The Great American Elevator Tragedy | The Mistakes Series

Summary

Revisionist History: "The Great American Elevator Tragedy" | The Mistakes Series

Release Date: May 28, 2026
Host: Malcolm Gladwell
Guest: Stephen Smith (Director, Center for Building in North America)

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Overview of Episode Theme

In this episode of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell investigates an overlooked yet crucial component of housing and urban planning: the humble elevator. Gladwell approaches this subject through the lens of YIMBY-ism—a movement advocating for increased and more affordable housing—interrogating why, despite inventing the modern elevator, the United States lags woefully behind other developed nations in elevators per capita.
The episode explores the origins, consequences, and costly regulatory mistakes—culminating in a single, consequential building code amendment—that led America to "give up" on its own life-changing invention, making urban dwellings less accessible for the disabled and elderly.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction: Embracing YIMBY Values ([01:53])

• Gladwell passionately declares his conversion to the YIMBY cause: "YIMBY stands at the intersection of righteous indignation and nerdiness. A street corner where I have lived my entire adult life." (Malcolm Gladwell, [03:16])
• He introduces his collaborator and "crown prince of YIMBY," Stephen Smith, as their guide through this saga.

2. American vs. European Elevator Access ([04:09]–[10:07])

• Stephen Smith notes the strange fact: the US has fewer elevators per capita than any other high-income country, behind even much smaller nations like Greece ([04:09]).
• Smith observes a cultural and regulatory divergence: while US three-story buildings usually lack elevators, in Europe (especially France and Italy), small apartment buildings nearly always have them ([07:58]).
• The hosts discuss a viral Twitter debate about affordable housing lacking elevators and the socioeconomic/health impacts of this deficit ([07:58]).
• Personal impact: Smith notes his experience with chronic illness, which highlighted to him the inaccessibility of most US housing for those with mobility impairments ([10:18]). Quote: "There were days when... I think it would have been nice to go for a walk. And I didn't because I was on the third floor." (Stephen Smith, [10:41])
• Stark conclusion: New apartment buildings in rich US neighborhoods are functionally “off limits” to the disabled and elderly due to the absence of elevators ([11:01]–[11:41]).

3. Why Are US Elevators So Expensive? ([14:11]–[17:25])

• Labor costs & unionization: US elevator work is highly specialized and unionized, making assembly costly. Unlike European practice (factory-assembled units craned in), US units are assembled, disassembled, and reassembled on-site ([14:43]–[16:41]).
  • Smith provides a revealing anecdote involving union practices: "You need to prove that you took it apart, because otherwise what’s to say you didn’t just hang out playing on your cell phone in the shaft?" (Stephen Smith, [16:41])
• However, Gladwell and Smith note that labor issues alone do not fully explain the cost differential ([17:25]).

4. Elevator Size: Bigger Isn’t Better ([17:58]–[21:04])

• European elevators in small buildings are about half the size of US elevators—but still wheelchair accessible ([17:58]).
  • "The European one will accommodate a wheelchair. In fact, that's what it's designed for. But you'll probably have to either back in or back out, one or the other." (Stephen Smith, [18:07])
• The US requires elevators to accommodate not just wheelchairs but full-length stretchers (even for rare emergencies), making them massive, costly, and impractical for smaller or affordable residential buildings ([18:35]).
• Gladwell summarizes: "The perfect is the enemy of the good. This is American elevator policy." ([19:48])

