Michael Lewis: Arenas of American Ambition - [Glue Guys, EP.22]

If you took me back to when I was 26 and starting my career writing my first book, I did have this idea that I want to write about arenas of American ambition, like where. Where the. The pressure is turned up and the heat is the hottest in the. And the obvious arenas are like Washington, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood, pro sports, sports generally. So I'm attracted to compet.

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Glue Guys. We're your hosts, Shane Battier, Ravi Gupta and Alex Smith.

And we're bringing you behind the scenes of the locker rooms, the boardrooms, and the living rooms that taught us everything we know about what it takes to be great leaders and even better teammates and friends.

We hope the conversation helps you bring more ambition and more joy to your own work life and relationships. It certainly has for us.

What up, blue guys and glue gals out there? We got a special guest, author Michael Lewis, who started his career on Wall street working for Solomon Brothers, which inspired his first bestselling book, Liars Poker. Since that book, he's gone on to be one of the greatest and most successful non fiction writers of our time. He's written famous books like Moneyball that Everyone knows and loves, the Big Short, the Blind side, all of which have become successful films. He's also a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and has his own podcast called against the Rules. And on a personal note, he's changed my life. I was the subject of this 2009 piece in the New York Times, Time Sunday magazine called the no Stat All Star, where he explained what I did as a Glue guy for the Houston Rockets many, many years ago. And even though I had very modest stats, every team I played on had an amazing record and won it at a super high level. So that piece has changed my life. And so it's an honor to have my friend and the guy who explained what I did way better than I could do, Michael Lewis, with us today.

Alex, because you had Reggie Bush as your. As your.

Reggie was my running back.

It was. You were cursed having Reggie Bush as a teammate in high school.

Well, I mean, it's a little bit both. A bit of a blessing.

I mean, again, like, what's the blessing?

The school's coming around. I mean, we had success. I lost one game in high school. Reggie ran. Reggie ran for 350 yards and fumbled five times. Ball security wasn't a premium.

Damn it, Reggie, hold on to the ball. So the Glue Guy thing, I completely get Shane's role in this, kind of get Ravi's, but don't completely get yours because but in high school, I guess you kind of were the glue guy. You were. I mean you were the. You were the. You were the link between the ball and Reggie Bush.

This is weird. I've worn many hats. So I was just the guy that lucky enough to hand off to Reggie in high school. And I won basically every game. I won the championship every year, right. Barely get an offer. Then I go to Utah and Urban shows up and I run an offense that is built this revolutionary offense that has taken over college football since. But it's built to make the quarterback look good. So all of a sudden now I go from like zero to hero and I am the man. I'm at the Heisman Trophy ceremony. Like I'm the, you know, this, this rocket ship. I'm the number one draft pick. And then my NFL is certainly probably my. I mean I was the game manager in the NFL, right? I mean I had a pretty tumultuous beginning of my career, but like I was the guy that. I won games. I was a winner. But you couldn't. I didn't have a ton of 300 yard passing games. I mean I wasn't lighting up the scoreboard. So I, I feel like I've had a little bit of everything over the course of my career.

You're at the textbook case. This, this, this is peace. It's not a piece. I dying to figure out how to write a book for years. And I thought Peyton was going to be my way in. And then Peyton said he didn't want to do it, but it was. It's about. I mean, it's about the quarterback position, but it's you. But it's taking. One, the inherent interest in the position. Two, that nobody projects quarterbacks very well. Like nobody. When you're in high school, no one guessed what you'd be in college. When you were in college, no one guessed what you'd be in the pros.

And.

And so many resources have been thrown at trying to figure out who's going to move from one level to the next. And still it bewilders people. Like still there, you know, you get the Brock Purdy. What's his name?

Totally Tom Brady. Brock Purdy Mystery.

The guy at the top, who that same draft, the guy they took in the first. Trey. Trey Lance. I mean it's an incredible, like, talk about like screwing it up, right? Are seeming to screw it up. But here's the. Here's like the. I think I'm wondering if this isn't you just tell me if I'm Full of it.

But.

But this seems to me like this is a way to illustrate this larger truth. And the larger truth is the importance of context. It's like everybody focuses on the person rather than the context. You put the person in and you take one, a person, you put Peyton Manning in a wishbone and no one would ever known he was a good quarterback. They think, why can't he run? But like, you put, you take the same set of talents and if you surround it, if you put it in one context, it flourishes and put it in another and it doesn't. And when they're moving people from like high school to college, college to pros. Yeah. They kind of pay lip service to like, oh yeah, we're going to build the systems for him or he's good, but. But they're actually not noticing what's going to make him good or what did.

This is, this is the amazing thing. Like, I, I totally agree with you. So the NFL is the king of America. Right. Like not just in sports, but content. Right. Like you turn on the top hundred shows, it's. They're all football. Like, it is a behemoth. And by far the most coveted position in that sport is the quarterback position. Right. So they are throwing so much money at this thing and they have absolutely no idea how to evaluate it. Right. And I think back, I was a, like, so my. I mean, I'm lucky enough to know Peyton a little bit and I played against him. But my childhood, I can, I can remember so vividly the Ryan Leaf Peyton Manning debate. And I grew up in San Diego and we took Ryan Leaf and here the, the look at the two. I mean, one is one of the greatest players of all time. Arguably he is the greatest number one pick ever. And then Ryan Leaf going second. Obviously his career, you know, very different tales. But it is a position, with all that being said, that you are more reliant on the people around you than any other position in sports. I think.

Right.

Like baseball, you step into a batter's box like the other eight guys have no bearing on what you do really. Right. Like maybe the guy before or after you. Basketball, I think even to a certain extent, like if the physical abilities, your, your height, your length, like you can still have success even if you're on a bad team. But like football, in the quarterback position.

You can be doomed. Yeah. Right.

And if you don't have good coaching or players around you or like, it just. There's so many variables.

So I request that for you because I really. This is Something I'm, I'm. It's gonna. So I got a kid who's a sophomore in high school. I went to an agent who's. I'm not gonna name these people, but a prominent sports agent. And I said, look, I want to write this story and I think I also want to just to. Just to throw more, you know, ingredients in the gumbo. I want to start with someone who's really young because I also want to see how this is getting commercialized at a very young age. Like 15 year old quarterbacks getting, getting these huge nil deals kind of thing, which is happening. And, and so I found the kid. He's like, you probably will figure it out. But he's like, He's a number one ranked recruit, will be in his class. He's 15 years old, he's a quarterback. And I'm gonna go spend some time with him in January just to see if like he can carry a story or whether I can use him as a frame of some. Of some sort. And so I've been noodling this, but I'm wondering in your case. The whole world's telling you you're a certain thing when you're in high school. You're the guy who hands the ball off to Reggie Bush and maybe you can get a date, but it's kind of like you're not big time. Then you get to college and the whole world's telling you you're big time and you're a Heisman Trophy finalist and then you get to the pros and then they're trying to figure out who you are and they start labeling you in various ways. Does your sense of self change with that? Or do you know all along who you are and you think the world's dumb? That's my question.

