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Money Talks: ‘Industry’ Insanity
00:40:57
Hillary Frey and Anna Szymanski join Emily Peck to unpack the wild ride that was ‘Industry’ season 4.
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- [00:05]
A
Hello and welcome to Money Talks where we talk to interesting people about fascinating things. And today we are talking about the most fascinating thing, let's be honest, Industry, the HBO series created by two ex finance guys, Conrad K and Mickey Downs, which just ended its fourth season this past Sunday night, probably if you're listening, you watch Industry. But in case you're not watching and you're still listening, which I love you for that, let's say it's a succession for Gen Z, a darker Wall street, but it's set in London and this latest season I wanted to talk about it because it had a little bit of everything finance, everything business, everything politics. It all seems to have real world echoes this year. There's Russian assets, fintech company that's really just nothing built on scams, short selling, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell type plotline Nazis. So to talk about it, I'm here with the two people I wanted to talk about this show the most with because one more thing I'll say about Industry is you can come into it knowing nothing about finance or business. You can watch it for the plot, the drama, the characters. You can also come in and you can watch it and critique and nitpick and find all the parallels to the business and finance news of the week and day and year and decade. And to do that with me today, I have Hilary Fry, Slate's editor in chief, to unpack all the drama with me. We have been watching all season long, slacking each other, texting each other nonstop. And I have the amazing Anna Shymansky, Reuters editor, former Slate Money host, genius, brilliant finance mind. She is sitting right now, London's Canary Wharf behind her in some massive sparkling high rise, I only assume. Welcome, Hilary and Anna.
- [02:00]
B
Hello.
- [02:00]
C
Hello. Hi.
- [02:01]
A
I am so excited to talk about this show. You guys, like I said, are both sides of the industry coin and together we will figure out what just happened in this season. And that's all coming up on Slate. Money Talks.
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D
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- [02:55]
A
to you by Charles Schwab. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Listen to Washington Wise, an original podcast for investors from Charles Schwab to hear the stories making news in Washington right now. Host Mike Townsend, Charles Schwab's managing director for legislative and regulatory affairs, takes a nonpartisan look at the stories that matter most to investors, including policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes and trade, inflation concerns, the Federal Reserve, and how regulatory developments can affect companies, sectors and even the entire market. Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and follow@schwab.com WashingtonWise or wherever you listen. We might be standing on the verge of something great, but the work is ugly.
- [03:58]
D
It's anti status quo, anti establishment, anti power.
- [04:05]
A
Which part of that is meant to
- [04:06]
D
be a problem for us?
- [04:09]
A
I really don't know where to start. So Hillary, I'm not gonna start with you just because we've been texting and slacking so much.
- [04:16]
C
Use me as minimally as you like.
- [04:18]
A
No, I want maximal hillariness. But I'm gonna start with Anna because I, I don't know where you sit on season four and how you're feeling about it. So I'm gonna start real broad. How are you feeling about season four?
- [04:30]
B
Well, I would say I thought the second half of it was significantly better than the first half. The first half was a little bit too much muck psychodrama that frankly I just don't care about. Oh and once the storyline really picked up in terms of the company that really was not have any value whatsoever, that became a lot more interesting to me than this privileged man child.
- [04:53]
A
That's very interesting because we're really in deep on Kit Harington who plays Henry Muck, who is this sort of like man child aristocrat who who has married one of our favorite characters, I assume Yasmin, played by Marisa Abella. And you know, they live in the country in this like massive mansion and Henry is visited by the ghost of his father. He's tortured, he's playing an old piano and like moping around the house and shooting heroin. Anna's not into this. His Hillary, I feel like you were.
- [05:31]
C
No, I'm sympathetic to the view. The second episode of this season which is this like pure muck psychodrama and I will say the first episode I was talking to my ex husband about it. He felt it was really made for maximum clipping for TikTok like that this is a strategy how shows are put Together. There is an element I think I haven't watched Heated Rivalry, but I've read about it in that too. Like with needle drops and like these kind of dramatic walk away moments or Kal Penn just being outrageous. Right. And so it me a minute with the first episode I was like, why is this so choppy? And then the second you get this long time to spend with Kit Harington at his lowest of lows and it's like a lot. But I really think he's brilliant on industry. I thought he was great last season too. And I'm not sure how getting across the drama of the storyline with his father who took his own life at the age of 40 and were with Henry as he's about to turn 40 and that's kind of his undoing in the second episode of the season. I think it would have been hard to tell that story interspliced with a bunch of other industry narratives. So it was like it wasn't quite a capsule episode. I think it had a bit of that feeling because we're not used to just being stuck with one person the whole time on this show. It's like by far not my favorite episode of the season. But I think we got to see a real range of Henry behavior in a sustained way that I guess it's both sympathetic and totally repulsive. So like that was effective for me.
