Kurt Andersen - Writer & Best-Selling Author | How to Make America New Again

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Today my guest is Kurt Anderson. Kurt is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, evil geniuses and fantasy land, as well as the bestselling novels you can't spell America without me, true believers, heyday, turn of the century, and the podcast Nixon at war. He co-founded Spy Magazine and co-created and hosted Studio 360. A Peabody award-winning public radio show about art and pop culture that aired until 2020. He's also a journalist, former New Yorker columnist and staff writer, time critic and columnist, New York editor-in-chief and columnist, and has written for television, film and stage. Now we spoke about several entrepreneurial ventures he took on over his life, including insight.com and Studio 360. Why we need to make America new again? His argument that over the past several decades America's political economy has been hijacked by capital supremacists who preach and enact it a return to a pre-new deal order, and the systems we need to deploy to fix America. Yeah, no, I'm happy to, and actually when people speak to me, they often know, oh, you're that radio show guy, oh, you're the guy who wrote these books, oh, you're the guy who did Spy Magazine. And yes, those and more. I, you know, like lots of my friends started out as a writer and then, and then in 19, back in the late 80s, started Spy Magazine, which was a kind of slightly insane, but it turned out successful entrepreneurial effort to start this magazine when back when magazines didn't have the internet to compete with. And it was a satirical magazine. It was, it was nonfiction. It was journalist, it was journalism, but often savage to always fun and funny journalism. We did that, made a big enemy out of among other people Donald Trump back when he was just a, you know, bomb in New York. And so did that and then went on to write books and do other things in movies and plays and so forth, but also was along the way starting companies like this inside dot com, which was a online and print magazine publication that covered the media industries back at the turn of the century back in 1999, 2000, 2001. Did an email newsletter called Very Short List that was then sold as it happened to Jared Kushner and the observer company in 2000s. So yeah, I, I am a writer. That's what my passport says. And that's the main thing I have always been, but I have also along the way, both in print and then in digital land, started companies sold them sometimes and and got out of other times and wrote them down to the end other times. So, you know, there's quite a few writers that don't start companies. So walk me through, you know, you started off as a writer, you've obviously done a lot of things. And I also want to dovetail this into what gives you inspiration as to what to work on next. I'm sure that habit and that mindset has carried you through your career. So pick one of the many things that you've worked on. What prompted you to go into building something that was yourself and not just writing? Yeah. I mean, Spy was the first and and and of the thing that I've done, maybe maybe the most influential of the business that started. It we, my partner and I at the time, a great and Carter. And then my third partner was the business guy, Tom Phillips with Spy, and actually my fourth partner for that matter, my wife and Kramer, who was the marketing and salesperson. But we had this, we had loved, we'd grown up loving magazines, right? I mean, whether it was Esquire in the 60s or in National Ampune when it came out or there were, there were these fan magazines that we just loved getting and defined our, to help define our sensibilities. Mad magazine when we were little kids. And and we were both working at Time magazine together as as guys in our 20s and thought like, man, we don't have a favorite magazine anymore. Why is that? You know, magazines are doing great. And by God, you know, 80s and 90s were in some ways of golden age, but we didn't have a favorite and we didn't and we had been in journalism and magazine journalism in New York just long enough to hear all kinds of great stories that never got reported, right? That there was no internet. There was no things got not buried and covered up exactly, but effectively buried and covered up because they would because the New York Times, for instance, was kind of a monopoly had had jam on, you know, and and so there were all these stories that didn't get reported. There was all this fun way of and satirical way of reporting things and looking at the world that wasn't being done in journalism. It was being done, you know, on the Letterman show, which we forget, I think, was was a really a kind of game changer in terms of sensibility back in the 80s when that was getting going. So we said, let's let's we just sort of talking about like what would this magazine be even before we were serious about starring it? And then we said, wow, we've got an idea here. Let's start let's get somebody knows about business with us, some people know about business and start raising money. And and the timing was great as it turned out because there was no internet yet, right? I mean, literally when we started by magazine, the internet had not been invented. So so we had the once we had this idea for a thing, this this magazine, the motto of which the slogan of which was