I wish I had a stronger sense of self through all of that. And I think the things like I've talked about with these guys so much is that. No, especially once I became pro, Michael, I had. I had lost myself in being the number one pick and the expectations that come with that and trying to be perfect and living up to guys like Peyton. And no, I was not. I did not think that I was enough.

Because the world has such an influence on what one thinks of oneself.

Yeah, but Michael, the one thing. Alex, you should talk about this. I feel like even when the world said you were the man, you didn't believe that either, though, because I do think. I don't think you went all the way up.

Well, it was only. No. And it Was only, you know, it was two years earlier, I got one offer, and then two years later, I'm at the Heisman Trophy and getting drafted. I mean, I was 20. It was such a crazy ride. And then. Yeah. And I, like Michael, it ate at me that I. Trying to. Trying to justify being the number one pick. Like, I, It. It never left and consumed me that I wanted to make everybody like me. Right. And validate it. And it's. I actually, I. Getting ready for this and prepping. This is one of the things I want to talk to you about, because you inherently, if you write a good book, piss a lot of people off. Right. Like, by nature of your style of writing. And was that hard, right? Like, because the better the book.

You. You.

Yeah, there's a lot of people, you know, potentially. And was that okay at first?

Are we now getting into that? Are we switching from.

No, we. This is all. We can just keep it rolling.

It's all contextual, Michael. It's all contextual.

We'll tell you one thing. We're not going to let you get away with just asking us questions the whole time.

But I'm actually. This is something. I'm actually, this is close to top of mind for me right now. It's not what I'm writing next, but I'm. It's. It's what? The last question.

I'll.

Then I'll drop it. But I do want to. I will answer that question.

But.

But I want to finish this thread because the question is if I rewind the tape of your career and I put you. I give you a system in high school and no Reggie Bush, where the quarterback's the man and it features your abilities and you are just. You're the best you in high school. You're probably getting all kinds of offers to go play in college and. And all the rest of. Do you think it's also true that I put you in college and I put you in a system that doesn't actually suit you, that nobody would have ever noticed? And the last question is, did the NFL ever figure out what to do with you?

Yeah. Yes.

You think they did. You think they actually. There wasn't something they missed?

No, they did not. They did not miss. It took me a long time to finally realize that they didn't miss. It probably took me. It probably took me close to 10 years.

Well, what does that mean? Alex?

Sorry?

What does that mean?

Like, Michael Singletary missed.

Yeah. I was going to say, like. Like, like. Yeah, some people missed. Right?

Yeah.

Missed. I'm Referring to myself. It took me 10 years to know that I'm, I, I can, I am an NFL quarterback and I can play at this level.

But that might be their fault, not yours.

Yeah, that's what we're, we're saying. If you had, let's say you had started out with Andy Reid as the coach, may maybe take that, take somebody who actually knew how to use you.

Value you're, you and you're, you're okay, I think.

And then even buried in. Let's throw another ingredient in this. I think if I'd have been coming out today, I would have had a, a vastly different career.

Better or worse?

Better. Better start to my career. I came out in an era where, you know, I still wore my, my draft suit had eight buttons and was Carmelo Anthony nine sizes too big. And we were running an offense. I ran an analog, analog NFL offense, fullback and a tight end. And I was under center. And there was a big stigma of whether. Because I played, I played wide open in college. Shotgun, every snap. I ran dumb.

Did you do that?

I ran for a thousand yards in college and I got to the NFL and it's like the big stigma was you can't play, you can't play under center, right. That you're a system guy and you can't play, you can't be a pro style quarterback. That was the noise around me that I heard. And so I was determined to do that. And I play. I spent the vast majority of the first chunk of my career like under center with a fullback. There were no QB designed runs for me to play in shotgun. There was nothing for me at the line of scrimmage to get to multiple plays. Like, I, I feel like none of that was tailored to any of my strengths, which the whole back half of my career I did and I, and I like hung my hat on those things.

So they screwed up the first half of your career. And that's, so, that's the thing about this point is it's so general to life. Like anybody who's gone to like a different school or gone to summer camp when they were a kid or like had a, had their contacts radically shift and all of a sudden this world sees them differently and, and, and then they feel different about themselves. And you know, it's just, it's. I remember when I was in, I don't know, I was a freshman in high school and I was so slow. I play a lot of sports. I had a really good hand eye. I was good at stuff, but I was slow. And Sean Tuohy, who's the guy from the blind side, who. Shane knows him for other reasons, but Sean, when we were in third grade, nicknamed me Ice Wagon. I was so slow. And so, of course, a nickname just sticks, right? You're just Ice Wagon. And so I. So slow. I just, like, didn't want to run. It was so embarrassing. Right now, this is where it gets. So I go off to camp to play a tennis camp when I'm at the end of my freshman year. And after two weeks, people coming up and saying, you're, like, the quickest tennis player we've ever seen. Like. And they did. There was, like, I got labeled as the kid who was fast. Now, now, this is weird right now. Of course it makes you faster to think you're fast and it makes you slower to think you're slow. And I mean, the story goes on, but it's like, that's when I realized, like, this is. This is. Nothing could be more objective than this foot speed. And I'm slow here and I'm fast here. This makes no sense. But it actually. It actually has effect on what I'm doing with my body and willing to do. There's not a person in the world that does not relate to the predicament. It's just the quarterback position is such a. All eyes are on it. It's such an interesting way to get at this thing.

Well, Michael, the thing that's so interesting, what you said is, Alex, we talk about this all the time, but, like, people that are actually, like, good leaders, what. What they do, right, Is they take into account the person and they get the best out of that person. However they do it, whatever they do, they get the best out of them. Right. And. Go ahead. You were going to say something.

No, but the model is like, I'm managing you and I'm going to manage. I'm going to, like, you know, shout at you or incentivize you or whatever. It isn't. I'm going to build the context around you that brings the thing out of you.

Well, so this is what Alex talks about with Harbaugh is like, Harbaugh looked at him and was like. He went and, like, threw with him. And then he was like, yo, I've watched your tape in college. You can run. We gotta get you moving. And that, to me, is the version of what you're saying.

It's like, wait a second.

Like, right? That's why he was the first one. I feel like, right. Alex, who, like, kind of was like, yo, your Strengths are valuable, and there's stuff in here we're not using. We got to use it, right?

Here's what you can do, rather what you can't do.

Without a doubt. My first two head coaches were defensive head coaches, and I felt like it was that all I saw were my inefficiencies, and they were trying to shut you down. Jim got there and all he talked about, he. Like, I felt great. I felt like I was enough. Right. I just be myself. I didn't have to do anything extra.

So, Alex, like what. Like, what is the best measure, in your opinion, of trying to identify future strong quarterbacks? What's the closest they come to getting it right?

Oh, what is it? What's the most important thing?

What do you see when you see a young quarterback that makes you say, that kid has it, that kid has it. He's got a chance?

You know, there is a floor of talent that you have to have, and I don't want to. I don't want to get beyond that.

What is talent? Explain what talent is in your mind when you see it.

Accuracy and processing.