5. The Regulatory Mistake: Gregory A. Victor & the International Building Code ([24:16]–[31:38])

• US building design is governed by the International Building Code (IBC), which, despite its name, is quintessentially American ([24:42]).
  • "Anytime you see an international, in a word, in the United States related to construction, it's a lie." (Stephen Smith, [24:42])
• In the early 2000s, Glendale, AZ fire inspector Gregory A. Victor successfully lobbied for a code change requiring elevators in new buildings to accommodate a seven-foot stretcher, even though his city had almost no elevator buildings ([27:25]–[29:45]).
  • The amendment was based on an emotional appeal—imagine a cardiac arrest and the inability to perform lifesaving measures during elevator transport—rather than a reasoned cost-benefit analysis.
  • Stephen Smith highlights the lack of critical scrutiny in code hearings: "The issue with emotional appeals is they don’t weigh things very well." ([30:29])
• Most damningly, Victor asserted on the official amendment form that the cost impact of this new requirement would be "NONE" ([31:01]–[31:38]):
  • "Part three is cost impact. And you know what Greg Victor answers to the cost impact question? None. N O N E. Oh, Greg." (Malcolm Gladwell, [31:01])

6. The End Result and “The Great American Elevator Tragedy” ([29:45]–[31:49])

• The cumulative effect: elevators in the US are so large and expensive that they are simply omitted from most smaller, multi-family housing—thus perpetuating inaccessibility for millions.
• As Gladwell sums up: “In the spirit of trying to make the world a fairer place, we've made the world in this one dimension a much less fair place.” ([19:48])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Malcolm Gladwell’s YIMBY Call to Arms:
  "YIMBY stands at the intersection of righteous indignation and nerdiness. A street corner where I have lived my entire adult life. I am YIMBY. Hear me roar." ([03:16])

• Personal Impact of Regulatory Mistakes:
  "There were days when... I think it would have been nice to go for a walk. And I didn't because I was on the third floor." (Stephen Smith, [10:41])

• On Union Practices:
  "You need to prove that you took it apart, because otherwise what’s to say you didn’t just hang out playing on your cell phone in the shaft?" (Stephen Smith, [16:41])

• On Elevator Size Requirements:
  "The European one will accommodate a wheelchair. In fact, that's what it's designed for. But you'll probably have to either back in or back out, one or the other." (Stephen Smith, [18:07])

• On the Flawed Regulatory Process:
  "Part three is cost impact. And you know what Greg Victor answers to the cost impact question? None. N O N E. Oh, Greg." (Malcolm Gladwell, [31:38])

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Important Timestamps

• [01:53] – Gladwell introduces his YIMBY philosophy, tees up the episode’s focus.
• [04:09] – Stephen Smith presents the American elevator gap.
• [07:58] – Anecdote: Twitter firestorm about buildings without elevators.
• [10:18] – Stephen Smith discusses his chronic illness and access challenges.
• [14:43] – Smith and Gladwell discuss union rules and assembly inefficiencies.
• [17:58] – Explanation of how European elevators are smaller, cheaper, but still accessible.
• [19:48] – Gladwell’s “perfect is the enemy of the good” analogy with tanks and cars.
• [24:16] – Introduction of the International Building Code and Gregory A. Victor.
• [27:25] – Story of how Victor’s amendment changed the code nationally.
• [31:38] – Gladwell’s criticism of the “NONE” cost assessment in Victor’s amendment.

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Conclusion

This engaging episode of Revisionist History exposes how a well-intentioned but poorly considered building code amendment, meant to achieve “perfection” in elevator accessibility, effectively priced elevators out of affordable housing across the United States. Gladwell, in candid conversation with Stephen Smith, highlights the unintended consequences of regulatory overreach—leaving America’s urban dwellings less accessible than almost anywhere in the developed world. The subject may seem niche, but as Gladwell and Smith demonstrate, it’s a story with profound implications for inclusion, urban growth, and the everyday lives of millions of Americans.

