The Art of Manliness - #224： Why Smart People Do Stupid Things With Malcolm Gladwell

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.580 Why do we sometimes not do the thing we know that works or works better? We've all probably

00:00:24.800 had instances in our life where we knew there's a better way to achieve our goal or achieve

00:00:28.980 success, but we don't do it. Why? Why is that? Well, that's one of the many questions my guest

00:00:33.540 today has explored in his writing career. His name is Malcolm Gladwell. Many of you have probably

00:00:37.380 read some of his books like Outliers or Tipping Point or David and Goliath. Malcolm's got a new

00:00:42.040 podcast out called Revisionist History where he goes back in history to uncover overlooked or

00:00:46.400 misinterpreted stories and pulls insights from them so we can apply them to our lives today or

00:00:50.420 at least think about it. Today on the show, Malcolm and I discuss how Wilt Chamberlain found a better

00:00:55.580 way to shoot free throws that increased his free throw percentage rate considerably, but

00:01:00.460 he purposely decided to stop doing it and what we can learn from him on avoiding that mistake.

00:01:05.300 We also discuss the art of finding insightful stories in the mundane, asking good questions,

00:01:09.840 and why you might want to decline that acceptance to a prestigious university. Lots of stuff to

00:01:14.740 chew on in this podcast. After you're done, check out the show notes at aom.is slash Gladwell.

00:01:23.120 Malcolm Gladwell, welcome to the show.

00:01:25.580 Thank you. I'm happy to be on it.

00:01:27.700 Well, I've long been a fan of your work and I'm enjoying your new podcast, Revisionist History,

00:01:31.780 and we'll talk about that today because you've got some great topics you're delving into,

00:01:36.280 but I'd like to get meta first because I've been curious about this. You've made a career

00:01:41.540 out of taking what seems on the surface very mundane or obscure stories. You've written about

00:01:46.520 infomercials or catch up, but then you show how they can provide insights into complex problems

00:01:52.740 that cut across domains. I'm curious, what's your process of going about that? I mean,

00:01:58.380 it seems like it requires a lot of curiosity. So how do you, how did you develop that curiosity?

00:02:02.860 Oh, you know, I never know how to answer that question. I, um, I, you know, I'm a little bit of a magpie

00:02:11.320 to like collect ideas and quirky stories and things and, um, puzzle over them for a long time to figure

00:02:19.660 out, uh, uh, how they can be useful. So a lot of it is just, I have a big, I have a big random

00:02:26.320 group of things that I'm always looking to find a home for. Um, but, uh, also I don't know. I just,

00:02:33.980 I, I, I, I think I'm, um, uh, because I'm not an expert in anything, I'm, I move horizontally

00:02:42.520 through ideas, not vertically. Um, so I never, you know, if you think about it, I've never

00:02:49.660 written a book or even an article that was almost never, that was solely about one thing. I don't

00:02:55.060 go deep. I go wide. Um, so I'm as, I, I was puzzled and, um, by people who go deep, people who go

00:03:08.220 deep are puzzled by me who goes wide. And, you know, I don't, when I look at someone who writes

00:03:13.140 an entire book about a single subject and goes into fascinating detail, I always wonder how on earth

00:03:17.340 did they do that? No, it's just not mine. Like about the toothpick or something like that.

00:03:21.760 Yeah. Not my way of thinking about the world. And it seems like it requires asking good questions.

00:03:28.620 Um, and one thing I remember in how, uh, what the dog saw, you, you talked about, there's certain

00:03:33.920 people you want to ask questions, like the higher ups, people at the top of the chain aren't usually

00:03:38.820 the ones you want to ask questions. It's in the middle. Why are people who are in the middle or,

00:03:43.260 you know, down on the, who are actually doing the work, the best people ask questions?

