One of our events for the very first time . Wow, welcome. Were glad youre here. We have your email address [laughter] we are in touch once or twice a week, sometimes we have new eventsre to announce and hope youll stay with us and not ask off the list, because wed hate you to miss events. Anyway, thanks to new roads school, wonderful partners of ours. We host a o bunch of events in this space, so a special welcome to you. Im just going to run through, its been a very busy fall for us, just some upcoming events, and then well get into the program. Next, this sunday we have a version of our series we call the newer voices series, and we have a terrific firsttime novelist, c. Morgan babst, and shell be talking about her novel at the Santa Monica Library k. And thats free. Thats what these events are. We p want to especially debut authors, give you no excuse not to give them a chance and come and hear their work. Monday night Chris Matthews comes to our stage. He has a new book out, Bobby Kennedy a raging spirit. Hell be interviewed by frank buckley, one of the morning hosts on can ktla, and tuesday night tim oreilly is with us. Hes, haso a new book out titled wtf, hes a technology prognosticator. And then we have Matthew Weiner with susan orr lean next thursday and also coming up conductor john macheri, dennis leafly, tom main was just with us last week, tina brown is with us on next friday, jennifer lewis, daniel else burg, and we Just Announced our first event for 2018, amy tan. Tonight its an honor to host scott adams. He is the cartoonist, many of you know him from the comic strip dilbert. Hes the author of several bestsellers, the dilbert principle, and how to fail at almost everything and still win big. Hes the can cofounder of he worked for 16 years in technology for a major bank and then a phone company and then is when he started the column. Interviewing him tonight is terence mcally whos been on our Terence Terence mcnally, hes been a longtime host of a favorite show of mine here locally on kpsk called free form, and now he hosts a podcast for the White Institute for biological inspired engineering at harvard. Scott adams new book is win bigly. A year to today, the election outcome was predicted by lots of people differently but not scott adams. So he has a lot to share about that and the whole world of possessor suasion. Im going to invite persuasion. Im going to invite scott and Terence Mcnally to our stage. Ing please welcome them. [applause] does this look like a hostile youd to you . I cant tell. [laughter] they look really friendly. Well, this part of town theyre at least curious, if not friendly. [laughter] i wanted to start by saying on november 11th, three days after the election, i wrote of trump and his voters. He spoke directly to people who wanted to be seen and heard, he aimed his campaign and his message at them. Though his facts were wrong, his story was right. I imagined the trump supporter. Now ive got a Major Political candidate talking to me, and hes not just a nerdy politician. Hes a macho, successful, celebrity billionaire businessman and tv star, and he understands me. He respects me. He cares about me. And you want to base your whole campaign on running him down, telling me hes not good enough to be president. Where have i heard that before . Not good enough . And several minutes into the first debate with hillary, i turned to my wife and i said, were in trouble. Hesct a narrative machine. And from e that night forward, i knew trumps election was a seriouss possibility. Scott adams, looking at the man and his campaign from a highly informed perspective, saw much more than i did. Adams calls trump the most persuasive human being hes ever observed, and he predicted trumps win with 98 certain a week after nate silver said he had a 3 percent chance. 2 chance. And as ted said, in his latest book, win bigly, adding ams not only offers a look at the persuasion strategies that trump used, but he goes beyond politics to look at persuasion strategies that can work for youen anywhere. I wont do the bio because ted just did, but scott, as i mentioned to you backstage, i like listener toss to get a feel for the people, not just the book or the idea. Tell us a little bit about how you see your path which is not a normal one by any means. You mean the path to cartooning . The path to well, no. You started, youre working in tech and corporations, and then you diverge into cartooning, and somewheree theres hypnotism. [laughter] well, so ill give you the fast forward version. At the age of 6, i saw my first peanuts cartoon book. I couldnt read yet, but i said, finally, a reason to learn to read. [laughter] i wanted to know what this was all about. And at about that age i decided to become a famous cartoonist, because i thought, well, you know, i saw other jobs, farmer, you know, mailman [laughter] i was, like, those dont look nearly as good as this. So lets see if i can do that. Around about the age of 11 you become rational, and you say, wait, there arese five billion people or whatever there were at the time, only one charles schultz, i dont like my odds. [laughter] so i put that on hold for many years, did the corporate route, worked for a big bank, a number of jobs, worked at the phone company and did a number of jobs. And when my career stalled at both of those places, now that enough time has gone by i can tell you the real reason that my career stalled in both places. At the bank my boss with called me in one day, and there was an opening for a promotion. And i was sort of obvious person for it. I was kind of an up and comer, you know, working on my mba and everything. And she said i dont know how to tell you this, but the companys getting a lot of heat because we have no diversity in senior management. And she said until further notice, we cant promote you because youre a white male. And i said, well, how longs going to last . [laughter] shes like, well, how long did it take us to get to this point, you know . Its not going to be fast. So i started looking for a new job right away thinking, you know, okay, you know . Im not going to let that slow me down. Went to the phone company and worked there and got in the fast track, was recognized as an up and comer, and one day my boss called me into his office, and he said the local newspapers all other us. They just all over us. They