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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to What Goes Up, a weekly markets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My name is Mike Reagan. I'm a senior editor at Bloomberg.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Wildona Hirik, across Acid reporter with Bloomberg, and.

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Speaker 1: This week on the show, well WELDNA. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: if listeners quite understand what our work environment is at Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: We're all in this sort of open area. There's not

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Speaker 1: even cubicles, there's just desks, no knocks, tweets, so no

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Speaker 1: privacy none, and as a result, you can often overhear

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Speaker 1: other conversations, other reporters conversations, and I guess it's kind

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Speaker 1: of rude to eachstrap, but I mean.

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Speaker 2: I do it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we all do it.

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Speaker 2: I listened to your lunch orders.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of times what you overhear, what you

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Speaker 1: eaveschop on is super boring. You know, oh, why did

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Speaker 1: the stock market go Monday? And I'll say, not boring? Sure,

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Speaker 1: why is the market up today? What do you think

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Speaker 1: of this stock? You know? What does this economic data

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Speaker 1: mean for the market. That's where thing. It's very mundane stuff.

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Speaker 1: But about a decade ago, I was sitting near a

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Speaker 1: guy in next row over from me, who was on

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Speaker 1: the phone. I'd say ten hours a day, heavy Boston accent.

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Speaker 1: He was the most fun reporter to eavesdrop on I've

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Speaker 1: ever had in my career. Everyone else's asking about, you know,

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Speaker 1: the latest earnings and you know, what does the java's

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Speaker 1: claims number mean? And this guy would be talking about

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Speaker 1: scam artists, crime and strip clubs and drugs. Wow. I

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Speaker 1: wish I had recorded some of these interviews. It was

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Speaker 1: the most entertaining reporter evesdropping I think I've had in

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Speaker 1: my career.

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Speaker 2: I can only imagine. I'm so jealous. I'm dying of

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Speaker 2: jealousy right now because I'd love to hear some of

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Speaker 2: this stuff.

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Speaker 1: Well, don't be too jealous, because we have him. We

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Speaker 1: have him on the show this.

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Speaker 2: Week because he wrote a book that was I read

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Speaker 2: a lot.

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Speaker 1: Of books, not to you know, Oh, I know you do.

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Speaker 2: I read a lot of books, but this was like

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Speaker 2: the best book I've read this year. It was so fun.

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Speaker 2: I read it so fast. Maybe one of these days

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Speaker 2: we'll let our audience know what book it. Who the

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Speaker 2: guy is without further ado, it's Zeke Fox. He is

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Speaker 2: our Bloomberg colleague, and he's the author of the brand

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Speaker 2: new book number go up. Inside Crypto's wild rise and

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Speaker 2: staggering fall. Zeke, I'm so happy you could join us.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me and for putting up with my

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Speaker 3: really loud conversations all those years.

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Speaker 1: And I apologize for Eves wrapping on you all those years,

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Speaker 1: but no, it is possible.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Yeah, no, he's not sorry.

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Speaker 1: What was like do you remember any of the well, so,

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Speaker 1: Zeke was pretty famous as an investigative journalist in our

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Speaker 1: circles in the financial world, long before Crypto, and I

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Speaker 1: think the probably the stuff I was Eves dropping on

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Speaker 1: might have been like the payday lender scams. Uh, one

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Speaker 1: of the first things you really started digging deep into.

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Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaken, I mean, I have to admit that,

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Speaker 3: like you said, it's impossible, everyone's going to hear it.

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Speaker 3: And I talk pretty loud. I can't control myself. But

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Speaker 3: also I know that everyone's listening.

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Speaker 2: I want to sit next to you. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: request it.

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Speaker 1: Every new retrader should have to spend like a month's

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Speaker 1: sit next to Zeke and just listening to how he interviews.

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Speaker 1: It's a work of art.

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Speaker 3: I learned a lot from Max Abelson, who would sit

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Speaker 3: near me. It was also very like a loud talker

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Speaker 3: and was great at inter getting these billionaires to tell

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Speaker 3: him all their secrets. He would be really interested in

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Speaker 3: their stories, but also he wouldn't let them off the hook.

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Speaker 3: He'd be like, don't just tell me that the new

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Speaker 3: CEO of Goldman Sachs is a nice guy? Like how

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Speaker 3: is he nice? Was he nice to you last Thursday?

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Speaker 3: What did he do that was so nice? How did

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Speaker 3: his eyes look while he made that nice statement?

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Speaker 2: Okay, so you have your famous in the newsroom and

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Speaker 2: outside the newsroom for these strings of very interesting, intriguing stories,

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Speaker 2: very interesting characters. Mike mentioned the payday lenders. You have

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Speaker 2: so many. But so your new focus is crypto, and

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Speaker 2: I want to ask Q what made you go down

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Speaker 2: the crypto rabbit hole?

