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Curious Worldview
116: Walt Bogdanich | 3x Pulitzer Prize Winner On Consultants & When McKinsey Comes To Town
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🎙️: https://atlasgeographica.com/walt-bogdanich/
The following is a conversation with Walt Bogdanich, an investigative journalist for the New York Times, author of many books, and 3x recipient of the Pulitzer Prize.
Walt Bogdanich co-authored a book titled ‘When McKinsey Comes To Town’ which documents 14 different examples of McKinsey poisoning, muddying and consulting the waters of big industry, big government and even bigger money.
In this chat there is a lot of talk about...
- McKinsey In Saudi Arabia
- McKinsey & Perdue Pharma
- McKinsey's Absurd Conflicts Of Interest
- Investigative Journalism
- + Much More As Well...
Links To Walt Bogdanich
Episodes Of The Curious Worldview Podcast Mentioned.
- Martin Schibbye - Sweden's Greatest Investigative Journalist
- Dan McDougall - Legendary Investigative Journalist.
- Bradley Hope - 1MDB & Project Brazen.
- Jim Henry - Offshore Finance Investigative Journalist
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- 00:00 – Introduction
- 01:40 – 3x Pulitzer Prize Wins
- 04:58 – McKinsey Are More Secretive Than The CIA
- 13:27 – Nassim Taleb, Consultants & Skin In The Game
- 19:52 – Exclusive Access To McKinsey Client List & Perdue Pharma Opioid Crisis
- 34:52 – McKinsey In Saudi Arabia
- 44:33 – Archetypal Example Of Filthy McKinsey
- 48:07 – Pulitzer Prize Story & Hard Truth About Investigative Journalism
- 56:39 – The Necessity For Supply Chain Investigations (Cocaine/Batteries) & Advice For Aspiring Investigative Journalists
- 1:00:00 – Walt’s Investigative Journalists Hero’s + A Great Story Not Being Told.
- 1:05:32 – The Role Of Serendipity In Walt’s Life.
- 1:08:10 – A Country Walt Is Bullish On.
- 1:09:49 – Conversation Between Any Two People Of History.
- 1:11:28 – Afterthoughts & Ambition For The Podcast.
The following is a conversation with Walt Bogdanich. He's an investigative journalist for the New York Times, author of very many books, and as well a three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. It is by an unbelievable quirk of the universe that he appears on the podcast with me here today. Walt co-authored a book titled When McKinse Comes to Town, which documents 14 different examples of McKinsey poisoning, muddying, and consulting the waters of big industry, big government, and even bigger money. You can expect to hear in this podcast Walt speak about McKinsey in Saudi Arabia, McKinsey and Purdue Pharma, who are the pharmaceutical company behind the opioid crisis in America. McKinsey's about third conflicts of interests. You can hear Walt explain why he thinks McKinsey could actually be more powerful than the CIA and more. This chat is separated into two distinct chapters, I would say. The first is consultants, McKinsey, skin in the game. And then the second is investigative journalism, advice to young, aspiring investigative journalists, pulled surprise stories, serendipity, and some of the classic questions that you've come to expect. So this podcast took me about five hours to put together, but will only take you five seconds to review. So wipe up their maps right now and pump that good juice into the algorithm, create momentum in the direction of all the algorithms, and that is in the form of five stars. Because indexability, searchability, discoverability, it's all fucked on these podcast algorithms. And the one God metric is reviews. So contribute to those. And with absolutely no further ado, here is the great Walt Bogdanich. Walt. What sort of doors open up because of three Pulitzer Prize wins?
SPEAKER_01Not enough, I could say, um, but but more than than uh if I had none. And uh it's not like I don't appreciate it. Uh they do it does mean a lot, specifically in terms of credibility, um, when people don't know you and you're asking them to reveal secrets and things that otherwise they might be uncomfortable doing. The fact you're talking to somebody who's apparently respected enough in the field to win three Pulitzers, or I should say lucky enough to win three Pulitzers, because there is that element of luck, uh, which I do uh acknowledge. Uh on the other hand, I thought we did some pretty good work. So, yes, it helps a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Can you give us some examples, or maybe just one example that stands out of how it made a tangible difference in opening a door or yeah, a sense of credibility?
SPEAKER_01Well, I you know, it's it I've never begun a conversation saying, look, you need to talk to me. By the way, I won three Pulitzer Prizes. Um I don't think you get very far that way. I just think, you know, I I I can't point to any specific story. I do know that, you know, someone who is going to be interviewed me by by me or received a call from me, one of the first things they do is they look at my bio, and in this day and age it's very easy to do. And the three Pulitzers pop up. So that can only help. Could also make you fearful, you know, if you've got something to hide, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, that's uh that's a nice segue. I mean, did was that the case here with uh when McKinsey comes to town?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it helped. Um, I mean, it's not just the Pulitzers, but I'm working for you know what I would consider, and most people would consider uh the best news organization in the world, so that also helps. And we had done a number of stories on McKinsey before launching into the book. Um, and it was it was uh at times a hard sell because not that many, not much is known on McKinsey. And editors, before they commit a lot of resources, um, they they they they want to be kind of certain of a sure thing. And there was no sure thing when you're investigating or proposing an investigation of uh this super secretive you know company that never discloses what it does and has uh tentacles that reach all sorts of places that you kind of wish they didn't. And so I I think there was a reluctance to engage with me on that. Just find my track record. And look, I was I was upset about it a little bit, but there were other big stories my unit was working on the the you know sexual assault, Harvey Weinstein stuff, and so that that's big, and they had a lot of people working on that. So getting an editor's attention is not always the easiest thing to do, but I've known that throughout my career, and I I can I can sort of you know jump up and down and make myself known and uh heard, so I have some skill in that area.
SPEAKER_00Well, you're uh you're teeing me out perfectly. Slimey was your own words, but help me make sense of this statement. Forget secret cabals, the Illuminati, lizard people, or globalists, because instead there is McKinsey.
