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I wake up and there's an email in my inbox from federal inmate number 1 2 3 4 5 6, Bernie Madoff.
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And thus began months of correspondence with him, where I sort of had to win his trust, went down to North Carolina and spent these couple hours with him.
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He started [music] telling us his story.
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And after what felt like an hour, we're like, wait, [music] he's spinning us.
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We had to snap out of it, and then we had this remarkable conversation.
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That was the one that was like, oh, here we go.
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>> Welcome to this week's episode of Infinite Loops.
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>> [music] >> I am Jimmy Soni.
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I'm the editor-in-chief of Infinite Books, and I am filling in for Jim O'Shaughnessy.
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This week's guest is the New York Times climate reporter David Gelles.
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He's the author of multiple books, including most recently Dirtbag Billionaire.
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[music] Please enjoy this conversation with David Gelles.
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I am here with one of my favorite people, David Gelles.
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Thank you for coming on Infinite Loops. >> Thanks for having me. >> Yeah.
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Um >> [music] >> So, you've done a lot of different kinds of work, uh but you are principally a reporter at The New York Times, as well as an author of three wonderful books.
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We're going to talk about them today.
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Um but I want to kind of like turn back the clock a bit and start with like, how did you like, how did How did it become clear to you that you wanted to be in the world of words?
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Like, this is a very specific kind of world that attracts a certain certain person with a particular kind of neuroses.
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Like, how did this become your path?
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>> We have to go all the way back. >> All the way back.
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Rewind it all the way back. >> All the way back.
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I mean, we're talking about middle school, high school here.
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And I remember the first teacher I had who sort of like lit me up with a book. And I remember her name.
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I remember the >> What's her name? What's her name? Make her famous.
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>> Her name was Lori Shansis.
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I've even been in touch with her sometime in the last 10 or 15 years.
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Uh and she was the English teacher at Maybeck High School and I must have been a sophomore.
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I remember the I remember the room this class happened in. >> Oh, wow.
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>> And I remember the book and it was Crime and Punishment. >> Oh, wow.
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>> And it was >> That is heavy stuff for a uh >> It was a great weird high school I went to and she was an incredible teacher and she was the one that like made me love the word and what it could do.
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And so that was that was my entry into being a deep reader and lover of words. >> Yeah. >> Um and also a writer.
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You know, she pushed us to write and I didn't have any illusions as a sophomore and a junior at college in high school that I would somehow be a writer one day.
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But I at least it like got the wheels moving.
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It sort of got the gears turning and that's I mean it's vivid.
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You know, I remember when it began and that was then. >> That's amazing.
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>> And did you dabble as a student in like newspaper >> Not at all. >> Not at all. >> Not at all. Not until college.
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Um so I went to Boston University and while at Boston University they had actually a great student newspaper there, the Free Press.
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But I think yeah, Boston University Free Press, I think that's right.
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And I had nothing to do with it.
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Never wrote for it once, didn't try, was oblivious and uninterested.
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I did however work for what was known as the Student Underground, which was like uh the anarchist newspaper on campus.
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>> [laughter] >> And in a very formative trip, I I think I was a soph- yeah, must have been as a sophomore, I went on a Students Against Sweatshops junket of sorts to Nicaragua during spring break >> Yeah.
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>> and reported on maquiladora factories and lived with sweatshop workers in really brutal conditions in Nicaragua and saw some like really tough stuff and came back and wrote about it for the Student Underground, our like radical newspaper at the time, and I'm sure the copy was terrible.
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I had no idea what I was doing, but it was my first real experience reporting, and it made an impact. >> That's amazing.
4:02
Take Take me back even before this.
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Were you an avid reader as a kid?
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Like what what was your reading life like when you were younger?
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>> I can't say I was an avid reader.
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My kids, who are 10 and 12 right now, are truly avid readers.
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I mean, they read for like 4 to 7 hours a day. >> Wow.
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>> to like We beg them to stop reading in order to like brush their teeth.
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They're sort of like freaks about it.
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Um so, I was nothing close to that at that point.
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They have literally, I'm thinking, I mean, they've probably read more books already in their lives than I have in the last many years.
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>> Hold on, we have to go down the tangent.
4:39
Like this is This doesn't happen by accident. I mean, >> It doesn't.
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And we'll get We'll get to the parenting section later. >> Yeah.
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>> But no, I was not an avid reader.
4:45
But I did grow up in a family or well, in two homes because my parents were split, where there was a lot of writing and reading around.
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So, again, I wasn't an avid reader like my kids are, but I was always exposed to words.
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Both my parents were writers themselves.
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Both Well, my mother has written several books.
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My dad was a dance and music critic, including for the New York Times.
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>> Um so, >> So, you inherited the family business? >> Sort of. >> Yeah.
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>> Well, that's the Sulzbergers. >> That's true. Fair enough.
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>> Uh but yeah, when I actually go into the New York Times CMS and enter my byline, my father's name comes up, too, as a suggestion. >> That's cool. >> Yeah.
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Um so, I was always around words. >> Yeah.
5:29
When I was younger, they were like they were really young.
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Not when I was reading like serious books, you know, but when I was young and just sort of fooling around, it was For me, it was Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, the Encyclopedia Brown series, which I would just tear through, and then the Mossflower and Mattimeo series by Brian Jacques.
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And I would like I had this experience of like the librarian knew I liked that series so much that when the new copies came in, she would hold them back from other kids and secretly give them to me, right?
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And I And that's when I knew that reading could be totally engrossing.
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Did you have those books for yourself?
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Like at a very young age? >> at a very young age. I'm trying to remember.
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I mean, Hatchet is there.
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And in fact, I was literally we were looking at Hatchet in my apartment last night with my kids because they have read it at this point.
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Where the Red Fern Grows, All Quiet on the Western Front was the first one that I remember even before Crime and Punishment sort of like pushing me as a reader and a thinker.
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I mean, I had blown through all the Hardy Boys.
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I'd written all sort of the kid read all the kids lit and the Choose Your Own Adventure, whatever it might have been that was age appropriate at the time.
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But I think the first real memories as a reader I guess I remember the Lord of the Rings >> trilogy, reading that with my father.
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But we didn't have Harry Potter at the time, right?
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So, I'm just trying to think back to those immersive worlds.
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And the one the one that really even before Crime and Punishment gives me that visceral sense of being lost was All Quiet.
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And then and then fast forward a little bit just after Crime and Punishment, it was Moby Dick. >> Oh, wow.
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>> And I I >> Man, you were really reading some serious stuff in high school.
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This is These are the big leagues, you know.
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>> Well, I think >> They're doctoral dissertations.
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You know, the the shelves groan under the weight of them for both those books.
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>> And on on the Moby Dick front, I had a a really unique edition of the book that was the paperback produced by a printing press called Ariam Press in San Francisco.
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Great printing press run by a family friend.
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But the thing is like this big.
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I mean, it's about a it's about a probably a 6-lb book.
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And I took it backpacking through Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize for 3 weeks and everyone thought I was a crazy person because I had this tome that I was like trekking around next to like my folded up underwear and stuff like bags.
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But that was another one, right?
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I think so for me the experience is going like really deep in these worlds rather than like burning through books at a fast clip. Yeah.
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>> Did you you know there was I I wrote columns for the student newspaper and I remember that at one point a friend of mine was asking like why do this?
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Like you're not compensated for it and I said because because it's more thrilling for me to see how people react to that than it is to do my homework.
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Like I'll put more time into a column that's 750 words for a handful of Duke students than I will into like a serious paper that's determining, you know, a grade in a class.
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Did you have a similar experience writing for the the underground newspaper?
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>> I think that at that point that was sort of a one-off and in truth I probably took the assignment to justify the trip.
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Again, I wasn't serious about reporting at the time.
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Didn't quite know what I was doing.
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The what you're describing though kicked in for me in my early 20s.
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So a few years after college, I was living in Washington D. C.
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Uh it was my first real job out of college.
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I was designing museum exhibitions in Washington D. C.
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And I sort [snorts] of got the journalism bug and I started freelancing for really small community newspapers.
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I am not talking about the Washington City Paper.
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I I remember cold emailing pitching the city paper and they sort of laughed me out of the building.
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They said like go home kid, you don't know what you're doing.
