
The Power of Nothing to Lose
The Hail Mary Effect in Politics, War, and Business
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.29
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Fred Sanders
About this listen
Following books by Malcolm Gladwell and Dan Ariely, noted economics professor William L. Silber explores the Hail Mary effect, from its origins in sports to its applications to history, nature, politics, and business.
A quarterback like Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers gambles with a Hail Mary pass at the end of a football game when he has nothing to lose - the risky throw might turn defeat into victory, or end in a meaningless interception. Rodgers may not realize it, but he has much in common with figures such as George Washington, Rosa Parks, Woodrow Wilson, and Adolph Hitler, all of whom changed the modern world with their risk-loving decisions.
In The Power of Nothing to Lose, award-winning economist William Silber explores the phenomenon in politics, war, and business, where situations with a big upside and limited downside trigger gambling behavior like with a Hail Mary. Silber describes in colorful detail how the American Revolution turned on such a gamble. The famous scene of Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night to attack the enemy may not look like a Hail Mary, but it was. Washington said days before his risky decision, “If this fails I think the game will be pretty well up.” Rosa Parks remained seated in the white section of an Alabama bus, defying local segregation laws, an act that sparked the modern civil rights movement in America. It was a life-threatening decision for her, but she said, “I was not frightened. I just made up my mind that as long as we accepted that kind of treatment it would continue, so I had nothing to lose.”
The risky exploits of George Washington and Rosa Parks made the world a better place, but demagogues have inflicted great damage with Hail Marys. Towards the end of World War II, Adolph Hitler ordered a desperate counterattack, the Battle of the Bulge, to stem the Allied advance into Germany. He said, “The outcome of the battle would spell either life or death for the German nation.” Hitler failed to change the war’s outcome, but his desperate gamble inflicted great collateral damage, including the worst wartime atrocity on American troops in Europe.
Silber shares these illuminating insights on these figures and more, from Woodrow Wilson to Donald Trump, asylum seekers to terrorists and rogue traders. Collectively they illustrate that downside protection fosters risky undertakings, that it changes the world in ways we least expect.
©2021 William L. Silber (P)2021 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
-
Volcker
- The Triumph of Persistence
- By: William L. Silber
- Narrated by: Ross Douglas
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of nearly half a century, five American presidents - three Democrats and two Republicans - have relied on the financial acumen, and the integrity, of Paul A. Volcker. During his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, when he battled the Great Inflation of the 1970s, Volcker did nothing less than restore the reputation of an American financial system on the verge of collapse.
-
-
Required Reading for 2022 Economy
- By Marc Uknis on 11-19-22
-
Prequel
- An American Fight Against Fascism
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it.
-
-
The fight to keep democracy alive
- By Rex on 10-19-23
By: Rachel Maddow
-
Government Gangsters
- The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy
- By: Kash Pramod Patel
- Narrated by: Richard Cefalos
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sinister cabal of corrupt law enforcement personnel, intelligence agents, and military officials at the highest levels of government plotted to overthrow a president. Even after they failed, they continue to secretly pull the levers of power without any accountability to the American people. This isn’t the synopsis of a fictional spy thriller. This is what is actually happening in the United States government.
-
-
A Book Whose Time Has Come
- By 20eagle16 on 09-30-23
-
How Far Do You Want to Go?
- Lessons from a Common-Sense Billionaire
- By: John Catsimatidis
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born on the small Greek island of Nisyros, John Catsimatidis immigrated to the States with his family and quickly became a true New Yorker, raised in Harlem. He went to school by day and worked in a small grocery store by night to help his parents pay the bills until, just eight credits short of graduating from New York University, he opted to work in the grocery business full-time. Today, that grocery business has become the Red Apple Group, a conglomerate with interests in energy, real estate, aviation, baseball, entertainment, and media.
-
-
Interesting life story
- By Ashley Gkionis on 03-13-24
-
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories.
-
-
The Financial Times' Critique Doesn't Detract
- By Madeleine on 05-22-14
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
The Power Law
- Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
- By: Sebastian Mallaby
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Innovations rarely come from “experts.” Elon Musk was not an “electric car person” before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world.
-
-
An Excellent Modern History Book
- By BikerDave on 05-06-24
-
Volcker
- The Triumph of Persistence
- By: William L. Silber
- Narrated by: Ross Douglas
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of nearly half a century, five American presidents - three Democrats and two Republicans - have relied on the financial acumen, and the integrity, of Paul A. Volcker. During his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, when he battled the Great Inflation of the 1970s, Volcker did nothing less than restore the reputation of an American financial system on the verge of collapse.
-
-
Required Reading for 2022 Economy
- By Marc Uknis on 11-19-22
-
Prequel
- An American Fight Against Fascism
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it.
