Against The Rules With Michael Lewis

In which several people, including Rebecca Solnit, Katty Kay, and Maria Konnikova, help Michael understand the not-so-secret power of men to offer themselves up as experts, when they clearly are not. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s one kind of expert whose role is enshrined in law: that of the expert witness, who’s called on to bolster one side of a case. But courtrooms are not great places for nuance. Overconfident expert testimony has been linked to countless wrongful convictions, especially in gang-related cases. Michael speaks with a new kind of expert witness: former gang members who struggle to counteract the testimony of police.If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Experts know more now than ever before. And we’re more critical of them than ever before, too. But one kind of expert really gets us riled up: the type who deals in probabilities. We hear from meteorologists, political forecasters, and even nurses about why calculating the odds is so hard, and why we all suffer the deadly consequences as a result.If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The right kind of expert, at the right time, can change everything. While working as a security guard at a pork-and-beans cannery in Kansas, Bill James started writing about baseball. But writing about it through the poetry of statistical analysis. It took a long time, but James's way of looking at the game changed more than just baseball.If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Athenahealth was just another healthcare provider facing the biggest problem US doctors face: not treating patients, but getting insurance companies to pay their bills. But then the company figured out how to fix the problem, by recognizing an overlooked expert toiling in the hospital basement.If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why can’t we see the experts right in front of us, even when they're saving our lives? Maybe it's because the specialized knowledge of many experts defies good storytelling. We hear from a nonprofit trying to elevate the esoteric work of government experts, and we hear from one of their nominees. His work has changed the survival prospects for many lost at sea, but even those survivors have never heard his name.If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In “Against the Rules,” journalist and bestselling author Michael Lewis takes a searing look at what’s happened to fairness—in financial markets, newsrooms, basketball games, courts of law, and much more. In Season 3, Michael tackles America’s expert problem. Why is it so hard to figure out who the real experts are? And why, once we’ve found them, are they so rarely the people calling the shots?If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After the surprise success of Liar’s Poker, publishers urged Michael Lewis to try his hand at fiction. It was a bad idea. But even award-winning fiction authors have struggled with failure. Michael speaks with Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders about the urge to imitate other writers, and what we all can learn from bad first drafts. We also hear why Saunders was identified early as a gifted student, while Michael Lewis was – emphatically – not.You can order the new Liar’s Poker audiobook at Pushkin.fm/LiarsPoker. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Lewis did not rest long on his laurels after publishing Liar’s Poker. In the 1990s, he hit the presidential campaign trail, writing a series of magazine pieces. Some of his dispatches got adapted for audio by a then-new public radio show called “This American Life.” Michael speaks with the show’s creator, Ira Glass, about how they both found their voices as storytellers. Trigger warning: this episode contains vintage NPR sounds.You can order the new Liar’s Poker audiobook at Pushkin.fm/LiarsPoker. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Liar’s Poker is set on a Wall Street where women were the last hired and first fired — and that was probably the least of their worries. Is Wall Street today any better for women? Michael speaks with Anne Clarke Wolff, who was in the training class at Salomon Brothers a few years after him. She is starting an investment bank that will be majority owned and managed by women and minorities. The firm’s nickname? “Salomon Sisters.”You can order the new Liar’s Poker audiobook at Pushkin.fm/LiarsPoker. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Liar’s Poker describes many of the mentors Michael Lewis had at the investment bank Salomon Brothers. He chose to keep some of their identities secret, out of a well-founded fear that the book might cost them their cushy Wall Street jobs. Now for the first time, we get to hear their side of the story and learn their names.You can order the new Liar’s Poker audiobook at Pushkin.fm/LiarsPoker. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the first time in more than 30 years, Michael Lewis has re-read Liar’s Poker. That experience brought up a lot of questions — especially, why is a book set in the pre-Internet Wall Street of the 1980s still relevant today? So Michael turned to Jacob Goldstein, finance reporter and host of the Pushkin show "What’s Your Problem?". They discuss how Liar’s Poker foreshadowed the ups and downs of the world we live in now.You can listen to Jacob Goldstein’s new show “What’s Your Problem?” here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whats-your-problem/id1602541473And you can order the new Liar’s Poker audiobook here: https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobook/liars-poker Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Lewis published his first book, Liar's Poker, in 1989. It’s about his time as a bond salesman on Wall Street — and it was a runaway best seller. Pushkin Industries is re-releasing it for the first time as an unabridged audiobook, read by the author. And to celebrate, Lewis has made a special mini-series about the book. Over the course of five weeks, he'll revisit people he worked with, explore how he found his voice as a writer, and ask why Wall Street firms still assign the book to their interns today.You can order Liar’s Poker audiobook at Pushkin.fm/LiarsPoker. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks interviews Michael Lewis about his new book “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story.” They also discuss how Michael started his writing career and why growing up in New Orleans made him a better storyteller. This conversation was recorded as part of the Live Talks Los Angeles series and posted May 19, 2021. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this special bonus episode of Against the Rules, Michael Lewis reads a chapter from his new book about the pandemic, The Premonition —available now wherever books are sold. This episode includes the voice of Charity Dean, former Assistant Director of the California Department of Public Health and one of the medical visionaries featured in the book. And stay around for an exclusive author interview.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can everyone be coached — or are some people beyond help?The transformative power of coaching is put to the test as Michael enlists a coach to help him tackle his greatest fear. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back when coaching didn’t do very much, it didn’t matter who got it and who didn’t. But coaching is clearly getting better and better, and spreading into more areas of life, which means it matters a great deal who gets it and who does not. And the people who don’t get it are often the ones who need it most. A professor attempts to teach the art of landing a joke to America’s next generation of business leaders, but will she tip the scales of privilege even more along the way? We see the other darker side of data coaching in sports, when the weaponization of information enables a cheating scandal that puts an end to a promising pitching career.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We explore the quantitative, scientific, and data-driven new frontier of coaching.  Major League baseball is undergoing a coaching revolution from old-school to new tech. We talk to players whose careers were turned around not by a charismatic coach, but by data, and the techies who coach them. We see how data coaching is creeping into the workspace with a computerized conversation coach that has pinned the successful sales pitch down to a science.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colleges today talk a big game about valuing diversity — so why are so many of them failing to retain first-generation students? We meet a homeless straight-A track star and her ad-hoc college application coach to look at why it’s so hard to get into college while rural, poor, and uncoached. We go deep with coaches and students at a non-profit called ScholarMatch, founded by novelist David Eggers, to find out just what it can take to get first-generation college students over the graduation finish line. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just about anyone today can call themselves a coach. Michael traces this trend back to its source and finds out that the secret to effective coaching lies not in retraining the body, but the mind. We meet the original guru of “the inner game”: Timothy Gallwey, author of the 1974 classic, “The Inner Game of Tennis.” We find out how mental skills coaches only need one coaching toolkit to work with everyone from New York City firefighters, youth softball players, professional musicians, and even writers with a podcast. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.