SPEAKER_01Oh gosh, I love that quote. It's from somebody who I've gotten to know quite well. And initially it was anonymous, and and we talked him into going uh on the record in the sense of using it by his name. Um yeah, I mean, um I just love that quote. Um because you know those in the know, um, and there aren't many in the know, and that's why we did the book, uh, realize the reach and power and influence of McKinsey. And and and that's what makes that quote ring true to people who know about the company and know about its work. Um so yes, uh yeah, I I love it.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh I mean help us make sense of that then. Explain the reach and power of this organization.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Um well it it uh has advised the great majority of the Fortune 500 companies. Um and it advises companies around the world. Now, these days multinational corporations are everywhere, and and McKinsey has its fingers in all of those, and most of them. Um but what I think really kind of adds to their influence is is they they consult for governments around the world, they consult for government agencies, uh, they take over the business of government, um, they take over the business of people who have been elected to do a job and decide that it's a lot easier just to pay somebody to do the job. Uh, and and then you don't have the responsibility if things go south. If you things don't go right, you can say, well, you know, all we did is recommend something. Uh you know, we don't execute the these policies. So, yeah, I mean, you know, so they're they're they're everywhere, and and they're I don't I don't know of a more secretive organization in in the world, uh, including our central uh our CIA, because uh CIA doesn't know all the secrets that McKinsey has, uh with all the corporate people and corporate executives and what they're doing. And so yeah, that that that that's that's you know part of why why we decided to do the story, and and you know, part of the reason why we needed to think twice about tackling this, because they are so secretive.
SPEAKER_00Surely you're embellishing their um I don't know, uh, influence. If you're saying they're even more secretive than the CIA, they know even more secrets than the CIA. Prove me otherwise.
SPEAKER_01You know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Well, then perhaps bring to the top of your mind for you this like archetypal, most egregious example of how McKinsey is exactly what you just said it is.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think the the best way to kind of dig in and look at it is through its uh concept of conflicts of interest, which basically, in their view, never exists. In fact, I can't imagine them coming up with an idea, well, this is a conflict of interest, we can't do this. No, they don't think that way. They think, oh, well, we could get money out of multiple pockets, reach into all these and pull the money out, and and and nobody's the worse for it. Well, yes, they uh people are the worse for it. And and and in in the United States, they they they advise um all of the major drug companies in the world. All of them. Almost all of them. I'm I I guess a few have probably slipped through the net, you know, that they didn't get. Um and at the same time, they advise the most influential, consequential regulatory agency overseeing health care, the Food and Drug Administration. And they don't seem to have a problem with that.
SPEAKER_00Well, simultaneously having multiple pharmaceutical companies on the books.
SPEAKER_01Yes, all of them. And and frankly, their healthcare field business is one of the most lucrative. It's not just it's not just the the pharmaceutical companies, it's the drug distributors, it's the hospitals, it's the doctor's groups, it's the the you know the managed care organizations. They have checked all the boxes and um and and are very proud of it, although they don't stand up on a soapbox and say, hey, look at us, you know, we've got all this influence. And I mean, they don't want they want the right people to know that. But when people like me come along and ask them about it, they're not interested in talking about it. And when we file our l our lawful freedom of information requests, they often come back, you know, redacted large parts of it, or we can't tell you who who the senior partner is who oversaw this, it's sort of none of your business. Well, it is my business, and it's the public's business. And and there has to be accountability when you have that concentration of power. And and and and there isn't any. And I guess ultimately that's the value in doing a book like this.
SPEAKER_00Is this a phenomen uh phenomenon um explicit? No. Unique to McKinsey? Or does this same conflict of interest, lack of skin in the game, money is really the uh highest value of all overall culture, also applicable to the Deloitte, the Bain, the BCG, the Accenture, all the rest? Or is there something particularly pernicious about McKinsey?
SPEAKER_01We never uh investigated the other um competitors in the consulting field. Um they have their own, you know, dark secrets and embarrassments. Um, you know, and McKinsey, off the record, will say, Well, why are why are you looking at us? Why don't you look at the other ones? Um, and I said, Well, because you said you're the biggest and the best, and therefore we want to look at the biggest and the best. Uh do they have the kinds of conflicts of interest that McKinsey has? I don't know. Um I think McKinsey is sort of the uh they're the the ones who kind of perfected that. And I mean I I think they could very well. I just I don't know because I haven't looked at them.
SPEAKER_00Right. There's a terrific book that um almost does exactly what you did, you know, because each chapter is a different sort of case of McKinsey's tentacles wrapping around some public issue. Um but BCG and their influence on the Karolinska uh hospital here in Stockholm, uh which is I think the hospital that gives out the Nobel Prize for Medicine, but as well, it's just you know Sweden's biggest public hospital. Uh all the researchers uh operate there. Anyway, this book is an investigation into the egregious inefficiency and graft that BCG pulled on the Swedish taxpayer.
SPEAKER_01Well, I it's a book I think I'd like to read. 100%. I would uh recognize the tune because McKinsey's been saying it for a long time. Yeah, I I didn't I didn't know about that. Um there are a lot of things I don't know. Um a lot of times, hopefully enough years so I know more. But yeah, I mean that's that's sort of uh uh they have such extraordinary influence in in healthcare. And when people say, why are you looking at McKinsey? Why aren't you looking at something else? Well, because healthcare affects all of us. And it's a black box, at least in this country it is. Um and when they went over to to the UK and decided that, you know, with the changing political winds, they're gonna start to privatize uh the National Health Service. Um, you know, that uh that got a lot of people's attention, but it was sort of done quietly and uh and something we thought we needed to report. So yeah, they're um they're worth worth watching very carefully in the healthcare space.
SPEAKER_00Nisim Taleb, is that an author that you're familiar with? Um He wrote Black Swan Full by Randomness, Skin of the Game, Anti-Fragile.
SPEAKER_01No, I I'm I'm I'm not.
SPEAKER_00Oh, really interesting.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well I can act like I am. So let's uh Sure no.
SPEAKER_00I mean of course I read it two days ago, but you know No, I don't want you to pretend like you know what it is, but I'm just saying that um this fella, Nasim, he writes in Skin of the Game, which is a very, you know, popular, well-read book, um, that consultants are almost this archetypal example of an occupation with no skin in the game. And your book, in my eyes, certainly reinforces this case, but how do you see it?
