Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and my voice is the only set of pipes in America that's not freezing this weekend. And here is your host at the Studebaker Theatre at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Siegel. Thank you, Bill.
Thanks, everybody. Thank you. We have a great show for you today and also a useful one. Later on, we're going to be talking to Kevin O'Leary, investor and star of Marty Supreme and Shark Tank. And he will tell us if it's true, the best investment advice to set yourself up for wealth and luxury is to give all of your money to your local NPR station.
Right?
I think it works because of compound interest. I'm not sure. But first, if you'd like to judge what we're pitching, give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Now it's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
Peter, this is Jared from Defiance, Ohio.
Defiance, Ohio is a place I've heard of because of its unusual name. Are you, in fact, a group of defiant people?
I suppose. I mean, the town was named after a fort from the American Indian Wars. So, yeah, there's probably something there, I guess.
I think the correct answer to are you defiant in Defiance, Ohio is no. Well, welcome to our show, Jared. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian you can see at the Wormhole in Savannah, Georgia, March 28th. It's Adam Burke. Hi, Jared. Hi, Adam. Next, a writer for the TV show Clean Slate, now streaming on Prime, it's Shantira Jackson. Hi, Jared. Hi, Shantira.
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Chapter 2: How did Kevin O'Leary become a prominent figure in business?
Your first quote is from someone speaking last week. We have to have Greenland. Who? Greenland. as it turns out this week, is not going to have Greenland. President Trump, United States of America. That's right, President Trump. On Wednesday morning, Donald Trump charged into the World Economic Forum in Davos saying he was not leaving without Greenland.
And on Wednesday evening, he left without Greenland. Trump hasn't been this disappointed in an outcome in Europe since World War II. Trump had threatened our allies in Europe with military force, steep tariffs, and regular visits from J.D. Vance if they didn't hand over Greenland. But then all of Europe sort of looked at each other and then looked at him and said, no, that's stupid.
So Trump left with nothing. And that's the art of the deal. LAUGHTER
I think he left because isn't the thing that Greenland is icy and Iceland is green? And you know he didn't know. Yeah. He didn't know. Does he think Iceland is where all the Asians come from?
LAUGHTER What was strange was the reaction. One of the strongest critics of Trump at Davos was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. He just ripped Trump apart. Canada. This is like the geopolitical equivalent of when a guy takes his shirt off and you're like, wait, he has abs?
I knew you were going to talk about heated rivalry at some point. I know.
I mean, I don't know. I get the idea of go big or go home, but Greenland is huge. I mean, it's the size of three Texases. Couldn't he have demanded, I don't know, Monaco or Luxembourg or something smaller that maybe they would have given him that?
Greenland is important to me because when you fly across the Atlantic, when I'm coming back to America, it means I have time to watch one more movie. That's very important to me.
So we should have it for that reason. All right, your next quote is from a biologist speaking to the New York Times. like a bovine Einstein. She was talking about a particular kind of animal that was observed using tools for the first time. What is that animal? A cow? A cow!
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Chapter 3: What insights does Kevin O'Leary share about investment strategies?
It is the New York Post genuine headline on a sports scandal threatening to overshadow the upcoming Winter Olympics. The sport has been rocked by penis gate. So that's about a scandal where athletes are allegedly cheating to fly further through the air in what Olympic sport? Be like skiing or ski jump type of thing? Ski jumping, yes.
The scandal which the New York Times is calling crotch gate and the London Times calls a gobble wobble on the willy knicker. It has to do with these skin-tight suits ski jumpers wear. So any extra fabric on these suits is illegal because it can catch the wind and make the athletes fly farther.
So when they are measured for their suits, some ski jumpers have tried to make their junk look bigger so they can get away with more fabric. I mean, okay, fine. They're cheating. But you have to sympathize with these guys.
Chapter 4: What unique business pitches has Kevin O'Leary encountered?
You should never be allowed to measure people's penises in a sport where it's that cold. Don't know why I don't know why people are surprised that a man lied about the size of his job I Guess the only I Guess the only thing the novel thing is the reason other than that All the fabric is gonna be in that part.
Well, yeah, I mean that's that's a place I mean if you think about it Ski jumpers basically are just flying through the air right as down down the down the chute and then up and then as far as they can go and And any fabric, extra fabric, acts like the way, say, the flaps of skin on a flying squirrel do. They hold them up in the air.
So just a little extra fabric, millimeters of extra fabric, can get them meters, a couple of meters of extra distance, which could win the competition.
Surely you'd have to exaggerate by quite a bit before Bernoulli's principle comes to life.
LAUGHTER
Rocky didn't need that. If you do it too much, you just fly off over the stands and are never seen again. And this doesn't come up on a doping test? Apparently not. That's the thing, because they said, oh my God, there's a cheating scandal in ski jumping. I'm like, how do you cheat at what is basically falling? Is there such a thing as like gravity enhancing drugs? Wear a jet pack.
There are gravity enhancing drugs that are called cheeseburgers.
Bill, how did Jared do in our quiz? Jared, we're not going to ask you for a measurement, but you did very well. All three right. Congratulations, Jared. Thank you.
Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you. Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Adam, a NASA astronaut says her upcoming mission to the moon has an added challenge because she will be flying so far away this time, her husband, she says, is not going to be able to do what like he usually does? Steady. Can I get a clue?
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Chapter 5: How does Kevin O'Leary define success in entrepreneurship?
What do you do there?
Yes, I am a clinical social worker.