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Transcript

[Malcolm Gladwell]

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[Stephen Smith]

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[Malcolm Gladwell]

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[Malcolm Gladwell]

Pushk. I am, I am proud to say, a Yimby yes in my backyard. I have come to my YIMBY ness recently, so I have all the zeal of the recently converted. YIMBY stands for building as much housing as is humanly possible, reforming stupid zoning laws, outdated building codes. Yimby hates minimum lot sizes, setback zoning, mandatory parking requirements, rent control, anything that makes building new things more expensive. NIMBY thinks that when it comes to cities, America peaked around 1910 and we should just roll back the zoning block 100 years. Yimby walks through one of those absurdly picturesque New England villages or some breezy Southern California beach town. By the way, Yimby only ever walks, or maybe cycles. Yimby never drives and asks where are the multi family apartment buildings? My social media feed is Basically just other YIMBYs shout out to Alicia Courtyard Urbanist from Chicago who posts something about how building European style courtyard apartment buildings will save the American Republic every day. And I am so down for every one of those tweets Yimby stands at the intersection of righteous indignation and nerdiness. A street corner where I have lived my entire adult life. I am Yimby. Hear me roar. So deep into this ever expanding series on mistakes, I asked myself, what would Yimby's idea of a mistake be? What error, what miscalculation would, would most enrage the universe of Yimby. And upon consultations with my Yimby comrades, I found it. A single line on a building code proposal filled out by a fire inspector in Glendale, Arizona named Gregory A. Victor. Concerning, wait for it, elevators. This is the story of the great American elevator tragedy.

[Stephen Smith]

Yeah. I could not find a high income country that had fewer elevators per capita than the United States.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Meet one of the crown princes of Yimby, my new best friend, Stephen Smith, director of the center for Building in North America. He will guide us through the tangled history leading up to Mr. Victor's massive error.

[Stephen Smith]

Greece has about half the elevators that the United States does, which is pretty, pretty surprising since Greece has a population of around 10 million in the US is, I don't know, 340 million.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Incredible. That's incredible.

[Stephen Smith]

Yeah, I mean, it, Yeah. I mean, a lot of, a lot of people in Greece live in a little four story, four unit apartment building with a tiny little elevator.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

This is Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. Some of you may be thinking, I'm not seriously going to listen to half an hour on elevators, am I? And my answer to you is, oh, yes you are. And at the end, you will turn to your loved ones and you will say, I too am. Now Yembi, hear me roar. What do your friends say about your elevator code?

[Stephen Smith]

And talk about building codes to friends, do you? It's a good way to not have

[Malcolm Gladwell]

friends, you know, we wait. You cannot be serious. You don't have long conversations with elevators with your friends?

[Stephen Smith]

Of course I do. I drive them nuts about it. Elevators. Sometimes they'll ask a question about something and get a little fun fact for them. But it's not a good way to keep friends to talk about elevators, Stephen.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I am that exception. Should I ever be at a party with you? Should I ever be at a party with you? You have carte blanche to trap me in a corner and talk about elevators for two hours.

[Stephen Smith]

I'm going to talk about something way more so we're going to talk about, like, handrails or windows or, you know, pushing it beyond elevators.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

My, my, my producer is laughing in the background. The modern elevator is an American invention. The earliest elevators were made in the mid 19th century by Elisha Otis of Vermont, whose startup Otis Elevators remains one of the world's largest elevator companies. Otis installed the world's first commercial elevator in the Hawart Building on the corner of Broadway and Broome street in Manhattan. SoHo, which still stands the vertical city in New York that grew up around the Haworth building, was made possible by Otis invention. But at some point between then and now, the era of American elevator dominance began to sputter. If you were an ordinary working American who lives in a split level out in the suburbs and works in an office park, maybe you didn't notice. But you know who did. YIMBY noticed in particular, Stephen Smith. This goes back a few years, just after Smith had started a small YIMBY think tank center for building in North America. He'd been a journalist then real estate. But his true passion, he realized, lay elsewhere. Building codes.

[Stephen Smith]

I mean, academia doesn't study building codes. The more prestigious you are as an academic architect, you know, the more esoteric you're getting and you know, degrowth theory and you know, things that are kind of divorced from the actual practice of putting one brick on another and nailing a piece of wood. So, you know, academia didn't cover it. I don't know who else was going to get into it. And you don't really get into construction because you love reading and writing. So there's just not a whole lot written about it. So I decided to do it myself.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

He raised money, set up shop, and right away something caught his eye.

