4. The Lance Armstrong Defence

Podcast: Everything Is Fake (LS 46 · TOP 1% what is this?)Episode: 4. The Lance Armstrong DefencePub date: 2026-04-01Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationIn the early 2000s, a young man in New Jersey was writing thousands of fake university essays for paying students. Around the same time, financial analysts in New York were rating toxic debt as safe. And in Silicon Valley, a new business philosophy was taking hold: fake it till you make it.Jamie Bartlett asks how so many people, in so many different worlds, arrived at the same conclusion at the same time. The answer, he thinks, has a name - The Lance Armstrong Defence. A quiet, creeping logic that says everyone else is doing it so why can't I?Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Series Producer: Tom Pooley Sound Design: Rob Speight Production Coordinator: Neena Abdullah Original music: Coach Conrad Editor: Craig Templeton SmithA Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4.The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC Radio 4, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.