The Conclave, Sinners, and Negotiation Tips

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Speaker 2 Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions. I'm Maria Konakova.

Speaker 4 And I'm Nate Silver.

Speaker 2 Today on the show, Nate, we are going to be talking about the conclave, not the movie,

Speaker 2 but the actual process for choosing the next Pope. And

Speaker 2 more broadly, how does group decision-making work and what is the best way of doing it?

Speaker 4 We'll also be talking about negotiation using using the prompt of the movie Sinners. We're going to be talking about how to negotiate a good deal for yourself.

Speaker 2 And at the end, we will leave you with a little game that Nate and I are going to play called Would You Rather?

Speaker 2 By the way, listeners, I apologize.

Speaker 2 My voice is a little bit shot. I am in the middle of allergy season and just off of a red eye.

Speaker 2 So I will be extra raspy today. I I still love you.
And yes, that's what I'm going to sound like for the pod.

Speaker 4 Have we talked about our red-eye strategy? What flight did you take? What time was your flight?

Speaker 2 My flight was at 6 p.m. It was the only direct flight to Nice from New York.

Speaker 4 I didn't know I had a fucking direct flight to Nice. Congratulations.
Yeah, no, but direct flight's better.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I took a direct flight to Nice and then took a car from Nice to Monte Carlo.

Speaker 2 The other way to do it is to take a helicopter, but we've talked on the show about the dangers of helicopters and i did not do that and now i'm here for ept monte carlo which happened to be my first ever international poker tournament back when i started playing poker my first ever international hendon mob flag nate was from monte carlo so i'm back to the scene of the crime and i have never cashed the main event here is this going to be the year will i are you superstitious about that are you like oh there are certain venues where i run well or certain events

Speaker 2 absolutely not i think that that's a very self-handicapping way of thinking.

Speaker 4 The 6 p.m. flight, I think, is the worst option, by the way.

Speaker 4 It's hard to

Speaker 4 fall asleep until... Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's really hard, but for me, taking a direct flight is the least bad option.

Speaker 2 I would rather take a direct flight to Nice than a later flight at a more optimal time to Paris and then have to fly to Nice.

Speaker 2 So sometimes you make the least bad decision possible, which brings us to electing the Pope, which directly ties to the least bad decision possible. So, Nate,

Speaker 4 the Pope died, as we know. Oh, wait, what?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, my God.
I'm so sorry, Nate. Breaking news story.

Speaker 2 J.D. Vance killed the Pope.
No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 I shouldn't say that.

Speaker 2 But the Pope did die the day after meeting with J.D.

Speaker 4 Vance.

Speaker 2 I take it all back. We're not conspiracy theorists on risky business, or are we? Okay, so the Pope is dead, and now they must choose a new Pope.
And they do this by a process called a conclave.

Speaker 2 And it's been announced that it's going to take place on May 7th. We are taping this on April 30th.
So a week from now is when the conclave starts. And this is how the process works.
So there are...

Speaker 2 around 200 cardinals, but only 135 of those are actually eligible to vote in the conclave because by the rules, they have to be under the age of 80. A lot of old cardinals out there

Speaker 4 is what I'm hearing here. So you're saying is that they're too young to be the U.S.
president.

Speaker 2 That is exactly what I'm saying, Nate.

Speaker 2 And technically speaking, any Catholic male can be elected pope. Practically speaking, it's going to be one of those 135 cardinals.

Speaker 2 The way that it works is they vote up to four times a day, but in the morning and in the afternoon, and they can vote once once or twice in those sessions and they basically have multiple days of meetings that have already started leading up to conclave then they seal the doors and the only people there are the cardinals who can vote and then they're also you know there's guards there's a doctor everyone's sworn to secrecy they're completely cut off from the outside world no phones no news the place is swept for listening devices you know it's like very like hush hush and then the vote is done by secret ballot So everyone on a piece of paper writes their choice for the Pope, folds it up.

Speaker 2 It's collected. The ballots are shaken.
And then three people will read the ballots. So one person will take a ballot out at a time and will silently write down.
what the name is.

Speaker 2 The second person will also write down what the name is, and the third person will read it out loud. So this is to make sure that the votes are tallied accurately.

Speaker 2 If there's a miscount, so say 135 people vote and there's only 134 ballots or 136 somehow, then they destroy it and do it all over. You need a two-thirds majority to become pope.

