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60 Minutes - Season 58 - Episode 10: Polymarket; CRISPR Kids; Lamine Yamal
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00:05This is the main page for Polymarket.
00:08Polymarket's users bet on all kinds of questions.
00:11Fed decision, Bolivia presidential election.
00:14Will Taylor Swift get married this year?
00:16When will there be a ceasefire in Ukraine?
00:19Who will win the 2028 election?
00:21And how accurate is it?
00:23It's the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now
00:26until someone else creates some sort of super crystal ball.
00:31America's future as a science leader
00:33may depend on students like the ones you are going to meet tonight.
00:37We're doing something in our high school lab
00:40that could potentially have a huge impact for, like, millions of people.
00:43This thing could help save lives.
00:46They did it to prove they are the best in the world
00:49at this prestigious international science competition.
00:53I'm hoping we finish top 10, but even that, I don't know.
00:57We'll see.
00:57How did the judges see it?
00:59So the winners are...
01:01Stay tuned.
01:0518-year-old Spanish soccer sensation La Minha Mal
01:09is not yet licensed to drive,
01:11not yet liberated from wearing braces,
01:14but already the world, like the ball he dribbles, is at his feet.
01:19One thing we keep hearing is,
01:20this kid's got it, right?
01:22What is it?
01:23How do you describe moonlight?
01:25How do you describe candlelight?
01:27How do you count the bubbles in a glass of champagne?
01:29I don't know.
01:30I just know when I see it, it's bloody beautiful.
01:36I'm Leslie Stahl.
01:37I'm Scott Pelley.
01:39I'm Bill Whitaker.
01:40I'm Sharon Althonsi.
01:41I'm John Wertheim.
01:42I'm Cecilia Vega.
01:44I'm Anderson Cooper.
01:45Those stories, and in our last minute,
01:47a breakthrough in tracking monarch butterflies,
01:50tonight on 60 Minutes.
01:59Nearly a year before Donald Trump was elected in 2024,
02:03an online prediction market called Polymarket
02:06offered its users a chance to bet against each other
02:09on who would win the presidency.
02:11$3.6 billion was wagered on that one question.
02:15In the final month of the campaign,
02:17most pollsters were saying the race was too close to call,
02:20but that was conventional wisdom.
02:23Polymarket relied on the wisdom of crowds
02:25and correctly predicted the outcome.
02:28It's not just elections Polymarket helps its customers bet on.
02:32It's all kinds of questions.
02:33Who will win the Super Bowl?
02:35Will Taylor Swift get married this year?
02:38When will there be a ceasefire in Ukraine?
02:40The company was founded by a precocious college dropout
02:43named Shane Copeland,
02:45who started building Polymarket five years ago
02:48when he was just 21.
02:50Prediction markets aren't new,
02:52but not many have earned the backing
02:54of billionaire investors like Polymarket has.
02:56If it all sounds a bit confounding,
02:59it did to us too.
03:00So we started by asking Shane Copeland
03:03the most basic question of all.
03:05What is Polymarket?
03:07It's a site where you can basically bet on current events,
03:12some sort of question about the future, like an election.
03:15And as a result, when a ton of people are betting,
03:17you get the betting odds,
03:19which basically tell you how likely each outcome is.
03:22And how accurate is it?
03:24It's the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now
03:27until someone else creates some sort of super crystal ball.
03:31Shane Copeland may be prone to hyperbole,
03:34but he's definitely on to something.
03:36The race is a dead heat.
03:37In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election,
03:40while pundits opined and pollsters canvassed,
03:43Polymarket posted a simple question for users to put money on.
03:47Who will be the presidential election winner in 2024?
03:52Donald Trump started pulling away in early October.
03:55I think one thing that's important to understand about Polymarket is
03:58it is not a poll.
03:59That's not the function of Polymarket.
04:01Correct.
04:02Polymarket is trying to predict the outcome.
04:05The percentage of people who are going to vote for a candidate
04:08is not the same as who's likely to win.
04:11And you would look at Polymarket and it would say 70-30 for Trump.