- [07:08]
B
I will say, in retrospect, I think that episode makes more sense to me. By which I mean I think you needed to build the character up. We needed to actually think that maybe things might be getting better for him to get maybe a little bit more sympathy for him. And so that what then happened in the rest of the season hit a little bit harder.
- [07:25]
A
Yeah, let's stay on Henry Muck because I feel like again, like you can read his storyline just at the personal level of this sort of man child who is kind of rescued by being installed as CEO of this fintech. And you're like, bro, are you doing this again? Because in the last season he was CEO of Was it a fintech also?
- [07:44]
C
No.
- [07:44]
A
Energy company called Lumi. And he. He really messed that one up. Like that was on him. Right? He like did some shenanigans to its earnings report or something like that. And it was like his fault that that company went sideways, to my mind. But this time he's just sort of like this dupe. But. And we can spoil here. We're in a spoil rich area. His privilege in the end saves him again from ruin. Like we see him in the season finale two nights ago on the fishing boat with his, you know, godfather, who's this wealthy lord and his uncle both love him. The song an Englishman is playing, like, he comes across almost as like a class hero when he sort of, you know, tells Max, Ella's character, who's the Whitney Halberstrom, who's this, like, low class pretender, and he says, there's dignity to knowing your place. You didn't think about my place. Like, he's the lord. Like, in the end, it seems like this season does come down to class. And, like, where better to talk about class than in London where Anna is sitting right now?
- [08:50]
B
Indeed. Yeah. His character, like, fails sideways. That seems to be his, his, his trajectory. But I agree with you. I think that this season that, you know, the class element, I mean, obviously that there's always been some of that from the very beginning of the show, because that is a feature that you have in the UK that you feel more than in the US But I think there's something interesting because even though on the one hand you can say his privilege saves him, it doesn't necessarily save him in the way that he actually cares about. Because in a way, he has that American mindset of actually wanting to make his own name. He doesn't want to have to rely on his privilege. So it doesn't save him entirely.
- [09:24]
C
There's also, in the finale, when I rewatched it last night, I was very struck by that boat scene you referenced, Emily, where he can't even bring in the fish on his own, and one man is behind him, literally holding the fishing rod so he can reel it in while his uncle has the net to get the fish. And it. I can't remember if it was right after or right before when he goes to see his uncle, who's the media baron, and sort of collapses crying and apologizing in front of him. And the way they shoot the scene, I immediately had to Google how tall Kit Harington was because they make him look very tiny. He's five eight, I'm five feet tall, so he's tall to me. But, like, they have his uncle towering over him. So I absolutely did not see this as his privilege saving him. No, I was like this. He is back to episode two in this season. He's gonna be back with his, like, fancy, you know, gilded robe over the piano, you know, banging the keys. And he's actually lost everything. It's true he's not in prison, but the devastation I thought this time around was like, even worse than what happened with Lumi? Because Lumi was complicated. He was responsible. But it was this. What I loved about the story of that energy company and the politics and the big investment bank and everybody involved conspired in a way, and around green energy and green investing and all the stuff that Anna you know much more about than I do. But it was like everyone kind of knew it was a scam. And in this one, including Muck. So, yes, he's responsible. In the second one, he really showed how, like, his involvement as CEO was so superficial, and he's just so gullible. It's like, he's a really tragic character. And when they announced season five, I haven't seen the cast list, and I don't know if you guys have, but I was like, who's coming back?
- [11:22]
A
That is a big question.
- [11:24]
C
Because I'm kind of like, I hope not.
- [11:27]
B
You know, I'm.
- [11:27]
A
I feel like we're done with him.
- [11:28]
C
I'm done.
- [11:29]
B
No, I agree. Because I feel like otherwise, I'm not entirely sure how we're going to get around just playing out the same story over and over.
- [11:35]
C
Exactly right.
- [11:36]
B
I hope they bring Eric back.
- [11:38]
A
Oh, yeah. We should talk about Eric. Well, one more thing about Henry is, like, I'm no, like, booster for the British class system, and I don't think people are born and they should know their place. And one set of people are better than another set. I'm an American, after all. But when he found himself on this jet with Whitney Halberstrom and was like, I will not go running to Lithuania, he didn't say these words, I will not go running to Lithuania. And, like, hide my name. I am. Do you know who I am? And, like, I was kind of like, yeah, that's how powerful this show had an effect on me, that I was
- [12:12]
C
like, good for you.
