The Short Sellers

Summary

Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion

Episode: The Short Sellers

Date: October 21, 2025

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Overview

In this commemorative episode, Michael Lewis and co-host Lidia Jean Cott revisit The Big Short 15 years after the book and ten years after the Oscar-winning film. They analyze the enduring impact of the 2008 financial crisis, the book, and the movie by catching up with the real-life figures behind its characters as well as discussing the deeper legacy of “short sellers” in finance and society. Through candid conversations with Greg Lippman (the inspiration for Ryan Gosling’s character) and Steve Eisman (portrayed by Steve Carell as Mark Baum), Michael Lewis pulls the curtain back on Wall Street’s culture, the fundamental human dynamics that fueled the meltdown, and the unresolved fallout of systemic fraud.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Revisiting The Big Short and the People Behind It

• Early Scene in the Movie ([00:51])
  • The podcast opens with a reenactment of an iconic scene—Greg Lippman (Ryan Gosling) pitching a “too good to be true” deal to the skeptical FrontPoint Partners team.
  • Michael Lewis reflects:

    “Even Greg Lippman thinks he’s Greg Lippman when he’s watching it...he was the only honest man on Wall Street at that moment.” ([01:14])

Tone of Wall Street

• Lippman was seen as a “used car salesman,” which made him both compelling and mistrusted.
• Steve Eisman was “designed to mistrust Wall Street,” making their partnership unlikely but inevitable, which Michael describes as a “match made in heaven.” ([01:39])

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2. Greg Lippman: The Outsider With the Truth ([05:58]–[11:45])

Diagnosing the Crisis

• Lippman succinctly lays out the path to the crisis:

  “Human nature vacillates between fear and greed...Institutions were taking on greater and greater risks in order to generate the same returns as interest rates kept going lower...As long as we make new loans to pay off the old loans, they’ll never be a problem.” ([06:18–07:07])

Selling the “Trade of the Century”

• Lippman pitched the idea to 250 hedge funds; only about 75 took it up. The ones who listened were often outsiders, not “prom kings.”

  “People who felt a little bit more like outsiders, were either more willing or more able...some of your characters even were hoping to see it more than others.” ([07:56])

The "Wrong Number"

• The famous meeting between Lippman and FrontPoint was, in part, a “wrong number,” but also desperation:

  “I was trying to find anyone that was willing to listen to my idea and pay this week’s, you know, bar tab.” ([09:52])

Views on Wealth and the Investment World

• Lippman observed that many wealthy people he encountered seemed unhappy:

  “Most of those people seemed unhappy, which is interesting in and of itself.” ([11:26])

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3. Steve Eisman: Cynicism, Honesty, and Aftermath ([14:47]–[26:33])

Character Dynamics and Trust

• Despite initial mistrust, Eisman says of Lippman:

  “He was always honest with us, but he comes across as a bit like a used car salesman. … There is not one thing that Lippman ever did that wasn’t completely above board with me.” ([15:46])

“Dog Shit Wrapped in Cat Shit”

• Iconic metaphor from the film and confirmed by Eisman for subprime products:

  “So mortgage bonds are dog shit? CDOs are dog shit wrapped in cat shit.” – Movie quote, confirmed ([15:15]) “Yeah, that’s right.” ([15:21])

Living Through the Crisis: Scenes & Memories

• Eisman recalls the week Lehman Brothers collapsed and the anxiety in the market:

  “In the morning it looked like Planet Earth was burning. … I remember turning to one of the guys and I said something like, these poor people, they have absolutely no idea what's about to hit them.” ([17:05]–[18:40])

Government Response and Moral Failure

• Acknowledges government action prevented a depression, but:

  “The biggest mistake the Obama administration made was that nobody went to jail. That was a terrible, terrible policy error. … This is the biggest fraud in human history.” ([19:01]–[21:01])

• Explains the due diligence fraud in mortgage securitization—a critical and under-discussed mechanism of the collapse.

  “How many Wall Street firms then ordered [Clayton Mortgage] to do due diligence on the remaining 90%?”
  “Zero.” ([21:39])

Two Systems of Justice & Political Fallout

• On the failure to prosecute fraud:

  “Prior to the crisis, everybody’s sitting there’s suspecting there are two systems of justice, one for rich or one for poor. Now we know there definitely is.” ([23:15])

  “That created the Tea Party. … And the anger is still there.” ([23:31])

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4. After the Big Short: Life, Legacy, and Looming Risks ([23:47]–[26:33])

The Effect of Fame

• Eisman laughs off his notoriety:

  “Sometimes it’s kind of funny, I take the bus cross-town and somebody looks at me and says, ‘Hey, aren’t you Steve Eisman?’” ([23:54])

Where’s the Next Big Risk?

