On a recent episode of this show, you heard me talking to Stephen Dubner.

He's the co-author of the book Freakonomics and the host of the podcast Freakonomics Radio,

which is one of the most notable and longest-running podcasts out there.

A little while ago, Freakonomics Radio ran a series that particularly resonated with me,

a series about failure, which is part of why I was so

excited to talk with Stephen in the first place. So we're going to play the first episode of that

series right now. I think you'll enjoy it. And if you do, you can find the rest of the series

and hundreds more episodes by searching for free economics radio in your podcast app.

Here's Stephen.

In early August this year, on a Monday morning,

the National Weather Service issued a warning of high winds in Maui County, Hawaii.

By the next morning, the wind was gusting at over 70 miles an hour.

Here's how one resident described it. Tiles are getting ripped off roofs, leaving exposed

rooftops with bare wood everywhere. Power lines are like spaghetti strings everywhere.

The island started to lose electricity, and near the town of Lahaina, there was a brushfire.

Firefighters arrived, and it was soon declared contained, but later that day, the high winds caused a flare-up.

We could see the smoke, and all of a sudden, oh my gosh, the quickness with which it happened

was the craziest part. It was just so fast. What happened next, you have probably read about

or seen in horrifying videos and news coverage. The town of Lahaina was swallowed by fire.

People tried to flee in their cars, but the roads were clogged. Some people jumped in the

ocean to escape. Here is one survivor. And we're in the ocean probably like eight hours,

fighting the water, getting pulled out, flames were hitting you still. Things were falling from

...