[Stephen Smith]

There was some, it was a post on when, back when it was called Twitter. It was still good for this kind of thing that went viral with some developer who had built a little 3 story 12 unit apartment building in Minneapolis and was sort of bragging about, you know, it's pretty affordable. And he was kind of listing, he was talking about the simplicity of the project. You know, it's like, doesn't have any parking. Great. Doesn't have an elevator. And it kicked up sort of like a firestorm on Twitter of, you know, elevator. What about disabled? You know, I guess disabled people can just go and die, whatever. And I remember thinking like, well, three story building in America, I mean they never have elevators. That's not that unusual. But at the time I happened to be in France, I was thinking, well, wait a minute, a new three story building in France generally does have an elevator. So why is that? And I asked my friend who was the architect, you know, how much does an elevator cost in Italy for a three story building. He was like, I don't know, 20, €30,000. I said, well, there must be some misunderstanding. There's no way an elevator costs 20 or €30,000 in Italy. That doesn't make any sense. That's a small fraction. You know, in the US that would be, I don't know, $120,000, $150,000.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Why on earth would an elevator be five times the cost in America as it is in Europe? He went back home, moved apartments, and suddenly the question was all he could think about. So you live in Brooklyn?

[Stephen Smith]

I live in Brooklyn. I live in a five story building. There are two units on each floor. It's on a very small lot. It's on a lot that's roughly the footprint of the building is about 1200 square feet. And there are five stories, seven AP over a very popular vintage store.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

What floor are you on?

[Stephen Smith]

I'm on the third floor. And in Europe, it would have been hard to stick an elevator in the building. But you could have done it. I've seen floor plans from France especially. They're very good at sticking a little spiral staircase in a very small elevator. You could have gotten an elevator in the building. There is no way in hell you could have gotten an elevator in the building with anything even conceivably close to our current rules. But in France, they would have done it. In France, this building would have an elevator, I believe.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And for Stephen, this was a problem. And with the result that when you. You had a period of your life, as I read in the elevator report, where you were effectively disabled.

[Stephen Smith]

Yes, I had a. Some mysterious virus in 2017. Turned out to be this sort of long Covid like illness. Obviously not from COVID because it was 2017. And yeah, I had. I still do have a disease called pots where you stand up and your heart rate goes wild. A lot of fatigue. Probably an autoimmune disease that has not really been understood very well yet. And yeah, it was difficult. You know, there were definitely days where what happens is when you exert yourself, you pay for it physically in kind of intense ways. You get sort of brain fog and extreme fatigue. You know, might sleep 12, 13 hours the day. Um, and so, yeah, there were days when, like, I think it would have been nice to go for a walk. And I didn't because I was on the third floor.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah. In one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the wealthiest city in the premier country in the world, there is a brand new apartment building that is effectively off limits, segregated from anyone who is not fit enough to walk up multiple flights of stairs. And why? Because the United States has somehow given up on the widespread adoption of a technology that it invented 150 years ago. But you're building. No old person could ever move into your building.

[Stephen Smith]

I think I'm the oldest person who lives in the building.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

How old are you?

[Stephen Smith]

37.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I mean, this is.

[Stephen Smith]

I think I'm the oldest.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

See, but this is. The whole. This whole thing is just nuts. Yes, it is nuts. Smith spent two years trying to answer the question of why Americans gave up on the elevator. The result, entitled Elevators, is maybe the most comprehensive. And I'm not just saying this because I'm yimby. Fascinating exploration of a topic that I'm guessing few of you have ever thought about. 122 pages beginning with a sentence right out of some 19th century novel. In late 2020, tired of my old Brooklyn apartment, historic and charming but loud and full of maintenance hassles, I put my co op unit on the market and set out to buy a new condo. And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show. Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Stephen Smith]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

We're married.