• Cautions the private equity industry is a potential blind spot:

  “The only thing that might worry me is...the private equity world...nobody really knows what’s going on there. … It has not been stress-tested like the banks at all.” ([24:20])

On Being the “End of the World” Guy

• Eisman’s current reputation amuses him:

  “The position of Steve Eisman is taken.” ([25:55])

  • He’s bullish on markets, despite his past as a crisis prophet.

Teaching and Explaining

• Michael Lewis remarks on Eisman’s clarity:

  “You have an unbelievable ability to clearly explain things. And it’s refreshing to be back in its presence.” ([26:33])

  • Eisman jokes about an alternate career as a high school history teacher.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Michael Lewis on Greg Lippman:

  “Greg Lippman was the only honest man on Wall Street at that moment. … He seemed like a used car salesman, so nobody trusted him.” ([01:39])

• Greg Lippman on pitching the trade:

  “I was on a mission. I had to find people to cover this week’s bill. … I was giving people an amazing thing, and they just weren’t gonna make all the money, but they were gonna make tons of money.” ([09:44])

• Steve Eisman on short selling ban:

  “We were sitting on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and it was a gorgeous day. … These poor people, they have absolutely no idea what’s about to hit them.” ([18:36])

• On Wall Street’s fraud and lack of accountability:

  “Nobody investigated. Now why? I don’t know. And to this day, I do not understand it.” ([22:14])

• On lasting political consequences:

  “That created the Tea Party. I’m convinced. … The anger is still there.” – Eisman ([23:31])

• On his legacy:

  “All these people want to be me. They want to be the person who predicts the end of the world. And I got news for all of them. The position of Steve Eisman is taken.” ([25:55])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Opening breakdown of the Big Short’s legacy: [00:13–01:39]
• Early scene and characterization in the film/book: [00:50–01:39]
• Greg Lippman Interview: Diagnosing the crisis and pitching the trade: [05:58–11:45]
• Steve Eisman Interview: Working with Lippman, living through the collapse: [14:47–23:47]
• Explaining due diligence failure and fraud: [19:01–22:41]
• On two systems of justice and political aftermath: [23:15–23:43]
• Post-crisis reflections, private equity as blind spot: [24:20–24:49]
• The “end of the world guy” joke and Eisman’s new outlook: [24:49–26:06]

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Episode Tone and Style

Maintaining Michael Lewis’s trademark mix of wry observation, narrative clarity, and respect for character complexity, the podcast is reflective yet urgent—combining humor with a deep sense of injustice and unresolved risk.

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Conclusion

This episode smartly blends nostalgia for The Big Short with a critical reassessment of what we’ve (not) learned since. It delivers rare self-reflection from industry insiders, untangles the social psychology of the crisis, and warns that the risks that caused 2008 may still lurk, just in new forms. The enduring anger and lack of accountability, as Eisman notes, still shapes U.S. politics and trust in institutions.

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Next Week Tease:
Michael Lewis will catch up with other FrontPoint traders—Vinnie Daniel, Porter Collins, and Danny Moses—to continue exploring the crisis’ aftershocks.

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Transcript

[Steve Eisman]

Pushkin.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

I'm Lydia Jean Cott.

[Michael Lewis]

And I'm Michael Lewis.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

So, Michael, last week, for the special series about the Big Short, you spoke with Adam McKay, who directed the Big Short movie. And today we're going to talk to some of the real people who inspired the characters in the movie, the people who were in your book. And I want to start with a scene that's really early on in the movie. It shows a meeting between the team at a small investment firm called FrontPoint Partners with a bond trader from Deutsche Bank. And this bond trader had called them up and he said he had this deal for them that was too good to be true. And also he called them by accident.

[Michael Lewis]

That's exactly right.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

And in the movie, the bond trader's name is Jared Vennette and he's played by Ryan Gosling. Here's the clip.

[Michael Lewis]

Do you smell that?

[Steve Eisman]

What is that?

[Cal Penn]

What?

[Steve Eisman]

What's that smell?