00:03:48.240 Yeah. Um, well, because they're, uh, they're seeing things from a different perspective and

00:03:58.820 they are freed of certain kinds of constraints. So to give you an example, I got, there was a

00:04:05.320 report that came out, um, from the Rand Corporation, uh, some months ago that was talking about how,

00:04:13.240 how the staff at the SEC had increased dramatically in size over the last couple of years. And at the

00:04:23.640 Rand's having a conference and I told them I would do a Q and A, um, at the conference about this

00:04:30.740 report. Cause I think it's really interesting to what happens to decision-making when there's more

00:04:34.600 people in the room. And the question came up, well, who should we do the Q and A with? Do we want to get,

00:04:40.840 you know, someone way, way high at the NFC or do you want to get someone in the middle? And my sentence

00:04:47.240 was actually, you want the person in the middle because they actually see the, we want to get into the

00:04:53.700 nitty gritty of what happens when you make crucial time limited decisions with 50 people. And before you

00:05:03.060 used to do it with six, right. And I want to know what that feels like. I don't know, is that good?

00:05:08.540 Is it bad? Is it, is it, you know, I want really mundane things like, is it harder to schedule a meeting

00:05:14.520 when you've got 50 in the room? Like, does that mean you can't have a meeting as quickly? Is it harder

00:05:19.540 or less hard to reach consensus? Is it, you know, you don't want to, you're not actually interested

00:05:25.260 and probably they couldn't tell you what the subject of the meeting was, right? So anyway,

00:05:32.140 yeah, I don't really care about the subject. What I want to know is just what happens to people when

00:05:37.860 they're in a different sort of context. And the person who can answer that question, I almost want

00:05:43.380 to talk to, I almost want to go as low as I can. I, you know, I almost want the person sitting in the

00:05:50.000 corner. He didn't say anything at all. I'm just just taking notes. Um, you know, some of the

00:05:55.120 assistant, I don't know if we can get that low, but, but the person who led the meeting has a

00:06:01.960 completely different, you know, they're thinking about the politics, not as who they have to report

00:06:07.020 to, the sensitivity, the material there. So they're almost, they're not who we want in this instance.

00:06:14.340 Right. Now maybe if I was, if I'm, uh, if I'm a national security reporter for the New York times,

00:06:22.160 I do want that person because my goal is to find out what, uh, what came out of the meeting,

00:06:27.760 what the decision was, but I'm not interested in my perspective is different. I'm interested in,

00:06:31.800 it's not what has drawn me to this example. So it's just a kind of, um, it just depends what

00:06:39.660 questions you're asking. And because I'm very interested in process questions, it means I'm

00:06:46.860 very often not interested in the person at the top. Gotcha. Um, so another thing you're,

00:06:54.240 I think you're really good at is taking really complex ideas and simplifying them for just regular

00:07:01.860 folks to understand. And I think that's actually a really important skill for people to develop

00:07:06.960 because our society economy is becoming more and more complex. Um, so I'm curious, do you have a

00:07:13.460 process that you go through to simplify complex ideas?

00:07:19.820 No, but it was very much a part of, uh, uh, my kind of upbringing, you know, my mother is someone

00:07:30.460 who's a, one of the, one of the things, a writer and writes in an incredibly clear and transparent

00:07:37.960 way. And I remember as a child being very kind of, um, taken by how clear her writing was as a model

00:07:45.600 for me. And then my father sent that petition that who's from talking to people in his field,

00:07:54.880 I came to understand that he was someone who was, um, whose kind of specialty was, uh, he would take

00:08:01.960 the 10 page proof and turn it into a two page proof. Um, so I still feel it's in my blood somehow to

00:08:09.660 want to, um, uh, and he was also, he would teach me math as a child and would, would take something that

00:08:19.220 I was hopelessly befuddled about it and resolve it and explain it in incredibly elegant, simple way.

00:08:27.940 And so I think I just sort of came to think of that as, um, the highest form of, um, communication,

00:08:36.180 you know, to, is to, and I remember even as a small boy, I was like, you know, like many boys

00:08:44.140 endlessly played board games and I, or card games. And I would always,

00:08:49.220 insist on being the one who explained the game to everyone else if they hadn't played it before

00:08:56.440 because I was always convinced I could explain it better than anybody else. And I could even

00:09:01.460 explain it better than the instructions. I always found instructions lacking, you know,

00:09:08.200 and you know how you get a new board game when you're like eight years old and you read the

00:09:11.180 instructions and then it'd make no sense. This would infuriate me. The way they were written

00:09:15.480 would infuriate me. I would always have my own way of kind of explaining how they worked.