Right, and since nobody in New York has any problems, I'm sure you have a lot of free time. Absolutely. It's no drama, no nothing. I envy you your placid existence. Well, Rebecca, welcome to our show. You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what's Rebecca's topic? Something new in stadiums.
So stadiums, of course, are always being updated, doing new things to keep fans happy, exciting new concessions. new luxury boxes, pretending that last game against the Rams ended in a tie. This week, one stadium's special feature made the news, and our panelists are going to tell you about it.
Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win the weight-waiter of your choice in your voicemail. Ready to play? No. Let's not wait for that. Let's go anyway. We don't want to wait that long, but yeah, let's do it anyway. Let's do it anyway. First off, let's hear from Adam Burke.
It was one of the most viral moments of 2025. A kiss cam at a Coldplay concert panned to a couple in the balcony, seemingly uncovering a clandestine affair between a CEO and his employee. While the moment united many in glee and schadenfreude, the situation nonetheless struck terror into would-be adulterers the world over.
Fear not, says Umberto Felucci, head of operations at the 80,000-seat Stadio del Mondo in Milan. We have a lot of very important patrons at our events, he explains, who want to be among the crowd while maintaining a certain level of anonymity for themselves and their, ahem, guests.
It is for just such a purpose that Felucci created the now infamous Dancing with Discretion program, where for a fee, fans can attend rock shows and games with whomever they like, safe in the knowledge that the wandering eye of the kiss cam won't alight on their particular peccadillos. Felucci acknowledges he owes the new revenue stream to Coldplay.
If I ever saw Chris Martin, I would kiss him, he explains, and I wouldn't care who saw. A stadium in Milan...
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Kevin O'Leary face in his career?
An Ozempic lounge where you can get your Ozempic in Charlotte. Your last sports facility feature comes from Morocco.
A little ditty about a shack and a fan. First, he was John Cougar, then John Cougar Mellencamp, then John Mellencamp, but he's always been a Hoosiers football fan. Even when Indiana University's football team was a joke, which it was for a long time, Mellencamp and his Marlboro Reds were there.
His loyalty was rewarded when the school built the Heartland Rocker and self-described antisocial guy his own small wooden shack way up high on top of the stadium. Not exactly a luxury box, no bathroom even, but the perfect spot from which he could watch games and indulge his favorite vice. I sit up there, nobody bothers me, and I can smoke, Mellencamp said.
Not that the actual players fully appreciate their number one fan, said lineman Bray Lynch. His songs aren't necessarily ones that would get you, like, super hyped. What do you mean? How do you not get hyped up to lyrics like, I was born in a small town and I live in a small town. Probably die in a small town.
So, here are your choices. Let's say you're a well-traveled sports fan. You could go, maybe, to Milan and enjoy seating with a special friend that is guaranteed not to show up on the kiss cam. That was from Adam Burke from Shantira. You could go to Charlotte to watch the Hornets and slip on down to the Ozempic Lounge to get your shot.
Or from Moraca, there's a little smoking shack put on the top of the stadium at Indiana University just for the use of... John Mellencamp and his cigarettes. Which of these is the real story of a stadium amenity in the news? I'm going to go with the John Cougar shack. You're going to talk about the... I'm going to wrap up. The John Cougar Mellencamp Shack. The John Mellencamp Shack at Indiana.
Whatever. All right. Well, to bring you the correct answer, we spoke to the reporter who told us the story of this real stadium special feature.
Indiana repaid his generosity by outfitting a little shack at the top of the stadium so he can sit up there and have a few cigarettes.
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Chapter 7: How does Kevin O'Leary view the future of business?
Yeah, that was Wall Street Journal's Robert O'Connell talking about the Mellencamp Hut. at the Indiana University Stadium. Congratulations, Rebecca. You did get it right. Thank you. You've earned a point for Mo. You've won our prize. John Mellencamp has his privacy. Everybody wins is what I'm saying. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I am happy for all of us. We are happy to make you happy.
Thank you so much. Take care. Okay. Bye-bye. And now the game we call Not My Job. Investor Kevin O'Leary has been a shark on Shark Tank since it premiered in 2009. And before that, he was a dragon on the Canadian version of the show, Dragon's Den. Now, fans of Shark Tank know him as Mr. Wonderful, even though one of his catchphrases is, you're dead to me. Right.
And he just made his movie acting debut in the Oscar-nominated film Marty Supreme. We are delighted he joins us now. Kevin O'Leary, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you. Thank you very much. I read that you did this show, which is sort of the international version of Shark Tank called Dragon's Den. You started that in Canada.
And that after the first episode or so, the producer came up to you and told you to be more evil.
Chapter 8: What final thoughts does Kevin O'Leary leave the audience with?
Is that true?
Well, the truth about the format started in Japan with Nippon Television almost 25 years ago. And it was a show called Begging for Money. You have to admire the frankness there, right? Yes. And I'm translating from Japanese. And there were three very wealthy Japanese guys And people came onto the stage, got on their knees, and begged for money.
Then they were crying and begging and groveling, and it was a huge hit. And then by the time it got to England, somebody said, well, maybe they should have something that people could invest in.
So in the Japanese version, they just needed money. Well, I think begging for money is a great show. What a great idea.
Yeah.
And for anybody who hasn't been in a hotel room with an hour to kill and hasn't seen Shark Tank, In the show, you and the other sharks are investors. You get pitched on these business ideas, inventions, services, whatever. And you actually, if you choose to, invest your own money in these ideas, right?
And I'm just wondering, in your many, many years doing this in Canada and the U.S., do you have your particular favorite one or maybe one that got away or one that maybe you invested in that kind of didn't work out?
Okay.
But let me tell you something.
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