Okay, so sorry to keep going on this, but I have actually been. I've been stewing on what this is, but one of the questions when the mistakes that get made all the time, from college to the pros, because it kind of looks like the same game to a fan, and like, how did they not see that this guy wasn't going to. But it does seem like there's like a second difference or half a second difference in the. In when you got to make the decision. So that's processing, knowing where you're going and. And what you're. Where you got to get the ball to. It's just that it's just a little different. And you can't see that in the college game because they're not subjected to the same pressures.

And the biggest position group that. That makes that different is the defensive line. Defensive line in the NFL is awful.

It explains.

No, these. These defensive. They're. The defensive linemen are unbelievable at the NFL level. Guys that you've never heard of gone to D3 schools, let alone the blue. You know, the guys from Georgia and Alabama, like, any and all of them, they're just. They are. They're like these werewolves. They're like, unbelievable. Like College hall of Fame. College hall of Fame. At the ceremony, two chairs down from me is Julie's peppers.

Shane is Unc Guy monster.

If you should see this guy up close.

Monster. Monster.

Michael, it doesn't make sense. I mean he's six seven, jacked with a six pack, weighs, you know, 300 pounds. I remember playing against him and you walk up to line scrimmage and I mean you're looking up at this guy like, oh my God, like this is not fair. And he could run into the corner, he could hurt me, you know, and these guys like so to that point, getting back to the NFL. And this is what make Brock. Brock makes Brock Purdy so special. And there's a lot of things into this is like he's processed and he can get the ball out. But he was so comfortable. He played five years in college. Like he had, he had so much time on task and it shows up in the pros. Like his processing speed, his ability to stand in the pocket in these tight, tight windows and make these throws. Right. Like there's so many guys in the college game that have never felt that. And then they get to the NFL and they, they. The NFL does a poor job of developing that. Right. You kind of. This either have it or you don't. But you know, so I think that's part of this.

But you said the minimum floor. So you were answering Shane's question. Minimum floor of talent, which was accuracy and processing. But then you were going to give the Alex Smith insight of like no, but this is what really counts if.

You'Re looking for a floor.

And there's a minimum of athleticism also. Right. I mean these guys are all good, good athletes.

Yeah.

Then I think within that though there is, this is where you get into how a guy's driven because every, even Tom Brady and Brock Purdy and Peyton Manning, like from the first pick to the last pick, it. You're going to get humbled a lot.

A lot.

Like it is a humbling game and you better have some shit to you.

We see. But this is where. Michael, can I tell you something? This is where I actually think, I actually think the take of. If Alex had the Urban offense in high school, he would have been better off effectively. Right. You know, where he gets to play wide and run. I actually don't think that's true. Knowing Alex, I think the thing that Urban developed in you was like the or revealed in you was the toughness which was basically like I can do more than I think just to me I feel like you at least if I hear about your journey, the thing that he provided. Yeah he liked, showed that you could run, he showed that you could play. But what he really did was like take you from 185 pound kid who is kind of whatever, you know, as a football player, and then is like, no, like, this guy hates me. He's going to cut me. I'm going to fight my way through that. Right. And I feel like that's the value that Urban Meyer gave you, much more so than the offense.

Oh, yeah. I don't disagree for sure. And I guess that's probably. Maybe it revealed it and it helped develop it. But I think that's what I'm talking about. Like, you better have that to you. I mean, like, Peyton Manning threw 28 interceptions his rookie year. It is still regarded like that's the record. Like, I mean, and then, you know what I'm saying? Like, we talked to Steve Young. Like, nobody's journey is easy. Like, they're like, it just. So I think you better have a resolve to you, I think, to ever have a chance at success at the, you know, to play quarterback in the NFL.

All right, I'm going to stop asking about being quarterback. But it's. It's a great. It's a great subject. And the book. The book hasn't been written, but it's a really. Is a thing to do. That's that. I just can't figure out quite how to do it.

Last note on this, because there's. There were all these Campbell trophy finalists at the ceremony last night. So these are the college. These are kids that are in college, right. That are playing. There were several quarterbacks there. In fact, Jalen Milroe won it, the Alabama quarter. But these guys. And this is what was so different from my time, like, signing a pro contract definitely changed my life. And it had a lot of weight that came with that. These guys have been pros for a long time. And now, even since high school, like I'm talking to them, every one of them's had an agent for quite a while. These guys like their. Their lives. This isn't the college experience that we had. You know, the poor scholarship check, you know, just trying to make ends meet like this. This is something that they've been dealing with and some of them since high school. And this kid that Michigan just stole, right, who from one of our neighbors here in Woodside, Larry Ellison's wife or girlfriend. Yeah.

You know, amazing story.

Amazing story.

The check, he's, by reports, it's $12 million to stay in Michigan and go.

You know, and he has nothing to do with Michigan. That's the thing that's so nuts.

The wife does, though.

Yeah, his wife does. Michael.

Guys, guys. He lives 45 minutes away. It's completely reasonable. Belvo Melchizedek. Larry Ellison.

Larry Ellison. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, Michael, you're talking about stories that you developed. How the hell did you even hear of Shane? How did the story. Because no Stats All Star is a big deal for us and for our podcast and our friendship, even. And so how did you come up with the idea? How did you even hear of Shane?

It was really easy. Often I have heroic stories of how I found stories. This is not an heroic story. This was. Daryl Morey got in touch with me more or less to thank me for getting his job, that he got hired by the owner of the Rockets to run the Rockets because the Rockets owner had read Moneyball and he wanted someone who was. Could do this in basketball. And Daryl was like, you know, I don't know, figuring out how to price the tickets at the Celtics or something. He was. He was that kind of person at the Celtics. He was a. He wasn't really in basketball operations, I don't think, but he was. He was thinking about these things. He was a baseball geek way back when he was at Bill James. I didn't even work for Bill James one summer. So Daryl got that job and he got in touch. And so we. It's been a light, but been a friendship since then. It's like the beggar looking for the money and where the light is rather than where. Where he thinks the money's going to be. The light was there. He was going to basically invite me, come down and check out the Rockets. And so we just started talking and I just asked them the question, like, who in basketball is the most misunderstood, undervalued in the whole league because you were running these numbers like you have a view? And he said, that's easy. We just got him. Or I just traded for him. And it was shame. So I was. At that time, I was doing things for the New York Times Magazine, so it was easy to do as a magazine piece. I'm sure Shane thought it was bizarre when I got in touch. I remember I came and saw you in Michigan. Like, what's he doing? But Shane is so easy to write about. I mean, like, I've been really lucky in being in colliding with smart athletes. The dumb ones are possible to write about? No, they just are. They just are. And you can't do anything with it.

Right.