SPEAKER_01Well, that put it better than I could. Uh yes, I I I agree with that. Uh a lot of times they do have skin in the game. I mean, they're getting a lot of money. Well, I mean, here's the thing about McKinsey. Um, you know, when they make billions of dollars in profits, you know, that's one thing for a car company. They have to put up a lot of money to make cars. They gotta buy the the raw ingredients, they gotta buy the materials that are used to build whatever they're gonna build. McKinsey doesn't do any of that. They just sell their ideas. And and and they're based on, you gotta believe me because we're the best, because we're telling you the best we're the best. And and you know, you're dumb if you don't believe it. Um and and why would all these you know countries and corporations hire us if we weren't the best? And um, and they have done some good things. I mean, I I should say upfront that I mean they're not the personification of evil. I mean, there are a lot of good people who work at McKinsey who I've gotten to know and are the type that I would like to be friends with and actually have become friends with. So um it's a question of you know, how did this entity that really could have made a lot of money in a more forthright, open, transparent way, why did they take this course? And um and I guess I can't answer that definitively, but I can say historically they followed the pattern, unfortunately, that a lot of corporations do, that they're gonna just want more and more and more. And and that's what they did. And we want more clients, we want more money, um, and and our senior you know partners are making more than a million dollars a year, and and we gotta feed uh feed the beast. And so um there's no sense of enough is enough.
SPEAKER_00So, like a combination of greed, but then also just the inherent need for growth in an organization perhaps skewed the morale somewhere along the way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the morale got lost uh in in the in the cash register or something. Um I mean uh yeah, I so yeah, I I I I go ahead.
SPEAKER_00The um the example that Taleb presents of this consultant being the archetype of no skin in the game is that they will be hired to consult on a job that they actually have zero long-term interest in its outcome. Therefore, how invested can they be in the proposal itself? And I think that is just you know a bit of a throwaway caricature of consultants in general, their fancy PowerPoint presentations, so a company can get a ticket approval to do what it wanted to do anyway.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's very perceptive. I agree with it 100%. Um I can cite two cases in particular. In fact, I could read one of short section of uh that I it it was from a uh a regulator, uh a new uh utility regulator in the United States. To your point, um, he said, quote, I'll never forget when a young punk from McKinsey came into my office at the New York Public Service Commission and enthusiastically explained how they were right sizing one of the state's utilities that was in financial trouble. I said, You mean lay people off? He responded that they were not laying people off, but right-sizing. I told him, I hope he had the pleasure of being right-sized. Bottom line, these morons right-sized linesmen with institutional memory, like where the lines really were, and the utility had to utility had to hire them back as consultants. Now, I mean, that's also a quote I love. Um, but to buttress that with another example, I just finished reading a uh Pulitzer Winning biography. I I was late in doing this, of Catherine Graham, who was the owner of uh Washington Post. And there's a snippet towards the end where she says, like, you know, we we're we're we're we're a public company now, we're trying to grow, and what's the best way to go? And and people recommended McKinsey, so we brought them in, and over and over and over again they interviewed us over and it went forever, and and and then what they produced was was they basically regurgitated what we told them with a few different words. And that's the McKinsey model. And so you have people who don't know the industry, and they come in there and they give them advice, and they use words that make it sound like they're really, really smart and in the know, and they're using the fashion of the moment, you know, you know, referring to that. And and and you know, I mean, people people buy it. Uh the Washington Post got rid of them, and um hopefully the New York Times did, but you know, I'm not on the business side.
SPEAKER_00Um but anyhow, that's uh it'd be uh pretty remarkable if the same organization that published well didn't publish, but at least employ someone who published one of the most public attacks against McKinsey of all time was also a client of McKinsey.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I mean, you know, they they they they were they uh they did advise the New York Times for many years.
SPEAKER_00So I know you can't reveal this, but uh it's uh I'd love to hear you talk about the big breaking news of the book, but you got access to the McKinsey client list, which historically no one knew about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean that was a big breakthrough. Um no one had it, we had it, and we knew how much they were being paid. I it may not have been totally um comp there may be some that weren't in there, and I suspect there were, but this was an exhaustive list. And I think what it revealed most to us, beyond the extraordinary amount of money that corporations are willing to pay um these young MBAs, um uh beyond that, it revealed the conflicts of interest that are central to McKinsey's kind of um operating model. Um so that that that that was important, and yeah, it was a big breakthrough, and we're excited about it. And and that's about as far as I could go in telling you about how we got it, but we got it. And uh it was a it was but I should also say that I mean, you know, it was more than that. And and uh you every everybody who works at McKinsey signs a non-disclosure agreement, and the day they walk in the door for the first time, that's impressed upon them over and over again. You do not disclose client names, you don't disclose what you tell them, you don't disclose what they pay us. And most of the people really buy that and they won't talk about it. And we've talked, and when we started working on this, there'd be people who had left the company 20 years ago. They said, Oh, I don't know, I can't talk about it. You know. Well, when you're persistent, and we were persistent over the years, we eventually got nearly a hundred current and former McKinsey people to talk to us, which is extraordinary and something we're very proud of, which shows this was hard work, it wasn't just somebody driving. Dropping some names and numbers in our lap. We worked hard to to to make our case and to explain to the public what these people are all about.
SPEAKER_00Is there legal limitations for you say just publishing that list in a blog post?
SPEAKER_01People have asked us that. No, I don't think there's any legal um limitation and or restriction in doing that. Um but we did I mean we did cite a number of them that we got from uh from that list. Um I guess my fear is that um it may not be as comprehensive. There may be some we're leaving out. Um and I didn't see the point of it. I mean we're not we're not running a fo printing a phone book here. We our job was to take the important information from that list and make sense of it so that readers and the public can reach their own conclusions about this this company called McKinsey. And I think that's far more valuable than you know running a list of of all the all the companies and their client lists.
SPEAKER_00So you kind of alluded earlier to the conflict of interest, but could you give a sense for the significance of you uncovering this list and then what you learned from it?
SPEAKER_01The significance there are many examples I could give. We don't have time to go through them all, but one of them, I think the most important one, is it helps explain um their involvement in the most shameful aspect of its history. And that was actively promoting the sale of opioids through oxycontin at a time when they knew and the world knew that this drug was being abused and that tens of thousands of people were dying. And that apparently didn't bother the McKinsey people who were advising Purdue Pharma. So you have to ask yourself, well, why would they do that? Well, okay, Purdue Pharma paid them a lot of money. They're the makers of Oxycontin. Yeah, okay, I can understand that. Greed is part of it, you know. But what's also interesting is that at that same time they were advising the Food and Drug Administration. And that is not something as a parent or a son or a daughter or somebody who was witnessing this carnage from opioids would feel very comfortable in in seeing and knowing. And that's why I think one of the most important things that that we were able to take out of that list, it helped explain, beyond just simple greed, um, you know, what was going on in in and uh at that company.
