It. Thank you for coming. I wanted to start by explaining why it is i have the pleasure of interviewing michael this evening. I would direct your attention to the dust jacket of your book, the back. Theyre is blurb here that reads , ive read Michael Lewis for the same reason i was tiger woods. Will never play like that, but it is good to be reminded every now and again about what genius looks like. Malcolm gladwell. [laughter] and my question is, who is more shameless, before writing that or you for putting it on your boat . [laughter] i just stop them from putting it in there. Theyre wearing it out. It was kind of you to say it. We both know it is not completely true. But there is a place for hyperbole, and i believe it is the back jacket of books. [laughter] i have a theory, a grand unified Michael Lewis theory, and vestar we would thought start there. And i am i would like to see whether you get this theory, so im going to give you an opportunity to answer. You will see. In the example the theory is a you are principally a moralist. In fact, i believe you are americas leading nonfiction novelist. What do you mean by that . Well, you are someone who exploits deeply moral themes, and it is proof, i would like to point out, that in five of your best selling books are essentially biblical allegory. Starting with want to see if you can guess the biblical allegories. Its very funny you are saying this. It was not the bible. This get it out there. Okay. The biblical story. [laughter] daniel and the lions den. You are danielle. You defended the lions den. Large beasts to you hold as they. Right. Okay. [laughter] money ball. Money ball is the easy one. Money ball is david and goliath cuts a lot of them are david and goliath. Thats not true. [laughter] the plan side is that a good samaritan. It is the same thing. Right . It is short. No, it is not. [laughter] only one of each kind in my story. What do these guys do . They take refuge against the coming storm by building themselves what, and arc, a financial art. Perfect. [laughter] so the flash boyce is. The most perfect biblical allegory of all. Which one is it . Do you know . It is jesus and the money to att of jesus and the money changers in the temple my Fathers House is a place of prayer but you have turned it into a den of thieves, jesus said. Flash boys. [applause] i was read your book. Where is the biblical epigraph. Whenever it is. Could not find it. The know what i want to know why i dont feel better understood. [laughter] it is okay. Wait, you are not disputing that there is a deeply moral center to all of your books . In this case it is more moralistic than many of the things i have written. That they are all moralistic. Probably partly right without wow filtering it through some sort of moral sense. On the surface more in this book. A lot of my characters dont feel that way about the world. In this case you have a canadian, such as yourself, who walks into the American Land and we find an appalling because he is canadian. And it is that he is so clearly not just appalled but such a course sense of right and wrong and what this going on is wrong and he is going to fix it. A little different. It is hard. Yes. Moral ambiguity. But i will grant that. You surely are not saying i find that same i just explained, i find that same moral center dennis in think of all of your think of your characters in those five books. They are all in some way in opposition to the world around them. Yes. Absolutely true. They all have a moral position on the world around them x what is the libyans moral position . We will get to that in a moment. [laughter] he has a moral position. That is that money ball was an argument about privilege, right, on what level on one level . I think of it as a book about value and about how i think he it is a book about how difficult the market has placing a value on human beings. He could not have given a rats about things like that. He thought of it as a book about war. But it was he was not thinking really right and wrong and immoral way. He was thinking right and wrong like my math is better than your math. But you dont think that there is a moral dimension to someone who says, we have fundamentally misunderstood peoples true value in the world . I say that, he doesnt. But he did not read the book. Thats true. [laughter] you know, i think it is true that i dont think it makes me unusual as a writer. No. It is true. Lets say the type the words out in the first place. Something is wrong or the world misperceive something. Yet you have a sense of humor and 95 a view of the fence that feel, at least to you and erroneous. Some moral concern. I think that is i am not sure i am more this way than other people. You think i am . But i want to point out to go back to your characters again, i think there it if you list them, brad, whenever his last name was. Even more retailer, they all have there is a Common Thread that runs through them, dont you think . Some well what i said before is theyre all in opposition with the world around them. They are everyone has a moral position even by default. He is someone who goes into finance after he abandons medicine because he realizes, as he said to my care about people but not really. And it is so in different toward fellow human beings that he takes refuge in numbers. I guess that is a moral position, but it is not what most would think of as a moralistic character. With the point is, i felt when i read that that was so moving about it, i felt michael story to be very moving. Me, to. I found it moving because you did. Thats true. Can i interrupt you for a second track and try to find some choose to what you just said. [laughter] i am doing my best year. It is true i have no interest in writing a book unless i feel something. At the bottom of all of it is emotion, absolutely true. I write about often very dry things, baseball statistics, sub prime mortgage crisis, highfrequency trading, who cares. If you had told me that all i knew was that the stock market was reagan here is how it is rate and if you can you explain to the world how it is reagan no one else knows, i think people will have an interest. I dont care that much. I dont care enough to sit down and write about it. What i cared about is that there is character who walks into this world, discovers it is raked him and how he behaves with what he has an understanding of. No question about it. That engages my emotion. That is what caused me