- [12:13]
A
You are better than this, you know? But why? He showed me nothing that would suggest
- [12:17]
B
that I agree with you, that I thought that moment was so interesting because I actually kind of had the same feeling, too. And I'm like, what does the show want us to. Right.
- [12:25]
C
Yes.
- [12:25]
B
Is this supposed to be like a yay class show? Right.
- [12:28]
C
I think that was about. Look, Kit Harington and why I love him in this role so much and why he was a great Jon Snow. He's very vulnerable looking. Even though he's very handsome, he does always look sad. His eye crinkles, like, all of these things about his face. Even though he's made all these terrible decisions that have, like, affected people's lives, almost unilaterally negatively. He's got soul in there.
- [12:52]
B
And.
- [12:52]
C
And to me, that was like, you still get to hold onto a shred of believing about him what he believes about himself, which is actually that he's not just this, like, brat with no. And that's where he and Yasmin are such interesting foils to each other. When you think back to her conversation with her father, I've thought about this so many times in season three, where her dad is like, you have no use. This is her whole mission. Right. Is finding utility, which I'm sure we'll talk about more as she finds it in this season, but. And she's like, I speak seven languages or whatever. And you're like, well, that's impressive. And no one cares, because in her class system, everybody speaks seven languages.
- [13:37]
B
Also in Europe, everybody speaks seven languages.
- [13:40]
C
In Europe, everybody speaks seven languages.
- [13:41]
B
In London, everybody speaks seven languages except me.
- [13:44]
C
And so the story of Yasmin and Henry is like, he thinks he knows who she is. She's trying to figure out who she is. And the collision of the two of them and their ambition to be, like, realized people, it's very dramatic and ultimately doomed, as we see here.
- [14:02]
A
I want to talk about Yasmin, but I also want to talk about Eric, who is played by Ken Leung. And wonderful. He's incredible. I saw him. HBO invited us to the 92nd Street Y to watch an episode, and then he spoke with Mahala afterwards. And his stage presence, you just can't take your eyes off him. He's so good. Like, this is facial expressions. His turn in this one is so good. You think you're done with Eric Tao. He's this older guy who spent his whole career at Purepoint, which is like the investment bank. Was it supposed to be like Goldman at the center?
- [14:36]
B
Yes. If you look at the fund, it's. It's supposed to be Goldman. Yeah.
- [14:39]
A
And he's been there his whole life. He's, like, basically given everything to his job, you know, sacrificed his connections to his twin daughters, his wife, betrayed his mentor in the end, who's dying of brain cancer, sells him out to stay with the company, like, the whole nine yards. And you think, we're done with him. Comes back this season, and you think, this isn't going to be good. It was amazing. Lung talked about when I saw him at the Y, about his character sort of like trying to be better, forge connections with his daughters. I guess they cut a lot of this out, but he was like. His motivation was like, you want to connect with his daughters. And the way he's doing it is, for some reason starting a short only fund with his like, frenemy mentee.
- [15:24]
E
Most fathers do.
- [15:25]
A
I mean, that's how you build connections with family. You bring $10 million to your, you know, former mentee who you have like a hate love, kind of weird relationship with. And then, I mean, tragedy befalls this character. I don't even know what to make of the storyline.
- [15:42]
B
It's interesting because all the characters on this show are like kind of sociopaths. But then he's always been one who I feel like, eh, there are all these moments where you're like, I feel like there's something there. And I feel like this season you could see him trying to tap more into that something that was there. Which is again, similar to what we were saying before with Henry, that it made his fall just like, painful. And the break with Harper, maybe this is just me because he happens to be one of my favorite characters. So I found that. That breakfast so painful. Even though obviously he is completely responsible for his own fall, regardless of what he knew or didn't know in terms of sleeping with an underage girl. But it's so painful. And like the scene when, you know, they show Harper the image, it's just, it's. Oh, you just cringe because it's like this, you know, this hero, this figure, and just it becomes this, you know, kind of pathetic image on this camera.
- [16:36]
A
Yeah. Everyone in the show, I mean, to zoom out, it's like HBO's bread and butter. Right. To give you the worst people in the world, but you still somehow root for them and feel like there's something in there that's good.
- [16:45]
C
I have to tell you, having now, I think, Emily, I told you that I listened to Succession to go to sleep. So I've probably listened to the whole season like 50 times. They're all irredeemable. Except maybe Roman. We're not talking about Succession, but boy, I really. I've gone through real journeys with those characters, I think with Eric and talking about when they show Harper the video of him getting oral sex from this underaged or possibly underage girl. It's unclear to me if she was or wasn't.
