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Speaker 1: from you. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about
Speaker 1: making better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2: And I'm Mate Silver. What's the thing with the show, Maria,
Speaker 2: I think today is people who just won't go away.
Speaker 2: So there have been new books out on President Biden's
Speaker 2: condition during his twilight in office. Biden was also diagnosed
Speaker 2: with cancer. This week, in art condolences to him and
Speaker 2: his family, we'll talk about We'll talk about will flog
Speaker 2: the Biden horse one more time? Maria.
Speaker 1: We'll be talking about Biden's decision or a lack thereof,
Speaker 1: to step down in a timely fashion, what that meant,
Speaker 1: and some psychology behind it. Yes, And then in other
Speaker 1: people who we just can't stop talking about, We'll be
Speaker 1: talking about Elizabeth Holmes, Theahos and Elizabeth Holmes's partner Billy
Speaker 1: Evans and his new startup, which, surprise surprise, promises an
Speaker 1: innovative way of testing blood.
Speaker 2: The Alstamux cherl manager Nico Harrison. It's not in the
Speaker 2: same league as Joe Biden or Elizabeth Holmes. He just
Speaker 2: made an extremely stupid trade early this year, but he
Speaker 2: was rewarded for it with the number one overall pick
Speaker 2: in the NBA draft, likely to be Cooper Flagg. We'll
Speaker 2: talk about is the NBA draft lottery rigged? Of course
Speaker 2: it isn't. Hahaha.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it night, Nate. Way back when you
Speaker 1: were one of the first prominent voices to say that
Speaker 1: Biden should not be running for reelection and that he
Speaker 1: should be stepping down, and you got a lot of
Speaker 1: hate for that. When you were saying it, almost no
Speaker 1: one else was, and you know it was. It was
Speaker 1: a big deal. And now we've got several books coming
Speaker 1: out that basically say, oops, more people should have been
Speaker 1: saying it. They should have been saying it earlier, and
Speaker 1: what a clusterfuck. Let's let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there are a few things that make this relevant.
Speaker 2: Right when we have talked on this program before about
Speaker 2: the book Fight by Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnes. There's
Speaker 2: another book called Original Sin, which takes a slightly longer exposure.
Speaker 2: Fights mostly about the period where Biden has a terrible
Speaker 2: debate and then is kind of forced drap out. This
Speaker 2: takes a longer lens. I'm not running yet. I've read
Speaker 2: the extensive excerpts and previews of it. That's one thing. Right.
Speaker 2: Number Two, Joe Biden over the weekend was diagnosed with
Speaker 2: I believe stage for prostate cancer. Correct, yes, correct, That
Speaker 2: has spread to his bones. It's a pretty advanced stage.
Speaker 2: So our condolences to Biden's family. But this is not
Speaker 2: entirely non germane to the topic at hand. Right. Third,
Speaker 2: the audio transcript of one of the earlier warning signs
Speaker 2: for Biden was he was under investigation by a special
Speaker 2: counsel named Robert her last year for document actually two
Speaker 2: years ago, I guess right. For document retention practice is
Speaker 2: the thing that no president seems to be very careful
Speaker 2: about these days. Her issued her reports. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to charge him because he's quote an elderly man with
Speaker 2: a poor memory, and what's the right he's gonna go
Speaker 2: over to the witness stand and forget half the shit anyway. Right, So,
Speaker 2: of course all of the Biden people and all the
Speaker 2: apparently nonpartisan media flipped out about this when it happened. However,
Speaker 2: the Biden White House refused to release the audio or
Speaker 2: the video of these interviews, right, making up some bullshit
Speaker 2: excuse that only stupid people bought. But there are lot
Speaker 2: of stupid people in election years, right. And so now
Speaker 2: the audio's out, and like Biden's stuttering and stammering, it's
Speaker 2: not any different than you would expecting that they were
Speaker 2: afraid of it being being released. But still that shines
Speaker 2: more of a lens on the story. But Marie, can
Speaker 2: I give you the kind of hard questions so I
Speaker 2: don't have to answer it? First? How did you feel
Speaker 2: when you heard about the cancer news?
Speaker 1: I felt obviously absolutely uh horrible for Biden. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't wish that on anyone. I also, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that you know, we're in a really shitty
Speaker 1: situation right now and the country is really really hurting,
Speaker 1: and we've talked on this pod a lot. It doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter kind of what someone's political leanings are to
Speaker 1: be able to point to some things like you know,
Speaker 1: what's happened to usaid, to scientific funding, to research, to innovation,
Speaker 1: you know, tariffs, as we've talked about many, many times,
Speaker 1: to all of these facets of American life, First Amendment protections,
Speaker 1: all of these things. And you know, that's I don't
Speaker 1: want to say squarely on Biden's shoulders, but a lot
Speaker 1: of that is on Biden's shoulders for you know, refusing
Speaker 1: to do what he said he would do. Right, if
Speaker 1: you remember Nate, you probably actually remember this quote more
Speaker 1: accurately than I do. But what was his what was
Speaker 1: his way of phrasing it when he was elected the
Speaker 1: first time? Right? I think he said that he was
Speaker 1: going to be a bridge, right, something like that, that
Speaker 1: he was someone who was going to be a bridge
Speaker 1: to kind of protect against Trump and bring America forward.
Speaker 1: And then you know, a bridge ends, right, A bridge
Speaker 1: goes from bank to bank, and then you get off
Speaker 1: and you're on the other side. And at some point
Speaker 1: he decided that no, he wasn't really going to be
Speaker 1: a bridge. He was also he was also going to
Speaker 1: be the road on the other side, and he was
Speaker 1: the correct person to continue to continue on forward. And
Speaker 1: you know, here here's where we are. So I feel,
Speaker 1: you know, the two things are not related, somewhat related.
