How Status Corrupts Good People | Tom Hardin

25:31But to keep it, I was going to have to stay kind of in this network and putting up performance. And so the deal happens one morning, the stock is halted, and it says news is coming, exactly as she said. So it's not a rumor. I would love to rewrite history and say I freaked out and told my boss and said, let's call the SEC. Yeah, self-report. Yeah, let's just do the right thing. I thought he was going to fire me because I'm like, God, the stock's up 30%. It's exactly what she said. And then in our morning meeting, he says, oh, it's one of those. Don't tell me how you're doing it. So the boss being willfully blind to what's happening.

26:09So that's part of the reason behind using this language and not being specific is because it does blanket cover the people further up the food chain. That's right. So, hey, I don't want to know how we're making these deals. I don't want to know what the information is because now you're implicating me. I can cut you and wash my hands of it. And the firm can claim, hey, we had no idea. And that's what he was setting himself up for. You know, plausible deniability. Don't tell me how you're doing it, but also don't stop doing it. Keep doing it. Yeah. And so that further fuels my rationalizations.

26:44Like this guy is 15 years older than me. He's the closest thing I had to a mentor. I didn't have great mentors in my 20s as I really wrote the book. I thought there was no sounding board for me or even to talk about my career. or what was going on. So he's my mentor. He's not asking questions. And I went from thinking I'm going to get fired, and I hate to say it, I had an adrenaline rush. Like, okay, so when the next one comes in, it worked. He's fine with it. We made a little money, not a lot, but I'm more about now I'm in this group. And the next conference I would go to, I would go to these conferences, tech stock conferences.

27:17I walked over to the guys who I knew were doing this, and I said, hey, I knew about Kronos. They're like, you do real work, Tom. I'm like, I do real work, but also now I'm in your world and I know about another one coming. And then again, they put their arm around me and said, okay, now you're one of us. And that's what I was going for was more about having the status of my industry. Yeah. So even when you're on the team, different players on the team are treated differently based on their performance, based on their scruples to a degree and what the upside is for them. And you're fighting and clawing not only to keep your seat, but now to be in that group inside the team where, hey, I do have big payoffs here and I have bets that are really working to our advantage.

28:00So you get invited to the conference, you get to hang out at the club and you get more face time with the people that are the movers and shakers. I was invited to the dinners now, exactly. The idea dinners, this type of thing, because now I had a source of information and it would happen sort of three more times over that year where the tip would come in like this, the small position, less than 1%. Same woman? The same woman the next two times. And then the final of the fourth tip was my friend gave me one. And I didn't tell her that. So that kept that one for myself. But over seven months in 2007, it's these four small trades.

28:35And every time we'd have a morning meeting with me and my boss before the stock market opens, looking at our portfolio, some combination of keep me out of it. Don't tell me how you're doing it. On the fourth trade, he actually emailed me. Nice trade. And so he's putting this in writing. He thinks it's fine. and there was nothing happening in the news. There was no hedge funds being charged with insider trading. If anything, 60 % of stocks before they were acquired by other companies had these spikes in the share prices. So if people were to look today on a deal like a private equity company buying a company, you would see these stocks moving up weeks and weeks and weeks before it happened.

29:09So it's happening. You tell yourself, this is just sort of normal procedure now. It's in the market. And you're not really looking over your shoulder. Like, this is what's, and it was only four trades. I would tell myself of thousands of trades and these trades are immaterial positions are so small. Yeah. So that's what I want to get at. Well, I think many now hear this and they're like, okay, so you, you bet the farm, like you're, you're tripling your portfolio, but these are small bets at the table out of thousands you're making that are paying off. But realistically, they're pretty negligible for the consequences that you're facing.

29:44And the consequences I didn't see at all. And as I researched the book, there's this term moral licensing, which we all do, where we have this credit account of every good thing we did. So I'm a hardworking kid from Georgia. I'm faithful to my wife. This wasn't common on Wall Street. We go to church. I'm a good Catholic. I converted to Catholicism for her, doing the money to charities every year. And so we start to give ourselves the scorecard. We can sort of, and I do thousands of trades, as you mentioned, a year. So on the debit side of this, four trades against all that good I do, it's like 99.9 to 0.1.

30:16And you're also looking around the room and you're like, to be honest, people here are doing a lot worse than me. Exactly. These guys are making millions. So like morally, when you're looking at your own bank account, you're like, I'm actually one of the good guys. Yeah. Compared to some of these other guys that I know that are putting bigger stakes on this, trading way more on insider information. It was like dropping a penny in the Grand Canyon. I thought who would who would know, you know, famous. Yeah. Last words. And so personally, the fund made one one point two million on these trades and we managed one hundred million dollars for clients.

30:42So that's 1%. We were up 31 % that year with these trades. We were up 30 % without these trades. Like what is the point of crossing the line? It didn't move the needle. My personal take on the four trades, basically the price of my career, the price of professional suicide, if when it get dark, was$46 ,000. It's kind of hard to wrap your head around considering the potential upside of that career. Millions and millions of dollars. Opportunity cost of, one of my professor friends I wrote, does the math he just says let's show the students i mean please don't but he said you know you just guessed like 23 million in career earnings before compounding yeah for tom a 15 year career probably in the hedge fund business versus 46 000 and you know there's a sort of image in some of my talks where the 46 000 is the iceberg above water and you don't see your career your reputation the 23 million under the water because you're not even thinking about like i never considered the idea of ever being caught because i was trading small and these guys are making millions and they're going to work and they're going to the hamptons and multiple homes and they're fine who would even look at me but i had the status now of being in the group and that's all i wanted it clearly wasn't about the money because if i was swinging for the fences i would feel bad about that i would that's what a bad guy would do that was bernie madoff or right sandbagman free or whoever you know put your put your villain in there uh that's not me i'm tom you know i'm just playing along well i think that's what's really and even in those cases it was really interesting if we were to have them on the hot seat, they're also looking around saying, hey, we're in the crypto space.

32:13Sam's like, you need to tell me everyone here is playing in the gray. So I think the part for me that I'd love to go a little deeper on is like, what's going on with your conscience as you're making these trades? Because now you're carrying four trades that you know are insider trading. And when you get to this to get certified, to actually get the role, you're told all the laws. It's made explicitly clear, like, do not use this information. So culturally speaking, lots of gray, but to be certified to have this role, the consequences are made clear. Yeah, that's right. And again, at the time there was, you know, what I do today, there's this compliance training, but at the time it was more the nameless, faceless compliance person comes down the stairs and says, Hey guys, don't do anything you went one for in the wall street journal, like good advice.

33:02But that was all it was. Here's the latest rules. here's the latest regs and again you know it's wrong you know you're breaking the law but you look around and it's sort of like this is how it's done now that maybe maybe this law will never be prosecuted or you tell yourself it's a victimless crime that's a big thing with this like i'm just buying it before the market knows it's not like a made off it's not like a ponzi scheme where the 1.2 million was stolen from some widow or something it's just in your mind just hey it's the market moving, it's money sloshing around. It's a small fraction of the money that the firm's holding sloshing in my direction.