just discovered we have no diversity in senior management, and we just cant promote you, and i dont know when thats going change. Now,l i know what youre thinking. You thinking, that was a bad day for me, right . But youd be wrong, because it turns out that the day you find out that your effort and your reward are not related, it really frees up your schedule. [laughter] so suddenly, i had time for working on side projects, and i thought, well, lets see if i can have a comic published somewhere. And i asked for some advice from a cartoonist id seen on tv. He sent me some advice. He said its a tough business, but heres some tips where to send your comics, that sort of thing. Sent out some comics to some magazines. They were rejected immediately. I gave up. A year later i get a letter from the same cartoonist, jack cassidy was his name, and he said he was cleaning his office, came across my letter that was still in the pile, and he said he was just writing to make sure that i hadnt given up. What a i mean, thats an important moment. Yeah. It was the only point of the letter. There was nothing else in it. And i had given up. So i took my materials out and i decided to raise my sights and try to become a famous cartoonist in newspapers all over the world, and i created dilbert. So that was the beginning of dilbert. Was dilbert originally multipanel . Yeah, well, when i sent it to magazines, i singled had had singlepaneled it. Thats what i was thinking. And then i did three. A lot of cartoonists do four panels, but i was also a trained economist [laughter] ande im thinking thats onethird hardter than my threepanel idea. Ing and then fast forward, you know, worked for the phone company while doing dilbert until it took off. And then it was 2015, and im sitting in front of my tv like everybody else, and im seeing this orange ball of fury finish. Whos just got everybody jabbering. And i started to notice, because i have a background as a hypnotist. Im a trained hypnotist. But let me ask, because i was curious. You mentioned im a hypnotist. When was that . High school . Junior high . Later . When did you finish. Early 20s. And i was influenced by my mother who w was hypnotized to give birth to my younger sister. And my mother reported that she was, you know, awake and aware, used no painkillers and had a painless delivery. And i thought, well, what is this superpower, you know . Ive got to learn about this. Now, it tons out that maybe turns out that maybe one in five people could have that kind of effect. Most people cant. She just happened to be one of them. Butle i thought ive got to lean what this superpower is to add it to my other resources. Andrn so, i mean, i interrupd you, but being a trained hypnotist, how did people might not make the immediate connection how that, you know, immediately leads to your interpretation, if you will, of the way that you saw donald trump. So on top of hypnosis, i had also studied persuasion in all of its forms, you know, from communicating everything from listening to design to writing in my work. The dilbert comic is designed with persuasion mechanics. Ic talk about that later. But when i saw trump, i didnt know that much about him. You know, i knew his public figure, but i hadnt seen much of him. And i quickly noticed that he was using what i call weaponsgrade persuasion, the type of thing that was, essentially, he was bringing a flamethrower to a stick fight, and there were no sticks that could see it. It wasck like his hands were lie this, but there was nothing in them. Hey, watch this. Because if you dont study it, you dont notice it. It just looks random, it looks crazy, it looks provocative, and you say, well, this guy could never get elected with all this crazy, random, provocative behavior, and im looking at it and saying, oh, my god, thats perfect. It was so consistent. As i said, my analysis was on the narrative story thing because thats what i look for. I consult organizations about story. And i just thought this guy, everything is a story. Let me talk just a little bit more about dilbert because im sure there are some people that are here partially at least because of that. How do you write dilbert . Well, its changed over the years. I used to do one a day and do it on paper with a pencil and then ink over it with a pen and take it down to the post office, which worked until the post office figured ott where i was out where i was, and then theyd just steal them. [laughter] which, actually, was a common problem for cartoonists in those days. As soon as they figured out who you were, they were like, hey, these will disappear. But now i do a big computer screen thats made for drawing with a stylus. So i have, ive got a hand problem that caused me to move to it, but it probably reduced my workload by 70 . The, i mean, the drawings are simple. The words, the, changes are the juice there. Do you write them out . Hows the you know what im saying, the writing and the drawing, how does that relate . So in the early days i would write a sentence, draw it, write, draw, and i didnt know where it was going or how it was going to end. And that ended up being almost a trademark approach because it violated what was the standard punchline, you know . So it turned out to be the beginning of what i would call the age of realism being humor. Because if you look at humor, its changed over the years from, you know, vaudeville, punch liney stuff, and then in the 70s it was snl. And then it was like, oh, can we say maasture base on tv . Thats fun masturbation on tv . Thats funny. If you look at what qualifies as humor today, its reality. We watch reality tv shows to laugh. We watch politics. How manyo of you have laughed watching the news, right . You watch it like its almost designed as humor, because its so often funny. Yeah. Os so thats what we see as humor now. Anyway, so currently im more likely to write it first and then draw it second. But its evolved over time. Right. And in case youre wondering, he wrote a few ahead so he could be here with us. Yeah. There are no blank spaces in your newspaper. [laughter] and so you talked about how the technology has changed and so on. How hasas the culture in the stp changed as the economy goes up and down, aztec goes up and down yeah. What are some things about that little world that lives inside those panels . Well, it changes with