September 10, 2025 • 46 mins
Tesla has offered CEO Elon Musk a package worth $1 trillion to stay at the helm of the company — if he can hit a series of very ambitious goals. All of this comes in the midst of a serious dip in performance at the company, with stock falling 16% this year (partly as a result of Musk’s controversial moves on the world stage). So this week, Nate and Maria play armchair quarterback in a game of Good Call / Bad Call.
Then, they cut through the chatter over a modern masculinity crisis and get into the data. Is there really a crisis among men? Is it better to be a woman in 2025?
Further Reading:
Boy Crisis of 2025, Meet the ‘Boy Problem’ of the 1900s from NYT
The ‘Boy Crisis’ Is Overblown from NYT
For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:
The Leap from Maria Konnikova
Silver Bulletin from Nate Silver
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I'm Nate Silker.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
So today on the show, we've got a fun one
for you. We'll be playing a game that we've played
on the show before, Good Call, Bad Call, and we're
going to be starting up by talking about wealthiest man
in the world, Elon Musk, who's about to become even
wealthier because Tesla has given him quite the compensation package.
So we'll discuss whether that's a good call or a
(00:54):
bad call.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
And we'll be talking about the purported crisis of masculinity.
I am trying not to add skeptical inflection to my voice.
In fact, as we'll hear, you know, I don't think
there's any particularly good reason to be skeptical, but maybe
maybe Aria disagree. We'll have a fun segment, I predict.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
All right, Nate, le let's get into it. But before
we do, I want to welcome you back to the
United States.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Thank you. No, I mean I if I had learned
a word of Norwegian or Finnish, I would greet you
in that language, but they're very fluent in English, and
so it was not necessary to be honest.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You and I were both abroad, but I came back
a week before you from Barcelona, and you were in
northern Europe. Was summer over in northern Europe.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It was quite pleasantly temperate. I was in Norway. Saw
some fjords, pretty good fucking fjords.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
The first day we kind of drove around. We're like, oh,
this is nice. Looks like Maine or something, right, And
then the next day we took a fucking cruise on
the real fjords. One of the most spectacular natural things
I've ever seen. Hawaii is up there, but you know,
top top three in terms of things that will hopefully
outlast the human race. That sounds pessimistic, but you know
(02:20):
what I mean, right, Eternal, I do know what.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You mean, and I do I hope they outlast as well,
and I hope that they last long enough at least
for me to see them, because those are one that's
one of the things that I've never seen that I
would love to see one of these days.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Then, since sent some time in Helsinki, Finland, you can
tell I have some pronouncing it Helsinki, not Helsinki, which
is how uneducated Americans say, very nice town, great food,
which I wasn't expecting. And then Amsterdam.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Briefly, where there's also delicious food. Hmm, you didn't agree.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, I think I like Amsterdam and Robbie and I
have some friends there. I have visited a number of times,
had a great visit. I think Amsterdam is pound for
one of the worst food cities.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And it's good like Nipalese and stuff, there's good. It's
mixed at Nikolie right uh. And so like you know,
the international food's good, but the Dutch food, the continental food,
I know.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So. So I think this is where you and I
kind of differ because someone as someone who grew up
eating hariring, I absolutely love it. And you can get
really incredible hairing.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
And you get hair. We took the boat, the ferry
from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia for a day too. Pretty
good fucking haring on that boat.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Oh absolutely, I'm sure. I'm sure it was delicious. Well,
welcome back to the United States. You were missed. I
think New York missed both of us. But but now
we're now we're all back.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
How did how did Barcelona but the Barcelona? How did
Barcelona go how the epint go.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
It was fine. You know, it's very funny because I actually,
you know, I'm normally pretty good at not cashing and
then like having one big score when it comes to these.
I actually cashed in I think half of my event
and had no big scores, so ended down for the trip.
The deepest I went was well, actually I got fourth
(04:17):
in one event, but I missed out Nate on a
thirty seven thousand euro page jump and it was really
it was really heartbreaking. Had I just made it and
had I lasted, and had I been in third, I
would have been way up for the trip. So we
were very close. And you know, we've talked on the
show before about butterfly effects and how you know one
(04:40):
thing affects another. There was a player who was the
short stack, so people who don't play poker. He had
the fewest chips, and it seemed pretty likely that I
would end up outlasting him, and he ended up getting
it all in with ACE five off suit and getting
called by Ace King or actually Ace three, not ACE five,
(05:01):
Ace three getting called by Ace King, and he hit
his three and ended up doubling, and then he knocked
me up out a little while later, so you know
butterfly effects.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
It was it was a good player or bad player.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Incredibly wealthy player who doesn't really care. He is capable
of playing well, but at that point he was not
playing well because he was kind of in and I
don't give a fuck, but you guys all care about
the money type of mood. He is a businessman, he's
not a professional poker player.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You know, sometimes people with a fucket attitude toward ICM. ICM.
If you don't play poker, is the strategy the changes
you make when you're trying to cash a tournament I've had,
By the way, this is probably cashed a lot and
nothing too exciting beyond that, right, But like, if you're
really rich, though, and you just care about winning, then
you don't have to play with ICM. And it's like
(05:55):
annoying to all the other knits at the table who are.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, there's a t shirt that some poker players like
to wear that says ICM is for poor people. That
means that people who care about the independent hip model.
You know, the value of your of your chips actually
changes as these huge payge ump sloom. That means you're poor.
And if you can say fuck it. Sometimes that's that's
(06:21):
the way to do it, and you know, there is
It's a it's an interesting analogy kind of to to
life because there are definitely moments in life where you
know it pays to hang around a little bit, but
sometimes you're like, ah, fuck it, I want to play
to win, right like I want to I want to
get I want to take a big swing. I really
want to go for it. And sometimes that feels really good,
(06:42):
even if it's not necessarily correct, and you have to
just try to think, you know what, what risks? Am
I willing to take? What's the reward here? Is it
worth it? And am I I think this is actually
really important? Am I willing to walk away? Right? Like?
It's kind of like the fuck you money type of
type of concept, where will I walk away? Like if
(07:03):
this doesn't go right? And ICM as for poor people,
that person says, I am willing to walk away, right,
I am willing to forego you know, forty thousand dollars,
four hundred thousand dollars. It doesn't matter because I'm not
poor and I don't care, and you do and.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Your time is valuable too, you know what I mean?
I mean obviously, sometimes you're just giving up thousands of
dollars by not adapting your raine is right, but like, yeah,
I think it's anything wrong with we're saying opportunity cost
is high. I mean, it's a very very very very
very slippery slope, but.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, it certainly is. And on that note, Nate, maybe
we should talk about someone who has the most fuck
you money in the entire world, Elon Musk. So we
play a game good call, bad call? You know, is
this a good call? Is this a bad call? And
right now we're going to be putting that lens not
(07:56):
on Musk, but on Tesla's board because earlier this week,
so we are recording on Monday, September eighth, So I
guess it was last week that Tesla offered it's CEO,
Elon Musk, a new compensation package that's going to be
worth one trillion dollars over the next ten years and
(08:17):
by the end of it if he actually earns out
this compensation package, which is an if, right, there are
a lot of things that have to go right, but
he would own almost twenty nine twenty eight point eight
percent of Tesla's stock because that's how his compensation would
be paid out, which is huge, right, and that's a
(08:37):
lot more than most CEOs ever get to earn of
their of their company's stock, which would put him in
a really interesting position. So basically, you know, the board
has thrown money at him to try to get him
to stick around. Nate, do you want to talk about
some of the things that he has to do or
should I just go through that quickly?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Why don't you go You know, I'm still on finish
time here, so why don't you go through it? Maria?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
All right? So, basically he needs to meet some milestones,
which include everything from profits that have to increase over
twenty four times to one million autonomous taxis that are
going to be deployed, one million humanoid robots, and car
(09:26):
sales obviously, so there are a lot of things that
have to happen. So Tesla has to reach four hundred
billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization annually,
and right now it is earning less than seventeen billion
dollars a year, so that's quite a high number. He
(09:47):
needs to have an eight point five trillion dollar market cap.
Current market cap is about one trillion. The robotaxis is
a huge ask, right because right now they're way behind
schedule on that. So they have to deliver twenty million teslas,
which is actually probably the most attainable, but I don't
know we can talk about that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I could deliver fourteen million teslas, and.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And they're humanoid robots. Optimus is another one where they've
had a lot of issues, including in their demos. The
Optimus robots have not hit their benchmarks over time. I
think Elon has been over optimistic with all of these,
including the robots. But these are the things that have
to happen for him to get his compensation. Except and
(10:37):
this is one big except. So I was reading all
of this and I was like, huh, interesting thing that
they put in there. If there are factors quote outside
Tesla's control end quote that hurts Tesla's ability to reach
these milestones and reach these delivery targets, then Musk will
still get compensated. And it seems to me that that's
(11:00):
a pretty big out right that must can say, oh, well,
you know this was up might.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Have the best lawyer billing cycles in history. If there's
a dispute over this, I would think.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, I think so. So that's kind of the that's
the one caveat This will come to a vote on
November six. Listeners might remember as well that Musk already
has a prior compensation package that is in courts right
now because it was challenged. So yeah, so that's where
we are. And the question is right, like good call
(11:33):
or bad call on the part of the board of Tesla.