smart, fun, funny, fearless, that would be mostly nonfiction, looking at the world of monthly, based and about New York originally and then the whole of America within a couple of years. We had this idea of a thing that wasn't being done that we wanted for ourselves. And and really that's the key of anything I've ever done is of I want to write a book. I want to start a company. I want to do a thing. I want to serve myself really. It's it's something I want. I you know, I realized fairly early on that I yeah, you could you can be in a business where you're second guessing about like what would that kind of person want? What would this kind of person want? But your second guessing of people who about what people who aren't you would want as opposed to what would I make in the dog food you want to eat that you're the dog for, right? And and and so that was that was really what spy was about. And it was it was risky in all kinds of ways. And and I didn't particularly think of myself as a risk taking person. I'd kind of played by the book more or less other than you know, being an adolescent. But until then in terms of working. And so so it's but it but it seemed it seemed possible at the time partly. I think also because we it was the early part of the long boom where we had we knew people who were getting making lots and lots of money on Wall Street in the late 80s. And and they had money to spare to throw into this crazy enterprise that we had in mind and and and we were able to raise money that way. And and it took off and it was successful. And and we were breaking even within three years, which is kind of amazing for a standalone publication. Yeah. And you never had experience building a business before. That was your first. I had not. Great. Great. And had started a little magazine in Canada, but a very different kind. And so he at least had he had been an editor and and had done that. But no, we, you know, as people say about things and it's so true of us, in that case, we were too stupid to know how what a long shot it was, you know. And then after that, you are you are obviously a serial content creator. Goes you went into studio 360 decided to start an award-winning public radio show. Just just decided to start one, but it ended up going well. Yeah. Well, and before that, there, that I had a moment, a three year less, a little less than three year moment in between spy and that where, where in writing novel, after my, my big job, my, that I was hired for because we did such a good job for spy. The people who had recently bought New York magazine made me editor of that and fired me two and a half years after hiring me because their whole thing was that they wanted to be edgier. They wanted to be have edge be edgier, which was the sort of the word of the day. And I guess I gave it too much edge for them and offended some of their, their, the, the, the owner Henry Kravitz's pals on Wall Street and was got booted from that, which, you know, and it was a thing my mother always said and said at the time, well, you know, Kurt, when doors close, other doors open. And I thought, yeah, sure, right, mom, thanks. But in fact, I decided, okay, I've always wanted to write a novel. I'm, you know, my late 30s. It's kind of now or never. I felt and so I, you know, started writing a novel and I had, you know, some severance and some time and, and, and, and, and, and actually getting booted from that job, I think probably turned me into a book writer in a way that I might not have ever had the timing me never have been right if I just kept doing that and kept editing magazines and been a magazine editor as magazines began to die. I might have, I might have taken that path rather than being becoming more really of a, you know, essentially an independent creator, you know, which is mostly what I've been. Now, yes, you mentioned the radio show which came along after I'd written my first novel, right after I'd written my first novel. And, and again, that was just came out of the loop. I mean, I, I'd never aspired to do that and, and, and, but the people who ran public radio decided, you know, maybe you could do this. We have this idea for a show and I, and so we did and, and it worked and, and it was, yeah, so it was, I mean, you know, a change lanes was one of the many lane changes I made along the way and, and it worked out. Um, I had, and, and again, it, it was a matter of taking risk and not crazy risk, but risks that, that I had, I had, I had done it once right with spy and it, hey, that worked out okay. So it, it, it gave me the, whatever, courage, belief that yeah, it can work out, you know, to do that. I mean, there are all kinds of things and projects apart from being fired off from a job that I've done along the way that, you know, didn't work out. So it's not as though, hey, everything he does turns to gold. Uh, these are just the things that you talk about because of the ones that actually, well, the ones that actually did well, yeah, exactly, or had some kind of influence or whatever. Yeah, of course. Um, so after, after studio 360, um, obviously, uh, that was large portion of your life you did that for 20 years. Yeah, for a long time to be building up a radio show. Well, yeah, it was, although it's interesting. I mean, it was by that time, especially after the one time when I really worked, you know, for somebody and, and got fired, I didn't like say to myself exactly like you will never have one boss again, but I