to this story. I have to feel something. And it is true. I would also say it is true. I was sitting there watching i realized this when i had my 7yearold on my lap to and i was watching 60 minutes about the story two sundays ago. And i realize that i was crying. I had tears i was crying because i could see the character, they guy ive read about on the screen displayed clearly worried and found that character moving. It is being moved by things. They did not need to put effort into this. Were you more moved by his character than some of your previous euros . I find all of a kind of moving. He was i like brave people. And a lot of my characters are brave. If he is i will say this, what he has done is particularly brave. He has brought the wrath of the gods. He has gone to war with his own industry. In a way he did none until the book came out. He was forced into that position by the book. He went to war all by themselves. And i find him as a character because he is not, by nature, a troublemaker. By nature someone who goes out of his way to antagonize i find him i find that he was forced by circumstances to make choices that were really almost a natural to him to step outside something which he was quite comfortable with in response to the more reaction. He was almost forced into the oval. Was forced into the role he ba so bravely. I had a strange feeling that i had read this book. What is this reminding me of here you have this character who had unleashed, it triggered sitting in the middle of this great war between people with money to invest in people who were just families with money. It a war that none of them really wanted in some way but now was happening in the middle. The short and one very short. He is in some way theyre reluctant middle man, a reluctant participant. He is front of from lord of the ranks. I think of him as for go. You know, he has that type of situation. I find his bravery what does this say about the difference between you and me and i am immediately drawn to the most dramatic story in the new testament and you think of lord of the rings . You were raised with religion. I have much grander aspirations for your imagination than you do. [laughter] i think it was pretty terrific. And it does not read pretty well, but i read the first time i think of him anyway. What all these people have in common . Troublemakers in the environment that disrupted. All of it is useful in describing the environment. It all characters and situations. Beyond that what is it about you that is drawn to that specific profile . We have done this before. Six people in the barnes and noble in a new york when the blind side came out. You were perplexed that all of my book seems to be the work of someone who has a radical hostility. Could not understand i had a rich parents to raise by so where did this hidden arousal come from . Thats basically your question. [laughter] and that dont know if i answered you properly. If i i dont know if theyre is a good answer. Some are partly im wired. I dont look the way that i am wired, but i do think that it helps me as a writer that i grew up in a world that i loved. I grew up in your lungs. Outside of american culture. Clearly hostile to it. Was not going to survive american culture. A lot of the things i value in that world or crumble before my eyes. I could see that my fathers way of life was unsustainable, for example. I think that probably helped. What do you mean by that . Knew what was unsustainable . It was unsustainable not to care very much what you did for a living. Your status. It was not a success company. It really 35 people were largely indifferent to what other people did to make a living. Much more focused on family relationships. And there was kind of an ironic twist, an ironic strain in life that caught my attention. A gift for creating wonderful moments. There was a natural gas about it. It was a successful place. You could see that the things they love the were not sustainable. The question success, something that is very deep and emotional, you see it is by the standard of the world a failure. So that is probably something to do with al qaeda versus object. The answer to the question may be and just as it actually basically lazy and it is much easier to read a story about a deceptive person in an environment that is to be the kind of thing you do. We actually have to think through the idea very thoroughly. Walking from beginning to end. We have had this conversation before. So to tie these two things together, i kid you not, when i was growing out passed down from generation to generation was this cannot do as little as possible and not unwilling of and that not willingly. [laughter] before it is better to receive a slight reprimand than to perform an arduous task. [laughter] and i thought that was serious. I thought that made total sense. I dont look for trouble. I look for things i can do without too much trouble. You are insanely prolific. It. It is not hard. [laughter] that does not make me feel better. Once i find a story editor gauges me to my character, a situation that gauges me its very easy. And me, i have to spend time with them. Which other people might think onerous. It if the situation in the character is right, the rest of it just takes care of itself. Maybe for me given by maybe its just what i am doing is following the path of least resistance. Which of your books was the hardest . To write . Probably and its a good way to judge them. The have to have a degree of difficulty as well as execution. And the degree of difficulty was high. At a character in. The zero. Of the character, incredibly uncomfortable but he does not diminish so he never gives you a place to rest. And it is the pressure of Silicon Valley embody a person. That is hard to its very hard. He does not form attachment. So that was probably the hardest. This one had these Technical Details that were different. It is basically impossible to describe or collateralized debt obligation. No matter what you do, the best that you hope for is that you fool people into thinking their understanding. When you put the book down, i passed out. They get to people they understood. They dont understand. So you have to give up with some things. And so that was true in this case. I just felt the reader would not want anymore. But the i find the hard part of these things is structure. It is current of like the way to tell a story. You just kind of almost have it right itself. And