May 21, 2025 • 44 mins
We tend to use logic to reach conclusions that agree with our biases. Psychologists call this motivated reasoning. Today, Nate and Maria talk about motivated reasoning in the Biden campaign and Silicon Valley. Also: Conspiracy theories and the NBA draft.
Further Reading:
Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House
Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again
Elizabeth Holmes’ Partner Has a New Blood-Testing Startup
The Mavs’ Cooper Flagg lottery miracle fuels conspiracy theories – and hope
For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:
The Leap from Maria Konnikova
Silver Bulletin from Nate Silver
Get ad-free episodes, and get your questions answered in an exclusive weekly bonus episode, of Risky Business by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows.
Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin
Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey everyone, it's Maria reminding you to send in
your questions about decision making, stats and psychology. Each week
we answer one for Pushkin Plus members and sometimes they
make it into the regular episodes as well. Either way,
it's a great way to support the show. Reach out
(00:38):
to us on social media or email us at Risky
Business at pushkin dot fm. We look forward to hearing
from you. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about
making better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And I'm Mate Silver. What's the thing with the show, Maria,
I think today is people who just won't go away.
So there have been new books out on President Biden's
condition during his twilight in office. Biden was also diagnosed
with cancer. This week, in art condolences to him and
his family, we'll talk about We'll talk about will flog
(01:18):
the Biden horse one more time? Maria.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
We'll be talking about Biden's decision or a lack thereof,
to step down in a timely fashion, what that meant,
and some psychology behind it. Yes, And then in other
people who we just can't stop talking about, We'll be
talking about Elizabeth Holmes, Theahos and Elizabeth Holmes's partner Billy
Evans and his new startup, which, surprise surprise, promises an
(01:43):
innovative way of testing blood.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
The Alstamux cherl manager Nico Harrison. It's not in the
same league as Joe Biden or Elizabeth Holmes. He just
made an extremely stupid trade early this year, but he
was rewarded for it with the number one overall pick
in the NBA draft, likely to be Cooper Flagg. We'll
talk about is the NBA draft lottery rigged? Of course
it isn't. Hahaha.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Let's get into it night, Nate. Way back when you
were one of the first prominent voices to say that
Biden should not be running for reelection and that he
should be stepping down, and you got a lot of
hate for that. When you were saying it, almost no
(02:27):
one else was, and you know it was. It was
a big deal. And now we've got several books coming
out that basically say, oops, more people should have been
saying it. They should have been saying it earlier, and
what a clusterfuck. Let's let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, So there are a few things that make this relevant.
Right when we have talked on this program before about
the book Fight by Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnes. There's
another book called Original Sin, which takes a slightly longer exposure.
Fights mostly about the period where Biden has a terrible
debate and then is kind of forced drap out. This
(03:07):
takes a longer lens. I'm not running yet. I've read
the extensive excerpts and previews of it. That's one thing. Right.
Number Two, Joe Biden over the weekend was diagnosed with
I believe stage for prostate cancer. Correct, yes, correct, That
has spread to his bones. It's a pretty advanced stage.
(03:31):
So our condolences to Biden's family. But this is not
entirely non germane to the topic at hand. Right. Third,
the audio transcript of one of the earlier warning signs
for Biden was he was under investigation by a special
counsel named Robert her last year for document actually two
(03:55):
years ago, I guess right. For document retention practice is
the thing that no president seems to be very careful
about these days. Her issued her reports. I'm not going
to charge him because he's quote an elderly man with
a poor memory, and what's the right he's gonna go
over to the witness stand and forget half the shit anyway. Right, So,
of course all of the Biden people and all the
(04:17):
apparently nonpartisan media flipped out about this when it happened. However,
the Biden White House refused to release the audio or
the video of these interviews, right, making up some bullshit
excuse that only stupid people bought. But there are lot
of stupid people in election years, right. And so now
the audio's out, and like Biden's stuttering and stammering, it's
(04:38):
not any different than you would expecting that they were
afraid of it being being released. But still that shines
more of a lens on the story. But Marie, can
I give you the kind of hard questions so I
don't have to answer it? First? How did you feel
when you heard about the cancer news?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I felt obviously absolutely uh horrible for Biden. I mean,
I don't wish that on anyone. I also, you know,
I think that you know, we're in a really shitty
situation right now and the country is really really hurting,
and we've talked on this pod a lot. It doesn't
really matter kind of what someone's political leanings are to
(05:18):
be able to point to some things like you know,
what's happened to usaid, to scientific funding, to research, to innovation,
you know, tariffs, as we've talked about many, many times,
to all of these facets of American life, First Amendment protections,
all of these things. And you know, that's I don't
want to say squarely on Biden's shoulders, but a lot
(05:38):
of that is on Biden's shoulders for you know, refusing
to do what he said he would do. Right, if
you remember Nate, you probably actually remember this quote more
accurately than I do. But what was his what was
his way of phrasing it when he was elected the
first time? Right? I think he said that he was
going to be a bridge, right, something like that, that
he was someone who was going to be a bridge
(06:01):
to kind of protect against Trump and bring America forward.
And then you know, a bridge ends, right, A bridge
goes from bank to bank, and then you get off
and you're on the other side. And at some point
he decided that no, he wasn't really going to be
a bridge. He was also he was also going to
be the road on the other side, and he was
the correct person to continue to continue on forward. And
(06:25):
you know, here here's where we are. So I feel,
you know, the two things are not related, somewhat related.
I don't even know. I feel awful, right, Like, no
one deserves an aggressive form of cancer. I wish I
wish him quick, speedy recovery. I hope that they can
treat it, you know, I hope that he has a
comfortable old age. But I'm not in a very pro
(06:47):
biden frame of mind in general.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I have trouble mustering up that much sympathy under
the circumstances, right, And the reason why is because I
think probabilistically right, and like that's part of what colors
the whole analysis to begin with, where like someone hits
this age and that's a problem. But also if you
are are now being diagnosed with this very aggressive cancer, right,
(07:16):
wouldn't there have been signs of it before? I mean,
you know, I asked chet GPT the three model. People
have different opinions on how appropriate is for medical diagnosis.
But it's trying to summarize a bunch of research on
the Internet and in journals and things like that, and
it's said, yeah, there's a high probability that at the
cancer is this advanced that it would have been detectable
(07:40):
a year or so earlier. It's like an eighty or
ninety percent chance. Right. So there's reporting I'm going to
have not read original sin. There's reporting in fight about
how you know, Biden's kind of avoiding the doctor quite
a bit once his health becomes an issue. We just
kind of just want to give people rope for this thing.
And it's like, okay, so that's not great, right. You
(08:02):
would think that after the debate you would say, Okay,
I got everything checked out and a couple of problems,
but here's a complete report. And instead he's kind of
like pulling it Trump where he has these personal doctors
that frankly aren't very fucking credible, right, or that the
diagnosis had been made before and they you want to
disclose it. I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Well, either of those things is pretty damning, because the
first is, you know, we've I think we've all been
there or you know that moment where like you think
something's wrong and you're kind of in denial and you
don't want to go to the doctor because because you
don't want to confirm it. So you're like, I'm just
going to put off this appointment, right, Like it's not
that important because you you kind of you don't want
(08:42):
to know. It's a very very human response. And but
if you're kind of a president, then you have a
responsibility to make sure that, Okay, I'm functioning well, I'm
firing on all cylinders. There's nothing actually wrong because I have,
you know, the weight of the country on my shoulders.
So if he's avoiding the doctor, that's damning. However, if
(09:03):
he goes and he knows that he has this cancer
diagnosis and he hides it, that's also damning, right because
if you have stage four cancer, get the fuck out
of the race, right, Like that is something that is
you know, it's awful, and like you should you should
in no way be running for the presidency. I mean
you should be at home focusing on your health, recovering.
(09:25):
If he had received that diagnosis during his presidency, frankly,
he should have resigned right then and there, passed over
the presidency to Kamala Harris and said, you know, I'm
dealing with stage four cancer. I'm you know, I'm really sorry.
I'm doing what's best for the country. So either way,
whether he was avoiding the doctors or whether he knew
and I have no idea, right, Obviously, neither one is
(09:47):
a very good look for him as the president. And
if we also just zoom out, like Nate, imagine that
he had gotten reelected, right, and right now we're in
We're in term two of the Biden presidency, and this
news comes out this weekend, you know, four months in,
and then everyone who says, you know, Biden is who
(10:07):
was too old? Everyone's like, what are we even doing?
Like how did we get here?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So, so the counterfactual is also kind of scary to
think about.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
No, I mean, and you imagine if this had news
had come out, then I think he would resign the presidency.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I don't know, we would hope so, but at this
point we don't know, right, given how he behaved during
during a.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I mean, it's so impossible to imagine him winning, Like
if somehow, I don't know, I mean, if somehow he
had won, I mean, it would be I think, a
disastrous presidency, you know what I mean, and in different ways,
in different but like I again, I said on this
program that you know, I was not going to vote
(10:49):
for Joe Biden. My vote doesn't really matter, right, And
I feel extremely validated in that, right, I with perfect hindsight.
