Ep. 380 Private Equity Wins, The Community Loses Out with Megan Greenwell

Written By Wy'Kia Frelot

This week on the Stacks, journalist Megan Greenwell joins to discuss her debut book, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. She breaks down the ins and outs of private equity, how it works, why it harms communities, and if there is an ethical path for the industry. 

The Stacks Book Club pick for July is God Help the Child by Toni Morrison. We will discuss next Wednesday, July 30th with Dana A. Williams.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Megan Greenwell 0:00

I'm still learning all the time about industries that private equity has growing influence in that, you know, I've been researching this for three years. There are too many industries to keep up, and the reason retail is the first section of the book is when you really start digging in, you can really see the ways in which the playbook for modern private equity deals gets set in retail and then applied to industries like hospitals, as if those are the same thing, right? Because it doesn't matter what they do, they're just replaceable widgets.

Traci Thomas 0:41

Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Traci Thomas, and today I am joined by journalist and editor Megan Greenwell. She is the author of a brand new book called Bad Company, private equity and the death of the American dream. The book follows the lives of four individuals whose lives were upended when private equity acquired their workplaces or their residents. Through these individuals, we get a deeper look into the private equity industry and understand how it is harming our communities today. Through our conversation, Megan offers us a deeper understanding of what exactly private equity is and how it works and how we got here, plus, we talk about how she picked the individuals to focus on in the book, and so much more. If you're confused and or concerned about private equity, today's episode is for you. Quick reminder. Everything we talk about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. And if you love this podcast, if you want inside access to it, if you want to support the work that I do as an independent podcaster, please consider joining the stacks pack on patreon@patreon.com,

Traci Thomas 1:46

slash the stacks, and subscribing to my newsletter at Traci thomas.substack.com in both of these spaces, you will get perks like bonus episodes, access to our Discord community hot takes on pop culture and books, our mega reading challenge And until the end of September, access to my non fiction reading guide. Head to patreon.com/the, stacks, or Traci thomas.substack.com, to subscribe. All right, now it's time for my conversation with Megan Greenwell,

Traci Thomas 2:19

okay, everybody. I'm so excited. I am talking today to Megan Greenwell. She's the author of bad company private equity and the death of the American dream. This book is the exact kind of non fiction catnip that they make in a lab, and then they dangle in front of me so that I can scream into a microphone about it. So I'm really, really excited. Megan, welcome to the stacks.

Megan Greenwell 2:43

Thank you so much for having me. I'm a true fan of yours, so this is very exciting for me.

Traci Thomas 2:48

Well, I'm a true fan of yours, so this is exciting for me. Before we even get into the book, you're from the Bay Area.

Megan Greenwell 2:54

I am.

Traci Thomas 2:55

You grew up in Berkeley?

Megan Greenwell 2:56

I did.

Traci Thomas 2:58

Did you go to Berkeley High?

Megan Greenwell 2:58

I did.

Traci Thomas 2:58

Oh, my God.

Megan Greenwell 2:58

Where did you go?

Traci Thomas 2:58

I went to Bishop O'Dowd.

Megan Greenwell 2:58

Oh, you did? okay. Okay, cool.

Traci Thomas 2:58

We'll do more of this offline. I just wanted to let everybody know that all the best people are from the Bay Area, in particular, particular, particular, like, not people who say they're from the Bay Area, but are really from Napa. Also, I just want to just throw quick stray for those that's important. I think so too. Okay, the book in about 30 seconds or so, will you tell us about bad company?

Megan Greenwell 3:28

Yeah, so bad company is narrative nonfiction exploring the impacts of the private equity industry on workers and communities. And I do it by following four characters whose lives were upended when private equity took over their employer or their landlord.

Traci Thomas 3:46

Okay, amazing. That was really good. We're gonna get to the actual contents of the book in a moment. But I wanna start with just Hi, talk to me like I'm five. What is private equity?

Megan Greenwell 4:00

Yes, a very good question, because I didn't know the answer to this until private equity came into my life, and that was what this kicked off, this whole reporting process. Basically, private equity is a system of financing where they pool money from outside investors. So sovereign wealth funds, university endowments, public pension funds, ultra wealthy individuals, you know, all of those normal sources of capital, and they combine that money with bank loans and use it to buy companies. So unlike venture capital, this is buying companies outright. And unlike venture capital, or any other system of finance, the loans a make up about 70 to 80% of the average deal and B the private equity firm is not responsible for paying those loans back. Only the portfolio company that they've bought using the loans are responsible. So if I take out $1 billion in loans to buy the stacks podcast, and I don't. Drive the company into the ground, right? The podcast goes out of business. Traci, it's

Traci Thomas 5:04

already there, so good luck. See if you can drive it a little lower.

Megan Greenwell 5:09

Then if you enter bankruptcy proceedings, only the stacks podcast is legally responsible for repaying those creditors, the private equity firm gets to walk away scot free. So it's this weird system that sort of causes a split between the incentives of the parent firm and the incentives of the portfolio company. And that's why it was so interesting to me, because it seemed to, like, kind of violate everything we think we know about free market capitalism,

Traci Thomas 5:37

right? And you said they walk away scot free, but actually they walk away having made money. Yes, great. It's sort of like by design that is the business model of or a version of the business model for private equity,

Megan Greenwell 5:52

exactly. So not only do they not have to pay the loans back, they also have all of these other tricks that allow them to make money, even if the company is doing poorly. So I talked about that split in incentives. One of the biggest ways in which that comes through is that a private equity firm will very often sell off a portfolio company's real estate in what's called a sale leaseback agreement. So let's take an industry like hospitals, where obviously hospitals require a ton of land. And if you're building a chain of hospitals, that becomes a ton of land. And so if you sell all of those hospitals, you pocket the proceeds as the private equity firm, and then you start charging rent to the portfolio company to this chain of hospitals, skimming a little off the top each month from the rent payments for yourself, you're doing pretty well, while literally weakening the company that you've acquired. So they now are burdened under these rent payments, and also these rent payments for you know, the exact same land they used to own, and they're in a much weaker position than they were before the private equity came in, right?

Traci Thomas 7:05

I want to, I want to explain this part one more time again, just because I was under the impression when I heard about this before I read your book, that was like, oh, you know, they went and they bought Toys R Us, and then they made toys r us pay rent to a company that was affiliated with the private equity that's not what happens. What happens is that Toys R Us already owned their store property. The private equity firm sells the buildings or sells the land on which the which the stores sit, and then makes Toys R Us pay rent for something they already owned outright. So they're adding a huge expense to a Toys R Us, plus the loan. That's like $5 billion in that case. So it's not like, oh, they were already paying rent now they're just paying rent to us. It's like, Oh, you did not have this expense line on the P and L, and now you have a huge one, because these also are huge pieces of land, like a Toys R Us or a hospital. It's not, you know, one little storefront on Melrose or whatever it's, it's, you know, you've been to a Toys R Us, people. You know what I'm trying to say,

Megan Greenwell 8:11

yes, yes, no, that's exactly right. So the rent payments go from literally zero. Toys R Us in particular was famous throughout the retail industry for owning its own land. You know, in most cases, they had owned those parcels for, like, decades, so they weren't even paying a mortgage payment on it at that point. And now, all of a sudden, they have to pay rent, and the private equity firm is literally profiting off of those rent payments,

Traci Thomas 8:36

because they've partnered with the new landlord. Exactly in the case

Megan Greenwell 8:40

of Toys R Us, the landlord was actually one of the partners in the deal. So it was two private equity firms and a real estate firm. But in other cases, yes, they sell it to a company in which they with which they have a sweetheart deal, essentially. And so they win, the real estate firm wins, and only the portfolio company, the workers and the community loses out.