Everything is going down. Profits are going down, Tesla's market
share is going down. Is it a good call to
just throw money at Elon and try to kind of
get him to hit all of these targets to get
his attention back? Do we think this is a good
use of capital? Do we think Elon will be motivated
by it? He's already the world's richest man. Do we
(11:55):
think he's going to perform? Like? What do we think
about all of this? I think it's actually a really
kind of interesting psychological question about someone who's already insanely wealthy.
You know, how do we motivate someone like that? And
is this, you know, is this the way to do it?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah? I think it's a smart package. Actually, so you
can burn me at the stake for being such a capitalist.
But no, the reason why it's smart is because it
would seemed to me like these targets are a not
terribly easy to hit, notwithstanding the ambiguity of some of
these you know, acts of God clauses, right and b.
If the company is doing that well, then there's a
(12:33):
lot of wealth to go around, right. We're talking about
much higher than market growth. The fact that Tesla you know,
is facing more competition from Chinese automakers. It's products you're
not seen as innovative. They are all these things they
are trying to do, robo taxis and stuff like that,
but they're kind of like not as market leading right now.
(12:53):
But like, but if he turns it around, then I
think it strikes me as like fairly rational if it's
unlikely to be hit these benchmarks. Although Elon has bet
on himself before and been right, it's part of why
he is already the world's richest man, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Well, so theoretically, I don't mind, you know, great compensation
packages if there's a good end result. I'm wondering, though,
if you want to get you know, the world's richest
man right to focus on Tesla, even though his attention
has been elsewhere, his ambitions have been elsewhere. You know,
(13:28):
he's interested in X and SpaceX and all these other things.
Is just like throwing dollar signs at it. Is that
really going to be the best motivator? And the reason
I asked that, and maybe the answer is yes, but
the answer could also be no, because there is a
lot of really great psychological research about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation,
(13:52):
and a lot of times the reason that games players
want to play, you know, are four flow states and
kind of things that are intrinsic to the game, right,
Like they want to do better, they want to level up,
they want to do this, they want to get that,
like things that make them a good player within the game, right,
that convey some sort of prestige on them.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And it fits.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And I'm not talking about people for whom like this
is their profession and like they just need to get paid.
But when you start replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation,
right when you start putting dollar values on everything, sometimes
motivation actually lacks. So there can be this you know,
ironic effect where where when you actually get money, like
(14:35):
all of a sudden, it's not fun anymore. And that's
why a lot of people. You know, you sometimes hear
the advice like keep your hobbies, your hobbies right, don't
try to make everything into a side hustle, because you
might find that you no longer enjoy the types of
things that you used to really enjoy when you feel.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Like you have to experience. Yeah, I'm curious, Nate.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Why don't you actually say a little bit more about that,
because I think that that is part of the question
here right about whether this is the best motivator.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, look, I'll talk about the two big things that
I find very motivating, and maybe they're not so different
than the way Elon thinks about the world.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Right. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
One is just to build a product that you think
is really great. Right, to do something that nobody else
has done, to differentiate, to add intellectual value, artistic value,
aesthetic value, whatever it might be. Right, But it's like, Okay,
here's the world. Nobody is building a good election model
or writing a book like the book I wrote, or
(15:30):
whatever else, right, and so I am going to do
that really well. Right, And I think Elon is or
maybe was motivated by that type of thing, right, he
definitely has vision. I think you have to be pretty biased,
not to give him credit for that, right, And the
other big motivator is like the desire to prove people
wrong and the fact that you'll have people like us say, oh,
(15:54):
these targets seem very hard to achieve. They're kind of crazy.
It can't be done. How can he do all these
things where they're not even like leading the robotaxi market
for example, Like, like that could be very motivating too,
I think I think more so than the money, really, right,
It's like they're not like that. You have very many
anyone in Silicon Valley, be the founders or vcs or
whatever else. They don't like just go and say, Okay,
(16:16):
well I made a lot of money. I'm going to
go right in the sunset and hang out at my
private villa in Tuscany and show up and go to
really nice three star Michelin restaurants. Right, They usually are
still motivated to prove their doubters wrong, which makes them
assholes sometimes. And I don't think anybody would would shy
away from accusing Elon of that either, right, But yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, no, I think that that is a very powerful
motivator for people like Elon, Right, like, prove the hater's wrong.
Prove that I can do it, prove that I'm better
than they think I am because I know better now.
He has shown a pension for overconfidence. Right. He has
failed to hit very ambitious targets in the past, but
they're actually you know, you know, I mean this is
(17:01):
and listeners of the show no, no fan of Elon,
but this is something that is actually pretty not smart,
but like it is something that can work when you
do set these ambitious targets, right, even if you don't
actually hit them, you might hit a much higher target
(17:24):
than you otherwise would have done in trying to hit
this crazy target. Right. So it's kind of the opposite
of customer service business or consulting when you say under promise,
over deliver, right, Like, that's how you get people to
be really happy. Like you tell them a little bit
less than you think you're capable of doing, and then
once you hit what you're actually capable of doing, they'll
(17:45):
be like, holy shit, this is even better than I thought.
And he is kind of doing the opposite, right. Historically,
what he's done is over promise and underdeliver. That's not
necessarily great for Tesla's stock in the short term, but
it might not be necessarily a horrible strategy for motivating
people within the company to actually strive to hit kind
(18:06):
of these other milestones. And one of the reasons why
I think that probably the board wants him there and
is willing to kind of do any throw anything at
the problem to get him there is that anecdotally, Musk
does have a very strong motivating influence on workers when
he's present, right, and when he's not, motivation tends to sag. Like.
(18:27):
It is a very kind of cultive personality type of
business from what we've heard and from what we've seen,
and so maybe they're just trying to do everything they
can to try to get him physically there and really
trying to motivate people directly. I'm torn, right, Like, I
don't know. Obviously, I don't think they should be throwing
this amount of money at anyone, but like, let's just
put that aside and just think about.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Type of socialists are you running your rand moom Donnie's campaign?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I know, I know, right, but so let's let's just
put those considerations aside.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
And you believe billionaires shouldn't exist? Are billionaires Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I'm fine with billionaires existing, but but yeah, so so
the I think the question here is is an interesting
one in terms of how do we, you know, how
do we get people like that to perform at peak? They,
I think, are trying to throw everything into the equation,
you know, all these targets, money, all all of these
(19:27):
different things. The one thing that does worry me is
that out clause that I read to you, right, because like,
if he can just get the money without doing anything,
I think that there's a good chance that he is
going to potentially go there. So I might be worried
about language, but that's my biggest that's one of my
(19:48):
biggest Oh.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Look, I assume that, I mean, Tesla's stock was up
on this, right. I assume that, like the lawyers have
thought about how that clause might be interpreted in their
outclauses and in clauses. And I'm making that term up right.
I assume that, like it's not just you know, writing
things up on a white board, that they thought this
through a little bit. But yeah, look, to me, the
(20:09):
question is also, you know, does elon add that much
marginal value over another CEO? That kind of thing is
very hard to test, right if you go and I
asked my handy assistant Claude the AI. But I asked Claude,
what's the empirical literature say on whether CEO pay packages
(20:31):
are worth it?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And Claude wasn't sure. There does not seem to be
a clear consensus on this question in general and specifically.
I mean, you know, Elon got very distracted by politics
for some period of time. Well, that's stracts the right word.
I mean, I think most people would say that XAI
is doing interesting things behind kind of the big three
AI labs, but is a serious player, right, there's SpaceX
(20:56):
There's a lot of things, so yeah, you know. Meanwhile,
Elon has also been accused of recreational drug use in
well sourced stores in the Wall Street Journal. He is
a polarizing figure. I don't believe that his approval writing.
We've been tracking favorability of branks for Elon. They haven't
really improved very much. And see let the White House.
In fact, if anything, Republicans are more mad at him
(21:17):
now than they once were. Democrats haven't really you know,
returned to admiration for him yet. So there are a
lot of disadvantages too. But you know, I mean, look,
one of the other options he owns somewhere in the
range of fifteen percent of Tesla stock, right, so who's
the largest shareholder. If you wanted to oust him, you
(21:37):
would have to have the majority of other shareholders wanting
him out, which is very difficult for lots and lots
of reasons. So, you know, maybe it's not a choice
between Elon and generic CEO so much as motivated Elon
versus unmotivated Elon.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, so at the end of the day, night, good
call or bad call. I think you know where you
come down, all right, and I am it's hard going.