Speaker 2 After each vote, the ballots are burned and smoke comes out of the chimney. The smoke is either black if they have not chosen a pope or white if they have chosen a pope.

Speaker 2 This can take quite a bit of time. The last two times it took two days.
One time it took two years. There was a lot of infighting.

Speaker 2 They weren't actually in secret conclave for

Speaker 2 that entire period,

Speaker 4 but it took a while to

Speaker 2 elect that pope. So first of all, you had told me before we started recording that you weren't really familiar with this process.
So now how do you think?

Speaker 4 What happens pre-recording says pre-recording, Maria? I thought.

Speaker 2 No, no, but this is, but this is actually, I think it's actually a really, it's good to just have a fresh reaction because you know a lot about decision making. So just fresh your

Speaker 2 first reaction to how this is structured. What do you think? Is this a good way to make

Speaker 2 such a monumental decision?

Speaker 2 What are we thinking here?

Speaker 4 My first thought is that this is an easy decision because there is a candidate named Pierre Batista Pizzabala. He has a fucking red hat.
Looks kind of like a pizza pope slash hat.

Speaker 4 Like, how can you not name that guy Pope? He has a divine right. I think I'm using that term incorrectly.

Speaker 4 No, look, look he's not the favorite he's not the betting market's favorite nate we can talk about i got a little i got a little money on the pizza balla i'll tell you that much i mean that's that's a pretty amazing name i i will hand it to him no the process i am indirectly familiar with because it's the same process essentially that like um political parties use to choose a candidate in the event of a brokered or contested convention right um there you need a majority and not two-thirds you said it was maria um but still they they go one ballot at a time, and it can take a lot of ballots.

Speaker 4 You know, in some of the conventions in the early 20th century, it could take more than 100, I think, right? And like, there's a couple of dynamics that are

Speaker 4 important, right? You know, one is that people are trying to, through the kind of veil of anonymity, of course, they can also have conversations on the side, right? Side channel conversations.

Speaker 4 You know, they're trying to order their preferences, right?

Speaker 4 Maybe I do think that Pete Sabala is my first choice, but I'd rather rather have, I'm just looking at some of these other candidates, I'd rather have Peter Trickson than Matteo Zuppi, right?

Speaker 4 And so, you know, I am looking for signals about how other people vote. You can also have, I don't know if this takes place in the conclave, but it does in like political American context.

Speaker 4 You can kind of pledge your votes to a different candidate, right? I mean, there are kind of,

Speaker 4 you know, at a minimum, two dimensions that are important here, right? One is you can have a more reformist pope like Francis versus ones that are more traditional. That's one dimension.

Speaker 4 Then you have Italian versus Europe versus the rest of the world, right? You could have the first Filipino pope. You could have the first black pope, for example.

Speaker 4 And so, yeah, I don't quite know how you'd begin to kind of model the game theory of this. My guess is that like there are some

Speaker 4 essentially random dynamics, right? Where someone's like, fuck it, I'm bored of of keep voting over and over again. I'm going to shift my vote.
That catalyzes a chain reaction of sorts.

Speaker 4 And my guess is that if you kind of like

Speaker 4 somehow simulated this, it wouldn't be deterministic. It would be somewhat stochastic.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, first, Nate, I have a question and then I'll respond. When we're in the U.S.
political system, when you need a majority, they're not sequestered, though, right? Like they're still,

Speaker 2 they are allowed to listen to the news and everything.

Speaker 2 It's a little bit more open, right?

Speaker 4 No, look, today they'd all be on their phones and there'd be a lot of implicit pressure. In the old days, it was a proverbial smoke-filled rooms.

Speaker 4 It's one of the contexts in which that phrase kind of comes from, right? So you might have some degree of

Speaker 4 isolation. Yeah, now it's

Speaker 4 tricky because everything you say is on Twitter and

Speaker 4 the back channels can be compromised and leaked to the press. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if there's like a Pope, if there's a Maggie Haberman

Speaker 4 of

Speaker 4 the Vatican or something, right, who's leaking stuff. There has to be some way to leak stuff, isn't there?

Speaker 2 No, there's really no way to leak stuff these days.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 the idea behind the total sequestering is to keep it obviously secretive on their side, but also to minimize the politicking that's going on. That said, I mean, the meetings have already started.