Traci Thomas 9:02

Okay, I want to ask you about another part of the way that they make money, which is, can you explain this two and 20 thing? Yes,

Megan Greenwell 9:11

okay, so two and 20 is the basic payment structure of all private equity deals. The 20 is the private equity firm just automatically gets 20% of any profits over a certain threshold, so that, you know, maybe that's okay, right? Because that's like at least a performance incentive. The two is the private equity firm gets 2% of a deal as the management fee, so 2% of the total value of the deal every single year as a management fee, regardless of how the company is actually doing. So if you're looking at a five or six or $10 billion deal, 2% every single year is working out pretty nicely, even before. Before you get to all the like, bonuses they pay themselves, and dividends and all of this other stuff that two and 20 like just works out so well. So in the case of Toys R Us, the company you know, went under kind of spectacularly, and reporting at the time made clear that both Bain Capital and KKR, the two main private equity the two private equity firms that had purchased Toys R Us both made money over the life of the deal.

Traci Thomas 10:28

Can I ask you this, does that mean that it incentivizes private equity firms to pay more for business than they than they would? Because if the deal is $5 billion like if you say, okay, Toys R Us, I'm gonna buy you for $5 billion when you're really maybe only worth like, $2 billion you still get that 2% or are the banks at all discerning with how much they're gonna lend out, like, if it's driving up the price of a thing that's not worth that?

Megan Greenwell 10:55

It's such a good question, and I don't totally know the answer. I mean, there are some checks at the bank level to make sure you're not paying like, orders of magnitude more, right? Like, if you're buying a house, you they'll stop you from being able to pay way more than it's worth, because it's bad for their business. But that said, one of the questions I often get asked is, why do companies agree to buy outs from private equity firms. And the answer is because if you have a board, the board, in most cases, has a fiduciary responsibility to accept the best bid. And so in a lot of cases, private equity is bidding more than any other type of firm, any other type of buyer, because they don't have the same need to make money in, like, the classic way, by improving the business. Because private equity doesn't like that. They can certainly afford to pay a lot more, because they're going to make their money either way,

Traci Thomas 11:55

right, right? Our I mean, I'm sure there must be instances where the board is like, No, we care more about the brand than we do about the dollar or No.

Megan Greenwell 12:07

Sure it can happen. But in a lot of cases, it's not totally in their control anyway, because of this legal concept of fiduciary responsibility, they would have to make such a strong case why they're not selling for a, you know, lucrative bid.

Traci Thomas 12:26

So it's not like buying a house. It's not like when you, like, write a nice letter to the seller and they're like, Okay, we'll take this, like, slightly less offer, because you've got seven kids and a dog, and, like, you told me, you want to do Christmas in the backyard.

Megan Greenwell 12:38

Yes, exactly. That's such a good distinction to draw, because, like, if somebody comes to your board and you're a company with an offer, they're going to have a hard time saying no and justifying that to the shareholders who walk. You know, want to pocket a little bit of the proceeds of that deal,

Traci Thomas 12:56

even though, long term, they're likely to do correct, bad,

Megan Greenwell 13:01

correct. Okay, the argument is essentially like, look, we don't really know what'll happen long term. I see theoretically they'll make the company 10 times bigger in the long term. In the case of private equity, they almost certainly will not do that. But private equity is a short term game, and sales are, when people sell companies, they do it seeing like, three feet down the road. Okay, so, yeah, it's, it's really kind of a wild system that does seem to, like, violate some basic things that we think we understand about how money works. And so these kinds of questions are like, among the most common I get like, Wait, I don't understand. How could it possibly work that way?

Traci Thomas 13:47

This is, this is actually me I want. So when I was reading your book, I had to text my brother and say, can you explain more mortgage backed securities to me, to which he just responded with the voice memo, what are you up to? Because he knew full well, there was no way I had any business even being curious about mortgage backed security. So good. He was like, girl, what's Are you in trouble? He was like, I thought maybe, like, some scammer got you and you were interested in, like, getting a mortgage backed security. I was like, No, I'm just trying to read a book, like, just trying to get more information.

Megan Greenwell 14:22

Well, that's true. Brotherly Love, knowing, yeah,

Traci Thomas 14:25

he was like, he was like, something bad has happened. Here. She's asking about a phrase that, like, is just so far outside of her wheelhouse. But Okay, another question about what's actually happening. And then I'm going to shift to some other questions about what's going on in your book, per se. But how come private equity gets to have these sort of like handouts, or like capital gains taxes, which I also don't understand, like they're spending in the book, I think you say that they're spending in Maryland the same amount on private equity as they are on. Higher Education, like, How come so much of our money is going into private equity? Why is that? Why is that question mark, yeah,

Megan Greenwell 15:13

recently asked me a version of this question that was so follow up question, do laws exist? And the answer in the answer in the case of private equity is basically no. Private equity was designed to work around existing laws, right? So it wasn't like they had to get stuff lifted. They were just able to see, like, okay, there's a loophole here. We're gonna, like, design a system that fits through it. And so that worked out super, super well as the industry started gaining steam in the 70s and 80s, and then they developed a very robust lobbying operation to make sure nobody ever got in the way of, you know, tried to regulate it. And there have been attempts at regulating many facets of the private equity industry, right? So Elizabeth Warren has proposed what she calls the stop Wall Street looting act, time and time and time again, and it never comes close to getting out of committee, because 88% of members of the House and Senate receive donations from private equity. So it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're looking at, there's there's just no incentive to regulate this system. And private equity people are a lot of the most powerful people in our society, in our economy, in our philanthropy. So they're doing a nice job of both engendering a lot of goodwill and sort of like disguising what it is they actually do. One of the examples of this that I think about all the time is, I live in New York. Stephen Schwarzman. Name is on everything.

Traci Thomas 16:54

Do you know he's my Do you know his daughter's my personal enemy?

Megan Greenwell 16:57

I do she is a lot of people's enemy. She's but yeah, so Stephen Schwarzman name, among many other things, is on the central branch of the New York City Library. And I think if you asked like 100 highly educated people walking into that library, 99 of them would not know what Stephen Schwarzman does. Other than that, he's a rich philanthropist and maybe that he's a big Trump donor. They can

Traci Thomas 17:26

it's very Sackler family. It's very Sackler family on all of the things.