- [17:15]
A
Yeah, it is unclear.
- [17:16]
B
Agreed.
- [17:17]
A
Passports being fake on this show a lot.
- [17:19]
C
The point is he believed she was. So the problem, I mean, amongst all the problems are that he has two teenage daughters he can't manage to connect to and he's paying for sex from someone he believes is a teenage girl the same age as his daughters, right?
- [17:36]
A
15.
- [17:37]
C
Maybe we wanna unpack that, maybe we don't. But when they show, Actually, I was so relieved when Yasmin shows Harper the recording of this, which was used to blackmail Eric into leaving the fund, basically, that at least Harper had an answer about why he left. Because this is a person who like Harper and her abandonment issues. And it's why this whole season, she's like, eric, we're only working together. We're only working together. And then her mom dies, and she tells him, and you get that tenderness you've been dying for between the two of them, where he finally gets to love her the way he wants to love Harper, and Harper is willing to accept it, and then it's just ripped away from you like, five seconds later, because you must be reminded that this person who you really like, Eric Tao, was paying for sex with somebody he believed was a teenager.
- [18:33]
A
But him walking away from her, I thought was the most loving thing that had happened all season. Because you could imagine another scenario where he's like, we fight this. You know, he walks away. Just takes. He's like, I'll take my seed money
- [18:44]
C
to save her and save her funds. And it's a real shame. I mean, I really. I think he walked away to save the fund and because he couldn't tell Harper. He couldn't. He was like, I cannot tell her I did this. It was too. They had, like, breached that wall of connection. And I think there was a lot of shame, too. And he is an amazing actor who, like, can convey shame in five seconds. Like, you don't need to spend a whole episode with him to know that the second he was found out, he didn't have a choice because of Harper.
- [19:21]
A
I want to jump to talking about Marisa Abela's Yasmin character and the parallels to Ghislaine Maxwell. And then maybe after that, we can talk more about some of the real life stuff and Anna can tell us, like, what is ridiculous on this show in terms of the finance industry and what tracks. And that's all coming up after this break.
- [19:50]
D
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- [23:33]
A
So I was freaking out and I texted Hillary because Ghislaine Maxwell's dad, Robert Maxwell, about whom we once recorded a Slate Money podcast, but I don't believe ever aired it, which is kind of creepy. But Robert Maxwell, who was basically this big British media executive, tried to take on the Daily News, right? Came to the US Then everything, his whole empire kind of falls apart. Built on a house of lies and cards and blah, blah, blah. Goes on a yacht named after Ghislaine Maxwell. His daughter mysteriously dies. Unclear if he died by suicide or if he was pushed. I don't think we ever know. And then his. Of course we know. Everyone knows what happened to his daughter, Ghislaine Maxwell. Right. She is currently behind bars for working with Jeffrey Epstein. Obviously, the parallels here, I mean, they're screaming to you. Were they screaming to you, Anna?
- [24:22]
B
Yeah, I mean, I. I feel like as the show is going and then you look back and you're, oh, this is what has been leading for, you know, more than one. Yes. Season at this point. Yeah. No, I mean, I will say there was like, a noted point towards maybe the last three episodes or something where it really turned. You're like, oh, okay, I see where this is going. And almost by the time you get to the end, though, I'll be honest, I had a little bit of a hard time buying it, especially in the final episode. It just felt like not real. It felt like they were pushing something that just didn't feel natural at all. I realized, like, the very final scene you have with her, you know, suggests that, you know, she's obviously not entirely comfortable with the trajectory of her life here. But I don't know, like, that final scene where she's at that gross party with all the young girls and she has that interaction with Harper in Paris. It just felt like she was play acting.
- [25:09]
A
Yeah. What do you think?
- [25:10]
C
Yeah, I mean, I agree. And Harper feels the same way. What does she say? These words coming out of your mouth are not yours. These are not your words. So I completely agree. I do think, though, what I found compelling in that last episode is when, you know, she seats Harper with these two Austrians, bank owning Austrian family that was involved with Tender and all this
- [25:31]
B
stuff with Hitler paintings.
- [25:32]
A
The Hitler painting people that Yasmin knows about.