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You don't have any clips.
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And so I was writing for like true community community newspapers.
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Yeah, it was called the Hill Rag cuz I lived on Capitol Hill and Voice of the Hill.
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And I mean I think we're talking like circulation 2,000.
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These were pamphlets that they would hand out to sort of support local advertising.
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But those that was where I had that experience of oh, I'm doing this because I can't help but do it.
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And that was a signal to me that I should probably be doing this full-time.
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>> Did you How long did you do that?
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That's like a that a very particular kind of >> Probably a year and a half, 2 years.
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And and I you know, it wasn't a full-time job.
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I had my day job, but I was you know, I was leaving work early to go report on things in the neighborhood. >> Wow.
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>> Because I had the bug.
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And then that during that time I applied to graduate school and went to Berkeley J-School. Started in 2006. >> Got it. Okay.
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Did you Do you remember like the first time you saw your name in print?
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Like is that a moment that that you can think back on?
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>> I mean it would have been those early ones as student underground and then the Voice of the Hill, those kind of ones.
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And I mean sure, but I don't think it gave me that rush.
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The one that gave me the rush came 5 weeks into J-School when literally 5 weeks after starting graduate school at Berkeley, I had a story on the front page of the New York Times.
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And that was that was the one that was like, oh, here we go.
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And that gave me the full sort of adrenaline rush of breaking big news and understanding what it meant to sort of set the agenda on a big story.
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>> So let's give listeners context for that story and for the path that led you to it.
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So tell us about the story and how you how you managed to find your on the front page of the Times.
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>> Literally, I remember showing up 5 weeks before this all happened, my editor my instructor a woman named Lydia Chavez pulled me aside and she sort of had to explain to me what a lead was.
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I mean like I didn't know.
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I'd never heard of the inverted pyramid.
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I didn't know what a nut graph was. I was pretty green.
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And nevertheless, like she took a chance on me and just like we'll turn you into a reporter.
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So fast forward a few weeks, it is October of 2006. >> Yeah.
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>> Um I'm in Berkeley, California. I'm up late at night.
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YouTube has just come out.
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It's like a YouTube's a thing for the first time.
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Hasn't even been acquired by Google yet.
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That would happen like a month or so later.
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Uh and I'm surfing YouTube just like in the scroll for the first time.
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Like letting the algorithm serve me videos as we all still do today in ways that have yet I think evolved past what we could have imagined at the time.
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And I I remember the sequence.
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I remember it was like Mavericks, the big wave surfing competition was going off.
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So there were like videos of big wave surfers.
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I was like, "Well, that's cool."
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And I'm a guy, so it was like, "That's cool."
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And then there was a video of a big wave with a helicopter in the background like filming.
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I was like, "Oh, that's cool." Clicked on that.
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And then there was a military helicopter.
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And I'm a guy, so I'm like, "All right, military helicopter." Click.
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Like Top Gun's my favorite movie. Click.
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And then it went to fighter jets. And I was like, "Click."
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And then all of a sudden there was a Al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgent video showing American soldiers getting IED'd and sniped set to jihadist music. >> Wow.
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>> And I sobered up really quickly cuz I was probably, you know, a little high. I was in Berkeley.
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>> I sobered [laughter] up really quickly. >> Yeah.
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>> And my news radar went off.
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And I was like, "What am I looking at?" >> Yeah.
13:00
>> And it was just what I said.
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It was a and and from that the algorithm started suggesting more and more.
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And I instinctively that night, it's late at night, started cataloging them. >> Wow.
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>> I started copying URLs.
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I started a spreadsheet and I was like, "I'm going to keep track of all this."
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And I stayed up all night and I found hundreds over the course of the night.
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I had the usernames of who was uploading them.
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I ran to Berkeley J-School the next morning.
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I went to Lydia Chavez, who used to be a bureau chief at the New York Times. >> Wow.
13:32
>> And I said, I think I have a real story.
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Like, I think this is not a journalism school story.
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I think this is like a proper story, a real real story.
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And she said, "Oh my gosh, yes."
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Fortuitously, another student in my class, in my little cohort of like 12 students, was a man named Omar Fekeiki.
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Omar had arrived in the United States just 5 weeks earlier for the first time after having been a fixer for the Washington Post in Baghdad. >> Wow. >> an Iraqi national.
13:58
We showed all this to him.
13:58
He's like, "This is exactly what this is.
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These are the recruiting videos.
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They sell them at roadside stands on DVDs.
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The Marines or the Army guys probably bought them, brought them home."
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I then contacted one of the kids who had uploaded him.
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He was some kid in Minnesota who had like found it, uploaded it.
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And we reported this whole story.
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Lydia calls the national desk of the New York Times.
14:22
She explains what we have here.
14:24
They pair us with another Times reporter, who essentially re-reports all of our work.
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And the story goes on the front page. >> Wow. Wow.
14:32
That's an That's an unbelievable story. >> a wild story.
14:36
And that night, that was still I mean, the Times can still set the agenda in a big way, but if you think back to This is literally 20 years ago. >> Yeah.
14:44
>> At that moment, you know, whatever led the Times often led the national news television broadcast.
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I remember turning on CNN that night, and I forget if it was Anderson Cooper or whoever it was, was leading with it.
14:55
And you turn on CBS, and they were leading with it.
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And it was a moment that sort of set the agenda for that moment.
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And it was this confluence of the war and tech and Google and YouTube. And that was my signal.
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That was the story where I was like, "Oh, that It feels good to have my name in print on a story like that." >> Right.
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How do you I mean, that's I I so many questions.
15:20
It What You're You're a student at that point, right? Of the craft.
15:25
And so, are you How do you deal with I mean, how does How does a regular homework compare to to brand to doing that story?
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>> I don't remember doing homework in J-school, but I because I really just considered myself a freelancer.
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This is the advice I still give students is like just do as much real work as you can.
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And so, while when I got to J-school start, you know, I The Times was the big one, but I was freelancing for anyone who would take me.
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And I you know, it was $50 a story, 200 bucks a story, whatever I could get.
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I wrote for magazines, I wrote for small business journals, I wrote for like the Berkeley Daily Planet about trees getting cut down.
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I was like, whatever practical experience I can get, I'm going to get it.
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And so, that I That's how I got through those couple years.
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In the immediate aftermath of that story, you know, it's sort of like you got up to bat and you hit a home run your first time out.
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How did you What did you What was your follow-up after?
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How did you stick with it?
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Did you stick with that particular story?
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>> No, there was no follow-ups.
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I mean, I did I probably have homework and other assignments, but I did try to maintain a relationship with The Times and I did keep freelancing.
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So, in the you know, during my years at J-school, I subsequently wrote for the House and Home section when it was still going, for the magazine, for the sports section.
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I sort of like tried to be a as good of a freelancer as I could.
16:44
And then I applied for the New York Times internship in 2007, uh figuring that with a page-one byline you get gone most emailed, I probably had some good shots.
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I got back a form letter from Sheila Rule that said, "Thank you for your application.
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We're going in a different direction." >> Yeah.
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>> I still have that form letter framed on my desk. >> Yeah, obviously.
17:06
I mean, that's when you got to keep That's like That's amazing.
17:10
So, you get out of J-school and what happens after that career-wise?
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>> Um Get out of J-school.
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I begin I I decided to focus on business reporting while I was in J school.
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No one else in my class was interested in it.
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I found it very interesting.
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Um, I figured if it was about people, not numbers, then there were going to be great stories there.
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Um, and I sort of had the field to myself.
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Uh, so I did my first summer internship at Forbes magazine and wrote like real for I did like real Forbes stories and also like Forbes lists.
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And then, uh, did my second year at Berkeley J school because it was a two-year program, studied long-form magazine writing at the time, which was great experience to sort of learn a narrative craft.
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And then, graduated, um, went to the Miami Herald, joined the business desk, and was in Miami for the fall of 2008 for the presidential election.
18:01
So, I was doing like small business coverage, but also helping with the election coverage, which is incredible weird thing to be a part of.
18:08
Um, and also just like a sort of a last glimpse of a real big daily metro newsroom operating.
18:14
Uh, so that was wonderful.
18:18
And then very quickly, like by December of 2008, had accepted a job in San Francisco with the Financial Times.