[Michael Lewis]

A cologne? No. Opportunity.

[Steve Eisman]

No. Money.

[Cal Penn]

Oh, okay.

[Steve Eisman]

I smell money.

[Greg Lippman]

Okay.

[Michael Lewis]

Ryan Gosling is playing Greg Lippman. Even Greg Lippman thinks he's Greg Lippman when he's watching it. And Steve Carell plays a character named Mark Bound because Steve Isman said he didn't want his name in the movie so well, that even Eisman says, yeah, that's kind of me.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

Like, do people in Westeros, do they actually talk like this? Are you witnessing scenes like this?

[Michael Lewis]

Only Greg Lippman talks like this.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

He does talk like this, though.

[Michael Lewis]

Oh, my God. Yes. I'm racking my brain to take myself back to why I was so excited when I was writing the book. And one of the reasons was Greg Lippman was the only honest man on Wall street at that moment. He had figured out what was going on. He was indeed selling the trade of the century. Everything he said was true, but he seemed like a used car salesman, so nobody trusted him. Nobody believed him. But he was the only person you should trust. And on the other side of it, Steve Eisman was like the person on Wall street designed to mistrust Wall Street. Like, so deeply cynical about Wall street people, especially people involved in the subprime mortgage market. So these two were meant to just be at each other's throats, and yet it ends up being a match made in heaven. I would go into Eisman's office when I started working on the book, and I would take off the other guys into rooms by themselves to just hear the story of which important person on Wall Street Eisman had insulted most recently. He just did it over and over. And over like couldn't control himself and and they assumed when Greg Lippman wanders into their office that he's going to end up being lunch, you know, and instead they're made to be on this big screen together.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

This is the Big Short companion podcast. After the break, Michael Lewis conversation with Greg Lipman and a little later on the real Steve Eisman.

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[Cal Penn]

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[Michael Lewis]

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[Michael Lewis]

Greg Lippman is now the chief investment officer at the asset management firm Libra Max Capital. I noticed when I first met him how good he was at breaking stuff down, and that hasn't changed. How do you put it in the simplest terms like this financial crisis through your eyes and what you experienced?

[Greg Lippman]

Human nature vacillates between fear and greed. And during long periods where things are going well, people get greedier and greedier. And so what happened during the great financial crisis was that institutions were taking on greater and greater risks in order to generate the same returns as interest rates kept going lower and credit spreads kept tightening. So if you're a bank or an insurance company, you need to generate a certain return. You accepted a greater amount of risk for the same reward because in a competitive process, everybody else was doing the same. And so that was the setup for the great financial crisis. And then the match that lit it was the aggressive lending to homeowners in America. And as home prices went up faster than incomes went up, the mortgage payments had to adjust to enable people to afford a house that they previously would have been unable to afford that price. And so the mortgages became more and more back ended. There was a saying, a rolling loan gathers no loss. As long as we make new loans to pay off the old loans, they'll never be a problem. So I had a view that someday there would be an issue where you couldn't pay off the old loan with a new loan, and therefore the payments were going to go up so high that they would default.

[Michael Lewis]

So it's so interesting the social role you played in the market. You're seeing the world as it is, and much of the financial system is not. Most of the people in the big banks are not seeing what you're seeing. You're running around the world with the truth, and only a handful of people basically believe the truth.

[Greg Lippman]

I pitched 250 hedge funds roughly, and I got about 75 to do it. First of all, you're not going to have 75 people that are the same. It's more than 75 people because there were more than one person in most of these places. So call it 300 people, right? So you're not going to have 300 people that are the same in the same way. The 175 firms that met me and didn't do it, they're not all the same either. Right. But certainly, I think it's reasonable to say that people that were very establishment people, people that were the prom king of their high school, those were people who generally didn't see it, didn't want to see it, and people who felt a little bit more like outsiders, were either more willing or more able, or in some cases, I think some of your characters even were hoping to see it more than others. I put the trade on in the fall of 05. That's when I started the trade. And I'd explained to my bosses, I run a business, makes $200 million a year for you. I want to put this trade on. I'm going to spend $20 million a year until I win. The fixed income globally makes 16 billion. So if everything continues the way it's been going and I put this trade on, y' all are gonna make 15.98 billion. And you're not even gonna notice my thing. And if my thing blows up, I think it's gonna affect your 16 billion. So you're gonna need my money. So that's the thesis. So about six months later, they were like, well, it didn't work yet. And I was like, so I told you the thesis was is two to four years. And like, leave me alone. Well, we don't like that. You need to find people that believe in this besides yourself. So if you can't find anybody else, we're going to close you down. And we really don't like losing 2 million a month until we make a billion. We don't like that because they live for this month's earnings report, right? So I went on a mission to find people to allow me to stay in the game. I looked at these people and said, hey, like, I'm gonna give them something that I think is great for them, and what they're gonna give me in exchange for that is enable me to stay in the game. I viewed this meeting them as much better for them than for me. Very good for me, I was giving people an amazing thing, and just they weren't gonna make all the money, but they were gonna make tons of money. So I was on a mission. I had to find people to cover this week's bill. What is true is it was sort of a wrong number in the sense that I was trying to reach the front point that was long one of these subprime originators. But what's also true is I was trying to find anyone that was willing to listen to my idea and pay this week's, you know, bar tab.

