Tony Harris, the education expert you heard from in the last episode,
was just a few months into his job at NEOM when he got his first real impression of the project's CEO,
Nadmi al-Nasser.
He called all of us together.
And at that point, I think there were about between 400 and 500 people at the camp at that time.
The denizens of NEOM piled into the camp's cafeteria.
Saudis, expats.
He called everyone together.
and he literally started screaming and shouting.
It was as though your four-year-old was having a tantrum on the floor.
What was he saying when he was yelling?
He was admonishing people for not working hard enough, essentially was his message.
And what was going through my mind was, this can't actually be happening.
And I thought to myself, okay, very soon what's going to happen,
he's going to stop his performing and somebody's going to come in and there's going to be some interesting intervention and there's going to be some little lesson about how not to manage.
But oh no, this was for real.
This was for real.
I was shocked.
I mean, you know, I have lived... all over the world.
I've taught all over the world.