Live with Nicolle Wallace

Summary

Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion

Special Live Episode with Nicolle Wallace

Date: December 16, 2025
Host: Michael Lewis with Lydia Jean Cott
Guest: Nicolle Wallace (MSNBC), Zach Grenier (actor)
Location: Recorded live at Symphony Space, New York

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Overview: Marking the Legacy of The Big Short, 15 Years On

This special bonus episode of the Big Short Companion podcast commemorates the 15th anniversary of Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short (and a decade since its Oscar-winning film adaptation). Hosted by Michael Lewis and Lydia Jean Cott, the episode features a lively on-stage conversation with journalist Nicolle Wallace, live readings by actor Zach Grenier, and the presence of real-life characters from the book. The trio reflect on the continuing resonance of the 2008 financial crisis, what The Big Short tried to capture, and how its stories and warnings matter today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Audiobook Revival & Revisiting Old Stories

Timestamp: 04:00 – 07:25

• Michael Lewis describes how the recent resurgence of audiobooks—and the return of audio rights to his earlier works—led him to re-record The Big Short and create a companion podcast.
  • “[The] audiobook market is what's changed. It's the biggest change in the way books are consumed in my career.” (05:20, Michael Lewis)
• The new audiobook and podcast revisits the characters, consequences, and aftershocks of the 2008 crisis, including conversations with some “real-life” Big Short players in the audience.

2. Humanizing the Financial Crisis

Timestamp: 07:25 – 08:36; 24:27 – 29:24

• Nicolle Wallace praises Lewis’s gift for telling complex stories through vivid, human characters.
  • “There's nothing that you experience on a more human level than the human stories.” (07:30, Nicolle Wallace)
• Lewis teases how the book’s structure and casting of characters provided a way to make the financial crisis accessible and emotionally resonant.

3. Dramatic Reading: The Collapse Unfolds

Timestamp: 08:36 – 20:40

• Actor Zach Grenier delivers a compelling live reading from The Big Short, capturing:
  • The panic during the Lehman Brothers collapse
  • Personal stress and trauma experienced by real-life protagonists (Danny Moses, Vincent Daniel, Porter Collins)
  • The haunting realization of the disconnect between Wall Street disaster and street-level normalcy
  • Moments of self-realization and moral reckoning for characters like Steve Eisman and Vincent Daniel.

“I'm thinking we got the world by the fucking balls—and the company we work for is going bankrupt.” (11:15, Zach Grenier as Danny Moses) “It was like feeding the monster, Eisman said. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened.” (19:35, Zach Grenier reading Michael Lewis)

4. Why Tell These Stories? The Importance of Character

Timestamp: 24:27 – 32:07

• Lewis reflects on the necessity and difficulty of reporting real human stories in finance, emphasizing that understanding the crisis means understanding its personalities.
  • “They get to the right answer because of who they are. ... Their character is organic to the story. It isn't just decoration.” (33:00, Michael Lewis)
• He describes embedding with his subjects, waiting out their self-consciousness until their true selves emerged.

5. How to Make the Complex Simple

Timestamp: 25:15 – 29:24

• Lewis explains the structure of The Big Short: the financial world as a giant bet, with most institutions on the “dumb side” and a few outsiders on the “right side.”
  • “There was a beautiful simplicity to the story... you could think of the financial world as a simple bet, a giant bet.” (25:15, Michael Lewis)
• He details how he “cast” the book like assembling a singing group, choosing characters for maximum contrast, depth, and narrative power.

6. Lasting Consequences: Trauma, Politics, and Memory

Timestamp: 29:24 – 32:07, 32:19 – 37:24

• The book was written before the political aftershocks fully took shape; Lewis draws a line from 2008's crisis to the rise of populism and Trump.
  • “One of the consequences of that event is Trump, of course. You can draw a line from that to Trump for sure.” (29:56, Michael Lewis)
• He laments that the wisdom and independence that saved the financial system—trust in the Federal Reserve and Treasury—has been eroded, leaving the US less prepared for future crises.

7. The Book vs. The Movie: Tone and Endings

Timestamp: 34:15 – 35:35

• Adam McKay’s film adaptation ends more angrily and editorializes more explicitly than the book, reflecting McKay’s darker worldview.
  • “The movie is angrier than the book also because Adam McKay’s anger [is] just naturally more capable of anger than I am. I just look at the world as a comedy.” (35:35, Michael Lewis)
• Lewis reflects on his own approach: focusing on human folly, not venting anger, and wanting to avoid imposing his view on readers.

8. The Allure—and Danger—of Wall Street

Timestamp: 36:28 – 40:59

• Lewis discusses his conflict over how Liar’s Poker inspired the wrong kind of careerists into finance.
  • “About the third time [someone told me I inspired them to work on Wall Street], I thought, Jesus Christ, I created this crisis.” (39:22, Michael Lewis)
• He’s troubled that finance remains so attractive to the best and brightest, distracting them from other societal contributions.