Speaker 1: I don't even know. I feel awful, right, Like, no
Speaker 1: one deserves an aggressive form of cancer. I wish I
Speaker 1: wish him quick, speedy recovery. I hope that they can
Speaker 1: treat it, you know, I hope that he has a
Speaker 1: comfortable old age. But I'm not in a very pro
Speaker 1: biden frame of mind in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have trouble mustering up that much sympathy under
Speaker 2: the circumstances, right, And the reason why is because I
Speaker 2: think probabilistically right, and like that's part of what colors
Speaker 2: the whole analysis to begin with, where like someone hits
Speaker 2: this age and that's a problem. But also if you
Speaker 2: are are now being diagnosed with this very aggressive cancer, right,
Speaker 2: wouldn't there have been signs of it before? I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I asked chet GPT the three model. People
Speaker 2: have different opinions on how appropriate is for medical diagnosis.
Speaker 2: But it's trying to summarize a bunch of research on
Speaker 2: the Internet and in journals and things like that, and
Speaker 2: it's said, yeah, there's a high probability that at the
Speaker 2: cancer is this advanced that it would have been detectable
Speaker 2: a year or so earlier. It's like an eighty or
Speaker 2: ninety percent chance. Right. So there's reporting I'm going to
Speaker 2: have not read original sin. There's reporting in fight about
Speaker 2: how you know, Biden's kind of avoiding the doctor quite
Speaker 2: a bit once his health becomes an issue. We just
Speaker 2: kind of just want to give people rope for this thing.
Speaker 2: And it's like, okay, so that's not great, right. You
Speaker 2: would think that after the debate you would say, Okay,
Speaker 2: I got everything checked out and a couple of problems,
Speaker 2: but here's a complete report. And instead he's kind of
Speaker 2: like pulling it Trump where he has these personal doctors
Speaker 2: that frankly aren't very fucking credible, right, or that the
Speaker 2: diagnosis had been made before and they you want to
Speaker 2: disclose it. I don't.
Speaker 1: Well, either of those things is pretty damning, because the
Speaker 1: first is, you know, we've I think we've all been
Speaker 1: there or you know that moment where like you think
Speaker 1: something's wrong and you're kind of in denial and you
Speaker 1: don't want to go to the doctor because because you
Speaker 1: don't want to confirm it. So you're like, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to put off this appointment, right, Like it's not
Speaker 1: that important because you you kind of you don't want
Speaker 1: to know. It's a very very human response. And but
Speaker 1: if you're kind of a president, then you have a
Speaker 1: responsibility to make sure that, Okay, I'm functioning well, I'm
Speaker 1: firing on all cylinders. There's nothing actually wrong because I have,
Speaker 1: you know, the weight of the country on my shoulders.
Speaker 1: So if he's avoiding the doctor, that's damning. However, if
Speaker 1: he goes and he knows that he has this cancer
Speaker 1: diagnosis and he hides it, that's also damning, right because
Speaker 1: if you have stage four cancer, get the fuck out
Speaker 1: of the race, right, Like that is something that is
Speaker 1: you know, it's awful, and like you should you should
Speaker 1: in no way be running for the presidency. I mean
Speaker 1: you should be at home focusing on your health, recovering.
Speaker 1: If he had received that diagnosis during his presidency, frankly,
Speaker 1: he should have resigned right then and there, passed over
Speaker 1: the presidency to Kamala Harris and said, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: dealing with stage four cancer. I'm you know, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm doing what's best for the country. So either way,
Speaker 1: whether he was avoiding the doctors or whether he knew
Speaker 1: and I have no idea, right, Obviously, neither one is
Speaker 1: a very good look for him as the president. And
Speaker 1: if we also just zoom out, like Nate, imagine that
Speaker 1: he had gotten reelected, right, and right now we're in
Speaker 1: We're in term two of the Biden presidency, and this
Speaker 1: news comes out this weekend, you know, four months in,
Speaker 1: and then everyone who says, you know, Biden is who
Speaker 1: was too old? Everyone's like, what are we even doing?
Speaker 1: Like how did we get here?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So, so the counterfactual is also kind of scary to
Speaker 1: think about.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, and you imagine if this had news
Speaker 2: had come out, then I think he would resign the presidency.
Speaker 1: I don't know, we would hope so, but at this
Speaker 1: point we don't know, right, given how he behaved during
Speaker 1: during a.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so impossible to imagine him winning, Like
Speaker 2: if somehow, I don't know, I mean, if somehow he
Speaker 2: had won, I mean, it would be I think, a
Speaker 2: disastrous presidency, you know what I mean, and in different ways,
Speaker 2: in different but like I again, I said on this
Speaker 2: program that you know, I was not going to vote
Speaker 2: for Joe Biden. My vote doesn't really matter, right, And
Speaker 2: I feel extremely validated in that, right, I with perfect hindsight.
Speaker 2: I mean, I wouldn't vote for Trump, but like I'm
Speaker 2: even further away from ever thinking it was appropriate to
Speaker 2: cast a vote for somebody who I mean again, in
Speaker 2: reporting these books suggests that people around him were worried
Speaker 2: about his ability to perform in a crisis, Right, you know,
Speaker 2: if you have a red phone moment and then his
Speaker 2: people like, well, is there aren't really any nothing disastrous happened. Well,
Speaker 2: I don't know, right.
Speaker 1: We got lucky, We got lucky.