- [25:36]
C
But that Yasmin, I think what they did with her really well this season was sort of follow up on that promise that actually she's unexceptional at Pierpoint and that she can't let go of her privilege. The only reason she married Henry was to protect her from what was happening to her in season two, where she was being attacked by the media. She marries Henry so that Henry's uncle's tabloids can rehabilitate her reputation and kill bad pieces about her. Then she kind of falls in love with Henry, and that's nice. Sounds like they had a great wedding night. Love to hear about that. But then Henry in his depression, she's just like, I can't deal with this. Like you, you have to be a survivor. And she places him in the Lumi role. But then you see her trying to use her new connections through the Muck family to exert all kinds of control and great talent, such that it is. Is putting people of different power, kinds of power in a room together to engineer outcomes that she thinks will be good for her or her husband or whatever. So at this last dinner, she seats Harper with this mother and son with the Hitler paintings, where Yasmin has already engineered for the son to write some insane op ed in one of the family papers. That's like outside the bounds for like British tabloid opinion pages, right? Like, what are you doing? And she's just like, whatever, it's just a thing I can give them so that. So that they'll give us their bank, essentially. And then she puts Harper, her black friend, with them and clearly hasn't thought about it because at the end, the look on Yasmin's face when Harper says, you sat me with two people who looked like they wanted to skin me. Yasmin actually looks surprised. She's not thinking about the real world implications at all of these, this power brokering that she's doing, because she's just moving around chess pieces to try to advance herself and give herself purpose. And of course, then she immediately reverts to being like, you know, oh, whatever, and moves on. So I found that authentic. But I really agree that they hit the nail on the head a little hard with that final scene. Seeing her enjoy the manipulation and use of young women was a kind of step that didn't feel authentic at all. I agree. I don't know.
- [27:56]
A
But she had one of the maids.
- [27:58]
C
I think she could have gotten there. I think that there's something missing in that, making that jump, that it just went so far so fast that she went from. Now she's recording people, you know, have, like. It just felt too fast.
- [28:12]
A
But we've seen throughout this show that. Because the first season of industry was very much like this, like, me too ish storyline. It was. I think it premiered in 2019 or 2020, right when that was still a thing. Before COVID Not that it's not a thing anymore, but at the peak of it. And Yasmin, her character at Purepoint is, like, viciously sexually harassed by her boss, Kenny. But then by the end of that season, she's basically harassing him. She's like, now the bully. You know, she was being bullied, and now her reaction to that is to be a bully herself. And then when another character comes to her for protection because she has been harassed for some other. In some other way, she's like, this is how it works, lady. This is her character, I think being
- [28:52]
C
a bully and becoming a mastermind of, like, a brothel, basically, is like, It's a jump.
- [28:58]
B
It's a jump. No, it's.
- [28:59]
A
It's a leap.
- [29:00]
C
I also thought in this last episode, though, when Harper is in Paris with the guy that she's kind of sleeping with who works on the fun, and he's like, I hear Yasmin was a real piece of work in college, and she was, like, a total bully and, like, abused people. She was a sadist. That it's just, like, one line that was the one thing that, like, I was like, okay, maybe this is not just with her sort of running this ring of young girls to service older men. Prostitution, I suppose, is part of her sadism. And that's. That is what I expect we would explore in season five. Whether it's that she's now fully realized Ghislaine Maxwell type person, or she's really inhabiting this. I will inflict pain on others. Because she says this to Harper. I have less pain now. She's sober. She doesn't drink. This milieu is where she has less pain now. It's also funny because she's a very rich, privileged, spoiled person like Henry. Like these two people who are in pain all the time in the trappings of grandeur and luxury.
- [30:06]
A
Can we stay on this? I don't know. Is it prostitution or is it just like. I mean, there is, like, this aspect in the business world where. I mean, I remember when we were at HuffPost Hillary, like, stories about, you know, Microsoft throwing a party where they invited, like, they paid for models to come and circulate. That surely was something that was happening at tech startups for a long time and surely happens still at other companies. And we see, like, wealthy men marrying, like, beautiful Russian models who surely weren't socializing with them because it was fun and probably weren't socializing with them explicitly because it. I don't. Was prostitution. But there's just naturally this sort of thing that happens kind of a thing, Like, I don't know if she's like,
- [30:49]
C
a madam, isn't it implied Is that she's bringing in these girls so that she can collect blackmail on them. She has the girls, she is paying them to engage these men in sex so she can record them and then force them to fund whatever the thing is she wants them to fund next.
- [31:07]
A
That's really. Okay.
- [31:08]
C
Sorry, Emily.
- [31:09]
A
That's okay.
- [31:10]
B
Yasmin almost tries to make that point at the party that, no, it's all about power, and these people have different power and by being here. But we all know that's bs. Like, anyone who listens to that scene is like, hey, this is nonsense.
- [31:21]
A
All right, fine. I was like, she took that poor housemaid out of the manor and gave her the opportunity to go to Paris.