Speaker 2 So you were saying that, you know, you can pledge votes to a pope. That absolutely does happen.
And popes start, potential popes start building coalitions.

Speaker 2 And even now, we're still a week out and already a number of that 135 eligible cardinals have dropped out. Some have done it for health reasons,

Speaker 2 but people are like, already who can and can't vote is a thing. Because since it's two-thirds, the actual number really matters, right? Like it matters if all 135 vote or if only 110 vote, right?

Speaker 2 Like that's a big difference in terms of

Speaker 2 what you need for support, because even though the percentage is the same, because we're talking about very personal relationships, absolute numbers here matter, right? Do I need to get one more vote?

Speaker 2 Do I need to get three more votes? Like here, that actually does make a difference. So politicking starts very, very early.
And I think that, yes, sure,

Speaker 2 sequestering them the day of the conclave accomplishes something.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I wonder, like, the moment that someone,

Speaker 2 you know, dies, like the moment Francis died, can we just like sequent immediately gather them all there, like, and start sequestering?

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 what if they, what if they can't vote? I mean, they get a break at night, right?

Speaker 2 No, they, they stay there. No, they can't leave.
So they, they, uh, it's completely, they have a dormitory on premises.

Speaker 2 So they sleep there as well. So

Speaker 2 everyone is there

Speaker 2 24-7 until the Pope is elected. That's why they have doctors.
So

Speaker 2 some of the only people who are allowed in who are not the voting cardinals are medical professionals in case something happens. Because Nate, we've already established that these are not young men

Speaker 4 who are doing this.

Speaker 2 And so.

Speaker 4 There's always ways for information to leak.

Speaker 2 There is always ways for information to leak. And I would go one step further.

Speaker 2 There are secret ballots and there are secret ballots, right? So

Speaker 2 we are here, you know,

Speaker 2 saying,

Speaker 2 okay,

Speaker 2 this is your secret ballot. But first of all, they're writing it by hand.
And these are men who probably like, I'm sorry, handwriting is recognizable. Like, I hate saying, it's true.

Speaker 4 No, Pope Francis supposedly had very distinctive, like, small handwriting.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Every, I mean, these are men who've been handwriting their whole life.
This isn't like a 20-year-old who like

Speaker 2 grew up on social media and never handwrites anything. Handwriting is distinctive.
You are, you know, they're sitting in an open room. They're not going to voting booths.

Speaker 2 The thing is, like, it's secret. but it's not secret.
And you can still exert pressure on people. And people can still think they still know how I'm voting.
And like that sort of psychological play

Speaker 2 is definitely a factor here. And I think is, you know, even though we're talking holy men, like they are not above this.

Speaker 2 Like I'm guessing that that voting and that pressure can get pretty damn vicious. And there are better and worse ways to make group decisions.
And yes, this is one of the better ways to try to do it.

Speaker 2 But I think that we can go a step further and try to really anonymize it and take that pressure off so that you can't point fingers and be like, see, I recognize your handwriting.

Speaker 2 Nate, I know that you voted for Mr. Pizza because you still like it and you told me that you were going to vote for me.

Speaker 4 Yeah, look, there are, there's a lot of theory about how this applies to the U.S. Congress as well, right? And the public nature of the voting process.

Speaker 4 Yeah, if you had a private ballot, you might have had, I mean, Trump was

Speaker 4 impeached, but not convicted. Trump might have been convicted if you privately asked G.O.P.
Sanders what they thought, right?

Speaker 4 So, you know, as poker player, on the one hand, there's like a part of me that's like, hey, information, I'm a journalist. So

Speaker 4 therefore, information is always good. We always want to give people more information and they make more rational decisions.
Whereas as poker players, we understand

Speaker 4 that information has value and information, the existence of information and the flow of information can like, can reshape the world.

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
And controlling the flow of information also has

Speaker 2 a lot of value. Who controls the information and what information gets shared and the order in which it gets shared is also incredibly important.
So let's just back up a little bit because,

Speaker 2 you know, this group decision is being made in secret, but the run-up to it is not in secret. And so we know, you know, we can see the betting odds.
We can see kind of the stories.