Speaker 2: That is also, I mean, the world is less peaceful
Speaker 2: than when Ryden took over, right, I mean, Israel and
Speaker 2: the Middle East are at war, and Ukraine, I mean
Speaker 2: it's the most serious incursion into European territory in many years. Right,
Speaker 2: our relationship with China saturating. Indian Pakistan are not real
Speaker 2: happy with each other right now, you know, So I
Speaker 2: don't know. I mean, you know, when he was like
Speaker 2: taking these special council meetings, was like, right at the
Speaker 2: same time that October seventh happens, was like off the
Speaker 2: phone with BBE and into these meetings. It's like, okay, Well,
Speaker 2: if you're kind of like not able to like coherently
Speaker 2: remember names, and dates, and like what if there is
Speaker 2: a cute point of strategy that the United States wants
Speaker 2: to articulate or point of leverage. Right, it's just a
Speaker 2: really huge scandal. It's a huge scandal. And you know,
Speaker 2: in some ways, I guess Democrats are lucky, e they're
Speaker 2: not suffering from it more, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know with a long term effect. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think Biden at some point we'll just kind of go away, right,
Speaker 2: But like, but like it's it's news worth talking about
Speaker 2: even in May of the year after the election, because
Speaker 2: you know, it's one of the biggest dafts. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's not the way to put it. One of the
Speaker 2: biggest knowable errors, stubborn errors of judgment, repeated errors of
Speaker 2: judgment by Biden and the people around him, and by
Speaker 2: the media frankly who kind of had the I mean,
Speaker 2: they're doing a good job now, right, but they all
Speaker 2: the Democrats who were mad at me or Ezra clin
Speaker 2: of people who were like pointing out that, yeah, probably
Speaker 2: not a good idea to have a guy who's going to
Speaker 2: be president till I was eighty six. And oh, by
Speaker 2: the way, he's clearly not fighting Ronald cylinders right now
Speaker 2: after the debate, Right, I mean I've done hundreds of
Speaker 2: public appearances, Right, I've had I've had shit where I
Speaker 2: was super tired or sick or hungover. I've never had
Speaker 2: a performance remotely as bad as Biden's debate, Right, And
Speaker 2: if I did, then I hope someone w'd be like,
Speaker 2: you got to get medical attention, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I mean I think that it's important to
Speaker 1: be talking about this now, both to understand what happened,
Speaker 1: but also to figure out, you know how on a
Speaker 1: broader scale, like how do we prevent something like this
Speaker 1: from happening again? How do we actually learn from this, right,
Speaker 1: so that going forward we don't find ourselves in a
Speaker 1: similar situation. And by way, I mean the country, right,
Speaker 1: I don't mean you know, the Democratic Party the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: because this could happen to either party. And I think
Speaker 1: that people do need to be empowered to say something
Speaker 1: and not shut up, because I think that's psychologically speaking,
Speaker 1: there are multiple forces here. I mean, first, from like
Speaker 1: the Biden camp. Internally, you do have kind of this
Speaker 1: cycle of motivated reasoning, which basically, you know, is confirmation
Speaker 1: bias on steroids, so you know, if you already have
Speaker 1: a point of you, right, you tend to look at
Speaker 1: evidence with that point of view in mind, and so
Speaker 1: everything that confirms your point of view, you're like, yeah, see,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what I'm talking about. Everything that disconfirms it,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh no, well this is bullshit. You know,
Speaker 1: for these reasons, and you don't wait them correctly, right,
Speaker 1: you don't. Actually you think that you're doing an objective analysis,
Speaker 1: but it's a motivated analysis, motivated by your own biases
Speaker 1: and your own agenda. And so I think that you know,
Speaker 1: I've talked before about followers of Trump kind of being
Speaker 1: under this way of a con artist like mentality, right
Speaker 1: where you kind of once you buy into this, you're
Speaker 1: just kind of part of that and you can't see
Speaker 1: things to the contrary. I actually think that that's true
Speaker 1: to some extent of what was happening to the Biden
Speaker 1: camp as well, that you kind of buy into kind
Speaker 1: of the reality that no, Biden, you know this this
Speaker 1: is fine, right, that this is fine. Dog that I
Speaker 1: have behind me during our day things, that this is fine.
Speaker 1: That everything to the contrary we dismiss and everything and
Speaker 1: every moment of clarity where Biden has like a good
Speaker 1: interview right or half an hour where he's sharp, You're like, see,
Speaker 1: he's totally fine, everything is fine. And so you have
Speaker 1: that on the one hand, and on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you have the pressure, right, the pressure from different external
Speaker 1: forces and internal forces to show cohesion, to kind of
Speaker 1: be loyal to the party. And people often don't understand.