9. On Interviewing, Trust, and Intimacy

Timestamp: 43:43 – 45:41

• Nicolle Wallace and Lewis discuss why people talk: the power of being truly listened to, of feeling that their story matters.
  • “You listen… She seems to have read the book, which is freakish on television.” (43:57, Michael Lewis, on Wallace)
• Lewis describes the quiet emotional bond built with his sources, and the odd pain of saying goodbye.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Audiobooks and Revisiting:
  “This chance to make free money... but also it's kind of fun to revisit the stories... we're still living in a world that it was sort of describing and it seemed relevant.”
  (06:30, Michael Lewis)

• On Reporting Human Stories:
  “You can't just... you can't get it wrong. They're real people... It strikes me that The Big Short is a story about what happens when the reporting doesn't happen.”
  (24:27, Nicolle Wallace)

• On Character and Story:
  “You don't write a book unless you love the story. There's no point. And the people, because you end up loving the characters.”
  (32:19, Michael Lewis)

• On Not Moralizing:
  “I left these guys exposed. I left it for the reader to decide how you feel about someone getting rich betting on the collapse of the society... The best stories leave a hole for a reader to walk into and exercise their own discretion about what it means.”
  (33:00, Michael Lewis)

• On Regret and Irony:
  “About the third time [a trader said I inspired their career], I thought, Jesus Christ, I created this crisis...”
  (39:22, Michael Lewis)

• On the Power of Listening in Interviews:
  “She's actually listening to what I'm saying instead of thinking of the next question. She seems to have read the book, which is freakish on television.”
  (43:57, Michael Lewis, praising Nicolle Wallace)

• On the Colonoscopy Story:
  “While you were in the procedure, you looked up at him and said, 'When you were a little boy, did you dream that this is what you would be doing with your life? Or did you want to be an astronaut?' And I had to go apologize to him.”
  (47:03, Michael Lewis, closing anecdote)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:01 – Podcast proper begins; setup for live episode
• 04:00 – 07:25 – Why revisit The Big Short and the power of audiobooks
• 08:36 – 20:40 – Zach Grenier's dramatic book reading (Lehman collapse, aftermath)
• 24:27 – 32:07 – Deep dive: structure, casting, and the humanity of financial crises
• 29:24 – 37:24 – Long-term political and social consequences
• 34:15 – 35:35 – The difference in tone between book and movie
• 39:22 – Lewis’s ambivalence about inspiring Wall Street careers
• 43:43 – 45:41 – How and why people open up to interviewers
• 47:03 – Michael Lewis’s humorous colonoscopy story

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Tone and Style

• Conversational, candid, and witty—especially from Michael Lewis
• Reflective and at times, self-deprecating
• Engaged with the live audience and with each other
• Mix of serious insight and light-hearted banter

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Takeaway

This live episode offers a rich, retrospective look at The Big Short, blending dramatic storytelling, industry introspection, and reflections on the human flaws—and virtues—behind the financial crisis. The personal anecdotes, humor, and willingness to leave big questions unanswered make it lively, intimate, and thought-provoking, not just for fans of the book and film, but for anyone reckoning with the legacies of 2008.

Transcript

[Lydia Jean Cott]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Michael Lewis]

Pushkin.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

I'm Lydia Jean Cott.

[Michael Lewis]

I'm Michael Lewis.

[Zach Grenier]

And.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

And we're here with a special kind of bonus episode of the Big Short companion podcast.

[Michael Lewis]

Yes. Which you've heard. Cause you were there for it live. Yes. I was interviewed by Nicole Wallace at Symphony Space. And you were in the audience. And there were a few wrinkles to this interview that made it really fun. One, it was Nicole Wallace, and she's a fabulous interviewer. And I've been on her show on msnbc, and she has a devoted and large following. And there's a reason for it. Two was, as we'll hear, an actor came out at the beginning of the show and performed one of the passages from the book. And he was so much better at reading my book than I was. And I was mesmerized. It was like I was listening to the thing for the first time. And the third was that characters from the Big Short were actually in the audience. And that was a rare treat for me to be able to talk about them in front of them.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

Could you see them? They were, like, kind of in the front row. I was kind of trying to watch them out of the corner of my eye.

[Michael Lewis]

It was Danny Moses, Vincent Daniel and Porter Collins. And they're so loud, I could not see them because of the stage lights, but I could hear them. I could hear them laughing, you know, so that was a good sign. So that made it kind of fun. And it was just fun to, like, recap this whole thing. And it's a great. I feel like it's a great way to end our little season.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

And there are even stories that you told Nicole Wallace that I had never heard before.

[Michael Lewis]

This I find hard to believe, but it's nice that there's still a few coming up.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

Michael Lewis and Nicole Wallace recorded live at Symphony Space in New York.

[Nicole Wallace]

This is sort of celebrating an anniversary of the Big Short, and you've just released a new audiobook in your own voice and your own telling. What is it like to relive this story?

[Michael Lewis]

First, you really should give me credit for having the balls to come out for two days of media for a book that's 15 years old.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, I'm taking notes. I want to know how it's done.

[Michael Lewis]

I do feel like. I do feel this is the last thing I'm doing. And I do feel I need to come clean to someone about why we're doing this.

[Nicole Wallace]

I'm happy to be that person.

[Michael Lewis]

Can I be this? Can we just do it here? Are we a Safe space?

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, safe space. You guys in safe space?

[Michael Lewis]

And nobody's going to talk about it?

[Nicole Wallace]

No. Well, this is classified.