It's like I need them to be. Have some view of their experience and have thought about their lives. And so Scott Hatterberg was that way. And in the Oakland, he was just like, you know, walking literary material. And Shane was the same way. It took like 20 minutes to figure out, this is interesting. Beyond interesting. Never mind the basketball, because he was so aware of the situation. And then it was just like, you know, how do you do it? And so then I asked him, like, who, when Shane guards him, has the least understanding of what's happening to him? And they said, easy as Kobe. But they said they. None of them do. Shane actually said this too. None of them do. Because no one can imagine that Shane Battier is stopping them in any way. And they often leave with garish numbers, but they got them very inefficiently and their team lost this kind of thing. But Kobe was the answer to that question from the Rockets front office. There was a. Probably. There were a couple of others who were candidates. And so it was just frame it with a game. But you know, that piece. And it was just a piece. But the idea is like book level worthy if you look at what makes that piece. It's the way Shane talks about his experience. It opens with the clock running down right before they are about to take the court. And Shane's like, it's all bullshit. Everybody's pretending to be friends with each other. Nobody likes me. Nobody says that. Like, nobody. None of the platitudes that come out of now, I'm exc for the game. I got to get up. Shane is like in the back having a cup of coffee because he's bored with having his name called out and doesn't. And doesn't think anybody on the court likes him anyway. And he doesn't want to pretend to be friends with people who don't really want to be his friend. And it's just like, wow, this is real. You know, it's complete. He was completely honest. And then. Then the details, you know, that was pretty. It was a long time ago. So it was like the analytics at the time were probably really crude compared to whatever they have now, but it was just like really cool to sit there with the ro Rockets front office watching him play and. And watching them observe what. What the stat sheet was not picking up. And it was a gazillion little things, but they saw it all. It's like, sorry, he didn't get through. He could have got the rebound maybe, but instead it was easier to tip it to a teammate and the teammate get the. He got the rebound. Or you see where he took Kobe on the court where Kobe shot? That's where we want Kobe shoot from. He made it. So what? It's all about having the right process here. And then it proceeded. I don't know, Shane, you probably don't even remember this. It's probably a blur to you, but after that piece came out, you had several dramatic encounters with Kobe Bryant. One was in, maybe in the playoffs, I can't remember. And it was like watching my piece come to life. It was incredible. And I also remember people trying to get into the Lakers locker room and ask Kobe Bryant, is it true that Shane Battier is shutting you down kind of thing. And he was. Someone got through at some point and he just. He did not like the question.

But Michael, I don't know if you ever. This is an apocryphal story about Kobe and like, knowing him. And, you know, I've been very open about my relationship with Kobe. I love the guy, but also hated him. And I never spoke to him outside the arena ever. Not one word. And so I didn't know him, but I knew him. And the story that came out of his camp or someone's camp told me that that article knows that All Star. It pissed him off so badly that he actually hired someone to do counter analytics to actually study what I did or did not, just so he could remedy whatever I was trying to do against him. And like, that's like the highest compliment.

I could ever get someone. It's like hiring someone to figure out how the magician's doing his trick.

Yes.

It's really so.

It's. It's so ridiculous. But like, it.

I think it's true. I think it's true.

Was he trying to disprove the article or was he trying to figure out how to play against you?

I think both.

Yeah.

I think, you know, in his mind he was unguardable. Right. And, you know, all the things that I was rumored to do, he never thought it had an effect, which was the gist of the article. But knowing Kobe, you know, the greats look at every angle and say, how can I exploit every little angle? And so I wouldn't put it past Kobe to say, like, if this guy knows something, a, that's a threat to like my greatness and I got to neutralize it or and B, what can I learn?

Right.

And he was a voracious student. So I mean, that's why, you know, in my mind, he's the greatest competitor that I've ever played.

Did you have a sense that he adjusted his game at all? Did you feel like you. No, no.

And that's why I knew, like, his hubris and his self belief was stronger than anything that he thought could ever affect him. Right. And I don't know if you ever read his book Mama Mentality, but after he passed, I never read it. I'd heard about all the kids quoted, and he actually dedicated two pages to me in his book.

He did.

He talked. Yeah, he talked about this, and he talked about, obviously, the hand in the face was my. My technique, and people got it all wrong, why I did it, you know?

Yeah.

I wanted. I wanted him to miss the shot. But I knew, especially for Kobe, the only way that he could prove that that was not an effective technique was to make shots.

Yeah. To try.

Well, the only way you can do that is if you take a dribble jump shot.

Yeah.

So I knew he would go out of his way to take his lowest percentage shot, which is the dribble jump shot, just to prove that the hand in the face didn't work.

To his left, I think to his left, preferably. Preferably right, preferably.

And so, you know, I was interviewed a lot about him, and so I never. I would never, ever, like, do the dumbass thing of saying I can guard Kobe. That would have been dumb. No. And so I was like. I was like, human Eeyore. I was like, NBA Eeyore. I'm like, oh, man. Like, Kobe just had a tough night tonight. He missed shots. Like, I just. I got lucky. And in Mamba mentality, he talked about the technique of the hand in the face. It didn't work because his muscle memory was too great and he practiced too hard. But he said, you know, I. You know, Shane, he goes a step further, and he goes, you know, shane never said that he could guard me in the media. And I saw that as false humility, and I had premeditated modesty.

That's what he said.

Yeah, it was premeditated modesty. And I attacked him because of it. And this is after he had passed. And I read this, and I'm like, this dude's absolutely right. It was premeditated modesty. I mean, I read it and started to cry. I literally, like, was bawling because, again, it was the purest form of competition that we had this metagame within the game that he knew that I knew that he knew that I knew that no one else knew we were playing. And, you know, I lament that we never will have a chance in this. This world to have that conversation. We will one day, hopefully. But, you know that it made my career, Michael. It really made my career. And just. Just beyond the winning and all that stuff just to have a matchup, a foil that, like, brings the absolute best out of you. And that's what Kobe Bryant, you know, means to me. And I didn't like him, you know, so it's, it's an amazing, you know, thank you for allowing me to have that journey and have the purest form of my, My journey with, with Kobe.

So I learned this from Moneyball, but I didn't come to writing about sports until we were pretty. You know, I'd been writing books before. It was a little bit of a jump for me to write about sports. And it shocked me. The effect you could have with a piece of writing in a world I just would assume would be oblivious to anything anybody wrote. I mean, if I was playing in the NBA or the NFL, I just wouldn't pay attention. I think I don't pay attention to anything anyone writes about my books. So, I mean, like, it's really.

I just don't. I just don't.

It's like they don't know anything. I know they don't know anything. And, and, and, and so I would have thought if I were, you know, in the. A professional athlete, I'd really know that some guy who's writing something doesn't know anything, and you would have no effect whatsoever. I was doing for, you know, I always thought basically the motive for riding Moneyball was my own amusement. I didn't think, like, I was going to change the game. It's shocking, the effect you can have with a piece of riding on a sport. Just shocking. And, and that the idea that Kobe Bryant would. Would either read it or hear about it or hear about some hear from someone who'd heard about it that even got to him and that he had any kind of response is. I mean, it's bewildering to me. I mean, just. It is bewildering.

