Push Kim.
Hey there, Michael Lewis here as we eazon over into twenty twenty five, I wanted to share a fun awards show that my friend's over at Risky Business just held. That show is all about being smarter when it comes to risk, about how to make better decisions. It's hosted by the statistician Nate Silver and the psychologist Maria Konakova. They both also happened to be professional poker players, and the two just gave out a bunch of awards for the best, the worst, and the wildest gambles of twenty
twenty four. It's a surprising and fun look back on the year, and I think you'll love it. We'll be back with our regular season very soon in the new year.
Nate, I'm really excited for our first of what I hope will be annual Risky Awards, the Riskies to talk about good and bad decisions of the year in all walks of life. So obviously, you know, we talk a lot about politics on the show, so we'll have some from politics, but also from business and from sports and Hollywood, just talking in general about risky decisions, Which ones worked out, which ones didn't, which ones were good, which ones were bad?
So let's get started and talk about awarding the first risky for the Hero call of the year. So a decision that looked like it might have been a little crazy at the time but turned out to be brilliant, right, just like a hero callin poker when you're thinking, you're thinking you have jack high and it's for your tournament life, and you end up calling and you're right because the other guy was bluffing with eight high or whatever it was. Nate, do you have a hero call of the year?
I think THEO the French Whale has to get the Hero call of the euro Awards. So what do you make? He uh, eighty five billion dollars? So he here the French Whale was on polymarket, which I'm an advisor to, and that copious amounts millions of dollars that Trump would win and kind of even like distorted as a loaded term, but like the whole market was effected by this one trader. Poly market has good volume, but not but you know it's not it's not the equities market or something like that.
Apparently did some polling where he asked people, who are your neighbors owning? For this technique is not that proven, but look it worked. A hero called, by definition is like if you get the answer right for lots of money, then you have to get some amount of some amount of credit.
Right.
A lot of people didn't have the story of conference election. Our forecast literally had it, literally had it more random than a coin flip. And so I'm going to give the French whale THEO this award.
I think that that's a beautiful Uh, that's a beautiful answer. The absolutely deserves Hero Call of the Year because we even talked on the podcast, We're like, this is insane, like right, who is this way?
Like what is going on?
And yeah, he ended up making a shit ton of money. So congratulations THEO, You've made our Hero call of the Year.
Congrats, Yes, and come on the show.
Yes, we'd love to. We'd love to talk about how you think about it.
Yes, we.
Nate promises he will not do his friench accent for you. You show all right. So you know, a flip side of the hero call is when you make the wrong decision, right, what was the worst fold of the year. So a decision that you know, ended up making people think, you know, what were you thinking? How could you fold there? I have one for this, but yeah, you go ahead. It seems like you're excited about this one.
I'm sorry, is a so on brand I have to go with, Like this, she should have picked Shapiro thing. I know, it's I know it's very politics heavy, but like, you have this very charismatic politician who's like literally the popular governor of the most important spring state, which by the way, turned out to be the tipping point state, Pennsylvania, and she picked Tim Walls, who was kind of weird in practice, and like, it just seemed like a no brainer.
And I can try and dissect why the campaign did this, but like that, that's a decision that's kind of the oposite of the hero call. Right, It's like, yeah, the obvious play if you don't make the obvious play, right, if you have this amazing semi bluffing opportunity, you have a straight draw and a flush draw, and you have full equity, and you choose to play the hand differently in some weird way than it better worked out well or if not, we have the right to criticize you.
So there's another award that comes a little bit later. But I'm going to reference it now because I think it's very Germane and it's an award that we're borrowing from the podcast The Town, So thank you very much the Town, and it's the suck itt Haters I was right award and that Nate, I'm going to give to one of the visions that you've been talking about all year, which is she should have chosen Shapiro, should have chosen Shapiro.
So I actually I went outside of politics sort of and I said the worst fold was anyone who ended up selling bitcoin at the beginning of the year, during the bear market in January. Yeah, I think that that was the worst fold, Like the people who were you know, we like all in on bitcoin and then we're like, you know what, I changed my mind, Like this is bad, Like it's down to forty k Like shit, I bet
those people are not very happy right now. So I think that and I don't think that it was I think that it was pretty obvious that they should not be folding, right because you know how cyclical this market is. You know how the bear bull cycles work, Like if you know what you're doing, you do not sell like at a bottom right there. But yeah, so that was that's who I gave the uh the Worst Fold of the Year award two, so I think we can we can both give out one.