I'm gonna waffle on this one. I'm going to say,
I really I'm not sure I can see it going
either way. And this is a very waffly answer, But
that's at the end of the day where I'm coming
out and yeah, I'm hedging, Nate, I'm hedging. So yeah,
(22:17):
so that's where we are. Let's take a quick break now,
and then when we come back, we're going to talk
about the Battle of the sexes or you know, is
there actually a crisis of masculinity. We'll find out after
the break. Nate. Normally, when I think of the Battle
(22:47):
of the Sexes, I'm thinking game theory. Right, there's actually
a game that's called Battle of the Sexes. But in
today's segment, that is not what we're talking about, well
sort of, but not really. We're talking about kind of
the headlines that have been in the news over the
last few years about kind of a crisis of modern
(23:08):
masculinity that men are not doing as well as they
once were. Basically, you know, suicide as up, education levels
are down, loneliness is up. You know, we're seeing a
loneliness epidemic. And that's actually true of both sexes, but
more for men than for women's suicide actually is also
true that it's going up for both men and women,
(23:30):
but more for men, and on and on. So the
question here is is this actually a crisis of masculinity
or are these overblown headlines that basically are just like
little data blifts that really do not tell the whole
story where there's actually, you know, just as much male
(23:52):
dominance as there ever was, and maybe on the margins
certain things are changing a little bit, but it's still
basically same old story. So that is that is the
topic for this Battle of the Sexes. And obviously I'm female,
you're male, but I'm gonna let you kick this one
OFFN eight. So what is your kind of initial reaction
(24:14):
and then we can get into some data.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, look, maybe I'm playing into the stereotype a little
bit here. I think there's something real. I mean, one
reason why I say that is because you can see
it reflected in voting patterns too, which is something that
I study quite a bit, where among young voters in
the US and elsewhere, there are bigger gender splits than
there ever have been before. Historically, gender is only mildly
(24:41):
predictive of voting share. Usually women are a bit more
liberal than men, but that's been more profound, for example,
for Kamala Harris, for Donald Trump. And I think it
reflects the fact that, like some men feel a little
bit left out of the direction that society is headed, right,
They feel society as too risk averse, They feel emasculated,
(25:03):
They feel that, you know, institutions may be led. Well,
I don't know certainly what I call the village in
my book, right, the village is kind of academia and
media and so forth. Certainly in that field you see
more and more women leaders. Right in like democratic politics,
a lot of people who work on campaigns you know,
the women who ran Joe Biden's campaign was a woman.
(25:26):
So yeah, I think there's I think there's something there. Maria.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, well, having there be something there and having it
be like a full blown crisis are two different things.
So I do think that there's definitely I agree that
there is dissatisfaction. I mean, I think a lot of
what you're talking about is probably what got us you know,
Trump two point zero, right, what got us to that,
(25:49):
to that moment in time where a lot of people
felt really disaffected. And by the way, you're seeing this
in women too, where it's kind of a dovetailing that
where you're seeing the tradwife movement right where women are saying, yeah,
you know, we want to be at home and be
wives and full time homemakers and cook elaborate meals and
(26:10):
take care of our children and have lots of children.
We've talked on the show a little bit about this
movement in the past, but I think that these two
things are kind of going hand in hand, right. So
it's not just men who feel disaffected. There is a
subset of women who think, oh, you know, it's good
that women are staying at home. They shouldn't be in
the workforce in the same numbers as men. Men should
be the breadwinners. You know, we like traditional gender roles,
(26:34):
So you definitely have this current, this subcurrent in society.
That said, I think that some of the data that
has been cited that shows that basically men are not
doing as well as women. I think that a lot
of those data points, if you dig a little bit deeper,
(26:54):
don't hold a lot of water. So, for instance, when
it comes to the workforce, we still do have quite
a significant gender pay gap. So women on average make
eighty three cents to eighty five on the dollar.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Of what I'm going to I'm going to note for
the record that I think people would be the.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Causes of that, the causes of that. Yeah, that's that's
totally fine. I'm just saying that this that this still
exists right when, because if we're posing the question of
men are not doing as well as women, I'm just
kind of saying that there is a still a gender
pay gap that is in favor of men, and it
holds true over all education levels. So basically, men who
(27:39):
have no education are able to get better jobs and
women who have no education. Women with PhDs are paid
more than women with PhDs, and we still don't see
women progressing into positions of power at nearly the same
rates as we see men. So we do. We do
have that sort of thing and the fact that, oh
that there's a crisis in higher education, or that women
(28:03):
graduate from college more often than men. This has been
the case for kind of a long time, Like women
tend to do better academically and have for a very
long time. So this is not something new. It's not
like all of a sudden we have different education.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I've got to push back. I mean, it has gotten
I believe significantly big. I mean in terms of like
college graduation rates is going to like three to two
women or might go to two to one, and eventually,
I mean this kind of leads to interesting things like
should there be affirmative action for men on campus? It
also affects things like the campus dating scene potentially.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
That's actually so nate, that's actually the kind of a
data point in the opposite direction. If this is If
it's true that it has gotten worse and there is
still a huge gender pay gap and that men are
still getting paid more than women, even though women are
pushing to get educated and are more educated than men.
That that actually shows that men are getting even more
(28:58):
privileged when it comes to how much they're being paid
than women. Right, Because if.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You're no, I don't think necessary, I mean, are there
are a few things here right.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
This is, by the way, By the way, the reason
we're going back and forth on this is even economists
go back and forth on this, like the data is,
the data is really complicated, and this is a very
muddy subject with tons of confounds, and it's really really
hard to control for all of the variables. So I'm
I'm just doing a little bit of a caveat on that.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Let me go through a couple of arguments that I
think the kind of economists on the other side of
this issue we'd go through, and some of them are
are explanations liberals would like more, some conservatives would like more. Right,
you know, one belief is that women often take more
time out of their careers to care for children, to
(29:53):
care sometimes for other like ailing family members, for things
like that, and that you know, if you count for that,
then there's questions about how much of the gender wage
gap remains. You know. The more plocularly incorrect thing too,
This is kind of what got Larry Summer's in a
lot of trouble at Harvard University. Right, you know, there
are some evidence that men have higher variance, that they
(30:16):
end up in really bad circumstances, commit substantially more violence
and more crime. Right, can crash out in different ways.
But if there's more genetic variation in a population, then
maybe the very top earners Elon Musk of the world
to bring him up again might tend to be men more, right,
I mean, those are those are theories that compete with this,
(30:37):
I guess, right, you know, I think one could ask
how predictive is college completion of success in career anyway?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Right, yep, that's a very valid question, especially now when
you have you know, also the Pewter teals of the
world paying people not to go to college. You know. There,
I think we are seeing a very very different society
than even ten years ago, and I think that that
shift is going to all the all the evidence shows
that that shift is not a prairiy blip that people
(31:11):
are putting less value on. Okay, where did you go
to school? Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, and tech, as you said, is like the field
where this is most pronounced. Right, there's now a you know,
anti higher education quadrant in tech I would see, right,
But it hasn't spread to like finances much, which is
still a bit more hierarchical. But like all this is
tied together, right, the backlash against elite higher education and
(31:41):
the backlash against women's roles in society. These things are
tied together, I think to like a greater and greater extent, right,
you know, and again you know, Look, my premise is
always at like, it doesn't do anybody any good to
pretend that, on average, that gender differences don't exist.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
If you look at measures of self reported well being,
if you ask people are you happy or not? Basically? Right,
First of all, there are enormous generational divides where a
lot of gen Z reports very poor mental health, But
there is a gender gap too. Men tend to report
(32:21):
higher happiness, lower levels of anxiety and depression. If you
look at like what circumstances, what life circumstances affect people's
sense of well being? Right? For some types of things,
men are more resilient, but not for work related stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
If you ask kind of questions about like what would
happen if you got demoted at work or you weren't
performing expectations that you know, men have a bigger psychological
effect from that than women do on average, all these
our averages.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, absolutely, I will just add to that to kind
of give a broader picture that usually the gender differences
within genders are much much larger than the gender differences
between genders on almost any data point you can find. Right.
That means men differ more from men, and women differ
more from women than men on average, and women on
(33:12):
average differ from each other. That is something that is
just basically true of almost anything you can find in
the psychology literature. So I just want people to keep
that in the back of their minds.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah. Look, you know, I just came from the self
professed happiest country in the world, Finland. I was trying
to do it. Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
That that always just I get such a kick out
of that.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
They seem pretty happy. They drink a lot, you get offered,
Oh that's probably why.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, they haven't bought into the alcohol is bad for
you yet, so yes, their life satisfaction is probably higher.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
This could be, this could be a whole different episode.
