David Byrne Explains How Forgotten Ideas Come Back to Life

Joe Weisenthal (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:24)

Tracy, something that both of us have observed multiple times on the podcast by now. Long time listeners are tired of our, tired of some of our stories.

Tracy Alloway (0:32)

Tired of our observations?

Joe Weisenthal (0:33)

Tired of our stories and stuff like that. No, but something that we both have observed and it relates to our career is that sort of big times of big change, financial crisis, COVID, et cetera. Anytime there seems to be some big turning point, it sort of acts as like a clearing in the woods where like new ideas can be discovered and so forth. So we like sort of go down some path. Typically, I like to think of it as like a narrow path through a forest and certain ideas we sort of go with. And then suddenly, something changes.

Nobody is necessarily an expert on this moment. The gap in awareness between the smartest and the least informed person starts to shrink about what's happening and then there's like, there's a market for new ideas that emerges.

Tracy Alloway (1:17)

Yeah, I think there's a democratization process, I guess that happens in times of crisis or major change. And we've talked about it in relation to the 2008 financial crisis, where back then, you and I were in the early stages of our financial journalism careers. But we were basically on the same footing as people who had been covering banking and finance for decades at that point, because no one really knew what was going on. And so as you say, this opportunity opens up, and suddenly you start to see new ways of approaching it, new entrants, discussing certain things, new ideas, maybe.

Joe Weisenthal (1:53)

Right. So for example, you know, people are like, oh, the works of Hyman Minsky for example, right? They're like, oh, maybe this guy who most people, even in economics had not talked about very much, maybe he shed some light. We could go back and revisit him or even, you know, certain forms of what I would call like antique Keynesianism, etc. It's like, let's go back and see what people who we long discarded were saying. And maybe this could be useful.

Tracy Alloway (2:23)

Well, Minsky is a really interesting one because again, I got into financial journalism in September 2008, and people were already bringing up the Minsky moment, right? And ever since then, it's become almost a cliche to the point where if I see, if I see a financial journalist talk about Minsky moment as if they just discovered it, I kind of get a little annoyed and it's a little bit cringe. But what I didn't know is that basically up until 2008, a lot of Minsky's ideas had been discarded.

Joe Weisenthal (2:50)

That's right. So we have an exciting guest, so we don't have to talk forever. We're going to be speaking with someone who is primarily known for rediscovering the works of Hyman Minsky. No, that's not exactly true, but someone who has in fact talked about Hyman Minsky. We're going to be speaking with musician and author David Byrne.

He has a new book out called Sleeping Beauties, Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up. He has a chapter on the Minsky revival. So David, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

David Byrne (3:24)

Thank you. Thank you. And here's somewhere where I can, yes, I could talk about Minsky. Of course, you probably know a lot about him by now.

Tracy Alloway (3:32)

No, look, here's the thing.

Joe Weisenthal (3:33)

If we could spend the entire time in this conversation just talking about Minsky, as long as we also spend a minute talking about Moby-Dick.

Tracy Alloway (3:44)

I knew this was going to come up. But that's actually a legitimate example of what Sleeping Beauties is all about. Why don't, just to begin, give us the, in a nutshell, version of the book. What is a Sleeping Beauty and what are you trying to do here?

David Byrne (3:58)

It's not my term, but I stumbled on it. Sleeping Beauty is something that got a little bit of attention when it was first done. Could be an idea, could be a painter, could be an author, then kind of faded from view, became kind of forgotten, maybe not entirely, but sank below the surface. Then at some point, for various reasons, got re-appreciated and came back and was like, oh yes, that is relevant right now. That's exactly what we're talking about now, and this person's already done it. Let's see if there's some information, some techniques, some beautiful artwork, whatever it might be, for us to appreciate.