Nico Rosberg on the Booming Business of F1 | All-In Live from Miami

The live conversation in Miami opens with Nico, introduced as the 2016 Formula One champion who is now moving into venture investing. The first question is about danger. Formula One used to kill people every year, in small cars with no roll cages. In the 1950s, 60s and 70s the toll ran to a couple dozen deaths a year, and the sport has since become far safer. The host wants to know how frightening the cars are to drive and how a driver gets past the fear of death.

Before the answer, the hosts tease the guest about the open car and his exposed head. The answer itself draws on family history: the speaker's father also raced in Formula One and was also world champion. One host points out that this makes them one of only two father-son world champion pairs ever.

The account of the father's era is stark. A season started with 20 drivers and ended with 18, which the speaker puts at roughly a 10% chance of not surviving a season. Someone notes how bad the cumulative odds look over an eight-year career. The comparison offered is one death every hundred thousand miles then, against one every six or seven million miles now.

So it was a 10% chance more or less that you wouldn't make it through the season

The speaker credits the modern era's carbon fiber chassis, the roll hoop, and the halo, a protective frame around the driver's head that is said to have saved a couple of lives in the last five years. The example given is Italy: Max Verstappen, described as the current four-time world champion, landed his car on Lewis Hamilton's head, and the halo is credited with saving Hamilton's life.

One host mentions being surprised, in the suite the day before, to learn that a driver was only 18. The reply is that, as in every sport, drivers have to start very young. The speaker began go-karting at six and racing at ten. Children now start racing at eight.

The 18-year-old is Antonelli, who took pole position the day before. He started racing at eight and was on the speaker's go-karting team at 12. The speaker calls him "a generational talent" but says this is very early for him, since he took over the car of the person called the greatest of all time. Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes for Ferrari, and Antonelli inherited his Mercedes seat, which the speaker calls "insane pressure."