I mean, I wouldn't vote for Trump, but like I'm
even further away from ever thinking it was appropriate to
cast a vote for somebody who I mean again, in
reporting these books suggests that people around him were worried
about his ability to perform in a crisis, Right, you know,
(11:09):
if you have a red phone moment and then his
people like, well, is there aren't really any nothing disastrous happened. Well,
I don't know, right.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We got lucky, We got lucky.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That is also, I mean, the world is less peaceful
than when Ryden took over, right, I mean, Israel and
the Middle East are at war, and Ukraine, I mean
it's the most serious incursion into European territory in many years. Right,
our relationship with China saturating. Indian Pakistan are not real
happy with each other right now, you know, So I
(11:39):
don't know. I mean, you know, when he was like
taking these special council meetings, was like, right at the
same time that October seventh happens, was like off the
phone with BBE and into these meetings. It's like, okay, Well,
if you're kind of like not able to like coherently
remember names, and dates, and like what if there is
a cute point of strategy that the United States wants
to articulate or point of leverage. Right, it's just a
really huge scandal. It's a huge scandal. And you know,
(12:05):
in some ways, I guess Democrats are lucky, e they're
not suffering from it more, you know, I mean, I
don't know with a long term effect. I mean, I
think Biden at some point we'll just kind of go away, right,
But like, but like it's it's news worth talking about
even in May of the year after the election, because
(12:27):
you know, it's one of the biggest dafts. I mean,
that's not the way to put it. One of the
biggest knowable errors, stubborn errors of judgment, repeated errors of
judgment by Biden and the people around him, and by
the media frankly who kind of had the I mean,
they're doing a good job now, right, but they all
the Democrats who were mad at me or Ezra clin
of people who were like pointing out that, yeah, probably
(12:48):
not a good idea to have a guy who's going to
be president till I was eighty six. And oh, by
the way, he's clearly not fighting Ronald cylinders right now
after the debate, Right, I mean I've done hundreds of
public appearances, Right, I've had I've had shit where I
was super tired or sick or hungover. I've never had
a performance remotely as bad as Biden's debate, Right, And
(13:12):
if I did, then I hope someone w'd be like,
you got to get medical attention, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah? No, I mean I think that it's important to
be talking about this now, both to understand what happened,
but also to figure out, you know how on a
broader scale, like how do we prevent something like this
from happening again? How do we actually learn from this, right,
so that going forward we don't find ourselves in a
similar situation. And by way, I mean the country, right,
(13:37):
I don't mean you know, the Democratic Party the Republican Party,
because this could happen to either party. And I think
that people do need to be empowered to say something
and not shut up, because I think that's psychologically speaking,
there are multiple forces here. I mean, first, from like
the Biden camp. Internally, you do have kind of this
(13:59):
cycle of motivated reasoning, which basically, you know, is confirmation
bias on steroids, so you know, if you already have
a point of you, right, you tend to look at
evidence with that point of view in mind, and so
everything that confirms your point of view, you're like, yeah, see,
this is exactly what I'm talking about. Everything that disconfirms it,
(14:20):
you're like, oh no, well this is bullshit. You know,
for these reasons, and you don't wait them correctly, right,
you don't. Actually you think that you're doing an objective analysis,
but it's a motivated analysis, motivated by your own biases
and your own agenda. And so I think that you know,
I've talked before about followers of Trump kind of being
under this way of a con artist like mentality, right
(14:44):
where you kind of once you buy into this, you're
just kind of part of that and you can't see
things to the contrary. I actually think that that's true
to some extent of what was happening to the Biden
camp as well, that you kind of buy into kind
of the reality that no, Biden, you know this this
is fine, right, that this is fine. Dog that I
(15:05):
have behind me during our day things, that this is fine.
That everything to the contrary we dismiss and everything and
every moment of clarity where Biden has like a good
interview right or half an hour where he's sharp, You're like, see,
he's totally fine, everything is fine. And so you have
that on the one hand, and on the other hand,
you have the pressure, right, the pressure from different external
(15:29):
forces and internal forces to show cohesion, to kind of
be loyal to the party. And people often don't understand.
And I think that this is important to understand, both
in the past and currently what's happening in the Republican Party,
that sometimes being loyal to the party means speaking out
right and saying, hey, this is not okay, this is
actually undermining our party. Right in the long term, what
(15:50):
is happening with the party is hurting the party. That
that can be the act of loyalty. But instead people
just like cowto and shut up and meekly say yes,
we will follow the party line, and that can actually
be devastating.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. Look, I think they're both bad, but not quite
the same phenomenon. I mean, I think in some ways
Democrats plays maybe less narrowly stupid and more cynical in
some ways. Right, Like, so I think you know, number one,
I think the people close to Biden did or must
have had some idea. A lot of these books are
(16:24):
reported on background, right, which means it's hard to attribute
kind of what was generally known versus who knew what? Right,
But like my model is like people knew. I mean
Biden was obviously being like shielded a lot. I went
through his entire schedule for four years, and there were
eight instances in twenty thirteen and another eight in twenty
twenty four, so sixteen total in the final two years
(16:47):
where he does not have any public appearances for four
days or more in our own and some of those Okay,
I guess the presence in title to a vacation, but
like you know, I mean his schedule becomes very sporadic
and erratic. But also I mean Democrats are selecting for
people who go along with the program, right, I mean
this is like, you know, this is part of the
(17:08):
personality type of what I called the village in my book, right,
which is it's risk averse do gooder types, and so
round nosing is a big part of the game. And
Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who ran Harris's campaign and ran Biden's campaigns,
to the reporting these books is like, yeah, she is
somebody where if you have bad news or to sending
(17:28):
point of view, then don't tell it to Jen right.
And how she mind worked Kamala Harris into making herself
Kamala Harris's campaign chief too, I mean that was just
you know, I'm much more set the Kamala Harrison I
am to Joe Biden. But that decision was ill advised,
(17:48):
I would say. And that's also the implicit thing too,
is like, so the Biden people thought that, Okay, well
Harris can't win. Well, you're the ones who fucking picked
her as your vice president, right, I mean the low
esteem in which the Biden people held Kamala Harris, right,
you know, first of all, you know, you have a
(18:08):
vice president and whatever you think of her as a cane,
And I mean, she definitely is a knowledgeable person who
attorney general, senator, definitely traditional qualifications right in the largest
state in the country, and so she probably should have
been president. I would have felt safer in a crisis
with Kamala Harris. And then you know, I'll be honest,
I would feel safer with Donald Trump picking up the
red phone and Joe Biden, Like it's not even close,
(18:31):
Like I don't think he hasn't gotten I'm not saying
I perfect Trump overall. I certainly wouldn't it, right, but
like I you know, I mean at least he has
his wits about him such as they are right, but anyway,
but yeah, the lowest team. And then if you read fight,
a lot of it is like, well, the Biden people
don't want Harris exactly, and the dissenters of dicract parties
(18:54):
like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi also don't want Harris.
They want kind of this open primary, but she kind
of emerges as this compromised option in part because the
Biden people are like, you don't want me, Well fuck you,
You're getting her, right. I'm not exaggerating by much. Like
there's that attitude. So yeah, just this morass of stuff
that like and you know, and then I you know,
(19:14):
I actually got some quich backrooms people about. Like I
wrote an article last week saying, okay, enough with the
media victory lap here, right, I mean, maybe we should
have Like there's all this reporting. I understand when you're
reporting a book that sometimes people tell you things on
the condition of it's going to come out in a year, right,
I mean, for on the edge. I had some of that.
People say, well, i'll talk to you on the record
(19:35):
because I won't be published for a few years, and
I trust you to do a fair job, whereas I
couldn't just go turn around and write like a newsletter
post about that or something. Right, But still, I mean,
you know, I love the US was lucky, I think,
to avoid an acute crisis.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, it absolutely was. And just for you know, for
the record, I have not read either book. I've read
some excerpts from both of them, but some of the
some of the information there is pretty damning in the
sense of not recognizing George Clooney, which by the way,
is huge, right, Like let's just let's just say that
George George Clooney's face, Nate, So, I don't know if
(20:15):
you know this, but he so there are psych studies
on brain damage kind of different types of neural damage
and kind of cognitive function loss, and George Clooney is
one of the faces that's used to kind of look
at that he is so recognizable and such an iconic
celebrity that his face is actually one of the like
(20:38):
classic study materials where you assess cognitive function because sometimes
people like I might not recognize you even though i've
known you, but I'll recognize George Clooney, right, And sometimes
I won't quite recognize, but I'll be like, oh, you know,
so he is one of those faces that's used so
to me, like it was an added like oh my god, right,
not recognizing him when you actually know him and he's
(21:01):
actually a friend, like that is not something that you dismiss, right,
that is something that if you're a doctor. I was
going to say, if you're a but you don't need
to be a psychiatrist. If you're anyone, you have to
be like, Okay, you know something is actually wrong and
you need to assess this and we need to figure
out what the hell happened. It's much worse than thinking
(21:21):
you just spoke to Metronde even though he's not been
the president of France for quite some time. Right, So
in some in some ways like that's that's a oh
shit moment, like what are we even doing here? And
there's so many of those that I just saw in
the excerts, and obviously excerts are chosen for the juicy bits,
but it does seem like there was kind of a
(21:42):
consensus to protect the president, and that's the wrong incentive structure, right,
The incentive should be to protect the country and to
make sure that the country is on a good path,
not to protect a man.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, I mean there's a whole history of older presidents.