[Stephen Smith]

Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Stephen Smith]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

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[Malcolm Gladwell]

Some of the reasons why American elevators are so expensive are not surprising. Chapter four of Smith's magnum opus is entitled Labor. Labor is the elephant in the room of the elevator industry. He writes, the workforce that builds and maintains elevators is small and specialized and highly unionized. And nowhere are those things more true than in the United States. The most cost effective way to build an elevator is to assemble the whole thing in a factory, then ship it to the building site and drop it in with a crane. That's what they do in Europe. But in the United States, the elevator union insists on assembling the elevators themselves. So everything is assembled in the factory, shipped to the building site, then disassembled and put back together in the cramped confines of the elevator shaft.

[Stephen Smith]

Where it's really bad is the sort of sister industry of the elevators, which is the escalators. I mean, an escalator truly is almost fully assembled in a factory abroad and then craned onto site. And in North America, you're taking it apart. There was this. I found a sort of newsletter from the iuec, the, you know, the North American Union, where the, the guy who runs it or one of the, another general president or something is sort of bragging to his membership. He's trying to promote his leadership. And he says, you don't know how hard it is to convince an arbitrator that you got to take apart this escalator.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

At that point, we were interrupted.

[Stephen Smith]

I apologize. Somebody's ringing my doorbell. One second. Okay. I don't know whether that package was for me, but they're going to leave in the lobby because I don't have an elevator in my building.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Where were we? This is like my kids with, with their, with their, with their Magna tiles, their Lego. Like they, at the end of the day, they take whatever they built and they smush it. Yeah, and then they rebuild it the next day. Yes, exactly like my kids with their MAGN tiles.

[Stephen Smith]

There are parts of the elevator I've seen in, in settlement agreements or lawsuits, you know, Most of this stuff happens behind closed doors or literally in a, in a tight shaft. And you don't get a lot of insight into it. But you, you see it in court cases and in settlement agreements that should not be posted online, but are sometimes. And there's, there's, there's this one, I don't know, arbitration case or legal case, I don't know what it was. Where, you know, they're saying something like, you know, it's common practice for us to take something apart and put it all together, but you need to prove that you took it apart because otherwise what's to say you didn't just hang out playing on your cell phone in the shaft? And so you practice is for you to sign your name on the part so if you take it apart, the manager can see how you really took it apart.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Now, as crazy as this is, it doesn't really answer the question. Yes, the elevator unions are stronger in the US than Europe. Elevator technicians get paid more. American elevator workers insist on doing dumb things like taking apart already built elevators like small children with their Magna tiles. But none of these things explain why an American elevator would be five times more expensive than its European counterpart. There has to be an even more important reason. And oh yes there is.

[Stephen Smith]

European cabins are roughly half for, let's say for a new six story apartment building with a couple of units per floor. The cabin size in Europe is, is about half the size.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Really.

[Stephen Smith]

The whole rest of the world is about half the size that it is in the US and Canada. And that's because, number one, they don't require space for, I mean, it's for accessibility. But exactly what it is, is never really written down, but probably something like a turning radius for a wheelchair. The European one will accommodate a wheelchair. In fact, that's what it's designed for. But you'll probably have to either back in or back out, one or the other.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

In Europe, Stephen Smith's building would have an elevator. Because Europeans are willing to live with pint sized elevators. In America, we aren't. Which seems to make good sense, right? Because what if you had a heart attack and you're on a stretcher? You'd want your exit from your 5th floor apartment to be as speedy and efficient as possible. Except that in insisting that elevators be really large for those very rare occasions when a large elevator would be really convenient, you make the elevator so bulky that it can't fit in a lot of smaller buildings. And so expensive that no one trying to build affordable housing has the means to put an elevator in their building with the result that if you're in a wheelchair, you simply can't live in Stephen Smith's building. And if you have a heart attack on the fifth floor, the medics are going to have to drag you down five flights of stairs. Have you ever heard the expression the perfect is the enemy of the good? This is American elevator policy. This is like saying too many people are dying in car accidents. Let's mandate that everyone has to drive to the store in a tank. Problem solved. Right, well, that problem solved. But now you have a million other bigger problems like massively congested highways, torn up roads, no parking, and most of all, since a tank costs $50 million, only super rich people would be able to drive to the store. In the spirit of trying to make the world a fairer place, we've made the world in this one dimension and a much less fair place,