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Speaker 3: Resisted looking into crypto? Like you said, I have always

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Speaker 3: really liked scams, and people would tell me crypto is

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Speaker 3: perfect for you, But there's something about it that I

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Speaker 3: didn't like it, because I like when you've got like

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Speaker 3: a kind of complicated scam and you have to look

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Speaker 3: through all the paperwork and figure out like the loophole

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Speaker 3: they're using and with crypto, they're just like, hey, buy

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Speaker 3: my new coin, and then like suddenly they're a billionaire.

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Speaker 3: I got into it like everybody else through Fomo. I

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Speaker 3: had this fuddy who we have like a group chat,

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Speaker 3: and he was texting us all about something he called

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Speaker 3: doggy coin. And this is like the height of the pandemic. Dudes,

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Speaker 3: you got to get some of this doggy coin. It's

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Speaker 3: so funny. It's going to go up, and I'm like,

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Speaker 3: it's dogecoin. And this already went viral, like several years ago.

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Speaker 3: They made fun of it on the Daily Show. It

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Speaker 3: was not even funny to begin with. This will never

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Speaker 3: happen again. But like he was right, doge coin went

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Speaker 3: up and he made a fair amount of money. And

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Speaker 3: he's sending us pictures from Disney World. He's like, he said,

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Speaker 3: I'm freaking nostra damis. You know, if you had listened

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Speaker 3: to me and bought dogecoin, you'd all be rich now

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Speaker 3: in Disney World, Yes, which would be a I do

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Speaker 3: not want to go there, so all.

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Speaker 2: The prices are like extortions. Yeah, he must have made

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Speaker 2: a lot of money.

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Speaker 3: This primed me to be like, you know what I

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Speaker 3: really want to prove I am still right. This stuff

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Speaker 3: is dumb. I'm going to look into it. And then

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Speaker 3: I Joel Weber, the editor of BusinessWeek, came by and

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Speaker 3: was like he had an idea for a crypto story,

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Speaker 3: and like in the past I might have turned it down,

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Speaker 3: but this time I was like, no, I'm going to

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Speaker 3: look into it. And once I did, like the first

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Speaker 3: part of it was to go to one of these

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Speaker 3: crypto conferences, and I was just like, as soon as

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Speaker 3: I started, I was like, oh my god, this is

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Speaker 3: a crazy world. Whatever you think about crypto, these people

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Speaker 3: are making like billions of dollars. This has got to

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Speaker 3: be like one of the craziest things happened in the

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Speaker 3: history of finance. It turned into like a two year

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Speaker 3: trip down the rabbit hole. By the end, I was

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Speaker 3: in like Cambodia.

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Speaker 1: As one does. Yeah. But so that initial story from

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Speaker 1: Joel was about tether, which listeners who are unaware it's

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Speaker 1: a stable coin, which is a crypto coin that's meant

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Speaker 1: to track the US dollar exactly one to one, no

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Speaker 1: more and no less than. The idea is that he

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Speaker 1: maybe you made a bunch of money in crypto, and

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Speaker 1: now you want to store it in US dollar or

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Speaker 1: stable value, or you want to move it from one

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Speaker 1: exchange to the other, or whatever you want to do.

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Speaker 1: You want to keep it in that one dollar increment.

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Speaker 1: So Joel came here about tether, and that put you

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Speaker 1: onto the trail of a guy named Brock Pierce. So

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Speaker 1: talk to us about brock Pierce, and you're sort of

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Speaker 1: pursuit of him to find him and ask him about

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Speaker 1: what's going on with Tether.

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Speaker 3: The best resume I've ever seen of anyone in finance.

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Speaker 3: He started off early. He was a child actor. He's

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Speaker 3: in the Disney classic The Mighty Ducks and he plays

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Speaker 3: the coach Gordon Bombay in a flashback when he misses

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Speaker 3: this crucial penalty shot that haunts him decades later.

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Speaker 1: Away.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, it's right at the beginning of the movie.

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Speaker 3: Don't worry, So he went on. It wasn't just like

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Speaker 3: this one movie. He started in one called First Kid.

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Speaker 3: He had kind of like a Macaulay Culkin look. But

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Speaker 3: then he quit acting. As a teenager, he gets hired

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Speaker 3: at this dot com startup called den. He's given like

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Speaker 3: this great title, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a

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Speaker 3: year salary. What happens at Den truly bizarre. Not even

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Speaker 3: sure it's appropriate to talk about in this podcast. You'll

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Speaker 3: have to read about it. Yeah, But by the end

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Speaker 3: of it, he's fled to Spain with the founder of Den,

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Speaker 3: and he's gotten really into massively multiplayer online games. He

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Speaker 3: ran a virtual item trading companies. Basically, you want to

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Speaker 3: get ahead quick in this game everquestor World of Warcraft,

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Speaker 3: you could pay real money to buy the megasword and

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Speaker 3: then you know, bump up to level seventeen really quick.

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Speaker 3: This would be big business, and he eventually hired Steve

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Speaker 3: Bannon randomly to be like the chairman of the company.