[Michael Lewis]

Okay, so what happened was a few years ago, the audio rights to Liars Poker came back to me. And the audiobook market is what's changed. It's the biggest change in the way books are consumed in my career. And in the old days, in olden times, even big short times, there wasn't a whole lot of effort that went into making the audiobooks. And in the case of, like, Liars Poker, the audiobook was cassettes on, you know, really, you got a box. You got this giant cardboard box full of cassettes if you order it. So we thought, I thought with Pushkin, my podcast company, and I'm a kind of an itinerant podcaster, I'm not on all the time, but I do these, I'll do seasons from time to time that it would be fun to just try to redo the Liars Poker and see if. See if anybody would be interested. And we did a podcast season alongside of it and the thing just took off. So we thought, hmm, like these things are coming back. Big Short's coming back, Moneyball's coming back, the Blind side's coming back, all these books are coming back. And this chance to make free money, it's really great. But also it's kind of fun to revisit the stories. Like, I never reread my books. I don't think about them. They really just kind of. They're in the past. And this one, this n Moneyball in particular, we're still living in a world that it was sort of describing and it seemed relevant. So we did recorded the book a couple months ago and we have a new fancy audio book, but we have a seven episode podcast with going back and looking at the consequences of the financial crisis, talking to some of the characters in the book, some of whom are here. I think they got in. Danny Moses, Vincent, Daniel, Poor Collins. Are they here? Yeah, there we go. And I think that's all. I think that's all that's here. And it was. It's just interesting. It's still interesting. It's still in the air.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's riveting. I mean, I. And I'm so glad that you brought it back to the people because you. Your gift to the story we're telling every day in the news is that it is very easy to shorthand everything, but there's nothing that you experience on a more human level than the human stories. And so I want to spend time tonight talking about these humans.

[Michael Lewis]

Do you want me to start now?

[Nicole Wallace]

Start now.

[Michael Lewis]

As I start talking, I kind of don't stop.

[Nicole Wallace]

Okay, give me one note on the humans and then we'll listen to this element elevated experience. And then we'll go back to the humans. Tease the humans.

[Michael Lewis]

There was a logic to the book. The book got cast in a way no book I have ever written has gotten cast. But in the way the book I'm writing now is getting cast. And I will explain that logic after we hear the reading.

[Nicole Wallace]

So without further ado, this is. I mean, you are always a highlight. This is really going to be they're here for you. No, no, no, no. Zach Rainier is going to do a reading from. From the book.

[Zach Grenier]