SPEAKER_00Could you explain a little bit more the opioids example? How they sort of incentivized the doctors to prescribe it more and McKinsey's role and all of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, mckin the it it was becoming fairly well known in in the early 1900s, 1990s. Um what am I talking about? Um that that well look forget the dates right now. Um by the time McKinsey took them on as a client, um Purdue Pharma was already uh in trouble in the sense that um prosecutors and health of care officials were noticing that there were things happening uh about how they were promoting this drug as basically safe. And and it wasn't. And they were promoting it, uh it's uh you know, it'll make your life, you know, better. You can live more fulfilling existence if you take this drug. You won't be, you know, battered by pain. Um, you know, uh there's a stigma about taking uh um an opioid. There shouldn't be, you know, as long as it's taken properly and you've got a good drug, and and that's what you know people have to take be able to treat pain. And it's it's it's and that was their logic, and that's how they got doctors to sign on. And look, I it sounds right. I mean, I've been in pain, and I nobody wants it. And and and what OxyContin did was it it it offered uh continuous pain relief so that you could sleep through the night. And you didn't have to take it every four hours. And so that's really kind of how it took off. But it was sold to doctors as something that um, and to the patients through the doctors, um, as something that uh it's time society recognized that pain needed to be treated aggressively. And there is a nugget of truth there. The question is, you know, it has to be done responsibly, and it was not done responsibly, and McKinsey was was advising them along the way. And as far as we know, at no time did they say you shouldn't be doing this. Um, you should be stepping back, you should be uh warning doctors through the the advancement that they call them detail men over here, the the people who who sell the uh the drug to the doctors come from the the pharmaceutical company, they should be presenting a more nuanced, a more full um uh appraisal of what this drug is and its and its dangers. And and they weren't doing that. And McKinsey wasn't telling them, hey guys, you better step up. Um you're part of of the human race and and you you don't want this on your conscience. Well, apparently it didn't bother a lot of people. And you know the thing is, look, I I I they also they were also advising the tobacco industry, um, which is the most lethal product in consumer product in American history and probably the world, you know, kills millions of people. McKinsey was helping them sell more cigarettes. And I know in Europe, cigarette smoking is a little more popular than it is now in the United States, but they they pushed it. And they pushed it hard, and apparently had no problem with that. And and um they made addiction, selling addictive products, a profit center. And that was something that the public needed to know and did not know, and we did our best to tell them.
SPEAKER_00For me, there is something more pernicious about the opioid um shilling versus the cigarettes, because I mean it's widely sort of understood that if you're smoking, you're taking a giant risk. Um and therefore it's easy to make the calculation in your head whether it's worth it, you know, at a nice night after a couple of drinks. Sure, I'll indulge, right? But there's something extremely evil about the idea of incentivizing a doctor to prescribe something that they know is extremely addictive without the patient being fully informed, like fully understanding the risks that we're getting into.
SPEAKER_01I hear you. Um and people have said that to me as well. Um McKinsey and McKinsey people, they don't hire stupid people. And and here's here's to your your your point about cigarettes. And I I worked hard to undercut that belief that this is you know a matter of choice, freedom of choice. If I want to smoke, knowing full well the dangers, then uh let me do it, you know. Well, the fact is, and I did this when I was in in the television, when I was a producer for television, that you know, a lot of times people don't have that choice. They think they're they have a choice, but these cigarettes were designed with the with the for the purpose of sustaining, creating, and sustaining addiction. So that takes away the argument of freedom of choice. And and we exp we reported that and and over the years, the you know, members of Congress, our legislatures, they made points of that. And and frankly, a federal judge came out and said, you know, and told uh told the world when they convicted them on this racketeer-influence corrupt organization law that they had been lying for 50 years, and they knew they were lying. The people who were telling these lies knew. So, you know, again, McKinsey people, they're smart. They want the smartest, they knew what they were doing, they knew the dangers of this cigarette. And I don't think until we reported, you know, a couple decades ago that this really wasn't a matter of choice anymore, because these cigarettes were done designed to sustain addiction. Um now, with opioids, yes, um there the counter to what you just said is that there is a role for opioids in in the treatment of pain. So it's not like there's no value. Whereas I would argue, and maybe I'm uh I'm not by myself on this thing, I would argue that there is no value in cigarettes. You know, none, none. I mean, and they're addictive, and you could smoke after a a meal or after a glass of wine or something, and yeah, you think that's okay, and eventually you're smoking more, and not everybody gets addicted, but enough of them do, and it still kills millions a year. So there is no real discernible value medically uh of smoking cigarettes, and there is of opioids. So so you know, I just want to make that point. But um again, this is this is like uh an explosive device, opioids. And if you don't don't treat it that way, um then you know you're gonna blow yourself up. And and and that's what was happening. Because they were with McKinsey's advice, they were saying, well, you should target the doctors that that you know aren't prescribing enough of this, or target the document doctors that are prescribing enough and get them to prescribe more, and target the doctors that are prescribing only like 40 milligrams. Let's get them to uh to to you know 120 milligrams or whatever. Uh I forget the the titration there. But I mean, so you know, they were they were they were actively making the situation worse than it would have been.
SPEAKER_00And the doctors as well surely need to um take a lot of responsibility by actively subscribing without informing that, hey, if I give you this drug over this drug, I'm gonna take home ten thousand dollars in cash in commission. You know, like what what business do doctors have incentivized by commission?
SPEAKER_01Um, well, I mean, it shouldn't be that way. Um, it is. Um doctors obviously make, you know, I mean, they they were that's why they make so much more than European doctors. Yeah, that's that's true. Uh and we have this goofy system that makes no sense to anybody, but is so um baked into um sort of uh American psyche that you want doctors to be able to do whatever the heck they want. I don't want doctors to do whatever they want, because sometimes when do they do whatever they want, they end up prescribing with opioids. I should point out also that some of the doctors, you know, they're busy and they're kind of overwhelmed, and they listen to what these drug salesmen tell them, and they may not have realized some, many possibly, probably, how dangerous this was. Because they were saying that, you know, tests have shown that it's really not addictive, you know, if it's done properly. And well, there was enough evidence out there for them to raise questions. But you know, McKinsey was buying, I mean not McKinsey, but uh Purdue Pharma, the opioid manufacturer, was buying off doctors. They were sending them to all these warm weather resorts and you know, giving them a reason to keep prescribing this drug and and keep being ignorant. And and ignorant ignorance was bliss when it came to uh Purdue Pharma. And frankly, for McKinsey.