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Speaker 3: They made a big I think they sold it to

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Speaker 3: Did they sell it to Goldman Sachs or Goldman Sacks

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Speaker 3: broker the deal. Anyway, he gets out of this deal rich,

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Speaker 3: and he sees the potential of making real money from

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Speaker 3: the virtual world, and he becomes one of the earliest

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Speaker 3: investors in crypto. There's some debate over how much credit

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Speaker 3: he gets, but he's a co founder of Tether, which

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Speaker 3: was this first stable coin. So when I went to

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Speaker 3: go look into Tether, the big mystery was like, by

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Speaker 3: the time I'm looking into it, Tether claims that they

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Speaker 3: have fifty billion dollars in the bank somewhere, but they

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Speaker 3: won't say where. So I'm trying to find this fifty

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Speaker 3: billion dollars. And at the time, people are really worried

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Speaker 3: about this. Jim Kramer's on TV being like this could

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Speaker 3: crash everything, Like where's Tether's money? They won't say. Even

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Speaker 3: Janet Yellen held a meeting of all the top financial

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Speaker 3: regulators where they're like, where's Tether's money, What's gonna happen?

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Speaker 3: What does this mean for financial market? Yeah, So as

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Speaker 3: I started to look into it, I just couldn't believe

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Speaker 3: that this coin that was seemingly so important basically appeared

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Speaker 3: to be like the central bank of crypto, a key

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Speaker 3: point in the infrastructure holding all these schemes together, had

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Speaker 3: been founded by the Mighty Ducks guy. So in the

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Speaker 3: book I talk about I went down to a crypto

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Speaker 3: conference in Miami and went to a party at Brock's

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Speaker 3: house or a house he'd rented for the conference, and

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Speaker 3: it was truly just like the weirdest scene, like everyone's

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Speaker 3: just sort of milling about, getting like drunk, drunker and drunker.

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Speaker 3: Brock's not there, And when After I spend like a

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Speaker 3: whole day there, Brock shows up and then immediately disappears.

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Speaker 3: I catch up with him at another conference in the Bahamas.

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Speaker 3: I hear from a friend of mine is like, hey,

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Speaker 3: last night, I was at the craziest party on this yacht.

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Speaker 3: It was this mega yacht that this crypto billionaire bought

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Speaker 3: from this Russian oligarch. And she's just showing me her Instagram.

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Speaker 3: She shows me this video of him jumping off the

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Speaker 3: yacht and I'm like, oh my god, Brock's here. So

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Speaker 3: I text him. I'm like, can I come to your yacht?

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Speaker 3: He sends a speedboat to the sequel. Yes, it was

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Speaker 3: very I'm not gonna lie, it was very cool. So

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Speaker 3: when we finally talk and get into it and talk

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Speaker 3: about Tether, at this point he's sold his stake in

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Speaker 3: the company, he says for no money, and he it

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Speaker 3: turns out to be kind of like a dead end,

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Speaker 3: like he doesn't really know where this fifty billion dollars is.

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Speaker 3: But he's a really compelling interview. When we started talking

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Speaker 3: about like the mystery and how does he have any

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Speaker 3: clues about how to find Tether's money. But he's like

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Speaker 3: that do not mess this one up. This could be

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Speaker 3: your big chance, and I'm like, I totally agree, But also,

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Speaker 3: what's going on here, Brock, I.

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Speaker 1: Don't think you guys are thinking of the chance and

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Speaker 1: the same sort of outcome.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I think what he was saying is that Crypto

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Speaker 3: is going to do huge things for the world, and

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Speaker 3: if I'm just going to be like another hater, that's

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Speaker 3: how it wouldah.

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Speaker 2: Teather ends up being the crux of the book. I

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Speaker 2: would say, so much revolves around Tether and coming things

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Speaker 2: just leading you back to Tether. But one of maybe

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Speaker 2: the more interesting avenues was with this character named Vicky,

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Speaker 2: who I like to call your pseudo girlfriend, maybe because

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Speaker 2: that's an interesting way to put it. So tell us

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Speaker 2: who Vicky is, how that relationship developed, and then what

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Speaker 2: that led you to. And this is I mean, really,

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Speaker 2: this was like such a great part of the book.

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Speaker 3: One of the questions I have as throughout my two

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Speaker 3: years is who's using tether. One of the people I

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Speaker 3: find who's using it a lot I won't get is

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Speaker 3: Sam Bankman freed for his exchange FTX. But another thing

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Speaker 3: I hear about is people crooks are using this for

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Speaker 3: like money laundering, and then one day, I get one

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Speaker 3: of those random messages that like everybody gets. It's just

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Speaker 3: like a text mess and it's just like, hey, David,

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Speaker 3: like how's it going. And I'm like, I'm not David.

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Speaker 1: And everyone else ignores these text messages. Yeah, it's like

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Speaker 1: I think we got a story here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like I was kind of like, you know what,

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Speaker 3: let's see where this goes. And so I wrote back.

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Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not David, I'm Zeke, but like,

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Speaker 3: who are you? And she says she's Vicky, and Vicky

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Speaker 3: from New York, right from New York. Yes, and we

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Speaker 3: kind of become pals. And she doesn't immediately let on

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Speaker 3: to what her angle is. She's just telling me about herself,

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Speaker 3: asking me what I like to do about my life.