04:14And people are like, no way it's going to be 70-30.
04:16But he could win by one point, but he's 70% likely to win.
04:20Which is a different question that pollsters are asking.
04:21Exactly.
04:22But it's the question people actually want to know.
04:25By the way, we brought all...
04:26Polymarket posted another question months before President Biden's disastrous debate.
04:32Biden drops out a presidential race?
04:34Early on, the odds hovered between 10 and 30%.
04:38The market was pricing it that it was unlikely, but that it was possible.
04:43And ultimately, during the debate, the price started skyrocketing.
04:47You could watch it during the debate.
04:48Exactly.
04:49And everyone was talking about it.
04:51Because by that point, odds were on Polymarket, he's going to drop out.
04:54Yes.
04:55The idea that this was able to go and surface this at a time when a lot of the mainstream
04:59media, and like, no knock to mainstream media, but a lot of people were trying to say, hey, he's going
05:03to stay in.
05:04So the fact that Polymarket was able to be the signal through the noise there was our first step on
05:09the scene of mainstream politics.
05:11This is the main page for Polymarket.
05:12At first glance, the site is a lot to take in.
05:15There are 15 categories to choose from, like politics, culture, sports, and finance.
05:21Within each, there are a lot of boxes with simple questions about an upcoming event.
05:26Fed decision, Bolivia presidential election, Russian-Ukraine ceasefire in 2025.
05:32How many questions are there at any one time?
05:34It usually fluctuates around 10,000.
05:3710,000?
05:38But a lot of them have multiple outcomes or multiple variations.
05:41Every question has a yes or no answer.
05:44To wager, you click on one of them.
05:46You make money if you're right.
05:47You lose money if you're wrong.
05:48And as a result, it creates this information that's really useful for people.
05:52The percentages next to the questions are the odds, determined by all the other bets that have already been made.
05:59As more people wager and news breaks, the odds change.
06:04How do you select the questions?
06:06Look, if something is being discussed in the news, if something is of importance, whether it's geopolitically, macroeconomically, culturally, we
06:16want to have a Polymarket for it.
06:17So you can go through and you can...
06:19There are questions, or markets, to bet on just about everything.
06:22Not just Taylor Swift's marriage, but when will she get pregnant?
06:26How many tweets will Elon Musk send in a week?
06:29This is predictions on who will be the top Spotify artist in 2025.
06:33Yeah, and the market's very confident it will be a bad bunny.
06:35Some markets are arguably in bad taste.
06:38Wagers on conspiracies, even wars.
06:42Elections everywhere, however, are one of the platform's biggest draws.
06:45Here you go to global elections, and you've got the Irish election is just...
06:49There's $135 million being bet on the Irish election?
06:53When we met with Copeland last month, more than $3.6 million had been wagered on whether or not Venezuela's
06:59president, Nicolas Maduro, would be out of power by the end of the year.
07:04Polymarket users didn't think so.
07:06They gave it only a 23% chance.
07:09And if you buy no on that, and you're buying it at $0.78, and at the end of the
07:15year, he's still in power...
07:17Yeah, you get $1 per share.
07:19So you've made a profit of...
07:20$0.22 per share.
07:21I can see why this would be...
07:23I mean, I don't want to use the term addictive, but it would be compelling.
07:27I mean, maybe it is addictive, I don't know.
07:29But it's certainly compelling.
07:30This is how I see it.
07:31If you are into geopolitics, this creates an incentive for you to dig in to what's going on in Venezuela
07:37and try and get an edge.
07:39You grew up the west side?
07:40Uptown, yeah.
07:41Uptown.
07:41Shane Copeland is a native New Yorker.
07:43He dropped out of NYU his freshman year, and when COVID hit, found himself looking for simple answers to complex
07:51questions.
07:52New York City was shut down, and it's like, when is this going to end?
07:56When's the vaccine going to be ready?
07:57When is shelter-in-place going to be over?
07:59And prediction markets can take all these disparate opinions that people are pontificating about or that they have really good
08:04reason to believe and distill it down into one probability.
08:08But if nobody knows for sure...