Not that we could do the boost thing, right, but
like national happiness rankings, what do they really tell you, right,
I think they're probably somewhat real. One thing you actually notice,
I haven't published this work. Maybe I'll get around to
it eventually. If you look at fertility rates by country,
(34:09):
then happiness is somewhat predictive of that when you control
for GDP. I mean, basically, you know, the big thing
that no one wants to talk about is that, like
both men and women have seen to discover around the
world that like, when you get wealthier than maybe there
are better things to do with your life and to
have children, right, and this is causing potential decline in
(34:31):
the global population. Right. That's a big difference between not
really between men and women, but it's also a generational difference.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
But people actually have, controlling for other factors, more kids
in happier countries, which suggests to me that there is
like some tangible difference here potentially. I mean, you could
look at things like suicide rates. I haven't looked at that. Actually,
you know, men commit suicide much more offer than women,
even though even though they report higher self reported mental health,
(35:01):
which is interesting. Maybe it's another case of like having
more variation potentially, but I think these things are at
least partly real, and some of us that it's more
you know, the notion about like men not feeling like
they have a lot of close friends, right.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
That's actually a huge thing. I think that there's a
lot to that, and I think that there you know,
women historically socially have had to kind of be more socialized, right.
It's it's one of those things where women, I think,
just in general in society have kind of had to
(35:37):
get support groups, right, and be nice and be the
people in the family who take care of calendars and
appointments and keep up with other parents and like and
do all of the social stuff. And for men, that
once again historically hasn't always been their dominant social role.
So we actually do see that that men tend to
have smaller circles, and that those circles often shrink with
(36:00):
age unless they do something specifically to counteract it. Something
else that we mentioned briefly but have not gone into
in detail, But I think it's important here, including in
social circles who you interact with, and I think that
this is affecting both genders, is that you know, teens
right now. Tweens are coming up in an era where
(36:24):
so much activity is online, right, and there's this atomization
of society that we didn't experience you and I and
A when we were when we were growing up. And
I think that there are generational differences that we have
no idea yet how that's going to play out, but
as of now, I think that those do not have
a great effect on mental health. Right if you socialize
online versus in person, there is a difference. We do
(36:47):
have data on that, and so I do think that
we're going to be seeing kind of some spillover effects
from that in the future. And it's too early to
say whether you know what the gender differences will be,
what kind of what the fall from that will be,
But there is an important kind of generational shift going
on right now that we should be paying attention to.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Look, I think some stereotypes are true on an average,
right If you let's say I get dinner with a
male friend playtonic right the next day, do I get
like a follow up thank you We'll stening out again
soon text? Probably not? Right with a female friend over
fifty to fifty I would say, right, just an observation
I think will hold true for a lot of people.
(37:48):
You know, men stereotypically like to hang up by doing
things together. Right, you're watching a football game, you're watching
a movie, you're playing a video game. Right, maybe playing poker,
women tend to you know, involve more talking on average,
don't shoot the messenger, right, There is data on this, right,
and like and that might be more threatened by a
(38:09):
like a model where now you're hanging out in person
or you're or you're not hanging out in person as much. Right,
you know, I think poker is interesting and there is
certainly outright sexism in poker, for sure, and yes, but
you know, I also think it's a male bonding experience
and an outlet for some men who feel like they
don't have another way to like to make friends. Right,
(38:32):
you go to the poker room, and believe me, there
are some poker players who are very sociable and eloquent
and everything else, but like you want, Yeah, some guys
just want to play poker and talk about crypto and
sports and women.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
You know, that's one of the reasons why poker is
a popular hobby with with with men right, and might
encourage men who are like, Okay, this is my this
is my safe space a little bit when you do
see some of the more sexist behaviors, Oh for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
I mean I've said that often that you know, especially
at lower stakes, when you go to your local casino,
that's where I've experienced some of the greatest misogyny because
I think that people there are playing for different reasons
than when you get to like high stakes pros for
whom like this is a career, they're taking it like
it's their profession. And at those lower stakes you often
get people for whom like this is their socializing, right,
(39:21):
like this is there, like I just want to be
with the guys and like I don't want to watch
my fucking mouth. Like you're the one who chose to
sit at this table. If I want to, you know,
hit on the dealer and like talk about her boobs
and like mention your ass, that's fine, And if you're
not comfortable, you leave, right, I'm not going to change
my behavior. I'm here with the boys. I want to drink,
(39:41):
I want to have fun. So I think that there's
definitely something to that. And yeah, so I do think
that all of these factors matter when we're thinking about, like,
is there actually a crisis here? Right, So at the
end of the day and night, how would you weigh
all of this to say, you know, is there a
crisis or are these just kind of some issues where
(40:02):
men are winning some where they're losing. And it's true
of women as well, and we're just in a moment
of social change that's not necess necessarily gender related, which
is how I would kind of think about it, as
opposed to saying, yes, it's a crisis of masculinity, that
would be my answer. How would you answer it?
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Well, look, I think most people are will tend to
treat everything as a crisis, whether or not it's actually
incret nor. The mental health numbers for young people are
very bad, and I think it has to constitute a crisis. Now,
they're worse for women than men. But look, okay, let
me be a little spicier here, right, I think there
(40:41):
is often implicit bias against men in how the village, right,
the kind of progressive communities talk about some of these
things potentially, Right, if you kind of get at the
question of, like to go back to self diagnosed mental health, right,
some people will say, Okay, women are higher and liberals
(41:02):
are higher. This isn't even bigger different talking way, Liberals
are higher than conservatives by a wide margin.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
You know, they will say, well, that's because there is
a stigma against declaring mental health conditions, and that women
and concern or women and liberals don't suffer from the stigma,
whereas conservatives and men do, right, to which I would say, okay,
(41:30):
maybe there is something to stoicism basically, right, and you
know they're popular still assists books and podcasts and websites
and things like that where it's like, okay, you know,
maybe there's something to be said for like toughing it
out under pressure. Maybe this is actually an evolutionarily smart strategy, right,
Maybe it's okay to like compartmentalize things a little bit, right,
(41:54):
or you know, to kind of the example of what
was kind of half joking about before. We're like men
like to do stuff, women like to talk with one another,
you know. Now and then I'll see like some op
ed in the Atlantic or whatever. Right you Usually when
by women they're like, well, men don't know how to
good friendships. It's like fuck you if I want to
go out and watch a baseball game with my friend, Like,
(42:14):
don't tell me it's like any less valid than like
chatting chatting chatting pressure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, no. And by the way, I actually think there's
good data for both men and women that you bond
more through experiences that like that kind of stuff and
doing things together is just good for friendship period.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, people talk so much, you know, what's what's they
to talk about? Go do something?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
But yeah, I mean, but it sounds like it sounds
like you're you're kind of on the same page as
I am when it comes to like, yeah, there are
obviously some issues happening, but it's less clear how much
of it is. Gender is kind of a crisis of
masculinity as such, right, because the mental health stuff that's
(42:55):
that's a very different crisis like that is not The data,
as you said, are not great for women either. So
I think there are lots of things going on. I
do think we need to there are lots of trends
that we should be paying attention to. But I think
the data inconclusive. When it comes to, oh, you know,
is there is there a crisis for one gender or another?
I think the answer there is no, there's not enough
(43:17):
evidence for that, but there are some undercurrents that we
should be paying attention to and monitoring, especially with the
next generation coming up.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, look, I mean I don't know. If you look
at like the male versus female employment population ratio, right,
it's dropped actually for everybody, in part because you have
like the population aging outside of prime working years, but
it's dropped quite a bit more for men. Right in
two thousand and five according to the Bureau of Labor
(43:47):
Cystix before before the site gets compromised by Trump. So
in two thousand and five, seventy three percent of men
aged twenty and older were employed. Now it's sixty seven percent. Right,
there's a drop off for women, but it's been less
from fifty eight to fifty six. It looks like here, right, So,
(44:08):
like I think, I think there's plenty of evidence for this, right,
quantitative and qualitative and everything and everything else.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
But there's also evidence against it that we've talked about.
I don't think we need to rehash it once again.
But it sounds like you're coming out more on the
side of crisis. I'm coming out less on the side
of crisis. And I don't just don't like the crisis language.
I think that is I think that's way too alarmist,
and that is not how we should be approaching this.
I'm much more in the camp of stoicism, you know,
(44:37):
that's one of the underlying philosophies of my writing. So
I'm all for that. This has been fun, though, and
I think that it is interesting to look through these data.
It's a really tough topic one that I'm sure some
of these things will will be revisiting. But it also
it goes to show that, you know, assessing these sources
of risks, it's tough, right, and it's a really difficult
(44:59):
job for economists try to parse the numbers, and there's
so much going on that it's just not going to
be a clear story ever, which is why people can
right authoritative op eds on opposite sides of this insight
data that seems to support their point of view. So yeah,
this has been a fun show, Nate. I you know,
(45:20):
one of the other things about northern Europe where you
came from, is that there also is a lot more
gender equality there than there is in other parts of
the world. So curious if that has something to do
with the happiness levels as well. But maybe we can.
Maybe we can leave that for another show.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Look, I think if you look at the happiest countries
in the world, they're also smaller countries, right, I think
that absolutely.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah, so many confounding factors. Yeah, lots and lots of
confounding factors there. And on that note, Nate, I hope
you have a lovely week, and let me invite you
to dinner so that we can talk, because I'm female
and you know I like to I like to bond
over talking and good food. So let's get a dinner
from the calendar.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
You know, maybe go to a Yankees game, Maria, you
can get dinner there.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Okay, all right, I will. I will go to a
Yankees game, Nate, because I am a good friend. Let
us know what you think of the show. Reach out
to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm. And
by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we
(46:25):
have some bonus content for you that's coming up right
after the credits.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up for
just six ninety nine a month. What a nice price.