Speaker 2 We see the headlines. We see the arguments for

Speaker 2 all of your front runners, why you would want Pietro Perillin, who's currently the frontrunner on most betting sites, versus Luis Antonio Tagle, who is known as the Asian Francis.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 that's his nickname. You know, why you'd want one or the other.
The odds actually have changed. So when I looked on the 22nd, Tagle was actually the odds on favorite.
And now he's in second place to

Speaker 2 So already, right, people have been shifting. And what we know about decision-making is those early things matter, right?

Speaker 2 Like that is framing and that is kind of dynamics that actually can affect results.

Speaker 2 Like if you can make yourself appear to be a front runner early in a decision process, that can actually influence how the group makes a decision later on.

Speaker 2 You know, that first mover advantage is absolutely crucial and can really affect how people think and how they think other people are thinking, which is also a major thing here, right?

Speaker 2 Because also no one wants a two-year-long conclave. So you're also trying to think strategically about this as you would in any group decision.
You know, how do we get to this outcome faster?

Speaker 4 Yes, this is a big media PR thing too, right? Where sometimes, I mean, increasingly, you'll have people who are

Speaker 4 the subject of a critical media story, right? And they will go on their social media accounts and be like, yeah, I just want to, I mean, they'll be more delicate than this, right?

Speaker 4 I just want to preempt this. It's a hit job.

Speaker 4 Or they'll say, I just want to preempt this by admitting I fucked this thing up and, you know, the subtext and softening a little bit why it's not quite as bad as you think.

Speaker 4 I mean, yeah, this is, you know, partly because people are kind of

Speaker 4 lazy and it's costly to contradict people. I mean, we've probably all been in

Speaker 4 a decision-making process, right? A meeting where like maybe five people want, I mean, take whatever simple example you want. Five people want to get pizza, one person wants to get Thai food, right?

Speaker 4 And then, like, and for whatever reason, the Thai food fucking person speaks up first, and they're like, super fucking annoying, right?

Speaker 4 You can tell I want pizza. I'm in Chicago, so I'm thinking I got pizza, pizza on the brain here.
You've got pizza on the brain,

Speaker 4 yeah, even though it's nine, nine a.m. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Um, but anyway, absolutely. I mean, again, that goes to the notion of this, it can be a bit random and stochastic.
And like, having, um,

Speaker 4 uh, having a secret ballot with minimal i am skeptical of zero information leakage is a way to diminish that but you know maybe a conversation you have in

Speaker 2 in the hallway or things like that can have cascading effects absolutely and let's actually also do the converse of that so um as i said cardinal pietro uh perolin is currently the favorite to be the next pope um he is you know italian kind of a little bit more centrist, but still someone who was close to Francis.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 people think that he's a nice choice. Now, imagine, I'm going to do a total, we don't know what's going to happen in the conclave, and we will never know because

Speaker 2 as we've already said, totally secret. Imagine the first vote, he is like number four or something, right?

Speaker 2 Imagine he's actually

Speaker 2 very...

Speaker 2 performs below expectation. That also can have an outsized effect, right? When you are a perceived frontrunner and that first ballot doesn't go your way, that can also

Speaker 2 throw things into

Speaker 2 disarray and really change the dynamic of the group decision.

Speaker 4 Right, because a wasted vote, yeah, that first ballot.

Speaker 4 I would imagine that

Speaker 4 he would withdraw or his support would collapse after that, right? Because it's like, okay, this is a guy that probably ought to start out with the head start, right?

Speaker 4 And if he doesn't, then there's a big scramble. Whereas like an unexpected dark horse candidate, if they got five votes out of nowhere, that probably means that might be quite bullish, right?

Speaker 4 Yep.

Speaker 4 Now, people can also do, say, hey, I just want to wait and see and prolong the process. Like in the context of political conventions, they might nominate like a favorite son, right?

Speaker 4 You're a delegate from West Virginia.

Speaker 4 The governor of West Virginia is not a viable nominee, but you want to wait and see what everyone else does and maybe like preserve time for a viable candidate who is not the the frontrunner to gather support, right?

Speaker 4 So you want to make sure there's no first ballot pick. So you just vote for your governor or something, right?

Speaker 4 So people are pretty smart about this for the most part.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's actually an interesting broader question

Speaker 2 in any sort of group decision situation like this. Does it make sense to vote for the person who you think is kind of likely to win and you'll eventually end up supporting at first?

Speaker 2 Or does it make sense to just vote for your preferred candidate and split the ballot, you know, a hundred ways

Speaker 4 or whatever it is?