Megan Greenwell 17:30

Yes, exactly. They have an interest in making sure we don't know what they do, and so you can get your name out there in certain ways without getting it out there that this is how you've made all your money, and I think that has been an incredibly profitable strategy, because who wants to hurt the poor guy whose name is on the New York City central branch of the library, right? I mean, I do, but I also do, but

Traci Thomas 17:57

I think more of us do, then more

Megan Greenwell 18:00

people learn. And that was a lot of what I wanted to do with this book is like it is an industry that is opaque. On purpose. I didn't know how it worked, an experience I had over and over when talking to workers, is until everything fell apart. They had no idea their employer was owned by private equity, right? And so a lot of what I wanted to do was just pull back the curtain, not by like getting inside the firms, but just by showing people these are the effects, because the firms don't want you to understand the

Traci Thomas 18:34

effects, right? And for people who don't know, just because you've mentioned it twice now, sort of your introduction into private equity was that you were the editor in chief of dead spin. It was acquired by private equity quickly run into the ground. Was they were doing things that basically were antithetical to what dead spin is, and was they had like it was just a mess you left, and then that led you to sort of start writing, writing this book. I'm kind of paraphrasing there, but

Megan Greenwell 19:00

yes, exactly I left in my last day, I wrote an article that we published on Deadspin called the adults in the room that was about my experience, and that that went, I mean, orders of magnitude more viral than anything I've ever written. And I think a lot of people were like, great, write a book about that. And I was just so not interested in writing a book about my own experience. It's not the kind of writer I am, okay, and I didn't want to write a book that was so narrowly focused on the media industry. So originally, I was sort of like, No, I'm not writing a book about private equity. And then I just got really obsessed and couldn't stop reading. And then I was like, Okay, well, I guess this is a book, but I just have to do it in my own way. So it's really not about my experience, except a couple paragraphs in the introduction. But that was absolutely my entree into like, diving deeper into this world.

Traci Thomas 19:53

You start the book. You have this idea, you start it. How far away are you from? Where. You thought you might be when this book came into the world, like, what were the things were there? Or were there things that surprised you or totally threw you for a loop? Or, like, did you discover things that you were like, I had no idea about this.

Megan Greenwell 20:14

Oh, over and over and over, I'm still discovering things that are totally horrifying to me. So our mutual friend Brian Goldstone, who you've had on the show, I went to one of his book events, and I learned from him that, you know, one of his characters got evicted from her apartment because private equity bought it and jacked up the rents, and then she ended up in an extended stay motel. The extended stay motels are also largely owned by private equity firms,

Traci Thomas 20:46

largely Blackstone, which is why I want Brian to write the Blackstone book, but you guys could write it together.

Megan Greenwell 20:52

Well, I'll totally do it with Brian. I'll do any project with Brian. He's brilliant, but yeah, that like I didn't know that private equity was in extended stay motels. I'm still learning all the time that industries that private equity has growing influence in that, you know, I've been researching this for three years. There are too many industries to keep up, right? There is just no way to keep tabs on absolutely everything they're up to. So, yeah, I mean, I knew it would be a good book because I had been reading about it for maybe three or four months, and was still getting, like enraged all over again every single day. And that was a good sign to me that, like I wasn't going to lose interest, right? That makes sense. So yeah, it's been a lot of that.

Traci Thomas 21:39

Well, I heard you talking on the culture study podcast, and you mentioned that, like, private equity is kind of getting out of retail, which I thought was really stunning, because I think of it as being sort of like in the retail and, like restaurant space because of Red Lobster. Yes, in my mind, it's like Toys R Us and Red Lobster. I didn't, I mean, I cannot overstate this enough. I did not understand what private equity was, basically, until I started reading your book, like I only knew those two sort of case studies, like those two sort of ideas. And so I guess when Brian in Brian's book, there is no place for us. When he talked about it, it made sense to me. Then when I was reading your book, that it was like, oh, hospitals, sure, those are places with physical locations. Because in my mind, it was like, Oh, they do housing and things that have a lot of real estate. So it was interesting to, like, kind of go back and see the origins of this, and see that, like, retail was such a huge part of it. And now it's not because, of course, that makes sense. And so I was really fascinated by that sort of evolution too?

Megan Greenwell 22:42

Yeah, no, thank you. I'm glad you appreciated that, because that was really important to me to sort of show that evolution and the reason retail is the first section of the book is when you really start digging in, you can really see the ways in which the playbook for modern private equity deals gets set in retail and then applied to industries like hospitals, as if those are the same thing, right? Because it doesn't matter what they do, they're just replaceable widgets. And so like the sale leaseback agreements was a huge part of retail deals, long before private equity was in hospitals at all, and then they started getting into hospitals, largely as a result of the Affordable Care Act, which just created a larger guaranteed pot of money. And so then you see them be like, Oh, that's the only spec thing. It worked great in retail. Let's use it in hospitals too.

Traci Thomas 23:40

Are they? Are they largely in private prisons too?

Megan Greenwell 23:44

Yes. So they're in private prisons. And even in government run prisons, there are a lot of the prison like service providers, so like the super predatory phone systems, of course, large prisoners, like, wow,

Traci Thomas 24:00

right? Exactly. I feel like an idiot. Should have seen that.

Megan Greenwell 24:03

Yeah. Okay, so they're so deep in prisons, right?

Traci Thomas 24:08

And it's gonna get way worse. I bet that's like, probably the one of the rising industries, given what we what's going on right now, politically,

Megan Greenwell 24:15

oh yeah, yeah, they'll be big in like, this concentration camp system, I'm sure. Oh

Traci Thomas 24:19

yes. I mean, with like, the deportation part of it, but also with this new, like, big, beautiful bill or whatever. I mean, I think we're talking a lot about, like, people losing Medicaid and people losing food stamps and all this stuff. But like, that's going to lead to a quote, unquote rise in crime, which is going to lead to more people being able to be put away into institutions like prisons and juvenile detention centers, which means there's gonna be this room in the same way that the Affordable Care Act made more room for hospitals, it's gonna make more room for prisons.

Megan Greenwell 24:50

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, you know, obviously our criminal justice, quote, unquote system is so broken, right? But like the prison policy. Population just keeps growing anyway, right? So, yes, any way to, like, throw more people in prison and gouge them on things like phone providers is yes, is absolutely going to happen.

Traci Thomas 25:14

Okay, before we take a break, I'm going to ask you this question, is there such thing as ethical private equity. Okay, we'll be right back.

Traci Thomas 25:31

Okay, we're back. I left you with a cliffhanger. Is there such thing as ethical private equity? Are there firms we could be because here's the thing that I learned also, if you're a person, an individual, or maybe you're a teacher, or maybe you have money in a pension, a state pension, or something like that, your money is going towards private equity your retirement, your money is going there to get a stronger return on the investment so that you can be paid out when you retire. If you are a person who has disposable income and has and is investing in things right? Like, maybe you're not filthy rich, but maybe you've got a little money here and there, your investments might be tied to private equity firms. So is there, are there private equity firms that we should, should be, could be supporting that are doing things in the quote, unquote right way? Like, is there any way to be engaged in this space and not be just like Blackstone?

