The Short Sellers

Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion

Pushkin Industries

Business, Society & Culture, Sports

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Lewis speaks with Greg Lippmann, formerly a bond trader at Deutsche Bank, made famous when he was portrayed by Ryan Gosling in the movie version of The Big Short. And Lewis catches up with Steve Eisman, the Wall Street investor who was played by actor Steve Carell. When did they each start to suspect the subprime mortgage market was rotten, and why? And how did they perceive each other in the wary days and months before the market crashed?

For more, check out Steve Eisman’s podcast, The Real Eisman Playbook.

Order The Big Short audiobook, now narrated by Michael Lewis, on Audible, Spotify, pushkin.fm/bigshort or wherever you get audiobooks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin.
0:10.8	I'm Lydia Dean Kot. And I'm Michael Lewis.
0:16.2	So Michael, last week for the special series about the Big Short, you spoke with Adam McKay, who directed the big short movie.
0:23.6	And today we're going to talk to some of the real people who inspired the characters in the movie, the people who were in your book.
0:29.8	And I want to start with a scene that's really early on in the movie.
0:33.6	It shows a meeting between the team at a small investment firm called Frontpoint Partners with a bond trader from Deutsche Bank.
0:42.1	And this bond trader had called them up and he said he had this deal for them that was too good to be true.
0:48.4	And also he called them by accident.
0:50.3	That's exactly right.
0:51.2	And in the movie, the bond trader's name is Jared Vinet, and he's played by Ryan Gosling.
0:58.2	Here's the clip.
0:59.2	You smell that? What is that?
1:00.9	What's that smell?
1:02.8	A cologne?
1:04.2	No.
1:07.2	Opportunity.
1:08.8	No, money.
1:10.1	Oh, okay. I smell money. Okay.
1:11.2	I smell money.
1:12.4	Okay.
1:14.0	Ryan Gosling is playing Greg Lippman.
1:16.8	Even Greg Lippman thinks he's Greg Lippman when he's watching it.
	...

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