I mean, you know, Woodrow Wilson had a stroke and
the second term was a disaster. He wanted to run
for like a third term, and Harry Truman kind of
had to be shown. So what happened is until nineteen
seventy two, basically parties their candidates and the proverbial smoke
Philip brooms, Right, So if the Democratic Party were getting
(22:15):
together in privately, say you know what, we've all heard
these stories about Joe Biden, and so now it's going
to be Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro or maybe Harris would
have a good chance, et cetera. Right, like, and it's
some kind of we went up with this in between
where like there wasn't really a primary. I don't know,
it's yeah, you know, I just think, you know, any
(22:37):
inner circle Biden person just has direct moral responsibility for
the election outcome, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
What, exactly exactly, and in protecting Biden here we are,
right we you handed the country to Donald Trump and
everything that comes with that. But Nate, the very human
response to just once you're lying to Lie, Lie, Lie
and Lie. I think that's a great on entry point
(23:03):
to something else we wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Aunt Elizabeth holmes career.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Let's take a break and talk about the new startup
from Billy Evans.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Nate.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is a blast from the past show. Elizabeth Holmes
is back in the news. Our listeners and people who
you know have followed any news media kind of for
the last few years know her as the head of Thernos,
founder of a game changer in blood diagnostic technology. Basically
(23:52):
had all the big Silicon Valley big wigs behind her,
Henry Kissinger on her board, so got some politics in
there as well, and it all turned out to be
a huge grift, and more than a grift, a very
bloody grift pun intended because the results were bogus. The
blood work was absolutely fraudulent, and people were misdiagnosed. It
(24:18):
was just an absolute disaster. Holmes is currently in prison
serving a sentence for her role in Parahose, but she's
still posts for a photo for The New York Times
with her partner Billy Evans, who has a new startup
called Hamanthus, which is a flower known as the blood lily.
Ha ha ha, because do you know what the startup
(24:41):
is going to do. It is going to size how
we test blood for diseases? Does that does that concern
you at all?
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah? Look, I remember reading the uh reading the book
Bad Blood by the most journal journalist, John carry You I.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Believe, Yeah, great book.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, and you know it reminds me a little bit
of the Biden thing you that, like it was so
obvious from the star this was like seriously fraudular. It
wasn't like it wasn't so with like with like FTX,
which is the other most famous fraud of this quarter century.
I guess right, I guess Enron is a little too
as aged out. You know, fts itself was a legitimate
(25:28):
and quite well regarded platform for exchanging crypto assets, right,
Like that part of the business was the legitimate whatever
you think of crypto right, and then SBF was siphoning
money to make a whole bunch of like trades on
the side that were customer deposits, right whereas therhnos it's
like it was all a ruse you know, they actually
(25:51):
recruited a lot of people who like weren't traditional Silicon
Valley vcs, but were very well in network. They're like, oh,
this is a future of medicine, and and here's you know,
let me put this carefully, right, I think there was
a lot of excitement over a woman founder. She knew dignitaries,
and she had a great rolodex, right, and like she
(26:13):
read a lot of buzz and got a different investment
profile than a typical early stage startup might where maybe
there was less scrutiny, but I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, no, I mean I think that she was and
this is I think the reason why if her partner's
startup is also noteworthy. I think that she brilliantly hit
on all of the flaws in venture capital funding, right,
and how Silicon Valley operates in general, what the incentive
structures are, what they look at, what they don't look at,
(26:48):
which is also absolutely crucial. So you know, the model
obviously is, you know, we invest in tons of stuff
and most of it's going to fail, but if you aren't,
going to be kind of are stars with completely outsized returns, right,
And that's how kind of the VC world works, and
they love stories, and they love compelling narratives, compelling people.
(27:13):
You know something, They love con artists basically because the
best storytellers in the world are con artists who paint
you a beautiful picture of blue skies and what's possible
and why this is going to be the idea that
changes everything. They want to believe in that because their
incentive structure is such that they, you know, if one
(27:33):
of those is actually true and not a con artists
beautiful right, like, there's my there's my outsized return that's
going to pay for everything and make me look like
an absolute genius. And the problem is oftentimes, you know,
it's it's hard to it's hard to tell, you know,
where where the line is between a compelling story with
a real idea compelling story with a not real idea.
(27:54):
In this case, as you point out, Nate, it's very clear,
very early on that there were major, major holes in
Elizabeth Holmes's story, but because of kind of a lot
of the glamour associated with it motivated reasoning. Right, this
is what we're we were talking about when we were
(28:15):
talking about Biden. It's easy to overlook it if your
incentives are to believe, and we've talked about a lot
of those holes. You know the fact that she dropped out.
Her former advisor said this is you know, the saying good.
A lot of prominent scientists were like, this is bullshit.
You know, a lot of the data just never released.
(28:36):
A lot of these things were huge with flags. People
started resigning very early on over the lack of scientific data,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And yet like what if, right,
like that what if is huge? Like what if we're
the ones who miss out? FOMO is big? And we
don't want to be the people who passed on the beatles?
(28:57):
Like you don't want to be that cautionary tale, and
so you just want to kind of go go along
with it. And that creates this culture where grifters thrive.
And I'm I mean, I would bet a lot of
money that there are other cons that have been funded
by vcs in Silicon Valley right now that we don't
know about yet, and that we might never know about
(29:17):
because they might just kind of peter out, They might
not ever ever be kind of as as headlining as
Elizabeth Holmes. But the fact now that her partner is
doing you know he's saying, you know what, the appetite
for this is strong enough that I am going to
do this again.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Look, I you know, I have been pulling up the
list of investors that there knows had and it's like
it conspicuously, conspicuously omits a lot of the traditional and
recent horror with Sequoia type firms. I think. I think
people did have concerns, and a lot of people in
those firms make a lot of mistakes. I think sometimes
you have to wonder, well, if they passed on it,
(29:55):
right because they are terrified of like passing on the
next big thing, then that's probably has some yeah, for sure,
signaling value. Right. But the general point is absolutely correct.
I mean when I you know, I just reported it
in the book, right, So I was invited to like
an in recent Horwitz conference and it came off the
(30:17):
record very quickly, right, But before they told the skull
off the record. The guy they had on stage was
Adam Newman, who is the founder of we Work. Very
charismatic guy, you've ever interacted with him? Right, But also
there were all types of problems with we Work where
(30:38):
it's valuation crater, and he was accused of like smoking
weed on international jets and things like that. Right, and
they were proud to say we're investing in his new startup,
right because they're like, we want high variants if you're
good enough to build kind of the like we work
wasn't like fake in the way that Faranos was right.
If you're right, if you're able to build a company
(30:58):
like whatever, it was sixty billion dollars evaluation on the
right to the ground, Well it's still close to than
most people come. Right, So your high variants and high upside,
and so we want that skill set. And I guess
that's kind of the same idea here. I mean, you know,
I don't know. I mean, if SBF or Elizabeth Holmes
wanted to invest a new startup, they probably get some funding.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I think I think they would as well. This is
you know, this is one of those things where I
think it's true in a lot of the finance community.
You have people like who you know, not even startups
in the hedge fund industry who've blown up multiple hedge funds.
(31:43):
Basically their investors lost all their money and there were
spectacular failures, and they still get money, right, they still
are able to raise fun Number two they're able to
raise fund number three because at some point they had
a good track record, and these are you know, oftentimes Nate.
As we know, there's variance, and so that initial track
record might have been an absolute fluke. You know that
(32:05):
in poker, right, you have some poker players who just
have stellar starf and it's not because they're brilliant players.
It's because they got ridiculously lucky. But in poker, it's
actually much easier to see that, to see through the noise,
and eventually, you know, those players go bust. But in
the world of stock markets, sometimes you know, it's easier
to take it's noisier, right, so it's harder to be like, oh,
(32:28):
this was just someone who was a luck box, not
someone who's a good investor. And so if you're initially
a luck box, then you get money over and over
and over, even if you just keep blowing it up.
