Michael Lewis is the author of Moneyball and other books. Here are some of the highlights from his Adobe Summit interview today:
How do you do it? How do you grab attention?
I don’t think of myself as “in that game.” Was more focused on getting my attention. Focus on what gets me out of bed in the morning. I’m generally lazy so I need something that makes me work.
Why do these ideas work?
It’s always a personality that I find riveting. Flash Boys is about a generally good person in the financial markets. There are usually some ideas that play in the background. So it’s first about some character.
How did you get into this?
Very indirectly. The quick Lewis Bio: Grew up in New Orleans, a hedonistic totally delightful society. There was never much incentive to work. Family motto: Do as little as possible and that unwillingly. Had to wake up at some time and realize that he had to work. I studied art history. By the time I woke up, when I came out of college, the one thing I really enjoyed doing was writing, not that anyone else agreed with me….
I started writing by writing my Mother with amusing letter. She passed them around.
Favorite book was on the dot com bubble
We live in a society that entirely depends on us taking a risk. We pay people to fail.
Has Social Media changed your life much?
My last Facebook post was in October. I was supposed to write something for “free” on Facebook once a day. I got bored with this after three hours. Thank heavens the book took off and I didn’t need social.
I coach baseball and had a kid who needed a bone marrow transplant. I used facebook to get people to find a match based on a variety of factors. There are uses for social media that are great, just not taking pictures of me. The idea that I want to open myself up to casual acquaintances from high school…..My idea of hell is a cocktail party.
I want to talk about Moneyball and how data transformed baseball. Do you see data as something that will disrupt other areas of life?
What got me interested in Moneyball was the emotional content. I got interested in the Oakland A when I saw the salary discrepancies between the the left fielder and right fielder. Then I found out about the class warfare between baseball teams. Players were not invited to enjoy their big data experience. Didn’t want to confuse them. “Can’t be too stupid to play baseball”
When interviewing the players, was fascinated by the players who didn’t look like athletes. Spoke to the back office and found out that the Oakland A’s strategy about finding players who were under-valued in the marketplace. That got them past the club feet, how fat they were, etc.
It’s not a baseball story. it’s a story about data and somewhat like my financial markets book. The Oakland GM only invests in companies whose CEO’s are mismatches or not the norm.
Tell me about your Presidents book?
One of the odd things about our president is that he’s an admirable writer. He’s dead serious about his basketball game. One of the worst ways to understand someone is in the doing mode not behind a desk. It was a bad interview technique because playing basketball isn’t something Michael Lewis does well. President Obama was ticked because he lost because of Michael Lewis.
The Big Short is being shot as a movie in New Orleans right now.
It has an incredible cast. Brad Pitt is very bright. That’s why he was interested in moneyball. He hated being interpreted for his looks rather than his ability or smarts.
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