Megan Greenwell 26:26

Yeah, it's such a good question. The answer is complicated. I don't think every private equity deal is like evil and I don't think every private equity deal hurts people. So to take a step back, private equity arose in the 60s with what they called bootstrap deals, which were essentially looking at small, family run companies and saying, look, they could, you know, they stand the potential for serious expansion, but they don't have the capital to do it. Let's pump in some capital. They'll have either a profitable exit or go public or whatever. That's like a pretty benign system, and there are a lot of private equity deals that are still that right. So the private equity industry's main lobbying group loves to say that the vast majority of their deals are still in these small family run companies that I see no reason to disbelieve that that's true. The problem is the number of deals and the amount of money or the amount of workers affected are very, very different statistics. And so I don't think there are any private equity firms that are really just doing these little, very benign deals, or at least if they are, they're doing it because they're not successful enough. Like the ethos in finance is so much about being bigger, right? And so every deal has to be bigger and more lucrative than the last. And so there's not a lot of incentive to be a private equity shop that's really only doing these small deals, because then you just look like a second tier organization. And so what ends up happening is they get greedier and hungrier, and every deal has to be bigger, and those bigger deals just work out badly, much, much more often, right? So it's not that any individual deal or every individual deal is like evil, sure, but the biggest ones tend to work out the worst, and those are the ones that affect the most people. So

Traci Thomas 28:37

basically, what you're saying is, No, you shouldn't have your money in private equity at all if you want to be investing ethically.

Megan Greenwell 28:46

I mean, I would say that's true, although I would also say that the vast majority of people don't really have a choice, right? Like, if you are an individual person with investments in a pension fund, you get one vote in where those pensions are invested, but, like, not nearly enough to control it right now, private equity really wants to get in on 401 K money, which would double the amount of capital that's available to private equity firms. And like, theoretically, you can make your individual decisions on where your 401 K money is going. But like, most people don't, realistically, whoever does that, right? All I do is I like, pick the little slider bar. This is most conservative or most risky, right? Put it like, somewhere that's appropriate for

Traci Thomas 29:31

my age, right in the middle. Always. I don't care how old or how young I am, I'm just I'm in the middle. I'm not getting risky. I'm not, no,

Megan Greenwell 29:38

I'm certainly not getting risky. But then if you do the most conservative, like, you never get any interest. So right, yeah? Like, I am not a fi a personal finance expert, and I have no desire to be a personal finance expert. So, like, I'm not going to go to that level of detail, which means that if my 401, K, I mean, I'm a freelancer, so I don't have a four. Oh 1k but if my husband's 401, k gets into private equity, like, it's really going to be on us to make the decision, like, we don't want that,

Traci Thomas 30:10

right? And there's no like, private equity firms that are trying to be like, we're the ethical private equity firm. Like, there's no Absolutely. But are there any that are actually, like, Are there any? Because it seems to me, you know, whenever we get in these situations, of, like, the these companies are bad, or, like, this kind of thing is bad, then quickly there, there emerges some shiny, like, we're doing it the right way, and we are actually making sure that workers pensions get paid out, or, like, workers severance gets paid out before we pay whatever. Like that we are really specializing in this industry, so that we're trying to make the industries build, or, like, make the company be successful, or that we're approaching it in a different way that is not strictly money. Like, do those private equity companies exist?

Megan Greenwell 31:01

So the only like top private equity executive who gave me an in depth interview on the record for the book is Pete Stavros, who's the CO head of global private equity at KKR, one of the five biggest firms in the country. And Pete Stavros is like a super smart, thoughtful guy, and he talked to me at length and answered all of my like, very critical questions with a great deal of thoughtfulness, which I really appreciated. He has sought to establish himself and KKR as like the good private equity guys, largely by establishing a nonprofit called ownership works that so now, when KKR acquires a company, the workers at that company will get a small ownership stake in the company. So for books people, this happened prominently with Simon and Schuster. KKR bought Simon and Schuster, and every worker there had the option to acquire a small ownership stake in the company. That has been Stavros, his way of saying, you know, look, this is a more ethical way to do it, and also a way that, in his view, like engenders more productivity from workers because, like, now they have skin, oh, no, whatever, right? Exactly, okay, and, and there have been successful outcomes from this. So Stavros loves to talk about this garage door manufacturer in Illinois that KKR bought, turned around, sold for a profit, and you had factory workers, truck drivers, whoever, making, like, mid six figure payouts. That is, like, genuinely cool, right? Nobody thinks truck drivers should not get a six figure payout if their company does well, or at least nobody I want to be in conversation, yeah, that said, we are talking about a couple of 100 people, sure. And the problem is private equity. Companies owned by private equity are 10 times more likely to enter bankruptcy proceedings as other kinds of companies. So obviously, if your company goes bankrupt, you're not seeing a six figure payout. You're not seeing a payout at all. So my argument is, like the system is so broken that even if it works in individual cases, we still have like, this fundamental problem that needs to be addressed.

Traci Thomas 33:35

Okay, great. That answers my question. Okay, I want to talk about the actual writing of the book. I know we've did so much, but I think it's rare that I read a book where I'm like, I actually feel like I need to do nitty gritty with the author about the book's content, because I think so many people, and again, myself leading the charge, just don't understand. Like, I hear the word private equity, I hear the words venture capital, and my mind goes blank, like, I'm just, like, money.

Megan Greenwell 34:04

And that was the scariest thing about writing this particular book, particularly as my first book, because I was like, people are going to hear you wrote a book about private equity and be like, I'm not buying that. I have no interest in that, right? So I really had to, like, make I mean, this is why I took the very character based approach, because I was like, you'll like reading about these people, and then you'll learn something about private equity along the way. But like, right? The idea that, like, most people are going to, like, pick up a 300 page book that's just a primer of how private equity works is crazy, in my opinion. And so, yeah, no, I'm glad we did some of the nitty gritty, because I think it, it makes it a little less, like, intimidating,

Traci Thomas 34:46

yeah. And I think, I mean, I said this to a friend as I was starting the book, I was like, oh, yeah, no. People can read this. Like, this is super readable. Like, you go, the introduction has, like, a lot of details about, sort of, like, what's going on here. A little bit about the money, the background. But you start chapter one, part one, you're with Liz toys, R Us Liz, and it's just like, boom, we're in. I get it. I see what we're doing here. And so for people who are at all nervous about, like, the the density of the information, it's really spread out really well. And everything that's in the introduction comes back again later to be explained again, like it's, I mean, I think it's really well done for for us idiots. I don't know. I don't think that's a nice way. Yeah, okay, newbies, that's better. You cover four industries in the book. You cover retail, hospitals, journalism and real estate. So I want to know, how did you pick which industries you wanted to cover, and how important was it to you that you pick, you know, case studies that involved particular private equity firms like KKR or Bain? I mean, there isn't a there. None of the firms are Blackstone that are like deeply covered, though Blackstone comes up a lot. There is a paragraph on page 71 that I have sent screenshots to basically everybody I know about a letter from the UN to Stephen Schwartzman that I was like, imagine getting a letter from the UN. That's like, You are the worst person to ever exist. But so I'm wondering, how did you pick the industries? How did you pick which private equity firms? Did you do some changing around to find people that fit with the right firm or the right industry? Like, how did you kind of pick these subjects in this moment?