You get access to all that premium content and ad
for listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit. Sally
Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I'm Nate Silker.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
So today on the show, we've got a fun one
for you. We'll be playing a game that we've played
on the show before, Good Call, Bad Call, and we're
going to be starting up by talking about wealthiest man
in the world, Elon Musk, who's about to become even
wealthier because Tesla has given him quite the compensation package.
So we'll discuss whether that's a good call or a
(00:54):
bad call.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
And we'll be talking about the purported crisis of masculinity.
I am trying not to add skeptical inflection to my voice.
In fact, as we'll hear, you know, I don't think
there's any particularly good reason to be skeptical, but maybe
maybe Aria disagree. We'll have a fun segment, I predict.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
All right, Nate, le let's get into it. But before
we do, I want to welcome you back to the
United States.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Thank you. No, I mean I if I had learned
a word of Norwegian or Finnish, I would greet you
in that language, but they're very fluent in English, and
so it was not necessary to be honest.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You and I were both abroad, but I came back
a week before you from Barcelona, and you were in
northern Europe. Was summer over in northern Europe.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It was quite pleasantly temperate. I was in Norway. Saw
some fjords, pretty good fucking fjords.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
The first day we kind of drove around. We're like, oh,
this is nice. Looks like Maine or something, right, And
then the next day we took a fucking cruise on
the real fjords. One of the most spectacular natural things
I've ever seen. Hawaii is up there, but you know,
top top three in terms of things that will hopefully
outlast the human race. That sounds pessimistic, but you know
(02:20):
what I mean, right, Eternal, I do know what.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You mean, and I do I hope they outlast as well,
and I hope that they last long enough at least
for me to see them, because those are one that's
one of the things that I've never seen that I
would love to see one of these days.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Then, since sent some time in Helsinki, Finland, you can
tell I have some pronouncing it Helsinki, not Helsinki, which
is how uneducated Americans say, very nice town, great food,
which I wasn't expecting. And then Amsterdam.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Briefly, where there's also delicious food. Hmm, you didn't agree.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, I think I like Amsterdam and Robbie and I
have some friends there. I have visited a number of times,
had a great visit. I think Amsterdam is pound for
one of the worst food cities.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And it's good like Nipalese and stuff, there's good. It's
mixed at Nikolie right uh. And so like you know,
the international food's good, but the Dutch food, the continental food,
I know.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So. So I think this is where you and I
kind of differ because someone as someone who grew up
eating hariring, I absolutely love it. And you can get
really incredible hairing.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
And you get hair. We took the boat, the ferry
from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia for a day too. Pretty
good fucking haring on that boat.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Oh absolutely, I'm sure. I'm sure it was delicious. Well,
welcome back to the United States. You were missed. I
think New York missed both of us. But but now
we're now we're all back.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
How did how did Barcelona but the Barcelona? How did
Barcelona go how the epint go.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
It was fine. You know, it's very funny because I actually,
you know, I'm normally pretty good at not cashing and
then like having one big score when it comes to these.
I actually cashed in I think half of my event
and had no big scores, so ended down for the trip.
The deepest I went was well, actually I got fourth
(04:17):
in one event, but I missed out Nate on a
thirty seven thousand euro page jump and it was really
it was really heartbreaking. Had I just made it and
had I lasted, and had I been in third, I
would have been way up for the trip. So we
were very close. And you know, we've talked on the
show before about butterfly effects and how you know one
(04:40):
thing affects another. There was a player who was the
short stack, so people who don't play poker. He had
the fewest chips, and it seemed pretty likely that I
would end up outlasting him, and he ended up getting
it all in with ACE five off suit and getting
called by Ace King or actually Ace three, not ACE five,
(05:01):
Ace three getting called by Ace King, and he hit
his three and ended up doubling, and then he knocked
me up out a little while later, so you know
butterfly effects.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
It was it was a good player or bad player.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Incredibly wealthy player who doesn't really care. He is capable
of playing well, but at that point he was not
playing well because he was kind of in and I
don't give a fuck, but you guys all care about
the money type of mood. He is a businessman, he's
not a professional poker player.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You know, sometimes people with a fucket attitude toward ICM. ICM.
If you don't play poker, is the strategy the changes
you make when you're trying to cash a tournament I've had,
By the way, this is probably cashed a lot and
nothing too exciting beyond that, right, But like, if you're
really rich, though, and you just care about winning, then
you don't have to play with ICM. And it's like
(05:55):
annoying to all the other knits at the table who are.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, there's a t shirt that some poker players like
to wear that says ICM is for poor people. That
means that people who care about the independent hip model.
You know, the value of your of your chips actually
changes as these huge payge ump sloom. That means you're poor.
And if you can say fuck it. Sometimes that's that's
(06:21):
the way to do it, and you know, there is
It's a it's an interesting analogy kind of to to
life because there are definitely moments in life where you
know it pays to hang around a little bit, but
sometimes you're like, ah, fuck it, I want to play
to win, right like I want to I want to
get I want to take a big swing. I really
want to go for it. And sometimes that feels really good,
(06:42):
even if it's not necessarily correct, and you have to
just try to think, you know what, what risks? Am
I willing to take? What's the reward here? Is it
worth it? And am I I think this is actually
really important? Am I willing to walk away? Right? Like?
It's kind of like the fuck you money type of
type of concept, where will I walk away? Like if
(07:03):
this doesn't go right? And ICM as for poor people,
that person says, I am willing to walk away, right,
I am willing to forego you know, forty thousand dollars,
four hundred thousand dollars. It doesn't matter because I'm not
poor and I don't care, and you do and.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Your time is valuable too, you know what I mean?
I mean obviously, sometimes you're just giving up thousands of
dollars by not adapting your raine is right, but like, yeah,
I think it's anything wrong with we're saying opportunity cost
is high. I mean, it's a very very very very
very slippery slope, but.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, it certainly is. And on that note, Nate, maybe
we should talk about someone who has the most fuck
you money in the entire world, Elon Musk. So we
play a game good call, bad call? You know, is
this a good call? Is this a bad call? And
right now we're going to be putting that lens not
(07:56):
on Musk, but on Tesla's board because earlier this week,
so we are recording on Monday, September eighth, So I
guess it was last week that Tesla offered it's CEO,
Elon Musk, a new compensation package that's going to be
worth one trillion dollars over the next ten years and
(08:17):
by the end of it if he actually earns out
this compensation package, which is an if, right, there are
a lot of things that have to go right, but
he would own almost twenty nine twenty eight point eight
percent of Tesla's stock because that's how his compensation would
be paid out, which is huge, right, and that's a
(08:37):
lot more than most CEOs ever get to earn of
their of their company's stock, which would put him in
a really interesting position. So basically, you know, the board
has thrown money at him to try to get him
to stick around. Nate, do you want to talk about
some of the things that he has to do or
should I just go through that quickly?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Why don't you go You know, I'm still on finish
time here, so why don't you go through it? Maria?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
All right? So, basically he needs to meet some milestones,
which include everything from profits that have to increase over
twenty four times to one million autonomous taxis that are
going to be deployed, one million humanoid robots, and car
(09:26):
sales obviously, so there are a lot of things that
have to happen. So Tesla has to reach four hundred
billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization annually,
and right now it is earning less than seventeen billion
dollars a year, so that's quite a high number. He
(09:47):
needs to have an eight point five trillion dollar market cap.
Current market cap is about one trillion. The robotaxis is
a huge ask, right because right now they're way behind
schedule on that. So they have to deliver twenty million teslas,
which is actually probably the most attainable, but I don't
know we can talk about that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I could deliver fourteen million teslas, and.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And they're humanoid robots. Optimus is another one where they've
had a lot of issues, including in their demos. The
Optimus robots have not hit their benchmarks over time. I
think Elon has been over optimistic with all of these,
including the robots. But these are the things that have
to happen for him to get his compensation. Except and
(10:37):
this is one big except. So I was reading all
of this and I was like, huh, interesting thing that
they put in there. If there are factors quote outside
Tesla's control end quote that hurts Tesla's ability to reach
these milestones and reach these delivery targets, then Musk will
still get compensated. And it seems to me that that's
(11:00):
a pretty big out right that must can say, oh, well,
you know this was up might.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Have the best lawyer billing cycles in history. If there's
a dispute over this, I would think.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, I think so. So that's kind of the that's
the one caveat This will come to a vote on
November six. Listeners might remember as well that Musk already
has a prior compensation package that is in courts right
now because it was challenged. So yeah, so that's where
we are. And the question is right, like good call
(11:33):
or bad call on the part of the board of Tesla.