33:37Yeah. Yeah. It was more about the immateriality of it. Like the crime is bigger, but the immateriality of it, I'm not doing it as bad as everybody else is doing it, but I'm still playing along. So the conscience, again, I hope it doesn't sound like a psychopath, but I'm sort of like four trades, thousands of trades. I wasn't really losing sleep. And then when we got to 2008, the financial crisis was really in full throttle. and so those four trades from 2007 were out of sight out of mind not thinking about just trying to survive so this is to give context to the honest this is happening on the upswing in the market right the market's ripping yeah and it just feels like it's water under the bridge at this point now we're moving into 2008 yeah and a whole different world that's right and then i get a call from the woman that tipped me she said i'm going to be in new york city in january 2008 we should get lunch and i thought that's odd i've never seen her in new york city and so we get lunch above rocket feller center there people are ice skating and she says tom you know those four trades last year they were illegal right i'm like yeah they were and so she says we're gonna need cover stories can you get me cover stories and i thought sure and i'd always been told if you get asked about these trades by the sec just find something oh there was a piece of news in the wall street journal that's why i bought the stock but she was being very specific and i didn't catch wind at all that she was wearing a body wire yeah i was gonna say i'm gripping my seeds like wait you just admitted at the rock and roll center like yeah they're illegal like this like like moved a little closer to me oh you're sitting very close to me but but yeah so so i i said yeah those those were and then she's like we need we're gonna need cover stories because she said the sec who's the regulator had contacted her about one of the trades and could I help her get cover stories just to tell them because we had heard if you just tell them something oh that was there was this article you find it in some news rag okay there was something about private equity is interested in the space that's why I bought this stock they'll go away so like the early days of Google you're like Cronos let me find something right before any LLMs exactly it was just Google trying to figure it out and you also had investment banks putting out sell-side research so there was a a research report I found that said Kronos looks cheap.

35:48I mean, not that that would really justify it, but like there was something. So we're talking lots of reports. So you could find some piece of data that you plausibly held onto. It was like, this was my signal to move. This is right. Just show the regular. Even though the other 99 articles were like, not a buy, forget about the stock. Yeah, exactly. That's the one. That's why I bought it that day. Yeah. So I sent those to her. So then paper trail of me sending her cover stories, but never, never even occurred to me that she was wearing a wire. So how did she get in your network and how did she become someone that you were trusting of those tips?

36:19Like what was the trust built on her side for you? So yeah, I met her when I was 23. So again, my first hedge fund job. And I could tell when I met her that she's probably trading on inside information, just the way she was asking questions of people, of companies. But again, that world at the time, you would only get tips if you were giving tips, like a quid pro quo. And so I stayed in touch with her because she lived in Silicon Valley. She knew every rumor about every stock. That was important for me because my boss would say, why is the stock moving? Rumi, why is the stock moving? Oh, the latest rumors.

36:50Okay, thanks. So that's why I stayed in touch with her. I like keeping my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also like keeping my money. Crazy high bills, bogus fees, free perks that cost more in the long run. Stop overpaying for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint Mobile exists to fix that. Premium wireless plans starting at just 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Bring your own phone and number. Activate the eSIM in minutes. Start saving immediately.

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38:29So you weren't necessarily acting on her information to take positions, but you were sharing the information she was giving you internally around, hey, this is what Silicon Valley is saying about these stocks, what the movers and shakers are. Right, why it's moving. And that over time built trust with her. Like what she's saying rings true. It's helping you in your role. And I would get back to her and say, okay, my best idea this year is to own Google and short the yellow pages. And so that would help her. So I'm making her money on legit ideas. But if you had told me at 23 years old, if we went way back in time and talked to 23-year-old Tom, one person in your circle is going to end your career, I could have already told you it's probably going to be this lady.

39:08And so I just knew in my gut. And so I tell people today, just think about, I mean, it might be an overused term, but you're the weighted average of the five people you surround yourself with. And it really is true. Because I could have told you then, the other four people were actually, all had great careers. It was the one person that can really bring you down. And I accept responsibility. I have my own agency to make these trades. She's not forcing my fingers on the buttons. But who you surround yourself with is really important. Well, that's a long time from when you met her to when you actually finally act on the trade.

39:37So what's going on over that period for you with her finally like, all right, I'm going to make a move. Yeah, so we're staying in touch. I basically, when I'm at these conferences, was just being kind to her, which, and I could see she was kind of on the outskirts, an abrasive personality. And I always, as a kid, just like find the kid that was getting bullied or something and be their friend. And so I think there was that dynamic of my personality. And it wasn't like, can you give me tips or anything? It was just, I'll have conversation with you. I'll be nice. And she sort of latched onto me.

40:09And again, she's 20 years older, so kind of became another mentor for me. And then when we got to that point, she's giving me these tips. And I thought, well, that's amazing. Like she's giving me these tips. What does she want? And on the third one, she says that these are going to continue. Now this is where it escalates. Her source in California giving her these tips wants$15 ,000 for the tip to keep this going. So we went from answering the phone, taking flyers, small trades. And she said, can you write this person a check? Like that sounds highly illegal. Like I had rationalized the trades, but oh my God, now we're talking about legit.

40:49And now it's directly tied to you. Exactly. So I said, I'm not doing that. But I called the guy I was sharing it with and said, here's the situation. If this is going to continue for us, this pipeline, I have to pay this person somehow $15 ,000. Do you have any ideas? No problem, Tom. The guy he was sharing the information with, I guess, owned a bar in Manhattan, Petty Cash. so this guy's meeting with me in in new york with the fedex envelope sliding it across the table in the basement of grand central sort of very clandestine and i'm taking it from him and then i'm going to the airport to fly to california to give it to her now fifteen thousand dollars it's a lot it's like 150 a hundred dollar bills it's a lot money so i thought i can't put my laptop bag with this through the scanner.

41:37So I went to the restroom, put it in my shirt and my waistband and in my socks. And I'm walking, at the time it was a metal detector. It's not like the thing today. Yeah, it's not the full scan. I'm walking through and TSA says nothing in your pockets. And there was actually nothing in my pockets. It was everything else. And so nevermind that I'm having a waterfall on my face. Yeah. I walk through, nothing happens. I go into the restroom. You know, I sit on the nasty floor, take it all off. Knees are shaking. and then put it back in my laptop bag. It was still a few years after 9-11. So there was TSA at random gates doing screens.

42:09And they said they were stopping people searching their bags. And I thought they're here for me. There was something on the camera. So I'm not making eye contact, group two, board. Sir, can we just see your bag? And they flipped through. They touched the bank envelopes. The TSA agent says, sir, have a nice flight. so it actually wasn't illegal to do it domestically i didn't know uh so i sat in the plane and i went to see her and basically just threw it at the envelope i'm like i'm never effing doing this again you won't believe what happened she's like sure you're not so yeah so between four months so the first tip on the chronos was in march by july the escalation happened to literally putting cash on my body and walking through an airport it was incremental but it was also pretty fast so how did your your buddy get away with not having to deliver the cash how are you the fall guy with handling the money so i was going to be in california for a conference okay and so i said i'll be there in august at this tech stock conference and then he didn't know who she was i sort of kept the two parties uh where they didn't know who the other person was and so all she knew was i was giving the cash she didn't ask where it came from to her and then and how much is he making off this so he is making probably a couple hundred thousand because he's trading his own accounts of$15 ,000.