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Speaker 3: She asked me to send her a picture.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like the typical catfishing scheme at first. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's not quite that right. I was kind of playing

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Speaker 1: along and waiting for this to happen. And what it

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Speaker 1: is that she starts to let on that she's a

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Speaker 1: great crypto trader, like she's learned some tricks from like

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Speaker 1: her uncle or something. After like days of chatting and

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Speaker 1: where I finally had to be like, Vicky, I need

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Speaker 1: one hundred grand so I can get a Tesla. And

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Speaker 1: then she was like, I'll let you in on my secret.

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Speaker 1: And this is what I really wanted, what I was

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Speaker 1: waiting for. She has me download like a crypto trading

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Speaker 1: app that I had to like, she had structured me

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Speaker 1: how to sideload it on my iPhone, like it wasn't

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Speaker 1: from the official app store, and it looked like pretty legit.

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Speaker 1: But this is how the scam works. They get you

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Speaker 1: to buy tether on a regular trading app like coinbase,

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Speaker 1: orcrypto dot com, and then send it to this special

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Speaker 1: app where you're gonna learn how to use the like

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Speaker 1: short term nodes, and like, once you've sent the money

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Speaker 1: to it was called zbxss, it appears to be in

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Speaker 1: your account and everything, just like it would be on

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Speaker 1: a normal app, and like if you make trades, they'll

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Speaker 1: show you gains. They might even let you make a

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Speaker 1: small withdrawal, but like, really, once you've sent the tether

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Speaker 1: over to zbxss, it's gone. So at this point I

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Speaker 1: feel like I've gotten her tether address, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like I've let this go on long enough, and I'm

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Speaker 1: like Vicky, I have to tell you, Like I'm an

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Speaker 1: investigative reporter. I've been looking into these kinds of crypto

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Speaker 1: scams and how they use teather, and I've heard some

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Speaker 1: like disturbing things about what might be going on, which

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Speaker 1: I'll get into. Can we talk about can we get

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Speaker 1: real here? And then Vicky just said oh no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: it's not what you think, and she disappeared.

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Speaker 2: I'm shocked.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So this is the real crazy part, which is

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Speaker 3: that I learned from reports out of Cambodia that a

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Speaker 3: lot of the people who run these kinds of scams

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Speaker 3: are themselves victims. And it sounds like some sort of

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Speaker 3: Quanon conspiracy theory, but they're victims of human trafficking. And

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Speaker 3: there's actually these whole office towers, floor after floor of

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Speaker 3: people who've been let's say they've been lured from say

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Speaker 3: like Vietnam, with the offer of like a good job

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Speaker 3: and like customer service. Then when they get there, they're trapped.

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Speaker 3: They're told they can't leave, they're beaten, they get electric shocks,

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Speaker 3: other forms of torture, and they're just made They're given

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Speaker 3: like ten phones each and made to like try to

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Speaker 3: lure people into scams from around the world. So I

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Speaker 3: suspected that Vicky was like one of these people, and

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Speaker 3: I wanted to, Like I was hoping she would tell

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Speaker 3: me more about like her working conditions, or that even

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Speaker 3: I might be able to, like somehow help her.

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Speaker 1: But no Dice.

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Speaker 3: So I start to go down this rabbit hole of

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Speaker 3: these other people who've looked into this, and there's actually

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Speaker 3: this crazy organization of people who've been scammed who, instead

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Speaker 3: of trying to get revenge, have made it their mission

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Speaker 3: to help these human trafficked scammers. Through them, I meet

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Speaker 3: a lot of experts are working on this. One guy

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Speaker 3: tells me that a crypto tracing expert, he estimates that

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Speaker 3: this accounts for like that ten billion dollars has been

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Speaker 3: lost this way and all using tether. From these guys,

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Speaker 3: I get connected with a YouTuber in Vietnam who's his

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Speaker 3: thing that he pays ransoms to help people get out

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Speaker 3: of these scam compounds. He connects me with some of

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Speaker 3: the victims who he's helped rescue, and I start talking

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Speaker 3: with them with a translator about their experiences. And I

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Speaker 3: meet this one guy, Twee, who had just gotten out

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Speaker 3: of one of the most famous compounds in Cambodia. He

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Speaker 3: tells me about just like horrific things like this. He's

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Speaker 3: in this compound that holds some people, say like five

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Speaker 3: or six thousand people.

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Speaker 1: Wow. And it's all in Cambodia.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and Seannookville in southwestern Cambodia, and it's it's called Chinatown.

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Speaker 3: It's run by like Chinese gangsters. So I've made arrangements

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Speaker 3: with two reporters in Cambodia who had really been instrumental

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Speaker 3: in exposing this problem and bringing it to light, and

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Speaker 3: went over to out there to meet some of these

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Speaker 3: victims and to see some of these compounds myself.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and this is a scam that sounds

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Speaker 1: like it's really would only be made possible because of

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Speaker 1: crypto and because of the sort of you know, no

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Speaker 1: border transactions that are allowed with crypto.