Everything is going down. Profits are going down, Tesla's market
share is going down. Is it a good call to
just throw money at Elon and try to kind of
get him to hit all of these targets to get
his attention back? Do we think this is a good
use of capital? Do we think Elon will be motivated
by it? He's already the world's richest man. Do we
(11:55):
think he's going to perform? Like? What do we think
about all of this? I think it's actually a really
kind of interesting psychological question about someone who's already insanely wealthy.
You know, how do we motivate someone like that? And
is this, you know, is this the way to do it?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah? I think it's a smart package. Actually, so you
can burn me at the stake for being such a capitalist.
But no, the reason why it's smart is because it
would seemed to me like these targets are a not
terribly easy to hit, notwithstanding the ambiguity of some of
these you know, acts of God clauses, right and b.
If the company is doing that well, then there's a
(12:33):
lot of wealth to go around, right. We're talking about
much higher than market growth. The fact that Tesla you know,
is facing more competition from Chinese automakers. It's products you're
not seen as innovative. They are all these things they
are trying to do, robo taxis and stuff like that,
but they're kind of like not as market leading right now.
(12:53):
But like, but if he turns it around, then I
think it strikes me as like fairly rational if it's
unlikely to be hit these benchmarks. Although Elon has bet
on himself before and been right, it's part of why
he is already the world's richest man, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Well, so theoretically, I don't mind, you know, great compensation
packages if there's a good end result. I'm wondering, though,
if you want to get you know, the world's richest
man right to focus on Tesla, even though his attention
has been elsewhere, his ambitions have been elsewhere. You know,
(13:28):
he's interested in X and SpaceX and all these other things.
Is just like throwing dollar signs at it. Is that
really going to be the best motivator? And the reason
I asked that, and maybe the answer is yes, but
the answer could also be no, because there is a
lot of really great psychological research about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation,
(13:52):
and a lot of times the reason that games players
want to play, you know, are four flow states and
kind of things that are intrinsic to the game, right,
Like they want to do better, they want to level up,
they want to do this, they want to get that,
like things that make them a good player within the game, right,
that convey some sort of prestige on them.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And it fits.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And I'm not talking about people for whom like this
is their profession and like they just need to get paid.
But when you start replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation,
right when you start putting dollar values on everything, sometimes
motivation actually lacks. So there can be this you know,
ironic effect where where when you actually get money, like
(14:35):
all of a sudden, it's not fun anymore. And that's
why a lot of people. You know, you sometimes hear
the advice like keep your hobbies, your hobbies right, don't
try to make everything into a side hustle, because you
might find that you no longer enjoy the types of
things that you used to really enjoy when you feel.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Like you have to experience. Yeah, I'm curious, Nate.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Why don't you actually say a little bit more about that,
because I think that that is part of the question
here right about whether this is the best motivator.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, look, I'll talk about the two big things that
I find very motivating, and maybe they're not so different
than the way Elon thinks about the world.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Right. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
One is just to build a product that you think
is really great. Right, to do something that nobody else
has done, to differentiate, to add intellectual value, artistic value,
aesthetic value, whatever it might be. Right, But it's like, Okay,
here's the world. Nobody is building a good election model
or writing a book like the book I wrote, or
(15:30):
whatever else, right, and so I am going to do
that really well. Right, And I think Elon is or
maybe was motivated by that type of thing, right, he
definitely has vision. I think you have to be pretty biased,
not to give him credit for that, right, And the
other big motivator is like the desire to prove people
wrong and the fact that you'll have people like us say, oh,
(15:54):
these targets seem very hard to achieve. They're kind of crazy.
It can't be done. How can he do all these
things where they're not even like leading the robotaxi market
for example, Like, like that could be very motivating too,
I think I think more so than the money, really, right,
It's like they're not like that. You have very many
anyone in Silicon Valley, be the founders or vcs or
whatever else. They don't like just go and say, Okay,
(16:16):
well I made a lot of money. I'm going to
go right in the sunset and hang out at my
private villa in Tuscany and show up and go to
really nice three star Michelin restaurants. Right, They usually are
still motivated to prove their doubters wrong, which makes them
assholes sometimes. And I don't think anybody would would shy
away from accusing Elon of that either, right, But yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, no, I think that that is a very powerful
motivator for people like Elon, Right, like, prove the hater's wrong.
Prove that I can do it, prove that I'm better
than they think I am because I know better now.
He has shown a pension for overconfidence. Right. He has
failed to hit very ambitious targets in the past, but
they're actually you know, you know, I mean this is
(17:01):
and listeners of the show no, no fan of Elon,
but this is something that is actually pretty not smart,
but like it is something that can work when you
do set these ambitious targets, right, even if you don't
actually hit them, you might hit a much higher target
(17:24):
than you otherwise would have done in trying to hit
this crazy target. Right. So it's kind of the opposite
of customer service business or consulting when you say under promise,
over deliver, right, Like, that's how you get people to
be really happy. Like you tell them a little bit
less than you think you're capable of doing, and then
once you hit what you're actually capable of doing, they'll
(17:45):
be like, holy shit, this is even better than I thought.
And he is kind of doing the opposite, right. Historically,
what he's done is over promise and underdeliver. That's not
necessarily great for Tesla's stock in the short term, but
it might not be necessarily a horrible strategy for motivating
people within the company to actually strive to hit kind
(18:06):
of these other milestones. And one of the reasons why
I think that probably the board wants him there and
is willing to kind of do any throw anything at
the problem to get him there is that anecdotally, Musk
does have a very strong motivating influence on workers when
he's present, right, and when he's not, motivation tends to sag. Like.
(18:27):
It is a very kind of cultive personality type of
business from what we've heard and from what we've seen,
and so maybe they're just trying to do everything they
can to try to get him physically there and really
trying to motivate people directly. I'm torn, right, Like, I
don't know. Obviously, I don't think they should be throwing
this amount of money at anyone, but like, let's just
put that aside and just think about.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Type of socialists are you running your rand moom Donnie's campaign?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I know, I know, right, but so let's let's just
put those considerations aside.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
And you believe billionaires shouldn't exist? Are billionaires Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I'm fine with billionaires existing, but but yeah, so so
the I think the question here is is an interesting
one in terms of how do we, you know, how
do we get people like that to perform at peak? They,
I think, are trying to throw everything into the equation,
you know, all these targets, money, all all of these
(19:27):
different things. The one thing that does worry me is
that out clause that I read to you, right, because like,
if he can just get the money without doing anything,
I think that there's a good chance that he is
going to potentially go there. So I might be worried
about language, but that's my biggest that's one of my
(19:48):
biggest Oh.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Look, I assume that, I mean, Tesla's stock was up
on this, right. I assume that, like the lawyers have
thought about how that clause might be interpreted in their
outclauses and in clauses. And I'm making that term up right.
I assume that, like it's not just you know, writing
things up on a white board, that they thought this
through a little bit. But yeah, look, to me, the
(20:09):
question is also, you know, does elon add that much
marginal value over another CEO? That kind of thing is
very hard to test, right if you go and I
asked my handy assistant Claude the AI. But I asked Claude,
what's the empirical literature say on whether CEO pay packages
(20:31):
are worth it?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And Claude wasn't sure. There does not seem to be
a clear consensus on this question in general and specifically.
I mean, you know, Elon got very distracted by politics
for some period of time. Well, that's stracts the right word.
I mean, I think most people would say that XAI
is doing interesting things behind kind of the big three
AI labs, but is a serious player, right, there's SpaceX
(20:56):
There's a lot of things, so yeah, you know. Meanwhile,
Elon has also been accused of recreational drug use in
well sourced stores in the Wall Street Journal. He is
a polarizing figure. I don't believe that his approval writing.
We've been tracking favorability of branks for Elon. They haven't
really improved very much. And see let the White House.
In fact, if anything, Republicans are more mad at him
(21:17):
now than they once were. Democrats haven't really you know,
returned to admiration for him yet. So there are a
lot of disadvantages too. But you know, I mean, look,
one of the other options he owns somewhere in the
range of fifteen percent of Tesla stock, right, so who's
the largest shareholder. If you wanted to oust him, you
(21:37):
would have to have the majority of other shareholders wanting
him out, which is very difficult for lots and lots
of reasons. So, you know, maybe it's not a choice
between Elon and generic CEO so much as motivated Elon
versus unmotivated Elon.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, so at the end of the day, night, good
call or bad call. I think you know where you
come down, all right, and I am it's hard going.