Speaker 1: And I think that this is important to understand, both
Speaker 1: in the past and currently what's happening in the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: that sometimes being loyal to the party means speaking out
Speaker 1: right and saying, hey, this is not okay, this is
Speaker 1: actually undermining our party. Right in the long term, what
Speaker 1: is happening with the party is hurting the party. That
Speaker 1: that can be the act of loyalty. But instead people
Speaker 1: just like cowto and shut up and meekly say yes,
Speaker 1: we will follow the party line, and that can actually
Speaker 1: be devastating.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I think they're both bad, but not quite
Speaker 2: the same phenomenon. I mean, I think in some ways
Speaker 2: Democrats plays maybe less narrowly stupid and more cynical in
Speaker 2: some ways. Right, Like, so I think you know, number one,
Speaker 2: I think the people close to Biden did or must
Speaker 2: have had some idea. A lot of these books are
Speaker 2: reported on background, right, which means it's hard to attribute
Speaker 2: kind of what was generally known versus who knew what? Right,
Speaker 2: But like my model is like people knew. I mean
Speaker 2: Biden was obviously being like shielded a lot. I went
Speaker 2: through his entire schedule for four years, and there were
Speaker 2: eight instances in twenty thirteen and another eight in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, so sixteen total in the final two years
Speaker 2: where he does not have any public appearances for four
Speaker 2: days or more in our own and some of those Okay,
Speaker 2: I guess the presence in title to a vacation, but
Speaker 2: like you know, I mean his schedule becomes very sporadic
Speaker 2: and erratic. But also I mean Democrats are selecting for
Speaker 2: people who go along with the program, right, I mean
Speaker 2: this is like, you know, this is part of the
Speaker 2: personality type of what I called the village in my book, right,
Speaker 2: which is it's risk averse do gooder types, and so
Speaker 2: round nosing is a big part of the game. And
Speaker 2: Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who ran Harris's campaign and ran Biden's campaigns,
Speaker 2: to the reporting these books is like, yeah, she is
Speaker 2: somebody where if you have bad news or to sending
Speaker 2: point of view, then don't tell it to Jen right.
Speaker 2: And how she mind worked Kamala Harris into making herself
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris's campaign chief too, I mean that was just
Speaker 2: you know, I'm much more set the Kamala Harrison I
Speaker 2: am to Joe Biden. But that decision was ill advised,
Speaker 2: I would say. And that's also the implicit thing too,
Speaker 2: is like, so the Biden people thought that, Okay, well
Speaker 2: Harris can't win. Well, you're the ones who fucking picked
Speaker 2: her as your vice president, right, I mean the low
Speaker 2: esteem in which the Biden people held Kamala Harris, right,
Speaker 2: you know, first of all, you know, you have a
Speaker 2: vice president and whatever you think of her as a cane,
Speaker 2: And I mean, she definitely is a knowledgeable person who
Speaker 2: attorney general, senator, definitely traditional qualifications right in the largest
Speaker 2: state in the country, and so she probably should have
Speaker 2: been president. I would have felt safer in a crisis
Speaker 2: with Kamala Harris. And then you know, I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: I would feel safer with Donald Trump picking up the
Speaker 2: red phone and Joe Biden, Like it's not even close,
Speaker 2: Like I don't think he hasn't gotten I'm not saying
Speaker 2: I perfect Trump overall. I certainly wouldn't it, right, but
Speaker 2: like I you know, I mean at least he has
Speaker 2: his wits about him such as they are right, but anyway,
Speaker 2: but yeah, the lowest team. And then if you read fight,
Speaker 2: a lot of it is like, well, the Biden people
Speaker 2: don't want Harris exactly, and the dissenters of dicract parties
Speaker 2: like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi also don't want Harris.
Speaker 2: They want kind of this open primary, but she kind
Speaker 2: of emerges as this compromised option in part because the
Speaker 2: Biden people are like, you don't want me, Well fuck you,
Speaker 2: You're getting her, right. I'm not exaggerating by much. Like
Speaker 2: there's that attitude. So yeah, just this morass of stuff
Speaker 2: that like and you know, and then I you know,
Speaker 2: I actually got some quich backrooms people about. Like I
Speaker 2: wrote an article last week saying, okay, enough with the
Speaker 2: media victory lap here, right, I mean, maybe we should
Speaker 2: have Like there's all this reporting. I understand when you're
Speaker 2: reporting a book that sometimes people tell you things on
Speaker 2: the condition of it's going to come out in a year, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, for on the edge. I had some of that.
Speaker 2: People say, well, i'll talk to you on the record
Speaker 2: because I won't be published for a few years, and
Speaker 2: I trust you to do a fair job, whereas I
Speaker 2: couldn't just go turn around and write like a newsletter
Speaker 2: post about that or something. Right, But still, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I love the US was lucky, I think,
Speaker 2: to avoid an acute crisis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it absolutely was. And just for you know, for
Speaker 1: the record, I have not read either book. I've read
Speaker 1: some excerpts from both of them, but some of the
Speaker 1: some of the information there is pretty damning in the
Speaker 1: sense of not recognizing George Clooney, which by the way,
Speaker 1: is huge, right, Like let's just let's just say that
Speaker 1: George George Clooney's face, Nate, So, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know this, but he so there are psych studies
Speaker 1: on brain damage kind of different types of neural damage
Speaker 1: and kind of cognitive function loss, and George Clooney is
Speaker 1: one of the faces that's used to kind of look
Speaker 1: at that he is so recognizable and such an iconic
Speaker 1: celebrity that his face is actually one of the like
Speaker 1: classic study materials where you assess cognitive function because sometimes
Speaker 1: people like I might not recognize you even though i've
Speaker 1: known you, but I'll recognize George Clooney, right, And sometimes
Speaker 1: I won't quite recognize, but I'll be like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: so he is one of those faces that's used so
Speaker 1: to me, like it was an added like oh my god, right,
Speaker 1: not recognizing him when you actually know him and he's
Speaker 1: actually a friend, like that is not something that you dismiss, right,
Speaker 1: that is something that if you're a doctor. I was
Speaker 1: going to say, if you're a but you don't need
Speaker 1: to be a psychiatrist. If you're anyone, you have to
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, you know something is actually wrong and
Speaker 1: you need to assess this and we need to figure
Speaker 1: out what the hell happened. It's much worse than thinking
Speaker 1: you just spoke to Metronde even though he's not been
Speaker 1: the president of France for quite some time. Right, So
Speaker 1: in some in some ways like that's that's a oh
Speaker 1: shit moment, like what are we even doing here? And
Speaker 1: there's so many of those that I just saw in
Speaker 1: the excerts, and obviously excerts are chosen for the juicy bits,
Speaker 1: but it does seem like there was kind of a
Speaker 1: consensus to protect the president, and that's the wrong incentive structure, right,
Speaker 1: The incentive should be to protect the country and to
Speaker 1: make sure that the country is on a good path,
Speaker 1: not to protect a man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's a whole history of older presidents.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Woodrow Wilson had a stroke and
Speaker 2: the second term was a disaster. He wanted to run
Speaker 2: for like a third term, and Harry Truman kind of
Speaker 2: had to be shown. So what happened is until nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two, basically parties their candidates and the proverbial smoke
Speaker 2: Philip brooms, Right, So if the Democratic Party were getting
Speaker 2: together in privately, say you know what, we've all heard
Speaker 2: these stories about Joe Biden, and so now it's going
Speaker 2: to be Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro or maybe Harris would
Speaker 2: have a good chance, et cetera. Right, like, and it's
Speaker 2: some kind of we went up with this in between
Speaker 2: where like there wasn't really a primary. I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's yeah, you know, I just think, you know, any
Speaker 2: inner circle Biden person just has direct moral responsibility for
Speaker 2: the election outcome, you know.