Megan Greenwell 36:33

Yeah, so I picked the industries first, and largely because they felt like industries where private equity is big and that are representative enough that you can sort of show that evolution like I was describing. You can see the through line from retail to hospitals, for example, and then housing media and housing media and hospitals are all like public goods in some way, right? So they're all really fraught when you talk about for profit models at all, much less, like a, you know, very hungry for

Traci Thomas 37:15

like juicing, them for all they're worth exactly, like big margins for hospital feels weird,

Megan Greenwell 37:22

exactly. So I knew I wanted to start with real I'm sorry. I knew I wanted to start with retail, because that is still just like a business, right? You may have had all the feelings in the world about Toys R Us and hated that it went under, but it is a retail

Traci Thomas 37:37

chain, and toys not necessities, per se,

Megan Greenwell 37:41

exactly. So I wanted to sort of start there, to establish the basics of this is how it works, and then sort of come in later with Okay, and now it's in your home and your hospital and all of these other things I did. So once I had the industries, then I picked characters. I did think about which firms to pick, but the hardest thing was picking the right characters. I talked to probably 150 people to get those four okay, because I just like needed so many. They had to check so many boxes, right? So I needed geographic diversity and I needed racial diversity, but I also just needed people who would like spill their entire lives to Me. I followed these people's lives for two years each, so like I needed them to tell me everything and never decline to answer a question. And most people will not do that. I would never do that. So that was just really hard. And I had a bunch of people who I got to a certain point, and then they just, like, got a little more reticent, and I knew that they would not work for this purpose. Okay. So, you know, then I did try to tailor everything to, like, the right firms. I would have loved to write about Blackstone. I would have loved to write about Carlyle CIM, which is the private equity firm for the real estate. Yes, exactly. So they're, you know, they're a little smaller, and so arguably, I should have focused on Blackstone instead of them, but I just found this one. You know, I found Lauren as a character so compelling. I found the story of CIMS rise so fascinating, yeah, that I just couldn't resist, yeah. But, you know, I would love to write a version of this book that's twice as long and that like ticks off all of the biggest private

Traci Thomas 39:38

equity I'm telling you, we have a Blackstone book here. People between you and Brian, either of you can have it. I already told Brian, I would be the agent. I would be the editor. I would help you. I would be your marketing person, like I will live and die for the book. The only thing I can't do for you is I probably can't actually write it, because I can't write. Right? But I can tell you, like, go deeper, babe. Like, keep going. Like we need the Blackstone book that is empire of pain. Like we need the Sackler family biography, a la Schwartzman, okay? Like we need it. I

Megan Greenwell 40:15

absolutely do. I mean, Blackstone is both the biggest private equity firm in the world and also

Traci Thomas 40:20

the biggest landlord in the country, right? It's wild,

Megan Greenwell 40:23

yeah, I mean

Traci Thomas 40:24

this, this paragraph. I got, we got to do the paragraph, guys, we don't have to do the whole paragraph, but we got to do some of the paragraph. Okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah Blackstone, which is the not to blah blah blah your book. Sorry, it was so rude. I'm hyped up. Okay, so we're talking about real estate and Blackstone. Blackstone, which is both the world's largest private equity firm and the nation's largest landlord, is explicit about how America's affordable housing crisis benefits its shareholders. Quote, a structural shortage of housing has resulted in pricing power for rental housing assets. End quote, it wrote in a letter touting its growing investor returns. The firm has also poured millions of dollars into fighting ballot measures designed to expand rent control protection in California, parenthetically, a state in which I live and where Megan is from, in 2019 a United Nations Committee labeled Blackstone's involvement in the housing industry as a human rights issue, writing in a letter to CEO Stephen Schwarzman that the firm was, quote, having deleterious effects on the right to housing. End Quote, this is the most damning paragraph in the world for this company, to me, and we need the book.

Megan Greenwell 41:44

It's, it's a very good book. I think you're right that there's an empire of pain style of book, which is, like, definitely not what I did. I like, did not get these companies. That's why there's room for you. And, yeah, no, I mean, I want to read that book at the

Traci Thomas 42:00

very least. Okay, well, we'll call Patrick rod and keefen. I know between the three of you, great. Well, we need it done, or find a friend like you have done amazing work with this book, and because you have, you have been welcomed into my circle of people I would trust to write the Blackstone book. Wow, high price. Okay, that's

Megan Greenwell 42:20

really a board meeting. Yes, would be Brian and Patrick.

Traci Thomas 42:23

We're actually starting a private equity firm to take over this idea, run it into the ground, sell it for parts, and then let some less qualified person run it and pay us rent on it.

Unknown Speaker 42:33

Honestly, perfect. We're gonna make so much money.

Traci Thomas 42:38

Okay, but anyways, okay, so you didn't totally cut you off. You off. You didn't end up including Blackstone, which you would have wanted to do because of their impact, but you had to stick with the people that you felt like you had the best, best stories with.

Megan Greenwell 42:49

Yes, exactly. And that, you know, that's just like, always going to be the hardest thing. Yeah, right, and particularly when it is a topic that is so complicated, right? Like, I knew from the beginning that I really needed characters that readers were going to kind of fall in love with and feel super invested in their stories. And so I think I found those people, but that was so hard. I've told this story at a couple live events, but like I had the darkest night of the soul of my career, where I had been talking to this woman for the housing section in Indiana for months, and she'd given me recordings and notes and whatever. And I was like, Okay, I have to, like, Come out to meet you, to be able to write about you. And she was like, Yeah, sure, whatever. Fine. So I book a plane ticket, obviously on my own dime, and I get out to Evansville, Indiana, and I get into my hotel, like the most depressing strip mall days in you've ever seen in your life, and I text her, and I'm like, you know, what time do you want to meet in the morning? And she doesn't text me back. And this is somebody who always responds in like five minutes. And I'm like, so stressed, oh no. So I go to bed feeling very, very nervous about what is happening here. By the next morning, she has still not written me back. I text again, I call multiple times. I drive to her home. She is not there. I've never heard from her again. I know she's alive and well, like, she still posts on Facebook. I think she just like, couldn't commit to talking to me at the level of me being in her

Traci Thomas 44:25

home. Wow, awful. Oh my gosh. That

Megan Greenwell 44:30

was the moment where I was like, Oh no, this book isn't I'm gonna have to return my book. Advance like, this is not good. Oh

Traci Thomas 44:35

my gosh, oh my gosh. Okay, so not to spoil the book, but there is a through line between all four of your subjects about sort of, so the book is broken down into before, during and after. And in the after section, we sort of find out, like, what happens to these companies, to these are like, to like the Toys R USS and the hospitals and like, what these people have done. And sort of all four of the people are activists in. Some sort of way within their industry. Was that piece important to you, that you found people who would do that, or had you already entered their life and started reporting on them before that piece kind of played out.

