Pushkin.

Hey there, it's Michael Lewis, host of Against the Rules at Pushkin.

I've been working on a new book.

Can't give it all away, but it involves trips to the Bahamas and court dates and crypto

trading and ankle bracelets.

There's one thing I always do when I sit down to write.

A lot of interviews on background.

They almost never make it into the book, but they just give me a kind of context of what

my characters are going through.

And I'm at that phase right now.

I'm going to let you in on these background interviews.

On the record, once a month, listen in as I call up some esoteric expert, like a crypto

sleuth who traces secrets on the blockchain, or a regulator who knows what's against the

rules for crypto firms trading other people's money.

Listen to Against the Rules wherever you get your podcasts.

Mountain lions do their hunting in the dark after dusk, and in the early morning hours,

right before the sun comes up.

The hills above Malibu, California are full of them.

They're vicious predators, but they're so shy that the wildlife biologists who study

them call them ghost cats.

If you hike in the hills surrounding Malibu, you probably haven't seen a mountain lion,

but one has almost certainly seen you.

...