Speaker 1: What, exactly exactly, and in protecting Biden here we are,
Speaker 1: right we you handed the country to Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: everything that comes with that. But Nate, the very human
Speaker 1: response to just once you're lying to Lie, Lie, Lie
Speaker 1: and Lie. I think that's a great on entry point
Speaker 1: to something else we wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2: Aunt Elizabeth holmes career.
Speaker 1: Let's take a break and talk about the new startup
Speaker 1: from Billy Evans.
Speaker 2: Nate.
Speaker 1: This is a blast from the past show. Elizabeth Holmes
Speaker 1: is back in the news. Our listeners and people who
Speaker 1: you know have followed any news media kind of for
Speaker 1: the last few years know her as the head of Thernos,
Speaker 1: founder of a game changer in blood diagnostic technology. Basically
Speaker 1: had all the big Silicon Valley big wigs behind her,
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger on her board, so got some politics in
Speaker 1: there as well, and it all turned out to be
Speaker 1: a huge grift, and more than a grift, a very
Speaker 1: bloody grift pun intended because the results were bogus. The
Speaker 1: blood work was absolutely fraudulent, and people were misdiagnosed. It
Speaker 1: was just an absolute disaster. Holmes is currently in prison
Speaker 1: serving a sentence for her role in Parahose, but she's
Speaker 1: still posts for a photo for The New York Times
Speaker 1: with her partner Billy Evans, who has a new startup
Speaker 1: called Hamanthus, which is a flower known as the blood lily.
Speaker 1: Ha ha ha, because do you know what the startup
Speaker 1: is going to do. It is going to size how
Speaker 1: we test blood for diseases? Does that does that concern
Speaker 1: you at all?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Look, I remember reading the uh reading the book
Speaker 2: Bad Blood by the most journal journalist, John carry You I.
Speaker 1: Believe, Yeah, great book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know it reminds me a little bit
Speaker 2: of the Biden thing you that, like it was so
Speaker 2: obvious from the star this was like seriously fraudular. It
Speaker 2: wasn't like it wasn't so with like with like FTX,
Speaker 2: which is the other most famous fraud of this quarter century.
Speaker 2: I guess right, I guess Enron is a little too
Speaker 2: as aged out. You know, fts itself was a legitimate
Speaker 2: and quite well regarded platform for exchanging crypto assets, right,
Speaker 2: Like that part of the business was the legitimate whatever
Speaker 2: you think of crypto right, and then SBF was siphoning
Speaker 2: money to make a whole bunch of like trades on
Speaker 2: the side that were customer deposits, right whereas therhnos it's
Speaker 2: like it was all a ruse you know, they actually
Speaker 2: recruited a lot of people who like weren't traditional Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley vcs, but were very well in network. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a future of medicine, and and here's you know,
Speaker 2: let me put this carefully, right, I think there was
Speaker 2: a lot of excitement over a woman founder. She knew dignitaries,
Speaker 2: and she had a great rolodex, right, and like she
Speaker 2: read a lot of buzz and got a different investment
Speaker 2: profile than a typical early stage startup might where maybe
Speaker 2: there was less scrutiny, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean I think that she was and
Speaker 1: this is I think the reason why if her partner's
Speaker 1: startup is also noteworthy. I think that she brilliantly hit
Speaker 1: on all of the flaws in venture capital funding, right,
Speaker 1: and how Silicon Valley operates in general, what the incentive
Speaker 1: structures are, what they look at, what they don't look at,
Speaker 1: which is also absolutely crucial. So you know, the model
Speaker 1: obviously is, you know, we invest in tons of stuff
Speaker 1: and most of it's going to fail, but if you aren't,
Speaker 1: going to be kind of are stars with completely outsized returns, right,
Speaker 1: And that's how kind of the VC world works, and
Speaker 1: they love stories, and they love compelling narratives, compelling people.
Speaker 1: You know something, They love con artists basically because the
Speaker 1: best storytellers in the world are con artists who paint
Speaker 1: you a beautiful picture of blue skies and what's possible
Speaker 1: and why this is going to be the idea that
Speaker 1: changes everything. They want to believe in that because their
Speaker 1: incentive structure is such that they, you know, if one
Speaker 1: of those is actually true and not a con artists
Speaker 1: beautiful right, like, there's my there's my outsized return that's
Speaker 1: going to pay for everything and make me look like
Speaker 1: an absolute genius. And the problem is oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to it's hard to tell, you know,
Speaker 1: where where the line is between a compelling story with
Speaker 1: a real idea compelling story with a not real idea.