18:25
Initially as I think I was a digital media correspondent, which meant I was supposed to be like doing video and audio stuff.
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Which I had no idea how to do, but I sort of bluffed my way in.
18:36
They I got there, they realized I didn't know what I was doing.
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They're like, "Well, what can you do?"
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And I was like, "I can write stories."
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And they said, "Well, no one's covering these things called Twitter and Facebook.
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Why don't you be the social media guy?"
18:46
So, I started covering social media for the FT in December of 2008.
18:54
Which was again, like good timing. Good timing. Yeah.
18:56
So, fast forward, you you know, I have to ask about it and then we'll get back to books, but you you interviewed Bernie Madoff in jail.
19:05
Uh, how tell us the run-up to that and how all that happened.
19:08
So, that's like year three of your career with with the FT.
19:12
>> Yeah, that's probably year three. So, it's 2011.
19:16
Um I remember it was the story though begins my very first week at the FT.
19:26
So, in late 2008 >> Yeah.
19:29
>> Bernie Madoff gets arrested. >> Yeah.
19:31
>> And when that happens, I'm in the financial newsroom in London. >> Yeah.
19:37
>> And everyone's watching the TV and they're like, "Oh my gosh, like what is the story? What's happening?" >> Right.
19:42
>> As it's all going down, I'm like literally in my orientation, I get a text from someone I'm close to who says, "You'll never believe who so-and-so's uncle is. It's Bernie Madoff."
19:55
Which is to say, like I had a personal connection >> Yeah.
19:58
>> a couple steps removed to the family. >> Right.
20:01
>> And on instinct and with no grounding in like credibility, >> Yeah.
20:07
>> I said, "Tell them to send him the message that if he ever talks to a reporter, he has to talk to me."
20:15
>> [laughter] >> That's audacious.
20:17
>> That that is audacious. That's quite bold. >> Nothing happened. >> Right.
20:23
>> Fast forward two years. I wake up one morning.
20:25
I was still in San Francisco at the time. >> Yes.
20:28
>> Uh and I get an email. So, it's 2010 now.
20:31
And I wake up and there's an email in my inbox from Butner Correctional Facility Federal Inmate Number 123456 Bernard L. Madoff. >> Oh, yeah.
20:43
>> And he had sent me an email. >> Wow.
20:46
>> And thus began months of correspondence with him.
20:51
Where I sort of had to win his trust without compromising myself as a reporter or uh seeding to his wishes as he asked me to sort of suss things out for him.
21:01
So, I very played this very delicate dance.
21:05
And after a couple attempts, the first of which was denied to go visit him, I finally got the okay.
21:10
And myself and Gillian Tett uh went down to North Carolina and spent these couple hours with him, where initially I think both of us were on our back feet because it was such a shock to meet him and he just started telling us his story.
21:25
And after what felt like an hour, but was probably really only 15 or 20 minutes, we sort of kicked each other under the table and like, wait, he's spinning us.
21:33
And we had to snap out of it and sort of go on offense.
21:37
And then we had this remarkable conversation. >> Wow.
21:41
What So, when you got that email from him, did you believe it?
21:44
Did you I mean >> Yeah, because it wasn't it wasn't without some basis, right?
21:50
I had put in this request as family and here were the results.
21:56
>> And then the correspondence before you meet him, is it just slice-of-life stuff?
22:00
And what are you what are you corresponding about?
22:02
>> He was asking me about how coverage of his case was being portrayed.
22:09
And he was asking me what I thought of other stories.
22:11
And so before I replied, I mean I I tried to be um not accommodating, but I tried to be conversational and not dismissive or um brusque because I wanted to win his trust.
22:24
Um but I also checked every word I sent with the lawyers at the Financial Times before I sent it.
22:33
>> [laughter] >> And so we tried to stay in bounds.
22:33
And I think, you know, we got there.
22:37
>> Yeah, did did that Did you ever find out why he didn't talk to another reporter? >> Well, he did.
22:42
Um so I was not the only one.
22:44
Before a few months before Gillian and I went in, Diana Henriques from the New York Times went in and had her interview with him, which was on the front page. So she scooped us.
22:55
It's great, but we got the second one.
22:58
>> We're still proud of it.
22:59
>> Yeah, fast follower is good on the Bernie Madoff's in prison interview especially I mean I don't know was 30 at the time so it was a coup.
23:07
>> So so at this time in your life are you thinking in book length form I mean one thing about being in news or journalism sort of surrounded by words and word people people are kind of like side hustling on books.
23:19
Did you have designs on writing books back then or was it really just kind of like cutting your teeth in journalism?
23:23
>> Maybe notionally but I was mostly focused on cutting my teeth I mean I came to a pretty late again it wasn't on the student newspaper so I was sort of just like trying to find my way in the profession >> [clears throat] >> but what happened was when I met the
23:36
woman who would become my agent Binky Urban who was legendary she was Gillian Tett's agent she was I agent of other friends and mentors of mine I met her at a party and she said one day you're going to have an idea for a book. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Call me first. >> Oh wow.
23:56
>> Uh >> This is like your version of the Madoff note just >> Not [laughter] far off.
24:00
And so fast forward a year or so right around the time I think I did the Madoff story I wrote a magazine article for the FT Weekend magazine about companies that were starting to offer meditation in the workplace and I emailed her that Monday and said hey did you see that story wonder if there's a book here she wrote right back and she said I saw it I agree let's go and that was my first book. >> became Mindful Work.
24:23
>> That became Mindful Work which is 11 years old now. >> Wow.
24:26
>> All right so take me back cuz this is you know at Infinite Books this is our stock and trade and we spend all this time obsessing about books and ideas it is one thing to go from like to do an article about companies that are out there that are embracing these practices to graduate that to a book so you've got the agent you've got a thread of an idea but there's still a lot of miles to go between that and this book.
24:46
So what it what was that like so and spare no detail right because we've got a lot of people listening who who actually are in this process or might be thinking about this process for themselves, how do you go from you said you you sent the email to her?
25:03
Do you have in your head that there was a book there?
25:04
Like or or was it really just a flyer?
25:05
You were like, let me try this out.
25:07
>> Oh, no, I think I thought there was a book.
25:08
And something like something the voice inside was like this is this is something you need to go do. >> Yeah.
25:16
>> I don't know that I knew the entirety of it, but probably in the reporting and this is I mean this is probably 13 years ago um because the book came out 11 years ago.
25:23
So took me about 4 years to get it done. So it's a long time ago.
25:25
But in the reporting for the magazine article, I think I realized that there was enough there was a lot more that I was not going to get in the article, which suggests to me like, all right, there's probably other characters, other chapters here.
25:39
And then I honestly don't remember a ton about the proposal um or how it was structured or what was in it.
25:47
But but it was definitely the case that I sort of used that magazine article as the peg, probably broadened it out.
25:54
Um and one thing that's unusual about mindful work, which I don't necessarily recommend, is that it's almost like three I almost inhabit three different voices in the book.
26:04
There's a narrative non-fiction sort of conventional reportorial voice.
26:08
There is a personal autobiographical voice which uh where I sort of tell my own story of my relationship with Buddhism and meditation and mindfulness.
26:18
And then there's almost, you know, at times like almost a meditation teacher voice that I inhabit where I sort of offer some loose instructions on how other people might do about go about these practices. Um That's madness.
26:37
>> [laughter] >> I don't recommend it at all.
26:38
Figuring out how to thread those together was really difficult.
26:42
And listen, I think we all make mistakes on any big project um and hopefully don't repeat them on our next project.
26:49
>> [snorts] >> Looking back, that is one of the things I think that makes Listen, I'm proud of the book.
26:53
It was the right book for me at the right time, but I think it was one of the things that was very made it a very difficult book to write in some ways for me.
27:02
And and if I'm being honest, probably also may have limited some of the reach or potential, right?
27:10
Because it was like, what kind of a book is this?
27:11
It was a little hard to say.
27:15
But that was the first book.
27:16
>> Yeah, did you enjoy doing it though?
27:16
I mean, really take us back.
27:18
Like what you sign the deal, right?
27:20
You Did you Did you have Did you find your kind of dream editor?
27:25
Like how did all that go down?
