tv Book TV CSPAN August 24, 2013 7:45pm-8:01pm EDT
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guy named mark, and i remember getting a first phone call about this story by a state cop who worked on the bulger stuff, and he called him a mini bulger. this guy was accused of being -- of suspected in at least six murders, a big mafia guy, and they rolled him. the state police decided to target him because he was a well-known heroin dealer. not a nice guy. they thought he was an fbi informant, so they called the fbi. this is just two years ago. they calledded the fbi saying he's your guy, we'll move on him. >> oh, no, not our guy, absolutely not. >> as soon as they have the wire up, they get wires on him, a court order, go on to the gangster's cell phone. the first, very first conversation they record is him talking to his fbi hand leer. >> i think the state police are coming after he. >> he was right.
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>> when they took him down, the same fbi supervisor said, oh, he's not our guy, called a state cop commander and said, hey, that was a great pinch you guys make. want to roll them together. the state cop says, roll him? we're putting him in prison. he said, what are you guys, crazy? he's a killer. he killed at least six people. the fbi agents' response to him was, we know of only one. [laughter] dealing with the guy that killed one person is acceptable. you asked me, has it changed? i don't believe it's changed. that's why i think -- i think the fbi needs an enema. the entire situation -- back to this, talked about it in historical context. shelly and i were in washington last week, and i walked by the jay edgar hoover building, what a disgrace that name is up there. what we know about him, the most corrupt government officials in the history of this republic. his name is still on that building. here's ethos still in the building, and that's why all we
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talk about whitey bulger is still there. >> on that cheery note -- [laughter] i'd like to thank you all for coming a, like to thank shelly murphy, kevin cullen, boston globe to both of you, whitey bulger, i don't know how many have time to come over, but, yes, after this. [applause] >> what's the new book about? >> called "david and goliath: underdogs, misfits, and art of battling giants," and it's about underdogs. i got really interested in telling the stories of people who seem weak and powerless, and yet go on to accomplish great things. i -- that was a puzzle of how they managed to do that, but i thought it was worthy of a book,
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and so my letter. >> in 2009, you wrote a piece for the new yorker, david and goliath, and you can tells story, but is that when the interest started? >> yeah, i wrote a story, but oddly, nothing in the article i wrote made it into the book, but it was what got me thinking about it. there was an article i wrote about a guy, started with a story of a guy who is an indian immigrant, living in silicon valley, coaches his daughter's basketball team, and they are all 12, 13, and they are all the daughters of software engineers, and they don't -- can't pass, shoot, dribble or do anything resembling basketball. he decides what they are going to do is play defense. play -- have the full court press, 100% of every game. that was so effective, they go to the national championships.
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the idea was that he responded to a weakness, the fact they had no basketball skills, by adapting in a way that proved to be pretty devastating and breaking the rules because people don't expect 12 girls to play the full court press. in fact, it's unsporty because, you know, the kill level is such at that stage that if you play the press, no one brings the ball up the court; right? it's really interesting example of someone who chose to rather than remain passive in the face of some weakness, to adapt, and that's -- that adaptation is what the book is about, what are the strategies people use to respond to their own shortcomings. >> what's one of the examples in the book? >> well, i really am interested, for example, in talking about dyslexia. i have a whole chapter on why are so many successful entrepreneurs dyslexic? it's a neurological problem, a
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deficit, it's a part of your brain that's not working properly. it's nothing you wish on a child, and yet in one case after another, many of the most famous entrepreneurs we know have lived their whole lives with this devastating disorder, and if you talk to them, will tell you they succeeded not in -- not in spite of this disorder, but because of it. that it taught them something about how to deal with the world, that proved to be incredibly valuable in their career. that's -- there's something very beautiful about those and moving about those kinds of stories. i tell it couple of them about -- it's a beautiful illustration of the paradox i'm interested in describing which is that very often we learn more from our disadvantages than we do from our advantages. >> is there any connection between david and goliath, the tipping point, outliers?