society, right . Im trying to mirror society. In thes 90s the bosses had all the power, and, you know, they were firing people. You were just scram is bling to keep your scrambling to keep your job. But now if youre an engineer like dilbert is and his coworkers, they have more power, so theyre much more insolent and more likely to insult their bosse to his face because theye hard to replace. So i move with the times. Okay. So now were going to switch to win bigly. Youre sitting there in 2015, he comes down the escalator, you watch a couple of debates probably or even rallies, and you see this thing. How soon did you know this was something you had to write about, and then how soon did you know it might even be a book . Well, i cant remember exactly what keyed me off, but i remember the two big confirmation points. One was the first debate where he got the question from megyn kelly that, about his comments about women. Any normal politician dies that day. [laughter] thats the killbo shot. Its over. It doesnt matter what you say. You cant apologize, you cant explain it away, its over. And what does he do oh, by the way, let me just cut in for a second. That wasnt the big grabbing line, that was just youve called them pigs, youve called them yeah. Im just setting the, it was back ine 2015, august, i think. Instead of engaging like a normal human being, he cuts her off andg he goes only Rosie Odonnell. Right . So remember, his base had a real strong feeling about Rosie Odonnell. But heres the first confirmation point. Its visual. Be all right . That was the first thing you saw. Wait, this is visual. He took all of her energy from the question to the answer, and the genius was it wasnt an answer. It wasnt even an answer to the question. But you almost didnt care because it was so entertaining. [laughter] flash your energy just moved there. Now, if youre wondering, well, was that just a lucky play . I remind you, you may not have seen this, but there was an interview many months later with chris cuomo on cnn. And he asked him another gotcha question that was just as good. It was an impossible trap, and here was the question. Imagine how he would answer this. He said the pope has said some bad things about capitalism. What do you say to the pope . What does he do . Say things about capitalism while hes running for president of the United States . No. Say bad things about the pope when youre running for president . No. Theres no way out. So what does he say . Id tell the pope to worry about isis taking overr the vatican. [laughter] what was the question . I dont know. I dont know. [laughter]st they never got back to the question. It didnt matter. Again, its visual, its provocative, it takes your energy out. But before that, to answer the question, the second real confirmation was the low, low energy jeb. Right . I felt i was a little bit out of line because i started writing about his powers of persuasion based on the first clues. But, you know, it could have been wrong. Could have beenf luck. Maybe luck, you never know. But by the time he got to low energy jeb and thats just so engineered compared to regular insults. And i could talk about that later or now if you like. But that was deep technique which would be invisible to the audience, the people who havent had that training. They wouldnt see how much goes into them. Theyre not random at all. So lets lets talk about that. [laughter] so let me contrast it to the bad attempts that people use about him. One of the ones that minute on the clinton said came up with was dangerous donald. Problem, his supporters wanted a dangerous candidate. They wanted somebody who would beat isis hard, somebody who would drain the swamp. Danger was too easy to flip to a positive. They also tried, this is my favorite, cheetoh jesus. Remember that one . Which is hilarious, you know . Its, it mocks him. But heres the problem. People like cheetos, and they love their jesus. [laughter] they love their jesus. You put those together, cheetoh and jesus, and i want to buy a bag, right . [laughter] and so both of those had quality that there was something positive or something you could turn around. Now, look at his. Low energy jeb. Cant turn that into a positive. And the moment you heard it, you said thats an unusual thing to say in the context of politics, and watch how often he uses something thats just out of place. That is part of technique. Hehe is consistently operating n this thin band of wrongness. [laughter] not so bad that he must be executed, you know . [laughter] hes not going to get impeached. Its just, oh, hes a little not what a president should say, you know . And so thats the first thing he puts in his technique. Its a little bit wrong so you cant look away. Then he builds in for confirmation bias later. And in this case also contrast because he had this high energy campaign. Before you heard that you probably thought this jeb bush guy, he looks like a calm, collected executive. Kind of the perfect person youd want in an emergency, yeah, yeah, i b could see that guy as president. The moment you heard low energy and you realized it was comparison to high energy trump, you never could see him the same again. It was over. Yep. And same with his other nicknames, crooked hillary. Once he laid that on her, you could guarantee something would come up about the foundation or the email server. Doesnt matter if any of its true. It didnt matter. You would be, you would be drawn to that nickname, and it would be reinforcing. When you say it doesnt matter youd be drawn, how broadly do you mean that . In other words, do you have to be somewhat inclined toward him to, for it to really work, or will it sort of work with everybody . In well, in the context of a president ial race youre going to get Something Like 50 50 no matter what. All right . Thats the part where facts dont matter. [laughter] right. Right. Youve got to start there, and then facts dont matter toward decisions. They obviously matter toward the outcomes. But if people were really looking at facts and using logic, wed probably have more like an 80 20, you know, 20 just arent paying anticipation, but the others got it right. So really youre trying to persuade maybe 2 of the public who can be persuaded, the people who have not locked down a commitment over 18 months. And when you have the best persuader the world may have ev