It had been four days since Lehman Brothers had been allowed to fail, but the most powerful effects of the collapse were being felt right now. The stocks of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were tanking, and it was clear that nothing short of of the US Government could save them. It was the equivalent of the earthquake going off, danny said. And then, much later, the tsunami arrived. Danny's trading life was man versus man, but this felt more like man versus nature. The synthetic CDO had become a synthetic natural disaster. Usually you feel you have the ability to control your environment, said Danny. You're good because you know what's going on now. It didn't matter what I knew. Feel went out the window. Frontpoint had maybe 70 different bets on various stock markets around the world. All of them were on financial institutions. He scrambled to keep a handle on them all, but couldn't. They owned shares in KeyBank and were short the shares of bank of America, both of which were doing things they had never done before. There were no bids in the market for anything, said Danny. There was no market. It was really only then I realized there was a bigger issue than just our portfolio. Fundamentals didn't matter. Stocks were going to move up and down on pure emotion and speculation of what the government would do. The most unsettling, loose thought rattling around in his mind was that Morgan Stanley was about to go under. Their fund was owned by Morgan Stanley. They had almost nothing to do with Morgan Stanley and felt little kinship with the place. They did not act or feel like Morgan Stanley employees. Eisman often said how much he wished he was allowed to short Morgan Stanley stock. They acted and felt like the managers of their own fund. If Morgan Stanley failed, however, its share in their fund wound up as an asset in a bankruptcy proceeding. I'm thinking we got the world by the fucking balls. And the company we work for is going bankrupt. Then Danny sensed something seriously wrong with himself. Just before 11 in the morning, wavy black lines appeared in the space between his eyes and his computer screen. The screen appeared to be fading in and out. I felt this shooting pain in my head, he said. I don't get headaches. I thought I was having an aneurysm. Now he became aware of his heart. He looked down and he could actually see it banging against his chest. I spent my morning trying to control all this energy and all this information, he said, and I lost control. He rose up from his desk and looked for someone. Isman normally sat across from him, but Eisen was out at some conference trying to raise money, which showed you how unprepared they all were at the arrival of the moment for which they thought themselves perfectly prepared. Danny turned to the colleague beside him. Porter, I think I'm having a heart attack, he said. Porter Collins laughed and said, no, you're not. An Olympic rowing career had left Porter Collins a bit inured to the pain of others, as he assumed that they didn't know what pain was. No, danny said. I need to go to the hospital. His face had gone pale, but he was still able to stand on his own two feet. How bad could it be? Danny was always a little jumpy. That's why he's good at his job, said Border. I kept saying, you're not having a heart attack. And then he stopped talking and I said, all right, maybe you are. This actually wasn't all that helpful. Unsteadily, Danny turned to Vinnie, who had been watching everything from the far end of the long trading desk and was thinking about calling an ambulance. I got to get out of here now, he said. By the time Eisman got the call from Danny Moses saying that he might be having a heart attack and that he and Vinnie and Porter were sitting on the steps of St Patrick's Cathedral, he was in the midst of a slow, almost menopausal change. He had been unprepared for his first hot flash in the late fall of 2007. By then it was clear to many that he had been right and they had been wrong, and that he had gotten rich to boot. He'd gone to a conference put on by Merrill lynch right after they'd fired their CEO, Stan O', Neill, and disclosed $20 billion or so of their 52 billion in subprime related losses. There he had settled up to Merrill's chief financial officer, Jeff Edwards, the same Jeff Edwards Eisman had taunted some months earlier about Merrill Lynch's risk models. You remember what I said about those risk models of yours that Eisman now said, I guess I was right, huh? Instantly and amazingly, he regretted having said it. I felt bad about it, said Eisman. It was obnoxious. He was a lovely guy. He was just wrong. I was no longer the underdog, and I had to conduct myself in a different way. Valerie Fagan watched in near bewilderment as her husband acquired haltingly, in fits and starts, a trait resembling tact. There was a void after everything happened, she said. Once he was proved right, all this anxiety and anger and energy went away, and that left this big void he wanted on an ego thing for a while. He was really kind of full of himself. Eisman had been so vocal about the inevitable doom that all sorts of unlikely people wanted to hear what he now had to say. After the conference in Las Vegas, he had come down with a parasite. He told the doctor who treated him that the financial world as we knew it was about to end. A year later, he went back to the same doctor for a colonoscopy. Stretched out on the table, he hears the doctor say, here's the guy who predicted the crisis. Come in and listen to this. And in the middle of Eisman's colonoscopy, a room full of doctors and nurses retold the story of Eisman's genius. The story of Eisman's genius quickly grew old to his wife. Long ago, she had established a sort of Eisman social emergency task force with her husband's therapist. We beat him up and said, you really just have to knock this shit off. And he got it, and he started to be nice, and he liked being nice. It was a new experience for him all around, she and others found circumstantial evidence of a changed man. At the Christmas party at the building next door, for example, she wasn't planning to even let Eisman know about it, as she never knew what he might do or say. I was just trying to kind of sneak out of our apartment, she said. And he stops me and said, how will it look if I don't go? The sincerity of his concern shocked her into giving him a chance. You can go, but you have to behave, she said, to which Eisman replied, well, I know how to behave now. And so she took him to the Christmas party, and he was as sweet as he could be. He's become a pleasure, said Valerie. Go figure. That afternoon of September 18, 2008, the new and possibly improving Eisman ambled toward his partners on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Getting to places on foot always took him too long. Steve's such a fucking slow walker, said Danny. He walks like an elephant would walk, if an elephant could only take human size step steps. The weather was gorgeous. One of those rare days where the blue sky reaches down through the forest to tall buildings and warms the soul. We just sat there, says Danny, watching the people pass. They sat together on the cathedral steps for an hour or so. As we sat there, we were weirdly calm, said Danny. We felt insulated from the whole market reality. It was an out of body experience. We just sat and watched the people pass and talked about what might happen next. How many of these people were going to lose their jobs? Who was going to rent these buildings after all the Wall street firms had collapsed? Peter Collins thought that, well, it was like the world stopped. We were looking at all these people and saying, these people are either ruined or about to be ruined. And apart from that, there wasn't a whole lot of hanging inside frontpoint. This is what they had been waiting for. Total collapse. The investment banking industry is fucked, Eisman had said six weeks earlier. These guys are only beginning to understand how fucked they are. It's like being a scholastic prior to Newton. Newton comes along and one morning you wake up, holy shit, I'm wrong. Lehman Brothers had vanished, Merrill had surrendered, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were just a week away from ceasing to be investment banks. Investment bankers were not just fucked, they were extinct. That Wall street has gone down because of this is justice, Eisman said. The only one of them who wrestled a bit with their role as the guys who made a fortune betting against their own society was Vincent Daniel. Well, Vinny's being from Queens needs to see the dark side of everything, Eisman said. To which Vinnie replied, well, the way we thought about it, which we didn't like, was by shorting this market, we're creating the liquidity to. To keep the market going. It was like feeding the monster, Eisman said. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. The force that would affect all their lives was hidden from their view. That was the problem with money. What people did with it had consequences. But they were so remote from the original action that the mind never connected the one with the other. The teaser rate loans you make to people who will never be able to repay them will go bad. Not immediately, but in two years when their interest rates rise, the various bonds you make from those loans will go bad. Not as the loans go bad, but months later, after a lot of tedious foreclosures and bankruptcies. And for sales, the various CDOs you make from the bonds will not go bad right then. But after some trustees sort out whether there will ever be enough cash to pay them off. Whereupon the end owner of the CDO receives a little note. Dear sir, we regret to inform you that your bond no longer exists. But the biggest lag of all was right here on the streets. How long would it take before the people walking back and forth in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral figure out what had just happened to them?

[Michael Lewis]

Thank you, Phil.

[Nicole Wallace]

Zach Grenier proving that the book is always better than the movie.

[Michael Lewis]

Oh, no. I made such a mistake reading this book myself.

[Nicole Wallace]

That was incredible.

[Michael Lewis]

I should have hired him.

[Nicole Wallace]

Incredible.

[Michael Lewis]

That was incredible.