And think about how many poker players, by the way,
even in a world that's less noisy, go bust multiple
times and yet still find people to lend them money.
And so I think that we do see this sort
(32:49):
of thinking in that world over and over and over,
and so I think absolutely once you know Elizabeth Holmes
eleven years are up. If she wants to do company
number two, some people will invest in her, even though
there are probably a lot of people you should invest
in before you invest in her. And in the meantime,
you know, I have a hard time. I know nothing
(33:09):
about Billy Evans other than you know what he's doing
right now and that he's Elizabeth Holmes's partner. And to me,
that's you know, I hate judging someone who I've never met,
but that's pretty damning. Like do we think, like, is
there is there a universe where he's a true believer?
I don't think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
By the way, it's not even that like it's not
even like crazy to think that like Adam Newman could
build a successful another successful startup at some point, Right,
It's just felt like, why pick him right when you
have more options than you can possibly have to in
time to even look at right.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Absolutely, and you know that his behavior hasn't really improved. Right,
So even if he does build something successful like there's
he's also a wild card, like he might blow it
up just by virtue of who he is and the
types of things that he's prone to do. You know
why are you investing in someone like that? I totally
agree with you date and yeah, and while you know,
we with someone like Billy Evans who does have a
(34:09):
track record, like might be a good guy, like we might,
we might look at him and be like, oh, you know, everything,
everything is great, but it just why if you're if
you're an entrepreneur and like your partner is Elizabeth Holmes,
and you know, like you know how that shit went down,
and you know, the science was not there by the
(34:29):
way for being able to test you know, one single
drop of blood like that was there was no science
behind it. It was just not possible to do what
you wanted to do and to say that, oh no,
well now you know, now we have the science behind
trying to do the exact same machine. Basically, like man,
oh man, is he going to be able to raise
the fifty million dollars that he wants initially and he
(34:52):
says he'll need seventy, you know, to really kind of
bring it to scientific fruition. I really, I honestly hope not,
because it's gonna, like my estimation is already pretty low
of that world, it's going to fall even further if
there are people who are willing to give him fifty
to seventy million dollars.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
To people be responsible for what their partners do.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
No, but if you are launching an identical startup to
the fraud that was perpetrated by your partner for which
she is now serving jail time, I don't know. To me,
that's a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I mean during the wokeness peak, there was like this
MLS soccer player who's like, whyif had like put on
social media a bunch of really racist stuff and then
he had to like leave the team, right, which doesn't
seem very No.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
That's that's totally not fair. It just you know, I
think it's there's a lot of nuance there, and it
depends on depends on the circumstances. So no, I don't
think you're responsible for what your partner does. But then
when you go on and try to do the exact
same thing your partners in in prison for, I think
that's a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
What's what's the startup's name again? Oh? Hea? He told
me that it's like the blood flower.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, blood lily. But hey, it is what it is,
and we will see what happens. And all I can
say is, please venture capitalists who listen to our show
Silicon Valley. More broadly, like, please try to invest in
people who actually have the background for what they're doing
and who are credible, and not just because they know
(36:23):
how to tell a compelling story. Storytelling ain't all there is,
even though I know that that's what you like to reward,
So please try to heed that storytelling.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I hate journalis are like storytelling and journalism like, I
fucking hate storytelling. I mean, I like storytelling, but the
minute you call it storytelling, it's like, that's just an
excuse to like prioritize the narrative over the facts and
their priority and to exactly put a little spin on
the ball.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I think, right, let's take a quick break and then, Nate,
I'd love to hear, you know, because I love conspiracy theories,
but I don't know much about the MAVs, so I
am very curious to hear about what all of this
conspiracy thinking is about. So let's get into it after
the break. Nay, tell me what is going on with
(37:28):
the MAVs and conspiracy theorists of the world over.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
So, the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Draft lottery, Was
it last week. I guess uh, they had a one
point eight percent chance of being picked the top teams
have ever read a fourteen or fifteen percent chance, and their
combination of ping pong balls came up. So they will
presumably drafting Cooper Flag who was the one of the
(37:53):
few college players ever to win National Player of the
Year as a freshman. Great player kid from from Maine,
which does not produce a lot of basketball prospects, but
you know, thought of it as the next potential superstar.
People quickly became suspicious part because, yeah, people underestimate that
one percent is not that low, right, It's like a
one hour in poker. But they had made an inexplicable
(38:20):
trade earlier this year where Luka Dacic maybe the top
my opinion, maybe about the fifth best player in the NBA,
SOE might have a little higher putting five or six
or something like that. Right was traded for Anthony Davis,
who prompably got hurt, and one first round pick and
a media for player named Max Christy. Right, and so like,
if you had done an auction around the league, we
(38:41):
would have gotten like literally twice as much of a return,
maybe more than that. Right they sold for like forty
cents on the dollar. However, conveniently, you now have Luca,
one of the league's glamour players, playing with Lebron James
in Los Angeles for the Lakers, one of the league's
glamour franchises. Right, Probably the Lakers are the premiere. You know,
(39:04):
if you want a team to be really good, probably
Lakers Knicks in that order if you're if you're the NBA,
So why would they do this? Well, if it turns
out they're also getting the first overall pick and Cooper flag,
that's a pretty fair trade ad and Cooper flag for Luca,
who's about to have to be contract extension looks pretty good,
and so that's triggered some conspiracy theories. It's not the
(39:25):
first time, right, you know Lebron James grew up in Akron, Ohio. Hmmm.
Convenient Commediately the Cleveland Cavaliers win the draft lottery that year,
for example, which other ones are alleged. You know, other
things were like when teams, you know, when the New
Orleans Pelicans, which were then like owned by the NBA,
(39:47):
like trade away also Anthony Davis, they got the first
Pickension Williamson. So whenever, whenever, there's a big prospect. You know,
it seems to end up in a convenient place. But
I'd say I'd say a few things about that, right,
Like number one, a lot of people would have to
(40:09):
be on this conspiracy, Right, they draw the ping pong
balls in front of the sealed room full of people
in the media. Zachlow, formerly a grant Land and ESPN
now of the Ringer, I believe, was among them. You
can go listen to his account on his show, right,
and like so you know, it's pretty transparent. They have
(40:29):
as complicated codes. It's like not just one ping pong ball,
but you draw four and each code lines up with
a set of teams that are are picked. Right, So
that have to you know, enlist Ernst and Young. I
believe the heccounting firm they work with to like rig
the actual mechanics of the ping pong ball, right, and
(40:51):
that would be a lot and a lot of peop
would have knowledge of this and would feel chafed about
it potentially. I mean, who knows. People, You know, people
kept titelcht about the Biden thing for a long period
of time. But like I'm also not sure that like
if you're the league necessarily would want Cooper Flag and
Dallas's posts. I mean maybe, I don't know, it is
(41:12):
a pretty big market, right maybe, I know, well what Nate.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
In general, I always like to push back on conspiracy theories,
right because human mind loves to see to see them
where they don't exist. And we do know as poker players,
one outthers happen, right Like, man, they happen way more
often than you feel like they should happen. That said I, So,
you know, I'm working on a book about cheating, and
one of the one of the things that I was
(41:40):
recently researching. I don't know if you remember this, you know,
I wasn't born yet, but it was. It was a
huge scandal in nineteen eighty Pennsylvania lottery scandal, the Triple
six fix. They actually were able to rig the lottery
and they had specially weighted balls so that a special
(42:01):
limited number of combinations were more likely to be drawn.
And so yeah, obviously you need someone on the inside
in the in the balls. But this was done. You know,
this was done also on television, Like it was very
very controlled environment and yet like it's still possible to
introduce weighted balls into machines that make certain number of
(42:23):
combinations more likely to happen. And that's not the only
time that that's happened. That was just like a very
prominent example of that happening. And so I hate, I
don't want to honor conspiracy theorists, but I do just
want to point out that it is possible due to
rig lottery ball machines.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Shaquille O'Neil just allege that in nineteenninety two, then NBA
Commissioner David Stern asked him if he wanted to go
to a cold weather or a warm weather city. Guess
who want to happen to be the Orlando Magic one
of the warmest destinations in the NBA, not the Minnesota
Timberwolf or something like that. And so I think people
are mostly joking, and I think I'm mostly joking. I
(43:03):
would say not like there is there are big incentives
for like the league to to align talent to places
where they think the franchise that deserves it, right, But
like I mean, it's you know, I don't know there
would be you know, there would be a sentenced to
do it. Yeah, they should maybe say, yeah, we determined
(43:23):
these are the actual picks for the league, right.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. And I also am
mostly joking, and I think that it is important to
kind of to make it clear that it's unlikely that
anything is rigged. All I can say, Nate is you know,
next time you do a lottery ball lottery that has
little balls and machines, just keep one eyebrow up and
(43:47):
make sure that everything is weighted correctly before choosing your numbers.