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Speaker 3: That's really what made me think it was so interesting,

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Speaker 3: because I yeah, like there've always been these kinds of scams,

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Speaker 3: but there haven't been such a first of all, I mean,

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Speaker 3: the Crypto's story makes it very plausible that or at

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Speaker 3: least mildly plausible, that someone like Vicky might have some

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Speaker 3: secret trading secret.

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Speaker 1: I mean, in the crypto world, like people are getting ridy.

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Speaker 1: Everyone's suffering from fomo. Like you said, you know, everyone's thinking,

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Speaker 1: you know, should I be in? Should I be in

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Speaker 1: this asset class? Everyone else's seems to be making money.

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Speaker 1: It's it's perfect timing for a scam like that.

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Speaker 3: I feel weird just even thinking about it, but I'm

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Speaker 3: getting what I would get to Cambodia with these reporters,

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Speaker 3: mech Doron, Danielle Keaton Olsen, who had brought this Chinatown

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Speaker 3: problem to light. Right at the entrance to Chinatown, there

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Speaker 3: was a cash exchange store and I could still see

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Speaker 3: their like faded sign where they offered to trade tether

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Speaker 3: for cash. And like I'd spent like years looking ato crypto,

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Speaker 3: I'm not seeing any place where it's actually used in

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Speaker 3: the real world. But then, like in panom Pen, I

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Speaker 3: went to a currency exchange place to advertise teather. Outside

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Speaker 3: I saw a bunch of these and I, you know,

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Speaker 3: I had some tether on my phone, zapped it over

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Speaker 3: to this Chinese guy working behind the counter. He gave

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Speaker 3: me US dollars, no questions asked, and finally I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 3: like this is what crypto is good for.

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Speaker 2: That's another part of the book that I wanted to

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Speaker 2: ask you about. Where you go to this money exchange

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Speaker 2: and this man comes in with flip flops and pajama pants.

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Speaker 2: He has this big plastic bundle of one hundred dollars bills. Ye.

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Speaker 3: So this currency exchange was in the capital in Panompen

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Speaker 3: and the capital of Cambodia, in a sort of Chinese neighborhood.

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Speaker 3: So the boss was Chinese. This other Chinese guy walks

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Speaker 3: in kind of like hungover and just walks out with Yeah,

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Speaker 3: this brick of hundreds that a clerk told me later

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Speaker 3: was fifty grand. This is the Teather exchange. And I

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Speaker 3: since I sent some tether to the exchange place, I

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Speaker 3: got their wallet address and was able to see that

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Speaker 3: they were making big transfers every day. And this is

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Speaker 3: just one of many exchange places. And I visited another

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Speaker 3: town that was reportedly home to a lot of these

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Speaker 3: scam compounds with forced labor. It was the first place

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Speaker 3: I saw in Cambodia. I crossed the border, I got

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Speaker 3: off the bus. I'm at this town that's full of

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Speaker 3: like scam compounds where I've seen videos of like workers

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Speaker 3: getting beaten and right in the parking lot of one

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Speaker 3: of these casinos. I see a little booth that's advertising

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Speaker 3: trade your dollars for tether, Trade your tether for dollars,

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Speaker 3: And I was just like, I don't know, it's not

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Speaker 3: evidence of anything, but I'm.

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Speaker 1: Like, so, you know, I think throughout the crypto boom,

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Speaker 1: many people were where released suspicious that yeah, it's frequently

387
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Speaker 1: you crypto is frequently used to facilitate scams like this

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00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:06,960
Speaker 1: or make sort of this new version of these scams possible.

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Speaker 1: But what caught a lot of people by surprise, I

390
00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:12,919
Speaker 1: think fil Donna and I included, and then many in

391
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Speaker 1: the press, is that some of the players who were considered,

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Speaker 1: you know, the righteous leaders of this movement were scam

393
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Speaker 1: artists too, allegedly. And obviously the name that comes to

394
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Speaker 1: mind is Sam Bankman Freed. He really seemed to have

395
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Speaker 1: the world convinced that he was just sort of this

396
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Speaker 1: honest programmer who's building the infrastructure for crypto and you

397
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Speaker 1: can trust him. He testified before Congress. You met Sam

398
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Speaker 1: a few times in the Bahamas, and I think one

399
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Speaker 1: time in Miami too. It just talked to us about

400
00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:53,320
Speaker 1: meeting him, your first impressions and just kind of your

401
00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:55,160
Speaker 1: reporting process with SBF.

402
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Speaker 3: I met him first time at this first crypto conference

403
00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:01,360
Speaker 3: I went to in Miami. He was there to have

404
00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:05,080
Speaker 3: the Miami Heats arena named after his company. He was

405
00:21:05,119 --> 00:21:08,560
Speaker 3: not like quite so famous yet, and I just wanted

406
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:11,960
Speaker 3: to ask him some questions about tether But as soon

407
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:13,639
Speaker 3: as I met him, I'm like, this guy is a

408
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:18,080
Speaker 3: really fascinating character in himself. He's twenty nine years old,

409
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:22,199
Speaker 3: he's worth like twenty billion. But what really gets me

410
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:26,000
Speaker 3: going is that he tells me about I mean, his

411
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:30,320
Speaker 3: shop worn story about effective altruism. But like, when this

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00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:34,119
Speaker 3: guy was a teenager at MIT, and I've talked with

413
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Speaker 3: other people who knew him, like, I don't think this

414
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:36,400
Speaker 3: is made up.