[Nicole Wallace]

That was, of course, Zach Grenier from the Good Wife, the Good Fight, Ray Donovan Fame, and Tony nominated for 33 variations. One more round of applause.

[Zach Grenier]

Thank you.

[Justin Richmond]

This is Justin Richmond, host of Broken Record. I firmly believe when it comes to the holidays, you fall into one of two camps. Someone who loves holiday music or someone who won't admit they love holiday music. There's something about a voice you love singing that familiar opening phrase. Maybe it's Donny Hathaway. Maybe it's Mariah Carey that just flips a switch and you're instantly back into that warm and cozy headspace only the holidays can bring. For me, that feeling pairs perfectly with a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte. That's their signature espresso with steamed milk and a rich caramel brulee flavor topped with whipped cream and a crunchy caramel brulee topping. It's like the sound of the season, but in drink form. And that's really what this season's about. Little moments of pairing, little moments of connection. Sharing a song, sharing a story, sharing a caramel brulee latte. Because this season and every season together is the best place to be. Come together over your holiday favorites at Starbucks.

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[Zach Grenier]

All.

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[Nicole Wallace]

I just want to start with the human stories are sometimes hardest to tell because they involve such meticulous reporting. You can't just. You can't get it wrong. They're real people. And it strikes me that the big short is a story about what happens when the reporting doesn't happen, when people don't pursue the facts, when they look the other way. And so I want to know what it is in you that inspires you to report out stories like this.

[Michael Lewis]

I'll try to end with that. And I want to end the whole night by telling my own colonoscopy story.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, that's tv. We call that a deep tease.

[Michael Lewis]

I've never had a chance to talk. I've never had a. I've got a.

[Nicole Wallace]

You go. I'll bring you back to my question of the colonoscopy story.

[Michael Lewis]

The very end. You do your end, okay, Because Eisman's colonoscopy story was pretty great. I have one too.

[Zach Grenier]

Epic.

[Michael Lewis]

So the logic of the book, how the. It was. So it was an incredibly complicated story, right? It's a hairball of a story. It's like the story in Washington right now. It's very hard to tell it from 80,000ft. In a way that's interesting, it's just too complicated. However, there's a beautiful simplicity to the story. And the beautiful. And the penny dropped for me pretty early on that the simplicity was you could think of the financial world as a simple bet, a giant bet. And the financial world had organized itself around the bet. And on one side of the bet was virtually all the big firms on Wall street and the international banks, so on. And it was a bet on the subprime mortgage market. And on the other side of the bet were all these people no one had ever heard of. And the question was, how had the people on the wrong side of the bet, the center of the financial system, become the dumb money? How did they end up on the dumb side of the bet? So I go out to answer that question.

[Nicole Wallace]

When you figure out that structural frame.

[Michael Lewis]

I figured that's the first thing I figure out. I figure out that, oh, I could tell this story. I can make it simple for a reader by just. It's just a bet. It's a single, and you are on one side or the other. And then. So what I do then is I go out and I get a list of everyone who was on the right side of the bed. Now, there were probably thousands, but people who were really on the right side of the bed who kind of laid it all on the line, and they were maybe 25, 20. And I went and met, I think, all of them, not all of them would talk to me on the record, but I got to know all of them, and all of them agreed to kind of inform my understanding. But that was the beginning of what is essentially a casting search. Because what happened as I talked to them, I realized that there was another way to think about this, was there was. There were different ways to get to the right answer, to get to the right side of the bet. They weren't all doing the same thing, but they were categories. There were kind of three ways that people got to the right side the way these guys did. The guys that you just heard about, they had just a deep history in the subprime market. It went back to the 90s. Eisman and Vinnie both knew that it was a predatory market that was squirrely and they smelled trouble because they had had this history, but they were kind of. I realized there were broadly three ways people had got to the right answer. And then all those 20 characters who were on the right side in a big way, I could classify them into those buckets. And then I got to know them well enough to figure out who would be essentially the most fun and the most interesting to the reader and the best teacher with the least overlap in kind of how the characters sounded almost like a singing group. So that I picked the three characters that way. And then that's when I really get to know them. So that's when I'm in their lives a lot. And these guys would tell you, I'm in their office. I was in their office all the time. I walked around the neighborhoods they grew up in. I got to know, in some cases, their families. It was immersive that way. And it has to be immersive that way, because in the beginning, when I walk in, they're all self conscious. They're all as you would be, right? Like, he's coming to write about us. And I need to be around so much that they get weary of being self conscious and they just drop it. And I can just see who they are. They get to the point where they surrender.

[Zach Grenier]

I give up.

[Michael Lewis]

You're gonna know who I am. Here I am. And these guys were actually pretty quick to that as they were less afraid of themselves than some of the other characters. So that was the logic to the book. And it was. Once I figured out the logic to the book, it was so easy to write. It was like you were dealt the best hand of bridge ever and just how you're going to play the cards. And it was just so much fun. It wrote itself. It was a very easy book to write.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's interesting to look at it now, though. You can. Not that you forget, but the time in which you're reporting it out and telling their stories. The country's still very much traumatized. And even the. Even the rescue has political reverberations. I mean, just take us back in time a little bit to.