27:27
>> Yeah, so we went out and we had interest from a few different editors.
27:31
And then I vividly remember this.
27:33
We actually had like three different offers on the line and then Hurricane Sandy hit.
27:38
And then the entire book publishing industry essentially shut down for like 6 weeks.
27:44
And when everyone came back, we had one offer, which was great because it was the right offer right editor.
27:49
And it was Eamon Dolan who was then at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
27:55
And Eamon was great and he would go on to He's been the editor for all three of my books.
27:59
And he took a real interest and he did a great job sort of holding my hand through the process of writing this first book.
28:07
I remember the reporting for this book vividly and it was really fun to be to like figure out how to report for a book rather than a newspaper article.
28:15
When I'm when I'm reporting for a newspaper article, I'm very sort of um tactically and almost in a mercenary way looking for those like perfect quotes, perfect details because you have so little space.
28:29
So you get a tune to finding like, oh, that happened? That's in there.
28:36
Whereas the canvas is so much larger with a book that I found myself having to recognize that a lot of stuff that in newspaper or even magazine reporting might just end up on the cutting room floor. Yeah.
28:54
>> Cutting room floor stuff be easily dismissed.
28:55
I was like, "No, you need to hold on to that.
28:56
You need to remember it." >> Yeah.
28:59
>> And so the I actually found that like you need to slow down uh when you're reporting for books and sort of have a wider aperture and notice things that you might not otherwise notice in a different reporting uh style.
29:10
So, that was I remember that and I did some great reporting trips.
29:12
I remember the writing being difficult I think because I was trying to thread these three different parts.
29:20
So, the And I mean listen, the reception was great.
29:22
It was not a best-seller. That's fine.
29:23
Um but I still I no lie, I still to this day get notes about it.
29:29
And I think for anyone who's written a book, that in some ways like beyond the lists, beyond the money, beyond the accolades, that's the most satisfying.
29:38
You know, when I still to this day, 11 years later, someone reads it for the first time they're like, "That really helped me."
29:46
And I was like, "Well, amen. That's incredible."
29:49
>> You have a full-time job doing, you know, reporting.
29:51
How did you balance that with the book work?
29:55
Especially given that it's a different style of writing.
29:57
It's I mean, this is like, you know, all my books have been side hustles. I love that.
30:00
I actually think it's important to like be engaged in the world in some way and then have things that you're doing that are longer form projects.
30:05
I mean, I'm sure there are people I know there are people who do just the long form stuff all the time.
30:10
I think I'd go a little stir crazy.
30:12
What was that like for you balancing those two commitments?
30:15
>> I remember the reporting the writing reporting and writing for the first book all almost all of it happened before we had children.
30:23
And so I had a little [laughter] I had a little more time then.
30:26
>> Do the first book before you have kids.
30:27
>> Do the first book before you have kids.
30:28
I do remember having a bit more free time. >> Yeah.
30:30
>> I would say two things.
30:30
Number one, um I have a pretty high work metabolism.
30:33
Um and I also have learned how to be pretty efficient.
30:38
I'm a fast writer, which >> really helps when you're writing books.
30:41
So, I don't have to rewrite things over and over and over. >> Yeah.
30:45
>> Not to say that every sentence that comes out is the final draft.
30:46
Um but I write pretty clean, pretty fast copy. Was it a side hustle? Yes.
30:51
Did I find it like insurmountable? Uh not at all. >> Okay.
30:57
Do you tend to write Do you chunk up your writing like when you do it in the day?
31:01
Like do you write in the mornings?
31:02
Like what's your process like?
31:04
>> Well, for before children, I was a night owl and I would write at night.
31:06
That's definitely shifted.
31:08
Uh it's harder to write at night.
31:10
I think for this more recent book, I did most of my writing on vacation or on weekends. >> Got it. So, not during the week?
31:18
>> Uh well, I mean inevitably if I could like squeeze a little in here and there, but for those dedicated chunks where and I I do find if you're going to really settle into the prose and into the um the extended thought processes that I think make great books work, you need extended time without distraction to do that.
31:40
And so, I found that mostly happened um not, you know, with 90 minutes on lunch break, but with, you know, 3 or 4 hours with no interruptions.
31:52
>> For each of the books I've done, there's a a kind of model book, like a book where it it sort of whether in the category or just in my head it kind of sets the standard for what I'm trying to do, right?
32:01
And then like I I very consciously make careful studies of these books.
32:05
Like I mean, to the point of like knowing like you know, how many words are in a chapter or like figuring out like how did how did the author do this cuz it does you you feel like it's you know, it it's somewhat impenetrable if you haven't done it before.
32:17
This is your first book, right?
32:18
So, there is a process of learning.
32:19
You also don't want to necessarily admit your ignorance to your editor, not all the time.
32:23
But did you have like things you were like templates, models, books you were reading that served as a template for this book?
32:32
>> No, and again, I think because it was an unusual book for the reasons I already mentioned, um I was not brushing enough to sort of look for models or identify them.
32:43
I think the same was true with my second book as well.
32:44
There there wasn't an obvious comp because it was such a polemic.
32:49
Which which in both cases I probably like made things hard for myself. >> Right. Right. Right.
32:53
There have been polemics before. >> Yeah.
32:57
But the So then when you're Take me back to the the revision and editorial process for a book at the very end is very different than the metabolism of journalism, than the pace.
33:07
What was that like for you?
33:09
Cuz I you know I have to believe that part of what's nice about the work you do day-to-day is like you put something out in the world, it's like put it is put out quickly, you get feedback quickly, you move on to the next target, right?
33:19
Books are have five false deadlines, like and that's that's being conservative, right?
33:23
How did you deal with that like as a given you'd grown up in the world of journalism?
33:29
>> I definitely, and I've told my team this over the years, when I send an email, I expect a reply back like within 24 hours, even if it's just them saying like thanks, I'll give you feedback in 2 weeks. Fine.
33:41
But I I can't wait 2 weeks to get the read receipt.
33:49
So I've I had to get better about telling them what I need as an author, and I think that's something all authors should do is like understand what you need to keep your own sanity. >> Yeah.
34:00
>> So that was a part of it.
34:02
Um Listen, I I like being edited.
34:03
There's little I enjoy more than the experience of feeling like someone I trust really got in there with my copy and is actively investing their time and energy in trying to make it better and stress test the arguments and elevate the prose.
34:25
And so whenever that happens, whether it's Amon or some of the other folks who have helped um, get eyes on my manuscripts over the years. I love it.
34:35
Uh, and the more the better. >> Yeah. >> Right?
34:36
Like I I am not one of those people who bristles when I get edits.
34:41
Um, I don't always agree with all of them. I'll push back.
34:44
>> Yeah, but you want the >> But on balance, I will take that, uh, all day because I think it's going to make me better. >> Yeah. That's great.
34:49
You're like an editor's dream.
34:51
Like it's like, I mean, they're Yeah, because you ultimately you do have to I will say it's a it's a productive process to have a fight over a sentence or a paragraph or a word, right?
34:59
Like people with conviction coming to something and saying, I care about this and I think it's this way. No, I care about it. I think it's this way.
35:05
I do think there's value in that friction, but it sounds like you're much more accommodating of the people who are editing you.
35:11
>> Yes, and I hold a grudge.
35:11
You know, I remember >> [laughter] >> I remember specific sentences where I was overruled by an editor and they were they were wrong. >> Right.
35:26
>> And I know those sentences.
35:26
I can pull that I can pull those URLs up right now.
35:31
>> Let me ask you a more personal question about doing the book writing cuz I don't know if this is true for you.
35:34
You are, uh, you know, you obviously you were a meditator.
35:37
You've had, you know, you describe this kind of on-again, off-again relationship with meditation.
35:41
But did you find the book at any point consuming you?
35:45
Like were there stages where you felt like the only other people that are going to understand me are people who are doing book projects?
35:52
Like like you did you No, you were you were able to turn that off and turn it on again when you needed.
35:57
>> Yeah, and probably because I have a relationship with meditation. >> Yeah.
36:01
>> Um, definitely feel like it's the case that my meditation, my mindfulness practice over the years has made me less neurotic with work stuff on balance. >> Yeah.