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>> well, you know, i wish there were. i wish there were some grand unfollowing narrative to argue if you own one, you had to own them all, but i don't think there is. i think that they simply, they happen to be what i'm interested in at the time, and i suppose they are all answers to the question, why does the world deprive us, not work the way we expect? that's the theme i keep coming back to. >> how long do you sit with an idea? >> a long time. i mean, i think about a book for years before i start writing it. i don't think -- if you could ask a reader to commit a big chunk of their life to your book, you have to correspondingly commit a big chopping of your life to the book. in other words, you cannot expect people to make the investment in you if you don't take your time, and so i take --
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i thought about this one and collected ideas for years before i started writing. >> some of the stories we heard are military stories, the kong and the u.s. army. >> the book starts with me telling the actual david and goliath story, which is not what you think, it's different in reality than has been -- i tell stories from vietnam about a guy who understood very early on that the vietkong were not who we thought they were and would not give up easily and no one listened to him. it's because the american military in those years was not like all of us, i think, had difficulty with the notion that someone could be without obvious strengths, without money men,
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weapons, anything, and still be a formidable opponent. that's what my book -- my book says the opposite, that don't be fooled by the armor someone is wearing, what matters is the man inside the armor. >> how did the tipping point change your life? >> well, i mean, i suppose it just put me on the map as a writer. so it paveed the way of success to my other book. it doesn't change me personally, but may #* made my professional life easier. people return the phone calls faster than they used to, it didn't turn me, but it was such a bizarre and happy accident that it did so well that i've been just grateful of it ever since. >> do you look at the book or
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people look at your books as perhaps self-help books or business primmers? >> well, you know, all great books are self-help books in that they early encourage how we behave, and in that sense, they are. oh, that's how i make sense of that, or that sheds a new light on something that happened to me or someone i know. >> there's a recent story because they've been successful. how do they maintain that? >> well, that's a great question. the first half the book is devoted to the ways in which goliath shoots himself in the
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foot that ag cigs of success sows seeds of failure. breaking out of the cycle is difficult. every single day we look around us once mighty institutions are falling, meaning the camera that is recording the show is by sony, and sony was once the mightiest of electronics company of the world, and last year they lost 8.5 billion, and some people say they should shut down the electronics division. that happened in ten years, going from the top of the heap to a situation where people say openly they should pack it in. you know, this country, we talk about vietnam, there's never been an individual country as powerful as america was in 1964, and what happened over the next ten years in vietnam? we were hum led; -- humbled; right? there's the -- there is
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something, i think, profoundly humbling about what happens to giants, the goliaths, and there could be someone in position of great authority and power is more precarious position than i think most people realize. >> why do goliaths shoot themselves in the foot? >> well, many republicans. i -- well, many reasons. i explore a couple. they assume the strategies that made them great will keep them great, and that's not true. two is they underestimate just how useful a struggle was. how creative it made them. when you don't have a enough, when you're business could shut down tomorrow, when your constantly, at the very end of your wit, you, you know, i mean,
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some cases you fold and die, but if you don't, you learn how to be innovative and to take chances and to take risks and do all kinds of thing that you are propose propoled to do things you wouldn't ordinarily do. when you are comfortable, you are no longer under that compulsion, and that is a huge -- that's a huge transition that many organizations or individuals can't make. they simply -- they forgot how useful their own -- their old disadvantage was. >> are there lessons learned for the american political system from david and goliath? >> you know, as a canadian, i'm weiry of -- weary of that. i don't know there are. i'm a minority on this, but someone not from this country, i'm always impressed at how good our political system is. i think look around the world,
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is there one you would trade for the american system? i mean, none are perfect. we pay our taxes. we don't leave. people want to come here. it's, like, i don't think there's anything for the system. the system, as far as i can tell, does a good job. >> are you a citizen now? >> no, remain a canadian. i can't give that up. >> when does this book hit the stands? >> beginning of october, october 1st of this year, 2013. >> this is booktv on c-span2, previewing the newest book "david and goliath," october 2013, hits the bookstores, and thank you for watching booktv. >> early on, you know, we said, okay, we have this 16-acre piece of land. we have to put some things on it or maybe not. it was open ends, what do we do; right? everyone wanted a say in that.
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quickly, people, leaders promised a public process to receive public input to generate a master plan. at the same time, however, like i said before, you had larry silverstein, the lease of the office space, the port authority, and they believed in the importance of the commercial space that was destroyed. they wanted to make sure that lower manhattan remainedded an international financial hub, and they believed as an order for it to remain that reputation, they had to rebuild all the commercial space. >> the controversy over the rebuilding on the site of the world trade center. elizabeth greenspan on "the battle for ground zero" on "after words" part of booktv this weekend on c-span2.. .
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. with an excuse -- exquisite timing we haven't had a senior member of the "washington post" with us. [laughter] said dan balz thought he was coming to talk about his book on the 2012 election but in the wake of monday's surprise announcement that the washington post is being sold to jeff bezos i would guess a few people here are interested in what happening and what's going to happen and where dan works. we will no doubt get t
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