Speaker 2 What is the strategically smarter decision? And yeah, Nate, if you were to, I mean, if you were to pick, would you go with Perilin just because he is the

Speaker 2 betting markets favorite?

Speaker 4 No, I like, I like the, you know, obviously Pizzabella, Pizzabala, excuse me. And then the, is it Tagle? How do you say it? I guess you're not going to be able to do it.
Tagle.

Speaker 2 Tagle. Luis Antonio Tagle.

Speaker 4 I go with him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's because he was actually a vice pope.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Agent Francis was my pick.

Speaker 4 Is there a vice pope?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 And we'll be right back after this break.

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Speaker 2 Well, Nate, now we've talked group decision making, Let's talk a little bit about negotiation.

Speaker 2 I have not seen Sinners. Sinners is the movie that's taken Hollywood by storm.

Speaker 2 You have not seen it either. No.
So for listeners who haven't seen it, don't worry. There will be zero spoilers because we have no idea what happens.

Speaker 2 The reason we're talking about it is because Ryan Koogler

Speaker 2 created a clause in his deal with Warner Brothers that said that in 25 years, the rights to the film will revert to him. And so he will retain his rights.
He is not the first person to have done this.

Speaker 2 There are some filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino who have been able to negotiate deals like this, but it is incredibly rare. It is something that is not seen often in Hollywood.

Speaker 2 people are up in arms saying, oh, these kinds of deals are going to be the death of studios.

Speaker 4 You know, I think

Speaker 4 the removal of studio, but I worked for the fucking Disney company. And I feel about as sympathetic for them as I do for Harvard, if you've seen previous segments.

Speaker 4 And I don't think the Trump administration is

Speaker 4 targeting the white or the Walt Disney company yet in the way it did for Harvard. So yeah, go fuck yourself, studios.
Now I'll never get a contract for anything.

Speaker 2 He didn't mean it, guys. He didn't mean it.
Actually, no, he probably, he did mean it. He did mean it.

Speaker 2 And I kind of agree.

Speaker 2 So, so, no, this is a completely, I think this is a completely ludicrous take because what it's saying is that, oh, you know, after 25 years, the creator cannot have the copyright over his creation.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 people are, you know, people are saying, oh, this is, this is totally crazy.

Speaker 2 You know, the studio is the one that financed it. They're the one who made the movie.

Speaker 2 And yet, right, there would be no movie without the person who created it, without the person who actually made the movie, who wrote about it.

Speaker 2 Now, I was thinking about this in terms of what you and I do, Nate, which is write books, one of the things you and I do. So

Speaker 2 who owns the copyright to what you write?

Speaker 4 I guess the publisher does. Do I?

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, you retain the copyright eventually.

Speaker 4 Eventually. Okay.

Speaker 4 See, I don't know. That's what I have an agent for.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 you, we have,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 2 you have

Speaker 2 publishers, they publish your book. Everyone has different deals.
You get royalties, you know, or you don't get royalties,

Speaker 2 however, however it is. But eventually, you know,

Speaker 2 we die and the rights go to our estate,

Speaker 2 right?

Speaker 2 And then they can kind of negotiate for you.

Speaker 4 It's all just going to chat anyway maria good luck with that the the rights revert to chat gpt

Speaker 2 um or whichever uh llm ends up uh winning that race so no um so it's to think that creators can't have rights to their work that you just kind of sell it and then that's it is just a completely just insane way of looking at it.

Speaker 2 And 25 years, it's not like he's saying, I get, you know, in five years, you guys stop, right, stop owning these rights. 25 years, there's a lot of time to make your money back.

Speaker 2 By the way, he also invested in the movie. His production company invested in the movie.
So he is also one of the people who paid for it. So it's not like he put $0.00 in there.

Speaker 4 Okay. So neither of us have seen this movie yet.
I give 60% odds I will eventually.

Speaker 4 But we have done negotiations in the past, probably more than the average person has done, being kind of independent freelancers, et cetera, for a long time. So let's do some negotiating tips.

Speaker 4 Maria, I'm going to put you on the spot. What's your number one tip?

Speaker 2 All right. So my number one tip is do not be the first to act.
Don't be the first mover because information is power and you do not want to be the one who is revealing information first.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, doesn't that like

Speaker 4 contradict the idea of framing the conversation, though, that we talked about in the Pope segment.