Megan Greenwell 45:12

In some cases, I knew the whole story. So like in the Toys R Us example, you know, Toys R Us had gotten out of business in 2019 before I started reporting on this. So I sort of knew, in other cases, it was still very much playing out. I think what was important for me was that there was some sort of after, right? One thing I really don't like in narrative nonfiction is when you know you're really in the story, and then at the end, there's this chapter that's like, super prescriptive, like, here's how we fix this problem, right? That is just like, not I'm not an activist, I'm not a scholar, I don't have an interest in being either of those things. And so like, telling people how to fix this problem felt like somebody else's job and not mine. On the other hand, I knew I couldn't end this book with like, man, so this system's really bad, huh? Okay, bye. And so the way I found to thread that needle was, you know, following people who had all tried to do something about it. I don't think in at least two of the four cases, those folks would never identify themselves as activists or identify what they had done after private equity came into their lives as activism. In the case of the media industry, the journalist Natalia Contreras is like working to kind of rebuild the industry from the ground up. I don't think she sees that as activism, and I think a lot of people do Right, right? And so that was super interesting to me. In the case of hospitals, that community that I write about in rural Wyoming, I won't spoil it, but has taken, like, some pretty audacious steps to try to save their community. And I don't think they see that as activism. They just see that as like, what they need to do to continue to have a good place to live. But it was really important to me to get people who were like, whose story didn't end at private equity took my job,

Traci Thomas 47:18

right? Okay, I meant to ask you this when you brought up CIM, one of the things that I found extremely intriguing about CIM is that allegedly nobody knows what it stands for.

Megan Greenwell 47:29

They claim it doesn't stand for anything. But

Traci Thomas 47:32

you sort of make it sound like maybe there's some ideas of what it stands for.

Megan Greenwell 47:36

I don't know. I have never heard a good argument. I wish I had. It feels insane to me that it doesn't stand for anything. Like, I don't like, how

Traci Thomas 47:46

did you pick those letters? Then you just picked you just, like, were, like, did like the Ouija board exactly? I can't handle it. It's, it's so unsettling to

Megan Greenwell 47:55

me. Everything about that company is very weird. Like, their origin story is like, almost too perfect. It was like, yeah, guys going door to door trying to do landscaping work in like, wealthy neighborhoods of LA and they just so happened to knock on the door of a private equity guy who just so happened to be so impressed by their Moxie that he decided they should form a private equity firm together. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying it is very tight.

Traci Thomas 48:27

Could be the third book. Could be the third book. This could be where we expose CIM for being a fraud. These people all were rich. They made it up, like we're gonna find the notes like this. Private Equity world, to me, because of the scamming that's going on, is just rich for sequel after sequel, like we like. Megan, this could be your life. You could become, like, private equity. Megan, I mean, I don't want that for you. It sounds horrible. But also, like, there is so much here that I am like, I'm like, we need the movie. We need, like The Wolf of Wall Street movie for CIM or whatever. Yeah, they would make a great

Megan Greenwell 49:05

movie. They would make a great movie. They are endlessly fascinating to me.

Traci Thomas 49:10

Okay, we gotta talk a little bit about your process, because we always do this. There's a few questions I have to Well, I have to ask you this, is there anything that's not in the book that you wish could have been?

Megan Greenwell 49:21

Oh, 1000 things, yes. I mean, talking about Blackstone, I wish the story of the tenants union in San Diego that has really fought back against Blackstone in, like, pretty extraordinary ways, could have been in there. I mean, it's mentioned, but like you could have been like a focus. I wish I could have written about autism therapy practices, which has been a huge area of private equity investment with really devastating impacts. I wish I could have written about public utilities, which are increasingly coming under private equity management.

Traci Thomas 49:57

Yes, I want to die. This is. So bleak. It's so bleak. Megan, I

Megan Greenwell 50:02

filed my first draft of this book at like, 110,000 words, and my editor was like, no, no, no, it's way too long. And I was like, No, it's way too short.

Traci Thomas 50:11

What are you talking about? It has to be. What is it at now? How many words? I think

Megan Greenwell 50:14

it's maybe at 87,000 something like that. Oh, okay,

Traci Thomas 50:18

okay, yeah, that wouldn't have been too long for me, but I'm thanks to your editor for I think other people would say, thank you. I say, let's fight. How do you like to write? How often, how many hours a day, music or no snacks or beverages, rituals, anything.

Megan Greenwell 50:34

The only way I can write is if I do it like first thing when I wake up. So I don't make coffee, I don't make breakfast. I just like, go to my desk, sit down and write, and then if I don't start first thing in the morning, I will not start. So that is just like, sort of a lost day. So it always feels very high pressure in the morning, but it's sort of nice, because it's just like, I know what I need to do, like I just and then I usually will write for, you know, four or five hours. So I will write through the first half of the day, essentially. So, you know, maybe seven to noon, something like that. And then if I at the moment, I take a lunch break, like there won't be any more writing. It's just over,

Traci Thomas 51:22

between seven and noon. Are there any snacks and beverages? Is there any break that happens? Or do you just sit down and just all you do for the first four to five hours of your day is write? If you get it going,

Megan Greenwell 51:32

I will take pee breaks, and occasionally I will I generally won't eat. Sometimes I will take a break to walk my dog. And sometimes, if I, like, need to go really deep in the zone, I will say to my husband, like, that's your job. I'm turning on. Do not disturb. Okay, um, because I, yeah, I just, I'm so stupidly precious about it that, like, once I get interrupted, it feels like I will never get that flow back. And actually, one thing, like, I do not come out of, like, writing craft world, and I've like, made fun of those people, to some extent, I'm sorry to all of my MFA friends, but like, one thing that I finally one lesson that I finally applied during the writing of this book that I had never tried before, and I had like, a little bit scoffed at, but is absolutely True, is the idea of like, they call it parking downhill, so you're supposed to stop for the day in the middle of a thought, or even in the middle of a sentence, so that the next morning you're not starting from a dead stop. You, like, know exactly what you need to do. And that has been so good for me, because I starting from a stop is the hardest thing, right? Like starting a new section or a new chapter, feels like running up a

Traci Thomas 52:50

mountain to me. But you don't lose the thought. Because I lose the thought,

Megan Greenwell 52:54

it has to be something obvious enough that I know I won't lose Okay, sometimes I will write, like, a couple of bullet points below about what I need to do, but, yeah, it's, like, the only way I've found to, like, make sure I pick up the next morning and I just start writing. I

Traci Thomas 53:10

love this. I'm gonna let you off the hook for not having a snack or a beverage, because I like this, and I think you're the first person to ever say this on the show I've never heard. So okay, cool. I'm letting you off the hook. But, you know, I can't be sure the listeners will, so that's something we're gonna have to deal with. What's a word you can never spell correctly on the first try. Honestly,

Megan Greenwell 53:30

this is such a

Traci Thomas 53:33

I feel. No, you're a good speller too.