00:09:22.540 Right. And then again, this is because you're focused on processes again. It's that you,

00:09:25.580 you have that you mentioned earlier.

00:09:27.940 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's like, even the very simple thing, instructions on games.

00:09:35.160 The first thing you should tell, you should say is what the point of the game is, right? What

00:09:41.880 is winning in this game? And they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't say the first line should

00:09:47.120 be, you know, in Monopoly, the winner is the person who dot, dot, dot. And then explain the

00:09:53.680 rules, right? But they would always, somehow they would feel like the point of the game was

00:09:59.180 supposed to kind of emerge from an understanding of the rules, which strikes me as crazy, completely

00:10:04.300 backwards. So that was a, I guess I've been doing this all my life.

00:10:09.580 Doing your entire life. It's really interesting. So let's talk about some of the things you've

00:10:14.960 written about and what you're doing on your podcast now. And as I've read your work and

00:10:19.360 as I've been listening to your podcast, Revisionist History, it seems like a common idea that you

00:10:26.260 explore is why people, you know, they'll know what they need to do, that there's a better way to do

00:10:33.340 something, but they don't do it. Um, and you explore this idea, uh, that I thought was completely

00:10:39.860 fascinating in your podcast about, uh, the granny shot in basketball. Yeah. Can you talk about like 1.00

00:10:47.560 what we can learn about why humans sort of self-sabotage themselves from Wilt Chamberlain

00:10:52.360 and the granny shot? Yeah, that was the first episode. Um, it's funny, you know, the, I, I didn't 0.61

00:11:01.860 think that was one of the stronger episodes and yet it seems to be the one that people, listeners

00:11:06.460 have gravitated to the most, which just shows you what a bad judge you are of, of your, of

00:11:11.860 one's own work. But that I was, I was reading, I can't remember why. I was really, um, uh,

00:11:21.920 interesting book on Wilt Chamberlain and it just describes his greatest game, a hundred point

00:11:28.720 game in 1962, I think one's still the greatest basketball game anyone's ever played. And he

00:11:35.520 shot 28 for 32 from the line. And which is weird because he's a terrible, he was famously

00:11:40.860 a terrible free throw shooter. So then you keep reading and you realize, oh wait, that

00:11:45.380 season was one of the only seasons in his career where he consistently shot under him

00:11:52.300 because, uh, his team had brought in a famous, one of those kind of, one of the famous old

00:11:58.700 school, um, actually a guy from the, what was it called? I think the Hebrew league. So the

00:12:03.300 Jewish basketball league of Philadelphia, the guy named Cy Castleman, famous free throw

00:12:08.300 shooter who shot underhand and was brought in to coach teach Wilt Chamberlain this, this

00:12:13.540 way of shooting. And all of a sudden Wilt Chamberlain becomes a fantastic free throw

00:12:17.200 shooter. And then the first thing he does after becoming a fantastic free throw shooter

00:12:21.120 is go, go back to shooting the old way. So he could be a terrible one again. Um, which

00:12:27.080 struck me as being so bizarre that I thought, and, but also not just, but done more

00:12:33.220 than just bizarre, so typical of human beings that we don't, we don't always do the thing

00:12:40.220 that's right or correct for us or best. We, we're very often quite happy to go back and

00:12:49.220 do the thing that got us into trouble, right? I mean, there's a million examples. People

00:12:54.220 who have a problem with alcohol relapse, you know, or, you know, we all have bad habits,

00:13:00.220 we know they're bad and we persist in doing them. And so I thought it would be really interesting

00:13:05.460 to kind of use the free throw story as a way of talking about that very human tendency, 0.98

00:13:12.820 uh, to behave stupidly, even when we know better. So, you know, the distinct from we do stupid 1.00

