WEBVTT - The WOW Machine Stops (Pt 2) 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:25.130 Pushkin a warning before we start. This cautionary tale discusses 0:00:25.210 --> 0:00:28.810 death by suicide. If you're suffering emotional distress or you're 0:00:28.850 --> 0:00:33.250 having suicidal thoughts, support is available, for example, from the 0:00:33.370 --> 0:00:36.730 nine eight eight Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the US 0:00:37.450 --> 0:00:44.450 or the Samaritans in the UK. On the fourth of 0:00:44.530 --> 0:00:49.290 July twenty twenty, in Park City, Utah, two friends are 0:00:49.370 --> 0:00:52.970 drinking beer on the porch of the airbnb they've rented 0:00:53.010 --> 0:00:56.810 for the holidays. Happy fourth, They call out to a 0:00:56.850 --> 0:01:01.130 man walking past on the sidewalk. The passer by stops 0:01:01.170 --> 0:01:06.090 to chat. They notice he's not wearing any shoes, his 0:01:06.250 --> 0:01:10.730 clothes are tattered, and his eyes are glass Perhaps they 0:01:10.850 --> 0:01:15.610 shouldn't have attracted his attention. What do you do, the 0:01:15.690 --> 0:01:21.130 shoeless man asks them. The friends exchange a glance. One 0:01:21.410 --> 0:01:26.650 guardedly volunteers that he works in recruitment. Oh, says the 0:01:26.690 --> 0:01:29.690 shoeless man. I'm recruiting people to come and live here 0:01:29.730 --> 0:01:33.770 in Park City. I'm building a community. I can offer 0:01:33.810 --> 0:01:36.090 you a fee for everyone you bring in. Let me 0:01:36.130 --> 0:01:40.810 tell you my number. The friend politely takes down the number, 0:01:41.450 --> 0:01:47.450 then forgets all about it. The man seemed high and homeless. 0:01:48.250 --> 0:01:53.490 It obviously wasn't serious. The shoeless man might indeed have 0:01:53.570 --> 0:01:58.890 been high, but he wasn't homeless, and he was deadly serious. 0:01:59.730 --> 0:02:06.370 He was billionaire Tony Shay. This is the second of 0:02:06.570 --> 0:02:11.490 two cautionary tales about Tony Shay, who made his fortune 0:02:11.530 --> 0:02:15.970 with the online shoe retailer Zappos. If you haven't heard 0:02:16.090 --> 0:02:19.890 part one, you might want to do that. Now we 0:02:20.010 --> 0:02:24.050 heard how Tony wrote a best selling book about employee happiness, 0:02:24.770 --> 0:02:30.490 then imposed a management fad that many employees hated. Tony 0:02:30.930 --> 0:02:35.890 loved ideas, the kind that sound wise in a Ted talk, 0:02:36.690 --> 0:02:40.610 but work in practice only if you really think the 0:02:40.690 --> 0:02:46.370 details through. In this episode, we focus on one wise 0:02:46.490 --> 0:02:54.570 idea that Tony really didn't think through community. In his book, 0:02:55.010 --> 0:02:59.210 Tony links happiness to connectedness with others. He tried to 0:02:59.210 --> 0:03:03.450 build a community in Las Vegas. As we'll hear, that 0:03:03.690 --> 0:03:09.610 didn't go well. Now in Park City, he was trying again. 0:03:10.530 --> 0:03:13.450 He wanted to surround himself with people who'd make him 0:03:13.450 --> 0:03:20.610 feel connected and happy. Instead, his misjudgments led to his death. 0:03:22.930 --> 0:03:51.970 I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary Tales. Philip 0:03:52.010 --> 0:03:56.130 Prentice was delighted to be offered the job. The salary 0:03:56.250 --> 0:03:59.530 was over one hundred thousand dollars a year, pretty good 0:03:59.530 --> 0:04:03.130 for a newly qualified accountant in Las Vegas in October 0:04:03.170 --> 0:04:06.170 twenty twelve. In today's terms, that I'll be near a 0:04:06.330 --> 0:04:10.010 one hundred and fifty thousand. He'd gets to options too. 0:04:10.850 --> 0:04:15.890 Prinice's new employer was a startup called Ecomom. As the 0:04:15.970 --> 0:04:20.370 name suggests, it sold a variety of eco friendly parent 0:04:20.450 --> 0:04:26.370 related products diapers, baby food, clothes, toys. It was doing well, 0:04:27.010 --> 0:04:31.450 or so it seemed. Its revenues were growing quickly. Just 0:04:31.530 --> 0:04:35.210 a few months earlier, it had raised millions in financing. 0:04:36.770 --> 0:04:41.370 One of those investments came with strings attached. The investor 0:04:41.530 --> 0:04:45.610 wanted Ecomom to move from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. 