SPEAKER_00So we've been alluding to the shame and the tentacles of McKinsey throughout the chat. That was a very, you know, great tangible example of the farmer and the um incentivized prescription of uh of uh oxycotton. Um the book is structured as 14 examples of how McKinsey came in and the only thing that mattered was how many hours can we build this client, irrespective of the consequence, irrespective of where that took them. Anyway, a chapter that I probably like the most was the one about Saudi Arabia, just because it's attached to this amazing character of MBS and the impossible ambition that he has with the giant wallets that he's got. It's like uh, you know, a McKinsey, it's a it's a consultant's wet dream. Here we go. Vulnerable guy, shitloads of money, crazy ambition. Anyway, so I wanted you to please speak with detail about McKinsey's role in Saudi Arabia.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I've been interested in Saudi Arabia for a long time for the reasons that you mentioned, um, including um how American um arms manufacturers uh supplied the weapons uh to the the to the Saudis to bomb school buses and all the other hospitals and everything during the Yemen war, which continued. So, I mean, I knew about Saudi Arabia and I knew about their ethics, um, and I know about their society and how they treat women and how they treat any kind of opposition. So, yeah, we were interested in in what they were doing over there, and and and you know, that is not an easy thing to do. Um, they had some contracts, but I think it really broke open when they bought a Saudi-based uh consulting company, which had access to a lot of the you know branches of the royal families, and so they one of the things they did, and McKinsey will say that this study was not meant to be outside you know the firm. It was it was like almost like a practice uh to study the um the dissidents on on social media and and who they were and what prompted their their being upset. And they said, well, this wasn't for the Saudi government. Um and we're not and it was never intended to be outside the doors of McKinsey. Well, it got outside the doors of McKinsey, uh, predictably, and and we saw it, and others saw it. And and you know the Saudi government uh MBS as she as she's demonstrated over and over again, um, doesn't want anybody disagreeing with them. And that's one of the most important things that we reported, um, that that um they had identified the dissidents, and this got out and uh was then put in the hands of of Saudi you know officials. Um what exactly they did with that, um, well, you know, we weren't over there. And Saudi is Saudi operations are about as as secretive as McKinsey, and so it was very hard for us to find out what you know you know what the consequences of that are. There was a lawsuit in Canada and where allegations were made that you know there was uh retribution and and attempts to you know punish and maybe kidnap people along the lines of you know um you know what they've done in the past. So yeah, I mean that's yeah, I mean I don't see how anybody with a conscience could do any work in that country. They stand for everything that we don't. And people should be outraged. I mean, you have MBS all slicked up now, trying to look Western and saying, hey, look, we're gonna let women drive, you know. Hey, how wonderful that is. Uh we're also gonna chop 180 heads off in the public square, because that's how we do business here. And and you better know that you might be among them, you know. So I don't know why the United States government has any dealings with them. Um I knew when Trump was president why they had dealings with them, because he wanted money out of it, you know. But but so yeah, I I don't understand why McKinsey would work for him. They say that we're not doing anything for the the ministries that are involved in in war and and internal uh affairs, but uh you know, take that at face value. I mean, I I don't know whether that's true or not.
SPEAKER_00What about some of the details, specifically what they've done? I'm thinking Neom, this dream city of MBS, Tony Blair's role in everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Neon, that's that's that's interesting. Um well uh to be honest, my partner Um Um Michael Forsyth, that was his area of expertise. So I can tell you my you know 30,000-foot view of it, but I I don't know that that would be necessarily helpful to the people listening in or watching. Uh what I know is what I just said, and um, and that for me is enough to say, listen, um this isn't uh an outfit that we ought to be dealing with. And apparently McKinsey people didn't have much of an issue with that. Um, nor did they have an issue uh after um after uh Putin you know stole the Crimea from Ukraine. Um and and then and then his punishment, you know, uh the Russian corporations were put under sanctions. And McKinsey continued to work for those companies. Um now they they point out that we weren't violating the sanctions, um, and maybe technically they weren't, but they were working for these companies, and they had no problem with that. And they had no problem working for the totally corrupt um former um president of Ukraine, Yanukovych, who was later found to have been thieving, stealing tens of millions of dollars, and was pro-Russian and claiming not to be. And when when the people rose up to in a revolt, he fled to Russia. And and and and no skin in the game. Putin took Crimean, and we know what's been happening since then, and it and it's not pretty.
SPEAKER_00He co-authored it. I'm sorry, I forget the other author. Um where MBS would play uh uh Age of Empire as a boy, you know, or he had to have every single pair of shoes that like were imported into Saudi Arabia, every type, you know, to be Western, to be but he's playing Age of Empire, he's playing computer games, he was exceptionally lazy. Anyway, these kind of details um stand out for me for the profile of MBS. In your book and the chapter of of Saudi Arabia, details that stand out were say how McKinsey just being so slimy and opportunistic, they're like, hey, here's this guy who wants to build a fake moon in uh the desert. Sure. You know, here bill for a thousand hours. Yeah, we consulted all the engineers around the world, and here is our here's our plan to build it for you. It's gonna cost you another ten thousand hours of our work. Um yeah, you're in the middle of the desert, why not? It can be a totally automated city. Of course it can, MBS. You know, that's just gonna cost you ten thousand more sort of hours.
SPEAKER_01No, I I hear hear what you say. I I yeah that flying cars, all this kind of I mean, it's like uh Disney fantasy, you know. Um except in Disney it's a it's a theme park and it's it's it's make-believe. This well, it's make-believe over there too, except that consultants are pulling in a whole lot of money. Uh my view, I don't need to know anything more about MBS or the Saudis, other than Khashoggi, and what what they did to him. And they chopped him up and and and hid it and lied about it, and MBS was behind it, as our intelligence uh services concluded. I don't need to know anything more about why any Western organization should have nothing to do with that country. They will argue and have. Have argued that if we're not over there, um, well, they'll be worse. They'll get worse. Well, okay. I don't know how you could get worse. You could could chop off more heads, I suppose, but um or you could have the women driving Tesla cars or something, and then uh I I I don't know. Um so I beyond how they they chopped up a journalist and lied about it, kind of tells me all I need to know about that country and MBS.