Speaker 4 I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm being a little provocative.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So I think that this is a really interesting dynamic, right? There are different

Speaker 2 considerations at play. The reason I said what I said is you don't want to end up anchoring people too low and you also don't want to tip your hand as to what your expectation might be.
Right. So

Speaker 2 you want them to make the first move so that you can be the one to have more information rather than less information.

Speaker 2 So this is like from an anchoring standpoint and from a negotiating informational standpoint.

Speaker 4 I mean, look, there's always

Speaker 4 negotiation before the negotiation, right? I mean, like

Speaker 4 things

Speaker 4 from if you go out to dinner or lunch, right?

Speaker 4 Who is picking up the lunch and how nice is the place? I mean, that's a signal.

Speaker 4 It might not tell you very much and people can be charmed by things that are charming and not actually, you know, that may not be a positive signal, actually, right? And,

Speaker 4 you know, I have suffered in

Speaker 4 negotiations

Speaker 4 sometimes from actually being too

Speaker 4 polite, right? Where it's like, okay, this isn't really going to work out.

Speaker 4 I want to like, I have some social relationship with the person to maintain, or maybe they're like a backup option later on, right? So you're like too solicitous of it.

Speaker 4 You kind of know it's going to be an offer that's insufficient or uninteresting. And then, and then, yeah, I mean, look, I was going to say, you know, my approach, I guess this is my number one tip.

Speaker 4 Um,

Speaker 4 be aware that giving out information is costly, right? The flip side of that or the companion of that being that like, um,

Speaker 4 I don't think misdirection,

Speaker 4 it's just not worth my time. Usually, I think there are too many ways it ends badly.

Speaker 2 No, I actually, I totally agree with that. And I think, yeah, ours kind of go hand in hand.
Information valuable, giving off information costly.

Speaker 2 And yet there's a cost to both of our tips because the framing can be valuable. Right.
So if you are the one who kind of frames things, that can also be helpful. But I think you and I both are.

Speaker 2 erring on the side of information power. And so that's why we're giving our number one tips the way that we are.

Speaker 2 But do keep in mind as a caveat to both of these that framing the conversation is also important.

Speaker 4 With the important exception that like,

Speaker 4 you know, look, a negotiation is supposed to in most contexts result in a positive sum agreement, right? Now, if you're trying to like rent an apartment or something, then that's more straightforward.

Speaker 4 I'm trying to get 500 bucks per month off the lease and the counterparty is trying to figure out, okay, if this guy doesn't sign the lease, what's the expected value of

Speaker 4 maybe taking another month to rent the apartment? That kind of thing, right?

Speaker 4 But like, if I'm trying to, like, let's say I'm trying to get investment for a business venture, Silver Bulletin or Risky Business or whatever else, right?

Speaker 4 You know, I mean, there is mutual gain from information. What's like, hey, is this actually a good idea?

Speaker 4 Like, because part of negotiations figuring out how do we, how do we create value in all these different ways that we might create value in the world, right?

Speaker 4 Hey, Maria, what's your, what's your second hint?

Speaker 2 my second tip is

Speaker 4 be willing to walk away okay that was my that was mine yeah so we're gonna merge

Speaker 2 i don't really we're gonna merge yeah so great so we both uh we both agree that's crucial nate if you enter a negotiation and you're not willing to walk away you've already lost right because

Speaker 2 there will be a point at which they realize that you're not going to walk away and then they can get what they want to get. You need need to be willing to walk away from the table,

Speaker 2 truly willing, not just say, oh, yeah, I'm willing to walk away.

Speaker 2 Otherwise, you're going to, you're going to be the weaker party.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, I think I benefited in my life from

Speaker 4 walking away and being very patient to find a deal that I thought was really good. Not good in the sense of being unfair, right? But in the sense of like, look, I hold my work product in

Speaker 4 high esteem, right? And like, and, you know, look, if you're, um,

Speaker 4 if you're resourceful, then you have a lot of optionality as you get older and better connected and things like that. I think in general, people are

Speaker 4 too quick to settle. I think, I think it's a general tip that's probably right in most contexts in life, right?

Speaker 4 Um, and I think, I think in the context of negotiations too, I mean, it's very powerful as a negotiating tactic, but also like, you know, look, I've had deals that fell through that I would have been worse off if I had signed them, right?