36:13
And so, there's a little bit of this in I mean, there's a lot of it in the book, but just to to go on the detour, the kind of segue about the mindfulness practice.
36:21
This started for you pretty young, >> I was a teenager. >> Yeah.
36:25
And we had of explained to this audience like what was the introduction?
36:30
>> I mean, I was a uh kid in Berkeley, California who had been exposed to all different paths for opening and expanding the mind and consciousness and found most of them unfulfilling until I learned about Buddhism.
36:44
And Buddhism um just from a almost academic sense when I first read about it when I was a freshman in college, it just made some intuitive sense.
36:53
Um more so than anything else I had read or been exposed to at the time.
36:57
And so I began I like literally opened up the yellow pages and looked up Buddhism and I was happy to live in the Bay Area and I found Green Gulch Zen Center, really famous uh Buddhist meditation center in Marin County.
37:10
And I went there on January 1st or January 2nd of 1999 and I started sitting.
37:16
And that began sort of a personal relationship with Buddhist practice that led me to then go to India for my junior year of college and I studied Buddhism in India.
37:26
Um Zen, yes, also Tibetan meditation and then also Southeast Asian Buddhist meditation which has been like secularized as mindfulness.
37:37
So like American mindfulness mostly has its roots in the Thai and Burmese forest monk traditions um and it's sort of been adapted and made palatable for Westerners through folks like uh Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein who have done a really uh elegant job of translating some of these traditions for a Western audience.
38:01
>> And you feel like there it it's intimately bound up with your ability to do creative work.
38:05
Like creative work, you know, it it like there's a reason why creatives have these difficult life circumstances, why they can't you know, like you do deal with neuroticism, you deal with addiction, you deal with all these things.
38:16
You You have always struck me like you have a a wonderful life, right?
38:21
Like you're you're very well-balanced.
38:22
Like I you know you you are you take care of your physical health.
38:26
Is that you do you trace a lot of that to the meditative practices? >> Not directly.
38:32
I know I feel like it's like bonus.
38:34
Like the fact that I'm able to I mean maybe a little. But no, I don't.
38:39
I think I think it's it's it's sort of an additional layer of sanity that I can bring to myself.
38:44
But I don't at all suppose that I mean the only way to like live a balanced life is to meditate. Like nonsense, right?
38:51
Like >> But it brings balance to your work life, you said.
38:56
Like it it allows you to not be as neurotic about your work.
38:58
About like the work >> Sometimes, but I'm still pretty neurotic about the work.
39:03
And imagine if I didn't have the practice, how neurotic I would be.
39:06
I think my wife would have had something to say about that. >> That's really funny.
39:10
When the book so you know there's always that moment of you've you've finished the book and you get that first box like the first box moment.
39:18
Do you remember that for Mindful Work?
39:21
I mean it's your first book.
39:22
It's like a big >> I I don't remember the box of the first one for the first book. No.
39:27
>> Then which moment stood out where you you finally realized it was real?
39:29
Like you're like it's a real thing and I've created this from whole cloth. >> I don't know.
39:34
I mean you know like it's it was it was just work.
39:37
I mean like I don't I I don't make too much of that first book.
39:44
I mean I was proud of it. It got out there.
39:47
I mean I did a talk at Google. I did a TED Talk. It was excerpted.
39:52
I forget in the yeah in the FT or I forget all the places where we had cereals.
39:58
But it was um Yeah, I guess I don't make too much of it. Right. >> Right.
40:04
So it didn't it didn't it sounds like it was actually a pretty seamless process for you like putting it together and putting it out into the world.
40:11
>> I you know my hair went a little gray in the process, but >> Maybe your being your wife mean, she'd did different to say.
40:16
>> Yeah, but you know, it was it was one thing among many that was happening in our lives at the time.
40:24
You know, we were having our children at the same time.
40:25
We were in New York City and probably moving apartments somewhere in there.
40:28
I had a really busy day job.
40:28
I changed actually day jobs.
40:34
Um I think I sold the book when I was at the FT and when it came out, yeah, now I remember.
40:39
I was actually at the Times by that point.
40:41
And so now do you remember?
40:43
I think the first serial actually appeared in the New York Times.
40:45
It was a Sunday business section story about Mark Bertolini, then the CEO of Aetna, who was a character in the book.
40:53
>> It was a If I go back just one quick moment, it was a book that you pulled from the shelf, if I remember right, that actually got you down the Buddhism path.
41:02
Can you talk about that specific moment? It was very vivid. >> Yeah, I do.
41:05
I mean, I still remember it.
41:07
It was the New Year's Eve on 1998 going into 1999 and I was home in Sausalito at my mother's apartment and she had a great library including lots of books on religion.
41:21
She was a museum director and done a lot of work on Asian arts.
41:25
And for whatever reason, I was sort of like restless.
41:27
I knew that in my next semester at Boston University, I would be studying world religions.
41:33
Like I knew it was coming on the syllabus.
41:35
And so I saw this book like basic introduction to Buddhism.
41:39
I don't remember exactly which ISBN number, but it was a pretty standard intro book.
41:43
And I just started reading and I remember I I didn't go out that night.
41:48
I just stayed home and I was so consumed by it that I didn't I didn't go out.
41:53
I just finished the book.
41:53
My mom was like, "Are you okay?" I was fine.
41:56
Just more interested in that than whatever was happening in the world.
41:58
And then the next morning, and this is, you know, this is simplified but there's truth to it.
42:02
I checked in with all my friends who had invited been inviting me out and you know, like one friend was still hungover.
42:09
Another had watched his sister relapse and do cocaine, another had like gotten in a fight or seen a fight.
42:16
And at this super uh simplified level, the basic equation of like desire leading to suffering >> Yeah. >> was there for me.
42:27
>> It was turning each year.
42:28
>> And I was like, "Huh, maybe these guys are onto something."
42:29
And so then I opened the up the yellow pages.
42:32
>> Have you revisited that book since? >> No. >> No.
42:35
>> I don't go back and read my book.
42:36
>> You don't go Oh, not not this book. I mean, not your book.
42:37
I mean, the book >> know which one it was. >> Okay.
42:40
So, why don't you go back and read your I mean, I I'm guilty the same by the way.
42:43
I can't go back and read it.
42:43
I think it would like make me it would tempt it would tempt me too much as an editor to want to change everything.
42:49
>> I've Well, and I should be clear.
42:49
I haven't looked at mine for work in years and years.
42:52
I have revisited um probably Well, certainly Dirtbag Billionaire because I'm still essentially promoting it and um out out on the road sharing it these days.
43:02
Uh the Jack Welch book, The Man Who Broke Capitalism, I think I feel like I've gone back and looked at the introduction once or twice cuz there's some things I think I did right there um just as a reminder to sort of like, "Oh, what was the flavor?
43:14
What was the tenor there?" >> Yeah. >> Um but I don't know.
43:16
I mean, I think that's natural.
43:18
One of the things that um I always when I'm with my author friends, we we sit around we talk process.
43:25
You know, you you have a job that that because of deadlines require you you've learned the ability to write fast and to hit deadlines and to produce words against a word count total, right?
43:36
Or some rough rough amount of words.
43:38
Like with with a with with steadiness.
43:42
Like you've had to do this for a long period of time.
43:43
But a book, let's say it's like 65,000 words, maybe 70,000 words, right?
43:46
Did you have an approach that you used for this work uh in terms of how you broke up the work itself?
43:56
>> Um let's set aside Mindful Work because I think that was a long time ago and I don't honestly remember the details of the the craft on that one.
44:03
For the more recent books, uh definitely have a craft and sort of a a process and a method.
44:12
And um also to say for both of them, I pretty much understood what the outline was going to be because both of them, The Man Who Broke Capitalism and Turbo B Millionaire, are roughly chronological.
44:26
And so if you have a chronological narrative, like that makes it really nice and easy.
44:30
Um I also knew sort of the target length.
44:32
What you said, I mean mine are a bit longer, mine are closer to 85, 93, somewhere in there. I think both of them.
44:38
And so then you figure, okay, I I'm not a 20 short short chapter kind of guy.
44:42
I'm a 10 sort of mid longer chapters.
44:45
So all right, so we're got 8,000 word chapters with an introduction, maybe a conclusion.
44:57
Um And so then, all right, so I roughly know that.