- [31:28]
C
Well, that girl I could not get away from, okay? I have a whole thing about teeth. Like, I love normal teeth. We don't have enough of them in America. You do get to engage with them when you watch TV from other places. But I had this crazy echo of. Remember in Mad Men, when Jon Hamm's character is with his final wife and everybody freaked out because she had, like, big teeth. I could not get away from, like, a whole echo with this character on Industry who's only there for, like, five minutes. And now I can't remember her name, but when she showed up on Mad Men, and you're just like, yasmin is like, I took this really imperfect person. I put her in this, like, 80s Gunne Sax Formal dress. From what I could tell who wears that, but okay, big bow, strapless number. And it's not just elevating her as a character, but sort of inverting the whole idea of what kind of girl you deploy in these events. And I just found it. That interaction between Yasmin and her, when she comes to thank Yasmin for the opportunity was, like, so, so uncomfortable because it seemed like she wanted to say something to Yasmin and she couldn't quite get it out. And I still don't know what it was. Maybe we'll find out. Can we just talk about Rishi for a minute?
- [32:38]
A
Oh, yeah, of course.
- [32:39]
C
Mustn't forget Rishi's capsule episode of season three where we find out about his, like, very bad gambling problem. Is like one of my favorite episodes of television in a really long time. Another odious, horrible character who you can't help but root for some reason because the actor is so good. And we just need to pour one out from Rishi because I don't think we're going to see Rishi again. I mean, I guess he went to jail, he could get out, but I think he's in there for attempted murder or murder or manslaughter. Probably manslaughter. So anyway, Rishi had a very sad, very depressing end. I will miss him.
- [33:14]
A
I mean, it's really like, fine. The finance industry is this, like, gauntlet. It reminds me of these, like, fantasy sci fi books that I wind up reading that are, like, for young adults, but you read them anyway. Like an involved dragon school where it's like, not everyone can make it across the bridge. So we like, started out and it's like these young Gen Z, like investment bankers, and like, one by one they get picked off by this industry or they get changed into monsters. Is that. Nor is that real? Is that something.
- [33:41]
B
No, I'm sorry. Like, I mean, I. I'll put a blanket statement here that like, pretty much everything finance related in the show is kind of ridiculous. But that being said, it kind of has to be because otherwise it would be an extraordinarily boring show. Well, yeah, well, I did a lot of work with spreadsheets and then I worked a little bit harder and I worked some long hours and then I was promoted to vp and then I was. It was. It's. That's not interesting. That's not interesting. It is true, obviously, that finance is a difficult industry. It is also true that finance can attract some particularly horrible people. Very true. That being said, most. A lot of people can have very long careers in finance and not become sociopaths or drug addicts or go to jail. That's been my experience thus far.
- [34:23]
A
But is there a lot of cocaine? I feel like there must be. Hillary.
- [34:27]
B
I'll be honest. This could also just be because I'm me, so, like, I don't even drink, so I was just never invited to those parties, clearly. But, like, I know of people in like, the 90s who I'm friends with who were in finance in, like, the 90s that definitely. That was very much a thing. And I think pre financial crisis, I also think there was probably a lot more of that. I also think pre. Some of the me too stuff. I also think there was probably a lot more of that. I'll be perfectly honest. Again, that was not my reality, but that does not mean that did not exist. But yeah, the amount of drug use, I always find I'm like, how are they then getting to work the next morning?
- [34:59]
C
I don't know.
- [34:59]
B
That's.
- [35:00]
C
They're young, challenging. I watched the Wolf of Wall street again. I watched all of Industry again before season four, and then I watched season four two times because otherwise I can't remember anything because I'm old. I also watched the Wolf of Wall street, which is drenched in drugs, obviously. And so I too was like, wow. I guess the answer. I guess the whole thing about finance is like, people feel comfortable making big gambles with people's money because they're doing coke all the time. And that makes you very, like, open with risk taking, right? It's like all this. Please.
- [35:31]
B
No, but this is actually the biggest flaw of the way I think this show understands finance is that there's this idea that it's all about taking these massive risks and that's how you're successful in finances. You take these massive risks. And frankly, that's just not true. The history of finance is actually quite often is the people who have the longest, most successful careers are people who actually like, understand risk management and are not people taking these wild bets. Like, I have a fund where I have one position. Like what?
- [35:57]
C
Like, they get short a.
- [36:00]
B
No one's. Like, no one's giving you money for that. Like, it makes no sense whatsoever. And I again, I actually think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of how finance works. But I get it. I get it because it's a lot more interesting. But yeah, a lot of those figures who do take these massive risks, you hear about them because especially if they have one big win, you know, the, like, the big short people, have they ever done any. Like, what have they done since then? Nobody really cares. They'll be, remember the rest, Michael Burry of big short fame.