415
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:37,199
Speaker 1: He was.

416
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Speaker 3: He was a vegan, he was an activist. He was

417
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Speaker 3: like handing out animal cruelty pamphlets. Then he meets this

418
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:48,120
Speaker 3: philosopher who's they're talking about life. Sam is like, how

419
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:50,359
Speaker 3: could I do something good for the world, And a

420
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Speaker 3: philosopher is like, I got an idea. Yeah, I mean,

421
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:56,200
Speaker 3: anyone can give out pamphlets. How about you get rich

422
00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:58,679
Speaker 3: and give the money away? And he called this earning

423
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:01,800
Speaker 3: to give. He he decides to do that and then

424
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:05,119
Speaker 3: ten years later when I meet him, he's legitimately one

425
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 3: of the richest people in the world.

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Speaker 1: See Ke, You've got one of the best BS detectors

427
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Speaker 1: in the world. It feels like that, at least at

428
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:14,800
Speaker 1: the beginning, was genuine. Do you think this altruism?

429
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:19,919
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, now that FTX has been revealed to be

430
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:23,920
Speaker 3: like a fraud and that users lost so much money,

431
00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:26,680
Speaker 3: he's about to go on trial. A lot of people

432
00:22:26,760 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 3: have questioned, did he ever believe any of that? Was

433
00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:31,440
Speaker 3: it a scam from the start? I kind of think

434
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 3: that it was true, that he really did want to

435
00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:38,160
Speaker 3: make money to give it away, and that in fact,

436
00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 3: his belief that he was a good person who was

437
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:44,639
Speaker 3: going to do good things for the world may have

438
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 3: led him to take risks to do fraudulent things because

439
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:51,840
Speaker 3: he was like, if it's going to make me rich,

440
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:54,480
Speaker 3: is justified, because I might save the world from the

441
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:56,879
Speaker 3: evil robots that are coming. But yeah, so when I

442
00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 3: met him, I was suspicious of Crypto, but I did

443
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 3: not think I thought it was a bit weird that

444
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 3: he's supposedly this great guy, but he's running what's essentially

445
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 3: like an offshore gambling parlor where like I think people

446
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:11,400
Speaker 3: are all going to lose their money because like even

447
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 3: day trading is a bad idea, like it's proven to

448
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 3: be a money loser.

449
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 1: But I mean, you can be an honest broker running

450
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: an offshore gambling parlor.

451
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:21,720
Speaker 3: Right I so immediately though, I was really taken by

452
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 3: his idea, because, like you were saying, I've always talked

453
00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 3: with these scammers. I've actually even sort of had this

454
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,760
Speaker 3: idea that it would be kind of cool if somebody

455
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:33,360
Speaker 3: ran a scam for good and gave them money to charity.

456
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:37,479
Speaker 3: And one of our first like in depth conversations I

457
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:39,880
Speaker 3: was talking with Sam, he hadn't given very much money

458
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 3: away yet because and he was like, listen, I've given

459
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,119
Speaker 3: away like a hundred million, but it's hard for me

460
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,360
Speaker 3: because so much of my net worth is locked up

461
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 3: in the valuation of his private company, which I thought

462
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,679
Speaker 3: was like, come on, you can't borrow against it. But whatever,

463
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 3: it was at least like a plausible excuse. But I

464
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:01,119
Speaker 3: was like, Sam, you have so much credibility the crypto world.

465
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 3: You could do a scam right now. You could probably

466
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 3: make like several billion dollars give it away right now.

467
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 3: Wouldn't that be better? Than like whatever you're working on.

468
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 3: If what you're working on is too slow, and he

469
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 3: was just like, I think I could make more money

470
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 3: in the long run, being honest that checked out. I

471
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 3: was like, you know, you're probably right, even if you

472
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:25,640
Speaker 3: could make a few billion with a scam. I later

473
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 3: went to go visit him in the Bahamas after FTX

474
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 3: had collapsed, but before the cops got there, and he

475
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 3: told me he was like, there was one thing I

476
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 3: wasn't totally straightforward with you about the first time we met.

477
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 3: You know, I told you my net worth was twenty billion.

478
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 3: If you like really looked at my networth on paper,

479
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 3: it was more like one hundred billion. He had so

480
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 3: much money of but all in these random coin cryptocurrencies,

481
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 3: some of which like he'd invent it. But I don't know.

482
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 3: I think they the people, these guys really all got

483
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,640
Speaker 3: caught up in the craziness.

484
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:20,640
Speaker 1: And who wouldn't. I don't know, Zeke, your stories are

485
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: so crazy that for the first time ever on Booker's Up,

486
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna skip our craziest things and just

487
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 1: keep hearing more of Zeke's fat.