[Michael Lewis]

Had you ever met any of them?

[Steve Eisman]

No, no, no.

[Greg Lippman]

They reminded me of people that I went to summer camp with. I had gone to a summer camp where it was run by a charity. So people paid, you know, differently based on their income. And there's a lot of kids from Queens and the Bronx. And while I was sort of very solidly middle class for that camp, it was like a lower class camp in terms of income. I found them entertaining. I found Eisman to be more difficult than the other guys.

[Michael Lewis]

And what was difficult about Eisman?

[Greg Lippman]

So look, there were people, not Eisman, but there were people that whatever I said, you know, I said black, they said white and were just like difficult for the sake of being difficult. But I remember him as being a little bit that way also. You know, I don't, I remember not thinking he was a nice guy for sure. I would also say I met a lot of people who were extraordinarily wealthy during this time and most of those people seemed unhappy and which is interesting in and of itself and, you know, much wealthier than Eisman was at the time.

[Michael Lewis]

So that's Greg Lippman, the person who in the run up to the financial crisis, sniffed out Wall Street's dark secret long before most everybody else. I really appreciate him talking with me again after all this time. When we come back from the break, I speak with the fellow we were just talking about, Steve Eisman, the founder of FrontPoint Partners and at the time one very difficult customer.

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[Steve Eisman]

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[Steve Eisman]

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[Michael Lewis]

And we're back in the big short. One of my main characters was a guy named Steve Eisman who managed an investment fund under Morgan Stanley called FrontPoint Partners. He had a long history with subprime mortgages and he sensed something was wrong with the mortgage backed securities market long before many other people did. In the movie version of the book, his character was called Mark Baume, played by the actor Steve Carell to a T. Hold on.

[Cal Penn]

So mortgage bonds are dog shit? CDOs are dog shit wrapped in cat shit.

[Steve Eisman]

Yeah, that's right.

[Greg Lippman]

Okay. Institutions treat these CDOs like they're as.

[Cal Penn]

Solid as treasury bonds and they're going to zero.

[Greg Lippman]

No, it can't be right there.

[Michael Lewis]

500 billion in housing bonds. So last year alone, the ratings agencies, the banks, the fucking government are saying they're all asleep at the wheel.

[Steve Eisman]

Lippman Complesent is actually an incredibly honest person. Incredibly honest. He was always honest with us, but he comes across as a bit like a used car salesman. And that's just who he is. Yeah, you know, but. But like I said, there is not one thing that Lippman ever did that wasn't completely above board with me. But after the meeting, like, you know, guys thought, said, what do you think? I said, what do I think? Somebody just told me how to make a gazillion dollars. I'm ready to go. And I said, wait a minute, he's going to screw us somehow. And he actually told you how he was going to screw you. He said to us in the meeting, let's say the credit default swap goes down in price. Let's say you buy a par and it goes down to 30 cents on the dollar.

[Michael Lewis]

So you made 70 cents, I made 70 cents.

[Steve Eisman]

He says, when you want to get out, I'll take you out at 40. And guess what? He was wrong. Because by the time we wanted to get out, everybody wanted our credit to fault swaps. That's how he thought he was going to screw you. Right. But he didn't.

[Michael Lewis]

When you think back on the financial crisis on that period, what scenes pop into your head?

