Andrew Ross Sorkin: evaluation

Transcript context

…I have a few general questions about the 1920s. Obviously, you did an enormous amount of work for this book. Putting aside the Great Crash and the focus of your book, what is it you learned about the 1920s more generally that most surprised you? Because you learn all this collateral information when you write a book like this, right? So many things. The book turned into a bit of a love letter to New York in terms of the architecture of New York. I don’t think I appreciated just how many buildings went up in New York and how they were constructed and what happened. That fascinated me. I think the story of John Raskob, actually, who was, to me, the Elon Musk of his time, somebody who ran General Motors, became a super influential investor. He was a philosopher king that everybody listened to at every given moment. He ultimately constructs the Empire State Building, which was probably the equivalent of SpaceX at that time. He had written a paper about creating a five-day workweek back in 1929, November, as all of this is happening. Not because he wanted people to work less and be nice to them, but because he thought there was an economic argument that if people didn’t have to work on Saturdays, more people would buy cars and gardening equipment, and do all sorts of things on the weekends, and buy different outfits and clothing. There were so many little things. Then, I would argue, actually, his role in taking his fortune — he got involved in politics. He was a Republican turned Democrat. He spent an extraordinary amount of money to secretly try to undermine the reputation of Hoover. I would say to you, today, I actually think that part of the reason that Hoover’s reputation is so dim, even today, is a result of this very influential, wealthy individual in America who spent two years paying off journalists and running this secret campaign to do such a thing. You go back and really read the press and try to understand why some of these views were espoused. By the way, this was before the crash. He started this campaign effectively in May of 1929, just three months after Hoover took office. It’s striking to me how forgotten Raskob is today. There’s a lesson in there about people who think they’re doing something today that will be remembered in a hundred years’ time. It probably won’t be, even if you’re a big, big deal.…

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