0:04:46.690 --> 0:04:52.810 There's something to do with building a community. Ecomom's founder, 0:04:52.970 --> 0:04:57.010 a forty seven year old man called Jody Sherman, agreed 0:04:57.090 --> 0:05:00.970 to relocate and asked his staff to come with him. 0:05:01.450 --> 0:05:04.970 It was tough for Sherman. His wife had commitments in 0:05:05.010 --> 0:05:08.890 Los Angeles that she couldn't easily break, so Sherman had 0:05:08.890 --> 0:05:11.890 to leave her behind for now, along with his network 0:05:11.930 --> 0:05:17.370 of friends. Philip Prentiss describes what kind of person. Jody 0:05:17.450 --> 0:05:24.770 Sherman was a great guy, outgoing, personable, enthusiastic, funny. I 0:05:24.850 --> 0:05:29.770 never heard him say a bad word to or about anyone. 0:05:30.490 --> 0:05:35.010 Prentiss loved coming into work. Morale was high, the staff 0:05:35.050 --> 0:05:41.290 were treated well. Prentiss was Ecomom's very first accountant. Up 0:05:41.330 --> 0:05:45.410 to now, Sherman had outsourced its payroll and invoices to 0:05:45.450 --> 0:05:48.970 an external provider. But the company had grown big enough 0:05:48.970 --> 0:05:54.410 to need someone full time in house, and something wasn't right. 0:05:55.210 --> 0:05:59.450 Sherman didn't know what wasn't right exactly, but somehow or other, 0:05:59.850 --> 0:06:05.370 the figure in Ecomom's bank account kept going down. Prentiss 0:06:05.450 --> 0:06:08.970 recalls that Sherman used to have heated discussions with his 0:06:09.210 --> 0:06:13.530 VP of marketing. What are you doing? Sherman would ask, 0:06:14.450 --> 0:06:18.610 where's the money? Sales are great? The VP of marketing 0:06:18.650 --> 0:06:21.930 would reply, We're on track to hit all our targets, 0:06:22.690 --> 0:06:28.210 but where's the money. Sherman grew increasingly exasperated. I'm not 0:06:28.530 --> 0:06:32.850 seeing the money in our bank. Jody Sherman was a 0:06:32.850 --> 0:06:36.530 great guy, said Prentiss, but he was not a numbers guy. 0:06:37.370 --> 0:06:40.970 Whenever Prentice tried to show him a sheet full of figures, 0:06:41.170 --> 0:06:45.650 he'd waved away, saying no one can understand this. He 0:06:45.770 --> 0:06:51.290 also approved everyone's spending requests with barely a glance Prentice noticed. 0:06:52.330 --> 0:06:58.650 Could this be the root of the problem. Prentice investigated. Nope, 0:06:59.010 --> 0:07:03.970 All the employees were honest. There were no inflated expenses claims, 0:07:03.970 --> 0:07:08.930 no dodgy looking in voices. And yet when Prentice pulled 0:07:08.930 --> 0:07:13.210 together the figures for October, they showed Ecomom had lost 0:07:13.450 --> 0:07:18.210 over half a million dollars. November would be better, right, 0:07:18.890 --> 0:07:22.970 The Black Friday sales were clearly going well. In the 0:07:23.050 --> 0:07:27.410 ecomom office, someone rang a bell after every one hundred order. 0:07:28.010 --> 0:07:33.050 The bell rang more and more frequently, and yet when 0:07:33.210 --> 0:07:35.490 Prentice did the sums at the end of the month, 0:07:36.090 --> 0:07:39.890 he found that in November Ecomom had lost nearly a 0:07:39.970 --> 0:07:47.690 million dollars. Higher sales, bigger losses. Prentice saw the problem. 0:07:48.050 --> 0:07:52.330 Ecomom had issued so many discounts and voucher codes that 0:07:52.650 --> 0:07:57.010 every sale was losing the money. An average order brought 0:07:57.050 --> 0:08:01.170 in sixty dollars but cost nearly ninety dollars to fulfill. 0:08:02.090 --> 0:08:04.850 It's not unusual for a startup to sell with a 0:08:04.930 --> 0:08:09.290 negative margin at first, but it's generally a conscious decision 0:08:09.730 --> 0:08:13.050 as part of a wider strategy for becoming profitable somewhere 0:08:13.090 --> 0:08:17.090 down the line. As far as Philip Prentiss could see, 0:08:17.610 --> 0:08:25.250 Ecomom had no such strategy. Jody Sherman called a high 0:08:25.370 --> 0:08:31.570 powered management meeting, and Prentice prepared an analysis. If Ecomom 0:08:31.690 --> 0:08:36.250 were to stop selling anything he worked out, and all 0:08:36.290 --> 0:08:40.370 the employees simply sat around and played ping pong all day, 0:08:40.930 --> 0:08:44.130 they'd have enough in the