Pivot

And then there's the stupid and that is people who, who damage society with no demonstrable benefit to themselves.

And these are, these are the stupid. And the reason this stupid are just so dangerous is it's impossible to predict their actions. It's like trying to shoot a target where the movements are totally unpredictable and improbable.

Shouldn't your book been called Mussolini to the president?

Yes, some interviewers make a slip and do Mussolini to the president. But that's basically what it is.

He had a really lovely husband, wrote a wonderful book about growing up and difficult in a mid, he's real Midwestern and had a real struggle being gay. But it was great actually.

I watched Queens Gambit, obviously worshiped it.

Last week's show, you correctly identified the CEO of Wondry as her non-lopez, which is correct. Yes, I am correct a lot of the time. And then I said because I had read an excerpt from his very thoughtful book that morning and his name was on my brain, I said that no, it was Hamantaneja.

So I want to apologize to both for getting their names wrong, but there's a silver lining here. I know what it is. I can just get out right now. Go ahead. Here comes the other mistake. Here comes the other mistake.

Hamantaneja is this really thoughtful and hugely successful venture capitalist. Also has a thoughtful book on healthcare called UnHealthcare.

he just coming out with a book called The Hype Machine about Facebook.

You wrote a book how many years ago? That was your last book?

And explain them for the... Remember? That's why. You reached out to me and some come on our show. And then this is my favorite. You told me I was the most down...

So at the time, you were sort of writing about them in a less... It was a simpler time three years ago when you were writing. Correct?

When I started writing it was five years ago and it started out as a love letter. These companies are the number one recruiters out of my class. When I started teaching 20 years ago, the number one recruiter was AmEx. Now it's Amazon. Number two is Google. I'm economically more secure and more prosperous because of these companies. The only stocks I've ever owned are these companies up until that moment. And it struck me that they had in a world where you see countries as they get more affluent and educated or reliance on a super being and church attendance goes down, that each of these companies was tapping into a basic instinct.

So you had God, love, consumption and sex. And I thought those four things had, you know, were just so powerful. And then these companies effectively have, you know, dominated those respective for better and for worse, have dominated those sectors. And there's never been anything like these companies. I don't think.

Don't forget The Master Switch. Don't forget The Master Switch. I'm just hanging on the couch.

The Master Switch where it all started.

Trump sounds very intelligent on those, on those tapes. Right? He knows what he knows the science. He understands it.

He understands the problem. He's appropriately concerned.

You know the problem and you absolutely mendacious. You're a mendacious liar with, you know, he lied and people died.

if he'd said, look, we need to play it down to keep America calm, but at the same time, we need to behind the scenes, rally the troops and all resources and the full force credit and horsepower of the federal government to attack this.

it was like let's just downplay it. It just, the word downplaying is not a good word.

And then I've been reading of all things Melania and May the Stephanie Wolcott Wolf or whatever her name is, which is also very, you know, truthful.

Like you like this is these are people who sort of decided they're going to go all in with people that were awful and then they get kicked in the teeth by them.

That's a book. I just can't. It's really well written. Whoever the best in the world, I just can't. I'm too. I have too much male ego to be seen reading.

It definitely it describes a way of life in that New York scene that is very accurate.

I interviewed the founder of Square and Jim McKelvie who's got a book out and he was saying that he thought the biggest threat to square-on-payments systems was Shopify, which I thought was really interesting.

Phil's book is called Lie Machines, How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations and Political Operative.

I wrote 10 tricks to appear smart in meetings which was just a blog post based on the stupid things that people were doing in meetings in the corporate world and that went viral and led to a book deal

What was your book?

100 Tricks to Appear Smart Meetings

Oh there you go, excuse me. I probably already know all of the tricks you know. I have two copies, I should know what the name is.

Now I have 200 tricks to appear smart in meetings.

We are in, I think you would call it jobs depression right now. And I think it is different from virtually not only anything we've seen in our lifetime but even different than the Great Depression in many ways.

It's got to be a public health crisis response.

This is fundamentally different. So this is really an economic survival plan.

This is how do we really care for each other as a people? How do we make sure that our families, people live through this with the dignity that they can support themselves that they can get through?

I just did an amazing interview with Connor Doherty He wrote a book called Golden Gates It's about the fight for housing In America And I'm interested in Checking in with a lot of tech people there

This September he'll be publishing his book which side of history how technology is reshaping democracy and all our lives

he had an influence on me tactically or professionally and from a content standpoint and that one in business school you're not supposed to bring personal stuff it's about business and he was really one of the first academics to tax on my life lessons in business strategy and he talked about the notion that you had to invest early and often in your relationship with your family or you would end up bankrupt as a person regardless of your success he said that he talked a lot about not judging your success by the accolades you receive but your ability to put yourself in a position to improve other people's lives and I started about five or seven years ago talking about the difference between success and happiness in my class in large part because Professor Christensen was really gave academics license to talk about personal values in the context of business he was a very decent man wrote an iconic book called you know how you measure your life did talked a lot about this