00:13:22.500 things all the time just because we don't, we don't know better, but we also do stupid 0.99

00:13:26.380 things when we do know better. So I wanted that second case. Uh, and then I, what made 0.79

00:13:33.580 the show work, I think, is that I went and interviewed Rick Barry, who was one of the few basketball

00:13:39.700 players to ever consistently use the underheaded free throw. And, uh, even he would do it, you

00:13:46.500 know, even though he was, he was almost, I mean, he was not reviled, but made fun of for using

00:13:52.940 this kind of awkward shot. And he turns out to be this incredibly compelling character. Um,

00:14:01.980 and so that, uh, the episode is just all about Will Chamberlain and Rick Barry, and then trying

00:14:06.980 to make sense of why is it that some people can do some kind of, be the first, be one of the few

00:14:14.460 to be willing to try some new idea. And the rest of us are hostiles.

00:14:20.020 Right. And you talk about, you get into that whole idea in sociology of thresholds where

00:14:24.360 some of us need a lot of people to be doing something before we're like, yeah, I'll do

00:14:29.560 that too.

00:14:32.100 Yeah. If you think about it as a kind of peer pressure model that, um, some people, all of

00:14:39.280 us will do even the most ridiculous thing if enough people are also doing the ridiculous 0.87

00:14:46.760 thing. Right. I mean, so there's, but some people don't require a lot to go first before 0.98

00:14:52.420 they act. And that difference in how many people, how many of your peers need to be doing something

00:14:58.580 before you'll join in is called your threshold. And the low threshold people don't need a lot

00:15:05.680 about us to go first and high threshold people need the world to go first before they'll

00:15:10.200 join in. Um, and, uh, Wilt Chamberlain was a high threshold person. He was not going to

00:15:17.780 continue shooting the underhanded free throw. Um, if he was going to be the only one or one

00:15:22.680 of the only people, he didn't want to be, didn't want to stand out in that way. Um, whereas

00:15:27.300 Rick Barry is someone who is quite happy to be the only person in the NBA to shoot that

00:15:31.300 way. It doesn't bother him that he's that kind of took his whole career. He persisted

00:15:36.640 in doing things that sort of set him apart from, from others. And, uh, that's a kind

00:15:42.860 of, that way of understanding our behavior is really interesting because it frames our choices

00:15:49.540 in social terms. It says the reason you do certain things may have nothing to do with

00:15:57.080 the quality of the idea or your own personal preferences. It just has to do with the social

00:16:03.300 context. You know, that your 12 year old, your 18 year old son will drive a hundred miles an

00:16:11.520 hour while drunk, even though he knows that is a terrible idea. If he's in a car full of

00:16:17.420 his friends who are all drunk and urging him to drive a hundred miles an hour, right? It's

00:16:22.460 just social. He doesn't want to do it. He doesn't believe in that. He's a lot smarter

00:16:27.540 than that. But in the moment, surrounded by his peers, egging him on, he's capable of doing

00:16:35.560 something very stupid. That is a profoundly human reaction. 1.00

00:16:40.540 Well, I'm curious when your research, have you found anything where you can sort of inculcate,

00:16:44.380 you know, sort of an antidote to that where you can actually height, you know, raise your threshold

00:16:49.000 to where you'll just do something even if other people are saying, don't do that or do this?

00:16:55.840 Well, there's a great example of this in binge drinking on campus that what people, this is one

00:17:05.520 of the single most effective interventions against drinking on campus. They ask students whether

00:17:13.460 they, what percentage of students they thought engaged in binge drinking. And most students

00:17:21.000 said they thought it was something like 60% or 70% of a lot of students. They thought that

00:17:27.180 binge drinking was something the majority did. And so that's why they did it. They felt they

00:17:32.420 were, to not binge drink would be to stand out. And then they informed them that the real number

00:17:39.400 is actually something like 20%. It's a minority. And just telling students that something they

00:17:46.140 thought was something everyone did was actually something that very few people did dramatically

00:17:55.340 reduced the incidence of binge drinking. So there what you're doing is you're playing

00:17:59.300 with thresholds. You're saying that a behavior that people thought was commonplace,

00:18:09.840 was actually rare. And the minute you say that a behavior is rare, the social context in which

00:18:16.440 that behavior occurs changes dramatically.