bank to pay themselves for 0:08:44.250 --> 0:08:49.250 two more years. But if sales kept growing, they'd run 0:08:49.250 --> 0:08:54.250 out of cash in just three months. The management meeting, 0:08:54.410 --> 0:08:59.250 recalls Prentice, was surreal. Nobody asked him to present any 0:08:59.290 --> 0:09:02.530 of the figures he had prepared. The only figure anyone 0:09:02.610 --> 0:09:05.930 presented was the year on year growth in sales, which 0:09:06.010 --> 0:09:10.010 looked amazing, as the VP of Marketing had said they 0:09:10.010 --> 0:09:16.010 were hitting all their targets. Still, Jody Sherman made it 0:09:16.090 --> 0:09:22.810 clear they had to do something better. But what the 0:09:22.850 --> 0:09:27.570 meeting discussed market strategies for selling the eco mom lifestyle, 0:09:28.090 --> 0:09:33.610 Prentice recalls it discussed expanding our email and customer base. 0:09:34.250 --> 0:09:38.690 It discussed expanding our marketing team. I can't remember exactly 0:09:38.690 --> 0:09:41.330 what else was discussed, but I can tell you for sure. 0:09:41.930 --> 0:09:46.610 The word margin and the word profit were never mentioned. 0:09:50.570 --> 0:09:55.250 In December, sales continued to go well, the number in 0:09:55.290 --> 0:09:59.490 the bank account kept on getting lower, and Jody Sherman 0:09:59.610 --> 0:10:05.930 became even more frantic. Prentice again tried to present his figures, 0:10:05.970 --> 0:10:10.890 and Sherman again waved them away. Phil. He said, just 0:10:11.290 --> 0:10:14.010 tell me how much we need to sell to break even. 0:10:15.250 --> 0:10:20.730 He did not understand margin, recalls Prentice. He did not 0:10:21.010 --> 0:10:27.810 understand that increased sales resulted in increased losses. Sherman tried 0:10:27.930 --> 0:10:32.410 desperately to raise more money from investors. He asked Prentice 0:10:32.450 --> 0:10:34.610 how much longer the money in their bank account would 0:10:34.650 --> 0:10:38.610 last if he sacked half the staff, some of whom 0:10:38.730 --> 0:10:42.530 he was all too aware, had uprooted their own lives 0:10:42.530 --> 0:10:47.170 in Los Angeles to follow him to Vegas. I feel 0:10:47.770 --> 0:10:52.730 terrible about this, he said, and those weren't empty words. 0:10:53.450 --> 0:10:58.130 Sherman was clearly feeling the pressure. He started saying things 0:10:58.250 --> 0:11:03.330 like I'm too old to start over. He handed a 0:11:03.370 --> 0:11:09.810 document to his secretary. That's my will, he said. He 0:11:09.890 --> 0:11:13.330 sent an email to other company founders in Las Vegas 0:11:13.650 --> 0:11:18.450 to propose a get together. Oftentimes, he wrote, I find 0:11:18.490 --> 0:11:21.410 myself with no one to talk to about the challenges 0:11:21.450 --> 0:11:28.690 I might be facing, the frustrations the stress. I thought, Hey, 0:11:29.250 --> 0:11:32.410 I know a bunch of founders who probably find themselves 0:11:32.490 --> 0:11:39.090 in similar situations. I should hang with them. A meeting 0:11:39.170 --> 0:11:44.610 was arranged, but Jody didn't make it. Police found his 0:11:44.730 --> 0:11:49.770 body in his car in the mountains outside Las Vegas. 0:11:51.610 --> 0:12:00.690 Jody had taken his own life. The investor who had 0:12:00.730 --> 0:12:04.410 required Jody Sherman to move from Los Angeles to Las 0:12:04.490 --> 0:12:12.410 Vegas was, of course, Tony Say. After Amazon bought Zappos 0:12:12.450 --> 0:12:16.530 and kept him on as CEO, Tony committed three hundred 0:12:16.530 --> 0:12:19.730 and fifty million dollars of his own money to the 0:12:19.850 --> 0:12:25.010 Downtown Project or DTP. He moved Zappos from its office 0:12:25.010 --> 0:12:28.130 in the suburbs to the old City Hall building in 0:12:28.210 --> 0:12:32.770 the heart of downtown. The area was ced and run down, 0:12:33.130 --> 0:12:35.850 but Tony was going to change that by buying up 0:12:35.930 --> 0:12:40.130 real estate and investing in businesses. He wouldn't measure the 0:12:40.130 --> 0:12:45.850 project's success through ROI, he explained, return on investment. He'd 0:12:45.890 --> 0:12:51.570 measure it through ROC return on community. He'd bring together 0:12:51.850 --> 0:12:57.530 entrepreneurs like Jody Sherman, and they'd former community. He wanted 0:12:57.570 --> 