43:29And apparently the source in California I would see later in the charging documents had eight clients for the side hustle paying her$15 ,000 from New York City hedge funds. Now we're talking like this is criminal behavior. And how are they getting the information? What was their source for all this? The same person in California was was tipping these eight other hedge funds. Yeah. And so she had - The person in California, how is she getting this information? Oh, so she actually, so this trade was around Google's quarterly earnings. She worked at an investor relations firm who put together these press releases for Google.

44:06So she can see - The information before they release it. Wall Street always has estimates, you know, what do we think the company's going to earn? Like this week is a big earnings week for the big tech stocks. So they move on, whether they're going to beat or miss Wall Street's estimates. And so she has the actual press release and thought, oh, great. And she's 22 years old. I have a great side hustle idea. I'll make money off of this. She was actually later only charged civilly, not criminally. And she's sharing her client's information. Wow. And a lot of the people downstream at the hedge funds are charged criminally.

44:38But you think about who breached their fiduciary duty to their client, the person tipping the information. Right. And so she was doing this probably through other, like the woman that called me and other people like that getting into the hedge funds getting the cash okay so you you make the handoff never doing this ever doing this again you won't believe what happened at the airport and the woman's like oh sure sure you're not doing it again basically i mean we'll talk about your relationship with your wife like what is going on there because many of us think well certainly my partner's going to know what's going on like i i can't withhold this information carrying this weight on my conscious everything i have going on with my partner.

45:17I completely compartmentalized that. I would go home. I don't think I was giving off any whiff to sue my wife. Like I went home, Hey, how was your day? You know, she was working at Lehman Brothers. So she had her own stories before her went under. So she had so much stress herself that she wasn't even looking at me to be giving off any sort of sense of this. And I was able just to compartmentalize. I'm doing this at work and at home. It was actually like a pretty great sort of newly married young couple in New York City in our 20s life. And again - So you're moving bag of cash away from your wife.

45:51You're trucking it through your apartment to the airport to California. Never again get back. How was your week? How was your day? Yeah. So very compartmentalized. Yeah. Which is uncomfortable, but that's how it was. And then eventually, she meets with me in New York. She's wired up. and then now that was in January now it's like July of 2008 so now it's really middle of the financial crisis we're just trying to survive at work anything positive will help you yeah exactly anything but the tip stopped coming uh once she had met with me in New York we kind of lost touch which I thought was odd but the market was just going straight down so all of her rumors and all that wouldn't really help because everything was going down yeah and so we're just trying to survive it's July it's maybe eight months after that last the fourth trade I'm not really thinking about it just trying to survive at work i'm leaving my apartment in manhattan to go drop off some dry cleaning before getting a taxi to the office and i hear this voice behind me are you thomas covey hardin and the last time i heard my full name back in georgia about to whip my butt it wasn't my mom so i turned around like it didn't sound like it turn around straight to the central casting to FBI agents while it's out, male and female, can you sit down with us?

47:11So we sat down at a Wendy's. People asked me why was it at a Wendy's? It was just there. It's not like the FBI just goes to Wendy's, but it was there. So now, like badges in your face. Badges in my face. And I knew exactly what it was. It wasn't like, oh, let me play dumb. What did this be? What did this be? It came right into my conscious. Oh, man. And then we're walking up the stairs. So in New York, they're often double, two-story fast food places. So we're walking up the stairs and we walk up and there's a homeless guy in the corner, like just the most decrepit thing. Sit down those sticky benches and I'm not hungry.

47:42Far cry from the boardrooms. Exactly. Not going to eat. So then we sit down. Hey, man, we know about your four trades. We know that you were just down in Georgia last weekend visiting your baby nephew and they knew his name. And so they were on to me. And I thought my first thought was, oh, my God, my parents are going to be so upset. Like, you just think about family. Like, that was my priorities. Yeah. Oh, my God, my wife. We just got married. She's going to leave me. She, again, I don't think I had any idea I was doing this. And then I thought, oh, my gosh, this might impact my career. Oh, my God, I might be going to prison.

48:16Right, so the order of priority is like career. It's like, oh, my God. And in your mind, at this point, like, I'm the good guy here. Yeah, I'm fine. It's out of sight, out of mind. Those were small trades. Now I'm probably never going to get tips again because she stopped calling me and not thinking about it. But it takes them a while to build cases, and they bring the cases. And he said, are you aware of insider trading happening? I'm like, yeah, it's rampant. And they quickly showed me a sheet of paper that didn't have names, but there was two targets at the top. And so I said, those are the two great whites.

48:49I assume one of them was Roger Rodham, the billionaire. And I was one of many minnows at the bottom. And he folds it up. He says, you can help us out. And he said, you can't tell anybody about this other than your wife. And I said, should I talk to a lawyer? They said, we can give you guidance on that. And so I didn't talk to a lawyer. It wasn't thinking about, let me call my defense attorney. It was just the first 24 hours and they approach you, like they've been preparing for this for weeks. I'm there. I mean, I'm there on the street dropping off my dry cleaning. So it's not like they call you and say, could you call us back?

49:21It's the FBI. Right. This is the tactic. And obviously they knew you were in Atlanta. They had been trailing you. They had actually, I learned later, were in a car at the baptism thinking about doing it there, but they laid off because it's a family event. So luckily I wasn't embarrassed in front of my family like that, but they were already there. And then he called me a cab to go to work. Not that I was suicidal, but he was like, you know, you might walk into traffic just because it's the worst day of your life. I'm like, yes, it is. So you're being questioned in a Wendy's. I think most people, we've seen the Hollywood movies, me like, I need an attorney.

49:52I'm not saying anything. I'm going to clam up like, all right, this is all going to be self-incriminating. you share in the book the exact opposite happens for you i said yes i made those four trades yes there was actually the fifteen thousand dollars and he pops his pen go on go on so i didn't say prove it i i'm a tough guy prove it yeah you didn't say hey i already got the backstory here i pulled from google the chronos report all that stuff that you had had done before to right to protect yourself to allow yourself some distance emotionally and and morally from what was happening that all went out the window and you're just singing i was confessing everything i don't even know what they knew i didn't say prove it they were writing everything down and then eventually the female agent was sort of the good cop versus the bad cop and she put her hand on my her hand was really cold and she said the fbi is here for you when you're ready to turn your life around so i'm like i'm ready yeah turn my life that's the tactic yeah and i'm not going to talk to a lawyer like they told me not to and they said i could only tell my wife but i converted to catholicism so i thought that sacrament of confession sounds pretty good right now yeah i went to saint patrick's i wrote there was a long line i wondered how many hedge fund guys were taught to the priest forgive me father and he said okay well your penance is basically to help the fbi now i should have talked to a lawyer but he said this is what you should be doing and so i called the fbi said i've already violated what you said i'm you know i'm honest now And they're like, yeah, you could talk to a priest.