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,
(44:07):
we have some bonus content for you that's coming up
right after the credits.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
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 for
listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
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 Sonya Gerwitz. Sally
Helm is our editor and our Executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Pushkin. Hey everyone, it's Maria reminding you to send in
your questions about decision making, stats and psychology. Each week
we answer one for Pushkin Plus members and sometimes they
make it into the regular episodes as well. Either way,
it's a great way to support the show. Reach out
(00:38):
to us on social media or email us at Risky
Business at pushkin dot fm. We look forward to hearing
from you. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about
making better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And I'm Mate Silver. What's the thing with the show, Maria,
I think today is people who just won't go away.
So there have been new books out on President Biden's
condition during his twilight in office. Biden was also diagnosed
with cancer. This week, in art condolences to him and
his family, we'll talk about We'll talk about will flog
(01:18):
the Biden horse one more time? Maria.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
We'll be talking about Biden's decision or a lack thereof,
to step down in a timely fashion, what that meant,
and some psychology behind it. Yes, And then in other
people who we just can't stop talking about, We'll be
talking about Elizabeth Holmes, Theahos and Elizabeth Holmes's partner Billy
Evans and his new startup, which, surprise surprise, promises an
(01:43):
innovative way of testing blood.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
The Alstamux cherl manager Nico Harrison. It's not in the
same league as Joe Biden or Elizabeth Holmes. He just
made an extremely stupid trade early this year, but he
was rewarded for it with the number one overall pick
in the NBA draft, likely to be Cooper Flagg. We'll
talk about is the NBA draft lottery rigged? Of course
it isn't. Hahaha.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Let's get into it night, Nate. Way back when you
were one of the first prominent voices to say that
Biden should not be running for reelection and that he
should be stepping down, and you got a lot of
hate for that. When you were saying it, almost no
(02:27):
one else was, and you know it was. It was
a big deal. And now we've got several books coming
out that basically say, oops, more people should have been
saying it. They should have been saying it earlier, and
what a clusterfuck. Let's let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, So there are a few things that make this relevant.
Right when we have talked on this program before about
the book Fight by Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnes. There's
another book called Original Sin, which takes a slightly longer exposure.
Fights mostly about the period where Biden has a terrible
debate and then is kind of forced drap out. This
(03:07):
takes a longer lens. I'm not running yet. I've read
the extensive excerpts and previews of it. That's one thing. Right.
Number Two, Joe Biden over the weekend was diagnosed with
I believe stage for prostate cancer. Correct, yes, correct, That
has spread to his bones. It's a pretty advanced stage.
(03:31):
So our condolences to Biden's family. But this is not
entirely non germane to the topic at hand. Right. Third,
the audio transcript of one of the earlier warning signs
for Biden was he was under investigation by a special
counsel named Robert her last year for document actually two
(03:55):
years ago, I guess right. For document retention practice is
the thing that no president seems to be very careful
about these days. Her issued her reports. I'm not going
to charge him because he's quote an elderly man with
a poor memory, and what's the right he's gonna go
over to the witness stand and forget half the shit anyway. Right, So,
of course all of the Biden people and all the
(04:17):
apparently nonpartisan media flipped out about this when it happened. However,
the Biden White House refused to release the audio or
the video of these interviews, right, making up some bullshit
excuse that only stupid people bought. But there are lot
of stupid people in election years, right. And so now
the audio's out, and like Biden's stuttering and stammering, it's
(04:38):
not any different than you would expecting that they were
afraid of it being being released. But still that shines
more of a lens on the story. But Marie, can
I give you the kind of hard questions so I
don't have to answer it? First? How did you feel
when you heard about the cancer news?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I felt obviously absolutely uh horrible for Biden. I mean,
I don't wish that on anyone. I also, you know,
I think that you know, we're in a really shitty
situation right now and the country is really really hurting,
and we've talked on this pod a lot. It doesn't
really matter kind of what someone's political leanings are to
(05:18):
be able to point to some things like you know,
what's happened to usaid, to scientific funding, to research, to innovation,
you know, tariffs, as we've talked about many, many times,
to all of these facets of American life, First Amendment protections,
all of these things. And you know, that's I don't
want to say squarely on Biden's shoulders, but a lot
(05:38):
of that is on Biden's shoulders for you know, refusing
to do what he said he would do. Right, if
you remember Nate, you probably actually remember this quote more
accurately than I do. But what was his what was
his way of phrasing it when he was elected the
first time? Right? I think he said that he was
going to be a bridge, right, something like that, that
he was someone who was going to be a bridge
(06:01):
to kind of protect against Trump and bring America forward.
And then you know, a bridge ends, right, A bridge
goes from bank to bank, and then you get off
and you're on the other side. And at some point
he decided that no, he wasn't really going to be
a bridge. He was also he was also going to
be the road on the other side, and he was
the correct person to continue to continue on forward. And
(06:25):
you know, here here's where we are. So I feel,
you know, the two things are not related, somewhat related.
I don't even know. I feel awful, right, Like, no
one deserves an aggressive form of cancer. I wish I
wish him quick, speedy recovery. I hope that they can
treat it, you know, I hope that he has a
comfortable old age. But I'm not in a very pro
(06:47):
biden frame of mind in general.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I have trouble mustering up that much sympathy under
the circumstances, right, And the reason why is because I
think probabilistically right, and like that's part of what colors
the whole analysis to begin with, where like someone hits
this age and that's a problem. But also if you
are are now being diagnosed with this very aggressive cancer, right,
(07:16):
wouldn't there have been signs of it before? I mean,
you know, I asked chet GPT the three model. People
have different opinions on how appropriate is for medical diagnosis.
But it's trying to summarize a bunch of research on
the Internet and in journals and things like that, and
it's said, yeah, there's a high probability that at the
cancer is this advanced that it would have been detectable
(07:40):
a year or so earlier. It's like an eighty or
ninety percent chance. Right. So there's reporting I'm going to
have not read original sin. There's reporting in fight about
how you know, Biden's kind of avoiding the doctor quite
a bit once his health becomes an issue. We just
kind of just want to give people rope for this thing.
And it's like, okay, so that's not great, right. You
(08:02):
would think that after the debate you would say, Okay,
I got everything checked out and a couple of problems,
but here's a complete report. And instead he's kind of
like pulling it Trump where he has these personal doctors
that frankly aren't very fucking credible, right, or that the
diagnosis had been made before and they you want to
disclose it. I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Well, either of those things is pretty damning, because the
first is, you know, we've I think we've all been
there or you know that moment where like you think
something's wrong and you're kind of in denial and you
don't want to go to the doctor because because you
don't want to confirm it. So you're like, I'm just
going to put off this appointment, right, Like it's not
that important because you you kind of you don't want
(08:42):
to know. It's a very very human response. And but
if you're kind of a president, then you have a
responsibility to make sure that, Okay, I'm functioning well, I'm
firing on all cylinders. There's nothing actually wrong because I have,
you know, the weight of the country on my shoulders.
So if he's avoiding the doctor, that's damning. However, if
(09:03):
he goes and he knows that he has this cancer
diagnosis and he hides it, that's also damning, right because
if you have stage four cancer, get the fuck out
of the race, right, Like that is something that is
you know, it's awful, and like you should you should
in no way be running for the presidency. I mean
you should be at home focusing on your health, recovering.
(09:25):
If he had received that diagnosis during his presidency, frankly,
he should have resigned right then and there, passed over
the presidency to Kamala Harris and said, you know, I'm
dealing with stage four cancer. I'm you know, I'm really sorry.
I'm doing what's best for the country. So either way,
whether he was avoiding the doctors or whether he knew
and I have no idea, right, Obviously, neither one is
(09:47):
a very good look for him as the president. And
if we also just zoom out, like Nate, imagine that
he had gotten reelected, right, and right now we're in
We're in term two of the Biden presidency, and this
news comes out this weekend, you know, four months in,
and then everyone who says, you know, Biden is who
(10:07):
was too old? Everyone's like, what are we even doing?
Like how did we get here?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So, so the counterfactual is also kind of scary to
think about.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
No, I mean, and you imagine if this had news
had come out, then I think he would resign the presidency.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I don't know, we would hope so, but at this
point we don't know, right, given how he behaved during
during a.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I mean, it's so impossible to imagine him winning, Like
if somehow, I don't know, I mean, if somehow he
had won, I mean, it would be I think, a
disastrous presidency, you know what I mean, and in different ways,
in different but like I again, I said on this
program that you know, I was not going to vote
(10:49):
for Joe Biden. My vote doesn't really matter, right, And
I feel extremely validated in that, right, I with perfect hindsight.