44:59
And then what I've also realized about my writing, and I think you'll see it in the last two books, is there tend to be three to four sections per chapter.
45:07
And so then, okay, break those up and then we're talking somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 1,500 and 3,000 word chunks.
45:17
And that's like that's a long newspaper article.
45:19
And to your point, like I can do that in a day.
45:23
Um I don't write 3,000 words a day for a book, but that sort of um atomization >> Yeah.
45:32
>> of the manuscript makes it really approachable to me. Right.
45:37
>> And is that conscious?
45:37
Like are you do you Okay, and then you just sort of track against the chronology and you keep you keep at it.
45:43
>> Yeah, and the way I mean we can talk about how I actually do the research and get things on the page.
45:48
Um but that that approach of like, okay, I need a chronology, um here's roughly what I want in it, here are roughly the themes of the moments, then let's start, you know, breaking it down into and I use I use Microsoft Word.
46:02
I'm a proud Microsoft Word user with the outline function. >> That's old school.
46:06
That's >> And and I go down and you know, like you know, I headings one and I tend to go down to like somewhere in the four to six range for the outline function and then I adhere to that outline. >> What?
46:21
>> You go from the first book to the second, The Man Who Broke Capitalism.
46:26
>> What was the process of kind of selling and pitching and working on the second idea and like what are the When did it come to you and then that there was a story here that needed to be told?
46:35
>> Yeah, I remember where I was sitting when it came to me. It was April of 2020.
46:39
So, we were all in lockdown at the time.
46:42
I had thought about different books and different big projects in the years before that, but nothing had even quite clicked.
46:50
I'd even thought about a book that had to do with Patagonia, but wasn't able to get it off the ground.
46:55
So, that one had to come later.
46:58
Um, but then April of 2020, I was in my kitchen.
47:00
I was sort of like stirred up at night like looking for something to do because couldn't go out, couldn't go to the bar, couldn't go to sports game with my kids, couldn't do all the things we usually do.
47:14
And so, my brain was sort of like racing around looking for a target.
47:16
And really the entire argument of that book came to me in a flash.
47:22
And the the the the foundation was already there.
47:28
And it had come through my reporting over the last several years at the times because I had been the Corner Office columnist where I had interviewed hundreds of CEOs and then for the year right up until COVID hit, I was the reporter investigating Boeing and what had happened inside Boeing after the crashes of the 737 Max jets.
47:51
And those two storylines both led back to Jack Welch.
47:56
Of all the people I talked to, for all the Corner Office interviews I did, the one name that kept coming up was Jack Welch.
48:03
Even though he had been retired for almost 20 years at the time, even though it wasn't Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, he was the one that was still living rent-free in the minds of all the CEOs. And that just was weird. So, I filed that away.
48:19
And then in reporting what had gone wrong at Boeing, >> Yeah.
48:24
>> all roads led back to GE, and specifically Jack Welch's GE, because a succession of Jack Welch protégés had taken that company over starting in the 1990s and radically transformed it into like be in the image of the Jack Welch GE.
48:41
And they had ruined the company.
48:44
And I was sitting and I was again, it was probably like 1:30 at night and I was like antsy in the kitchen.
48:51
Uh and all of a sudden I was like, "Oh, >> Uh >> that's the story.
48:55
It's just a story about how Jack Welch messed it up." >> Yeah.
49:00
>> And so, off to the races.
49:02
>> And so, what happens from there?
49:02
You reach out to your agent?
49:05
>> Probably put together a rough proposal.
49:07
Um cuz I sort of knew I knew what to do at that point.
49:09
It'd been a long time, right?
49:10
I mean, it'd been 5 years.
49:11
>> say, there was a big gap between that book and your prior one. >> 5 years.
49:13
I don't know if that's huge, but um I hope it's not as long next time. >> time, right.
49:19
>> But, yeah, it'd been 5 years.
49:19
I didn't have another project in the works.
49:22
And so, yeah, I put together a pitch. Um took it to my agent.
49:26
Uh Binky took it to Amon.
49:29
Amon liked it, and we were off to the races.
49:31
So, it wasn't wasn't competitive.
49:32
We didn't take it out and shop it. Like I I knew my team.
49:37
Um and we went, you know, we we sort of off to the races.
49:40
And we did it really fast.
49:42
So, that book uh I had the idea in April uh 2020. >> Yeah.
49:50
>> And that book came out, if I have it right, in May of 2022. >> Wow. >> Really fast.
49:56
>> Wow, that is really fast. >> Crazy. Yeah.
49:59
>> What was that like getting that done under such a tight timeline?
50:02
>> On the one hand, it was insane.
50:05
Um, on the other hand, listen, Jack Welch had just died.
50:07
So, I knew I was going to be able to interview him. >> Right. >> Um, it was lockdown. >> Right.
50:14
You're not going to be able to travel that much.
50:16
>> going to be a lot of on-the-ground reporting to do.
50:17
And even if it would hadn't been lockdown, it wasn't clear I mean, I could have done some.
50:22
I could have gone to Schenectady or I could have gone to GE factories and seen that kind of thing, but I that wasn't quite what the book needed. >> Yeah.
50:32
>> Um, so listen, I did a hundred Zoom and phone calls over the course of a year.
50:37
I read everything I could find about the guy, refined my argument, and wrote a manuscript. >> Wow. >> And turned it in.
50:48
And they turned it around. >> That's amazing. That's amazing.
50:50
Did it did it um, how did it feel different than Mindful Work?
50:56
Like what was the how did the process feel different to you?
50:59
>> Yeah, I didn't love it because it was an angry book. >> Yeah.
51:01
>> Um, and so it was like it was an angry book at sort of an angry moment. >> Yeah.
51:05
>> Um, you know, written during lockdown.
51:08
And it really is a book with a perspective and it's you know, it's not a not a kind one.
51:12
I'm sort of like angry on behalf of the proletariat. >> Yeah.
51:17
>> Um, so so I didn't love that.
51:17
I when I when I would have when I would the actual writing process, I would have to like channel anger.
51:24
Which is not who I am naturally.
51:27
Um, so I didn't love that.
51:30
Nevertheless, like I think I I got it right and did it appropriately.
51:32
The one thing I will say is my editor, Amon Dolan, insisted on like a how to fix it chapter at the end and I regret doing that. >> Yeah.
51:44
>> Um, and I've I him as much. I wish I hadn't.
51:48
Um and in fact in some of the reviews they I think rightly pointed out that like the solutions we came up were a little facile.
51:55
>> Well and understandably.
51:55
Like it's a you know you get a chapter to >> Right.
51:58
Like who am I to fix like the whole books all of modern capitalism?
52:03
But I bring that up because like for any authors or aspiring authors like know when to stand your ground. And it's your book.
52:10
And at the end of the day like the title, cover, the words in it, like your name is the one on the spine.
52:16
And you know I I think back to a couple moments like that.
52:21
And there are other kinds when I think I should have taken advice that I didn't.
52:26
But there are also you know you won't forget those times where you roll over when you wish you had. >> This is David's list.
52:35
>> [laughter] >> Like I said, I keep grudges.
52:39
>> Um how did I was I was going to ask about titling.
52:41
Like the mindful work title, you know, so somewhat self-explanatory.
52:44
Did you sell your subsequent two books as Man Who Broke Capitalism and Dirtbag Billionaire?
52:49
Or did you come to those titles later? >> Uh no.
52:53
Working title for the Jack Welch book was Neutron Jack, which was his nickname.
53:01
Uh which I still really like.
53:01
They the the argument was made that it was too like unfamiliar.
53:09
People wouldn't know what it was about.
53:12
I don't fully um like the book was a success.
53:15
I think that sort of uh doesn't give readers uh enough credit.
53:23
I I like to trust that they could figure it out.
53:26
So listen, I looking back I think that would have been a great title for that book.
53:31
For Dirtbag Billionaire that was the title I went out with.
53:34
And then it got rejected for almost the entire day of the development of the book.
53:40
And I reinstated it very late in the process.
53:45
And I'm mostly happy about it.
53:48
Um the other alternatives that especially that the publisher and editors came up with, I didn't like.
53:54
In retrospect, part of me wishes I could have done something like more generic and more accessible, something like The Climb or The Climber.