- [36:25]
A
But he has a substack that's paywalled. Like, come on.
- [36:27]
B
Exactly. Usually when people have really big hits, they also have really big misses. And ultimately they don't have the most successful careers in the world. The most successful people are very boring.
- [36:36]
C
I know. I don't know if I'm relieved or really sad.
- [36:39]
A
I feel sad. I mean, it's just such a powerful fiction tool because what finance does is often quite amoral and feels bad, like unethical. And so you want the people doing the work. Sometimes I know, Anna, you'll say, like, the leverage makes the world go round and we need the money because people need to have businesses and jobs and all that. And I don't disagree. But there are things that feel ick about it.
- [37:04]
B
There can be in certain parts of. I mean, although I would argue that's probably certain parts of any industry. It's just here it's amplified because of money and power. That's fair. One thing I would like to say, though, that I thought was good in this episode or in the season is the way they kind of looked at short selling. Because now, to be fair, short selling always is used in TV shows and movies for the very obvious reason that it just is made for it. Because you're going to have a mystery and you're going to have to solve the mystery. And there are very clear villains of the. People love short selling in the real world. That's not entirely how short selling usually.
- [37:36]
A
No, people hate it. We have to talk about that.
- [37:38]
B
Yeah, exactly. But I think there's this wonderful scene where Eric is talking about the narrative. It's about constructing a narrative. And that's so true because you can be right and it doesn't matter, you'll still be destroyed. Because again, that can be how short selling works if people don't believe your narrative. That storytelling aspect. And again, I think that's actually a theme that runs through this season quite a bit, whether it's, you know, the letter to Henry, all these different things, it's this idea of telling these stories. And yes, you often need. You need an event to happen, you know, that gets people to believe your story. But that's the thing. They have to buy that. That did ring true to me. Again, those kind of straight short selling houses, we have fewer of those than we had in the past. But do you think there's some truth there?
- [38:19]
A
The idea that narrative is everything and if you don't own the story, you can't make the money, you can't do anything is really powerful. And I was thinking recently, because, you know, AI can do all our writing now, supposedly, but at the same time, there's now these new jobs cropping up called like chief Narrative Officer and other things that AI firms and other companies using AI are hiring and paying. Business Insider had some great story where they're paying like 600k or 700k a year for narrative experts. Because AI is not a narrative expert. Like you need an actual human to do that work. And I feel like in the business world we know that. That's why there are comms executives, right? And PR people and blah, blah, blah, blah. One thing I love about this season is people learning about finance from industry. And there's this great tweet explaining how short selling works with the example of Help me out.
- [39:10]
C
It was a record. Katy Perry record.
- [39:13]
A
Yes, Katy Perry records. You borrow a Katy Perry record, you
- [39:17]
B
sell it for a certain price, then you buy it back for less than you pocket the difference.
- [39:20]
A
Yes.
- [39:21]
B
Short selling, I feel like at the end of the day is like not. Not the most complicated.
- [39:24]
A
People needed the Katy Perry example to understand it. It was important to them. And I still don't understand what Coco Bonds are. So if you want to explain that.
- [39:33]
B
Contingent convertibles. Yeah, we'll get to that.
- [39:35]
A
Contingent convertible bonds. Maybe that's season five, because obviously, Hillary, not to put you on the spot, but you're the editor in chief of Slate and I imagine you have a lot of control. Shouldn't we come back and do season five episode by episode? Don't the listeners want it?
- [39:49]
C
Yeah, we just have to talk to your team. But yes, let's do it. Okay, great. Love it.
- [39:54]
A
We gotta do it.
- [39:55]
B
Okay. Can I just say one thing that I also did think was interesting was just the fashion choices with hats. Number one. I just want to point out something, because I don't think I'm wrong about this, that when Harper is one of her early scenes, when she's coming to the original firm where she had like her fun within the firm and they have a scene where she's walking in and that scene is very clearly based on Sigourney Weaver's entry into Working girl. It is 100% a replay of that scene. And in terms of how she's dressed and even the wood paneling and how they do it a I was like, that's brilliant. But I thought it was a really interesting throughout the season because he had a lot of these like very big shoulders, but also extraordinarily short skirts.