I'm gonna waffle on this one. I'm going to say,
I really I'm not sure I can see it going
either way. And this is a very waffly answer, But
that's at the end of the day where I'm coming
out and yeah, I'm hedging, Nate, I'm hedging. So yeah,
(22:17):
so that's where we are. Let's take a quick break now,
and then when we come back, we're going to talk
about the Battle of the sexes or you know, is
there actually a crisis of masculinity. We'll find out after
the break. Nate. Normally, when I think of the Battle
(22:47):
of the Sexes, I'm thinking game theory. Right, there's actually
a game that's called Battle of the Sexes. But in
today's segment, that is not what we're talking about, well
sort of, but not really. We're talking about kind of
the headlines that have been in the news over the
last few years about kind of a crisis of modern
(23:08):
masculinity that men are not doing as well as they
once were. Basically, you know, suicide as up, education levels
are down, loneliness is up. You know, we're seeing a
loneliness epidemic. And that's actually true of both sexes, but
more for men than for women's suicide actually is also
true that it's going up for both men and women,
(23:30):
but more for men, and on and on. So the
question here is is this actually a crisis of masculinity
or are these overblown headlines that basically are just like
little data blifts that really do not tell the whole
story where there's actually, you know, just as much male
(23:52):
dominance as there ever was, and maybe on the margins
certain things are changing a little bit, but it's still
basically same old story. So that is that is the
topic for this Battle of the Sexes. And obviously I'm female,
you're male, but I'm gonna let you kick this one
OFFN eight. So what is your kind of initial reaction
(24:14):
and then we can get into some data.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, look, maybe I'm playing into the stereotype a little
bit here. I think there's something real. I mean, one
reason why I say that is because you can see
it reflected in voting patterns too, which is something that
I study quite a bit, where among young voters in
the US and elsewhere, there are bigger gender splits than
there ever have been before. Historically, gender is only mildly
(24:41):
predictive of voting share. Usually women are a bit more
liberal than men, but that's been more profound, for example,
for Kamala Harris, for Donald Trump. And I think it
reflects the fact that, like some men feel a little
bit left out of the direction that society is headed, right,
They feel society as too risk averse, They feel emasculated,
(25:03):
They feel that, you know, institutions may be led. Well,
I don't know certainly what I call the village in
my book, right, the village is kind of academia and
media and so forth. Certainly in that field you see
more and more women leaders. Right in like democratic politics,
a lot of people who work on campaigns you know,
the women who ran Joe Biden's campaign was a woman.
(25:26):
So yeah, I think there's I think there's something there. Maria.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, well, having there be something there and having it
be like a full blown crisis are two different things.
So I do think that there's definitely I agree that
there is dissatisfaction. I mean, I think a lot of
what you're talking about is probably what got us you know,
Trump two point zero, right, what got us to that,
(25:49):
to that moment in time where a lot of people
felt really disaffected. And by the way, you're seeing this
in women too, where it's kind of a dovetailing that
where you're seeing the tradwife movement right where women are saying, yeah,
you know, we want to be at home and be
wives and full time homemakers and cook elaborate meals and
(26:10):
take care of our children and have lots of children.
We've talked on the show a little bit about this
movement in the past, but I think that these two
things are kind of going hand in hand, right. So
it's not just men who feel disaffected. There is a
subset of women who think, oh, you know, it's good
that women are staying at home. They shouldn't be in
the workforce in the same numbers as men. Men should
be the breadwinners. You know, we like traditional gender roles,
(26:34):
So you definitely have this current, this subcurrent in society.
That said, I think that some of the data that
has been cited that shows that basically men are not
doing as well as women. I think that a lot
of those data points, if you dig a little bit deeper,
(26:54):
don't hold a lot of water. So, for instance, when
it comes to the workforce, we still do have quite
a significant gender pay gap. So women on average make
eighty three cents to eighty five on the dollar.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Of what I'm going to I'm going to note for
the record that I think people would be the.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Causes of that, the causes of that. Yeah, that's that's
totally fine. I'm just saying that this that this still
exists right when, because if we're posing the question of
men are not doing as well as women, I'm just
kind of saying that there is a still a gender
pay gap that is in favor of men, and it
holds true over all education levels. So basically, men who
(27:39):
have no education are able to get better jobs and
women who have no education. Women with PhDs are paid
more than women with PhDs, and we still don't see
women progressing into positions of power at nearly the same
rates as we see men. So we do. We do
have that sort of thing and the fact that, oh
that there's a crisis in higher education, or that women
(28:03):
graduate from college more often than men. This has been
the case for kind of a long time, Like women
tend to do better academically and have for a very
long time. So this is not something new. It's not
like all of a sudden we have different education.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I've got to push back. I mean, it has gotten
I believe significantly big. I mean in terms of like
college graduation rates is going to like three to two
women or might go to two to one, and eventually,
I mean this kind of leads to interesting things like
should there be affirmative action for men on campus? It
also affects things like the campus dating scene potentially.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
That's actually so nate, that's actually the kind of a
data point in the opposite direction. If this is If
it's true that it has gotten worse and there is
still a huge gender pay gap and that men are
still getting paid more than women, even though women are
pushing to get educated and are more educated than men.
That that actually shows that men are getting even more
(28:58):
privileged when it comes to how much they're being paid
than women. Right, Because if.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You're no, I don't think necessary, I mean, are there
are a few things here right.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
This is, by the way, By the way, the reason
we're going back and forth on this is even economists
go back and forth on this, like the data is,
the data is really complicated, and this is a very
muddy subject with tons of confounds, and it's really really
hard to control for all of the variables. So I'm
I'm just doing a little bit of a caveat on that.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Let me go through a couple of arguments that I
think the kind of economists on the other side of
this issue we'd go through, and some of them are
are explanations liberals would like more, some conservatives would like more. Right,
you know, one belief is that women often take more
time out of their careers to care for children, to
(29:53):
care sometimes for other like ailing family members, for things
like that, and that you know, if you count for that,
then there's questions about how much of the gender wage
gap remains. You know. The more plocularly incorrect thing too,
This is kind of what got Larry Summer's in a
lot of trouble at Harvard University. Right, you know, there
are some evidence that men have higher variance, that they
(30:16):
end up in really bad circumstances, commit substantially more violence
and more crime. Right, can crash out in different ways.
But if there's more genetic variation in a population, then
maybe the very top earners Elon Musk of the world
to bring him up again might tend to be men more, right,
I mean, those are those are theories that compete with this,
(30:37):
I guess, right, you know, I think one could ask
how predictive is college completion of success in career anyway?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Right, yep, that's a very valid question, especially now when
you have you know, also the Pewter teals of the
world paying people not to go to college. You know. There,
I think we are seeing a very very different society
than even ten years ago, and I think that that
shift is going to all the all the evidence shows
that that shift is not a prairiy blip that people
(31:11):
are putting less value on. Okay, where did you go
to school? Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, and tech, as you said, is like the field
where this is most pronounced. Right, there's now a you know,
anti higher education quadrant in tech I would see, right,
But it hasn't spread to like finances much, which is
still a bit more hierarchical. But like all this is
tied together, right, the backlash against elite higher education and
(31:41):
the backlash against women's roles in society. These things are
tied together, I think to like a greater and greater extent, right,
you know, and again you know, Look, my premise is
always at like, it doesn't do anybody any good to
pretend that, on average, that gender differences don't exist.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
If you look at measures of self reported well being,
if you ask people are you happy or not? Basically? Right,
First of all, there are enormous generational divides where a
lot of gen Z reports very poor mental health, But
there is a gender gap too. Men tend to report
(32:21):
higher happiness, lower levels of anxiety and depression. If you
look at like what circumstances, what life circumstances affect people's
sense of well being? Right? For some types of things,
men are more resilient, but not for work related stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
If you ask kind of questions about like what would
happen if you got demoted at work or you weren't
performing expectations that you know, men have a bigger psychological
effect from that than women do on average, all these
our averages.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, absolutely, I will just add to that to kind
of give a broader picture that usually the gender differences
within genders are much much larger than the gender differences
between genders on almost any data point you can find. Right.
That means men differ more from men, and women differ
more from women than men on average, and women on
(33:12):
average differ from each other. That is something that is
just basically true of almost anything you can find in
the psychology literature. So I just want people to keep
that in the back of their minds.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah. Look, you know, I just came from the self
professed happiest country in the world, Finland. I was trying
to do it. Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
That that always just I get such a kick out
of that.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
They seem pretty happy. They drink a lot, you get offered,
Oh that's probably why.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, they haven't bought into the alcohol is bad for
you yet, so yes, their life satisfaction is probably higher.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
This could be, this could be a whole different episode.
Not that we could do the boost thing, right, but
like national happiness rankings, what do they really tell you, right,
I think they're probably somewhat real. One thing you actually notice,
I haven't published this work. Maybe I'll get around to
it eventually. If you look at fertility rates by country,
(34:09):
then happiness is somewhat predictive of that when you control
for GDP. I mean, basically, you know, the big thing
that no one wants to talk about is that, like
both men and women have seen to discover around the
world that like, when you get wealthier than maybe there
are better things to do with your life and to
have children, right, and this is causing potential decline in
(34:31):
the global population. Right. That's a big difference between not
really between men and women, but it's also a generational difference.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
But people actually have, controlling for other factors, more kids
in happier countries, which suggests to me that there is
like some tangible difference here potentially. I mean, you could
look at things like suicide rates. I haven't looked at that. Actually,
you know, men commit suicide much more offer than women,
even though even though they report higher self reported mental health,
(35:01):
which is interesting. Maybe it's another case of like having
more variation potentially, but I think these things are at
least partly real, and some of us that it's more
you know, the notion about like men not feeling like
they have a lot of close friends, right.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
That's actually a huge thing. I think that there's a
lot to that, and I think that there you know,
women historically socially have had to kind of be more socialized, right.