0:13:02.090 to turn downtown Las Vegas into the most community focused 0:13:02.210 --> 0:13:08.170 large city in the world. And yet somehow, what Jody 0:13:08.250 --> 0:13:12.010 Sherman had need he did so desperately had been a 0:13:12.090 --> 0:13:19.570 sense of community, but it hadn't been there for him. 0:13:19.810 --> 0:13:37.490 Cautionary tales will be back after the break. When Zappo's 0:13:37.530 --> 0:13:42.530 employee Rob Ponte returned home from work, he was surprised 0:13:42.570 --> 0:13:47.770 to find police tape across the door of his apartment. Inside, 0:13:47.810 --> 0:13:50.650 he saw that someone had been rummaging in his draws 0:13:50.690 --> 0:13:54.970 and poking around in his computer. He called the police 0:13:54.970 --> 0:13:59.770 department and asked what's going on. The police was surprised 0:13:59.770 --> 0:14:03.810 to hear from him. They said, we thought you were dead. 0:14:05.410 --> 0:14:08.450 They'd been in Ponte's apartment, they explained, looking for a 0:14:08.490 --> 0:14:11.570 suicide note and for details of his next of kin. 0:14:12.730 --> 0:14:17.290 Ponte later discovered they'd phoned his mum. Thankfully she didn't answer. 0:14:18.890 --> 0:14:23.090 Ponte and the police pieced together what had happened. Someone 0:14:23.090 --> 0:14:27.650 who looked like Rob Ponte had killed himself. The dead 0:14:27.690 --> 0:14:30.410 man turned out to be a young employee of Tony 0:14:30.450 --> 0:14:35.890 Shay's downtown project. Less than a year had passed since 0:14:36.010 --> 0:14:41.690 Jody Sherman's suicide. A few months after that, another entrepreneur 0:14:41.730 --> 0:14:45.050 who had taken funding from the Downtown project took his 0:14:45.130 --> 0:14:50.770 own life. The Downtown project wasn't that big, just a 0:14:50.810 --> 0:14:57.010 few hundred people, so three suicides seemed like a pattern. 0:14:58.010 --> 0:15:03.970 Were there underlying factors? What might they be? The journalist 0:15:04.210 --> 0:15:09.090 Nelly Bowles asked around. At an event. She sat down 0:15:09.330 --> 0:15:13.970 next to Tony and asked for his thoughts. Suicides happen anywhere. 0:15:14.210 --> 0:15:18.690 Tony said, look at the stats. Then he got up 0:15:18.730 --> 0:15:22.770 and moved to another chair. But others she spoke to 0:15:23.050 --> 0:15:29.730 did have some theories to share. In the last episode 0:15:29.810 --> 0:15:33.090 of Cautionary Tales, we met the idea of the profit 0:15:33.250 --> 0:15:38.730 seeking paradox. The economist John Kay points out that the 0:15:38.730 --> 0:15:42.290 most profitable companies tend not to be those that focus 0:15:42.410 --> 0:15:46.570 directly on profits. But this is only one example, says Kay, 0:15:46.810 --> 0:15:51.970 of a wider principle he calls obliquity. Many other goals 0:15:51.970 --> 0:15:58.050 in life are best pursued not directly but obliquely. Another 0:15:58.130 --> 0:16:02.770 example happiness. The more you try to be happy, the 0:16:02.810 --> 0:16:08.650 more elusive happiness seems to be. This isn't a new idea. 0:16:09.410 --> 0:16:12.410 One hundred and fifty years ago, the philosopher John Stuart 0:16:12.530 --> 0:16:16.250 Mill observed that the happiest people he knew have their 0:16:16.370 --> 0:16:20.970 minds fixed on some other object other than their own happiness, 0:16:21.690 --> 0:16:25.250 on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, 0:16:26.050 --> 0:16:30.370 even on some art or pursuit followed not as a means, 0:16:30.490 --> 0:16:36.090 but as itself an ideal end aiming thus at something else, 0:16:36.490 --> 0:16:44.650 said Mill, they find happiness, by the way, But is 0:16:44.730 --> 0:16:51.010 this observation true? In twenty eleven, researchers devised an experiment 0:16:51.090 --> 0:16:54.850 to investigate. They got some subjects to read an article 0:16:54.850 --> 0:16:59.010 about how important it is to be happy, because happy 0:16:59.050 --> 0:17:03.090 people are more healthy and successful. Then they showed a 0:17:03.170 --> 0:17:07.890 video that should evoke feelings of happiness about a figure 0:17:07.930 --> 0:17:12.090 skater winning a medal and celebrating with her coach. Then 0:17:12.130 --> 0:17:17.170 they asked how happy do you feel? The subjects who 0:17:17.210 --> 0:17:20.650 had read the article on happiness were less happy than 0:17:20.730 --> 0:17:23.290 those in a control group who had watched the video 0:17:23.490 --> 0:17:28.050 but hadn't read the article first. It seemed that being 0:17:28.250 --> 0:17:32.290 prompted to think about the importance of happiness made people's 0:17:32.330 --> 0:17:37.210 second guests themselves that video should have made me happy. 