I think the unique thing, from my perspective on that, is that in the sports world, you're right. Like, I could tune out a columnist like no other. Right. But that's what we've been inundated with, right? The beat writers, the columnist. Like, that's the only form of writing you ever hear about. Now, obviously, it's even transferred to tv, right. It's like it's the same thing. Your aspect of writing is so different because I think it's trying to get to a different level, like the human side of it, right? You're telling these fascinating stories. So even this matchup, and I think the nuance of it with, like, Shane and Kobe Right. And what makes Shane great, I mean, I. I just think that comes at it from a different angle, which is why I think is fascinating. It goes to even Moneyball, which is in a roundabout way, even like glue guys. Right. I mean, it's. It's the same thing. It's this. You know, I know there's a lot of aspects to Moneyball, but.

Well, it's.

It's a lot. Big thing that's going on with Shane and is going on with a Scott Hatterberg on the Oakland A's and. But a whole lot of other players is you're basically. And the fun thing to do with the reader, though you wouldn't have thought an athlete would respond to it, is you're saying you watch this thing every day and you're not seeing it. You're not seeing it like you're hearing them tell you what it is that you're seeing. You're seeing what you think you're supposed to see. But there's this whole game going on that you're not seeing. And there's a power to that. But I thought the power would be almost exclusively with the fan. Oh, now I can watch Shane Battier play and it's going to be that much more interesting because I see what he's doing. It is so cool. It's so much more fun to watch you. Not that you weren't fun to watch play, but it's so much more fun to watch Kobe get to the, like, left elbow and jump off of dribble and take a jump shop and you go, God, it's like he willed it because, you know. Exactly. That's where you want to be. You want him to be. So it's. It's just like. It's a. It's. It's just adds a dimension to the pleasure of the experience, the cool value.

Of this for me. And both Alex and Ravi have experienced this. We've actually done joint speeches just on the thought and the meaning behind no stat All Star. I'm continually shocked by people around the world who come up to me still to this day and say, thank you for telling my story.

Of.

Of. I live in the 98% outside of the spotlight. I don't feel I'm seen. I know I contribute. And so when I was reading this story about you, it was like you were writing about me. And thank you. And still to this day, still to this day, Ravi and I did a talk together in California this fall, and we talked about the themes of leading from the middle and leading from the outside and leading outside the spotlight and more people come up to us. And so it's a timeless message. It's an unbelievable message. And it's a basketball story. But at this point, for me, 15 years later, it's really a story about being seen and still being part of a team and contributing member. And like, it's mind blowing still to this day. It's a really a timeless message.

Michael, don't you think it's similar to your coal miner story?

Oh, God, you saw the coal miner story.

But like, not being seen, isn't that the epitome of it? Like these.

It's the public servant story, for sure. It's the public servant story. I mean, there are people doing breathtaking things in government. Breathtaking that are of unbelievable importance. And everybody just talks about them like they're nobodies and. Or worse, like their waste, fraud and abuse or whatever, without any understanding of, like, what it is they. So the coal mine, briefly, for the audience. I have a friend who runs the Washington Post kind of opinion section. His name is David Shipley, old friend. And we were on a hiking trail a few years ago and I was talking about this subject. Like, it's kind of shocking how little people understand their government. Like, it's just the conversation around it is so idiotic. And I said, what if we hired a bunch of writers, not just me, to drop and drop them into the federal government and just found a story and we hired six of my favorite writers and I did one too. And we did a series in the Washington Post leading up to the election. And. And my guy was. So how you find subjects? I mean, this is. Talk about kind of brainless way to find a subject. I had a list of thousands of people who had been nominated for a public service award by someone in their organization. This is in the, in the federal government. And like, there was no way. And it said this list was. It was a list of the. The nature of the awards. They never really even highlighted the person. It was more the work. So you'd have some name and they'd be like, I don't know, they're in the IRS and they fix the computer system and it just. There's nothing to grab onto. And there was a guy on the list, he just said, christopher, Mark, solve the problem of coal mine roofs falling in on the heads of coal mines, which has killed thousands of miners in the last 50 years. Something like that. And then it said at the end, a former coal miner. And I thought, ah, there's something here. Like, he's like, grew up in West Virginia. His dad was killed by a falling roof. How does someone get out of a coal mine and figure out how to solve what? He just clearly, probably really complicated problem. And who knew? Like, who knew thousands of people were killed by roofs falling in coal mines. Turns out that's the most likely way to get killed as a coal miner. Has been forever and terrifying, of course, too. So I call him up, thinking I'm gonna get like, West Virginia dude who has some harrowing story. And he's first. He's read Moneyball and he's like, he knows who I am right away, which is a great advantage. And he says, I start to like, I want to hear this story. And he was shocked I was calling him. He says, no, no, no. He says, my dad was a professor of engineering at Princeton University. And my story is very different from how you imagine it, which ended up just being great because I hate to go on about this, but I'm going to go on for just a little bit. His dad, who he would rebel against, he'd grown up in the late 60s, 70s, Vietnam War kind of era kid, left wing, protest kid. His dad was an engineer who had developed an expertise with stress testing, mainly metal objects. So the Air Force used him to test fighter jets to make sure the design of the fighter jet was such that if they flew it at a certain speed, the wing wouldn't fall off. He had this mechanism for sort of seeing stresses in objects. And at Princeton, someone suggested to him he used it to test Gothic cathedrals. Like, why is it these Gothic cathedrals, roofs don't fall down? And he did. He built these models of Chartres and Rhone, all these other cathedrals. And he showed the dad, this is the dad, like, what was holding the thing up and what was just decorative. And he could predict from his models, like, if he went to sharks, he could say, he could point to the stone that was eroding because it had too much pressure on it. And it was like. It was unbelievable what the guy did. The dad and the dad got a little famous. The son and the dad collided when they. And the kid said, I'm not going to be my dad. The kid, the son, my subject could have gone to Harvard. The dad wanted him to go to Harvard. He said, fuck you, I'm not going to college. I'm a go be. I'm joining the working class. Which drove his dad insane, which is what he was trying to do. He goes and joins the working class and ends up after several years Actually working in a coal mine in West Virginia and seeing like, Jesus Christ, the roof's about to fall in everywhere. It's terrifying. He gets a little bored with it after a year, goes back all by himself to Penn State and gets his degree and gravitates towards this problem of how do you prevent the roof from falling? So all this true? I put it to the kid after this guy tells me his. Telling me his story on the phone. I say, oh, my God, you thought you were rebelling against your dad, but you just became your dad. And he goes, he says, no way. Bullshit. He says, I had nothing to do with what my dad did. And he was like, incredibly defensive about, like. And I said, well, wait, I'm sorry, you figured out any story of how he figures out how to stop coal mine roofs from falling. He's unbelievable. It's like your dad figured out why gothic roofs, cathedrals, didn't collapse. And you go off and figure out how to make coal mine roofs not collapsing, and you don't see any connection. He goes, there's nothing to do with each other. And so there you have a character. When you have a character who doesn't completely get himself. And I gotta say, he's really smart, He's a delightful character. He saved thousands of lives with his work. But I gotta say that. So he gets this. He ended up getting this award that he was nominated for. I ended up giving him to him on stage at the Kennedy Senator. Six weeks ago, two months ago, and the day before I gave him the award, I went for a hike in Rock Creek park with him and his wife, and she let him get ahead for a bit. And then she said, you know, he never thought about his relationship with his dad. And since he's read this piece, he's thought about this more than he's thought about his whole life. And she said, you hit a nerve.