00:18:19.360 I think I've heard a similar study with that, with hookup culture, where they'll tell, ask

00:18:24.800 students, like, how many people, how many of your peers do you think are engaging in sexual

00:18:30.300 relationships, like on the first date? And everyone thought everyone was doing it. But then they

00:18:34.140 informed them, no, it's actually a small percentage. And then that reduced the amount.

00:18:37.900 It's the same. It's a remarkably effective way of... Same thing happens. You know, if you think

00:18:44.300 about something simple like wearing your seatbelt, Americans were resistant for years to wearing

00:18:51.040 your seatbelt. But now it's second nature. Now, if you don't wear your seatbelt, you stand

00:18:58.340 out so much that it's almost impossible not to buckle up. And can you imagine... I can't remember

00:19:05.540 being in a car where someone wasn't wearing your seatbelt. I mean, it would be... Everyone

00:19:09.680 would remark on it. They would think you were weird and strange. I mean, the kind of social

00:19:13.840 pressure now around wearing your seatbelt is overwhelming. That was not true in 1980.

00:19:19.940 Yeah. And I think... And you explore this idea of, like, people knowing what they should do.

00:19:25.560 There's a better way to do something, but they don't do it. You also hit on this a bit. And David and

00:19:29.240 Goliath, where you talk about, again, basketball, but this team of 12-year-old girls who were

00:19:34.760 utilizing the full-court press all the time to win basketball games. That seems to be related to

00:19:42.520 that. Because, like, no one else does it, but this one team decided that this is what they're going to

00:19:45.880 do. Yeah. Well, you don't... Basketball teams, particularly youth girls' basketball teams,

00:19:54.560 don't play that way because it's obnoxious. If you press against a group of 12-year-old girls, 0.90

00:20:02.580 they won't be able to get the ball off the court. I mean, and so that you can't actually play

00:20:06.520 basketball if you press 100% of the time against, you know, relatively, you know, non-elite,

00:20:17.320 even boys' basketball at that age. You know, the game becomes impossible to play. So you have

00:20:24.320 to be willing to disrupt the game in a really profound way to play that way, right? You have

00:20:33.720 to be pretty bold and thick-skinned because the other team, the other parents, particularly,

00:20:42.060 I even got really angry because no one's shooting. It's just all turnovers. It's like, you know,

00:20:50.160 and so that was the sort of funny thing was that, you know, this is not a strategy that... It's a

00:20:57.240 strategy that requires, at least in the beginning, some pretty thick-skinned, obnoxious people

00:21:03.660 to pull off.

00:21:04.820 And you talk about Rick Barry was sort of like, he was sort of thick-skinned and obnoxious. He

00:21:09.260 didn't have a really good reputation. Even though you talk about his biography, like he had these

00:21:14.860 quotes from his parents who just like kind of, you know, eviscerated him a little bit and that he

00:21:20.200 was okay with that.

00:21:22.320 Yeah, he's not... He didn't care what people think about him. I don't actually think... I think he's

00:21:28.520 very pleasant. I actually think he thought he was a nice, good person, but he just doesn't...

00:21:35.000 You know, the rest of us spend a lot of time doing things and saying things that we think

00:21:39.860 will win the approval of those around us. He does not. It's not even on the table. He does what he

00:21:45.320 thinks is right. And that is a really... That's a sure way to make enemies. You know, he went on and on

00:21:54.000 about how... He's absolutely right. He does not understand why in the NBA, when someone misses a

00:22:01.240 free throw, all the members of his team congratulate him. You know, he's like, why are you... The guy just blew it.