0:17:37.610 --> 0:17:42.930 Why am I not happier? That's disappointing People who weren't 0:17:42.970 --> 0:17:46.530 thinking about the importance of happiness simply watched the video 0:17:46.730 --> 0:17:53.290 and felt happy under certain circumstances. The researchers conclude valuing 0:17:53.450 --> 0:18:02.730 happiness maybe self defeating. When he launched the Downtown project, 0:18:03.130 --> 0:18:07.490 Tony Shay had just published his best selling book on Happiness. 0:18:08.450 --> 0:18:13.290 He'd also be reading about what makes cities productive, including 0:18:13.490 --> 0:18:18.730 chance encounters between productive people, or what Tony called collisions. 0:18:19.570 --> 0:18:23.330 The bigger the city, the more of these serendipitous encounters 0:18:23.330 --> 0:18:29.690 you might expect. Tony decided that serendipity, like happiness, was 0:18:29.730 --> 0:18:35.570 a goal you could pursue directly. He invested in spaces 0:18:35.610 --> 0:18:40.530 where collisions could happen, such as bars. He wanted to 0:18:41.050 --> 0:18:45.890 institutionalize return on luck. He came up with a metric 0:18:46.890 --> 0:18:55.090 maximizing collisionable hours per acre per year. All this piled 0:18:55.130 --> 0:18:58.970 expectations on the entrepreneurs who had moved to Las Vegas 0:18:59.010 --> 0:19:02.490 to get an investment from Tony. There's a pressure to 0:19:02.570 --> 0:19:06.450 socialize and go out, one told the journalist Nelly Bowls. 0:19:07.090 --> 0:19:10.970 There's a pressure to party. Everyone at the party's would 0:19:10.970 --> 0:19:15.890 be either another entrepreneur or an investor. People felt the 0:19:15.930 --> 0:19:19.130 need to put on a mask. A counselor told Nelly 0:19:19.170 --> 0:19:25.690 Bowls and say everything's great. They knew they were supposed 0:19:25.730 --> 0:19:31.250 to be happy. If they weren't, they felt disappointed, even ashamed. 0:19:32.330 --> 0:19:34.490 They had no one to confide in when they had 0:19:34.530 --> 0:19:39.290 a bad day. The focus on happiness, says the counselor 0:19:39.930 --> 0:19:46.050 was not psychologically healthy. The irony is that the entrepreneurs 0:19:46.170 --> 0:19:49.650 might have had people to confide in before they moved 0:19:49.650 --> 0:19:54.210 to Vegas. Jody Sherman, for example, had left behind his 0:19:54.330 --> 0:19:59.410 wife and friends in Los Angeles. In Vegas, he found 0:19:59.490 --> 0:20:03.050 himself with no one to talk to. Tony had seemed to 0:20:03.090 --> 0:20:07.410 think that you could simply bring entrepreneurs together in collisionable 0:20:07.530 --> 0:20:13.250 spaces and their former community. But community can't be forced, 0:20:14.210 --> 0:20:18.930 like happiness. You find it if you're lucky. While aiming 0:20:18.970 --> 0:20:27.730 at something else, Tony had launched the Downtown Project with 0:20:27.930 --> 0:20:32.170 big ambitions to turn Las Vegas into the most community 0:20:32.290 --> 0:20:37.450 focused large city in the world. As the project floundered, 0:20:38.170 --> 0:20:42.450 Tony changed his mind. He was going to stop using 0:20:42.490 --> 0:20:46.610 the word community. He'd learned that it gave people the 0:20:46.650 --> 0:20:51.210 wrong idea. People expect us to address and solve every 0:20:51.290 --> 0:20:55.090 single problem that exists in a city, he said, for example, 0:20:55.330 --> 0:21:01.250 mental health. We're not the government. Instead Tony turned his 0:21:01.330 --> 0:21:06.770 attention to a different community, his own personal community that 0:21:06.890 --> 0:21:11.290 he curated around himself. In his personal quest for happiness, 0:21:12.970 --> 0:21:16.450 Tony moved into an airstream trailer in an empty lot 0:21:16.570 --> 0:21:20.170 in downtown Las Vegas and moved some of his closest 0:21:20.210 --> 0:21:25.650 friends into other trailers. Because Tony believed in work life integration, 0:21:26.170 --> 0:21:29.770 those close friends tended also to be either his employees 0:21:30.330 --> 0:21:33.930 or business partners. Having them live around him meant he 0:21:33.930 --> 0:21:36.570 could call them in for work meetings at any hour 0:21:36.610 --> 0:21:42.050 of the day. Airstream park had fire pits and a 0:21:42.090 --> 0:21:46.690 stage for musical performances, and shipping containers that housed laundry 0:21:46.730 --> 0:21:52.730 facilities and crates of Fernet branca, Tony's favorite drink. It 0:21:52.810 --> 0:21:58.250 had chickens, dogs, cats, and a pet alpaca called Marley. 