by the way, which was the easiest . I was so vastly amused by myself. [laughter] i am told this is true. My wife tells me. I listen to music and listen to the same song over and over. I wrote an entire chapter of the book. Let it go i felt like an insane person. I walked the world. Thank get so used to it. He tells me that im a joke. And i and with a lot of stuff, ive never written a book. Very few magazines. Och it did not occurred to me to have that here in anxiety. Do you have any fear or anxiety . Of course. What are they . [laughter] maybe not as much as some, but disapproval of others. It is not nice to get bad reviews. Beyond that, and my literary life purge we have allowed time. Could you come up with something . Probably not you must be this way, too. Insecurity and beneath layers and layers. The battle is tough. Im not really that worried. I dont worry it will be like that. If i work hard enough at it it will be fine. It usually comes very easy. Tied dont it is problematic. Six bidders are supposed to be tortured and miserable and poor. I am very happy. A more or less while adjusted. Plenty rich. And you know, at peace with the mark around me more and more. Sorry i cant give you what you need here. [laughter] i find this to be refreshing. [laughter] our mutual friend told me the key to understanding human is that the commencement address you gave it princeton a couple of years ago which i read this afternoon. From the pulpit in the church. Ed can you describe a little bit of what that commencement address was about and then, do you agree that there is something do you agree that it encapsulates Something Real about the way you see the world . Yes. You have 12 minutes to address these undergraduates and not bore him. It was kind of fun. Princeton is such a small world. I realized that this address that i gave and have been given since 1798, and every plaskett said. So i have to have gotten it when i was grinning princeton and i dont even robber it being made, the event much less the speaker and what he said. So are started by saying that, you know, i must of sat there in these pews and looked at some old guy tell you something that i dont even remember being here. So you will remember this. It turns out, the guy who gave the speech when i was [laughter] says he was in the audience. He had a grandchild graduating. And i got this nice note from a lady a few days later saying, my husband, charlie was there. He thought it was funny that you did not remember what he said. [laughter] would you like to come to dinner. We have actually become friends. But the theme of the speech was the role of the walking live. And the people in the audience probably even more so than when i was graduating from princeton think of themselves as passing through this aristocratic filters, gun and to the reporting school, got the right trades, deserved to be there. I have no illusion. I did not think i deserve to be there. But because they were programmed the way they were programmed i thought it was important to tell them how much luck was involved in them being there and how much luck would be involved in whatever happened afterwards and that it was not just enough to appreciate that lark, but they noted that to the anarchy. In a way where i was doing was smuggling in the idea i grew up with. It is one of those ways to address the inequality in a society so that the people who are the lead think a little bit about their responsibility to the people who were not rather than just coast of a factor perry lead. Part of the average of the story of the spoke years the lead of are doing the opposite. They are, instead of taking a kind of responsibility for society. [applause] it is good to get to know the audience, isnt it . Trying to to find out which were there will draft. The and it was true that this team tied into some of my books. I mentioned the money paul. Part of that is the oakland as figuring out how much luck errors of a baseball career and trying to strip it out to get to the true value of the player and how hard that is to do. I was trying to bring them across to them. I am sure they have forgotten it already. Yes. Web do you think that idea, aside from money ball has that idea to go back the to my argument about moral themes in your work, there is a constant engagement with this idea of privilege about institutions that have become corrupted. I guess when you put it that way its true. Money ball when you think about the privilege, its the club, the old baseball stuff. But more than that it is also about the arrogance of the rich, the way that arrogance has blinded the wealthy. The other half of the puzzle and this, sort of about how the new york yankees of the world had been misled by their riches. Whats more than that argument . We are guard to spend a soaker recession you proving the point you made. No. I dont want to belabor the fact some. I caved pr absolutely right. It is not amount to five about me making some ridiculous argument. God knows i do that enough. But i am going to leave it. Years ago the other thing i sent was that to me i felt that the book was titled, you titled it, you made it sound like it was a book about football, and it wasnt. It was a book about charity, a book about lee and to lead. I think the book is about all of the forces that affect the value of this child. And how the outcomes of this childs life. That is what it is. It all comes back. The questioners what is this book about, how does this boy go from being the least value human being on the planet, and homeless, and littered kit heating of a garbage can to four years later being among the most highly prized 18 yearold on the planet. One of those forces his things that happened in football strategy to elevate the value of what he so peculiar could do so well. The other was the mother video of a sudden have. It all fit together little bit your right. It was not just about football. Parks are say that, by the way, that is the only i think that the book is perfect. There is not a single word out of place. I love all of your books, but that is, to me, it will still be read 50 years from now. In. It was hardly read at the time. [laughter] craigslist not true. Are, yes, you find when you write a book about football that people like football dont like to read. [applause] [laughter] anyway, we wont dwell. But that was my frustration. There were written people would think it was a football book. And the few people few people who d