[Steve Eisman]

One scene that's not in the movie is. So if you go back. So Lehman was on that Sunday in, I think, September. I forget whatever date it was like 14th or something. So that was Sunday. And then Merrill lynch got bought out by bank of America on the same day. I remember sitting in a restaurant, I had a BlackBerry. I remember looking at my BlackBerry and it comes across, AIT is fucked. It's basically what it said. I said, oh God, here we go. And then Friday, at the end of that day, Friday, Paulson stopped short selling. But in the morning it looked like Planet Earth was burning. Literally. I mean, I remember we're sitting at the desk and Danny was having like an anxiety attack. So so were the rest of us, by the way. And I had to go to a conference. And then I got a phone call from Porter to say that because Danny was going so nuts, they took him, they walked him out of the office. I'm coming. I said, meet me at the St Patrick's Cathedral, which was a block from our office. And I remember, so it's Friday now, like at around 1:30 in an hour, Paulson's about to come up with this news. But we don't know that, obviously.

[Michael Lewis]

And remind me, the news is that.

[Steve Eisman]

The news was that there's no short selling of financial companies. Right.

[Michael Lewis]

So you couldn't bet against Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in the stock market.

[Steve Eisman]

Correct. And it caused an enormous rally in the market for two days. That was it. And we were sitting on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and it was a gorgeous day. Gorgeous day. And I remember turning to one of the guys and I said something like, these poor people, they have absolutely no idea what's about to hit them. That I remember.

[Michael Lewis]

Did what you imagine what was about to hit them, hit them, or did it play out differently than you imagined?

[Steve Eisman]

It mostly hit them. I mean, the government stepped in and prevented the worst, which it had to do with. But look, I don't remember. Unemployment levels got to like 10%. They would have gone to 30. It would have been a depression, there's no question.

[Michael Lewis]

Yeah.

[Steve Eisman]

So the government prevented the worst and did as about as good a job as they could do with one major mistake. I think the biggest mistake the Obama administration made was that nobody went to jail. That was a terrible, terrible policy error. And by the way, to this day, no one knows why that happened. The fraud, and this is the biggest fraud in human history was this. When you're a Wall street firm, you have a relationship with subprime lenders from whom you're buying mortgages to create a securitization. And basically what you do is you go to the subprime firm and you say, I'll buy every single loan that you make that has the following characteristics, and you lay them out and call that like, that's your underwriting box. You go buy a billion dollars worth of mortgages on the day you buy them, you buy them blind. You have absolutely no idea what's in the files. So a billion dollars worth of mortgages, you can't securitize a billion dollars worth of mortgages and say, we have no fricking idea what's in these files. Even Wall street wouldn't do that. But it's expensive to go through 5,000 files. So literally every single Wall street firm hired a due diligence firm, and they hired the same due diligence firm. It's called Clayton Mortgage. So Clayton Mortgage was hired by literally every single Wall street firm. And every single Wall street firm gave Clayton Mortgage the same mortgage quarters, which is pull a statistically significant sample of the files and tell us what's in them. So starting in 06, when the underwriting standard, as we all know now, went completely to hell, the report started to come back very bad, meaning anywhere from 10% to 40% of the sample is no good, meaning there's not enough employment history in here, the debt level is too high. Whatever. So you contractually, you, the Wall street firm, contractually have the right to put back to the lender any loan that you find upon due diligence does not adhere to your underwriting standards. So here's my favorite question. So let's say 30% of the 10% is no good. How many Wall street firms then ordered Clayton Mortgage to do due diligence? The remaining 90%.

[Michael Lewis]

Can I answer that?

[Steve Eisman]

Please do. Zero. Thank you.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

Right.

[Steve Eisman]

Zero. Yeah. And in the prospectus there would be a paragraph, and the paragraph would say, risks some of these loans might not adhere to our underwriting standards. Yes. So by the way, just to tell you how bad this. So this was discovered by the Financial Crisis Commission. They had a hearing in Sacramento.

[Michael Lewis]

This is Philangelides.

[Steve Eisman]

And I remember listening. And the Clayton mortgage guy was testifying to this. And when he was done, I turned to him that people are going to jail. I mean, this is unbelievable. This is the biggest fraud in human history. And it's not complicated. They're going to go to jail. So in Angelides did an actual referral of this very topic to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. And then as far as we know, nothing happened. Nobody investigated. Now why? I don't know. And to this day, I do not understand it.

[Michael Lewis]

If they investigate and people go to jail, who goes to jail there?