0:22:00.010 --> 0:22:03.930 A journalist described his experience of a night at airstream park. 0:22:05.250 --> 0:22:08.890 A bearded man was doing a handstand, A high school 0:22:08.890 --> 0:22:12.370 girl earl sang and played guitar. I saw Tony pick 0:22:12.410 --> 0:22:16.730 up a tambourine. I gathered that this idyllic scene was 0:22:16.810 --> 0:22:22.850 typical of life in Tony Shay's magical kingdom. Not every 0:22:22.970 --> 0:22:25.890 employee friend of Tony wanted to live in his trailer 0:22:25.970 --> 0:22:30.050 park id. Although Tyler Williams, who we met in the 0:22:30.090 --> 0:22:33.290 last episode, had grown close to Tony through his work 0:22:33.330 --> 0:22:37.410 as the fungineer at Zappo's, in charge of projects like 0:22:37.490 --> 0:22:41.490 the instant dance floor in the Zappo's lobby. Push a 0:22:41.530 --> 0:22:46.770 button labeled never push this button, and the lobby would 0:22:46.770 --> 0:22:51.970 pulster booming music, disco lights, and smoke from a smoke machine. 0:22:53.090 --> 0:22:57.930 Tyler was Tony's drinking buddy, but Tyler's wife said, no, 0:22:58.770 --> 0:23:03.490 We're not living in a trailer Tony wondered if Tyler's 0:23:03.530 --> 0:23:06.410 wife might like to work for him like other residents 0:23:06.410 --> 0:23:11.690 of the trailer park. No. Said. When Tony started to 0:23:11.770 --> 0:23:15.450 experiment with ketimin and got Tyler to take it with him, 0:23:15.490 --> 0:23:18.970 Tyler's wife told him to stop. I don't like who 0:23:19.010 --> 0:23:21.410 you are when you take that drug. She told Tyler, 0:23:22.170 --> 0:23:26.850 You're not the same Tyler that I know. Ketimin seemed 0:23:26.890 --> 0:23:31.610 to be changing Tony too. Tyler had access to Tony's 0:23:31.650 --> 0:23:36.490 Apple watchdata, and he could see that Tony hardly ever slept. 0:23:38.170 --> 0:23:41.370 Tony threw a party for a friend called Ryan, which 0:23:41.410 --> 0:23:46.370 involved Ryan being blindfolded bundled into a car handed a 0:23:46.410 --> 0:23:51.010 mysterious ice cold package and driven around Las Vegas before 0:23:51.250 --> 0:23:56.850 arriving at the party venue. The mysterious package turned out 0:23:56.890 --> 0:24:03.170 to be a frozen salmon. This all apparently made perfect 0:24:03.210 --> 0:24:07.970 sense to Tony, but not to anyone else. As Ryan 0:24:08.010 --> 0:24:11.090 put it to a fellow, guessed what the fuck is 0:24:11.170 --> 0:24:19.090 going on? An old flame visited Tony was shocked by 0:24:19.090 --> 0:24:22.490 what she found and begged him to get some sleep. 0:24:23.730 --> 0:24:27.250 When he insisted he was fine, she began to cry. 0:24:28.890 --> 0:24:31.930 The next morning, Tony showed her a wall of post 0:24:31.970 --> 0:24:35.850 it notes in his trailer. Each note had the name 0:24:35.890 --> 0:24:40.690 of a friend and a number from plus to minus three. 0:24:40.970 --> 0:24:44.810 You were a plus two till last night, Tony told her. 0:24:45.970 --> 0:24:50.170 Now you were a negative one point five. You were 0:24:50.250 --> 0:24:55.650 judging me, and I don't like to be judged. Tony 0:24:55.890 --> 0:24:59.250 needed help, but it was hard to tell him that. 0:24:59.570 --> 0:25:03.530 While remaining positive on his post it wall, Ryan of 0:25:03.610 --> 0:25:08.490 the Frozen Salmon had a try your CEO of Zappo's, 0:25:08.530 --> 0:25:13.290 he reminded Tony, and Zappos is owned by Amazon. You 0:25:13.410 --> 0:25:15.770 might think you can handle the drugs, but what if 0:25:15.770 --> 0:25:19.410 Amazon disagree? They could fire you. You don't want that. 0:25:20.690 --> 0:25:24.370 There's a rehab place in Park City. You like it there, 0:25:24.970 --> 0:25:29.050 You go to the Sundance Film Festival every year. Ryan 0:25:29.250 --> 0:25:35.730 was persistent and persuasive. Tony checked himself into rehab, but 0:25:35.970 --> 0:25:39.610 after less than two weeks he checked himself out again. 