Megan Greenwell 53:35

I mean, I am a very good speller, but I do, like every time I write the word Wednesday, I have to look at it over and be like, Thank you, right?

Traci Thomas 53:44

Yes, I was gonna say, if you were a good speller and you didn't snack as like Megan, we can release this episode. The people will be so bad. The people will be so bad. To be clear,

Megan Greenwell 53:53

I love snacks. The problem is, I love snacks too much, too much. They'll interrupt it. I'll like be distracted by how delicious my chips are, and then

Traci Thomas 54:01

I'm screwed. What kind of chips give us something to work with? I mean,

Megan Greenwell 54:05

any sort of, like, I just love any salty snack. But like, any corn chip, ranging from like, a plain, like, tortilla chip, no salsa, great, okay, a Dorito, great. Like, honestly, give it all to me.

Traci Thomas 54:21

Corn chip. Okay, okay. Phew. Okay, guys, Megan, safe, don't worry. You don't have to hate her. You can still get the book. I really like the book, but I don't I like sex more

Megan Greenwell 54:29

than any book. I mean, I agree with this. I like snacks way more than working. And so I just

Traci Thomas 54:35

Well, for sure, is this process that you described the same for when you're doing just journalism, writing as well. Or is it strictly just for books?

Megan Greenwell 54:42

Yes. So when I was like, A News Writer earlier in my career, then I was far less precious about it, because it was just like, just get the facts on paper. When I'm trying to write, like beautiful I think that's when I get annoying about it. So now I write mostly like long form features, and the process is very much. Same.

Traci Thomas 55:00

Okay, got it so in your acknowledgements, my favorite part of every book, you thank your agent for being a good gossip with you. And I want to know, because I have this fantasy life, that I am a investigative journalist, because I once read All the President's Men and was like, Oh, that's my dream in life, is to be like Bob Woodward, but like 70s. Bob Woodward, not like now, Bob Woodward, not like rage, Bob Woodward. But I feel like this urge for me comes from my love of gossip. And so I'm wondering, do you think that your gossip love because you, I assume you're gossip girly because you thanked your agent for gossiping with you in your acknowledgements. Do you think that plays into your like investigative reporting journalism desires?

Megan Greenwell 55:48

Absolutely. I mean, so much of reporting is just like figuring out what the gossip is. One of my best friends, Kelsey McKinney, wrote, oh, normal gossip gown, yes, did the normal gossip podcast, and then wrote a book that came out earlier this year, a New York Times bestseller, all about gossip. And so she and I have, like, thought about, like the psychology of gossip a lot. She and I also both grew up in the church. We are the both the children of pastors, and I think that is, like a very particular relationship with gossip. But yeah, I mean, reporting is just like serious gossip, right? Yeah. And the other thing, like talking about my agent specifically. This was my first book. I do not come out of, like, books, journalism, working in books, any of that. And so, like so much of gossip about any industry, it's like figuring out how it works, right? Figuring out what the power dynamics are. And so when you're engaging in what is like seemingly meaningless gossip about a person or a company or whatever it is, a lot of what it's also doing is teaching you like this is how things actually work, which can be super helpful when you're doing something for the first time.

Traci Thomas 57:03

Yeah, yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. I just I love anytime a serious writer, which is what I would say that you are, has a sort of quote, unquote, low brow interest or opinion. I am instantly like my people. I don't know if you are familiar with Adam Higginbotham, but he wrote the Challenger book, yeah, and he wrote the Chernobyl book, and he came on the show last year. And at the end of the year, you'll get this email too. I sent an email asking everyone to tell me about the best book they read that year and the one book they're looking forward to. And the way that I cackled and screamed and was delighted that the book he was most looking forward to this year was atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins. Read like, it just, it's like, you don't think Adam Higginbotham Kirkus, Prize winner, journalist, British journalist, is like, the thing I'm most excited to read next year is lesbians in space.

Megan Greenwell 57:57

That is so good. I mean, a book that I am not not to like ruin the bit now, but this is not a book that I will be looking forward to next year, nor will it probably be the best book I read this year. But Parvati, shallow, who is like reality star queen, just had a memoir out that is supposed to be arriving at my house today. She is most famous for Survivor. I realized you didn't actually ask this.

Traci Thomas 58:23

No, but this is what I wanted. This is what the show's about. All the hard work at the beginning so we could do this now.

Megan Greenwell 58:29

Great. So I've never watched survivor, but I fell in love with her on the traitors to

Traci Thomas 58:34

watch this show. Traci, no, I know everyone tells me I'm scared to start, because I know I'm gonna get sucked in, and I love Alan Cumming and I love his Scottish accent so much.

Megan Greenwell 58:45

Yes, well, plus there's there's US traders, there's UK traders, there's Australia traders, and there's New Zealand traders.

Traci Thomas 58:51

This is a fucking problem for me, Megan, but there are probably only

Megan Greenwell 58:56

eight or nine seasons total, so we're not talking about like various friends have tried to convince me to get into survivor, and at this point there are what like 50 something seasons of survivor, and too late for

Traci Thomas 59:07

me, and I can't do love Island, UK, US, or anywhere the fuck else every day you guys. Are you kidding? I'd never read another book, because my problem is I will get sucked in, and then what won't happen are these podcast episodes. Yeah, okay, that's what the

Megan Greenwell 59:23

what you do for the traders is you don't do it at a time you would otherwise be reading, because I've had this problem too. Traders is the perfect show for when you are doing laundry, like filing receipts, like anything that is like, you do not have to pay full, full, full This

Traci Thomas 59:38

is when I watch my sports. This is my problem. I don't have watching time. I know it's killing me. Okay, I'm gonna just do it. I heard this next

Megan Greenwell 59:47

season, not enough good sports. That's true, that's That's true, that's true,

Traci Thomas 59:51

that's true, that's true. Okay, I'm gonna try it. Everyone tells me I know that I should. The thing is, I know that I'm gonna love it like there's I have no doubt that this. Is a perfect show for me.

Megan Greenwell 1:00:02

I'm gonna send you the order in which you should watch them.

Traci Thomas 1:00:04

Okay, yeah, give me the give me like the best, not the best, save the best for a little bit later. But give me like, yeah, I need, like, a great intro you're never gonna start. And if I can skip any, that would be ideal.

Megan Greenwell 1:00:17

And the US ones are tricky, because they are reality stars from other shows, and so if you don't watch other reality shows, which I don't, Parvati is like an exception to me, where I fell in love with her on the traders, but I didn't know her before. But most of these people, it's like they want you to know all these lore. So I am, like very much, a UK traders person, because those are just randos, right? You're getting to know them at the same time, everybody else is getting to know them.