[Stephen Smith]

I would say. So, yes, you know, if you're sort of elderly, maybe you'll go into cardiac arrest. And it would be helpful to have an elevator that can accommodate a fully flat stretcher. So, you know, someone can continue to do chest compressions on you while you go down. But you know, most people will never be in that situation, or frankly, if they are, they'll die anyway. The out of hospital cardiac arrest survival rate is very low. But, you know, pretty much everyone gets to a point, or at least if you're lucky in life where you can't really use the stairs, but you could, you know, stand with a walker in a small elevator. So yeah, we really look for these edge cases, try to solve them and then kind of throw our hands up when people don't have elevators at all and say, well, it's just a greedy developer or whatever. And just kind of ignored the underlying economics of the situation, which was that if you make the elevator three to four times as expensive, you get a lot fewer elevators.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Trying to get to perfect when good is good enough is a mistake. And the road to mega elevators was lined with a hundred mistakes made over many years. But the one that really provoked my yimby I er was the mistake detailed on page 50 of Stephen Smith's Elevators section 3.3.2. Committed in the heedless pursuit of perfection by a certain Gregory A. Victor, fire inspector of Glendale, Arizona.

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[Malcolm Gladwell]

You want to design an apartment building in, say, Topeka, Kansas. You can't just put the stairs and windows and the fire exits wherever you want. You have to adhere to a set of common standards. And those standards are found in a very big book, written and maintained and updated by a nonprofit called the International Code Council. Based in Washington, D.C. in one of those bland office buildings not far from

[Stephen Smith]

the Capitol Anytime you see an international, in a word, in the United States related to construction, it's a lie. It's the US Building Code, but it's called the International Building Code, the ibc. It has international aspirations. Everywhere in the country used to have its own building code, more or less. And then they've sort of become homogenized, harmonized over time. And so now there's a national code called the International Building Code, which forms the basis and really the vast, vast majority of every code.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

If you walk down a street and hate the way modern buildings look, or you don't understand why corridors in the hallway of your apartment building are so long, then you have a problem with the International Code Council. The ICC is one of those shadowy groups that no one has ever heard about that writes the rules of the modern world. And the document that they have so grandiosely named the International Building Code is crucially not set in stone. Interested parties can propose amendments. Those amendments can be voted on by a special committee or by the general members of the icc. The International Building Code is not like the Constitution of the United States, which was Last amended in 1992 based on a proposal first made in 1789. You need a war or a couple of centuries to change the U.S. constitution. Not so the International Building Code. It is a living document. And one of those people who set out to take advantage of this fact was Gregory A. Victor of the Glendale Fire Department. Greg Victor had white blond hair, mustache, aviator glasses. He grew up in the Phoenix area, served in the Air Force as an electrician at Binh Hoa Air Force Base during the Vietnam War, came home and became a fire inspector for the Glendale Arizona Fire Department, retiring as the city's fire marshal in 2007. Quote, he was the driving force behind the fire safety codes that are used in Glendale today. His obituary reads. On a national level, he was instrumental in passing fire code to assure firefighters safety in skyscrapers after 9 11. Let me just say that we of the Yimby movement have no beef with Greg Victor personally. He served his country, his community, his profession. I am quite sure he was a fine and upstanding man, but he wanted perfection. And he didn't understand that perfection comes with what is sometimes an unbearable cost. So this guy, let's just. So we have a. We have a. Someone who cares who is passionate about elevators.

[Stephen Smith]

Yeah. He proposes, he says, you know, at the time, elevators were made to accommodate stretchers that are 6ft 4 inches long. And he says, well, they're building a stadium in my jurisdiction.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

He Files an amendment with the International Building Code.