kind of did. And I always, even though I was doing the radio show was also was writing books and doing other projects and writing screenplays and so forth. So, so it was, it was, yes, it was an important gig, but it was kind of like an important gig rather than my defining one job, you know, I really, you know, these days, obviously, all kinds of people, you know, have, it's, it's a gig economy and people have portfolio of jobs and occupations and clients and everything. Well, I stumbled my way into doing that, you know, back in, back in 2000 when I said, okay, I'm going to be a book author and I'm going to have this radio show, but I'm also going to start, help start this little media operation here or work on this play over here. So, uh, yeah, it was, it was, uh, you know, it was, it's like having whatever, how many legs of stool needs three or four, you know, um, and then as after, after studio 360, just because I, I think, uh, inside.com is still functioning and, and around. At what point was that? That was a 1999, my friend Michael Hirschhorn, who had been my number two when I ran New York Magazine and I had this idea, uh, after sort of after I kind of referred to a thing like it in, in this novel I'd written called Turn of the Century set in the near future, we said, he said, well, let's actually do that. Let's do this online, uh, thing that covers the media and entertainment business, which wasn't really being done that well. I mean, there were the trade publications like Hollywood Reporter and Variety and, and, and things in the print world, but, but, uh, it wasn't really, this, this, this exploding new internet media space and spaces. Wasn't really being covered in the way that we thought it could be and should be with, with, you know, journalistic aggressiveness and entertaining sensibility and, and in this daily way. So anyway, that's what that was and we started and, and it was, we thought it's funny now, but in 1999, it's sort of at what turned out to be the end of the first.com boom, right? We thought, wow, this internet, we're missing it. We were missing it. We, we, what, what, let's start our own band before it's too late to start a band kind of thing. And, and so we had this idea and, and at this hot, hot moment of 98, 99, it was, you know, uh, way too easy to raise money for such a thing. And, and we raised a lot of money and, and, and hired an amazing staff and for a couple years, you know, made a great, had a great early, uh, internet publication, you know, before, I mean, again, it was before broadband, real, before broadband was barely there. Uh, it was before there was any advertising online. So it was, it was nuts. I mean, it was, I mean, the charitable thing way to describe it as ahead of its time, but it was, it was indeed really good, you know, for its brief life. Well, it, it, it had a brief life and not, but it is still around. So obviously, it wasn't the victim of many other companies that raised money in, in the.com. So you had something under the hood, which was, which was already good, because I know there's enough companies that, that probably didn't and still raised a lot of money. Um, so after this, you finish, okay, so I didn't realize that was sort of, uh, that was, you were finished with Inside.com by the time, you know, uh, 2001, I think 2001, uh, yeah, we sold it to Primedia, uh, this company called Primedia, which ironically was the company that had own New York magazine, inspired me. Um, uh, but yeah, so yeah, I was done with Inside in 2001 and, and, and then, and fully engaged in the radio show, which started, started in 2000 and, and, uh, this whole time you're writing, you're, you're always, and I'm still, yeah, yeah, I am indeed, yeah, yeah, still writing books and, uh, no, I was going to say the one thing that, um, I thought was so impressive about the, the, the works that you produce. It just seems like you have such an, an intimate understanding of the topic and, and the only reason why I said, now you're a career writer, so it may seem, it may seem like a, well, of course, that's what he does for living. But I mean, the amount of people that write books just about their domain, they've lived their whole life, they've written a book about their domain and that's the one thing they publish. So, uh, as you're an experienced, you know, obviously, uh, award-winning author, what's your process for deciding? You said before you want to, you want to learn about something, you want to talk about something, that's what you do. But how do you really get into the weeds on something? Well, I mean, novels are one thing and that's in terms of, and I'd written, you know, a small little non-fiction book right after the crash, for instance, about called Reset, that was about what I thought, how we, how we might use the opportunity of, of the 2008, 2009 crash recession as an opportunity to reset. But mostly I was writing novels and those, you know, in my case, I just, I get an idea for a character or a scene or a time or, and, and, and just begin thinking about it for a long time and, and letting it simmer and growing to something. Non-fiction books, these last two I've written, um, you know, Fantasy Line and Evil Geniuses kind of start the same way, but, but they, I won't say they necessarily come to life quicker, but they're more focused, right? I mean, you know, you have this idea with Fantasy Line, as opposed to characters or scenes or millions or times or what