Next up we have Cooler of the Year who had a great hand but still lost.
So here I went outside of our usual purview, right we were normally kind of very politics business, some sports heavy here. Decided to go to Hollywood, and I am giving this award to Greta Gerwig, who was the writer and director of Barbie, who just got completely shut out at the Oscars, losing everything, losing even some nominations. She wasn't even nominated for directing and she lost for writing. And I think that she was just like completely She
had a great hand. I think Barbie was a great movie that did incredibly well, and for some reason she was just like completely shut out of the Oscars this year. That happens every year, you know, there's always someone, but this one, I feel like, yeah, I felt a little bit personal about it because I think, you know, she she's female, she's talented, she's great. And I actually did not like Oppenheimer at all. I thought it was a
horrible movie. I thought it was really boring. I did not think that it should have gotten all the awards. It got so like, I actually disagreed completely. This is from a personal thing, but these are our awards, so they get to be personal. That was my wors That was my cooler of the year.
How about your name maybe the New York Yankees, son Off, you're a baseball fan. Juan Soto, this amazing young outfielder who is kind of like the Ted Williams of his era, signed with the crosstown rival New York Mets for almost
eight hundred million dollars the Yankees offered him. So when I was sixty million after making their first World Series run since two thousand and nine, I guess because apparently the Yankees were just cheap, Like George Costanza working for the Yankees, and Seinfeld were like they wouldn't give Juan Soto a sweet They apparently like harassed his family and his driver, and so he was like, fuck you, I'm actually going to Steve Cohen and the New York Mets.
Be rare to see a crosstown free agency move like that.
All right, up, next tilt of the year. So what was the most emotional decision of the year? Do you think?
I mean, I'm going back to politics.
Here mind politics.
Yep, Joe Biden deciding deciding a a run for reelection and that he was indefatible, and then the then the pardon of fail Sun Hunter. Yeah, I've got.
The pardon as mine. So so let's uh, let's unanimously give the tilt of the year to Biden for making some very emotional decisions, the deciding to run and the pardon of Hunter. I think that that is absolutely you know, that was tilt. The definition of tilt is letting emotions into your decision process, right that you are no longer evaluating things based on their you know, expected value, based
on their actual kind of decision matrix. You are letting emotions that are incidental and not integral to the decision into the decision. And that's exactly what Joe Biden did.
Gto call of a year game theory optimalist call for the most balanced, mathematically sound decision of the year.
Okay, so this one I went outside of politics. I went into the business side because this is so incredibly rare. I wanted to kind of compliment Apple on abandoning their for into electric vehicles, because most companies, after spending billions on something, don't have the foresight, the knowledge, kind of the perspicacity to say, you know what, we're not going to be competitive here, it's not working. We're just going to write it off and move on. And the market's
rewarded Apple. Actually, even though some people were like this is insane, like, right, how can you step away from a multi billion dollar investment? So I think that that was Actually that is what gto is right, is actually being able to make those types of really really tough decisions because you realize, you know what, it doesn't matter. We already spent that money and we can't get it back.
And if we realize we're not competitive, like I'm going to fold my hand right and I'm gonna and I'm going to walk away, and that's going to be okay. And most companies are not capable of doing that. Most CEOs are not capable of doing that. So I want to reward Apple for a really good decision.
Yeah, me baking a little shout out here to Dan Campbell, the head coach of the Detroit Lions. The Lions nearly made their first Super Bowl ever, blew it. That probably saved me. And I don't want to even say how much it's going to save me on it last like a Super Bowl trip. But Campbell's very aggressive about going for it on fourth down. I'm making other aggressive play calls which the GTO says is correct and didn't work out,
but they trust the system. And now the Lions are the best team in the NFL so far this year. So maybe I'll be spending my hard earned dollars on a trip to New Orleans instead in the super Bowl.