-
-
The fight to keep democracy alive
- By Rex on 10-19-23
By: Rachel Maddow
-
Government Gangsters
- The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy
- By: Kash Pramod Patel
- Narrated by: Richard Cefalos
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sinister cabal of corrupt law enforcement personnel, intelligence agents, and military officials at the highest levels of government plotted to overthrow a president. Even after they failed, they continue to secretly pull the levers of power without any accountability to the American people. This isn’t the synopsis of a fictional spy thriller. This is what is actually happening in the United States government.
-
-
A Book Whose Time Has Come
- By 20eagle16 on 09-30-23
-
How Far Do You Want to Go?
- Lessons from a Common-Sense Billionaire
- By: John Catsimatidis
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born on the small Greek island of Nisyros, John Catsimatidis immigrated to the States with his family and quickly became a true New Yorker, raised in Harlem. He went to school by day and worked in a small grocery store by night to help his parents pay the bills until, just eight credits short of graduating from New York University, he opted to work in the grocery business full-time. Today, that grocery business has become the Red Apple Group, a conglomerate with interests in energy, real estate, aviation, baseball, entertainment, and media.
-
-
Interesting life story
- By Ashley Gkionis on 03-13-24
-
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer - translator
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories.
-
-
The Financial Times' Critique Doesn't Detract
- By Madeleine on 05-22-14
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
The Power Law
- Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
- By: Sebastian Mallaby
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Innovations rarely come from “experts.” Elon Musk was not an “electric car person” before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world.
-
-
An Excellent Modern History Book
- By BikerDave on 05-06-24
-
Get Trump
- The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law
- By: Alan Dershowitz
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 5 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America” by Politico and “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights” by Newsweek. Get Trump makes clear that unconstitutional efforts to stop Trump from retaking the presidency challenge the very foundations of our liberty: due process, right to counsel, and free speech.
-
-
Good Book
- By Ron on 05-12-23
By: Alan Dershowitz
-
The Courage to Be Free
- Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival
- By: Ron DeSantis
- Narrated by: Ron DeSantis, John Pruden
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A firsthand account from the blue-collar boy who grew up to take on Disney and Dr. Fauci, The Courage to Be Free delivers something rare from an elected leader: stories of victory. This book is a winning blueprint for patriots across the country. And it is a rallying cry for every American who wishes to preserve our liberties.
-
-
Informative and well-written, but slightly disappointing
- By Dash Dalrymple on 03-20-23
By: Ron DeSantis
-
How the World Really Works
- The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Stephen Perring
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check—because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts.
-
-
Let me save you a credit: progress is hard
- By Dalton on 06-06-22
By: Vaclav Smil
-
Unshakeable
- Your Financial Freedom Playbook
- By: Tony Robbins
- Narrated by: Tony Robbins, Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After interviewing 50 of the world's greatest financial minds and penning the number-one New York Times best seller Money: Master the Game, Tony Robbins returns with a step-by-step playbook, taking you on a journey to transform your financial life and accelerate your path to financial freedom. No matter your salary, your stage of life, or when you started, this book will provide the tools to help you achieve your financial goals more rapidly than you ever thought possible.
-
-
a one sentence summary....
- By Martin on 03-04-17
By: Tony Robbins
-
The Evidence for Modern Physics
- How We Know What We Know
- By: Professor Don Lincoln, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Professor Don Lincoln
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this 24-lesson course aimed at non-scientists, noted particle physicist Dr. Don Lincoln of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory covers more than a century of progress in physics, describing exactly how scientists reach the conclusions they do. He starts with the atom, which was long hypothesized but wasn’t definitively proven until a paper by Albert Einstein in 1905. That was just the beginning, as researchers probed ever deeper into the atom’s complex structure, leading to the weird findings of quantum mechanics.
-
-
Strongly Recommend for Everyone
- By Liam A on 05-23-21
By: Professor Don Lincoln, and others
-
Liar's Poker
- Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, before Michael Lewis became the best-selling author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and Flash Boys, he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to New York- and London-based bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years - a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business.
-
-
Finally!
- By Anonymous User on 02-08-22
By: Michael Lewis
-
Renegade
- Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country
- By: Adam Kinzinger, Michael D'Antonio - contributor
- Narrated by: Adam Kinzinger
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump incited a violent mob to storm the US Capitol in attempts to overturn the presidential election. It was a betrayal of our Constitution, and one of the darkest days in recent history. Yet to former congressman Adam Kinzinger it was also the culmination of a cultural and political rupture he’d long seen coming. Constructive criticism from within the Republican Party was no longer enough. It was time to stand up, even if it meant betraying his own party.