08:09Yeah, well, if people knew for sure, it would be 100%.
08:11But ultimately, it's going to get you something that's better than whatever you're seeing on the internet where it's just
08:17a complete free-for-all of open outcry.
08:19But predictive markets do rely on someone having some inside information.
08:25Yeah, I think that people going and having an edge to the market is a good thing.
08:31Obviously, you need to curate them, and you need to be really clear and stringent on where the line is
08:35drawn and, like, sort of ethics, and we spend a lot of time on that.
08:38But it's sort of an inevitability that this will happen, and there's a lot of benefits from it, and, you
08:42know, people will adapt.
08:43The site still has critics. Some worry certain questions could lead people to commit crimes to win a big enough
08:49bet.
08:50Polymarket was criticized for some of their markets about the L.A. wildfires earlier this year.
08:55There was a polymarket bet about how many acres would burn in the L.A. wildfires.
09:00Some have labeled it, like, arson markets.
09:03Someone could, in order to win that, try to burn more acreage.
09:08There were a lot of conversations about it, and there was a very select few of markets that felt that
09:12they were the most informational,
09:14with, like, the least sort of, you know, risk.
09:18These are really small markets, and there's tons of markets, and I understand this is really sensitive.
09:23It's the big markets that draw big bettors, and this is one of Polymarket's biggest.
09:28He's wagered more than $400 million so far.
09:32Online, he goes by the name Domer.
09:35I don't think of myself as a gambler, right?
09:37I mean, I'm taking very, very well-researched views on things.
09:41I feel like it's much more akin to investing.
09:43Betting is Domer's full-time job.
09:46He said he made nearly $3 million last year on Polymarket.
09:50He used to be a professional poker player, but gave it up.
09:54Prediction markets, he says, are more exciting.
09:57Every day I'm kind of going into battle.
09:59You wake up, I don't even drink coffee, and you're in battle.
10:03You are wrong.
10:04I look at my phone within five seconds of waking up.
10:06What have I missed?
10:06My phone is my coffee.
10:08What has happened overnight?
10:09Yeah.
10:10Because the news doesn't sleep.
10:11Did you bet on the papal conclave?
10:13Yes, for sure.
10:14How, I mean, a papal conclave is a hermetically sealed environment.
10:20Information does not get out.
10:22Right.
10:22Nobody was putting money down that there'd be an American pope, but you were.
10:25Yeah, and his odds were 250 to 1.
10:28So he was a super, super, super long shot.
10:31He won $100,000 on the pope, and even more picking J.D. Vance to be Donald Trump's running mate.
10:37He started betting on him five months before he was selected, when Polymarket was only giving Vance a 2%
10:44chance.
10:45What did you see that made you think, oh, he might pick J.D. Vance?
10:49So that goes back to 2016, when he picked Mike Pence.
10:53And buried in one of the articles for why he picked Mike Pence is that Mike Pence had a one
10:58-syllable name.
10:59And Trump has a one-syllable name.
11:00And Trump is very into marketing.
11:02And so I was looking at the names, and I was like, who's one-syllable?
11:05And not only is Vance one-syllable, he's only two letters off of Pence.
11:09So you bet $4,000, and you ended up winning $250,000?
11:14Yes.
11:15Yeah.
11:15It's a smart play.
11:17It is a good bet.
11:17Yeah.
11:19Shane Copeland made a risky bet when he built Polymarket in 2020.
11:23He did it fast, in just three months, and didn't seek regulatory approval as the law required.
11:30His chief competitor, Calci, did.
11:33In 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission launched an investigation into Polymarket.
11:40Copeland cooperated and ultimately paid a penalty.
11:42It was a $1.4 million fine, and also...
11:45It was a settlement.
11:46And you could not have customers in the United States.
11:49Yeah, we had to go and geoblock trading in the U.S. and move certain operations offshore.
11:53And it wasn't, hey, you're banned from trading in the U.S.
11:55It's like, until you're licensed.
11:57I mean, it was breaking the law.
11:58I mean, people say breaking the law.
11:59It's like, which law?