[Michael Lewis]

Well, what you just heard was the end of the book. So I wrote, had not. The rubble had not been sifted. The pieces had not been put to get back together. I wrote it before we knew exactly how all this was going to shake out. I certainly wrote it before we knew that it was going to generate the political anger that it. I mean, endless political anger. I mean, one of the. One of the consequences of that event is Trump of Course you can draw a line from that to Trump for sure. Mistrust of the one side of it is focused on the, the Wall street people. The other side is focused, focuses his anger on the government having done this, having bailed, bailed out the banks, that what the government did was far more defensible. I mean like they, they were playing a very difficult hand and what they stopped was a depression and the federal, the institutions worked. It's a bit like our inability to understand what happened with COVID that it is incredible that we were. Our paint was saved by the MRNA vaccines. That was one of the most a miracle of modern science. We are so much better off because of it. And now we're not allowed to get a vaccine.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, I mean the same arc you just articulated, and what I would say.

[Michael Lewis]

Is, with what you should have learned from the financial crisis is thank God we have an independent Federal Reserve and a Treasury that people trust, trust enough that they can walk into a room and calm everything down, that we can take the risk and everybody believes it. We are moving towards a world where we don't have that, where we have a Federal Reserve that's hostage to a president and, and we have finances that have spun out of control and nobody trusts us. So we've squandered the thing, we've attacked the thing that saved us. And what I wonder about, I don't wonder like when the next financial crisis is going to happen because God knows, you know, anybody who tells you they know when it's going to happen, don't listen to them about anything because you can't predict these. And they're unpredictable. But you just, it's like. And you don't even. And you know, all you know is that when it comes, you're going to be surprised by how it happened. Probably not going to be AI, it's probably not going to be what people are talking about. It'll be something else, something that people not paying attention to, but whatever as a trigger. But when it comes, we are in a far weaker position to deal with it. That's the big thing. And it's because we didn't actually internalize the lesson of it.

[Nicole Wallace]

You were going to land on the answer to the humans as your. They're not vehicles, they are the story. So I always use the right word, talk about the humans.

[Michael Lewis]

So here's so what I loved about this story, what's true. We don't write a book unless I love the story. There's no point.

[Nicole Wallace]

And the people, because you end up.

[Michael Lewis]

Loving you end up loving the characters. I can understand in all the books that you can disapprove of the characters, but what I don't understand is when you can't like them as, like, wow, these are interesting people. And I mean, you could. I left these guys. I left them exposed. Because I left. I left it for the reader to decide how you feel about someone getting rich. Betting on the collapse of the society didn't actually bother me all that much, but it bothered a lot of other people. And I left that. I didn't cover for them. I didn't make a defense, and I didn't make an assault. I left it. The best story is leave a hole for a reader to walk into and exercise their own discretion about what it means. And that was one of the holes I left for the reader in this case. But the people. It isn't just gratuitous drawing of character. They get to the right answer because of who they are. So you can't understand how they get to the right answer unless you understand who they are. So their character is organic to the story. It isn't just decoration. It isn't just entertainment. The characters become important, and so that's why you need to know them. That's why I need to know them. I need to know why they were able to do what they did. And that makes it. That's all of a sudden, when you're there with the reader, you're opening up that world, you're making it accessible. I learned this with Liars Poker, that if you can attach a reader to a character, you can take them anywhere, they will forgive you anything. You can take them even to an explanation of a collateralized debt obligation, which no reader. No reader. That's worse than a colonoscopy. No reader, no reader wants to be explained, collateralized. They just don't.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, what's amazing is they take that to the movie version as well. You know, they. They take this to.

[Michael Lewis]

So I think Adam McKay. So the first episode of this podcast season that we've just dropping was Adam McKay, who the filmmaker, the co writer and director of the movie. He's a genius. He is a special, special talent. So I thought. I thought that what you just heard. I didn't know what passage they were going to pick. It was interesting for me to hear that, but. And I didn't. And they didn't know that Danny and Porter were going to be here. So it's funny. But I thought that was the end of the movie. I thought it was the end of the book. Those guys standing on the steps of. Sitting on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, seeing that people were. They didn't know what happened to them.

[Zach Grenier]

McKay.

[Michael Lewis]

And it is a very. It's a cinematic moment. McKay. The end of the movie for Adam McKay was an editorial. It was like him telling the audience.

[Nicole Wallace]

So it's him telling the audience what you just said about the political reverberations.

[Zach Grenier]

That's right.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's him on the phone saying it was all. It was all set up. They were always going to bail them out.

[Michael Lewis]

They were always going to bail them out.

[Zach Grenier]

And who are we going to do?

[Michael Lewis]

We're going to blame the immigrants. We're going to blame. Yes. It was incredibly fresh at that. He was right. And the movie. So the movie's five years after the book.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right.

[Michael Lewis]

So we've seen some things happen.

[Zach Grenier]

Right.

[Michael Lewis]

That's only. That's only part of the reason why the movie is angrier than the book. The movie is angrier than the book also because Adam McKay's anger just naturally more capable of anger than I am. I just look at the world as a comedy. I just basically. Which is funny because I'm not that funny, you know, But I'm watching it and he is funny. He looks at the world in a darker way, and he's just more capable of the emotion. And I detach. It was the human folly that interested me. I didn't get all worked up. I thought, this is really interesting. But I'm not gonna inflict the reader, my anger or my. Even what I really think about it upon the reader.