Speaker 1: In this case, as you point out, Nate, it's very clear,
Speaker 1: very early on that there were major, major holes in
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Holmes's story, but because of kind of a lot
Speaker 1: of the glamour associated with it motivated reasoning. Right, this
Speaker 1: is what we're we were talking about when we were
Speaker 1: talking about Biden. It's easy to overlook it if your
Speaker 1: incentives are to believe, and we've talked about a lot
Speaker 1: of those holes. You know the fact that she dropped out.
Speaker 1: Her former advisor said this is you know, the saying good.
Speaker 1: A lot of prominent scientists were like, this is bullshit.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the data just never released.
Speaker 1: A lot of these things were huge with flags. People
Speaker 1: started resigning very early on over the lack of scientific data,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And yet like what if, right,
Speaker 1: like that what if is huge? Like what if we're
Speaker 1: the ones who miss out? FOMO is big? And we
Speaker 1: don't want to be the people who passed on the beatles?
Speaker 1: Like you don't want to be that cautionary tale, and
Speaker 1: so you just want to kind of go go along
Speaker 1: with it. And that creates this culture where grifters thrive.
Speaker 1: And I'm I mean, I would bet a lot of
Speaker 1: money that there are other cons that have been funded
Speaker 1: by vcs in Silicon Valley right now that we don't
Speaker 1: know about yet, and that we might never know about
Speaker 1: because they might just kind of peter out, They might
Speaker 1: not ever ever be kind of as as headlining as
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Holmes. But the fact now that her partner is
Speaker 1: doing you know he's saying, you know what, the appetite
Speaker 1: for this is strong enough that I am going to
Speaker 1: do this again.
Speaker 2: Look, I you know, I have been pulling up the
Speaker 2: list of investors that there knows had and it's like
Speaker 2: it conspicuously, conspicuously omits a lot of the traditional and
Speaker 2: recent horror with Sequoia type firms. I think. I think
Speaker 2: people did have concerns, and a lot of people in
Speaker 2: those firms make a lot of mistakes. I think sometimes
Speaker 2: you have to wonder, well, if they passed on it,
Speaker 2: right because they are terrified of like passing on the
Speaker 2: next big thing, then that's probably has some yeah, for sure,
Speaker 2: signaling value. Right. But the general point is absolutely correct.
Speaker 2: I mean when I you know, I just reported it
Speaker 2: in the book, right, So I was invited to like
Speaker 2: an in recent Horwitz conference and it came off the
Speaker 2: record very quickly, right, But before they told the skull
Speaker 2: off the record. The guy they had on stage was
Speaker 2: Adam Newman, who is the founder of we Work. Very
Speaker 2: charismatic guy, you've ever interacted with him? Right, But also
Speaker 2: there were all types of problems with we Work where
Speaker 2: it's valuation crater, and he was accused of like smoking
Speaker 2: weed on international jets and things like that. Right, and
Speaker 2: they were proud to say we're investing in his new startup,
Speaker 2: right because they're like, we want high variants if you're
Speaker 2: good enough to build kind of the like we work
Speaker 2: wasn't like fake in the way that Faranos was right.
Speaker 2: If you're right, if you're able to build a company
Speaker 2: like whatever, it was sixty billion dollars evaluation on the
Speaker 2: right to the ground, Well it's still close to than
Speaker 2: most people come. Right, So your high variants and high upside,
Speaker 2: and so we want that skill set. And I guess
Speaker 2: that's kind of the same idea here. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, if SBF or Elizabeth Holmes
Speaker 2: wanted to invest a new startup, they probably get some funding.
Speaker 1: I think I think they would as well. This is
Speaker 1: you know, this is one of those things where I
Speaker 1: think it's true in a lot of the finance community.
Speaker 1: You have people like who you know, not even startups
Speaker 1: in the hedge fund industry who've blown up multiple hedge funds.
Speaker 1: Basically their investors lost all their money and there were
Speaker 1: spectacular failures, and they still get money, right, they still
Speaker 1: are able to raise fun Number two they're able to
Speaker 1: raise fund number three because at some point they had
Speaker 1: a good track record, and these are you know, oftentimes Nate.
Speaker 1: As we know, there's variance, and so that initial track
Speaker 1: record might have been an absolute fluke. You know that
Speaker 1: in poker, right, you have some poker players who just
Speaker 1: have stellar starf and it's not because they're brilliant players.
Speaker 1: It's because they got ridiculously lucky. But in poker, it's
Speaker 1: actually much easier to see that, to see through the noise,
Speaker 1: and eventually, you know, those players go bust. But in
Speaker 1: the world of stock markets, sometimes you know, it's easier
Speaker 1: to take it's noisier, right, so it's harder to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this was just someone who was a luck box, not
Speaker 1: someone who's a good investor. And so if you're initially
Speaker 1: a luck box, then you get money over and over
Speaker 1: and over, even if you just keep blowing it up.
Speaker 1: And think about how many poker players, by the way,
Speaker 1: even in a world that's less noisy, go bust multiple
Speaker 1: times and yet still find people to lend them money.
