Too Big to Fail

And so we've got some great books, starting with The Great Crash, 1929, by John Kenneth Galbraith.

And ending with Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin, just looking at the story of how these crises came up and then how they sort of evolved over time and then how they ultimately resolved and any lessons that we can learn from them.

And speaking of in terms of these five crises, were there any commonalities between them and what led up to them?

I think in all cases, there was a degree of investor enthusiasm or optimism that you can't really squash that out in America.

People invest in crypto today because it really should be, in my personal opinion, should be regulated out of existence.

But if not, it should be very heavily regulated.

I remember after the 2008 crisis, people talked about moral hazard and how nothing should ever be too big to fail and drawing lines in the sand and being tough.

You don't need to be tough in a crisis.

And so there were pictures of various people.

It's really the grandfather of Too Big to Fail, the other book that's huge, that was written by a Cornellian, Andrew Ross Sorkin.

And he wrote about the financial crisis of 2008.

So it's the same sort of story on repeat.

I don't know, something that interests you or a resource even, whether it's something streaming.

Yeah, I actually just recently reread Too Big to Fail.

I actually moved to New York in September of 2008.

So when I first moved there, I actually saw the financial industry go through all the challenges it was going through.

I didn't tell anybody I was working on it, in large part because I didn't know if I'd ever finish it and I didn't know if it would ever be any good.

You know, I had written Too Big to Fail after the financial crisis in 2008.

And people used to ask me all the time about how 2008 compared.

to 1929.

A lot of them were written, there was a couple of books written in the late 30s, 40s.

The Galbraith book was in the 1950s.

And so there really wasn't the kind of writing, you know, the Barbarians at the Gate, Den of Thieves style, Michael Lewis style book, or even what I thought it was too big to fail.

So I thought...

[laughs]

I stole Too Big to Fail, which-

Oh, yeah

... painted not the best picture-

What, what are you? You're a, you're a multi-hyphenate.

Well, you know what? I don't know finance the way you do, and I will have to say this, that when I saw your book, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation, so when I saw that this, um, you know, immediately went to number one on The New York Times bestseller, I was so happy for you.

Thank you.

Really, so happy for you.

And I thought, "Yeah, I'm really happy for him, but I don't know if I can read that book."

[laughs]

[laughs] "I don't know." And then I got the book, and I thought [laughs] it's like over 500 pages.

[laughs]