12:01So, if anything, it's incompatible.
12:03It's incompatible with the law.
12:05Yeah, with the regulatory matrix that existed.
12:07The regulatory matrix was pretty clear.
12:10U.S. customers couldn't trade on Polymarket, but Plenty continued to.
12:15All they needed was a VPN connection to mask their computer's location.
12:20In 2024, in the final weeks of the Biden administration, Copeland got a surprise visit at home from the FBI.
12:28There was a lot of, like, yelling and banging down the door and...
12:31Like knocking, this is the FBI, or like...
12:33No, like a battering ram.
12:34He wasn't arrested, but agents seized his phones and computers.
12:39But with a new administration came a new appreciation for prediction markets.
12:43In July, the government dropped its investigations.
12:47And Polymarket was able to buy a fully licensed, legally compliant trading platform,
12:53paving the way for their U.S. customers to bet openly.
12:56Three months ago, Copeland named Donald Trump Jr.,
12:59already an advisor to Kalshi, to Polymarket's advisory board.
13:03And Trump Jr.'s 1789 capital fund invested around $10 million in the company.
13:09I think there's going to be people watching who think that you put the president's son on your advisory board
13:14to get influence, to be able to protect yourself.
13:17So, it's definitely not to protect myself.
13:19I mean, look, like, they invested, right?
13:21We're in this admin.
13:22This admin is very pro-innovation and pro-crypto and pro-Polymarket, which is amazing.
13:27Yeah.
13:28And, you know, I need help navigating that, right?
13:30I'm a young entrepreneur.
13:32If I have people who believe in what I do, who understand how politics works and can help me,
13:37help guide me and teach me, you know, there's nothing wrong about that.
13:42Last month, Polymarket got its biggest validation yet.
13:45The company that owns the New York Stock Exchange announced it was investing $2 billion in Polymarket.
13:52You like the floor.
13:53Days later, we met Copeland on the trading floor.
13:56What's it like to see your name up there?
13:57Yeah, I love it.
13:58I love it.
13:59It's cool, man.
14:01He told us Polymarket's data will soon be integrated into the exchange
14:05to help investors and traders get an edge.
14:08What valuation now has Polymarket been given?
14:12$9 billion post-money valuation.
14:13$9 billion.
14:14Did you anticipate that?
14:16I mean, I didn't start it to not get here, you know?
14:20Shane Copeland is now a billionaire, at least on paper.
14:23And Polymarket, it still hasn't made any profit.
14:27It gives away its main product, its predictions, for free and doesn't charge fees on trades,
14:33at least not yet.
14:35How many people use Polymarket today?
14:36I mean, there's tens of millions of people who are looking at the odds,
14:40and it's mid-hundreds of thousands of people who are trading.
14:43But for you, the goal is a billion people?
14:45Yeah.
14:46So will Polymarket reach a billion people in five years, yes or no?
14:50It's a great question.
14:52What are the odds on it?
14:53I love it.
14:55A billion people is a lot.
14:58There's going to be a lot that we have to get right.
15:00The thing that drives me is that there are billions of people who could find value in this,
15:04which means until those people have Polymarket, are getting value from Polymarket, job's not done.
15:18America's future as a science leader may depend on students like the ones you're going to meet tonight,
15:24teenagers from Lambert High School in suburban Atlanta.
15:27They may have just found a better way to detect and treat Lyme disease,
15:32which affects nearly a half million Americans annually.
15:36Their primary tool?
15:37The revolutionary gene-editing technique known as CRISPR.
15:41And these CRISPR kids did it to try to prove they are the best in the world,
15:46competing at a kind of science Olympics in Paris called iGEM,
15:51short for International Genetically Engineered Machine.
15:54But to win, they would have to go up against teams from China,
15:59the rising power in biotechnology.
16:03In Lambert High School's lab,
16:07Sean Lee and his classmates are teenage genetic engineers,
16:12manipulating the building blocks of life.
16:15And what we're going to do is we're going to move each of these samples into these mixes.
16:21And these mixes have everything we need in order to amplify our DNA.
16:25It's currently amplifying?