Speaker 1: And so I think that we do see this sort
Speaker 1: of thinking in that world over and over and over,
Speaker 1: and so I think absolutely once you know Elizabeth Holmes
Speaker 1: eleven years are up. If she wants to do company
Speaker 1: number two, some people will invest in her, even though
Speaker 1: there are probably a lot of people you should invest
Speaker 1: in before you invest in her. And in the meantime,
Speaker 1: you know, I have a hard time. I know nothing
Speaker 1: about Billy Evans other than you know what he's doing
Speaker 1: right now and that he's Elizabeth Holmes's partner. And to me,
Speaker 1: that's you know, I hate judging someone who I've never met,
Speaker 1: but that's pretty damning. Like do we think, like, is
Speaker 1: there is there a universe where he's a true believer?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2: By the way, it's not even that like it's not
Speaker 2: even like crazy to think that like Adam Newman could
Speaker 2: build a successful another successful startup at some point, Right,
Speaker 2: It's just felt like, why pick him right when you
Speaker 2: have more options than you can possibly have to in
Speaker 2: time to even look at right.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and you know that his behavior hasn't really improved. Right,
Speaker 1: So even if he does build something successful like there's
Speaker 1: he's also a wild card, like he might blow it
Speaker 1: up just by virtue of who he is and the
Speaker 1: types of things that he's prone to do. You know
Speaker 1: why are you investing in someone like that? I totally
Speaker 1: agree with you date and yeah, and while you know,
Speaker 1: we with someone like Billy Evans who does have a
Speaker 1: track record, like might be a good guy, like we might,
Speaker 1: we might look at him and be like, oh, you know, everything,
Speaker 1: everything is great, but it just why if you're if
Speaker 1: you're an entrepreneur and like your partner is Elizabeth Holmes,
Speaker 1: and you know, like you know how that shit went down,
Speaker 1: and you know, the science was not there by the
Speaker 1: way for being able to test you know, one single
Speaker 1: drop of blood like that was there was no science
Speaker 1: behind it. It was just not possible to do what
Speaker 1: you wanted to do and to say that, oh no,
Speaker 1: well now you know, now we have the science behind
Speaker 1: trying to do the exact same machine. Basically, like man,
Speaker 1: oh man, is he going to be able to raise
Speaker 1: the fifty million dollars that he wants initially and he
Speaker 1: says he'll need seventy, you know, to really kind of
Speaker 1: bring it to scientific fruition. I really, I honestly hope not,
Speaker 1: because it's gonna, like my estimation is already pretty low
Speaker 1: of that world, it's going to fall even further if
Speaker 1: there are people who are willing to give him fifty
Speaker 1: to seventy million dollars.
Speaker 2: To people be responsible for what their partners do.
Speaker 1: No, but if you are launching an identical startup to
Speaker 1: the fraud that was perpetrated by your partner for which
Speaker 1: she is now serving jail time, I don't know. To me,
Speaker 1: that's a little bit different.
Speaker 2: I mean during the wokeness peak, there was like this
Speaker 2: MLS soccer player who's like, whyif had like put on
Speaker 2: social media a bunch of really racist stuff and then
Speaker 2: he had to like leave the team, right, which doesn't
Speaker 2: seem very No.
Speaker 1: That's that's totally not fair. It just you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's there's a lot of nuance there, and it
Speaker 1: depends on depends on the circumstances. So no, I don't
Speaker 1: think you're responsible for what your partner does. But then
Speaker 1: when you go on and try to do the exact
Speaker 1: same thing your partners in in prison for, I think
Speaker 1: that's a little bit different.
Speaker 2: What's what's the startup's name again? Oh? Hea? He told
Speaker 2: me that it's like the blood flower.
Speaker 1: Yeah, blood lily. But hey, it is what it is,
Speaker 1: and we will see what happens. And all I can
Speaker 1: say is, please venture capitalists who listen to our show
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. More broadly, like, please try to invest in
Speaker 1: people who actually have the background for what they're doing
Speaker 1: and who are credible, and not just because they know
Speaker 1: how to tell a compelling story. Storytelling ain't all there is,
Speaker 1: even though I know that that's what you like to reward,
Speaker 1: So please try to heed that storytelling.
Speaker 2: I hate journalis are like storytelling and journalism like, I
Speaker 2: fucking hate storytelling. I mean, I like storytelling, but the
Speaker 2: minute you call it storytelling, it's like, that's just an
Speaker 2: excuse to like prioritize the narrative over the facts and
Speaker 2: their priority and to exactly put a little spin on
Speaker 2: the ball.
Speaker 1: I think, right, let's take a quick break and then, Nate,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear, you know, because I love conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: but I don't know much about the MAVs, so I
Speaker 1: am very curious to hear about what all of this
Speaker 1: conspiracy thinking is about. So let's get into it after
Speaker 1: the break. Nay, tell me what is going on with
Speaker 1: the MAVs and conspiracy theorists of the world over.
Speaker 2: So, the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Draft lottery, Was
Speaker 2: it last week. I guess uh, they had a one
Speaker 2: point eight percent chance of being picked the top teams
Speaker 2: have ever read a fourteen or fifteen percent chance, and their
Speaker 2: combination of ping pong balls came up. So they will
Speaker 2: presumably drafting Cooper Flag who was the one of the
Speaker 2: few college players ever to win National Player of the
Speaker 2: Year as a freshman. Great player kid from from Maine,
Speaker 2: which does not produce a lot of basketball prospects, but
Speaker 2: you know, thought of it as the next potential superstar.