I mean, I wouldn't vote for Trump, but like I'm
even further away from ever thinking it was appropriate to
cast a vote for somebody who I mean again, in
reporting these books suggests that people around him were worried
about his ability to perform in a crisis, Right, you know,
(11:09):
if you have a red phone moment and then his
people like, well, is there aren't really any nothing disastrous happened. Well,
I don't know, right.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We got lucky, We got lucky.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That is also, I mean, the world is less peaceful
than when Ryden took over, right, I mean, Israel and
the Middle East are at war, and Ukraine, I mean
it's the most serious incursion into European territory in many years. Right,
our relationship with China saturating. Indian Pakistan are not real
happy with each other right now, you know, So I
(11:39):
don't know. I mean, you know, when he was like
taking these special council meetings, was like, right at the
same time that October seventh happens, was like off the
phone with BBE and into these meetings. It's like, okay, Well,
if you're kind of like not able to like coherently
remember names, and dates, and like what if there is
a cute point of strategy that the United States wants
to articulate or point of leverage. Right, it's just a
really huge scandal. It's a huge scandal. And you know,
(12:05):
in some ways, I guess Democrats are lucky, e they're
not suffering from it more, you know, I mean, I
don't know with a long term effect. I mean, I
think Biden at some point we'll just kind of go away, right,
But like, but like it's it's news worth talking about
even in May of the year after the election, because
(12:27):
you know, it's one of the biggest dafts. I mean,
that's not the way to put it. One of the
biggest knowable errors, stubborn errors of judgment, repeated errors of
judgment by Biden and the people around him, and by
the media frankly who kind of had the I mean,
they're doing a good job now, right, but they all
the Democrats who were mad at me or Ezra clin
of people who were like pointing out that, yeah, probably
(12:48):
not a good idea to have a guy who's going to
be president till I was eighty six. And oh, by
the way, he's clearly not fighting Ronald cylinders right now
after the debate, Right, I mean I've done hundreds of
public appearances, Right, I've had I've had shit where I
was super tired or sick or hungover. I've never had
a performance remotely as bad as Biden's debate, Right, And
(13:12):
if I did, then I hope someone w'd be like,
you got to get medical attention, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah? No, I mean I think that it's important to
be talking about this now, both to understand what happened,
but also to figure out, you know how on a
broader scale, like how do we prevent something like this
from happening again? How do we actually learn from this, right,
so that going forward we don't find ourselves in a
similar situation. And by way, I mean the country, right,
(13:37):
I don't mean you know, the Democratic Party the Republican Party,
because this could happen to either party. And I think
that people do need to be empowered to say something
and not shut up, because I think that's psychologically speaking,
there are multiple forces here. I mean, first, from like
the Biden camp. Internally, you do have kind of this
(13:59):
cycle of motivated reasoning, which basically, you know, is confirmation
bias on steroids, so you know, if you already have
a point of you, right, you tend to look at
evidence with that point of view in mind, and so
everything that confirms your point of view, you're like, yeah, see,
this is exactly what I'm talking about. Everything that disconfirms it,
(14:20):
you're like, oh no, well this is bullshit. You know,
for these reasons, and you don't wait them correctly, right,
you don't. Actually you think that you're doing an objective analysis,
but it's a motivated analysis, motivated by your own biases
and your own agenda. And so I think that you know,
I've talked before about followers of Trump kind of being
under this way of a con artist like mentality, right
(14:44):
where you kind of once you buy into this, you're
just kind of part of that and you can't see
things to the contrary. I actually think that that's true
to some extent of what was happening to the Biden
camp as well, that you kind of buy into kind
of the reality that no, Biden, you know this this
is fine, right, that this is fine. Dog that I
(15:05):
have behind me during our day things, that this is fine.
That everything to the contrary we dismiss and everything and
every moment of clarity where Biden has like a good
interview right or half an hour where he's sharp, You're like, see,
he's totally fine, everything is fine. And so you have
that on the one hand, and on the other hand,
you have the pressure, right, the pressure from different external
(15:29):
forces and internal forces to show cohesion, to kind of
be loyal to the party. And people often don't understand.
And I think that this is important to understand, both
in the past and currently what's happening in the Republican Party,
that sometimes being loyal to the party means speaking out
right and saying, hey, this is not okay, this is
actually undermining our party. Right in the long term, what
(15:50):
is happening with the party is hurting the party. That
that can be the act of loyalty. But instead people
just like cowto and shut up and meekly say yes,
we will follow the party line, and that can actually
be devastating.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. Look, I think they're both bad, but not quite
the same phenomenon. I mean, I think in some ways
Democrats plays maybe less narrowly stupid and more cynical in
some ways. Right, Like, so I think you know, number one,
I think the people close to Biden did or must
have had some idea. A lot of these books are
(16:24):
reported on background, right, which means it's hard to attribute
kind of what was generally known versus who knew what? Right,
But like my model is like people knew. I mean
Biden was obviously being like shielded a lot. I went
through his entire schedule for four years, and there were
eight instances in twenty thirteen and another eight in twenty
twenty four, so sixteen total in the final two years
(16:47):
where he does not have any public appearances for four
days or more in our own and some of those Okay,
I guess the presence in title to a vacation, but
like you know, I mean his schedule becomes very sporadic
and erratic. But also I mean Democrats are selecting for
people who go along with the program, right, I mean
this is like, you know, this is part of the
(17:08):
personality type of what I called the village in my book, right,
which is it's risk averse do gooder types, and so
round nosing is a big part of the game. And
Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who ran Harris's campaign and ran Biden's campaigns,
to the reporting these books is like, yeah, she is
somebody where if you have bad news or to sending
(17:28):
point of view, then don't tell it to Jen right.
And how she mind worked Kamala Harris into making herself
Kamala Harris's campaign chief too, I mean that was just
you know, I'm much more set the Kamala Harrison I
am to Joe Biden. But that decision was ill advised,
(17:48):
I would say. And that's also the implicit thing too,
is like, so the Biden people thought that, Okay, well
Harris can't win. Well, you're the ones who fucking picked
her as your vice president, right, I mean the low
esteem in which the Biden people held Kamala Harris, right,
you know, first of all, you know, you have a
(18:08):
vice president and whatever you think of her as a cane,
And I mean, she definitely is a knowledgeable person who
attorney general, senator, definitely traditional qualifications right in the largest
state in the country, and so she probably should have
been president. I would have felt safer in a crisis
with Kamala Harris. And then you know, I'll be honest,
I would feel safer with Donald Trump picking up the
red phone and Joe Biden, Like it's not even close,
(18:31):
Like I don't think he hasn't gotten I'm not saying
I perfect Trump overall. I certainly wouldn't it, right, but
like I you know, I mean at least he has
his wits about him such as they are right, but anyway,
but yeah, the lowest team. And then if you read fight,
a lot of it is like, well, the Biden people
don't want Harris exactly, and the dissenters of dicract parties
(18:54):
like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi also don't want Harris.
They want kind of this open primary, but she kind
of emerges as this compromised option in part because the
Biden people are like, you don't want me, Well fuck you,
You're getting her, right. I'm not exaggerating by much. Like
there's that attitude. So yeah, just this morass of stuff
that like and you know, and then I you know,
(19:14):
I actually got some quich backrooms people about. Like I
wrote an article last week saying, okay, enough with the
media victory lap here, right, I mean, maybe we should
have Like there's all this reporting. I understand when you're
reporting a book that sometimes people tell you things on
the condition of it's going to come out in a year, right,
I mean, for on the edge. I had some of that.
People say, well, i'll talk to you on the record
(19:35):
because I won't be published for a few years, and
I trust you to do a fair job, whereas I
couldn't just go turn around and write like a newsletter
post about that or something. Right, But still, I mean,
you know, I love the US was lucky, I think,
to avoid an acute crisis.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, it absolutely was. And just for you know, for
the record, I have not read either book. I've read
some excerpts from both of them, but some of the
some of the information there is pretty damning in the
sense of not recognizing George Clooney, which by the way,
is huge, right, Like let's just let's just say that
George George Clooney's face, Nate, So, I don't know if
(20:15):
you know this, but he so there are psych studies
on brain damage kind of different types of neural damage
and kind of cognitive function loss, and George Clooney is
one of the faces that's used to kind of look
at that he is so recognizable and such an iconic
celebrity that his face is actually one of the like
(20:38):
classic study materials where you assess cognitive function because sometimes
people like I might not recognize you even though i've
known you, but I'll recognize George Clooney, right, And sometimes
I won't quite recognize, but I'll be like, oh, you know,
so he is one of those faces that's used so
to me, like it was an added like oh my god, right,
not recognizing him when you actually know him and he's
(21:01):
actually a friend, like that is not something that you dismiss, right,
that is something that if you're a doctor. I was
going to say, if you're a but you don't need
to be a psychiatrist. If you're anyone, you have to
be like, Okay, you know something is actually wrong and
you need to assess this and we need to figure
out what the hell happened. It's much worse than thinking
(21:21):
you just spoke to Metronde even though he's not been
the president of France for quite some time. Right, So
in some in some ways like that's that's a oh
shit moment, like what are we even doing here? And
there's so many of those that I just saw in
the excerts, and obviously excerts are chosen for the juicy bits,
but it does seem like there was kind of a
(21:42):
consensus to protect the president, and that's the wrong incentive structure, right,
The incentive should be to protect the country and to
make sure that the country is on a good path,
not to protect a man.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, I mean there's a whole history of older presidents.
