I just want people to keep
Speaker 1: that in the back of their minds.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, you know, I just came from the self
Speaker 2: professed happiest country in the world, Finland. I was trying
Speaker 2: to do it. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: That that always just I get such a kick out
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: They seem pretty happy. They drink a lot, you get offered,
Speaker 2: Oh that's probably why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they haven't bought into the alcohol is bad for
Speaker 1: you yet, so yes, their life satisfaction is probably higher.
Speaker 2: This could be, this could be a whole different episode.
Speaker 2: Not that we could do the boost thing, right, but
Speaker 2: like national happiness rankings, what do they really tell you, right,
Speaker 2: I think they're probably somewhat real. One thing you actually notice,
Speaker 2: I haven't published this work. Maybe I'll get around to
Speaker 2: it eventually. If you look at fertility rates by country,
Speaker 2: then happiness is somewhat predictive of that when you control
Speaker 2: for GDP. I mean, basically, you know, the big thing
Speaker 2: that no one wants to talk about is that, like
Speaker 2: both men and women have seen to discover around the
Speaker 2: world that like, when you get wealthier than maybe there
Speaker 2: are better things to do with your life and to
Speaker 2: have children, right, and this is causing potential decline in
Speaker 2: the global population. Right. That's a big difference between not
Speaker 2: really between men and women, but it's also a generational difference.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But people actually have, controlling for other factors, more kids
Speaker 2: in happier countries, which suggests to me that there is
Speaker 2: like some tangible difference here potentially. I mean, you could
Speaker 2: look at things like suicide rates. I haven't looked at that. Actually,
Speaker 2: you know, men commit suicide much more offer than women,
Speaker 2: even though even though they report higher self reported mental health,
Speaker 2: which is interesting. Maybe it's another case of like having
Speaker 2: more variation potentially, but I think these things are at
Speaker 2: least partly real, and some of us that it's more
Speaker 2: you know, the notion about like men not feeling like
Speaker 2: they have a lot of close friends, right.
Speaker 1: That's actually a huge thing. I think that there's a
Speaker 1: lot to that, and I think that there you know,
Speaker 1: women historically socially have had to kind of be more socialized, right.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of those things where women, I think,
Speaker 1: just in general in society have kind of had to
Speaker 1: get support groups, right, and be nice and be the
Speaker 1: people in the family who take care of calendars and
Speaker 1: appointments and keep up with other parents and like and
Speaker 1: do all of the social stuff. And for men, that
Speaker 1: once again historically hasn't always been their dominant social role.
Speaker 1: So we actually do see that that men tend to
Speaker 1: have smaller circles, and that those circles often shrink with
Speaker 1: age unless they do something specifically to counteract it. Something
Speaker 1: else that we mentioned briefly but have not gone into
Speaker 1: in detail, But I think it's important here, including in
Speaker 1: social circles who you interact with, and I think that
Speaker 1: this is affecting both genders, is that you know, teens
Speaker 1: right now. Tweens are coming up in an era where
Speaker 1: so much activity is online, right, and there's this atomization
Speaker 1: of society that we didn't experience you and I and
Speaker 1: A when we were when we were growing up. And
Speaker 1: I think that there are generational differences that we have
Speaker 1: no idea yet how that's going to play out, but
Speaker 1: as of now, I think that those do not have
Speaker 1: a great effect on mental health. Right if you socialize
Speaker 1: online versus in person, there is a difference. We do
Speaker 1: have data on that, and so I do think that
Speaker 1: we're going to be seeing kind of some spillover effects
Speaker 1: from that in the future. And it's too early to
Speaker 1: say whether you know what the gender differences will be,
Speaker 1: what kind of what the fall from that will be,
Speaker 1: But there is an important kind of generational shift going
Speaker 1: on right now that we should be paying attention to.
Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, I think some stereotypes are true on an average,
Speaker 2: right If you let's say I get dinner with a
Speaker 2: male friend playtonic right the next day, do I get
Speaker 2: like a follow up thank you We'll stening out again
Speaker 2: soon text? Probably not? Right with a female friend over
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty I would say, right, just an observation
Speaker 2: I think will hold true for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: You know, men stereotypically like to hang up by doing
Speaker 2: things together. Right, you're watching a football game, you're watching
Speaker 2: a movie, you're playing a video game. Right, maybe playing poker,
Speaker 2: women tend to you know, involve more talking on average,
Speaker 2: don't shoot the messenger, right, There is data on this, right,
Speaker 2: and like and that might be more threatened by a
Speaker 2: like a model where now you're hanging out in person
Speaker 2: or you're or you're not hanging out in person as much. Right,
Speaker 2: you know, I think poker is interesting and there is
Speaker 2: certainly outright sexism in poker, for sure, and yes, but
Speaker 2: you know, I also think it's a male bonding experience
Speaker 2: and an outlet for some men who feel like they
Speaker 2: don't have another way to like to make friends. Right,
Speaker 2: you go to the poker room, and believe me, there
Speaker 2: are some poker players who are very sociable and eloquent
Speaker 2: and everything else, but like you want, Yeah, some guys
Speaker 2: just want to play poker and talk about crypto and
Speaker 2: sports and women.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, that's one of the reasons why poker is
Speaker 2: a popular hobby with with with men right, and might
Speaker 2: encourage men who are like, Okay, this is my this
Speaker 2: is my safe space a little bit when you do
Speaker 2: see some of the more sexist behaviors, Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean I've said that often that you know, especially
Speaker 1: at lower stakes, when you go to your local casino,
Speaker 1: that's where I've experienced some of the greatest misogyny because
Speaker 1: I think that people there are playing for different reasons
Speaker 1: than when you get to like high stakes pros for
Speaker 1: whom like this is a career, they're taking it like
Speaker 1: it's their profession. And at those lower stakes you often
Speaker 1: get people for whom like this is their socializing, right,
Speaker 1: like this is there, like I just want to be
Speaker 1: with the guys and like I don't want to watch
Speaker 1: my fucking mouth. Like you're the one who chose to
Speaker 1: sit at this table. If I want to, you know,
Speaker 1: hit on the dealer and like talk about her boobs
Speaker 1: and like mention your ass, that's fine, And if you're
Speaker 1: not comfortable, you leave, right, I'm not going to change
Speaker 1: my behavior. I'm here with the boys. I want to drink,
Speaker 1: I want to have fun. So I think that there's
Speaker 1: definitely something to that. And yeah, so I do think
Speaker 1: that all of these factors matter when we're thinking about, like,
Speaker 1: is there actually a crisis here? Right, So at the
Speaker 1: end of the day and night, how would you weigh
Speaker 1: all of this to say, you know, is there a
Speaker 1: crisis or are these just kind of some issues where
Speaker 1: men are winning some where they're losing. And it's true
Speaker 1: of women as well, and we're just in a moment
Speaker 1: of social change that's not necess necessarily gender related, which
Speaker 1: is how I would kind of think about it, as
Speaker 1: opposed to saying, yes, it's a crisis of masculinity, that
Speaker 1: would be my answer. How would you answer it?
Speaker 2: Well, look, I think most people are will tend to
Speaker 2: treat everything as a crisis, whether or not it's actually
Speaker 2: incret nor. The mental health numbers for young people are
Speaker 2: very bad, and I think it has to constitute a crisis. Now,
Speaker 2: they're worse for women than men. But look, okay, let
Speaker 2: me be a little spicier here, right, I think there
Speaker 2: is often implicit bias against men in how the village, right,
Speaker 2: the kind of progressive communities talk about some of these
Speaker 2: things potentially, Right, if you kind of get at the
Speaker 2: question of, like to go back to self diagnosed mental health, right,
Speaker 2: some people will say, Okay, women are higher and liberals
Speaker 2: are higher. This isn't even bigger different talking way, Liberals
Speaker 2: are higher than conservatives by a wide margin.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, they will say, well, that's because there is
Speaker 2: a stigma against declaring mental health conditions, and that women
Speaker 2: and concern or women and liberals don't suffer from the stigma,
Speaker 2: whereas conservatives and men do, right, to which I would say, okay,
Speaker 2: maybe there is something to stoicism basically, right, and you
Speaker 2: know they're popular still assists books and podcasts and websites
Speaker 2: and things like that where it's like, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe there's something to be said for like toughing it
Speaker 2: out under pressure. Maybe this is actually an evolutionarily smart strategy, right,
Speaker 2: Maybe it's okay to like compartmentalize things a little bit, right,
Speaker 2: or you know, to kind of the example of what
Speaker 2: was kind of half joking about before. We're like men
Speaker 2: like to do stuff, women like to talk with one another,
Speaker 2: you know. Now and then I'll see like some op
Speaker 2: ed in the Atlantic or whatever. Right you Usually when
Speaker 2: by women they're like, well, men don't know how to
Speaker 2: good friendships. It's like fuck you if I want to
Speaker 2: go out and watch a baseball game with my friend, Like,
Speaker 2: don't tell me it's like any less valid than like
Speaker 2: chatting chatting chatting pressure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no. And by the way, I actually think there's
Speaker 1: good data for both men and women that you bond
Speaker 1: more through experiences that like that kind of stuff and
Speaker 1: doing things together is just good for friendship period.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people talk so much, you know, what's what's they
Speaker 2: to talk about? Go do something?