SPEAKER_00Right. Um I want to be respectful of your time, and I also definitely don't want to miss this opportunity to ask you about investigative journalism. So not specifically about the book. Uh so I'd get into some of those questions, but I first to round out the McKinsey chat, I want to leave the floor to you and you just explain for you the most archetypal, egregious example of McKinsey that underlines the point of your book.
SPEAKER_01I would say the um the decision to turn selling addictive products into uh a profit center um when others wouldn't. Um and never disclosing it. Um look, I mean, this was you may they may as well have had a machine gun out there um because you know people were dying by the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands. And look, cigarettes you know, after after they were uh and they knew what was going on. And when you know what was going on, and and m Philip Morris says, you know, we want to sell more cigarettes, we want to we want to sell more Marlboro cigarettes, how do you do that? McKinsey talks about a you know a reward system for more cigarettes you buy, you know, you're gonna get like these special deals. Um that was just a couple of years ago. I mean, what the hell were they doing? You know, I mean, who you know raised their hand and said, no, this is a bad, bad idea, it's not worth the money, it's not worth the money to be pushing opioids, it's not worth the money to be pushing vaping when it was unregulated, and having young kids addicted to nicotine. I know a lot about nicotine. And and uh and I studied it. And and um and it's not a harmless drug. And I mean it it can it'll kill you in too many in large doses and and will addict you in smaller ones. And and the cigarette industry knew exactly how to how to reach the proper level. So yes, that's my that's my overarching um uh uh outrage, if you will, about what they did. No, and I well, look, um I I do have a another kind of important thought that goes to how they ended up like they are. Um and that is that um it was built on a partnership model based on the founder of of you know of McKenzie worked at a law a Cleveland law firm. And when you have a partnership, I mean that's you know, you know the partners, and and and they're you know oftentimes sitting next to you. And and that's fine for a small organization or even a medium-sized organization, but when you have a worldwide organization where you give extraordinary power to consultants to make decisions without any oversight, and that you know, I think was a uh a root cause of a lot of these problems. They were happening in a way that because of the structure of the of the company, they were happening because the values of the company put the number one value, the client's interest always comes first. Well, what if that client's interest is to sell more opioids or cigarettes or whatever? Um well, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna do it with a smile on our face, and um and they did.
SPEAKER_00So you teach investigative journalism. What is a really hard truth that you try to impress on your students about a career in investigative journalism?
SPEAKER_01Um that it's um the best investigative reporting looks at the system. It doesn't try and find the bad apple. That's important to do, and there's a lot of people out there that are doing that who have cover a beat. But I'm much much more interested in how the system um betrays us. And um and so my stories all try to take that into account. I don't want to look at just one hospital that's screwing people over or killing people. Um I I I I did a story, a series of stories about medical radiation, uh, which is a wonderful advancement where you you can you know detect disease and and when you find it uh you can zap it um uh with radiation. Well, yes, um that's a wonderful thing, and and there were problems at one hospital, but I kept telling my my editors this is a bigger story. And and it was a bigger story. Because how did this happen? And and what the conclusions we came to is that there was this technology that was so sophisticated that there was trust put into this technology, and and you couldn't immediately look at it and say, well, here's a mistake or here's some it was belief in technology, blind belief. And what happened is it ended up you know killing and harming people. And so that's an example of of the kinds of stories I want to do. I don't, you know, go you I don't know. It it's it's it's the the cliche I don't want the bad apple, I want the barrel, you know. Um so that's what we sort of talk about.
SPEAKER_00Nice. Um on that theme of looking at the system rather than one bad example, your third pull at surprise was for a toxic pipeline. Can you just give us the skinny what the big story was here?
SPEAKER_01Big story was that uh there were all these substandard pharmaceutical ingredients that were coursing through the world system, um, going from country to country, and no one was stopping to look at it because it was mislabeled. I mean, there were people who were making money off selling what is essential was poison. And the way I discovered that was, you know, people think investigative reporting, you've got to have sources, you know, meet in garages at two in the morning and have them, you know, hand secret documents to you. No, I mean I came up with this idea to launch this massive investigation by reading a story in our own newspaper that said that people were dying in Panama from poison and medicine. And they were saying it was an accident and a manufacturing mistake, and I'm thinking to myself, that makes no sense. You I know how drugs are made. You don't have one barrel with poison in it and one barrel with the pharmaceuticals in it, and then you kind of bump some of it and the poison goes into the other thing. That's not how it works. And I knew that that was BS, and I wanted to go down there and find out what was going on. And what I found out was that there was this mislabeled, uh, these mislabeled drugs that were killing tens of killing hundreds of people. And if you traced it back, it came to this this uh manufacturing plant in China. And I had done a similar story years earlier where they were killing all these babies in in Haiti. So I was familiar with the MO. I was familiar with with this particular ingredient that was in a lot of the things we had. Maybe I'm going on too long here, but uh, please. I mean it was it's in toothpaste, and they were putting it in toothpaste. And little kids, I mean basically putting antifreeze in toothpaste is is is sort of the summary of it. And people didn't realize that. And uh little kids you say, okay, well, it's not gonna kill you if you brush your teeth. Well, I mean, when I was a kid, I liked the taste of it, and I used to swallow the toothpaste. Probably to count for my misbehavior as I as a grown-up. But um, so yes, I mean, and what and that led to just following these sort of substandard um uh supply chains around the world, and to reveal that there was uh there was no adequate system for ferreting out these you know, these hazardous uh ingredients.
SPEAKER_00For me, that story you just told is um such a good example of the limitations of a free market, because the real libertarians will say to you that hey, um uh eventually uh supply and demand will meet, and sure, the market might not demand something once it's f once you find out that there is anti-freezing in toothpaste. But there is such a huge cost before people find out that it is such a limitation of it. You could just be the unlucky guy who has to fail for the rest of the world to understand that something's bad. And that's why I I I really enjoy this fact about Sweden that uh it's within European Union, which already has the highest standards for drugs and also food, but then Sweden has its own additionally high standards, and so you know when you go shopping in the supermarket, I can buy and I do buy the cheapest meat, the cheapest chicken. Um, and I know I'm not eating pure crap. The equivalent is probably super organic stuff in a US shelf.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I well I I I agree with you. I mean, um yes, that that's that's a good point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um what about how'd you go about figuring out that uh incredibly complex supply chain? Tracking down rogue ingredients back to China.