[Zach Grenier]

I'm just gonna tell the story.

[Nicole Wallace]

What do you really think about it?

[Michael Lewis]

What I really think about it. This is a long conversation. I feel like I need a couch right now. Because to get what I really need, I am really bothered by the. By the way our society spun up a financial sector that is only partly useful and that has got all this status and money and that I can understand ordinary people looking at it and thinking, why? Like, what are those people doing that? Why don't I get some of that? I feel like a lot of our politics comes out of what happened on Wall Street. And it isn't just the crisis. It is the unfairness. And it bothers the hell out of me that half the class at Harvard, Princeton and Yale and so on think that they should go to work in finance. Like it just half.

[Nicole Wallace]

Don't you think it's more than that?

[Michael Lewis]

It's kind of usually about probably 3/4 think they should, but half get jobs, I don't know. It's that kind of thing. But it's. And are distracted from other purposes. It isn't that I think working on Wall street is evil. That's not it. There are people who. My characters, they belong on Wall Street. They're really good at it. They should be there. The main characters in my book should all be in finance. And they love it. It's a kind of calling for them. It's the casual young person who's not found a direction in life but might have some great other purpose, who uses it as an excuse not to ask the hard question, what should I do with my life? That bothers the hell out of me. And so I think we have a kind of a cancer in our midst. So it does bother me, but in a complicated way. My response to being bothered by it is not to scream to people or tell them what they should think. My response is to find fun stories to tell. I mean, the amazing thing to me was this story that was available to me. Liars Poker made me non grata on Wall Street. I couldn't like walk into office buildings on Wall Street. People were really angry when Liar's Poker came out. I was toxic. And so when I first see these banks starting to do dumb things and I started to ask the question which I mentioned earlier, like, how did they become the dumb money? Because that wasn't the bank I left the bank I left. If they were making a secret bet and asking you to take the other side of the bet, you ought to run as fast as possible the other direction. And my job was to actually sell those bets. So I knew like the people who I was selling them to, it was not going to work out well. And so something had happened between the time I left and this. And I was intensely curious about that. And I thought, what a pity that I won't be able to go find out because no one on Wall street will ever talk to me again. But I did think, give it a shot. And I started by calling. I knew people who knew people who knew people. Traders, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Goldman, and like, who were. Who were in the. Who were either had done the horrible trades or were very near them. And to my astonishment, the response I get on the other line is, I'll go have a beer with you. And it's off the record. It's off the record in the sense that you can know what I tell you, but don't ever say we ever met. And. And this happened like half a dozen times. I thought, oh, my God, someone's going to go have a beer with me. I was kind of tickled. And I swear to you that each of these people, like six of them, who had been responsible for making these bets, said to me, the reason I'm having this beer with you is you're the reason I'm in the business. I read Liars Poker, and I wanted to be. It made me want to be a trader. And about the third time, I thought, jesus Christ, I created this crisis that I wrote this book. I wrote this book and all these people thinking that it was going to say, like, show people what Wall street was so they could go do other things and instead attracted all the wrong people onto the trading floor. And this is the result. But it also told me that, oh, my God, because of Liar's Poker, now enough time has passed. I have access to the story. Like, I can get to this. So that was the very beginning of it for me.

[Justin Richmond]

This is Justin Richmond, host of Broken Record. I firmly believe when it comes to the holidays, you fall into one of two camps. Someone who loves holiday music or someone who won't admit they love holiday music. There's something about a voice you love singing that familiar opening phrase. Maybe it's Donny Hathaway. Maybe it's Mariah Carey that just flips a switch and you're instantly back into that warm and cozy headspace only the holidays can bring. For me, that feeling pairs perfectly with a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte. That's their signature espresso with steamed milk and a rich caramel brulee flavor topped with whipped cream and a crunchy caramel boulee topping. It's like the sound of the season, but in drink form. And that's really what this season's about. Little moments of pairing, little moments of connection. Sharing a song, sharing a story, sharing a caramel brulee latte. Because this season and every season together is the best place to be. Come together over your holiday favorites at Starbucks.

[IBM Advertiser]

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[Michael Lewis]

IBM.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

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[Coca-Cola Advertiser]

What a matchup we got, y'.

[Zach Grenier]

All.

[Coca-Cola Advertiser]

This is that classic hbcuva non stop action. The band is rocking and the crowd lit. Chance echo drum beat. Everybody showing that school pride game like this. Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there. Yeah, that taste always hits the right note. Just like the band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors everywhere and an ice cold Coca Cola. That's a winning combo no matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work. So grab a Coca Cola and keep that HBCU pride going.

[Nicole Wallace]

Is part of it that at their core, people want to be heard like people talk to you because at their core, people want someone to.

[Zach Grenier]

To listen to their.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

Why?