[Steve Eisman]

Well, who goes to jail would be the people on the securitization desk, Their supervisors maybe, you know, such a bad fraud, the heads of the firms should be banned from running farms for the rest of their lives. So Lloyd Blankfein should have been banned from being the CEO of Goldman Sachs. I mean, you go right up the line. This is a decision that was made without footprints.

[Michael Lewis]

That's the first time I've heard that story. How does it play out differently if people go to jail?

[Steve Eisman]

The economy wouldn't have played any differently. No, huge difference. I mean, prior to the crisis, everybody's sitting there that's suspecting that there's two systems of justice, one for rich or one for poor. Now we know there definitely is also.

[Michael Lewis]

Two systems of capitalism once. One for rich, one for poor.

[Steve Eisman]

Exactly. And so now we know. So that created the Tea Party. I'm convinced that this whole. This, this created the Tea Party. And then from, and then from there you could draw your own conclusions.

[Michael Lewis]

And the anger is still there.

[Steve Eisman]

It should be, yeah.

[Michael Lewis]

How has being the face of the Big Short affected your life since the movie came out?

[Steve Eisman]

I mean, it doesn't affect it on a day to day basis. I mean, Sometimes it's kind of funny, I take the bus cross town and somebody looks at me and says, hey, aren't you Steve Iseman?

[Michael Lewis]

Are you still running money?

[Steve Eisman]

No, not running any money, just my own.

[Michael Lewis]

Just your own?

[Steve Eisman]

Yeah. And I'm very long term invested. I don't trade.

[Michael Lewis]

Do you see anything going on in the banking system that worries you?

[Steve Eisman]

The only thing that might worry me is, look, the private equity world is multiples bigger than it was and nobody really knows what's going on there. Private equity world has not been stress tested like the banks at all. So if there's a problem that emerges, I think it'll emerge from there. But I don't have any more data on this to add even a single additional sentence. That's the problem.

[Michael Lewis]

How often do you find yourself pushed in the position of trying to guess what's happening next? You're Nostradamus.

[Steve Eisman]

Well, it's not so much that. So this is the funny thing. These days on cnbc, they call me Happy Steve because I'm actually quite bullish on the market. I've been bullish for years and they always bring up a deficit. I call this the eye of the deficit discussion. And the last time I was on. So my, my theory which is I've said this like 3,000 times because every time I'm on TV, they, they're basically want, they're begging me to predict the end of the world because of the deficit. I said, look, this, this, this argument about the deficit, it's 40 years old. The last time on CNBC I was on, it was like this like the 10th time I'm on the, the show and they asked me the same question and I go like this, you know, you know what the problem is? All these people want to be me. They want to be the person who predicts the end of the world. And I got news for all of them. The position of Steve Eisman is taken.

[Michael Lewis]

So when I met you, I met you because Meredith Whitney told me I should meet you. And I came away from the first encounter thinking that was a born teacher. So it's funny, it's generally two of the main characters of my books. They're all really good teachers. Billy Bean, excellent teacher, I mean, just could really explain that's what I would.

[Steve Eisman]

Have in another lifetime. I would have been a high school history teacher.

[Michael Lewis]

It was very useful that you were a character too, that people saw you as a character, but it was, you have an unbelievable ability to clearly explain things. And it's refreshing to be back in its presence. Thank you so much to Steve Eisman and to Greg Lipman for talking with me again. Next week I find out what's happened to Steve Eisman's traitors at frontpoint, Vinnie Daniel, Porter Collins, and Danny Moses. See you then.

[Lydia Jean Cott]

Against the Rules the Big Short Companion is hosted by Michael Lewis. It's produced by me, Ludy, Jean Kot, and Catherine Girardot. Our editor is Julia Barton, our theme was composed by Nick Bertell, and our engineer is Hansdale Shee. Special thanks to Nicole Opten Bosch, Jasmine Faustino, Pamela Lawrence, and the rest of the Pushkin Audiobooks team. Against the Rules is a production of Pushkin Industries. To find more Pushkin Podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you'd like to listen ad free and learn about other exclusive audience offerings, don't forget to sign up for a Pushkin plus subscription at Pushkin FM plus or on our Apple show page and you can get the Big Short now at Pushkin FM Audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

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[Cal Penn]

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[Lydia Jean Cott]

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[Michael Lewis]

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[Greg Lippman]

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[Steve Eisman]

This is an iHeart podcast.