51:20That's fine. But you can only tell your wife. And I thought that was a Tuesday morning. How am I going to do that? She's working at Lehman Brothers. It's awful. And I waited until Friday because the weekend's coming up. How can I keep a secret through the weekend? She's going to definitely see it. No, she wasn't on to the trades last year, but the eyes in my face. I was having panic attacks, bad sweats. I don't think I was suicidal, but it was the darkest thoughts. And three informants killed themselves that summer. and suicide rates for informants and whistleblowers is like 10 times their average.

51:51I mean, it probably makes sense. So it wasn't that dark for me, thank God, but I had to tell her. So Friday after work, how was your week? Before the next Lehman Brothers story, let me tell you something. Tuesday morning, these FBI agents were there. I did it. I made these trades. There's no excuses. And she said, can you say it again? And I said it again. And she said, you didn't do anything to hurt me. And you always told me the industry, Tom, was messed up. if they're giving you a chance to clean it up, you should do it. When I was researching the book last year, 85 % of marriages end in a spouse.

52:22It makes sense. You know, you lose trust in your spouse. You confess, and it certainly wasn't easy, but it seemed like at the time she was going to stay. Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All-Day Play. Red Bull gives you wings. Visit redbull.com slash brightsummer ahead to learn more. See you this summer. With Plan B Emergency Contraception, we're in control of our future.

53:01It's backup birth control you take after unprotected sex that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. It works by temporarily delaying ovulation, and it won't impact your future fertility. Plan B is available in all 50 U.S. states at all major retailers near you with no ID, prescription or age requirement needed. Together, we've got this. Follow Plan B on Insta at Plan B One Step to learn more. Use as directed. Well, I think going along with the suicide rate for whistleblowers, all of a sudden the shock and the fact that your identity is now shattered. Like you had done a good job mentally, psychologically to compartmentalize it from your wife to rationalize.

53:43It's just a few trades. Everyone is doing it. I'm certainly not going to go to prison over this. Oh, wow. A whole year almost went by and no wind whatsoever. I'm clear. I'm not doing this again. My informant has basically fallen off the face of the earth. I haven't talked to her. So it's already out of your mind. And now after this FBI saying we need you to help take down these sharks. Yeah. you switch and now you go from, well, I'm this evil guy to, no, I can actually be the hero here. I can take down the guys at the top. Yeah. And I think people will have an issue maybe thinking like, oh, now Tom's a rat.

54:18And the way I thought about it was there was two friends that I had tipped that I'm trying to protect. And so to deflect off those two friends, like Peter and Todd, I call them in the book, I'm going to bring them who I felt are the worst actors, but not that it would actually result in anything because who knows. And this was, I told her on a Friday, on Monday I had lunch with them, and I'm still not privy to wire wearing, and they have a small piece of metal at lunch. I'm like, is that an extra Blackberry battery? They must have thought, this guy is so naive. He's not talking to a lawyer. And they're like, no, it's a body wire.

54:48Who do you think are the worst actors? Usually the informant has to make a decision. Am I gonna tip the guy, or a wire up on the guy I tipped, which is probably a friend. There was one case where the guy wore a wire on the best man at his wedding, because that's probably who you're tipping. So I didn't have that. I was trying to protect myself from getting my friends in that situation. So it was a weird situation for me because she had wired up on me and the guy I had tipped a week before the FBI approached me, met me at Starbucks. Tom, you know those trades were illegal, right? Yeah. So good friends.

55:19They had wired on me. So I had this open playing field, Tom, who are the worst actors? But it was a one-way street. They weren't giving me names. I would give them names. Oh, there's the Silicon Valley hedge fund manager. Do you know him? I mean, I could probably get a meeting, but he's 48 and 2930. And my meetings I would get, it was a pretty good cover story. It's 2008, probably going to lose my job. Are you hiring? Could we meet? And just to get in front of these guys who I suspected were doing this, again, not even having proof. So they weren't even at your firm. You didn't have a relationship with them.

55:49But you, through. My reputation. Rumor mill. Rumor mill. These were the guys whose business models. So there were certain funds whose business model was just trading this information. So I thought, all right, I'll put those names of the FBI. And by their body language, they were sort of like, okay, yeah, we know who that is, but can you get a meeting? Like, oh, I can get a meeting. And so I would meet, an example in the book was Mr. Silicon Valley, out in Silicon Valley. Met with him at a Starbucks. Hey, I'm Tom, you know, I'm probably looking for a seat, was the term this year, we're not doing well.

56:20Yeah, and then when I started these meetings, it was very clumsy. So the first meeting, okay, nice to meet you. Yeah, so, you know, how do you get your information from, I'm going for the kill in the first meeting. And they would shut it down. So you're wearing a wire. Right, so I'm wearing a wire. You're going to put a wire on yourself. Right, so I actually slipped it into the front. So it looks like an inch or two big. So I had to wear a dress shirt, right, with a pocket. The FBI said if it falls out, just say it's your extra Blackberry battery. I'm like, I don't have to test that. That's not good.

56:53So then I'm walking to Starbucks. The FBI agents, just to paint the picture, are also at the Starbucks, just making sure I'm not sliding a piece of paper saying I'm wearing a wire, which informants do and get in trouble for. Of course. And so they're there drinking their coffee, looking at their phones. And also there's a degree of pressure. You better go through with it. Yeah, exactly. You better show up. Because I'm assuming if you're just there alone, oh, wire flipped out, didn't get any information. All right, let's try it again. But you got two FBI agents in the Starbucks with you. You're going to follow through.

57:23That's right. They're there. Okay, now let's game on. And I sit down with the guy. and I get right to the point. So there was no coaching. There was no like, let's go to the FBI Academy for a few weeks and training on wearing a wire. It was just, let's get in here and try to get the information. And they were going to listen to it later and then start coaching me on it. And so they would listen to it later. Tom, you're doing a terrible job. I said, hey, it's my first time doing this. There's no training. There was no training back in the business school for wearing a wire. And then eventually, this was kind of interesting to me and it was more in writing the book, I figured out, I developed this sort of framework for figuring out the elicitations, the mirroring, kind of on my own.

58:03And a couple of things when I got good at this is it happened over three meetings usually. So the worst thing to do is to go for the kill on the first meeting. That's what an amateur does. And so when I started, hey, I'm Tom, how do you get your information? Yeah, so that first meeting, you launch into it. If I'm meeting you for the first time, I'm like, what information? What are you talking about? Hey, AJ, how do you commit crimes? Is that Tom? Yeah. Sorry, I haven't even finished my coffee. So that meeting clearly doesn't go well. It doesn't go well. And there's hardly even get a second meeting.

58:32I mean, eventually, so with that meeting, I got just enough to call him up on the second meeting. And then he talked about having a source, which was not giving me illegal information, but just enough of a breadcrumb. But where I got good was it took three meetings. The first meeting was usually more so like a phone call it became. And in the first meeting, all you're trying to do is get the second meeting face-to-face. so the first meeting was not talking about any any crimes it was just like hey the market sucks i've got this position on legit position this is what my research is oh you're gonna be at that conference in two weeks okay i'll see you there let's meet so it's it's proving your value yeah it's getting some form of rapport light rapport over the first phone call yeah so that when you do meet in person the next time at the conference and you are wearing the wire they're a bit more open.

