Unpacking the OG Ponzi Scheme (with Adam Grant)
episodePreviously titled “S4E18: Adam Grant and The OG Ponzi Scheme” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 5, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
That's exactly the kind of weaponization of charisma that makes me extremely uncomfortable. In fact, I need to go take a shower right now. Can you hold? No, we can't wait for you to take a shower. We're going to have to go with you into the shower, I'm afraid. It's just the rules. That's also very creepy.
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What if mind control is real?
If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?
Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?
I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.
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All right, welcome to Snafu, your favorite podcast about history's greatest screw-ups and a little bit of reflection about what those screw-ups say about us as human beings. Spoiler alert, most of it's not good. Most of the podcast is very good. What it says about us, not so good. I'm Ed Helms, your host, and today I am joined by someone I've gotten to know over the past several years, mostly through a delightful pattern of us helping each other out with our book events. And last spring, he even hosted me at Wharton in Philly to talk about my snafu book, which I think makes me a visiting scholar at Wharton. Don't fact check that. He's also a bestselling author, a tenured professor at the Wharton School of Business, an organizational psychologist, and truly one of the most thoughtful, perceptive voices on human behavior and culture.
His latest book, Hidden Potential, The Science of Achieving Greater Things, debuted as a New He is the wise, witty and dangerously insightful Adam Grant. Adam, thanks so much for being here. Wow. That's quite an introduction. I feel like if I fail, I'll be living up to the podcast, but not my bio. I got to ask, the work you do falls under this rubric organizational psychology, which to me, like I do, I feel like I have a sense of what you do, but that term is still kind of cryptic to me. How do you define it exactly? Like what is what is your area of expertise exactly? Yeah, I'm here to figure out why your closet is a mess and then clean it up. No, I think the easiest way to describe what I do is I study how to make work not suck.
And do you have a pithy answer? Is it just pay people more? I try to reform the Michael Scotts of the world. That's one I can I get. I can latch on to that. In your capacity as a business school professor, it's about sort of just deconstructing why and how people behave in good or bad ways, I guess. Is that fair? Well put. That's what I should have said. Okay, good. Thanks for writing my lines for me, Ed.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–10:17
2
Who is Adam Grant and why is he on SNAFU to discuss scams?
10:17–16:07
3
What is organizational psychology and how does it help explain human error?
16:07–19:54
4
Can experts be immune to scams or does knowledge create overconfidence?
19:54–35:55
5
How did Charles Ponzi's early life and Montreal job influence his scheme?
35:55–40:10
6
What role does charisma play in enabling con artists like Ponzi?
40:10–56:47