00:22:09.440 He just botched an incredibly important and straightforward basketball play. And you're

00:22:16.300 reinforcing his mistake by clapping on the back and high-fiving him and doing whatever you

00:22:23.460 do. He's like, that's crazy. You should be doing the opposite. You should be shaming this guy

00:22:29.820 for missing the free throw. He's right. I mean, why are you congratulating someone for screwing

00:22:35.320 him? Yeah. You're creating a social context in which people don't feel they have to be great 0.97

00:22:41.160 free throw shooters, right? Right.

00:22:44.840 And... But you can see why someone who feels that way would be ostracized on the basketball

00:22:50.740 team. Yeah.

00:22:52.060 But Whitbury would be the guy glaring at...

00:22:55.320 Yeah. It's all social.

00:22:58.160 Yeah. At Dwight Howard for missing the free throw in the final minute of the game.

00:23:03.980 Right.

00:23:04.620 And that's not going to endear you to Dwight Howard.

00:23:09.140 Well, Malcolm, something I've noticed, you're very passionate about education, particularly

00:23:15.320 education philanthropy. Because I saw the tweet storm that you did a while back ago. And I have

00:23:23.080 two questions related to education, because I think they're connected in a way. In David

00:23:28.600 and Goliath, you talk about how the way many college students go about deciding which college

00:23:34.540 to attend actually can stunt their academic growth. Can you flesh that idea out a bit?

00:23:42.920 Yeah. That's called Big Fish Little Pond Theory. And it says that it just is a psychological observation

00:23:52.180 that it's really hard to be in the bottom half of any classroom. It really makes it difficult

00:24:01.780 for you to remain confident, to learn what you need to learn, to persevere. And there's

00:24:08.400 all kinds of evidence for this. And so putting a student in a situation where he or she is in

00:24:14.520 the bottom half is perilous. It's not always bad. It just increases the chances that, particularly

00:24:20.800 if you're engaged in something that's very difficult, that you're going to drop out.

00:24:25.740 So I'd use the example of science and math classes. It's really hard to be in the bottom

00:24:31.980 half of a difficult math class. And when we look at why dropout rates are so high in science

00:24:38.860 and math education, and they are extremely high, that's what's happening, is that if you're

00:24:43.660 taking calculus and you're the worst person, you're the worst student in the class, chances

00:24:50.960 of you finishing the year in that class are just minimal. And so what that says is that

00:24:58.240 the best place, the best environment to be when you're looking for a college is not the

00:25:03.880 most elite college you can get into, but the college where your chances of being in the top

00:25:10.100 half are greatest. So the best college for you is not the best college you can get into.

00:25:17.480 Right. So if there's a choice between an Ivy League school and a state school, go with

00:25:21.020 the state school.

00:25:22.060 Sometimes.

00:25:22.680 You're right.

00:25:23.200 Many people will be better off in the state school because you'll be in a situation where

00:25:28.780 you feel much more confident. And so your chances of getting a science degree or a law degree

00:25:36.140 or a medical degree or what have you may be much greater in a non-elite place than an elite

00:25:41.340 place. And that consideration, that simple rule, I think is very often ignored. And students

00:25:50.140 are so obsessed with the kind of getting into the most prestigious school they can, that they

00:25:55.980 forget that the most prestigious school may not be the best school for you.

00:25:59.300 Right. And haven't they done studies where they found that, you know, looking at long-term

00:26:04.480 trends, I know they've done this with law school at least, that, you know, which school

00:26:08.980 you attended overall doesn't affect how well you do as a lawyer later on. You could go to

00:26:14.980 a state school and you've done just as well financially as if a kid who went to Harvard.

00:26:19.560 Yeah. It's not, generally speaking, when people do, economists do very careful studies of the

00:26:31.440 usefulness of an elite education, what they discover is it's not as useful as you think.

