Ben Gilbert: evaluation

Transcript context

…Right. Having that, however you do it, you're getting to something that I try to get to when I'm picking subjects, but you're doing it in a slightly different way. When my socks start to go up and down about a subject is when I'm really interested in it and nobody else is. It's not hot. Basically all my books, maybe a couple of exceptions, but a lot of the books that if I'm at a dinner party and someone asks me what are you working on, after about 60 seconds I can see their eyes glaze over like, why is he interested in that, it's just not registering with them in any way. I've learned just to not even talk about it because it kills my interest to watch it kill their interest, but I know why I'm interested and why it's important. I'm not relying on the world telling me it's important. That's a really good sign. This is a difference between what you do and what we do. I feel like when I think through all your books, there are almost always a story of obscurity that once it becomes a Michael Lewis book, then it becomes a well-known phenomenon. Moneyball. You were discovering these things that nobody's talking about, whereas when we do something like Trader Joe's, someone says, what are you working on, and we're like, Trader Joe's, they're like, I love Trader Joe's. That is a difference. Your subjects are not obscure. They're the most famous corporations in the world.…

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