59:19Exactly. There's that rapport. It's not, you're not an interrogator, you're a peer. Yeah. And now you have some information that could be helpful to them. So you're offering value. And what I would do is, and also when I was on the phone trying to get the information, something like 55 % of communication is body language, which makes sense. So if you're on the phone and I can't read your eyes, you're doing, you're twitching, you lose all, like you you lose half of the communication. So the phone was just to get the second meeting in person. And in person, I developed this framework, T-R-A-C-E, trace framework.

59:58And so the A, so just to go out of order, the A would be to align and normalize. Yeah, I mean, I had this guy, Kronos, last year. I mean, he's not really calling now because the market's so bad, but they'll probably come back. And then once I'm admitting to these crimes on the wire, I mean, I'm wearing a wire, I've already been through the crimes. It gives them license to also say, okay, this guy is my peer. You're one of us. I'm not interrogating you. So I'm aligning it, making it seem normal. And then the C in my framework, I'm just bouncing around with this. But in the second meeting, the C is to cue with a subtle statement.

1:00:33And you crushed it on that Marvell quarter. How did you guys, how do you guys do it? I mean, like I didn't have the right information there. Oh, we have, you have to know where to ask. You have to know who to look for. You have to know sources. Oh, okay. And then you get to the third meeting, like, let's get dinner, um, you know, maybe in a few weeks or something, and then we'll have some wine. And then maybe a few weeks goes by. Now we're at dinner. It's the third meeting. And I only got the third meeting because I wasn't interrogating them. Like I was aligning it. I was cuing with the subtle statement.

1:01:03And then we get to dinner. Uh, we're done with the bottle of wine and then tea and trace is to time the silence. I just like how do you guys how do you guys get the information and then count to like 10 15 it feels like five minutes yeah and then they get uncomfortable with the silence and they start to fill it with truth and they'll say oh you know we have a source and we'll offer them and then you reflect it back but you end your reflection on an up note I'll offer them and then they're going to actually give you more truth oh let me flesh that out for you Tom and then we go back to talking about sports or whatever, and then the check comes.

1:01:41And the E is echo and extract. So is that like a major big law firm, small law firm? Or it is a big law firm, right? They'll correct you. No, it's a small law firm, like on Third Avenue. Okay. And the FBI would say we have enough that we can kind of back into it, get the back crumbs. So what you're doing for the audience, fully follow along here, is now the pressure is on you. You fumbled a few of these interactions at the start to try to get this information because you want to get them off your back. And you're hoping that you can just get this behind you. Yeah, exactly. Like the FBI flipped you.

1:02:18Yeah. So the pressure is, man, I already told my wife. I can't tell anyone at work. I'll lose my job. You got to keep up appearances at work while the stock market is completely crashing. Everyone's losing their mind. and the pressure on you is, hey, if I can just get information quickly out of these people, then the FBI will leave me alone. So you're coming in guns blazing, trying to build rapport, trying to get all this trust as fast as possible and failing. They start coaching you on, hey, here are some things that you need to change. We can't just start asking these questions so quickly. So let's walk through the full framework because many in our audience are not necessarily eliciting information for the FBI, but they do want to build trust quickly.

1:03:00They do want to have deep connections. And these same strategies are how you get someone to divulge information that could be criminal, but also how you can build a deep relationship with someone. Yeah. And this can be used, right? Not just, again, yeah, hopefully not an FBI informant watching, but it is something that you can take into negotiation. And it is built on tactics around elicitation and mirroring, which CIA spies are all trained to do. And I kind of backed into it in my own way. So the T is to time the silence. That's always a classic sales tactic. Make your offer, say nothing. The hardest part is when I said, you know, so by the third meeting, how do you guys really do it?

1:03:39To then just say nothing? It just feels like so long. Yeah. And you want to fill the silence like, oh my God, he must know I'm wearing a wire. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Like in my mind, oh shit. And then they'd say something and they'd want to actually fill it with truth. And then reflect and echo back, oh, on the up note, oh, you have contacted a law firm? And then they'll fill in a little bit more. You put their words back to them, and they wanna fill it in a little bit more for you. And then a line of normalizes, I mentioned, yeah, I got my sources too. Not that law firm, but this guy in California, she's got the information on Google.

1:04:16That's how I had the Kronos position. So I'm not interrogating you, I'm a peer. And this is all. So you admit the small - All trading the same information. If you want somebody to admit something big, you admit something small around the same area, and then they'll admit something bigger. And then the cue with the subtle statements, oh, you know, how do you guys do so well in that stock every quarter? You guys seem to crush it. Like, that's amazing. Like, I get it right. Sometimes I get it wrong. Oh, you have to know where to look. Or we have a guy or just enough where they would say a little bit with the breadcrumb.

1:04:47And then the big thing is the echo and extract. and that would happen over several meetings and they want to correct you. So is that, you got that contact. So you got the contact at Cisco, right? No, it's Intel. Okay. Right. So they want to correct you. So even guessing wrong, taking a stab at it, it's a big law firm. No, it's a small law firm. Always guess wrong because they'll correct you with the truth. Yeah. And that's obviously helping the FBI build the case. And let the time go by. So the echo and extract was the third meeting. I just remember it sort of like the third meeting. when we're getting the check you know maybe two bottles of wine in and then you go you loop back to that conversation you were having a half hour ago oh it must be like a big law firm no it was small one or they would even say the name of the law firm which was gold for the fbi oh thanks cool yeah so was there a moment where you felt hey i'm actually really good at this like i'm i'm actually helping the fbi i'm now this bad guy turned good guy like i don't have to worry about my past and discretions there was a moment where i got they didn't really give me feedback like you're doing a great job it would just be on to the next one so i felt like okay maybe i'm did okay but i also was of two minds like i didn't really know these guys i'm protecting my two friends who i know but these people are probably normal people otherwise and but i don't i'm telling myself maybe this isn't working i'm not really getting any feedback but i am figuring this out i didn't know the terms at the time, but it seems like we're getting here and now they're starting to get breadcrumbs.

1:06:15But for two years, this went on with, is this going anywhere? Like if the FBI just playing games with me, is this all a game? Yeah. So a couple of things like jump in and I'm sure the listeners as well, like you are at a major firm that has a ton of resources. Did you not think just to tell someone at the firm and get their attorneys on this and help you get out of this why why did you feel like you had to shoulder all of this protect the firm protect all these other people that were also trading on this information we're also getting ahead because of it it's a great question and i just felt at the time i was i had made some bad decisions the best decisions i could make was just to follow the fbi's orders and maybe the law work out and maybe it would be better not to talk to anybody and then once i was in it it just sort of felt like a second job in a way and i would the the key is in format and maybe as a whistleblower too and i i sometimes get called a whistleblower i'm definitely not a whistleblower like whistleblowers do it because they want to do the right thing right helping they did it before doing the bad right so i even uh at the conference last week they're like what's the blower tom hard i'm like i just have to correct you i'm not a whistleblower like those people actually had the balls to do something on their own moral right courage i i only helped the fbi because they they caught me so So we're into this and you just try to play games with yourself.