Michael, on that question for you. There's this great quote about you which is like, I would read like a thousand page history of the stapler if Michael Lewis wrote it. Somebody said one time about you, high compliment. What percentage of the story do you think is like finding the right character versus you being interested in observing kind of this idea of everything is fascinating if you go deep enough versus. No, no, fuck that. You have to get the right subject.

So I would not read a thousand page history of the stapler if I wrote it. Uh, it's. And that's the answer to the question. The. It isn't. It is. It's totally true that there is no subject that can't be made fit into a work of art, that there's no subject that you can't do something with. But there are many subjects I can't do something with. So it's like it's a match between. Between my interest. If I am interested, I get really interested. I can make anybody interested. I've never worried about that. I've never had to worry, oh, I'm really interested in this thing, and nobody's going to care. Sometimes books sell and don't sell, but eventually they care. And I remember having this conversation. It's a throwaway line, but with the editor of the New York Times Magazine. When I wrote the piece about Shane, he was the one who let me go do the piece. His name is Jerry Maserati. We were having drinks one night and he said, you know, you're really lucky. He said, everybody's interested in what you're interested in. I got all kinds of writers who come in here and they have these things that are interested that they're interested in that nobody's going to be interested in. And I think that's slightly wrong. I think the slightly wrong bit of it is that there are writers whose interest doesn't translate into other people's interest, that they. They get trapped in their own little hobby horse, and they expect in some way the reader to come to them. Like, they don't. They don't know how to grab. To grab them with what they're interested in. But it's that. It's. That. It's the combination. It's. If I'm really interested, it will work, but. But it's really, really hard. I mean, Shane's. The piece about Shane notwithstanding, which was, I mean, one of the easiest things I've ever had to write because it was just like, great character. It was all handed to me on a platter, and it was only 8,000 words. It wasn't 100,000 words. But it is diabolically hard for me to figure out how to do something like the quarterback thing. I've been noodling. This has been in the back of my mind since Peyton was playing. And it's like, how do you do this? How do you use this situation? Like, if anybody in the whole world is going to be accurately projected, you would think it would be an American quarterback. It's just there's so much at stake. How do you get this nugget that people are missing something big and why. And there are all these dramatic stories, individual stories, into a single narrative, and it's that's the hard part for me. And. And I have lots of things. I have. I have stacks of folders in my office of Inc. Of never really started projects that were an idea like this. And I just never found a way to do it.

How many do you ever come back to later? Like, have you ever come back to one later and has it turned into something?

Yep, they don't ever completely die. So what would be one I came back to later? The Big Short. This is not a great example, but it's kind of an example. I had different folders that. That ended up subsuming. I really want to write something about how innovation in the financial sector is like the one place where innovation seems really diabolical. Like, maybe we should just ban it. And like, this goes way back. Like, I remember when credit default swaps were invented and I thought, I can think of a million reasons these shouldn't exist. And I can't really think of. I can't think it's a little. I feel this way about sports gambling, but I can't think of one really good reason why we really need it. And so I had folders like that. And when I realized, oh, there's this story to tell about the, about the financial crisis. And it's really simple. It's like, guys, some people made the right bet and some big institutions made the wrong bet. And through the people's eyes, the eyes of the people who made the right bet, you can drive a narrative through this. All those kind of folders, those ended up slotting into it. That kind of thing happens a lot. I don't ever completely give up on them. It was interesting. I just haven't figured out how to do it. That's figuring out how to do it can be just really hard for me sometimes.

You know, this podcast is essentially kind of a mix of sports and business finance kind of world, obviously, and the commonalities and differences that make up both. You primarily write about both of those topics and you know, from. From Big Short and Liars Poker to obviously, you know, Moneyball and Blindside and in Coach and no Stat All Star. I would love to hear your, like, why. What is it about those two things that you find intriguing or you're curious about?

Just as a footnote, it's. I mean, one of my favorite. I've written. I wrote a book about COVID called the Premonition and I wrote a book about two Israeli psychologists called the Undoing Project. I wrote a book about fatherhood. You know, it's like I'm kind of all over the map. I wrote a book about the federal government, the Fifth Risk. And I'm about to write maybe another book about the federal government. So I do. So sports. If you took me back to when I was 26 and starting my career writing my first book, I did have this idea that I want to write about arenas of American ambition, like where the pressure is turned up and the heat is the hottest. And the obvious arenas are like Washington, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood, pro sports, sports generally. So I'm attracted to competitive environments. I was always as a kid incredibly competitive. I mean in a pretty clean way. But like my whole childhood was sports. Like I didn't even, I thought I was going to be a professional baseball player until I was like 18. And it was a preposterous ambition, but I thought it was and that's what I loved. So the sports stuff is easy to explain because just I had it baked into me somehow. The money stuff is more accidental. It's that I just lucked into this job on Wall street when I was 23 and it was incredible material and I wanted to write a book. And that was obviously a book. And once I wrote was Liars Poker. Once I wrote Liar's Poker and it sold a gazillion copies. I had a hall pass on Wall street and could, could go anywhere I wanted. And stories come into me because of it and people are expecting it. And so it's a ready made audience to do lots of things with if you're, if you're kind of near it. So going Infinite or Flash Boys or is the way to get to that audience with different kinds of stories because, just because the audience is there almost with the sports, I feel increasingly, especially with the polarization, with the way people are creating their own realities. And if people suspect that you hate Trump, that they won't read anything you write or people suspect you love Trump, they won't read anything. You write that with sports you can kind of sneak into people's lives and into their minds. They're open to it. It cuts across the culture. So if you can find, even if the story is actually about something else, like the piece about Shane is about something else, if it seems to be about sports, you can get to, you can like break down people's resistance. Oh, he's not, I'm not reading this book by a Berkeley liberal kind of thing, you know, it's. I'm, I'm reading a book about basketball or I'm reading a book about football, you know, It's a, so it. And uh, and I'm just much more comfortable. I, I, I love that, I love the, the, the initial openness it creates with the audience, with the readership to have sports as the text, whatever the subtext is. Because my own, I mean I let, I let all stuff in. I don't have little boxes.

I put people in arenas of American ambition. Let's go. That's it, right? I mean, you know, you happen to pick a couple of places where those sports and finance happen to be two places. But then all the other things you write about, they could be described as arenas of American ambition too.

That's true.

That's really cool. I never, never heard of that before.

I live prepared to be excited about something completely new that I've never written about.

And.