images are the way fiction germinates. So, Fantasy Line, it was like, wow, this country has become a lot less, um, committed to empirical reality in my lifetime. Why is that? You know, and, and, and so, investigate that and go, I believe. Let's investigate that. How that happened? At first, I, and I'd written a novel set in the 60s, 1960s at the time, I thought, oh, I think it's something to do with that and how anything goes and find your own truth and all that stuff that grew out of the 60s and 70s, that has something to do with it. But then I realized, wait, no, this is, this is a deeper, longer history. I mean, I was really not, it didn't start it as a history book, and it became a history book because I realized there's a lot about America and Americans and the American idea going all the way back, hundreds of years, that, that, when it got out of control in a certain way, as in my telling, in the last 50 years, it became, it led to the, the, the post-truth post-fact fake news, all the world that we are now finding ourselves in, that, that it got us here. And again, I, I started, I started thinking about that book in the two, the early 2010s, started writing it in 2014, turned it in, manuscript in, before Donald Trump was even nominated for president. So as it turned out, I was, you know, I, I, I, I'm very grateful to my publisher who said when I told her about this book that I might do next, she said, well, maybe do that now. That sounds timely. And thank God she did because it came out just in time for, to help, you know, explain how we got to the land of Trump, the fantasy land of Trump. So then, evil geniuses came along really, people responded to that book, and I, I realized, as I was finishing, as I was going out in the world and talking about it, that it, that my, my theory of how we went wrong, I mean, one of the fantasy land subtitles is how America went haywire, the evil geniuses subtitle is the unmaking of America. And I realized I told kind of half of a story that I had to tell, which is, wow, we, we are, we have an iffy relationship to the truth, and that allows for all kinds of problems, if it gets out of control, if people not believing in climate change, for instance, or, or not believing in vaccines, or whatever, the not believing true things or believing false things, you're talking about. But I realized there's another half of that of how this was, how the, how we got so unfair in this country, how we got so unequal, how prosperity began going on into the very wealthy people like me, not that I'm very wealthy, but I'm in the, I don't know, top 20% of people have done okay in the last 50 years. And so I realized beyond this kind of exploration of the irrational in America, that there was this very, very rational thing that had, has been done and changed the system in the last 40 or 50 years. And, and so I wanted to figure out like, well, how'd that happen? And, and, and that was, you know, it involved, evil geniuses involved, more of a, you know, how did I miss this? How, how was I not paying enough attention as it was happening in the 80s and 90s? You know, kind of, and just explaining for, so I understand what happened, right? How, how the, all the, the, the ideas of how the system should be fair for everyone, and all boats should rise and the new, new deal idea, how that was just wiped away, and we ended up, where we've ended up, trying to figure it out, you know, and, and, and trying to figure out how it happened and, and then trying to, you know, write it in a, in a lucid enough way that, you know, people, normal people could understand it and, and, and be persuaded. And, and that I'm not an economist or haven't studied economics since I was in college, but, you know, so, so that, the economists of the world and the political economists of the world wouldn't think I was an idiot, and so I spent a couple of years researching it in a year, year or so writing it, and here I am. So, so I, I feel like, okay, my, my nonfiction work here is done. I, and they, they really work as kind of two volumes of, if you think America has, has kind of gone off the rails in the last while, uh, here, here's my one exploration, and, and there are kind of a two volume history in that sense. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot. Now, while you're listening to this podcast, you're probably doing something else too, mastering the art of working out, shaving like no one's watching, we get it. When you're having conversations with your customers, the same is probably true for them. They're I aming their teams, mentally planning date nights, so growing conversations beyond that moment can be challenging. 