I mean, you know, Woodrow Wilson had a stroke and
the second term was a disaster. He wanted to run
for like a third term, and Harry Truman kind of
had to be shown. So what happened is until nineteen
seventy two, basically parties their candidates and the proverbial smoke
Philip brooms, Right, So if the Democratic Party were getting
(22:15):
together in privately, say you know what, we've all heard
these stories about Joe Biden, and so now it's going
to be Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro or maybe Harris would
have a good chance, et cetera. Right, like, and it's
some kind of we went up with this in between
where like there wasn't really a primary. I don't know,
it's yeah, you know, I just think, you know, any
(22:37):
inner circle Biden person just has direct moral responsibility for
the election outcome, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
What, exactly exactly, and in protecting Biden here we are,
right we you handed the country to Donald Trump and
everything that comes with that. But Nate, the very human
response to just once you're lying to Lie, Lie, Lie
and Lie. I think that's a great on entry point
(23:03):
to something else we wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Aunt Elizabeth holmes career.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Let's take a break and talk about the new startup
from Billy Evans.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Nate.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is a blast from the past show. Elizabeth Holmes
is back in the news. Our listeners and people who
you know have followed any news media kind of for
the last few years know her as the head of Thernos,
founder of a game changer in blood diagnostic technology. Basically
(23:52):
had all the big Silicon Valley big wigs behind her,
Henry Kissinger on her board, so got some politics in
there as well, and it all turned out to be
a huge grift, and more than a grift, a very
bloody grift pun intended because the results were bogus. The
blood work was absolutely fraudulent, and people were misdiagnosed. It
(24:18):
was just an absolute disaster. Holmes is currently in prison
serving a sentence for her role in Parahose, but she's
still posts for a photo for The New York Times
with her partner Billy Evans, who has a new startup
called Hamanthus, which is a flower known as the blood lily.
Ha ha ha, because do you know what the startup
(24:41):
is going to do. It is going to size how
we test blood for diseases? Does that does that concern
you at all?
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah? Look, I remember reading the uh reading the book
Bad Blood by the most journal journalist, John carry You I.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Believe, Yeah, great book.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, and you know it reminds me a little bit
of the Biden thing you that, like it was so
obvious from the star this was like seriously fraudular. It
wasn't like it wasn't so with like with like FTX,
which is the other most famous fraud of this quarter century.
I guess right, I guess Enron is a little too
as aged out. You know, fts itself was a legitimate
(25:28):
and quite well regarded platform for exchanging crypto assets, right,
Like that part of the business was the legitimate whatever
you think of crypto right, and then SBF was siphoning
money to make a whole bunch of like trades on
the side that were customer deposits, right whereas therhnos it's
like it was all a ruse you know, they actually
(25:51):
recruited a lot of people who like weren't traditional Silicon
Valley vcs, but were very well in network. They're like, oh,
this is a future of medicine, and and here's you know,
let me put this carefully, right, I think there was
a lot of excitement over a woman founder. She knew dignitaries,
and she had a great rolodex, right, and like she
(26:13):
read a lot of buzz and got a different investment
profile than a typical early stage startup might where maybe
there was less scrutiny, but I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, no, I mean I think that she was and
this is I think the reason why if her partner's
startup is also noteworthy. I think that she brilliantly hit
on all of the flaws in venture capital funding, right,
and how Silicon Valley operates in general, what the incentive
structures are, what they look at, what they don't look at,
(26:48):
which is also absolutely crucial. So you know, the model
obviously is, you know, we invest in tons of stuff
and most of it's going to fail, but if you aren't,
going to be kind of are stars with completely outsized returns, right,
And that's how kind of the VC world works, and
they love stories, and they love compelling narratives, compelling people.
(27:13):
You know something, They love con artists basically because the
best storytellers in the world are con artists who paint
you a beautiful picture of blue skies and what's possible
and why this is going to be the idea that
changes everything. They want to believe in that because their
incentive structure is such that they, you know, if one
(27:33):
of those is actually true and not a con artists
beautiful right, like, there's my there's my outsized return that's
going to pay for everything and make me look like
an absolute genius. And the problem is oftentimes, you know,
it's it's hard to it's hard to tell, you know,
where where the line is between a compelling story with
a real idea compelling story with a not real idea.
(27:54):
In this case, as you point out, Nate, it's very clear,
very early on that there were major, major holes in
Elizabeth Holmes's story, but because of kind of a lot
of the glamour associated with it motivated reasoning. Right, this
is what we're we were talking about when we were
(28:15):
talking about Biden. It's easy to overlook it if your
incentives are to believe, and we've talked about a lot
of those holes. You know the fact that she dropped out.
Her former advisor said this is you know, the saying good.
A lot of prominent scientists were like, this is bullshit.
You know, a lot of the data just never released.
(28:36):
A lot of these things were huge with flags. People
started resigning very early on over the lack of scientific data,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And yet like what if, right,
like that what if is huge? Like what if we're
the ones who miss out? FOMO is big? And we
don't want to be the people who passed on the beatles?
(28:57):
Like you don't want to be that cautionary tale, and
so you just want to kind of go go along
with it. And that creates this culture where grifters thrive.
And I'm I mean, I would bet a lot of
money that there are other cons that have been funded
by vcs in Silicon Valley right now that we don't
know about yet, and that we might never know about
(29:17):
because they might just kind of peter out, They might
not ever ever be kind of as as headlining as
Elizabeth Holmes. But the fact now that her partner is
doing you know he's saying, you know what, the appetite
for this is strong enough that I am going to
do this again.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Look, I you know, I have been pulling up the
list of investors that there knows had and it's like
it conspicuously, conspicuously omits a lot of the traditional and
recent horror with Sequoia type firms. I think. I think
people did have concerns, and a lot of people in
those firms make a lot of mistakes. I think sometimes
you have to wonder, well, if they passed on it,
(29:55):
right because they are terrified of like passing on the
next big thing, then that's probably has some yeah, for sure,
signaling value. Right. But the general point is absolutely correct.
I mean when I you know, I just reported it
in the book, right, So I was invited to like
an in recent Horwitz conference and it came off the
(30:17):
record very quickly, right, But before they told the skull
off the record. The guy they had on stage was
Adam Newman, who is the founder of we Work. Very
charismatic guy, you've ever interacted with him? Right, But also
there were all types of problems with we Work where
(30:38):
it's valuation crater, and he was accused of like smoking
weed on international jets and things like that. Right, and
they were proud to say we're investing in his new startup,
right because they're like, we want high variants if you're
good enough to build kind of the like we work
wasn't like fake in the way that Faranos was right.
If you're right, if you're able to build a company
(30:58):
like whatever, it was sixty billion dollars evaluation on the
right to the ground, Well it's still close to than
most people come. Right, So your high variants and high upside,
and so we want that skill set. And I guess
that's kind of the same idea here. I mean, you know,
I don't know. I mean, if SBF or Elizabeth Holmes
wanted to invest a new startup, they probably get some funding.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I think I think they would as well. This is
you know, this is one of those things where I
think it's true in a lot of the finance community.
You have people like who you know, not even startups
in the hedge fund industry who've blown up multiple hedge funds.
(31:43):
Basically their investors lost all their money and there were
spectacular failures, and they still get money, right, they still
are able to raise fun Number two they're able to
raise fund number three because at some point they had
a good track record, and these are you know, oftentimes Nate.
As we know, there's variance, and so that initial track
record might have been an absolute fluke. You know that
(32:05):
in poker, right, you have some poker players who just
have stellar starf and it's not because they're brilliant players.
It's because they got ridiculously lucky. But in poker, it's
actually much easier to see that, to see through the noise,
and eventually, you know, those players go bust. But in
the world of stock markets, sometimes you know, it's easier
to take it's noisier, right, so it's harder to be like, oh,
(32:28):
this was just someone who was a luck box, not
someone who's a good investor. And so if you're initially
a luck box, then you get money over and over
and over, even if you just keep blowing it up.
And think about how many poker players, by the way,
even in a world that's less noisy, go bust multiple
times and yet still find people to lend them money.