-
-
Critical Work
- By Red P on 11-02-23
By: Adam Kinzinger, and others
-
The Hundred-Year Marathon
- China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower
- By: Michael Pillsbury
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the US government's leading China experts reveals the hidden strategy fueling that country's rise - and how Americans have been seduced into helping China overtake us as the world's leading superpower.
-
-
Fascinating perspective.
- By Rocky Mackintosh on 01-05-17
-
For Profit
- A History of Corporations
- By: William Magnuson
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have long been skeptical of corporations, and that skepticism has only grown more intense in recent years. Meanwhile, corporations continue to amass wealth and power at a dizzying rate, recklessly pursuing profit while leaving society to sort out the costs. In For Profit, law professor William Magnuson argues that the story of the corporation didn’t have to come to this. Throughout history, he finds, corporations have been purpose-built to benefit the societies that surrounded them.
-
-
Selected stories give great explanations
- By Philo on 11-27-22
By: William Magnuson
-
The Lords of Easy Money
- How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy
- By: Christopher Leonard
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you asked most people what forces led to today’s unprecedented income inequality and financial crashes, no one would say the Federal Reserve. For most of its history, the Fed has enjoyed the fawning adoration of the press. When the economy grew, it was credited to the Fed. When the economy imploded in 2008, the Fed got credit for rescuing us.
-
-
Pointless book
- By Darrin on 02-23-22
-
Woke, Inc.
- Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam
- By: Vivek Ramaswamy
- Narrated by: Vivek Ramaswamy
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There’s a new invisible force at work in our economic and cultural lives. It affects every advertisement we see and every product we buy, from our morning coffee to a new pair of shoes. “Stakeholder capitalism” makes rosy promises of a better, more diverse, environmentally friendly world, but in reality, this ideology, championed by America’s business and political leaders, robs us of our money, our voice, and our identity.
-
-
Must read of 2021
- By chris boutte on 08-22-21
By: Vivek Ramaswamy
-
You Can't Joke About That
- Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We’re All in This Together
- By: Kat Timpf
- Narrated by: Kat Timpf
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In You Can’t Joke About That, Kat Timpf shows why much of the way we talk about sensitive subjects is wrong. We’ve created all the wrong rules. We push ourselves into unnecessary conflicts when we should feel like we’re all in this together. When someone says “you can’t joke about that,” what they really mean is “this is a subject that makes people sad or angry.”
-
-
Love Kat.. Great perspective, and I laughed "too"!
- By johnatakis on 04-19-23
By: Kat Timpf
What listeners say about The Power of Nothing to Lose
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 09-12-21
This book should have been a podcast
I must reluctantly describe this book as an overwhelming disappointment. The prevailing feeling is that the author took an interesting concept that naturally covered about 45 minutes, and stretched it to fill a book. The premise--that people make different decisions when they perceive they have nothing to lose--is a fascinating one. And the examples of this--such as outgoing presidents issuing ill-advised pardons and rouge traders making ruinous bets--make the book interesting. But in each topical chapter, the author includes far, far too much extraneous detail that seemingly serves only to bolster the page count. Rosa Parks' decision to refuse vacating her seat, when viewed and told through this lens, is an excellent story that the author tells well. But the extraneous detail concerning how many ministers it took to organize the Montgomery bus boycott, which church they met at, how many people showed up, and similar details--though worthwhile information for historical analysis--didn't factor in the author's assessment of decision making with nothing/little to lose. Ditto the assessment of President Bill Clinton's dubious decion to pardon Marc Rich: the author easily concludes that having 'nothing to lose' made Clinton pardon the unpardonable Rich for dubious, ulterior motives. But the lengthy recitation of detail presented but never analyzed makes the chapter a drudge.
In a variation on the theme, the author also includes superfluous information that both bolsters the page count and undercuts his premise. An interesting chapter dealing with how to make inmates serving life sentences have 'something to lose' is inexplicably headlined by instances of life-sentence inmates perpetuating grisly violence, which, for reasons of his own, the author recouts in blood-curdling detail. This strange miscalculation gives the instances the author considers outliers overly-comprehdnsive treatment. An inmate brutally killing another does nothing to support the claim (made only after delay) that life-sentence inmates are often model prisoners, and the graphic details, notes to prison psychiatrists, letters the attacked inmate sent home before the attack, and subsequent lawsuits seem wholly out of place and beside the point, which the author contends is that such attacks are rare.
This book has all the indicia of a great insight being padded with tangential information to fill a book. It would have been an excellent podcast had the author not gotten greedy.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason
- 06-06-22
Good Thought; Random Stories
In depth stories that feel bias and random.
The title is better than the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!