Speaker 2: People quickly became suspicious part because, yeah, people underestimate that
Speaker 2: one percent is not that low, right, It's like a
Speaker 2: one hour in poker. But they had made an inexplicable
Speaker 2: trade earlier this year where Luka Dacic maybe the top
Speaker 2: my opinion, maybe about the fifth best player in the NBA,
Speaker 2: SOE might have a little higher putting five or six
Speaker 2: or something like that. Right was traded for Anthony Davis,
Speaker 2: who prompably got hurt, and one first round pick and
Speaker 2: a media for player named Max Christy. Right, and so like,
Speaker 2: if you had done an auction around the league, we
Speaker 2: would have gotten like literally twice as much of a return,
Speaker 2: maybe more than that. Right they sold for like forty
Speaker 2: cents on the dollar. However, conveniently, you now have Luca,
Speaker 2: one of the league's glamour players, playing with Lebron James
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles for the Lakers, one of the league's
Speaker 2: glamour franchises. Right, Probably the Lakers are the premiere. You know,
Speaker 2: if you want a team to be really good, probably
Speaker 2: Lakers Knicks in that order if you're if you're the NBA,
Speaker 2: So why would they do this? Well, if it turns
Speaker 2: out they're also getting the first overall pick and Cooper flag,
Speaker 2: that's a pretty fair trade ad and Cooper flag for Luca,
Speaker 2: who's about to have to be contract extension looks pretty good,
Speaker 2: and so that's triggered some conspiracy theories. It's not the
Speaker 2: first time, right, you know Lebron James grew up in Akron, Ohio. Hmmm.
Speaker 2: Convenient Commediately the Cleveland Cavaliers win the draft lottery that year,
Speaker 2: for example, which other ones are alleged. You know, other
Speaker 2: things were like when teams, you know, when the New
Speaker 2: Orleans Pelicans, which were then like owned by the NBA,
Speaker 2: like trade away also Anthony Davis, they got the first
Speaker 2: Pickension Williamson. So whenever, whenever, there's a big prospect. You know,
Speaker 2: it seems to end up in a convenient place. But
Speaker 2: I'd say I'd say a few things about that, right,
Speaker 2: Like number one, a lot of people would have to
Speaker 2: be on this conspiracy, Right, they draw the ping pong
Speaker 2: balls in front of the sealed room full of people
Speaker 2: in the media. Zachlow, formerly a grant Land and ESPN
Speaker 2: now of the Ringer, I believe, was among them. You
Speaker 2: can go listen to his account on his show, right,
Speaker 2: and like so you know, it's pretty transparent. They have
Speaker 2: as complicated codes. It's like not just one ping pong ball,
Speaker 2: but you draw four and each code lines up with
Speaker 2: a set of teams that are are picked. Right, So
Speaker 2: that have to you know, enlist Ernst and Young. I
Speaker 2: believe the heccounting firm they work with to like rig
Speaker 2: the actual mechanics of the ping pong ball, right, and
Speaker 2: that would be a lot and a lot of peop
Speaker 2: would have knowledge of this and would feel chafed about
Speaker 2: it potentially. I mean, who knows. People, You know, people
Speaker 2: kept titelcht about the Biden thing for a long period
Speaker 2: of time. But like I'm also not sure that like
Speaker 2: if you're the league necessarily would want Cooper Flag and
Speaker 2: Dallas's posts. I mean maybe, I don't know, it is
Speaker 2: a pretty big market, right maybe, I know, well what Nate.
Speaker 1: In general, I always like to push back on conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: right because human mind loves to see to see them
Speaker 1: where they don't exist. And we do know as poker players,
Speaker 1: one outthers happen, right Like, man, they happen way more
Speaker 1: often than you feel like they should happen. That said I, So,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm working on a book about cheating, and
Speaker 1: one of the one of the things that I was
Speaker 1: recently researching. I don't know if you remember this, you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't born yet, but it was. It was a
Speaker 1: huge scandal in nineteen eighty Pennsylvania lottery scandal, the Triple
Speaker 1: six fix. They actually were able to rig the lottery
Speaker 1: and they had specially weighted balls so that a special
Speaker 1: limited number of combinations were more likely to be drawn.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, obviously you need someone on the inside
Speaker 1: in the in the balls. But this was done. You know,
Speaker 1: this was done also on television, Like it was very
Speaker 1: very controlled environment and yet like it's still possible to
Speaker 1: introduce weighted balls into machines that make certain number of
Speaker 1: combinations more likely to happen. And that's not the only
Speaker 1: time that that's happened. That was just like a very
Speaker 1: prominent example of that happening. And so I hate, I
Speaker 1: don't want to honor conspiracy theorists, but I do just
Speaker 1: want to point out that it is possible due to
Speaker 1: rig lottery ball machines.
Speaker 2: Shaquille O'Neil just allege that in nineteenninety two, then NBA
Speaker 2: Commissioner David Stern asked him if he wanted to go
Speaker 2: to a cold weather or a warm weather city. Guess
Speaker 2: who want to happen to be the Orlando Magic one
Speaker 2: of the warmest destinations in the NBA, not the Minnesota
Speaker 2: Timberwolf or something like that. And so I think people
Speaker 2: are mostly joking, and I think I'm mostly joking. I
Speaker 2: would say not like there is there are big incentives
Speaker 2: for like the league to to align talent to places
Speaker 2: where they think the franchise that deserves it, right, But
Speaker 2: like I mean, it's you know, I don't know there
Speaker 2: would be you know, there would be a sentenced to
Speaker 2: do it. Yeah, they should maybe say, yeah, we determined
Speaker 2: these are the actual picks for the league, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. And I also am
Speaker 1: mostly joking, and I think that it is important to
Speaker 1: kind of to make it clear that it's unlikely that
Speaker 1: anything is rigged. All I can say, Nate is you know,
Speaker 1: next time you do a lottery ball lottery that has
Speaker 1: little balls and machines, just keep one eyebrow up and
Speaker 1: make sure that everything is weighted correctly before choosing your numbers.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
Speaker 1: out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm.
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Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
Speaker 2: production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya Gerwitz. Sally
Speaker 2: Helm is our editor and our Executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2: Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in.