SPEAKER_01That's it was fun. Um, and investigative reporting should be fun. Uh otherwise it'll drive you mad because everybody's slamming doors in your face and everything. Well, it started. I went down there and they were trying to blame everybody. Blame this one person. Did the change the lighting change for you here? My lamp went off. Do I do I need to go to it's okay, all right. Um well, no one had talked to this guy who was under who had been arrested. He was he was a dis uh a distributor. He was he was a guy who had received this and had given it to the Panamanians. And no one had talked to him. So I managed to and to get through to him because the authorities didn't want me to talk to him. Um, and he said, Well, look at these manifests. If you follow it through, they're saying that this is 100% pure, and it went through this country and through that country and through that country, and so it wasn't my fault. I, you know, I was relying on what the last chipper said. So that was sort of the opening to me. And then there was, I mean, that the big breakthrough really was when I went to Milan for the International Conference of Pharmaceutical Ingredients. There were like 25,000 people there. And this is not something reporters go to, believe me. And I went to it. I went with a camera crew. And and what I did is I went from one Chinese, I mean, they all had booths. And I went from, and I knew that the Chinese Food and Drug Administration wasn't doing its job, and a lot of these weren't uh inspected by the Chinese Food and Drug Administration. So I would go to each of these little booths and I would say, tell me about your product. And I would say, is it inspected by the Food and Drug Administration? They said, no, no, it's not. And so then I would go over to another one and another one and another one. And eventually, you know, I'm putting together this list, and it was obvious that there were giant loopholes that were letting chemical companies get involved in pharmaceutical ingredients. And one thing led to another, and and this wasn't my goal when I set out, but the Chinese, as they're want to do at times, they decided, well, the solution is to execute the head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration. So that's what they did. And it wasn't like okay, for the next award season, I'm gonna say, well, I got the guy executed. Well, that's not what I set out to do. And I felt sorry for the guy. He was probably doing what he was told. But yeah, I mean, that's you know, simple solutions um are sometimes not enough.
SPEAKER_00So I very much romantically project onto this what you just said. It should be fun and the idea of you know uncovering a very, very dirty secret for mass appeal. Um you know, there's probably no more filthy supply chain in the world than cocaine. Um, and then as well, you know, sort of battery manufacturing. Um what about these? You know, um, give me some advice. How how how would I go about actually doing meaningful work in uh investigative journalism in the supply chain of what are these?
SPEAKER_01Supply chain investigations are so incredibly important these days because um as as through outsourcing and um th matters like that, uh all sorts of places um exist where people can infect people with bad intentions can can sort of infect the system. Um I I just think you know it's old shoe leather, it's the old style. You you you talk to people, where does this come from? You you get records, um, and and you and you follow it backwards. Um and that's what I do, and that's what uh you know, it's hard work, but um you'll be able to do it.
SPEAKER_00All right then. Hard work, bring it on. You know, I want to I want to shoulder that burden. But what about finance? How does one go about in the freelance investigative journalism in the modern media environment? I mean, you're a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. You can approach your uh employer and say, Hey, I've got a good lead here. And they'll just say, let's go. All right, Walt, you know, we'll fill your account, you go do what you need to do. Um, and rightly so. I mean, you earned that. But I mean, for myself and your students, people who might be freelance, how do you how do you advise them on the finance aspect in a modern media environment?
SPEAKER_01A good question, and I I I do not deny that um I am privileged where I'm working, and that it's a lot easier to call somebody and say, I'm with the New York Times, and and if I need to jump on a plane to Panama the next day, I can do that and did do that. Um But I I I also believe, I mean, I worked my way up and I worked at tiny papers that had no money to do investigations, and I did them anyhow. Um, because if you if you ask enough questions and the telephone and other places, you I mean, there's a lot of information you can get on your own, you know, in your spare time. That's what I did. And if you keep doing that and building a case, there will be organizations that will want to publish it and pay you money for it. And and that's what I tell students. Dig at, you don't have to be at the New York Times to come up with a great story, to prove wrongdoing, prove systemic harm. I mean, you can do it from wherever you are. And a lot of people said they they they they said, well, it's you know, papers have gotten smaller, budgets have gotten smaller. Yeah, that's true. But it comes down to the individual. Do you want it badly enough? If you do, you'll get it, and you'll be able to sell it, and you'll be able to make a m uh um a living off of it. And that's what I tell them, and that's what I truly believe.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. All right, Walt, uh, just a few more for you. You've been extremely generous with your time. We'll do these quickly. Who are some of your investigative journalist heroes?
SPEAKER_01Cy Hirsch. Because he's so unlike everybody else. Um, go on.
SPEAKER_00I'm afraid I I I've never heard of him. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01Cy Hirsch is the guy who uh uncovered the Mi Lai massacre in in Vietnam. Oh wow and he worked for the New York Times, and and he's a you know, he's the antithesis of Bob Woodward from the All the President's men. They sort of hate each other. And and Cy Hirsch is a guy who's he just does what he and he says what he believes. He won a Pulitzer, obviously, and he did a lot of great work on the Watergate scandal. He didn't get enough attention for it, but he uh and he did other kinds of like incredible work. Um when I was sued by Philip Morris for $10 billion, a named defendant.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, stress.
SPEAKER_01And I was and I won't that's another story, indeed another podcast to tell that one, but um I ended up not paying a penny. But it was clear that ABC News, which was intending to sell itself to Disney, was not that interested in representing the interests of the um the interests of the public um in in this regard. And Sai Hirsch was sort of watching from afar, and I never met the guy, I never spoke to him. Um and one night I come home frustrated, worrying about what's going to happen in this lawsuit, because Philip Morris had more money than God, and they were willing to spend it, and their whole point was just to rattle us and get us to you know surrender. And Cy I picked up the phone, and the first words were, you're a fucking asshole if you don't hire your own lawyer. And I said, Who is this? He said, Cy Hirsch. I said, Well, thanks, Cy. I think that's good advice. And so I hired his lawyer, and um and I'm glad I did.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. And uh operating today, who who's someone that stands out as an amazing investigative journalist?
SPEAKER_01There's so many of them I hate to slight.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, true, actually. It's an unfair question. I I I I I re I re I would uh redact it. Please do, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I I admire so many of them, you know, I've learned from them.