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Yeah.
And that actually goes to my tip number three, which is before you enter the negotiation, write down and know what your non-negotiables are, right?

Speaker 2 Like, what are the few things that like you absolutely must have? And you don't have to like state them all, but just know these are the things that like without this or

Speaker 2 you know, it can be either way. Either without this, I walk away or if this happens, then I walk away.
And then do not negotiate on those, no matter how compelling other things might look.

Speaker 2 Know what your core principles are, right? And don't compromise them. in the heat of the moment under emotion, whatever it is, because it's really easy to try to convince yourself in the moment.

Speaker 2 If someone's like, okay, well, I'll give you this much more money.

Speaker 2 If you can just accept this one thing you really don't want to accept,

Speaker 2 it can be easy to convince yourself that it will be okay. And in the long run, it probably won't if this was one of your core principles.
That's why it's important to know those ahead of time.

Speaker 2 I'm not talking a long list. I just mean like sometimes there are just a few crucial things that you know that you must have or that you absolutely can't have.

Speaker 4 My third tip is kind of like

Speaker 4 focus on someone's negotiables. And I would say in poker terms, like exploit.
that, right?

Speaker 4 Ranging from small to large. When I negotiated my deal with Disney back in 2013, I guess it was, you know, one thing

Speaker 4 I asked for was like business class travel and accommodations because it's a relatively small cost, right?

Speaker 4 It might be worth 1% of the salary or something, but they're not going to blow up the whole deal over that kind of thing. And

Speaker 4 so it's free, basically, right? A more serious thing is like they, I think, did not appreciate the value of the intellectual property of the models, right?

Speaker 4 And so like, you have to go to totally to town there. I mean, that's almost a more important provision than it turned out than like my license fee and salary and things like that.

Speaker 4 But like paying attention to the non-central terms that are important to you, especially the other side seems blind to them and is desperate, right?

Speaker 4 Like it's sometimes easier to negotiate on things that aren't salary when they're

Speaker 4 when they're material.

Speaker 4 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 And so I think that this, like to me, that would

Speaker 2 all of our tips

Speaker 2 kind of make a tip number four, which is like a meta thing, which is don't negotiate

Speaker 2 when you're emotional, like under pressure, under emotion. Think through all of these things ahead of time.

Speaker 2 Try to do a lot of work ahead of time and try to give yourself time to, you know, execute one, two, and three.

Speaker 2 And we'll be back right after this.

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Speaker 6 This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something.

Speaker 8 Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?

Speaker 7 They may be happening to you without you knowing.

Speaker 8 If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA.

Speaker 10 OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation.

Speaker 11 Learn more at don'tsleeponosa.com.

Speaker 7 This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

Speaker 4 All right. Nate,

Speaker 2 let's play a game called Would You Rather?

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 2 All right. Nate, would you rather be President of the United States or the next Pope?

Speaker 4 I'd rather be president. I mean, first of all, I'm not palpable, right? I'm not Catholic.
Various other problems.

Speaker 2 I'm doubly non-palpable.

Speaker 4 I'm not male and I'm not Catholic. If there are only two people left, I'm going to become the Pope.
I'm sorry, Maria, right?

Speaker 4 I don't think I'd want to be president.

Speaker 4 But I mean, I, yeah, I mean, way better than being fucking, not fucking, I respect the Catholic. What am I even talking about?

Speaker 4 I'd rather be president of the United States. Okay.
Maria, would you rather be underestimated in every negotiation or feared in every negotiation?

Speaker 2 Well, I know how the first one feels because that's the way I've gone through life. And I think it's actually a pretty good thing.
So I'm just going to choose the devil I know.

Speaker 2 I'd rather be underestimated in every negotiation because if people underestimate you, then it can be easier to

Speaker 2 to surprise them, right? And to pull off stuff that they wouldn't expect coming from you. That said, like sometimes I think it would be pretty cool to be feared.
And no one ever fears me.

Speaker 4 They look at me and I don't know what they're saying. Fear can produce weird things too, where like you can like win a negotiation for an outcome that winds up not being great for you, right?

Speaker 4 Because someone is cowed in its omission and they are unhappy, right?