54:06
I don't know if that really would have worked.
54:08
Um but I I say that because Dirtbag Billionaire, A, it's like a it's an edgy title, gets people attention, but I also have learned that it has confused some people where they think like it's going to be an unflattering portrait of him.
54:21
Um and I I don't think it's a hagiography, but it's a nuanced portrait.
54:23
But people some people have thought that it's like a in the same mold as The Man Who Broke Capitalism or like I'm Australian, I don't like the guy. >> Yeah, yeah.
54:31
Well, and then you explain right from the jump in that book that the term dirtbag is a very specific and you explain that just so people understand that you're not slamming the founder Yeah.
54:40
>> Yeah, so the the term dirtbag in the rock climbing outdoors community from which Yvon Chouinard came is really like the highest form of compliment.
54:49
It refers to someone who is so enamored with materialism, so disconnected from material needs that they're literally content to sleep in the dirt if it means they're that much closer to their next climb.
55:02
And Yvon Chouinard himself refers to himself as a dirtbag.
55:07
I mean, to this day um in his late 80s, he says, "I'm a dirtbag."
55:12
And so the tension then is how did this dirtbag ultimately come become a billionaire?
55:20
>> Let's uh let's get to that.
55:20
I want to be mindful of time.
55:22
You know, how did you go from the the you know, angry book >> [laughter] >> to the happy book to to to to the David of yesteryear? >> I know.
55:32
I Now I need to figure out is my next good book going to be another happy book or do I have to like does the pendulum have to swing back to be an angry book?
55:39
Um so again, this came directly from my reporting.
55:43
And this is why it's I'm so fortunate to have the job I do at The New York Times is um I get exposed to these amazing stories.
55:49
So in September of 2022, I broke the news that Yvon Chouinard and his family had given away the company and restructured the entity and a various holding companies and trusts in a way that would allow all future profits to be directed toward environmental charity. That was a huge story.
56:13
The I think third most read URL at The Times that year after the live blog of Queen Elizabeth death and the Trump taxes story.
56:22
So for a you know, little story about Patagonia, it just went gonzo.
56:27
And that was a signal to me that oh, people are interested here.
56:32
>> Why why do you think it went so crazy?
56:34
>> I think it was a a number of things.
56:35
One, we were still in like COVID time period.
56:38
And so I think this is a real story that people could connect to in a positive way.
56:44
I mean, there is really a hunger for good news out there.
56:49
Um I think it was a brand people knew well enough, but here was like a big turn um about a place and a organization and a family that was still somewhat somewhat well-known, but also somewhat mysterious.
57:01
So like here was a window into their thinking.
57:05
Um and then uh listen, it just went viral because it went viral.
57:10
And sometimes you can't explain it, but like celebrities were sharing it and like morning news and it just it just popped.
57:15
Um and that was super exciting.
57:18
And that was the signal for you that there was something here that was longer than just story in full. Exactly.
57:23
And as I had mentioned, I had even thought about a Patagonia book 5 years earlier before the Jack Welch book.
57:31
The way I had initially conceived it was actually as a story about the friendship between Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins.
57:39
Uh and I thought it wouldn't be interesting to write a story about them as a pair.
57:42
Doug Tompkins, his best friend, founded The North Face and Esprit and was also a great environmental conservationist.
57:51
Uh Yvon Chouinard founded Patagonia and Black Diamond and is a great conservationist himself.
57:55
So, this pair who had pushed each other and, you know, worked together until the end.
57:59
But, when I floated that project with the families >> Yeah.
58:06
>> back in 2020, just before I started on the Jack Welch book, >> Yeah.
58:10
>> I basically got the thanks, but no thanks.
58:12
Um a movie by Jimmy Chin was just coming out.
58:15
Another writer was working on a biography of Doug Tompkins.
58:20
And those projects were both like really well done and successful.
58:21
I wasn't aware of them when I started thinking about this idea, so I just sort of set it aside.
58:26
But, after this article, I suddenly understood that the Patagonia story now had a third act.
58:31
Up until that point, you could write a great story about the man and the company, but it wasn't really clear how it ended cuz he was still alive.
58:41
Um and Patagonia, the fate of that company was sort of unresolved.
58:47
Um but now he had answered those questions even if he was still alive.
58:51
And so then I could write that third act.
58:53
>> It's still a hop, skip, and a jump from that article and everything else to getting the kind of access you had with him and to I mean, one of the things about the book is that you're with him and like you're you're in remote places like doing outdoorsy things, right?
59:05
Um how did that process go?
59:08
Like what was it like to get that kind of trust?
59:12
>> It was It was a journey.
59:12
I had actually known Yvon Chouinard for 10 years before I wrote that article.
59:16
So, I had I had interviewed him over the years just as a business reporter.
59:19
Although, we were not close.
59:21
Um but we had had some touch points.
59:23
Um I think I had earned the company's trust because I had written a series of stories about the company and they felt like I had done a fair and and good job with them.
59:30
Um but when after that article, I went to the company and said, "Hey, I'm going to write a book about Patagonia and Chouinard."
59:36
The response was, "We would rather that you not."
59:42
>> [laughter] >> Thanks, but no thanks.
59:46
And so I was like, "Okay."
59:46
And then I sort of had to like take a deep breath and go back to them and said like, "Let me be clear like I am writing this book."
59:56
I hope you ultimately participate, but we are blessed to live in a country with the First Amendment and you are a public entity. I'm going for it.
1:00:05
And so they said, "Okay."
1:00:07
So I then began my work mostly without any participation from the company or the family for the first year.
1:00:15
And so I made uh I I was in touch with a few people and they would do a little here and there, but for the most part I was reporting around the story, if you will.
1:00:25
And so I made a list of like 200 people I wanted to talk to and started going down the list and checking them off and reaching out and making phone calls and emails.
1:00:33
And what happened over that first year is I think, well, I know that the Chouinards and the company started hearing from employee number four at the company and said, "Hey, some guy's writing a book."
1:00:46
And then Yvon heard from a childhood friend and said, "Hey, this guy contacted me and wants me to talk."
1:00:51
And I think after enough of those, they understood that I was serious about the project.
1:00:57
And ultimately it was then it was a more than a year after I had begun the project, I get a call, I think on like a Tuesday and from someone close to Chouinard and they said, "Hey, what are you doing this weekend?"
1:01:11
I was like, "I don't know.
1:01:12
What am I doing this weekend?"
1:01:12
They said, "Get on a plane.
1:01:13
You're coming to Wyoming."
1:01:14
And that was when I spent my first sort of extended time with Chouinard and his wife at their home in Wyoming. >> Wow.
1:01:21
And so it was a you kind of you wore him down basically.
1:01:26
>> Well, I don't I don't know about that.
1:01:26
I mean, I was trying to respectfully sort of check in and look for opportunities, but I wasn't badgering at that point.
1:01:31
I was sort of trusting the process.
1:01:36
>> And they just heard from enough people in their lives. >> Okay.
1:01:39
And I was I made the case that like listen, this book will be better and it will be more reflective of the truth and his truth if he participates. >> Yeah.
1:01:47
The reminds me of the story that Walter Isaacson told me where he he for his Kissinger book he did not have Kissinger's participation.
1:01:56
But he went out and did exactly basically what you did.
1:01:58
Hundreds of people, everybody in sort of like that land, Kissinger Incorporated, and got to everybody.
1:02:04
And at the 11th hour, Kissinger granted him an interview.
1:02:07
And and I think the line I mean, maybe he said this, I don't know if he did or not, but he was like, "Yep."
1:02:13
And then he proceeded to spend hours just sort of like spinning yarns.
1:02:15
Like like completely evading, you know, like all the things.
1:02:19
But uh but it it goes to show that you know, you you did something Did you sell the book before you went out and did that?
1:02:25
Like those hundreds of 107 interviews.
1:02:26
Okay, so you you would kind of taken a bet on yourself saying, "I can I think I'll eventually be able to get to a book even if I can't get intimate access to the family."
1:02:37
>> Yeah, because there was enough in the public record. >> Okay. Got it.
1:02:39
About the company but not the man necessarily. >> Both, I think.
1:02:43
>> Yeah, there was a lot about I mean, I went back and read everything written about the guy for more than 40 years.