1:07:34Like maybe it's all going to work out. Maybe I'm good at this. Maybe I can be a professional informant. It's so silly. Or maybe I'll be like Frank Abingnell from Catch Me If You Can. Maybe I'll have this relationship with the FBI over 50 years. And that was a cool movie or something like that. So was there a promise that you get enough information and you're going to get off on this? There was nothing. Call it a non-prosecution agreement at NPA. There was nothing like that because I didn't have a lawyer. And we didn't know. So eventually they gave me credit. They arrested 81 people. They said, Tom Harden, Tipper X was my code name.

1:08:03Got credit with 20 of the 81. We had no idea where this would lead. So I couldn't say up front, I'll bring a 20 guys. I had no idea. Cause if I got the guy, you know, on the echo and extract, corrected me with the law firm, that guy would lead it into other guys who they gave me credit for. So I didn't, I didn't even know. They're like, you helped up with these 20 guys. I'm like, half of them, like who are these people? You weren't even mapping it. But I got credit down the stream. so there was no opportunity up front to say, I can bring you 20 scalps. Let's just do like no felony. Like, I'll just pay a fine.

1:08:33So you weren't even negotiating with me. You were just like, where do you want me? And I'm telling myself, not that it's exciting, but it was kind of like, this is interesting. And I got good at this. And maybe it's such a silly thought, but maybe they're going to hire me to be a professional informant. Like, that's not. Well, yeah, the hard work, ambition comes up again. Maybe this is my calling or maybe they're going to drop the charges. I also thought maybe, maybe there will be no charges because I'm so good at this. You just try to play head games with yourself. And my wife, Sue, had said, you got us into this.

1:09:02You're going to get us out of it. You're going to figure it out somehow. So that's going on for two years. You're getting information. You get back in bed with your wife, and she's like, how was your day? I got more information. FBI gave me another name, so I think it's going well. And I had left my firm halfway through the two years of cooperation. I was not doing well. I was not focused at work. And so I actually was prepared to resign on Monday, and my boss fired me over email on Sunday. Separance. Okay. So now I'm sort of full-time FBI informant on the second. And was that a blanket firing because the market was doing bad or was that actually based on your performance?

1:09:36It was performance because I was not, I was just focused on my FBI stuff. And it was also the worst stock markets. It was definitely a combination of things. And so it was almost a relief to be fired. Now I don't have to go to work and play a game. Oh yeah, I'm focused on the market. I'm meeting with the FBI. And then, so two years into it, it was weird. My wife and I, we bought the dream house on double income, which is not smart because we just thought, okay, well, Tom will find a job. It's not going to happen for a long time. And then we were like, let's just go with our family plan. And she's pregnant and she has our baby Columbus Day in 2009 on a Monday.

1:10:15And then Friday morning, the FBI agent says, turn on CNBC. Like 20 guys are in perp walks, handcuffs. This billionaire, Roger Ohtonam. Yeah. And I'm like, recognize some of the names. Oh, my God. And then the Wall Street Journal comes out with this big name on this web of names with the tipping charts and the circles. Kind of what they showed me two years before. And in the middle is somebody they're calling Tipper X. And I can quickly figure out, all right, I'm an analyst. I'm Tipper X. And I called the agent just to make sure, am I Tipper X? He's like, yeah, that's you. And at first I thought, am I in danger?

1:10:50Like, God, are people going to figure out who Tipper X is? and CNBC is running a story, who is Tipper X? They didn't mention me. I mean, I'm a nobody. Like, I'm nobody. And it's not like the FBI offered you a safe house or a relief valve. It's coming out tomorrow. This is going to happen. You're Tipper X. I didn't know I was, I didn't know they were going to call me Tipper X until it's in the newspaper. And then at that point, I had hired a lawyer a few months before, and he couldn't believe, like, they said it's time for me to meet with a prosecutor. I need a lawyer. And so I called my lawyer.

1:11:21He said, wait, what? you've been doing this for two years. For how long? Why didn't you call me sooner? And he said, I'll take your case from your other lawyer. And I said, I don't have another lawyer. And he's like, you're supposed to hire me the first day the FBI approached you. I said, hey, it's my first time doing this. Pretty consistent theme. Yeah. So he's like, I guess you saved two years legal fees. So he got me ready to give a guilty plea, which was sealed. So that was December of 2009. And then the FBI, I think I'm done. They're like, no, you're not done. There's two more guys we want.

1:11:49I'm like, no, not those guys, my friends. and they said, we want them too. And I told my lawyer, I can't, these are good men. I've done this 48 times. And he's kind of like, it doesn't matter if they're good men. You have to help the FBI. It would have kept going. And I told my wife one day, I can't do it. She just said, so don't. And I said, I'm done. And they said, okay, tomorrow your name's coming out. So the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Sue had just gone back to work. That was a Wednesday in January. Monday, she's back at work from maternity leave, an emotional moment for any new mother, a working mother going back to work after three months.

1:12:26Monday, colleagues, here's the baby, Molly. Wednesday, Tom Harden's all over the front page of the paper. And her colleagues, she has to explain to her boss. And the only time she lost it, I mean, just one time, she came home that day. It's a 24-hour story, but it feels like it's going to be on forever. She comes home. Now I'm a stay-at-home dad with a newborn. She walks to the door. grabs the baby from my arms, goes in the corner, is almost protecting the baby from me, saying, I can't believe you did this to us. So as a man, as a husband, now as a father, that's the lowest I've ever felt in my life.

1:13:00Lower than the Wendy's, lower than this FBI wire stuff. Like once I saw there were victims, this is not victimless. Yeah. Who cares about your poops? Ollie does. That's why Ollie's Science Back to Gut Health lineup helps support your family's regularity. From daily probiotics to fiber gummies your kiddos will love. Find it all on Oli.com. That's O-L-L-Y.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Chronic migraine. 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life.

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1:14:41What's my wife going to think? And now you have a baby as well. And the family thing is coming true. That worst thought you had in the Windies of like, what is my family going to think? You're front page news. They know it's not hidden anymore. You're not informing. yeah it's right there in the house and one of the reporters at the times had put our family blog like she had a family blog and put my baby's name in there and at first i was so angry at him i'm going to kill this guy like no it's all my own decisions why would i be angry at this guy you know it's just yeah yeah um so now my name is public now my cooperation's done and then eventually 81 people are arrested and i'm basically a stay-at-home dad i haven't been sentenced yet So what happens is you plead guilty and then you have a sentencing date.

1:15:27It got pushed out from 2010 to 2015. So most of my 30s are basically gone. My lawyers like just try to apply to jobs, but to check the box for a felony, nobody calls back. You're certainly out of finance. What's the spillover for your wife who's working in finance to be married to an informant? So what actually happens with a felony is you get debanked and it's still a problem today. So she was on the joint checking account with me because she's the only one working, getting her checks deposited. One of the major banks, I won't name them, but people can figure it out, but they're like, we're closing your account.