I avoid pretty violently writing the same thing twice. Like it feels like I've done this before. I just lose interest. So it's just sort of like you could write a million, you could get the whole world into sports books. You could find everything in sports kind of thing. And you could probably get a lot of the world into books about the world of money that you can get. That's just the text kind of thing. Whatever's going on underneath the text has got to feel kind of original. When I sold Moneyball, I sold it as two books and it was supposed to be a sequel. And it was about the, the guys they drafted that year. I was hanging out with the Oakland A's because they'd done it for the first time. They basically ignored their scouts and they, and they drafted without just pure algorithm, algorithm, like the first 10 rounds and they had seven first round picks. So it was like a bunch of guys. And I got to know each one of those players better than I got to know you for that piece I wrote about you. I spent two years, I was in uniform with the Midland Rockhounds in Midland, Texas. I was in all over the minor leagues and I couldn't figure out, I thought I knew what I was writing. I thought I was writing how this science experiment and slash, this idea about using analytics in sports was going to play out and that it was going to progress over time. And I was going to watch it through these characters and, and each one was a little science experiment. Each one was a hypothesis. And under me, like, or around me, the whole world woke up to analytics with such so loudly that like I wasn't going to add anything to it. It just vanished like there was nowhere to go with it. So I wasted two years Working on a book that just never happened. I never even tried to write it because I just didn't know what it was. So that happens. There are bad stories. It doesn't always work out. There's a price to pay for not knowing. For not knowing what you think or not having an opinion that you impose. The typical way of doing a story, and you've been on the receiving end of this, probably all of you, is that someone has an opinion about you, about the situation, about the team, and they're coming to you for a quote or something to fill in the opinion. They already know what they're going to write. They're not learning. They're not there to learn anything.

Right?

They're not there to learn anything. That, to me, is the worst. I've never done that in my life, and I never will. I'd rather shoot myself. I'd rather be. I'd rather be a janitor. I'd rather do anything. It's just awful. It's with the richness. The fun is like, God, this just seems interesting. Let's go learn why it seems so interesting. Let's, like, just go in and ask questions and watch and hang around and get to know the situation and figure out what it is that's going on here that's attracting your interest. And when you do that, it yields gold sometimes. But sometimes there's nothing there. Sometimes, like, it's not a story or there's no way to tell it, or. So there's a price for going in that way. But I think the benefits, you know, far way, justify the price.

Can I digress for a second, Michael? To build on what you just said, it's fascinating. You know, the most interesting investor I know is a guy who people in our town thinks works in construction.

Okay.

Like. And so it's a guy that Alex and I both know, right? His name is J.

You'll have to explain it.

I'm going to explain it. His name is Judd Weiss. Okay. And he's a quiet guy. He's an awesome guy. Great guy. But if you ask people in our town, we live in this little town, everybody, like, what does Judd. If you got an answer, they'd be like, he works in construction. Do you agree with me, Alex?

Yes.

Okay, great. So one day we're on a. We're driving to a soccer tournament or something. I was sitting with Judd. I was like, hey, man, can you tell me what you do? And he doesn't really want to answer you. You know, whatever. And I'm like, no, no, No, I really want to know. And it turns out what he does is he does not work in construction. What he and his father do is they find incredibly rare construction equipment, okay? They find incredibly rare construction equipment that is extremely lightly or never used, and it's very obscure. And then they buy it, okay? And they buy it and then they house it and they restore it. If it's got like a little small thing wrong with it, okay? And they buy it for like $0.03 on the dollar, and then they go. And then they're aware of everybody who might need said obscure piece of construction equipment, right? And then they'll hold it for 4 years, 5 years, 10 years, and when somebody wants it, they'll sell it for 100 cents on the dollar or 150 cents on the dollar, right? Because they're the only ones that have it. And what they're super aware of is what kinds of things can be used in various construction projects. What kinds of things are really not available anywhere else, right? And then they go and they scour the world for these things. He's got shit that he's bought in Hong Kong. He's going everywhere. And what he's doing is he's buying a distressed portfolio that's actually not distressed, right? And the whole. Everybody. What did Judd do? Judd works in construction. No, he doesn't. Judd is a ridiculously talented and patient investor. And. And he's also happens to be able to fix things, but he has, like, vision. And there's all these things where I was thinking about it and I was like, you know, the other podcast idea, other than glue guys, was like, interesting jobs. Just like, go talk to people about their jobs. Like, oh, shit, look at what they do. Because everything is interesting if you're willing to go deep enough. So I just was thinking about that.

There are about eight questions this bags, but one is, who knew there was rare construction equipment?

Yeah. Nope.

I mean, I mean, I had no idea. Like, what. What is this?

He was explaining it to me and I'm. I'm not very handy, so I don't know that I could explain it terribly well, but he's sort of like, look, there'll be like a government project. Yes. He's like, there's a government project that it needs to move some specific piece of earth. And it's a purpose built piece of equipment for that thing, and the government will use it once it's not to shit on the government. It's just like for that project, they'll have one of those things. And then at the end, it's going like, well, I don't know, what are we going to do with this? Or we just got to, like, wrap it up, you know, I want to.

I want to meet this guy.

I'm sure he would love to meet you in your office, but I want.

To go see the equipment. I want to see what this is. I had once. It's. I mean, that's intriguing. But then the second question is, how did it ever occur to him, His.

That's. I think his dad. His dad.

But how did his dad figure this out?

I don't know. And if you meet Judd and you meet Paul, which is what everyone calls his dad Paul, you're going to have a great time. I can promise you that.

It's a good idea for a podcast. It's a really good idea for a podcast.

Thank you. These guys were shitting on me for suggesting glue guys. I'm glad they know that.

Times with the general theory I have that a lot of people who have unhappy lives are going through the world without thinking, how do I make myself useful? They're thinking, like, how does the world make me happy? Or whatever. But if you go through the world looking to be useful, it's amazing how many things you can find to do.

Yes.

Like, maybe they won't. No one will pay for you for it right away, but they'll pay you for it eventually because it's useful and, like, it makes you wonder why there's unemployment, in a funny way, because if everybody's looking to be useful, you'd find something to do. And it's. But people don't think that way. They don't think, how do I be useful? I had this thing. I was. It was a thought experience. I was thinking about this yesterday. I was flying home from D.C. and I got to the airport and I thought, it's a weird thought, but I thought, I wonder how many people I can be useful to before I get off the plane. And it was like. It was amazing how many little things you could do. I mean, helping people with their luggage. The little old ladies who can't get their luggage into the bin. If you're just looking for them, you find a dozen of them. If you're not looking, you don't see it at all.

Right.

I was just thinking, if you filter the world that way, you see the world in a completely different way.

Well, you should know something, Michael, which is that when I first came in, when I talked to you about it the first time, I was sort of bracing myself because you're like an honest person to be like, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. And when you said, like, no, I like it, I like it, I like the name of it, and, you know, I would come on it. That was like, a big day for. For the three of us, you know, of a text message back of like, hey, Michael thinks this is a good idea, and he likes our title.

I do think this crossing in and out of athletics, pro athletes are increasingly just so in their bubble. When I think about pro athletes, like, why don't I ever see them on the streets? I feel like they're all living in some gated community somewhere, and you see them only in the arena and. And mixing them up with the wider world in different ways is a really interesting thing to do. Current and former. And on the money thing, I would have thought there would be a huge interaction between pro sports and the VC community if I were a Golden State Warrior. One reason I would be a Golden State Warrior is so I met all the venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. And so instead of I'm getting paid $40 million a year. I don't need $40 million a year. I need to. There's a smart way to do this, and. And those people clearly are a smart way to do this. And if I'm here, I have access to it. I'd have thought that would be part of a recruiting tool, a kit.