1:02:49
And you can piece together a sketch.
1:02:49
I mean, I'm I book wouldn't be the same without the time I spent with him.
1:02:55
Um but no, you can tell a story about him through what's out there and through all the subsequent interviews I did with other people who knew him. Yeah.
1:03:02
>> Um I want to shift gears a bit just cuz you know, there's there's a part of this that we I want to come back to you because you made this remarkable thing at the beginning of our conversation about how your kids read 4 to 7 hours a day.
1:03:12
And I I am like and I'm sure I'm not the only one very curious about how you managed to do this, uh among other parenting writing questions I have, but like how did you manage to make your kids into readers of that at that volume?
1:03:25
>> Starting from the moment they were born, we read to them for hours a day.
1:03:31
Um I think it's that simple. >> Yeah.
1:03:33
>> And I remember >> Just at night, during the day? It's just all the time? >> All the time. >> Oh, wow.
1:03:37
>> I mean that we we we have always had books at their fingertips, and we my wife and I both just spent hours and hours reading to them. >> Yeah.
1:03:48
>> And I, you know, I remember my method was I as I read, I would trace the words, underline the words with my finger.
1:03:57
And so both of them were reading on their own at very young ages. >> Oh, wow. Okay.
1:04:01
And then do you steer the kind of reading they do, or do you at this point?
1:04:05
Not at this point, I got it. Got it.
1:04:06
But did you do it earlier?
1:04:08
>> Uh I mean we still give them books.
1:04:08
Uh and they're reading amazing things now.
1:04:12
I mean they're, you know, my 12-year-old daughter is reading, she's like plowing her way through Agatha Christie, and my 10-year-old boy just read The Outsiders on a trip, and they they have elevated taste. Yeah.
1:04:26
>> Do you find, like how does that world, their world of reading, cuz I struggle with this.
1:04:30
I have a 10-year-old, and she's a great reader, and she's a devoted, and she's an obsessive.
1:04:32
Once she gets into a book, she'll she'll read the entire series like in a flash.
1:04:39
But there is always that question of like, you know, that mixes in an interesting way with technology and like the interruptions that technology creates.
1:04:45
So I'm curious like how do you manage that in your own, if you're willing to share, in your own household, like how do you deal with the digital distraction against the kind of long, you know, the longer form reading and time spent in that way? >> mean listen, we try.
1:04:55
We are not um zealots about no screen times, but we we try not to spend a ton of time on screens.
1:05:04
Um like we love a good movie, but the TV's usually off in our home.
1:05:10
And, you know, they we have a Nintendo Switch, yeah, but it's gets turned on a couple times a month.
1:05:15
So, and like listen, it was it's Monday today.
1:05:20
Uh yesterday, we started the morning all reading books as a family, just piled up on top of each other on a couch.
1:05:27
And we ended the day piled up on top of the couch reading books. >> Oh, that's great.
1:05:34
>> And I I think if you model it and talk about it and are able to engage in those conversations, um you know, kids respond. >> Right.
1:05:43
Do your kids make anything of your own life as an author?
1:05:46
Like with the book specifically?
1:05:48
>> I don't think they take me too seriously.
1:05:51
>> [laughter] >> I know, that's true.
1:05:52
I have a very similar experience.
1:05:54
My my actually my the sad part is my daughter thinks it's easy because I do it.
1:05:57
She's like, "Oh, he's kind of a clown.
1:05:59
Like if he can do this, any schmo can do this, right?"
1:06:01
And so it ends up being kind of funny.
1:06:03
Like she she I don't think she I don't think kids actually appreciate it what it takes. >> Of course not. >> I'm grateful. >> Yeah.
1:06:09
>> To be able to Um How do you when you So, you have young kids and I I have young kids.
1:06:13
How do you balance like the range of things you do?
1:06:17
Like what's the what's the way that you do all this without like going stir crazy? >> I don't know.
1:06:23
>> [laughter] >> I don't know. It's crazy.
1:06:25
I mean, I find it uh Who says that like number one, who says I don't go crazy?
1:06:31
I I feel like constantly crazed. Um It's a lot.
1:06:35
Where it's the you know, and I've got elderly parents in my life who have needs, I have young kids who have needs, I've got a busy job, like I'm trying to have a relationship, trying to have friends. It's a lot. >> Right. Right.
1:06:49
Do you for your book length work when you were in it, especially with the Patagonia book, did you find yourself like how did how did that one just a talk process on that one for a second?
1:06:57
How did that one get done?
1:07:00
Like did you do it with was it vacations?
1:07:02
Was it or and then kind of speeding through when you could?
1:07:05
>> Vacations and weekends.
1:07:05
And like I, you know, last whatever summer that was, the summer of 2020 four, I guess.
1:07:13
Book came out in fall of 25.
1:07:16
So, the summer of 24 when I was writing it, like I missed a lot. >> Yeah.
1:07:22
>> I didn't go to the water parks with my kids that summer.
1:07:25
Um and that was a active choice that I had to make. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:07:29
>> Did you Are you uh proudest of one of the three projects?
1:07:31
Like is one of them you're like the one you're like, "Okay, this is where I really gave it."
1:07:35
>> I'd like to believe that I'm getting better as a writer and a sort of reporter and author.
1:07:39
So, I feel like the most recent book, Dirtbag Billionaire, really works at a lot of levels. >> Right.
1:07:46
>> Um and I feel like I avoided so I I do feel like I didn't repeat the mistakes in my previous books.
1:07:53
I probably made some mistakes in Dirtbag Billionaire, but it but it feel like feel like I landed that one pretty cleanly. >> Right.
1:08:00
One of the things that we do like just as a a matter of like you know, thinking about the books we do is thinking about the formats.
1:08:09
Do you Do you find that like for you Do you Are you an audiobook guy?
1:08:11
Do you >> I do listen to audiobooks. >> Okay. >> Yeah.
1:08:15
>> Are you Is Is there a certain kind of book you'll prefer for audio versus for Like what's your reading diet like for books?
1:08:21
>> Yeah, I don't do literary fiction on audio.
1:08:25
>> Don't do literary fiction on audio. >> Yeah.
1:08:26
Literary fiction I have to read. >> Yeah.
1:08:29
>> Um I love biography and history on audio. >> Yeah.
1:08:33
>> I love sweeping sci-fi, fantasy on audio. >> Yeah.
1:08:38
>> And I think I If I'm being honest, for both of those, it's because if I I tune out or fall asleep, I find it easy to come back.
1:08:45
And if I've missed a few minutes, >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:08:50
Is there a book that you've read recently that, you know, you you actually it really blew your hair back?
1:08:56
Like something that really stood out to you?
1:08:59
>> Yeah, The Wild Trees by Richard Preston, which is not a new book.
1:09:02
Maybe it came out 2015 or so.
1:09:05
But sensational, sensational read.
1:09:09
Non-fiction and it's about the community of men and women who made it their work to find and climb the tallest trees in the world.
1:09:23
And it's I mean I have goosebumps thinking about it right now. It's a sensational book.
1:09:26
>> How did you find your way to it?
1:09:26
That's always one of the things that I'm curious about with books. If you can remember.
1:09:32
>> I don't remember how I found that book.
1:09:34
But I remember I mean the minute I was into it, I was all in. >> Wow. That's amazing.
1:09:38
Um final question we ask every guest on Infinite Loops is you're declared emperor for a day.
1:09:47
You get a magical microphone and you get to incept two ideas into everybody's heads and they will they will believe those ideas were theirs, not yours.
1:09:53
So if they they wake up and they've got a sense of this of an idea and it's from you and you get two of them.
1:10:03
What are your off the cuff what are your two ideas you want to you want to incept into everybody's minds? >> Like of anything? >> Of anything.
1:10:14
>> I mean that people shouldn't be hungry and without shelter.
1:10:18
Like that we need to take care of the most vulnerable and that we should organize society in a way that makes that happen without question.
1:10:26
Um and that it is our number one collective priority to take care of planet Earth. >> That's amazing. Well said.
1:10:34
Those that that those are both great and it's a great great way for us to bring to a close. >> Amazing. >> Amazing.
1:10:41
>> It's such a good conversation. Thank you. >> That's awesome.