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So you even speak about the founding ideology of America and how that's potentially led to what caused the opinions that would have prompted people to almost have a knee jerk reaction, you know, in the 70s. I think that, you know, when I was reading through, you were speaking about understanding the mindset of the people, the CEOs, the executives in the 60s, 70s, and what's led them to potentially do some of the things that you speak about in the book. So yeah, first, I just want to tee that. So I think that what you had mentioned, there was a little clip about America being founded based on the ideas of newness and innovation. And I think I just wanted you to speak about that and what that's all about. Sure. Again, I did sort of, it's not quite as much of the long view as Venezuelan, but I do go back, as you say, to the beginnings and how the idea of America, even before it was the United States, was all about the new. And, you know, this was the new world. Let's include Canada. And I hear that Canadian accent in your voice. So I take you into the whole North American idea. But so nobody was, it was, it was about a new world. Let's go to this new place and figure out new ways to live and new ways to do things and then new ways to manufacture things and new ways to create a government and new ways. It was always about the new for, you know, for better and worse, but mostly for better, really. And for hundreds of years. And so, and certainly in the 19th and 20th century, America became the font of newness. And people wanted to go there to create new lives, create new selves, create, to not be tied to the old ways in the old world. And again, that was mostly, mostly good, in my view. And then somewhere along the line, I mean, and certainly provoked by what happened in the 1960s. This, in the 1960s, as I described it in Evil Geniuses, was this kind of moment of just overwhelming newness all at once. I mean, whether it was the space age and the Apollo program and all of that, like, you know, top down newness. And then there was the counterculture and hippies and the new age and all that and civil rights and urban uprisings. And man, I mean, it's hard to, you know, I was just a little kid at the time, but it was a decade of just raging newness to the max that naturally discombobulated a lot of people. And so there was, to some degree, a natural organic reaction after that in the early 70s to like, hold your horses. Let's just calm down a little bit. Let's stop with the constant constant new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, kind of the shock of the new. And so, and you mentioned the CEOs and billionaires, or I guess at that point, not even probably 100 millionaires. There weren't many billionaires at the time. But anyway, the money class and CEOs thought felt in like 1969, 1970 as as environmental regulation came in. And just this, this anti-business sense took hold. A lot of them were afraid that, you know, they were going to be washed away by some kind of socialist revolution, which in retrospect, it's kind of nuts and hysterical of them. But somewhat understandable that they felt like, oh my god, we're just going to be, our time is, unless we fight back somehow, our time is over. And so they did. They got together a bunch of them, including Charles Koch, most famously, but others. And the business roundtable, this new thing that was this sort of new kind of organization of CEOs of the largest companies getting together to lobby. And they really created a new kind of, you know, economically libertarian ultra pro-capitalist right with think tanks and its own media platforms and on and on and on and lobbyists and so forth. And and used this like this exhaustion, this post-60s exhaustion of, oh, let's go back to the way it used to be. Okay, let's go back to the way it used to be. And very brilliantly and cleverly with Ronald Reagan as a frontman, sold this idea of, yeah, let's take America back to the way it was. You know, they didn't say back to the way it was before civil rights, before women's rights, but that was part of it. That was the onset of a recurring theme that we see. Yeah, it's interesting again and again. Exactly. So, but it was, but this idea of, oh, let's go back to good old small town America when government wasn't in everybody's faces and government was competent and all those things was a very successful political cell. And so the characters, the stars of evil geniuses are these very rational rich guys who who who not only within a few years kept them, saw that they weren't being washed away, that the free enterprise system wasn't being dismantled. And they they very quickly sort of, you know, was they were no longer in existential jeopardy, but they they at a certain point in the late 70s decided, well, let's keep going. Let's see how far we can go and really transform the system to really, you know, roll back the the old new deal paradigm of, you know, the rich pay high taxes and we have aggressive antitrust and all the rest. And they and they just kept on going. And before too long, there was no democratic party that sort of positing an alternative to to that. So everybody agreed, right? I mean, their their their Democrats and their Republicans didn't really by the 90s certainly by the age of Bill Clinton didn't really disagree about economics or social policy very much, you know, and the only things they disagreed about were the cultural things of and and and and and therefore the the system and all of its premises about what was fair and unfair and how much inequality we could we could we could stand or countenance was was changed in a generation. And this is this is this is a really a death by a thousand cuts because I'm sure if you if you go back, you can trace back, you know, specific specific action items and and and various, you know, government programs and whatnot that will actually have this this compound almost butterfly effect to things that we're experiencing today. And the like you said, like the the all the things that we question, how did we get like this? This has not been monumental major policy decisions. These are just small things that have added up over time. Totally