Traci Thomas 1:00:47

Okay, okay, but, oh my god, I'm so excited. Like, a personalized list of the order to watch traders from, like, renowned journalist, like, it's just, it's, that's my kink. Okay, we gotta go soon. We're, like, going over. But I have a few more questions I have to ask you Sure. One is that this book's been out in the world for like, two weeks, almost three weeks. Who's the coolest person who's expressed interest in this book?

Megan Greenwell 1:01:14

I mean, this is sort of a cheesy answer, but I have heard from so many people tell me, if you're like, This is not what I'm asking. I wanted a celebrity. But I've heard from so many people who worked for the companies involved in my book and other private equity owned companies that it's just been like, really cool. I ended up meeting a woman at a book event in Portland who worked for Toys R Us until it was driven into the ground and was born at the hospital that I write about in the hospital section, coincidentally,

Traci Thomas 1:01:45

in Wyoming, in Wyoming land or whatever.

Megan Greenwell 1:01:50

Yeah, so she had lived in the Pacific Northwest for years, like, my gosh, like, I don't ever want to go back to Wyoming, but she was born in that same hospital. Maybe this is the wrong kind of cool, but

Traci Thomas 1:02:01

it was no, that's really cool. That works. That works okay, for people who love this book, what are some other books you would recommend to them that are in conversation with bad company?

Megan Greenwell 1:02:13

I mean, I have to say Brian's book, because

Traci Thomas 1:02:15

we've been talking about this whole time. Yes,

Megan Greenwell 1:02:19

there's a lot of overlap, and there's a lot of like, we were clearly like, kind of setting out on similar projects, yeah, which was exciting to me, a weirder one that is also a friend is Amanda has his book, Second Life, which came out in May. I don't know that the overlaps are not super obvious. So Amanda is a cultural critic at the New York Times, and she wrote this book about,

Traci Thomas 1:02:47

oh yes, I do sorry about the babies

Megan Greenwell 1:02:49

pregnancy through the lens of the internet, I am not a parent. I'm like, not an aspiring parent. But I just found this book so fascinating in terms of, like, how clear eyed its philosophy is in looking at systems that we all take for granted and questioning them, right? And so that, though the books are very different, that was like, sort of something similar to what I set out to do. And then they're just like, while I was writing this book, I went back to my favorite narrative nonfiction books over and over and over, just to, like, keep kind of that sparklet for me. So evicted certainly like that was like the model for what I wanted to do. The Spirit Catches you when you fall down, which is a 1991 book set in a hospital in a Hmong community in central California. Maybe my favorite work of narrative nonfiction ever written. I've

Traci Thomas 1:03:49

never read that. Let me add it to my Oh, my God, I know it, but I've just never read it.

Megan Greenwell 1:03:53

I am obsessed with it, and it's like one of those books that hasn't gotten enough attention. And, yeah, I'm just crazy about it. Jason deparles, a good provider is one who leaves which is a few years old and is about immigration from the Philippines to the US, and follows one family really closely.

Traci Thomas 1:04:15

Yeah. This is so good, I definitely think, obviously evicted comes to mind. It's sort of like the gold standard of this, like narrative nonfiction that follows people but then exposes industry. It also, I mean, I don't know if you read the People's Hospital A few years ago that follows that same kind of model. I love nonfiction, which I'm sure everybody listening and you all know. But one of the things that I love about this particular kind of nonfiction that follows people and sort of is like super narrative and tells stories of individuals and exposes industry, is that I think it is the most accessible entry point for readers who are nervous about nonfiction, to read nonfiction and still get like the human interest part of it, and sometimes when it's done. Well, like your book or evicted or Brian or Ricardo book or whatever, I think it can be really powerful. I do have a part of me that hates it when authors try to write a serious like, straight up non fiction book and then infuse these personal stories. I'm always like, don't do that. Either go lean into the people or lean into like writing the thing, but the like, muddiness drives me crazy. And I think so many people have seen the success of books like yours and all these other people, and they try to, kind of like, dip their toe in. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Yes,

Megan Greenwell 1:05:34

oh man, that is really a genre I hate as well. When you're not recording, we can shit doc particular example

Traci Thomas 1:05:43

that's after hours. Content, ladies. Okay, last question for you, Megan, before I let you go, if you could have one person dead or alive read this book, who would you want it to

Megan Greenwell 1:05:53

be? Okay, I'm gonna say one sort of like intellectual answer and one kind of sappy answer. The intellectual answer is, like, I write a lot about Milton Friedman in the book, obviously the godfather of so much of what has happened in our economic system. And yet, I argue in the book that he's also this actually sort of goes against the private equity system, goes against a lot of what he outlined. So his infamous New York Times essay about shareholder value theory actually says there should be exceptions for schools and hospitals. And schools and hospitals are two of the most active area investments for private equity now. So I would just be genuinely curious, like, what he made of it, and then my sappy answer, like the book is dedicated to my dad, who was, you know, such an important person in my life. Never went to college, but like, made me love reading in a really deep way. And I was still working on the proposal when he died in 2021 and it is like I would have really loved him. To have got, gotten to have seen the book completed.

Traci Thomas 1:07:05

I love both of those answers. Everyone you can read and you should read Bad Company. It's out in the world. You can get it wherever you get your books. I listened to, I think one or two chapters on audio. I like your audio guy. He he did some other book. I think he did like the book about guns, or something from like one nation under guns. He does, yeah, and I listen to that too. He's like a serious man who reads non fiction. And I, you know, sort of, I'm sort of into it sort of hot. So if you guys want that. I can vouch for the audio, though. I think that if you are more nervous about nonfiction, you probably want to read this one with your eyes, because there's a lot of information. I did a lot of underlining, and you might need to go back. Or if you're doing an audio, be comfortable going back and like, re listening to things, because it is kind of detailed, and you I did flip back and forth a lot, so my recommendation is physical, but the audio is good. I like the guy, so that's, that's what I'll say. But Megan, thank you so much for being here.

Megan Greenwell 1:08:08

Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.

Traci Thomas 1:08:11

This was amazing. And everyone else, we will see you in the stacks. All right, y'all that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to Megan Greenwell for joining the show. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Kyra DeVoe and Megan Wilson for making today's episode possible. Remember our book club pick for this month is God help the child by Toni Morrison, which we will discuss on Wednesday, July 30 with Dana a Williams. If you love the show, if you want inside access to it, if you want some perks, go to patreon.com/the stacks to join the stacks pack and subscribe to my newsletter at Traci thomas.substack.com, make sure you're subscribed to the stacks wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, please leave us a rating and a review for more from the Stacks.Follow us on social media at the stacks pod on Instagram, threads and Tiktok, and check out our websiteat thestackspodcast.com. Today's episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Wy'Kia Frelot. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight, and our theme music is from Tagirijus The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Wy'Kia Frelot
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