0:25:40.770 --> 0:25:46.490 This was, he decided, perfectly fine, but perhaps he had 0:25:46.530 --> 0:25:50.410 overlooked something. He asked Tyler to compile a list of 0:25:50.450 --> 0:25:52.970 the things that had made some of his friends think 0:25:53.010 --> 0:25:57.170 he needed rehab as we heard last time, like his 0:25:57.290 --> 0:26:02.210 ambition to become seven feet tall, recycle his urine inside 0:26:02.210 --> 0:26:07.210 his body, and solve world peace. He saw nothing on 0:26:07.290 --> 0:26:10.370 Tyler's list to worry about, but he decided that he 0:26:10.570 --> 0:26:14.730 wasn't going back to Vegas. Things hadn't been working out there, 0:26:15.210 --> 0:26:19.370 and he'd learned lessons. He would apply those lessons to 0:26:19.370 --> 0:26:25.930 build a new community in Park City. Cautionary tales will 0:26:25.970 --> 0:26:38.610 be back in a moment. Tony invited some of his 0:26:38.690 --> 0:26:42.690 friends to join him in Park City, not all of them, 0:26:42.730 --> 0:26:48.410 though not Frozen Salmon Ryan, for example, Ryan had manipulated 0:26:48.450 --> 0:26:50.930 him into going to rehab when there'd been nothing wrong 0:26:50.970 --> 0:26:54.690 with him. One lesson he had learned from Las Vegas 0:26:55.490 --> 0:26:58.050 was to cut off the people who tried to hold 0:26:58.130 --> 0:27:05.050 him back, Ryan was no longer welcome. It was early 0:27:05.210 --> 0:27:10.890 spring twenty twenty when Tony left rehab in the COVID lockdown. 0:27:11.330 --> 0:27:15.850 He seemed to thrive. He was drinking less. He seemed 0:27:15.850 --> 0:27:19.530 to be off the ketamin and the psychedelic mushrooms. He 0:27:19.610 --> 0:27:24.330 took long hikes in the mountains outside Park City. He 0:27:24.370 --> 0:27:29.170 looked fit and healthy, but he wasn't always making sense. 0:27:30.090 --> 0:27:35.290 He asked executives at Zappo's to abolish organizational calendars and 0:27:35.410 --> 0:27:39.930 instead get all employees into a collective state of flow. 0:27:41.090 --> 0:27:44.210 If they were all in the same flow state, he explained, 0:27:44.210 --> 0:27:48.890 they wouldn't need calendars. They just know where and when 0:27:48.930 --> 0:27:52.570 to turn up for meetings. As the lockdown east and 0:27:52.690 --> 0:27:56.690 restaurants reopened, Tony came up with a new idea called 0:27:56.930 --> 0:28:02.770 ten X. Participating restaurants in Park City would give members 0:28:02.770 --> 0:28:06.970 of the ten X scheme unlimited food and drink on Sundays. 0:28:07.610 --> 0:28:11.370 Tony would put the bill. Membership of ten X would 0:28:11.410 --> 0:28:17.250 cost just ten dollars. How could this possibly work for Tony? 0:28:17.690 --> 0:28:21.930 Everyone shrugged. He was a billionaire. He'd probably thought it through. 0:28:23.330 --> 0:28:29.250 Ten became Tony's watchword from his experience in Vegas. Tony 0:28:29.330 --> 0:28:33.050 had drawn the lesson that he hadn't been ambitious enough. 0:28:34.050 --> 0:28:37.890 Everything in Park City would be ten times bigger and 0:28:38.010 --> 0:28:44.210 happened ten times faster. Tony offered members of his entourage 0:28:44.210 --> 0:28:47.050 a ten percent commission for spending his money in the 0:28:47.090 --> 0:28:52.050 ways he asked. He started buying property in Park City. 0:28:53.170 --> 0:28:56.370 Whoever closed the deals for him got ten percent of 0:28:56.410 --> 0:29:00.730 the price. He started recruiting people to join his community, 0:29:01.610 --> 0:29:04.730 offering them a salary to well to do whatever they wanted, 0:29:04.770 --> 0:29:06.890 pretty much as long as they agreed to be happy. 0:29:07.770 --> 0:29:12.210 Whoever recruited these new community members would get ten percent 0:29:12.290 --> 0:29:16.650 of the salary Tony paid them. Tony bought a fleet 0:29:16.650 --> 0:29:20.890 of buses and asked an assistant to arrange a luxury makeover. 