00:26:38.720 So that it's really, people from Harvard do well because the kind of person who goes to

00:26:44.140 Harvard does well in the world. They would do just as well if they didn't. It's not Harvard,

00:26:48.340 in other words, it's making them succeed in life. It's the fact that they're a very, very

00:26:54.060 smart, talented person. And so, um, it's their personal characteristics, not the characteristics

00:27:00.560 of their school that are predicted of their success. So once you account for that, you realize

00:27:06.120 that additional advantage that accrues from, um, the reputation of your undergraduate school

00:27:15.220 is small. It's just, we exaggerate it. It's just not the case that it makes a huge amount

00:27:22.120 of difference where you go. It just makes you feel good in the moment saying that that got

00:27:25.400 accepted to Brown. That's where I'm going to go. Yeah. So I think this idea is connected to a recent

00:27:32.060 podcast episode you did on revisionist history. Um, this idea that going with the most prestigious

00:27:36.640 school can backfire on a person individually. It also seems, uh, it's connected to your idea of how

00:27:43.060 education philanthropy is done. Um, so in the past 20 years, there's been a boom in donations to

00:27:49.300 American universities, big donations. Uh, but you argue that the way it's done is actually not all

00:27:54.940 that productive. Uh, why is that? Well, there's been, there has been this dramatic uptick in large

00:28:02.980 gifts. So a hundred million dollar plus gifts to American institutions, college institutions.

00:28:07.480 They've all overwhelmingly gone to schools that are already rich. So, you know, the last heart,

00:28:16.560 you know, the last $400 million, last two $400 million donations in, uh, in, um, the world of,

00:28:25.100 of higher ed, uh, Phil Knight's gift, Sanford and John Paulson's gift to Harvard went to schools with,

00:28:33.660 uh, an endowment of $22 billion and $36 billion respectively. People are giving lots of money

00:28:41.840 to schools that already have lots of money. And that episode of revisionist history said,

00:28:46.940 first of all, why? That's kind of crazy. Why would you, what sense does it, does it make

00:28:53.840 to give money to people who are already rich, to institutions that are already rich? It would

00:28:58.640 be like me writing a check to Bill Gates. Why would I, why would I do that? You know? Um,

00:29:05.480 and the second point, sort of the broader point is that when we give money away, we usually do a kind

00:29:13.000 of return on, on our investment calculation, right? We say how much good can be purchased with my money?

00:29:19.920 And my argument is that if you give $400 million to a school that already has 36 billion, there's not

00:29:28.620 much more they can do with that money. You know, they're, they've already, presumably, if you have

00:29:33.860 that much money in the bank, they're already doing the kinds of things that money can buy. You know,

00:29:39.680 they're, they've already set up the lab. They've already funded the research. They've already

00:29:44.560 supported the student in financial aid. You know, whereas if you give that $400 million to a school

00:29:52.000 that has $100 million in the bank, there's an amazing amount they can do with that money.

00:29:58.100 They can, so it's, you know, when you, your return on your investment, when you give money

00:30:02.960 to a needy school, it's just vastly greater than if you give money to a wealthy school, just as it would

00:30:10.380 be in real life if you're giving money away. The person living at the poverty line can do an

00:30:16.860 extraordinary amount with $1,000. $1,000 given to a billionaire is meaningless. Um, and I, my puzzle

00:30:26.020 that I'm trying to solve in that episode is why on earth does this very common sense principle, which is

00:30:32.540 really clear when it comes to giving to people. Why on earth is that ignored when it comes to giving to

00:30:38.820 institutions? And it seems like there's a little bit of that Matthew effect going on, right? Like

00:30:43.700 success. We just want to, we want to go with the winner. So we give them more. Yeah. Which makes

00:30:49.380 no sense. I think what I actually said in an interview recently, though, I thought that, uh,

00:30:56.460 it was, if you give anyone who gives money to Princeton, which is on a per capita basis,

00:31:01.200 the wealthiest educational institution in the history of mankind, anyone who gives money to Princeton

00:31:06.340 is committing a, I think that's a moral obscenity. That's, it's wrong. There's no other way around

00:31:11.840 it. I mean, you know, we should just burn your money. You know, if you're going to, it's just a 0.95

00:31:17.900 school that is a tiny school. It's, I don't remember how much money they have in the bank, but on a

00:31:22.980 per capita basis, they are, you know, they're, they're basically, they're like one of those little

00:31:28.500 islands in the South Pacific where everyone's a millionaire. Right. As you were describing that,

00:31:34.200 it made me think of like stocks, right? And stocks, like the idea is, do you want to like,

00:31:38.400 one of the things you do is you find the stocks that are undervalued and you invest in that.