[Stephen Smith]

At the time, I don't believe Glendale had any apartment buildings with elevators. Maybe it had one or two. It had very few, if any. It still has very few, if any. And he said, the elevator is not going to accommodate our stretchers. And I don't think. I mean, I think that's maybe true in some sense, like when it's fully flat and extended, I find it difficult to believe that it did not accommodate a stretcher in any sense. I mean, stretchers do sort of prop up a bit sometimes they're a bit collapsible. But in any case, he did not feel it adequately accommodated the stretcher. So he said, you know, the code should just say that the elevator must accommodate whatever stretcher the jurisdiction's got. And this is not in the report. And I want to say. Don't quote me, but I'm saying it in a public form, so whatever, I'll just say it. What I was told was at the time, the elevator industry, this was in the early 2000s, the elevator industry had their own event. And so there weren't a lot of people from the elevator industry to push back. So there was some committee, some technical committee that's supposed to review this proposal that's, I think, the most informed people in the process generally. And they said, well, there's two things wrong with us. Number one, we can't just say it's got to accommodate the biggest stretcher you've got. I mean, they didn't say this, but, you know, what if someone orders a 20 foot stretcher? I mean, the lack of standardization is going to drive everyone crazy. But secondly, you didn't really prove anything exactly. Like, you know, what is the harm? You know, can you try to weigh the cost and benefits? That wasn't done. So he comes back in another round when it's a little more this. This is sort of a quasi democratic body so all the building officials can vote. And he said, okay, well, the technical committee said, no, but I come to you, the membership, and say, you know, I'll fix it. So, okay, it's not going to be any size. It's just going to be seven feet. I mean, ours are. I think he said theirs are. I don't remember, 6 foot 7, 6 foot 8. You know, 7ft will be big enough to, I don't know, have an oxygen tank on the end or something like that. And it passed.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

The United States already had the biggest elevators in the world, the most expensive elevators in the world. Elevators so big and so expensive that whenever someone was putting up a small apartment building or an affordable apartment building, they look at the numbers and shrug and say, eff it, we'll just go with stairs. And along comes Greg Victor of Glendale, Arizona, and proposes to the most powerful body in the whole world of building codes, let's make them even bigger and even more expensive. Let's make them seven feet long. So he comes back and with an amendment saying, okay, just make it seven feet. And he takes that to the sort

[Stephen Smith]

of the broader membership. But he kind of makes this. He makes this emotional case. Imagine if it was you. And there's always an emotional appeal in building codes and standards. I mean, sometimes it's about fire. In this case, it wasn't fire. In this case it was, you know, being, you know, having going into cardiac arrest and someone couldn't perform compressions on you, or you get some sort of musculoskeletal injury from falling in the bathtub. Whatever, you know, something could happen. So it's an emotional appeal. And the issue with emotional appeals is they don't weigh things very well.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

You can look it up. International building code code change number G1430304. Section 3002.4. The International Building Code Amendment form is divided into three parts. Part one is where you write a paragraph explaining your change. Part two is where you give your reasons. And part three is cost impact. And you know what? Greg Victor answers to the cost impact question? None. N O N E. Oh, Greg.

[Stephen Smith]

No.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Revisionist History is produced by Nina Byrd Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan and Ben Nadaff Haffrey. Our editor is Karen Shakurji. Fact checking by Angeli Mercado. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Byrd Lawrence. Original music by Luis Guerra. Sound design and mastering by Marcelo d'. Oliveira. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. We spend hours deciding what to buy. But there's a split second decision that can make or break a sale. Do you have the trust to hit buy now? Agentic Commerce is testing that moment more than ever. And that's where PayPal comes in. With 25 years of checkouts, 400 million consumer accounts globally and the benefit of purchase and seller protection. All of which make sure wherever a purchase starts, it ends with trust. Built for payments, growth and agentic PayPal open built for all business, visit PayPalOpen.com purchase and seller protections on eligible transactions. Only terms apply. See paypal.com risk management for details.

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[Malcolm Gladwell]

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