1:16:04And they don't say why. And I thought, well, it has to do with this, but it's not even a brokerage account, which I can't have in my name still to this day. It's just our checking account. And I walk into the bank and the guy's face turns white. He's like, you're on every AML list in the world. I said, what's an AML? he said anti-money laundering list he said you're basically like a bernie madoff you're unbankable and so that's closed and then eventually we figure it out like we go to a credit union which doesn't really have know your customer oh so it's fine but it's not fdic insured right but they're nice people so we're so we're there uh so that's that's a challenge of just being debanked and i'm applying for jobs and i'm disclosing it and you know i say yes i have a felony but i fill the whole thing out I'm Tipper X and help the FBI.

1:16:48I always say, if you check the box and write two pages, you don't get a call back. It doesn't matter. It's a real stigma. Yeah, it doesn't matter what the story is. And now you have this, in your view, hey, I was one of the good guys. Like, check the news. I took down a lot of these people. Right, I also did the right thing. Like, that's what I wrote. Like, I have a felony, but I started making good decisions then. I helped them build 20 to 81 cases. It doesn't matter. And also, if I'm applying for jobs, I hadn't been sentenced yet. So, hey, could you hire me? I'm going to be sentenced. I probably won't go to prison.

1:17:15Like, what? like right oh I want to be in the news saying we just hired tipper x or a company yeah everything you'd work for in your career the industry you're in unhireable there's no no finance job that you can get at this point so a personal bar by the SEC from ever working in that industry again so can't go back to that job because when you're a stock picker it's hard to transfer that skill to other and it's just analyzing companies and picking stocks that's the market you're trading and again my wife is amazing she said well I just be the the best stay-at-home dad you can be. We'll have our second daughter.

1:17:48And I wish I took more pride in that role. I just didn't have the, I was in such a shame spiral. Like I'm not meant to stay at home. I'm meant to be working. I went to Wharton. I went to the hedge funds. Yeah, provider, protector is the role that we feel as men. Right. And now that's ripped from you. It was totally ripped, again, by my own decisions. I couldn't blame anybody else. And there was a few years into this, there was a bank that only paid a fine for laundering El Chapo's money through New York. And I showed it to Sue. I'm like, can you believe there's nobody in handcuffs? And she's like, is that helping you find a job?

1:18:21I'm like, no, it's not. So what happened with Sue at Lehman Brothers? Because we kind of know the ending of Lehman Brothers. Yeah, so she was laid off six months before they went under. And that was actually lucky. One of the legit good trades I made back in the day I shared in the book was the stock was at 36. A big short seller came out and said, this is going to go to zero. And we sold the stock in the 30s. So we got, it was lucky for her to be laid off before it went to zero. So that happened before this news came out of you being Tipper X or after? Before. So she actually got a job at one of their clients in April of 2008, a month after she was laid off.

1:18:54So just to back up, right? She was actually at this client, which was touch and go. It was Lehman Real Estate they had financed their deals with. So it's not great. So she doesn't really, she has a job, but it's not, and she's the only one that can work now. And so she's at this firm and it's just like, she's not making as much as Lehman, but she's just happy to have a job and she has to work because her husband, we bought the house on double income and she has to work. And she, to her grace, she said, just be the best stay-at-home dad you can be. And eventually I took ownership of that. I became a good cook.

1:19:23I was always the dad at the playgroups. Hey, what'd you do before this? I worked on Wall Street. Don't Google me. If you have to say, don't Google me, it's not great. And then one of my days in my shame spiral, I'm carrying my daughter up the stairs. I was technically obese in the BMI. And then go to the doctor and he does the blood work. He's like, oh my God, what's going on? the first time i told the story was to my doctor it's like you're gonna have to get yourself in shape because you're on a bad path here with the bmi and i told sue and she said okay i'm gonna sign you up for a 5k race like i used to play soccer maybe i have endurance and by finishing the 5k and training then for half marathons marathons and even ultra marathons just having structure to my day a reason to set the alarm to go out for a run before she went to work it gave me some sense of okay i know i can't control ever finding a job again but i can go out and try to take care of myself for my for my kids so my first sense of just like having some structure this process was just getting into running and yeah running marathons and they got to these crazy ultra marathons which for me i was almost using it as a crutch where i'm just going to go run so i don't have to deal also with my feels like a penance yeah part of that too like Maybe I'll, this won't go well, this 100-mile race, which I usually don't, or there's something that always happens.

1:20:38I'll suffer. And that was more of a two-self-flagellation. And maybe I'm not worthy of being here. A lot of shame. And I didn't understand until years later, there's the difference between shame and guilt. And shame is I am an awful person who did a bad thing. Guilt is maybe I'm a regular guy who made bad decisions. I didn't understand that for years. And being in that shame spiral, I wish I could have bounced back much sooner than I did. And I sought out these a hundred mile races to your point. Like most people might stop at half marathons or something, but that was going on because I wanted to see, I wanted to punish myself.

1:21:12And there was a race, there was a hundred mile race around the one mile loop I wrote about in the book. So I'm not in the best headspace. I'm signing up for these races. I'm flying because I'm training twice a day because I, you know, you get in good shape when you can't work. So it's sort of like doing this. And then I'm going way too fast, which once you go way too fast in these ultra marathons. You can't do anything. It starts to unravel. And by mile 78, I'm mentally done. I shared some details in the book about what was happening to my body. I popped the trunk to my car and there's an air mattress in the trunk.

1:21:41And on the mile race, you pass your car every mile. And Sue was there earlier with the girls cheering me on and she left a note and it said like, we didn't sleep on you. You can't sleep on us. So I closed the trunk. I hobbled the last 22 miles and finish the race. You hobbled the marathon. Yeah, basically. Yeah, yeah, the hobble. Right, 22 miles. Finish the race. You ring the bell at 100 miles. And again, 85 % of marriages end. I've never met anybody in my position. I've met several people now sharing my story over the years in a similar situation. Rarely has the spouse ever stayed with them. So I thought, wow, I have to get my stuff together and figure this out.

1:22:21But applying for jobs, it wasn't working. Then I'm finally sentenced like seven years after the FBI approached me at Wendy's to no prison because I helped the FBI. But I still had the felony. And I'm like, oh, I'll get a job now. My lawyer's like, it's the same situation. Now you've been sentenced. I thought, what am I going to do? I'm starting to do like eBay retail arbitrage with Alibaba selling things on eBay. My listings are hijacked. and then a year after I'm sentenced, the FBI, I get a call that says restricted number. I said, oh my God, every time the FBI called me, it's a restricted number.

1:22:59Yeah, you don't want that. As soon as I was like, what did you do now? I don't know, is it Napster? So eventually, hello? Hey, it's agent so-and-so at the FBI. How's it going? And I just found out I couldn't coach my five-year-old, another story. I couldn't coach my five-year-old in soccer because I had to check the box. And she said, why couldn't the other dads be out there? And at five years old, and I don't know how to explain it to her why I can't coach her and the FBI had heard me after I was sentenced I was invited on a podcast to share the story and the FBI agent just happened to listen to that podcast the first time like the Ross version of this was a week after I was sentenced and he said could you come and talk to the FBI to our rookie agents who are going to be flipping people like you so I figured I had nothing to lose went and spoke at the FBI and they said why don't you try to make lemonade of lemons And it's like, why don't you go to the industry and share your story?