And so I think that we do see this sort
(32:49):
of thinking in that world over and over and over,
and so I think absolutely once you know Elizabeth Holmes
eleven years are up. If she wants to do company
number two, some people will invest in her, even though
there are probably a lot of people you should invest
in before you invest in her. And in the meantime,
you know, I have a hard time. I know nothing
(33:09):
about Billy Evans other than you know what he's doing
right now and that he's Elizabeth Holmes's partner. And to me,
that's you know, I hate judging someone who I've never met,
but that's pretty damning. Like do we think, like, is
there is there a universe where he's a true believer?
I don't think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
By the way, it's not even that like it's not
even like crazy to think that like Adam Newman could
build a successful another successful startup at some point, Right,
It's just felt like, why pick him right when you
have more options than you can possibly have to in
time to even look at right.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Absolutely, and you know that his behavior hasn't really improved. Right,
So even if he does build something successful like there's
he's also a wild card, like he might blow it
up just by virtue of who he is and the
types of things that he's prone to do. You know
why are you investing in someone like that? I totally
agree with you date and yeah, and while you know,
we with someone like Billy Evans who does have a
(34:09):
track record, like might be a good guy, like we might,
we might look at him and be like, oh, you know, everything,
everything is great, but it just why if you're if
you're an entrepreneur and like your partner is Elizabeth Holmes,
and you know, like you know how that shit went down,
and you know, the science was not there by the
(34:29):
way for being able to test you know, one single
drop of blood like that was there was no science
behind it. It was just not possible to do what
you wanted to do and to say that, oh no,
well now you know, now we have the science behind
trying to do the exact same machine. Basically, like man,
oh man, is he going to be able to raise
the fifty million dollars that he wants initially and he
(34:52):
says he'll need seventy, you know, to really kind of
bring it to scientific fruition. I really, I honestly hope not,
because it's gonna, like my estimation is already pretty low
of that world, it's going to fall even further if
there are people who are willing to give him fifty
to seventy million dollars.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
To people be responsible for what their partners do.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
No, but if you are launching an identical startup to
the fraud that was perpetrated by your partner for which
she is now serving jail time, I don't know. To me,
that's a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I mean during the wokeness peak, there was like this
MLS soccer player who's like, whyif had like put on
social media a bunch of really racist stuff and then
he had to like leave the team, right, which doesn't
seem very No.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
That's that's totally not fair. It just you know, I
think it's there's a lot of nuance there, and it
depends on depends on the circumstances. So no, I don't
think you're responsible for what your partner does. But then
when you go on and try to do the exact
same thing your partners in in prison for, I think
that's a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
What's what's the startup's name again? Oh? Hea? He told
me that it's like the blood flower.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, blood lily. But hey, it is what it is,
and we will see what happens. And all I can
say is, please venture capitalists who listen to our show
Silicon Valley. More broadly, like, please try to invest in
people who actually have the background for what they're doing
and who are credible, and not just because they know
(36:23):
how to tell a compelling story. Storytelling ain't all there is,
even though I know that that's what you like to reward,
So please try to heed that storytelling.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I hate journalis are like storytelling and journalism like, I
fucking hate storytelling. I mean, I like storytelling, but the
minute you call it storytelling, it's like, that's just an
excuse to like prioritize the narrative over the facts and
their priority and to exactly put a little spin on
the ball.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I think, right, let's take a quick break and then, Nate,
I'd love to hear, you know, because I love conspiracy theories,
but I don't know much about the MAVs, so I
am very curious to hear about what all of this
conspiracy thinking is about. So let's get into it after
the break. Nay, tell me what is going on with
(37:28):
the MAVs and conspiracy theorists of the world over.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
So, the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Draft lottery, Was
it last week. I guess uh, they had a one
point eight percent chance of being picked the top teams
have ever read a fourteen or fifteen percent chance, and their
combination of ping pong balls came up. So they will
presumably drafting Cooper Flag who was the one of the
(37:53):
few college players ever to win National Player of the
Year as a freshman. Great player kid from from Maine,
which does not produce a lot of basketball prospects, but
you know, thought of it as the next potential superstar.
People quickly became suspicious part because, yeah, people underestimate that
one percent is not that low, right, It's like a
one hour in poker. But they had made an inexplicable
(38:20):
trade earlier this year where Luka Dacic maybe the top
my opinion, maybe about the fifth best player in the NBA,
SOE might have a little higher putting five or six
or something like that. Right was traded for Anthony Davis,
who prompably got hurt, and one first round pick and
a media for player named Max Christy. Right, and so like,
if you had done an auction around the league, we
(38:41):
would have gotten like literally twice as much of a return,
maybe more than that. Right they sold for like forty
cents on the dollar. However, conveniently, you now have Luca,
one of the league's glamour players, playing with Lebron James
in Los Angeles for the Lakers, one of the league's
glamour franchises. Right, Probably the Lakers are the premiere. You know,
(39:04):
if you want a team to be really good, probably
Lakers Knicks in that order if you're if you're the NBA,
So why would they do this? Well, if it turns
out they're also getting the first overall pick and Cooper flag,
that's a pretty fair trade ad and Cooper flag for Luca,
who's about to have to be contract extension looks pretty good,
and so that's triggered some conspiracy theories. It's not the
(39:25):
first time, right, you know Lebron James grew up in Akron, Ohio. Hmmm.
Convenient Commediately the Cleveland Cavaliers win the draft lottery that year,
for example, which other ones are alleged. You know, other
things were like when teams, you know, when the New
Orleans Pelicans, which were then like owned by the NBA,
(39:47):
like trade away also Anthony Davis, they got the first
Pickension Williamson. So whenever, whenever, there's a big prospect. You know,
it seems to end up in a convenient place. But
I'd say I'd say a few things about that, right,
Like number one, a lot of people would have to
(40:09):
be on this conspiracy, Right, they draw the ping pong
balls in front of the sealed room full of people
in the media. Zachlow, formerly a grant Land and ESPN
now of the Ringer, I believe, was among them. You
can go listen to his account on his show, right,
and like so you know, it's pretty transparent. They have
(40:29):
as complicated codes. It's like not just one ping pong ball,
but you draw four and each code lines up with
a set of teams that are are picked. Right, So
that have to you know, enlist Ernst and Young. I
believe the heccounting firm they work with to like rig
the actual mechanics of the ping pong ball, right, and
(40:51):
that would be a lot and a lot of peop
would have knowledge of this and would feel chafed about
it potentially. I mean, who knows. People, You know, people
kept titelcht about the Biden thing for a long period
of time. But like I'm also not sure that like
if you're the league necessarily would want Cooper Flag and
Dallas's posts. I mean maybe, I don't know, it is
(41:12):
a pretty big market, right maybe, I know, well what Nate.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
In general, I always like to push back on conspiracy theories,
right because human mind loves to see to see them
where they don't exist. And we do know as poker players,
one outthers happen, right Like, man, they happen way more
often than you feel like they should happen. That said I, So,
you know, I'm working on a book about cheating, and
one of the one of the things that I was
(41:40):
recently researching. I don't know if you remember this, you know,
I wasn't born yet, but it was. It was a
huge scandal in nineteen eighty Pennsylvania lottery scandal, the Triple
six fix. They actually were able to rig the lottery
and they had specially weighted balls so that a special
(42:01):
limited number of combinations were more likely to be drawn.
And so yeah, obviously you need someone on the inside
in the in the balls. But this was done. You know,
this was done also on television, Like it was very
very controlled environment and yet like it's still possible to
introduce weighted balls into machines that make certain number of
(42:23):
combinations more likely to happen. And that's not the only
time that that's happened. That was just like a very
prominent example of that happening. And so I hate, I
don't want to honor conspiracy theorists, but I do just
want to point out that it is possible due to
rig lottery ball machines.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Shaquille O'Neil just allege that in nineteenninety two, then NBA
Commissioner David Stern asked him if he wanted to go
to a cold weather or a warm weather city. Guess
who want to happen to be the Orlando Magic one
of the warmest destinations in the NBA, not the Minnesota
Timberwolf or something like that. And so I think people
are mostly joking, and I think I'm mostly joking. I
(43:03):
would say not like there is there are big incentives
for like the league to to align talent to places
where they think the franchise that deserves it, right, But
like I mean, it's you know, I don't know there
would be you know, there would be a sentenced to
do it. Yeah, they should maybe say, yeah, we determined
(43:23):
these are the actual picks for the league, right.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. And I also am
mostly joking, and I think that it is important to
kind of to make it clear that it's unlikely that
anything is rigged. All I can say, Nate is you know,
next time you do a lottery ball lottery that has
little balls and machines, just keep one eyebrow up and
(43:47):
make sure that everything is weighted correctly before choosing your numbers.
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,
(44:07):
we have some bonus content for you that's coming up
right after the credits.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
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 for
listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
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 Sonya Gerwitz. Sally
Helm is our editor and our Executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com