Great that I'm on board with that, all right. How about the Danny Kahneman Memorial Cognitive Bias of the Year Award. What cognitive bias best explains twenty twenty four. So I'm going to say that the bias that best encapsulates twenty twenty four. And We're going back to politics. Here is the sun cost fallacy, which is the inability to walk
away from sunk costs. And I think that the Biden campaign, which is something that is going to you know, be will be feeling the repercussions of that for years to come, suffered from the sun cost fallacy. Right the fact that oh, you know, I am already I said I'm running like
I'm not going to turn back on it. I'm going to keep putting good time and good money after bad, after it was becoming more and more clear that he shouldn't run again, that he should step away, and the sun cost fallacy I think literally cost them the election
because they, you know, he did not step away. We've talked about this so many times, but you know the fact that they didn't pivot, the fact that they could have didn't take the risk and take on the new strategy and realize, you know what, we're only hurting ourselves by continuing to put good time, good money, good energy after bad. I think that that was the death, the death knell of this of this campaign. So to me, the sun cost fallacy is the decision error that best encapsulates this year.
Yeah, maybe I'll go with good old fashioned group think. I suppose it's like also contained to the Democratic Party where and inability. Look, I think it's fundamentally and kind of writing an article about this now, I think it's kind of amazing, but Democrats adopt this philosophy. They kind of claim to be working on behalf of like all these oppress minorities, and then all the oppressed minorities shift
a long way toward Trump. And I think what that is is that you're actually looking at views among other elites, and Democrats have kind of lost touch with with how people outside their group think and what messages are appealing and which aren't. And so I we you know, I don't want to deter too much, but I'll kind of broadly give it to the Democratic Party. And how capture among all the you know, cognitive elites actually can be a problem in some ways makes sense. Here's a fun one,
Djen of the Year. This is one of the most prestigious awards.
It is, well, I'm giving it to Epay Musahara seen million dollars. I don't think it doesn't get more d Jenny.
Can we call it the Epay Musahara Memorial Djen Award the Year in the future?
I think in future years, I think that's what we need to call it. And for people obviously who who can't immediately put that name to a face. That was Otani's interpreter who pleaded guilty to making at least seventeen million dollars worth of sports bets gone wrong and using Otani's accounts to cover those.
And the Nit of the Year. Do you have a good one for this? Harris Are okay, Kamal har Yeah, these are two. The Irmila Harris memorial.
Yes, I got that.
She refused to distance herself from Biden, even though they didn't campaign on Biden's agenda either. They just said, oh, well, let's help people ignore this and and yeah, the risk a version of this campaign. And by the way, how much is this her versus her campaign managers? I'm not sure, but like that's the.
Campaign right at the end of the day, it's her campaign, and if she disagrees with her campaign manager, she needs to be like, no, fuck this, I'm not going to be in it. So at the end of the day, it's on her, just.
Like the campaigns with her, they're like, yo, yo, you gott get your shitting gear, Kamala exactly exactly.
So it seems like you agree with my Djen and Knit of the Year picks.
Absolutely, these are pretty easy ones. I think the Risky Business bracelet, who had the better which of the two hosts? This is an easy one. They're only two answers, had the better poker, had the better poker year?
I don't know in it? Are you up or down?
I have to I'm definitely down. In tournaments and then I have a quite good year in cash, and so I don't actually know.
All right, well, the bracelet, I think we should do tournaments, right, since bracelets.
Are Yeah, it's very viable, right, Yeah, it's very fable.
Yeah, so I'm up in tournaments, So I guess I get the bracelet for this year.
Yeah, I'm down a fair bit and I'll need to have a good series here at the wind, but the cash is gone. I'm trying to think myself is more of a cash player's kind in some ways.