00:31:43.640 Like people, that makes sense to people. I think like the schools that are poor or don't have that

00:31:47.800 much money or like sort of the undervalued stocks, there's a lot of opportunity for growth. Um,

00:31:51.940 and then investing world, like you don't want to invest in the company that's overpriced,

00:31:55.160 has already reached its peak price. That's what it seems people will do with philanthropy.

00:31:59.580 Yes, that's exactly right. That, that kind of, it's funny, you know, and so this is another area

00:32:07.420 where in certain realms, I think we think rationally, or at least we tend to think rationally,

00:32:14.360 but then in other areas we don't. So we think rationally about stocks, usually, but when it comes

00:32:22.920 to educational philanthropy, we're completely unwilling to kind of, or not always, but

00:32:29.560 many people, many, many wealthy people who are normally, um, very thoughtful and intelligent,

00:32:35.620 um, are unwilling to, um, to, uh, use those, use their same thinkers rationally when it comes

00:32:45.820 to their, um, their educational giving.

00:32:48.640 It's interesting. Well, Malcolm, one thing, um, I'd like to talk to shifting gears here a bit.

00:32:53.100 I think one thing a lot of people don't know about you is that you're an avid runner. Uh, in fact,

00:32:58.020 I just learned, uh, two years ago, you were 50 years old. You ran a four minute, 54 second

00:33:04.400 mile, which blows my mind because I'm just, uh, it takes me like 13 minutes to run a mile.

00:33:10.440 When did you start running? And I'm curious, is there's anything you've learned from running

00:33:15.580 running that you applied to your work as a writer?

00:33:19.960 Oh, I was, uh, well, I was a, I ran a lot in, um, high school and then, uh, very successfully.

00:33:29.420 And then I stopped and really didn't race again for 30 years. Um, although I ran a little bit,

00:33:37.160 but I was standard, started to run seriously again in my, in my fifties. Um, uh, what, what

00:33:44.860 is, I mean, running is about, um, I don't know that there's a direct overlap with writing,

00:33:51.660 except that it gives you a period of time, extended period of time for reflection. And I just think,

00:33:58.020 right, if you're going to be a successful writer, you need to have extended periods of reflection.

00:34:03.100 And so you go for a 10 mile run, that's a good, you know, hour and change where that you have with

00:34:11.340 your, that you're alone with your thoughts. And so that can be, uh, there's a nice overlap between

00:34:19.320 the, um, the opportunity given by a long run and the requirements of writing.

00:34:27.580 Well, Malcolm, this has been a great conversation. Where can people learn more about your work in

00:34:31.180 your new podcast, revisionist history? Well, we have a website, revisionist history.com where,

00:34:38.060 um, all the episodes are available for download. And, and I have a website gladwell.com where a lot

00:34:45.280 of my writing is archived. And so I think between the two of those websites, uh, you can pretty much

00:34:51.500 get the full story. Fantastic. Well, Malcolm Gladwell, thank you so much for your time. It's been a

00:34:55.320 pleasure. Great. It's been really fun. Thank you. My guest today was Malcolm Gladwell. He's

00:35:01.120 the author of several books that you can find on amazon.com, uh, but be sure to share his new

00:35:04.860 podcast, revisionist history. You can go to revisionist history.com to download episodes

00:35:08.720 there or search for it on iTunes. It's a really great show. Also check out the show notes for

00:35:13.300 this podcast at aom.is slash Gladwell. Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness

00:35:30.560 podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:35:34.320 artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy this show, have gotten something out of it, I'd appreciate it

00:35:38.360 if you give us a review on iTunes, it helps us out a lot. As always, thank you for tuning

00:35:42.060 your support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - August 09, 2016

#224： Why Smart People Do Stupid Things With Malcolm Gladwell

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