- [40:31]
C
Yes, very short skirts. Though poor Yasmin is in like brass buttoned Bergdorf. I get what they were doing with her, which is like putting her in this other level of maturity. She's not in short skirts. She's in like suit dresses and pants and a lot of long sleeves. And they really moved her out of anything cool, anything youthful at all. And put her in this like kind of Middle aged working lady thing. And I hate that look. It's like so also, journalists don't dress that way. You don't see a lot of that. Maybe if we worked at bigger companies. But like that contrast. Harper looked like she was in like Vivienne Westwood in every scene. Everything was really architectural. I mean, we did not talk about. Also, the other thing besides drugs in this show is like, there is a lot of nudity. There is a lot of sex. There was a little less, I think, last season. But if you aren't an industry watcher and you start with season one, you may be shocked because there is just so much nudity everywhere.
- [41:30]
B
Frankly, more than there needs to be.
- [41:32]
C
No total. Well, there is a lot of Mahala,
- [41:35]
B
I am a village lady. There's more than it needs to be.
- [41:38]
C
There's some pretty outrageous sex scenes in this season two. Sorry, I went from clothes to nudity, which leads me actually to an important question that I wanted to ask you guys is, is Max Minghella, Max Minghella's Whitney Halberstrom in love with Henry Muck?
- [41:54]
B
Yes.
- [41:55]
C
Yes. Right?
- [41:57]
A
For sure.
- [41:57]
B
Yes. But I also feel like the character he actually connects the most with is Jonah. Like, I feel like there's an actual genuine connection with this one Jonah, Whereas I feel like the Henry one is. He's obsessed with him in a way. But I don't know if it's like a genuine affection. Whereas I feel like with Jonah, their actions of genuine affection.
- [42:13]
A
Because Max Minghella, who plays Whitney Halberstrom, his dad, directed the talented Mr. Ripley, Anthony Mingella and Anthony Minghilla. And there's a very strong Ripley esque situation happening between Whitney's character and Henry's character where Whitney loves Henry but also like wants to be Henry, wants to sleep with him, but maybe also kill him. And it seems like it's hard not to see that in that relationship.
- [42:40]
C
My last thought is, I don't know how you guys felt about Rob, who was not in the season. Rob left us at the end of season three to go move to California and work at a tech startup. That what was going to do something with weed? I don't remember. Oh, sorry. Mushrooms. Mushrooms, right. We can all ayahuasca all the time or whatever it is we want to do. But I really missed him this season. And I was talking to somebody who was like, well, everybody on industry is horrible. And like, I didn't even like Rob, but I really felt like despite all of Rob, he was kind of the moral compass by the end of season Three, like, he was sober. He was trying to love Yasmine and Harper on their own terms, and I thought he was interesting and I loved his face and I really missed him. And I doubt he'll come back for season five, but I would not be sad. I'm a little concerned about season five in terms of, like, we've lost a lot of people along the way, but I hope Eric comes back somehow. And Harper, of course Harper and Yasmin are there, but who else?
- [43:44]
B
I'm very curious to see what trends in finance they will play off of, because this year, every season, and it's always a little delayed because obviously they have to film the season and then it comes out. So I was actually trying to think about that, about what's been going on now, that you would be latching onto AI stuff. That's how it ends. They're all just replaced by bots.
- [44:04]
A
It's gotta be AI, right? Cause they did. They did MeToo, they did ESG, DEI, Green, whatever.
- [44:11]
B
They did, like, Epstein Fraud kind of stuff this season.
- [44:14]
A
Yeah, Epstein Fraud kind of stuff this season. And the warping of the politics, how politics warps finance, which is, like, timeless.
- [44:22]
C
I guess maybe they'll carry that through too, because they have this young politician that Yasmin is behind. I did feel like the Russian stuff came in really late and completely agreed. They left that maybe for a thread for season five with that Russian character. He's English, but he's clearly of Russian heritage, who's trying to dismantle democracy. And that's really exciting, but who also clearly is, like, on the dole of the FSB or whatever. There's one line that when I rewatched it, I picked up on it may have been between the Home Secretary and Jennifer Bevan, the pm, where they're, like, just talking about the FSB planting people in all levels of English government and industry. And I was like, aha. They're making the connection explicit between the interference with Tender and this new politician that Yasmin is kind of hitching her wagon to, who she definitely wants to sleep with, but he's told her he doesn't believe in such things so far. We'll see what happens there.
- [45:27]
A
Extremely creepy. Extremely creepy. We will see what happens there. We will be back next season. I feel it. I feel good about it. Write to us@slatemoneylate.com Tell us, did you watch this previous season? Do you want us to keep talking about it? I definitely wish I could keep talking to you two all day, but sadly, we cannot. Thank you Anna Shymansky of Reuters, and thank you Hilary Fry of Slate. And thanks to Jessamyn Molly for producing and Shayna Roth for producing Slate Money on other days. And we will see you back here on Saturday for a regular episode of Slate Money.
- [46:11]
D
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