Yeah, that's wonderful, and I look forward to seeing you on some big cash streams. And we can change this from the bracelet award to something else so that we can just say poker prowess, whether cash or tournaments, I don't know. So now we've got two awards that are being taken from another podcast, The Town, which gives awards the mea Cool By I was Wrong Award and the Second Haters I Was Right Award. So these are for I think, personal decision and you know, personal things that
we've done. This is where I said that you should be the second Haters I was right. I didn't have one for me, but I had it for you, which was that she should have gone for Shapiro. Yeah, I think that that's I think that you get that award and the Mia Coolpi was wrong award. I actually so, I think that I was wrong when we had talked on the podcast about kind of how important crypto was to the election, and I'm like, it's a tiny percentage,
it doesn't really matter. I actually think that it ended up mattering a lot more than I thought it would. And you know, and especially kind of given the amount of money that was donated given kind of some people who I think came out and became single issue voters for Trump because of his take on Crypto. I actually think I was a little bit wrong on that. I think I underestimated the Cryptovo.
I'll give myself an award for nearly betting on with Keith for boy who was a venture capitalist on y'all came in floor where Keith claimed he lives in Miami now very proudly so that Kamala Harris would lose Florida by eight points or more and at the time she
was down only three points in the polling average. Got in a spat on Twitter and offered to bet one hundred k and actually kind of tried to facilitate this and sent an email to a mutual friend saying, Hey, Keith, if you want negotiate terms, here's person why who can confirm this? And he didn't respond for four days, right, and then the some morning a New York Times pull comes out and has Harris down like thirteen or fifteen
points in Florida, and I'm like, fuck this. You know you don't have a free option to make this bet whenever, so the offer is rescinded, which he agreed it was too late to accept the bet, certainly not recognizing the complete collapse of the Democratic Party in Florida and being lucky to be able to pull out of that bet.
Yeah, I think that's a good one. And the second hitters, I was right. Do you like my choice for that a lot?
I mean all the Biden related stuff like, actually, you're.
Like I was right about everything.
It hurts, I know, the Biden debate stuff where I'm like, actually, the debate might go so bad, yeah, that he'll have to pull out, Like people, that was kind of crazy, right. I would not have given like more than like a fifteen percent probability of that, but I kind of put myself out there with at least raising his chance and so all the Biden stuff. Yeah, I felt like was my.
You definitely put yourself out there, and I think and I think you ended up being right about a lot
of it. So yes, I'm there for it all. Right. Now, We're going to have two individual awards for for us to give out, So mine is the Maria Kannakova Award for the biggest bluff of the Year, and I am gonna I'm going to get a lot of people mad for this one, but I'm giving it to Sam Altman and open Ai for bluffing about the mission and the nonprofit nature of open Ai and getting you know, saying how it was all about, you know, just just being for the good of the world and then raising money
and actually we're going to be for profit and all of this stuff that like obviously it was going to be a business and obviously like this is where it was heading. But I think a lot of people believed his initial bluff and this is something that's going to be really important and open Ai and is you know, how Sam goes about it. I think this is an
important thing to to track closely. So I think it's good to realize that this is someone who is incredibly good at bluffing, incredibly credible at bluffing, and bluffs a lot.
I agree, I think, no, I think I think that's a great pick. Maria, thank you. I mean he is. I don't know if. I don't know if he's convincing everyone necessarily, but but but he knows how to see their bluff through. I'll say that much.
Yes, he does.
The Nate Silver Award for Raverian of the Year. The raverian, of course, a term from my book for this group of I don't know, the Jennery kambling types. I think I think you have to give it to our boy, Elon. I just think you have to. He made this very big bet where he was kind of in more of a blue linen cultural space and has obviously gotten like
red pilled in various ways. But look, he bet two hundred and fifty thousand, or people are still counting, maybe three hundred excuse me, he bet like several hundred million dollars of his own money on. Trump went very all in on this movement and now has been rewarded with heading a government or a quasi governmental agency named DOGE and getting this guy he wanted elected. You know, it's a little bit like this thing we said before, where if you kind of make that hero call and not
like the odds were that bad. I mean, Biden was evidently in trouble very early on. But I think you have to like and again, I Elon is not my favorite representative of the river right, even if you were such a conservatives. You know, someone like Jay Bonicharia, who was an early Stanford professor who was skeptical from the COVID lockdown stuff, now named director of the NIH like he is someone who I would personally like rather get a beer with or something. But Elon's the obvious choice.
Not gonna deny him his good year.
Well, this was this was a lot of fun. I like, I like the riskies, and and I like our renaming of some of the awards to the Award for DTA UH Forever More.