Interview with Michael Lewis

TheLadders.com: We've seen a lot of changes in the $100k+ job market. Today, half or more of the $100k+ jobs aren't managers, but individual contributors...

Michael Lewis: (laughing) You don't have to be in charge!

TLC: Exactly. Over the past 25 years, there's been a sea change for executives and professionals -- where managerial styles used to focus on command and control, it's now coaching and team oriented. From Moneyball, what's changed for today's baseball execs to succeed in sports management? ML: Well, there's so much at stake for their career. We've seen, first, power shifting from the manager in the dugout to the execs in the front office. There's a current perception that the best way to evaluate players is through statistical analysis, rather than just scouting. Whereas an awful lot of in-game strategies were done by gut, they're now statistically evaluated.

As a result, the power of the manager is watered down and the front offices are overrun by people with quantitative backgrounds. Since the publication of Moneyball, 13 teams have hired statisticians, including young GM's between the ages of 28 and 35.

TLC: What does this mean for the old guard?

ML: It's messier than just the old guard being replaced by the new. This is analogous to the Wall Street in the 80s, when some people were still trading on their gut. Then the new guard, the guy with the PhD in statistics from MIT came in, knew how to price options, and took over the industry. And I thought, the same thing is happening in baseball!

TLC: Did the old guard both on Wall Street and in baseball adapt the new model? ML: Yes, it's actually very interesting to watch. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But in some organizations, I've seen the old guard say "teach me" and be sensitive to the more quantitative side. But generally, it's true that the way a new idea gets spread is by the new guard. As Thomas Kuhn wrote in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, it's not brainpower, because there you have the smartest scientists not adopting new ideas, and it generally takes them leaving the stage to have the new idea gain traction.

TLC: You've changed careers a couple of times, but do you treat each book like it's a different job?

ML: Each time I write a book I think it's going to be easy because I just finished one, but each time is like starting over. All of the pains attendant to writing a book are experienced by the author each time. It's also true in part because the books I've done are all very different subjects, and involve moving into a new world and developing a mastery of that world. It does feel a bit like a new job.

TLC: How do you then go about each new "job search" from book to book?

ML: The only necessary ingredient for a book to work is for me to feel passionate about the material. I have to feel so enthusiastic about it that I can persuade others to feel the same. As a magazine writer, I get paid to dip my toe into new waters. So, for every book I write, I seriously consider as many as nine other options. The books are the subjects that truly hold my interest.

TLC: So you've written about bond trading, the internet, sports. Across those, what common trait makes people successful? More importantly, what makes them happy?

ML: These industries all employ high price people. They are talent with a "capital T". Every manager will tell you their most important assets walk out the door every night.

While there's no definitive answer, there's one trait that goes under-mentioned...a capacity for wonder and interest. You look at Jim Merriweather at Solomon, Jim Clark in Silicon Valley, or Billy Beane in baseball. Their great successes began with curiosity and openness. You may know everything, but it's what you learn after you know everything that's most important.

As for happiness, it comes from thinking your job has a purpose. The scarcest resource in the world is purpose. People who have purpose, other than money or social position, tend to be much happier.

TLC: In all the industries you've surveyed, what's the most unconventional way you've seen employees be motivated to succeed?

ML: Well, in the theater of Wall Street, it was money. The money was so huge that that's what got them going. If you offer someone millions of dollars for doing something, they'll find a way to drag themselves out of bed in the morning.

But the quirkiest and the one with the most human interest and captivating motivational technique was Silicon Valley, because there it was the way people were starting businesses. They were engaging people in an idea and making them feel like they were world changers.

TLC: In some ways both Liar's Poker and Moneyball were about finding inefficiencies in the market and exploiting them. Is there a bigger lesson to take from it all? ML: While writing Moneyball, I thought back to my experiences on Wall Street. Yes, it's remarkable how many opportunities there are when you go looking for inefficiencies. But the thing that turned it into a book was that the Oakland A's were building a great baseball team of spare parts, the rejected players with surface problems. Baseball is a business with statistics and metrics around every single player, or employee. If those people can be mis-valued, who can't be? The Oakland A's were making their way in a world where everybody said money was dominating the sport and I thought, this isn't a story about baseball, it's about markets. It just shows you how subjective the valuation of human capital can be.

TLC: So what would you say to managers about their own assessments of people?

ML: In many cases there are limits to how objectively you can value people, but there's no limit to one's ability to scrutinize one's own biases and objectivity. Any manager would benefit from being aware of the tricks the mind can play on itself.

TLC: What were your goals for your career and how have they changed?

ML: I first thought I was going to be an art historian. While working at a gallery in NYC, I decided I wanted to write for a living. I don't have any concrete goals for myself: number of books sold, money made. Instead, I ask myself: when I look back on my life as a writer, will I be proud of having done this or that? Is this a book, magazine article, a film script, I'll be proud of having produced. I try to be careful about this now, more so than when I was younger. I'm happy with my goals, but the clock is still ticking and the game's not over!

TLC: You've garnered success in multiple areas. What keeps you happy and motivated?

ML: Success is like a drug. When you start taking it regularly, the impact of the feeling is reduced. But failure is not like a drug -- whenever you fail it feels as bad as the last time. The upside seems less appealing but the downside never loses its gloom.

The way I do it is by really trying to start fresh over and over again. When I finish a book, I say, all right, you can enjoy this victory for a week, a month, etc. But then forget it, you're starting over. Treat it like it's the first thing you've ever written. That's how I keep myself going and happy.

In terms of personal happiness, aside from jobs and work, I have two daughters, who are 6 and 3. The love of one's own children is a new and novel kind of happiness, because they reintroduce you to a world you thought you knew. They make your life new again because they see things afresh. That's what really gets your life's juices flowing.