488
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it pales in comparison to some of this

489
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 2: stuff that we're hearing. So the book, Like you just

490
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 2: told us like three or four great stories, there's so

491
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:40,679
Speaker 2: many more in the book. And what struck me is

492
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 2: that you took part in a lot of this, like

493
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:44,959
Speaker 2: you actually did, you know, like the trading with and

494
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,880
Speaker 2: texting with Vicki. You also try to buy your own

495
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 2: NFT so you can get into a party that you

496
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 2: ended up not having to need the NFT for, right,

497
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 2: And I'm just wondering about like your real world interactions

498
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:01,439
Speaker 2: with the crypto industry, the crypto space, the people who

499
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 2: are part of this space, and maybe some of the

500
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:10,120
Speaker 2: shortcomings of what you experienced. You know, when you sent

501
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 2: Vicki one hundred tether you actually sent eighty one tethers

502
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 2: because the fees were so high that they exchange took

503
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 2: and et cetera. There was just so much of your

504
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 2: experience being a part of this.

505
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was instructive to try to use crypto myself,

506
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 3: and I was kind of shamed into it because crypto

507
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 3: people were always like, you can't, you're biased, you don't

508
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 3: have crypto, you haven't tried it. How do you know

509
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 3: about crypto? So I finally was like, all right, fine,

510
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 3: you got me, I'm gonna try it. And I bought

511
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 3: a very expensive NFT one of these cartoons that go

512
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,160
Speaker 3: for like hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mine was only

513
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:52,360
Speaker 3: twenty thousand. It was like a picture of a melting monkey.

514
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 2: When I read this part of it, I literally was like,

515
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 2: don't do it, don't do it.

516
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you get one of these, you're allowed to

517
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 3: go to ape Fest, which is like a week long festival.

518
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 3: But it was very instructive. This kind of boring part

519
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 3: of just like buying this ape because the process of

520
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 3: sending money from my bank to like crypto world was

521
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 3: just like horrible. It was terrifying. And when I learned

522
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 3: essentially if you know browser extensions like ad block, the

523
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:27,359
Speaker 3: little icons next to the URL box and Chrome, it

524
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 3: was like, oh, like my money is going to live

525
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 3: there and if I click the wrong button, it'll just

526
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 3: be gone. I'm like, this is no fun in a

527
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 3: crypto app. It was a really popular one called meta Mask,

528
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 3: and when you sign up, they have you watch this

529
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 3: video where they're like, don't lose your password, we really

530
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 3: mean it in fact for real, have it engraved on

531
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: a piece of metal and then bury it in your backyard,

532
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, first of all, no, I'm not

533
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:55,120
Speaker 3: doing that. I'm too lazy. And then when I got

534
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 3: to ape Fest, this revealed like another problem with NFTs,

535
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:01,919
Speaker 3: which is that they're supposed to be cool. When I

536
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 3: got to the club, everybody had a board epe. Mine

537
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 3: was the cheapest one, and even like pimply teenagers were like,

538
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 3: your board ape sucks. I even was able to confront

539
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 3: one of the promoters of the bard Ape Yacht Club,

540
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 3: who really, it's got very popular with celebrities. One of

541
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 3: the celebrities that was like instrumental and giddio it going

542
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 3: with Jimmy Fallon. He was there, but I was like, hey, Jimmy,

543
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:28,440
Speaker 3: check out my board ape. He pretended to be interested.

544
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 3: At this point, the value of board apes had recently

545
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 3: gone down by like fifty percent. It had still had

546
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 3: a long way to go.

547
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 2: But maybe it was this party or a different party

548
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 2: where you asked somebody like, what is the how can

549
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 2: this be useful for the everyday person? And the person

550
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 2: said to you, why are you asking me this? Like

551
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 2: why do you care so much about that aspect of it?

552
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 2: It's not that important.

553
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 3: He was just like, truly baffled. That was at a

554
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 3: party for a different NFT thing called Degenerate Trash pandas

555
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 3: I tried to go to one called Solana Monkey Business

556
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 3: that they were costing twenty five thousand at the time,

557
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 3: but I wasn't ready. I was like, I'm not paying

558
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 3: for like a trash Panda or like monkey business. I

559
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 3: want the one that Justin Bieber has. But as soon

560
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 3: as I got that board ape, I was like, I

561
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 3: have to unload this, like I couldn't sleep. I was

562
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 3: able to sell it after the ape fest at only

563
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 3: a small loss.

564
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: Zeke, let me square the circle here a little bit

565
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: and bring it back to Tether. You know, as we

566
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: started at the beginning, this is sort of what drew

567
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 1: you into the crypto rabbit hole. And yeah, and you

568
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: and I have talked about this before, and your original

569
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: Business Week story on Tether is just phenomenal. You know,

570
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: if I recommend people read the book, but also go

571
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: back and read that original BusinessWeek story, and I think

572
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: you had a line in there. How Tether as a

573
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: company seems to be like, you know, it's a carpet

574
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: knitted out of red flags basically, you know, there was

575
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: so much there to be suspicious of and rightly so,

576
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: you know, I no one knew where these reserves were.