right. And that's and that is again to my whatever credit or at least why we didn't see it so much because it's so much of where as you say these death by a thousand cuts, these tiny little things that didn't seem like such big deals. Yes, Ronald Reagan was elected and and and we and the Congress reduced income taxes by half the rates. That was a big thing. But that that was one part of it. All these small things that who who unless you were a kind of specialist in regulation or or or or tax codes, you just didn't pay much attention to like the change the SEC change in the in the early 1980s that allowed companies to buy their own stock shares. That that hadn't happened right since since the new deal since we set up the modern system of regulating equities and securities and finance. Suddenly, no, no, go ahead, buy your own stock. And and and that just was this just profound transformation where now, you know, and for the last generation, most big companies spend most of their earnings on buying their own stock, which always struck me. It's like, hey, how did this happen? This didn't used to happen. Did it? This doesn't seem kosher. And then I went back and look at the history of this this little change of an SEC rule that nobody paid. It didn't make big headlines. Massive change. Massive repetition. And it's a massive change or or another example like that is is well, they didn't lower the minimum wage. They just stopped raising the minimum wage and let inflation do the business of of lowering it, right? So so back in the day in the 50s and 60s and 70s, you know, the minimum wage was the equivalent of 10, 12, almost $15 because Congress kept raising it. Then they stopped it, went down to basically seven bucks and were at stake for 40 years. On and on and on. There are there are these there's dozens scores hundreds of of of changes that either were invisible because they were done by stealth, like not raising the minimum wage, or like, what's this? 401K is what? I don't know, whatever. That just nobody noticed, you know, and but in the aggregate, they they changed the system in in relatively few years. Now, so you know, you go into into a lot of details, examples, and I you broke the book down, I guess into I guess it says five, five different parts. I don't know if that's correct or not. This is just from my research, if that's accurate, let me know, but so you go through these four parts. It is really just like the history leading up to modern day and then the fifth part I thought was interesting make America new again. So this is the result of the past 40 years and and speak to me about what that what that means exactly. Well, you know, I mean, lots of our politics and our our divisions today are arguments over what was bad or good about the past, right? And there are aspects of the past we can't bring back don't want to bring back, you know, white supremacy, women can't do anything to stay at home. I could go on, you know, gay people can't admit their gay, but there are certain parts there's a certain part of the past, which is to say our political economic past when things were fairer and we had this, you know, during the 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s, this this national consensus about what was fair and what was what wasn't fair and how big corporate power should be and on and on and on, that there's there's a lot there to look at. Now, which is to say, you know, it's a very different world with a very different economy and and most especially the digital revolution has changed things, but we can we we did it better, you know, it was fairer. All boats, most boats, many boats did tend to rise together and tell around 1980. So so so but here we are in in this new digital world where where well-paying jobs have been destroyed by both globalization and technology and now digital technology and and doesn't look to most of the experts that I've read like they're going to be replaced by new good better jobs the way they were in the early 20th century, they were the way they were in the early 19th century and yes, there were there was disturbances caused and pain caused by all those industrial revolutions, but eventually people left the fireman went to factories, eventually people left factories and went to office jobs. It seems like there's a good possibility, I think, probability that it's different this time. So you have the chance for this new digital world and and this new AI world to keep eliminating jobs and making the production of things and services more and more and more efficient, but how are people going to live? You know how are people going to have dignity? How how we are at this crossroads where we have to figure out how the future is going to be a decent one for most people? And I think I really do think it's a crossroads which to say there is the opportunity for amazing plenty you know for solving as John Manard Kane said a hundred years ago the economic problem which is to say there's now enough for everybody, right? I do this this sort of thought experiment in the course of the book saying I'm talking about America too, not saying let's divide up all wealth and income equally, that's never going to happen, probably should never happen, but let's just as illustration if you define up all of the wealth and all of the income in the United States, equally by household, everybody is upper middle class, everybody is upper middle class. The each purse, each household gets $800,000 of wealth and and and each household has an income of $130,000, $140,000. Sounds good, right? Again, I'm not saying we should do that, but it is a starting point to say how wealthy we are and how dysfunctionally and unfairly all of that wealth and income is now shared. So I do think that we're at a place where we have to rejigger our system to make it a more fair one as not unlike other countries, like say the Scandinavian countries, like say Canada even. Before we get to this place where it becomes this dystopian digital feudalism, which is where we're headed if we don't pretty radically change the system, I think. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode NordVPN. Now if you've ever missed out on your favorite shows because it's not available in your country or if you're trying to keep your private time private, you don't want people spying on what you're doing, well let me introduce you to NordVPN. If you're bored of US Netflix, why not take a spin in the UK? Use NordVPN, click of a button, you can do just that. 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So go to my link at nordvpn.com slash success story to get your subscription started today. I was just going to ask because I want people to to go in and obviously and read more because I think it's a really interesting topic. But the end result of 40 years of unfettered capitalism, it has some implications. Do you have any ideas after doing this research, writing this book about how we could achieve a better system? Or are we too far gone? Well, we'll see. I mean, there's a lot of problems and it's not an easy slot. But one of the things by looking at this history of how the paradigm was shifted and how the system was transformed fairly quickly over the generation from let's say 1978 to 1998, that like, wow, let's do what they did. But for our side, it's possible. It's a heavy slot and it's a long-term process if it's to happen. I'm serious when I say, look what they did and learn things. Keep your eye on the prize and keep at it and keep at it and keep at it and don't let yourself get too diverted by things that aren't really going to make lives much better. In my view, stick to the economics, which the evil geniuses did. I'm still 50.1% hopeful. I'm not without hope that we can get there. And the last, the politics and economics of the last nine months had actually given me some, you know, sent me all the way to 51, 52% hopeful. Pretty optimistic. Very good. I always like to ask a couple of rapid-fire career questions to bring some insights out of you. Was there anything else that you wanted to bring up any points in the book that we didn't touch on that were major relevant points? I know that we really broke a lot of it down. No, I mean, it's I think in terms of an introduction. I mean, part of it, as I say, for people who don't feel like they're particularly left on economics, you know, I wasn't either. I was always a kind of capital D democratic centrist until I really stopped and said like, yeah, that's easy for me to say. I've done fine, right? Let's really look at what happened and how this happened. And so I think it's for for being a sort of polemical economic history, it's it's pretty fair and balanced, there I say it. So, but yeah, I mean, I think if if this subject interests you at all, I think, you know, it should. I think it should introduce more people to be honest. You can learn a lot because I learned a lot. And really, I'm just I'm just I've just recapitulated, you know, my three years of of learning in this book. Very good. Okay, some some rapid fire insights out of you go as long or as short as you'd like for these. What was the biggest challenge that you've had in your career and how did you overcome it? Well, I guess I mean, the one that felt like a big challenge because it was so sort of spectacular was getting fired from this job because it was in the newspapers and you know, it was like being shot at a cannon that you didn't know you were in until it was until you were until they let the fuse. So, but but in fact, I mean, because it was so dramatic spectacular and quick, it wasn't ultimately that hard, even though it felt it was it was shocking and disorienting and a bummer. So, I guess that was the single biggest if we're if it's a lightning round, that's that's that's the biggest. That's a good knowledge. It's good. I didn't feel damaged by it or like I didn't go into it, you know, your long depression. I just, you know, got back on the horse. Yeah, I just like to bring that out because, you know, people that are younger in their career, I think everybody who's achieved any levels of success has been fired in one way or another, but you know, sometimes for people that are younger, it feels like it's it is the end of the world. What would be one thing that you would tell your 20-year-old self? I would say and I knew it by the time I was 25 or 28, but basically learn patience. You know, I would say that as a young person, I certainly didn't didn't have enough patience and maybe that's the nature of being young and by the time I was 30, I kind of had developed some patience, so it was okay, but just, you know, calm down. You know, stay on the right track. You'll get there. You'll get what you need. Don't be so anxious. What would who would be one person, excuse me, that had a major impact on your life? It can be family. It can be somebody in your professional circle and