Is it? Oh, I mean, the warriors have full access, I think, to the Kleiner office. At least they did at one point. Yeah.

I mean, but this is the only.

Place in the world that it happens, Michael. So for me, I mean, I played for three teams, you know, West Coast, Midwest, east coast. And from an alumni standpoint, the former Niners by far do the best. And it's all from proximity, right. To being here and everything that goes on around here, and they end up staying here. And we had Steve Young on, who's a partner at a private equity firm, and Harris Barton and Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana. These guys have their own funds and are investing and have transitioned, you know, but it doesn't happen anywhere else.

But why is it word of that spread?

I think that's a good. Yeah, it's a good point because, like, I think that the opportunity is certainly there and proximity is a big deal. I can tell you that from the VC side, it's just there's a big difference of the person that wants to learn it versus wants to, like, just, like, get allocation, sort of like, I'm an Athlete, give me allocation. It's like, no, no, no. This is a really competitive industry, man. Like, you know, like that stuff is guarded like gold allocations and good investments. And so I think the people that want to learn, right, they are brought in and it's like, absolutely, let's do it. But then there's some people that aren't really all that curious and they're sort of extractive, maybe. Put it this way, Michael, think about your logic of like, how can I be useful? I think that there's a different reaction to somebody who wants to be useful versus wants to be extractive, wants the handout. Yeah. And I think it's just different, you know.

Yeah. I just think back this. I remember about the time I was writing that piece about Shane. I was asking Daryl Morey about how his players, he thought his players were handling their money. And he kind of rolled his eyes and said, we're not really supposed to have those conversations with the players. But he said I did. He said, I'll tell you one conversation I had and it stuck in my head. I can't remember who the player was. Right. And tell me. But it was someone who got a pretty big contract. He was really young. And he and Daryl asked him, they're just shooting the shit, like, what are you thinking about? Like, how are you going to invest this? Or whatever. And the guy said, a friend of mine told me, I know exactly what I'm going to do. I'm buying gas stations. And he said, like, what do you know about gas stations? He says, my friend says it's a really good investment. He says, like he thinks the price of oil is going up. And Darrell says, I don't think that's how like gas stations work. And the guys. And the guy said, like, oh, well, what would you do? And Darrell said, Darrell explained to him a low cost index fund in the stock market. Really explained it to him. And like you get a basket of stocks, you know, risk and all risk. And the guy listened and he looked him at the end of. He said, that's the craziest shit I've ever heard. I'm buying the gas stations.

I would say the sophistication of the athlete is much greater than when Alex and I entered the pro ranks. Right. There was no one talking about money. Maybe you invested in a bar, Right? That was the conversation in the locker room. You know, the, the kids. Now, you know, I joke that I showed up my first day at Duke with a trunk and a backpack and kids show up today at Duke With a business plan, with a, with a brand strategy, with a social strategy. So a level of sophistication a little better. And so I think the financial education is also a little more sophisticated, much better than it was 20 years ago when we came in the league.

How would you have played it though? How do you think you. Where did. Do you think you would have ended up at Duke?

Oh, 100%. 100%.

Oh, you do?

Oh, yeah, 100. And I would have. I would have leveraged that network much, much earlier. Much better. And so they. Oh, yeah, yeah.

What is that. What is you now getting paid to go to Duke to play basketball? What is that kid? Well, what's his name? You know, the new guy.

Duke is different. They like SEC schools have a much, much larger NIL budget. And so it's kind of weird. Duke and I would say Yukon and they're not as large as SEC schools. SEC is, is legit.

Right. So you don't think you to jump for the money in the SEC school?

No, no, no. But you know, the guys who go to do, you know, you know, the guys who go there now, they have, they have true NIL deals. You know, the original intent of NIL was I can, I can partner with a commercial enterprise and I can market them and we both, we both win from that. Right.

Right.

The what we call NIL is now just paying to go to school, getting paid to go to school. So it's not really true Nil, you know, but I would say the guys at Duke have more opportunities for true nil and true marketing opportunities. Not the, the pay for play that some other schools do.

I got just two pushbacks. What do we think the Duke basketball program is freaking worth from a value revenue standpoint? Right. And that this is in the NIL deal. I don't. We. We got into a little bit with. With Jay, but. Right. Like the fact that these players are finally making money. Right. You had free labor for. In an industry that was bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. The Duke, the Duke brand basketball brand is. Is probably. Is worth. You're nearing the NBA team and again you had free labor. So it seems crazy. So like, hopefully we do get to a pay for play scenario at some point here soon, but I will. I'm going to push back on you, Shane. I think that. And it'll. It'll never vary that the tales of players capitalizing on their brands and being sophisticated and learning and then the tales of the tragedies, I should say, of guys burning through their money and Blowing them, especially at a young age, will never change, regardless of how much education these teams are doing and these leagues are doing, right, to try and tell these guys about index funds, you know, like, it just, it will always be that way. And I think that's the nature certainly of youth and just humanity. Like there was always going to be the yin and the yang to this.

No, I, I agree.

Like the starting quarterback, I think, for University of Texas drives an Aston Martin. I think Shador Sanders drives a Rolls Royce.

Right?

Like these guys are in college. And it's the same tale. And I'm not to say they don't have the right to do that because they're, they're valued and they're making money and they're, they might be just fine long term, but like, I just think that will always be there because it comes back to the psychology of it.

Yeah, but, but dude, like Alex, like, this is, I mean, this is a tale as old as time. I mean, Bonfire of the Vanities. The guy's like, he's going broke on a million bucks a year. This is, you know, 40 years ago in finance. I mean, you got the finance guys that will have big problems too, right? And so I think that, I think that's definitely true. I think that the stereotype that I think you have from the past on athletes is sort of like no one keeps the money and everyone goes bankrupt. I think the thing that's new is actually more that some of the guys will become super duper successful because they're thinking about it, right? And they'll keep it and they'll, you know, do whatever they're going to do. But I definitely think that, like, you give a lot of money to a 20 year old, right? And it's so weird because you only earn it for such a weird period of time. I mean, yeah, like, people are going to go bankrupt.

I think the stats are changing because some of these players are finally earning generational money, right? Like 30, 40 years ago, they were still getting out, negotiated by the ownership. Ownership, you know, and certainly sports and live content are even more of a premium now. So the market's even bigger for these athletes, right? And like, so you get the Soto contracts, you get Patrick Mahomes signing for, you know, 500 million. You get guys, I think, knowing their value. So I think, to your point, Shane, maybe getting to that and being able to capitalize better off of it, we appreciate it.

You know, you are, you are someone that we all love. And so we really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you, Michael, for changing my life. Thank you.

See you down the road.

Thanks for tuning in to Glue Guys. We're on social media at Glue Guys Underscore Podcast, and we'll be back next week.