It's it's one of those things where women, I think,
just in general in society have kind of had to
(35:37):
get support groups, right, and be nice and be the
people in the family who take care of calendars and
appointments and keep up with other parents and like and
do all of the social stuff. And for men, that
once again historically hasn't always been their dominant social role.
So we actually do see that that men tend to
have smaller circles, and that those circles often shrink with
(36:00):
age unless they do something specifically to counteract it. Something
else that we mentioned briefly but have not gone into
in detail, But I think it's important here, including in
social circles who you interact with, and I think that
this is affecting both genders, is that you know, teens
right now. Tweens are coming up in an era where
(36:24):
so much activity is online, right, and there's this atomization
of society that we didn't experience you and I and
A when we were when we were growing up. And
I think that there are generational differences that we have
no idea yet how that's going to play out, but
as of now, I think that those do not have
a great effect on mental health. Right if you socialize
online versus in person, there is a difference. We do
(36:47):
have data on that, and so I do think that
we're going to be seeing kind of some spillover effects
from that in the future. And it's too early to
say whether you know what the gender differences will be,
what kind of what the fall from that will be,
But there is an important kind of generational shift going
on right now that we should be paying attention to.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Look, I think some stereotypes are true on an average,
right If you let's say I get dinner with a
male friend playtonic right the next day, do I get
like a follow up thank you We'll stening out again
soon text? Probably not? Right with a female friend over
fifty to fifty I would say, right, just an observation
I think will hold true for a lot of people.
(37:48):
You know, men stereotypically like to hang up by doing
things together. Right, you're watching a football game, you're watching
a movie, you're playing a video game. Right, maybe playing poker,
women tend to you know, involve more talking on average,
don't shoot the messenger, right, There is data on this, right,
and like and that might be more threatened by a
(38:09):
like a model where now you're hanging out in person
or you're or you're not hanging out in person as much. Right,
you know, I think poker is interesting and there is
certainly outright sexism in poker, for sure, and yes, but
you know, I also think it's a male bonding experience
and an outlet for some men who feel like they
don't have another way to like to make friends. Right,
(38:32):
you go to the poker room, and believe me, there
are some poker players who are very sociable and eloquent
and everything else, but like you want, Yeah, some guys
just want to play poker and talk about crypto and
sports and women.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
You know, that's one of the reasons why poker is
a popular hobby with with with men right, and might
encourage men who are like, Okay, this is my this
is my safe space a little bit when you do
see some of the more sexist behaviors, Oh for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
I mean I've said that often that you know, especially
at lower stakes, when you go to your local casino,
that's where I've experienced some of the greatest misogyny because
I think that people there are playing for different reasons
than when you get to like high stakes pros for
whom like this is a career, they're taking it like
it's their profession. And at those lower stakes you often
get people for whom like this is their socializing, right,
(39:21):
like this is there, like I just want to be
with the guys and like I don't want to watch
my fucking mouth. Like you're the one who chose to
sit at this table. If I want to, you know,
hit on the dealer and like talk about her boobs
and like mention your ass, that's fine, And if you're
not comfortable, you leave, right, I'm not going to change
my behavior. I'm here with the boys. I want to drink,
(39:41):
I want to have fun. So I think that there's
definitely something to that. And yeah, so I do think
that all of these factors matter when we're thinking about, like,
is there actually a crisis here? Right, So at the
end of the day and night, how would you weigh
all of this to say, you know, is there a
crisis or are these just kind of some issues where
(40:02):
men are winning some where they're losing. And it's true
of women as well, and we're just in a moment
of social change that's not necess necessarily gender related, which
is how I would kind of think about it, as
opposed to saying, yes, it's a crisis of masculinity, that
would be my answer. How would you answer it?
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Well, look, I think most people are will tend to
treat everything as a crisis, whether or not it's actually
incret nor. The mental health numbers for young people are
very bad, and I think it has to constitute a crisis. Now,
they're worse for women than men. But look, okay, let
me be a little spicier here, right, I think there
(40:41):
is often implicit bias against men in how the village, right,
the kind of progressive communities talk about some of these
things potentially, Right, if you kind of get at the
question of, like to go back to self diagnosed mental health, right,
some people will say, Okay, women are higher and liberals
(41:02):
are higher. This isn't even bigger different talking way, Liberals
are higher than conservatives by a wide margin.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
You know, they will say, well, that's because there is
a stigma against declaring mental health conditions, and that women
and concern or women and liberals don't suffer from the stigma,
whereas conservatives and men do, right, to which I would say, okay,
(41:30):
maybe there is something to stoicism basically, right, and you
know they're popular still assists books and podcasts and websites
and things like that where it's like, okay, you know,
maybe there's something to be said for like toughing it
out under pressure. Maybe this is actually an evolutionarily smart strategy, right,
Maybe it's okay to like compartmentalize things a little bit, right,
(41:54):
or you know, to kind of the example of what
was kind of half joking about before. We're like men
like to do stuff, women like to talk with one another,
you know. Now and then I'll see like some op
ed in the Atlantic or whatever. Right you Usually when
by women they're like, well, men don't know how to
good friendships. It's like fuck you if I want to
go out and watch a baseball game with my friend, Like,
(42:14):
don't tell me it's like any less valid than like
chatting chatting chatting pressure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, no. And by the way, I actually think there's
good data for both men and women that you bond
more through experiences that like that kind of stuff and
doing things together is just good for friendship period.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, people talk so much, you know, what's what's they
to talk about? Go do something?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
But yeah, I mean, but it sounds like it sounds
like you're you're kind of on the same page as
I am when it comes to like, yeah, there are
obviously some issues happening, but it's less clear how much
of it is. Gender is kind of a crisis of
masculinity as such, right, because the mental health stuff that's
(42:55):
that's a very different crisis like that is not The data,
as you said, are not great for women either. So
I think there are lots of things going on. I
do think we need to there are lots of trends
that we should be paying attention to. But I think
the data inconclusive. When it comes to, oh, you know,
is there is there a crisis for one gender or another?
I think the answer there is no, there's not enough
(43:17):
evidence for that, but there are some undercurrents that we
should be paying attention to and monitoring, especially with the
next generation coming up.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, look, I mean I don't know. If you look
at like the male versus female employment population ratio, right,
it's dropped actually for everybody, in part because you have
like the population aging outside of prime working years, but
it's dropped quite a bit more for men. Right in
two thousand and five according to the Bureau of Labor
(43:47):
Cystix before before the site gets compromised by Trump. So
in two thousand and five, seventy three percent of men
aged twenty and older were employed. Now it's sixty seven percent. Right,
there's a drop off for women, but it's been less
from fifty eight to fifty six. It looks like here, right, So,
(44:08):
like I think, I think there's plenty of evidence for this, right,
quantitative and qualitative and everything and everything else.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
But there's also evidence against it that we've talked about.
I don't think we need to rehash it once again.
But it sounds like you're coming out more on the
side of crisis. I'm coming out less on the side
of crisis. And I don't just don't like the crisis language.
I think that is I think that's way too alarmist,
and that is not how we should be approaching this.
I'm much more in the camp of stoicism, you know,
(44:37):
that's one of the underlying philosophies of my writing. So
I'm all for that. This has been fun, though, and
I think that it is interesting to look through these data.
It's a really tough topic one that I'm sure some
of these things will will be revisiting. But it also
it goes to show that, you know, assessing these sources
of risks, it's tough, right, and it's a really difficult
(44:59):
job for economists try to parse the numbers, and there's
so much going on that it's just not going to
be a clear story ever, which is why people can
right authoritative op eds on opposite sides of this insight
data that seems to support their point of view. So yeah,
this has been a fun show, Nate. I you know,
(45:20):
one of the other things about northern Europe where you
came from, is that there also is a lot more
gender equality there than there is in other parts of
the world. So curious if that has something to do
with the happiness levels as well. But maybe we can.
Maybe we can leave that for another show.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Look, I think if you look at the happiest countries
in the world, they're also smaller countries, right, I think
that absolutely.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah, so many confounding factors. Yeah, lots and lots of
confounding factors there. And on that note, Nate, I hope
you have a lovely week, and let me invite you
to dinner so that we can talk, because I'm female
and you know I like to I like to bond
over talking and good food. So let's get a dinner
from the calendar.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
You know, maybe go to a Yankees game, Maria, you
can get dinner there.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Okay, all right, I will. I will go to a
Yankees game, Nate, because I am a good friend. Let
us know what you think of the show. Reach out
to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm. And
by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we
(46:25):
have some bonus content for you that's coming up right
after the credits.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up for
just six ninety nine a month. What a nice price.
You get access to all that premium content and ad
for listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit. Sally
Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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