what did they teach you? Well, I was really lucky in terms of my family. My parents were like excellent, excellent parents and back in the day when the phrase helicopter parents didn't exist and my parents were certainly not helicopter parents. They gave me, you know, I knew I was cared about, but I had a very long leash. But I would say the person, the single person who was most was just a great person to have in my life was my first boss, who was this guy called Gene Charlotte, who was a big, famous guy at the time. He was on the today's show every day when that was a big deal and he was the culture guy and then move a reviewer and he just hired me out of college to write for him or research for him to hang around with him. He was a great boss. He was just the model of a generous, great boss. He was certainly, and so he was very generous to me and got me this book deal for this book I published when I was 26 years old, incredibly generously. And was just his model of kindness and decency and mentorship to the degree I might have been okay on those scores in all of the jobs and when I employed people and helped people. But he certainly, as a first boss, proving to me that this is what a boss can be, was an incredibly important influence. What would be one source that you'd recommend could be a book podcast, obviously none of your own, that you'd recommend people. I don't think for you, but it's not my own. Well, let's see. What do I listen to? I mean, right now, I mean, in terms of, or are we talking about living life better or just being... Anything interesting. Your interpretation. I think, I mean, my friend, and it's not just because he's my friend, but John Highlamon has a podcast he's been doing for now a year, I guess, called Hell in High Water, which is just an exemplary podcast. He really does it well and right and uses, and they tend to be an hour long, but they don't ever feel like they drag. He does it really beautifully and I think understands the difference between interview and conversation, which is to say these are more like conversations. It's really excellent. And you know, podcasts, as you know, by doing this, it's a wonderful time to be, it's wonderful to be in a medium as it's still finding its own form and shape, where there's not absolute rules of this is the way it's got to be, or that's the way it's got to be, when it's still, you know, whatever we're in, the early 10, 20 years of this form, and I find it very exciting when, you know, things like John's do it, do it in his own way, and it's great. So it's a, I just find it, I find it great because also because it's weekly, and I find both as a creator and as a consumer, I find daily, these days, you know, when we're so delusional by content and information and all that, I find, I find the weekly frequency kind of more my cup of tea. One thing that you mentioned that I thought was that really resonated with me and just reminded me when you said, you know, the medium hasn't been defined yet, is that you create content that you would consume yourself or you investigate ideas or you build businesses or your right books. And I think that that's probably one of the one things that anybody who's creating content, that's something they should take away. And that's why I built this podcast, that's why I hope whoever is creating content or listening to this and being inspired creates something that they want to create because you know this, like if you don't love it, if you don't live it, if it's not something that's for you, you're trying to build it for someone else, it's a tough, tough hell to climb if it sounds like it's like really core to who you are. Totally, totally. No, it's no fun for the creators, but again, and it can be called authenticity, but it's a form of that. It's like, wow, you are really interested in this, you are really curious about this, you really wanted to talk to this person, that comes across and I think, yeah, that's if I have advice for people where they're not there creating media, whatever they're doing, like you better, you better like this and you better be doing it for you, you better be a customer of whatever it is you're selling or you know, maybe you won't fail, but the likelihood of failing failure is higher. And in any case, you're not going to have fun doing it. Yeah, yeah, very good. What does success mean to you? Being, being feeling as though you've given it your best shot, whatever it is, and feeling like you have been kind along the way and grateful as it comes to an end. My older brother, who recently died, always said that if he had a religion, it was gratitude. And I always like, yeah, that's kind of right. But as he got older, as I get older, I thought like, yes, that's it. If you want to end up feeling as though you haven't done, you haven't committed too many unforced errors and that you're grateful for the people who have helped you and for life itself. So that's what I would say. And most importantly, how do people connect with you website, social, where do they get the book, all of that? They get the book wherever they buy books. And there's a paperback edition of Evil Geniuses being published in August so they can wait for that and get a beautiful new paperback with some updates. But Evil Geniuses Twitter is the social place I am most active. I'm at KB Andersen, I've got a nice website that is kerdanderson.com. And they can get a hold of me through that or see what I'm up to.