[Michael Lewis]

Why do people talk to you? I mean, look, you are a great interviewer. I was on your show and you were just streets above most people on tv. You were a great interviewer. Why? Why are you a great interviewer? I had a theory where I walked off and I had. And you have an audience that loves you. So I walked on and I thought, oh my God, she listens. She's actually listening to what I'm saying instead of thinking of the next question. She seems to have read the book, which is freakish on television. Like it doesn't happen. So you're engaged. You're actually. You're there for a reason. I don't know. I didn't ask you why you were there, but there was some reason you were there and I felt it. The people I write about feel the same thing. My time is valuable. I'm here for a reason. I'm not here just. I'm not here to stitch you up. I'm not here to do something trivial. I want to write a great book. And I won't do it if it's not a great book. And I'm going to really try to understand you and your world. And that after a while, becomes intoxicating. It's really because people don't get, you know, people don't get asked questions about themselves. They go home to their spouses and Their spouses don't want to hear about it. Right. Like, really. And it's. It's. So. I find the most. The strangest moment, the most unnatural moment in my relationship with the people I write about when I move into their lives is not the, I'm moving into your life and tell me everything. Because that happens very gradually, and we build a relationship and they come to sort of understand what I'm trying to do, and they let me just be a fly on the wall. It's when I'm finished and I leave and it's like, hey, where are you? You're not coming in today.

[Nicole Wallace]

I got a great story for you.

[Michael Lewis]

You're not coming in today. And it's like, no, the book's done. It's like, oh, oh, that's right. You're writing a book. You know, it's that kind of thing. They kind of forget that. It just becomes a relationship for a while, and then I move on. And then there's this hard moment where, sorry, I can't fly to New York to see you. You know, I gotta do something else. So. So I'm not going to talk about the next book, but the next book is about the collision between the Trump administration and the civil service. And it's a real book, kind of like the fifth risk in the who is Government. It's a big, short, like, enterprise.

[Nicole Wallace]

So you owe us a colonoscopy.

[Michael Lewis]

Yeah, I thought we kind of ran through time. I was just looking at that. I do go on.

[Zach Grenier]

So.

[Michael Lewis]

I got a colonoscopy. And you know, when you're in that, they give you a drug that you're there and you're not there, and you're kind of awake. You're awake and you're not awake. And afterwards, it was in Oakland, and afterwards, the nurse comes in and I said, like. She said, you can kind of go. And I said, I'd love to say, like, goodbye to the doctor. And she said, I don't think he wants to. He doesn't want to talk to you. And I said, like, why? He says, he's kind of. She said, he's, like, upset. Like what you said? And I said, I don't remember what I said. Like, I.

[Zach Grenier]

You know.

[Michael Lewis]

And she said, what did I say? She said. She said, while you were. While you were in the procedure, you looked up at him and said, when you were a little boy, did you dream that this is what you would be doing with your life? Or did you want. Or did you want to be an astronaut? And I had to go apologize to him.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, I. Do you have a new gastroenterologist?

[IBM Advertiser]

No.

[Michael Lewis]

Well, this is true. I've now had two of. I had a second one very recently and I had to arrange to go to a different place.

[Nicole Wallace]

I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised.

[Zach Grenier]

All right.

[Michael Lewis]

This was fun.

[Nicole Wallace]

This is amazing. Keep writing forever. And I just want to wave to your real humans because I feel like.

[Michael Lewis]

Thanks for coming.

[Nicole Wallace]

Thank you. Thank you for letting him tell the real story. Thank you for this. Thanks for having me along.

[Zach Grenier]

Thank you.

[Michael Lewis]

Totally fun.

[Nicole Wallace]

Thank you guys for coming.

[Michael Lewis]

I want to thank Nicole Wallace for interviewing me in Symphony Space for hosting us. And you ought to go check out Nicole's new podcast. It's called the Best People and it's great. Against the Rules is hosted by me, Michael Lewis, and produced by Lydia Jean Cott and Catherine Girardeau. Our editor is Julia Barton. Our theme was composed by Nick Pratel, and our engineer is Hans Dale. She. Special thanks to Nicole Optenbosch, Jasmine Faustino, Pamela Lawrence, and the rest of the Pushkin Audiobooks team. To find more Pushkin Podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you like to listen ad free and learn about other exclusive offerings, don't forget to sign up for a Pushkin plus subscription at Pushkin FM plus or on our new Apple show page. And you can get the Big Short audiobook now at Pushkin fm Audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

[Coca-Cola Advertiser]

What a matchup we got, y'.

[Zach Grenier]

All.

[Coca-Cola Advertiser]

This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non stop action. The band is rocking and the crowd lit. Chance, echo, drum beat, everybody. Showing that school pride game like this. Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there.

[Michael Lewis]

Mmm.

[Coca-Cola Advertiser]

Yeah, that taste always hits the right note. Just like the band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors everywhere. And in ice cold Coca Cola. That's a winning combo. No matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work. So grab a Coca Cola and keep that HBCU pride going.

[Michael Lewis]

This is Michael Lewis from Against the Rules, the Big short companion. This podcast is brought to you by FedEx. The new power move. You know those people who show up late to meetings or events on purpose to make themselves look like they are so busy? That's really the old power move. The new power moves are calling out logistical problems before they arise or knowing every detail about your shipment every step of the way. FedEx. The new power move. Hey, audiobook lovers. I'm Kalpin.

[Justin Richmond]

I'm Ed Helms.

[Michael Lewis]

Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with our new podcast, Irsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Each week, we sit down with your favorite iHeart podcast hosts and some very special guests to discuss the latest and greatest audiobooks from Audible, listen to Hearsay on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Irsay and start listening on the free iHeartradio app.

[Zach Grenier]

Today.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Michael Lewis]

Guaranteed human.