0:29:21.810 --> 0:29:27.450 It cost three point six eight million dollars. The assistant 0:29:27.770 --> 0:29:32.610 pocketed three hundred and sixty eight thousand dollars. In June, 0:29:32.730 --> 0:29:35.530 Tony invited some friends to go on a road trip 0:29:35.610 --> 0:29:39.730 in one of his luxury buses. Among them was Tyler Williams, 0:29:40.050 --> 0:29:42.890 who was still living in Las Vegas and working as 0:29:42.890 --> 0:29:48.650 the Zappo's fungineer. When Tyler arrived in Park City, he 0:29:48.730 --> 0:29:51.090 realized that he didn't know many of the people who 0:29:51.170 --> 0:29:55.450 now surrounded Tony. One of them, he learned, had only 0:29:55.530 --> 0:30:00.170 just met Tony and had immediately offered her ten million 0:30:00.330 --> 0:30:05.050 dollars to start a business, any business she liked. Tony 0:30:05.090 --> 0:30:08.330 got on the bus for the road trip wearing pajamas 0:30:08.690 --> 0:30:12.730 and carrying a box of crayons. He took a shower 0:30:13.210 --> 0:30:16.810 and stayed there till the water tank ran dry. He 0:30:16.890 --> 0:30:20.890 explained that they were all trapped in an Ai simulation 0:30:21.490 --> 0:30:24.610 and proposed that he breaked them free by setting fire 0:30:24.690 --> 0:30:29.930 to the bus with everyone inside. Then he asked for 0:30:29.970 --> 0:30:36.930 more mushrooms. After the bus trip, Tyler messaged Tony's dealer. 0:30:38.330 --> 0:30:42.490 Please don't sell Tony more drugs. He wrote, I know 0:30:42.650 --> 0:30:45.770 I can't match whatever Tony is offering, but I'll give 0:30:45.810 --> 0:30:51.530 you everything I have in this life. Tyler's phone pinged 0:30:52.370 --> 0:30:56.090 It was Tony, with a screen grab of Tyler's message 0:30:56.130 --> 0:30:59.210 to the dealer. The dealer had shared it with him. 0:31:00.610 --> 0:31:05.850 You went behind my back, said Tony. Tyler never heard 0:31:05.890 --> 0:31:13.170 from Tony again. In August twenty twenty, Tony invited the 0:31:13.210 --> 0:31:16.810 focusing a duel to visit his ranch in Park City. 0:31:18.370 --> 0:31:21.530 Tony had met Jewel a few years earlier at a 0:31:21.530 --> 0:31:28.050 retreat on the entrepreneur Richard Branson's private island. They'd become friends. 0:31:28.890 --> 0:31:33.610 Jewel found that Tony's ranch was filthy. Old food and 0:31:33.690 --> 0:31:39.050 dog feces littered the floor. Signs said not to clean up. 0:31:39.810 --> 0:31:43.370 Tony thought it was natural to leave trash lying around. 0:31:44.610 --> 0:31:51.170 Candles burned everywhere, dripping wax onto carpets and countertops. Tony 0:31:51.210 --> 0:31:55.770 had become fascinated by fire. All the taps were running 0:31:55.810 --> 0:31:59.490 in all the bathrooms. Tony liked the sound of running water. 0:32:00.730 --> 0:32:04.490 A surfboard was propped up against the window to Tony's room. 0:32:04.970 --> 0:32:11.090 Tony didn't like using doors. Jewel had met some of 0:32:11.210 --> 0:32:15.010 Tony's other friends in Las Vegas, but she didn't recognize 0:32:15.050 --> 0:32:20.490 anyone here. These people were new. Tony's doing great things. 0:32:20.850 --> 0:32:25.610 The new people told her, Tony's going through a creative metamorphosis. 0:32:26.290 --> 0:32:34.450 He's finding himself. Tony's a genius. Jewel found Tony sitting 0:32:34.450 --> 0:32:39.930 in underpants, surrounded by empty canisters of nitrous oxide. He 0:32:40.010 --> 0:32:44.730 looked thin and gaunt. He showed Jewel a post it 0:32:44.850 --> 0:32:49.730 note on which had scribbled some numbers. This, he said, 0:32:51.130 --> 0:32:57.570 is the algorithm for world peace. Jewel tried gently to 0:32:57.650 --> 0:33:00.850 engage Tony in conversation about a project she was working 0:33:00.890 --> 0:33:08.010 on a project about addiction. Tony told her, I'm the 0:33:08.090 --> 0:33:11.490 one percent of people people that can use these substances 0:33:11.530 --> 0:33:16.330 and they become good, they become a skill. He added, 0:33:17.170 --> 0:33:19.970 I've gotten rid of anybody who doubts what I'm doing. 0:33:22.130 --> 0:33:27.570 Jewel began to subtly interrogate everyone on Tony's ranch. What's 0:33:27.610 --> 0:33:32.570 your purpose here? Somebody assumed that Jewel must be after 0:33:32.650 --> 0:33:37.050 Tony's money and helpfully explained how to get it. Just 0:33:37.170 --> 0:33:39.810 write your project and a dollar amount on a post 0:33:39.850 --> 0:33:43.850