SPEAKER_00Um then in that case, what is a great story not being told?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm putting together a list right now for my class in the spring. Uh because I always try and find stories, great stories that haven't been told. Um I I think you know, in my country, income inequality tops the list. And it's easy to say, well, there's all this hatred and division in this country because of Trump and people like that, and and his followers who believe his lies and and and everything. Yeah, yeah, that that that that's true, but um there's more to it than that. And and inequality is is is the father of Donald Trump. There's the father of you know in Hungary and in a lot of these places where there are you know strongmen rulers who seem not to reg to care much for how the democratic system should work. And and I think inequality and you know, people who think, well, why do they have this? I don't have that. The system is rigged against me. Um I think getting deep into that granular detail that could help explain a lot of what's happening these days and and and make the world a better place.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. That would be um it seems like at least a terribly complex story to tell.
SPEAKER_01It is, but you could bite off little you don't have to eat the whole animal. You could you could just cut off a piece.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh. And it's also politicized, that one particularly, you know. I I think maybe you had a benefit, or sorry, I shouldn't say, but do you think you had a benefit potentially with say looking at the supply chain question or looking at McKinsey? You know, um, you're not getting at the people's core politics in an explanation.
SPEAKER_01I don't think you need to get into core politics. I think you have to get into the reasons for that. And and you have to explain how people are exploited and how they're lied to. And that isn't political, that's just good hard, you know, hard-nosed reporting. And something we all should be doing and we haven't doing enough of. Um, so yes, I mean, uh certainly that was one of the reasons I did the McKinsey book, was because McKinsey was very cavalier about well, you need to outsource these jobs. You can make more money that way. It's cheaper. You know, you can it it it leads to to harm, anger. Um when the financial collapse occurred here, nobody went to jail. And um I mean there were had to be huge crimes committed. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then people feel like, well, you know, I do some some, you know, don't put don't put my turn signal on, and I get a ticket, I get charged, you know, these people commit just this side of murder and get away with it. So anyhow, no wonder it builds resentment. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it does.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, uh three questions I try to ask every single guest. First, what is the role that serendipity has played in your life?
SPEAKER_01I don't know quite how to answer that. Do you want to answer use another word other than serendipity?
SPEAKER_00No, I actually um am specific about not saying luck.
SPEAKER_01I am well I don't I I I don't believe in luck. I really don't. I believe I have I have a sixth sense when I spot something that it's going to turn into a story. And that's the gift that I have. When people sit around and they talk about God I wish I had a source. I don't have any story ideas, I said open your eyes. It's all around you. There in you know after 9-11 here there were signs put all over the the the city saying if you see something say something. Well that's sort of my my operating model. If you see something that doesn't make sense write about it. Ask questions instead of just walking by and and looking at the flowers or the trees or whatever thinking about what you're going to have for dinner at night so uh nothing on serendipity?
SPEAKER_00An anecdote perhaps you know maybe you uh you you you ran into your wife on the bus and you weren't meant to catch that bus. Something like that.
SPEAKER_01Well yeah I can I since you mentioned my wife I mean you know she I I met her at an investigative reporters and editors conference. And I took a train to from Cleveland to Boston and I sat next to just a really lovely young lady and we hit it off and she said I'm not stopping in Boston I'm going up the coast and I'm playing piano with this club I said why don't you come up and see me and I thought hey sounds like sounds like a good idea um but and so I got off the train and I said I can go this way or I can go that way and I I knew that I was going to be introduced by a friend to this this woman who I admired from afar a reporter and so I went that way I could have gone the other way and I ended up meeting her and being married for 40 years. Wow beautiful a country you're particularly bullish on Sweden because I'm not bullish on the United States I love this country and I love what it stands for. But I don't see how I could be bullish when people in this country don't believe reporters what they say and what they report and the facts in front of them. So I mean I I do think that there's I do know some Swedish reporters and and I and I think the world of them and there's a lot of great work being done over there. Who well I'm not going to get into names again.
SPEAKER_00Martin Schiber there's there's a number of them uh so yeah that's an interesting you know observation I I I wonder how much it is isolated to America that idea of people not under not trusting what reporters are saying anymore. I can say in my own country Australia it feels uh almost the same way truly uh that that like hard divide of where one half just is inexplicably making sense of the other um definitely less so here in Sweden but yeah um anyway that is obviously uh a broader topic finally uh Mr Bognodic sorry Walt a conversation between any two people of history dead or alive no language barrier so if you were to listen to a podcast Lincoln Abraham Lincoln I mean he managed to untangle one of the most difficult um problems in American history and there was a lot opposing him and I've just admired him since I was a little kid.
SPEAKER_01My father admired him and made me read books about him and I've read a lot of them and I've just really come and I know he's not us he he's not a perfect people will say individual but for his time he was a giant and uh represented what this country should be.
SPEAKER_00And who's he talking to? Because it's a podcast you you lovely okay beautiful uh okay to you you know I don't know I you know I I I I wouldn't give him up to somebody else you know I'm gonna have an opportunity to talk to him I I would say you talk to somebody like Donald Trump but he's not gonna listen to them. No but that wouldn't be interesting you know it wouldn't be interesting. More interesting would be um you know Lincoln and just another amazing statesman I I can't think of a good example but you you know what I mean I know what you mean yes I know what you mean. Anyway look um thank you for going over time thank you for being so generous in your responses and uh thanks for the book it was uh a very engaging listen for me I listened to it on audiobook but thank you sir so thank you for having me I really enjoyed this cheers Walt you absolute legend it was a a privilege really a privilege to get to talk to you and I think I only have realized now in a week or two weeks after speaking with you just how lucky I was to get to occupy an hour of your time to you my very generous and dear listener if this is the first time you'll listen to the podcast then what I would do now is just quickly explain my ambition and that is to corner the podcast market for eclectic curiosities in whatever country it is that you're listening in from. Now like I sort of said at the beginning and also FYI I say this generally at the end all the time podcast uh discoverability is shit it is crap. The main reason is just because it doesn't there isn't a sort of um there isn't an algorithmic function to the discoverability of podcasts except those lists and the only way to get in those lists is either to be I don't know friends with the distributor somehow a mainstream voice or whatever or to get shit loads of reviews. So I'm going for the latter shitloads of reviews pump your good juice into the algorithm bring Spotify up to a hundred before the end of the week bring Apple up to a thousand that's all from me. I see you soon goodbye