Speaker 4 And you kind of and you receive worse information from them. We talked before about sometimes it's not a purely zero-sum game.
So yeah, I think that's, I would agree with that. All right.

Speaker 2 Nate, would you rather be an average American or Chinese citizen a year from now? American?

Speaker 4 USA? Fuck yeah. No, I actually,

Speaker 4 one reason it's been a busy week, I went and gave a talk at West Point on Monday. Actually spent the whole day there.
So not too many civilians get that opportunity.

Speaker 4 And like, you know, these cadets who forsake traditional college experience for

Speaker 4 to commit to five years serving the country, we're very smart. And like, and it's a very selective program, right? You can't just do it unless you're very, very good.

Speaker 4 But that may be a little bit more optimistic for the future of the country. Nice.
Okay. Moray, would you rather let current AI decide? So ChatGPT, you get to use version 4.5 here.

Speaker 4 I'm going to tell you. When to launch nuclear weapons or the June 2024 version of Biden, the day that Biden did that debate, for example.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I am.

Speaker 2 Not trying to be tech alarmist, but I would actually still say June 2024 Biden because he wouldn't be the one making the decision.

Speaker 2 He has his smart advisors making the decision and all he does is, you know, he lacks capacity for his own independent meddling. And he just says,

Speaker 2 he just like, he says fine on whatever it is because he's exhausted.

Speaker 4 You know, he's done the debate. Give us my screen.
So

Speaker 2 exactly, exactly. And he like the one thing other than stepping down,

Speaker 2 which he did eventually do, he did listen to his advisors.

Speaker 2 And so I think that that would be my choice. And with that, Nate, I am off to, well, actually, no, I'm going to make a good decision.

Speaker 2 I was going to say I'm off to play my first tournament at EPT Monte Carlo, but I'm not going to play because I am off of a red eye. I did not sleep.
I'm exhausted.

Speaker 2 And it's going to be a minus CV decision.

Speaker 4 I love that. I love

Speaker 4 it. I love the barreling into town, right?

Speaker 4 Late registering from McCarran Airport. I love the, I love blowing my first bullet on like, you know, a $1,500 Omaha 8 tournament that I'm going to fucking like.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I like getting the bad one out of the way really soon.

Speaker 2 Well, but the three-hour jet lag is not a nine-hour or a six-hour jet lag.

Speaker 2 So after a red eye, it can be tough. That said, I have played this first day in Monte Carlo in the past,

Speaker 2 but right now I think I'm just a little bit too tired. And I'm going to be responsible, Nate.
I'm going to be financially responsible and not

Speaker 2 blow 1100 euros.

Speaker 4 Bank that responsibility so you can do something irresponsible later.

Speaker 4 That's how I live in this place.

Speaker 2 Yes. So I will be able to reward myself with a little treat later on because I'm being so good right now.
What are you going to do, Nate? You are in Chicago. Are you going to go eat some pizza?

Speaker 4 I probably won't. It's hard to find

Speaker 4 non-heavy food in probably some Mexican, actually. I love the Mexican food.

Speaker 2 Go to Pequad's. Pequads.

Speaker 4 I know, but like I'm here by my pizza. I mean, I'm seeing some friends there tomorrow at their place.
Yeah, I'm not going to have a whole fucking pizza by myself, I don't think.

Speaker 2 You can eat some Pequads and bring the rest for your friends.

Speaker 4 Okay, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me evaluate some options, Maria. Pequads is quite good.

Speaker 2 Pequads is quite good. Now I've put it in your brain.
And with that, we'll see you all next week.

Speaker 2 Risky Business is hosted by by me, Maria Konikova.

Speaker 4 And by me, Nate Silber. The show is a co-production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabel Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit.

Speaker 4 Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.

Speaker 2 If you like this show, please rate and review us so other people can find us too. Thanks so much for tuning in.

Speaker 6 This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something.

Speaker 8 Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?

Speaker 7 They may be happening to you without you knowing.

Speaker 8 If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA.

Speaker 10 OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation.

Speaker 11 Learn more at don'tsleeponosa.com.

Speaker 7 This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

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Okay.

Speaker 4 Only 10 more presents to wrap.

Speaker 2 You're almost at the finish line.

Speaker 4 But first.

Speaker 4 There,

Speaker 2 the last one.

Speaker 2 Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that

Speaker 2 refreshes.

Speaker 2 This is an iHeart Podcast.