Somebody who thinks they have an unremarkable memory or a kid who can't learn their times tables,

they still know every word of every song on their favorite album, and they know every player on the roster of their favorite team.

The memory is working just fine when engaged.

Like the people you see on Jeopardy tonight don't have photographing memories.

That's not a real thing. They're just interested in like 10 times the things you see on Jeopardy tonight don't have photographing memories. That's not a real thing.

They're just interested in like 10 times the things you are. And so more facts stick.

So everybody knows Ken Jennings, the amazing Jeopardy champion, 74 straight wins.

He won the greatest of all time tournament.

But for me, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Levitt.

I once stumbled on one of his children's books.

He writes books for nerdy 12-year-olds. And it was

awesome. It was interesting. And then I found he wrote books for adults. And I started reading those

and I couldn't put them down. Now he's got a podcast and it's incredibly fascinating. And here's a guy

who I thought maybe it'd be one-dimensional when I just knew about Jeopardy. But the more I learned about Ken Jennings, the more amazed I was at how interesting he was, how smart he was, how multidimensional he was.

This is a guy I'd like to get to know. This guy I'd like to be friends with.

All right, so Ken, it's really a pleasure to be here talking today, Ken Jennings.

The Jeopardy greatest of all time, best sung author, probably America's most beloved brainiac.

I can't imagine that you could have scripted a life that's turned out much better than the one that you've been able to live.

It's a very unusual niche I have found, and I feel incredibly lucky to have landed in it.

As far back as I can remember, I was a huge game show nerd, and I never had a guidance counselor think that was a career. At the time, I went on Jeopardy for the first time. I was 29 years old.

I was kind of in the middle of a weird midlife crisis because I was in computers and I didn't like my job. And, you know, instead of buying a sports car or whatever most people do, I went on a game show. And through a very weird set of circumstances, it changed my life. I kind of suspect, I know your job was being a computer programmer. Were you kind of bad at

...