577
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: They said they invested in commercial paper. No one in

578
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: the commercial paper market had ever heard of them. It

579
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: just seemed so suspiciously. But the ironic thing is that

580
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: so many things fell apart in crypto, FTX and Terra,

581
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: you know, the Luna Holy ecosystem and all the dominoes

582
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:17,959
Speaker 1: that fell afterward. Tether is still there. It's still for

583
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: most of the time worth a buck. Walk us through

584
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 1: sort of the story arc of Tether from where you

585
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: started into where we are now and how you're thinking

586
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: about Tether, you know, is all these red flags what happened?

587
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was very surprising. I mean I was not

588
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 3: alone in thinking that they were like the most suspicious

589
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 3: company in crypto, and like when I published after I'd

590
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 3: investigated for a little while. I mean, there's a whole

591
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 3: backstory of it's the boss of Tether, who's former plastic

592
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 3: surgeon from Milan who had like a weird career and

593
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 3: import export business. But Tether was sued by New York's

594
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 3: Attorney General for misrepresenting its reserves. But in twenty twenty two,

595
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 3: in the summer when everybody's all the other crypto companies

596
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 3: started collapsing, really like a legitimately high percentage of all

597
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 3: the people I met in crypto their companies had were collapsing,

598
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 3: but Tether stayed strong and like they still have not

599
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 3: provided the detailed accounting of their risk of where they're

600
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 3: keeping their money that the critics had asked for. But

601
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 3: I mean, the way Tether works, you send money in,

602
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 3: they send you these Tether tokens, and if you send

603
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 3: the tokens back, they're supposed to send you the money back.

604
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 3: And people you can tell from looking at the blockchain

605
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 3: people during the crash, people did send back in billions

606
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 3: of dollars, billions of tokens, like five or ten billion

607
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 3: worth of tokens. And if those people did not get

608
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 3: their money, we would have heard the complaint. Tether was

609
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 3: able to send back a lot of money, Like they

610
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 3: clearly had at least a lot of money, and it

611
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 3: kept growing to where now it's seventy or eighty billion

612
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 3: dollars that they have. To the skeptics, they're like, hey,

613
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 3: just because they had if they may have had five billion,

614
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that everything they're saying now is accurate.

615
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 3: The owners of Tether are like, what more do you

616
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 3: want from us? We redeemed like ten billion dollars. But

617
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 3: the real plot twist for Teather came with interest rates.

618
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 3: So their business used to be kind of a bad business.

619
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:20,479
Speaker 3: They were sitting on all this money, but they couldn't

620
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 3: do anything with it.

621
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: Theoretically would be in the safest investments sealing nothing right.

622
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,239
Speaker 3: And that's where like there were some questions early on

623
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 3: that I think were legitimate. Were they taking some risks

624
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 3: with that to juice their returns? Now they can just

625
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 3: put it in treasuries. It's a small operation. And these guys,

626
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 3: if if their numbers now are accurate, they're saying they

627
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 3: are put buying treasuries and they're earning like billions of

628
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 3: dollars a year, like they're one of the more If

629
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 3: if this is all accurate, Tether's one of the most

630
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 3: profitable companies in the world. Like they're making more money

631
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 3: than like Nike. It's and it's just like this weird

632
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 3: former plastic surgeon in Italy, buddy from the importing business.

633
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 3: They are like the real winners of crypto and I

634
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 3: when I went down to the Bahamas in at the

635
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 3: end when Sam bankman Fried's company had collapsed. He was

636
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 3: a big user of tether, all these offshore casinos were,

637
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 3: and I thought maybe now he'd let me in on

638
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 3: the secret. I was like, so about Tether you got,

639
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 3: maybe now you can tell me the big secret.

640
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: And he was like, no, Well, don I think I'm

641
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: gonna petition. Have my desk moved back closer to Zeke?

642
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what's next? What's next on the

643
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: Zeke Fox agenda?

644
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 3: Honestly, I've I only I wrote this book now because

645
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 3: I felt I'd never felt like I'd found the right story.

646
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 3: And I really don't know how I'm gonna how I'm

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Speaker 3: gonna match it.

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Speaker 2: He needs a vacation.

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Speaker 1: Well, Zeke Fox, author of Number Go Up and our

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Speaker 1: good friend here at Bloomberg. We could go on for hours,

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Speaker 1: but I think I think that's gonna have to do

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Speaker 1: with Zeke. Thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Mike, Thanks.

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Speaker 2: What Goes Up. We'll be back next week. Until then,

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Speaker 2: you can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, website and

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00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 2: app or wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love it

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Speaker 2: if you took the time to rate and review the

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Speaker 2: show so more listeners can find us. You can find

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Speaker 2: us on Twitter, follow me at Wildona Hirich. Mike Reagan

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00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 2: is at Reaganonymous. You can also follow Bloomber Podcasts at podcasts.

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Speaker 2: What Goes Up is produced by Stacy Wong and our

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Speaker 2: head of podcasts is Sage Paulman. Thanks so much for

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Speaker 2: listening and we'll see you next week