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, but it sounds like it sounds
Speaker 1: like you're you're kind of on the same page as
Speaker 1: I am when it comes to like, yeah, there are
Speaker 1: obviously some issues happening, but it's less clear how much
Speaker 1: of it is. Gender is kind of a crisis of
Speaker 1: masculinity as such, right, because the mental health stuff that's
Speaker 1: that's a very different crisis like that is not The data,
Speaker 1: as you said, are not great for women either. So
Speaker 1: I think there are lots of things going on. I
Speaker 1: do think we need to there are lots of trends
Speaker 1: that we should be paying attention to. But I think
Speaker 1: the data inconclusive. When it comes to, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: is there is there a crisis for one gender or another?
Speaker 1: I think the answer there is no, there's not enough
Speaker 1: evidence for that, but there are some undercurrents that we
Speaker 1: should be paying attention to and monitoring, especially with the
Speaker 1: next generation coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I mean I don't know. If you look
Speaker 2: at like the male versus female employment population ratio, right,
Speaker 2: it's dropped actually for everybody, in part because you have
Speaker 2: like the population aging outside of prime working years, but
Speaker 2: it's dropped quite a bit more for men. Right in
Speaker 2: two thousand and five according to the Bureau of Labor
Speaker 2: Cystix before before the site gets compromised by Trump. So
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five, seventy three percent of men
Speaker 2: aged twenty and older were employed. Now it's sixty seven percent. Right,
Speaker 2: there's a drop off for women, but it's been less
Speaker 2: from fifty eight to fifty six. It looks like here, right, So,
Speaker 2: like I think, I think there's plenty of evidence for this, right,
Speaker 2: quantitative and qualitative and everything and everything else.
Speaker 1: But there's also evidence against it that we've talked about.
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to rehash it once again.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like you're coming out more on the
Speaker 1: side of crisis. I'm coming out less on the side
Speaker 1: of crisis. And I don't just don't like the crisis language.
Speaker 1: I think that is I think that's way too alarmist,
Speaker 1: and that is not how we should be approaching this.
Speaker 1: I'm much more in the camp of stoicism, you know,
Speaker 1: that's one of the underlying philosophies of my writing. So
Speaker 1: I'm all for that. This has been fun, though, and
Speaker 1: I think that it is interesting to look through these data.
Speaker 1: It's a really tough topic one that I'm sure some
Speaker 1: of these things will will be revisiting. But it also
Speaker 1: it goes to show that, you know, assessing these sources
Speaker 1: of risks, it's tough, right, and it's a really difficult
Speaker 1: job for economists try to parse the numbers, and there's
Speaker 1: so much going on that it's just not going to
Speaker 1: be a clear story ever, which is why people can
Speaker 1: right authoritative op eds on opposite sides of this insight
Speaker 1: data that seems to support their point of view. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this has been a fun show, Nate. I you know,
Speaker 1: one of the other things about northern Europe where you
Speaker 1: came from, is that there also is a lot more
Speaker 1: gender equality there than there is in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world. So curious if that has something to do
Speaker 1: with the happiness levels as well. But maybe we can.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can leave that for another show.
Speaker 2: Look, I think if you look at the happiest countries
Speaker 2: in the world, they're also smaller countries, right, I think
Speaker 2: that absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so many confounding factors. Yeah, lots and lots of
Speaker 1: confounding factors there. And on that note, Nate, I hope
Speaker 1: you have a lovely week, and let me invite you
Speaker 1: to dinner so that we can talk, because I'm female
Speaker 1: and you know I like to I like to bond
Speaker 1: over talking and good food. So let's get a dinner
Speaker 1: from the calendar.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe go to a Yankees game, Maria, you
Speaker 2: can get dinner there.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I will. I will go to a
Speaker 1: Yankees game, Nate, because I am a good friend. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you think of the show. Reach out
Speaker 1: to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm. And
Speaker 1: by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we
Speaker 1: have some bonus content for you that's coming up right
Speaker 1: after the credits.
Speaker 2: And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up for
Speaker 2: just six ninety nine a month. What a nice price.
Speaker 2: You get access to all that premium content and ad
Speaker 2: for listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
Speaker 2: production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit. Sally
Speaker 2: Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2: Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in.