1:23:50I'm like, guys, I have to try to make a living. I can't just, they're like, oh, you're, isn't there son of Sam laws? They're like, no, it's training. It would actually be helpful for people. So I thought, do I really want to share this story? It's so personal. And it's the worst thing I ever did. And who wants to do that? And I had seen people in the previous era of cases, sort of WorldCom Enron, like sharing it, but not really owning it. Like, it looks kind of weird. Yeah. And so I thought, I'll speak at colleges and just get my reps in. So I went around to colleges in New York City area. And then eventually a company hired me to speak.

1:24:23They said, what do you charge me? I don't know. I just quoted something. And the one time I got paid one time, they said, this is the best talk we've ever had at this company in 20 years. And I told Sue, you can quit your job now. She was commuting two hours. I'm like, I just got paid$3 ,000. She's like, wait a minute. We have two kids. We have a double income mortgage. and we have 17 months of liquidity left before we have to sell the house because she kept the spreadsheet which i never wanted to look at i don't want to know that i know like i have to make this work yeah as the provider as the i have to make it work it's really resonating and so my little entrepreneurial journey started where i i called email a thousand companies and two responded and one guy's like tipper x doesn't sound real is this cyber security attack or something one guy had me in again yeah and that was in 2017 and then it turned into like 700 talks in 13 countries and my publisher reached out about a year and a half ago you should really write a book so there there's a turning point here that i think i don't want lost in the audience and maybe they're following along but like both of your world you and your wife work in the same industry which is pretty rare in finance.

1:25:34And now in that industry, you are the snitch, you are the rat. And some people in that industry have their coworkers and friends taken down because of your actions. You're in a shame spiral. What's going on in your social network? I'm assuming most of your friends also work in finance. You're hanging out with people in that world before this, you flip. How are you treated by your peer group? What's going on for your kids in school and how people are perceiving you with that news coming out and with that label? You're a persona non grata. Like totally, you figure out who your true friends are. So four people reached out to me who I knew from college.

1:26:15Hey, we know who you are. We're gonna grab coffee or have a drink. They in the industry or - Or just from like college friends back at Penn. Not even in the industry, right? So actually a good point. three of them were not in the industry just yeah just oh my god are you okay like i saw this i know who you are but people in the industry all all cut ties which understandably like their companies i said if you know anybody here stop you know stop communicating with them which i understand so then again and the shame spiral at home in new jersey i'm not socializing uh these people all hate me um and i wish that as the years went by i wish i had started to reach out to people earlier as the years went by hey uh not people in these cases but just people that were friends that cut ties let's get together and i didn't do that and it took even people now reading the book have reached out to me like oh we haven't talked in like 15 years you know i just read your book would you let's grab a drink or something right job i wish um if you're going through like a massive public failure you have to there's a couple things you have to own it no excuses i made these choices I talked about for years telling myself I made mistakes because it made me feel easier about it I didn't fall into the keyboard and place these trades or I didn't fall into the cash like I made all decisions these were choices and we all make mistakes we all make bad decisions but if we call our bad decisions mistakes we're not owning them so you have to understand the difference and for years it made me feel easier I made some mistakes it was four trades no no these were bad decisions.

1:27:46You have to get help much earlier than I did. You have to reach out to people. Maybe it wasn't the people that cut ties with me, but there would be other people that you want to surround yourself with people. It'll bring you back up. And the four friends that reached out to me, it wasn't poor Tom. It's like, hey, you effed up. What are you gonna do for your family now? Tough love. Not, oh, no, you effed up. Yeah, it was being real with you. And Sue's staying with you. Look at that. Look at you two beautiful daughters. What are you gonna do? so it was like feet to the fire and the hardest part at least for me is you have to be able to forgive yourself and that is a hard thing to do because the shame spiral was so so deep and i never talked to like a doctor or anything i just talked to sue and my priest so i never really got help which i probably needed a little bit of a yeah to work your way out of that to work my way out of it so i had to figure it out accept responsibility wish i got help sooner from other friends and then had the tough love which are these guys are some of my closest friends today you figure out who they are held my feet to the fire what are you going to do about it and then self-forgiveness is very difficult um i'm better now than i ever have been but it's only because time has gone by so do you forgive yourself today yeah i do i do it's um you know i can't i can't change what happened i can only choose what i do today so i have the agency most people in my situation with this story would never talk about it because you're filled you're filled with shame like hey let alone go back into those same rooms right because now your talks and and where you're invited to speak is talking to that 23 year old tom that's right that's right and and sharing now on the other end of this like what choices you wish you made what you had actually seen versus what you hear from the compliance officer and what the breaking the law talks are versus, no, I've been in these rooms.

1:29:36I understand the status on the line, the pressure to perform, the fact that you feel like if you miss a quarter, you're never going to get a job again. All those mental pressures that you're under can lead you to look at these decisions and make the wrong one. And I feel like if I never shared this story again, which most people in my situation would not, it would help nobody. But if I share it and now the book is going to be in a lot more places than I can ever speak. Maybe somebody will be at that line. Maybe their boss just walked in and made the goals very short term. And they'll have kind of a playbook of what to do.

1:30:10Plan what you're going to do in that situation because it will come in your career. Have the playbook ready. So when you're in the situation, you know what to do. You know, I'm in there. I'm rationalizing. I'm not asking questions. So speaking to Tom, 23-year-old Tom now in that room who's getting the training, what is what's the playbook for those in our audience who are starting to recognize that hey i might be in a very pressure cooker of an environment might not be finance but it might be other areas where you're asked to make some choices that don't align with your values that don't feel right that may even be illegal what's the playbook so you have to have in your 20s i think you have to have a personal board of directors or three or five people who you trust their judgment it could be an old teacher it might be a parent it might be somebody that sort of holds a mentor role, but might be somebody your age too, or just a little bit older that you can have that board to go to.

1:31:01I had a personal board of detractors. I would say 20 something Tom, people just bringing me down and not doing the right thing. Give yourself 24 hours. If you get something you're not sure about, you can always wait 24 hours, sit on it. And you also, again, have to plan and kind of have this muscle memory beforehand. Okay. This is what the situation looks like, might look like with the pressure. here's what i'm gonna do so i'm gonna ask some clarifying questions i'm gonna get outside my own head and i'm gonna kind of reframe the issue for for the boss and not for me i made decisions in isolation and if you ever feel like you have to make a decision in isolation that's the yellow flag to the red flag why do you why do you feel like that and for me and this might be more specific to me i was so focused on these guys cheating to get ahead and not being part of that group.

1:31:54Who cares what your competition is doing today? It might be something different. Just focus on yourself, compete against yourself, especially as an investor. It's all pattern recognition. Just get better at that. Don't worry what the other guys are doing to get ahead because eventually it catches up. Thank you so much for sharing your story today. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Where can our audience find out about the book and the work you do? So it's tipperx.com is my website. I just found out last month I have the trademark to Tipper X to the U.S. Patent Office. It was really cool of them.

1:32:22So the next cases will be Tipper Y. So tipperx.com and the book is Wired on Wall Street available where books are sold. Thank you. Thanks.