16:27Yes.
16:28All right.
16:29And we'll have to do this three more times for our different samples.
16:32So you would kind of swipe across.
16:35We went to check out the iGEM team's project for the big Paris competition.
16:41We first decided to map out where Lyme is most prevalent.
16:44Their presentation seemed more like a pitch from a biotech startup than a public high school science class.
16:51Along with Sean, senior of an Ekarthic, is also a team captain.
16:56And so it's a novel way of CRISPR that detects.
16:59And so we have to create a guide RNA.
17:01And when that guide RNA is recognized, the protein gets activated.
17:04And it collaterally cleaves or cuts everything around it.
17:08That just went right over my head.
17:11This is light years beyond my biology class, where the high point was dissecting frogs.
17:17So you're just going to measure out 50.
17:20This is called synthetic biology.
17:23A popular example of synthetic biology is golden rice, where you're able to engineer this rice to have the specific
17:29vitamins that you want so that it's more nutrient dense.
17:32And this would sound like cliche, but it's just endless possibilities.
17:35So you can just do whatever you want with it, as long as it's ethically correct.
17:40To compete at iGEM, you need to use synthetic biology to solve real-world problems.
17:47Lyme disease cases have doubled over the last decade.
17:50These teens set their sights on finding a better way to detect and treat Lyme disease,
17:56something that has eluded adult scientists for decades.
18:00Transmitted by infected ticks, Lyme can cause arthritis, nerve damage, and heart problems if left untreated.
18:08One of the biggest problems with Lyme is the lack of, like, being able to diagnose it.
18:12So a lot of people will go years, like, we've met someone who went 15 years without a diagnosis.
18:17Current tests make it difficult to detect Lyme in the first two weeks when it's easiest to treat.
18:22Lambert's big idea for better and earlier detection was to zero in on a protein generated by the infection.
18:31And this is the process where you work with CRISPR?
18:34Yes.
18:34Using the gene editing tool CRISPR and a simulated blood serum, they were able to target specific DNA strands where
18:43the protein hides,
18:44then snip away extraneous genetic material to expose the protein, enabling them to detect it with a simple kit-style
18:53test, like a COVID or pregnancy strip.
18:56Did you guys ever think, this is way above my abilities, way above my area of knowledge, where you just
19:03dive right in?
19:05Yeah, so actually we did reach out to a bunch of different professors and stakeholders who gave feedback on our
19:11project.
19:11And they did tell us in the beginning that this might not be so feasible because you're trying to tackle
19:17such a big thing.
19:18Well, they were also tackling how to treat Lyme.
19:21Standard therapy uses antibiotics, but Lambert planned to use CRISPR instead, targeting the bacteria that causes the disease.
19:31To make it work, they had to build software to model how best to use CRISPR.
19:37So as a teacher, is it easy to teach them because they're so smart?
19:43You teach me. Are you kidding?
19:44They are so smart that I can't keep up.
19:47Kate Scherer is their biotechnology teacher.
19:51Because they are still teenagers, so they're thinking so far out of the box.
19:55This project in particular, I warn them, this is very high-risk, high-reward.
19:59I can't imagine any of this working, but I'm happy to help you as much as I can.
20:03Oh, my God.
20:04Lambert's team had advantages beyond audacity and brainpower.
20:08Their lab is college-level, funded by taxpayers and donors.
20:13This is one of Georgia's most affluent, high-achieving school districts.
20:18The student body is majority Asian-American.
20:21The iGEM team is entirely Asian-American, children of immigrants.
20:28Lambert also is a sports juggernaut.
20:31You can't miss the signs, but the white iGEM lab coat might be the most coveted uniform of all.
20:39I understand that parents move to this district so their kids can get into the iGEM program,
20:47and not just from Georgia, but from around the world.
20:51Yes, and there are families that move specifically thinking that, well, my kid will be in biotech,
20:56and then they'll have a chance to try out for the iGEM team.
20:59About 100 students compete for roughly 10 spots on Lambert's iGEM team each year.
21:06Applicants submit a project proposal, take a test, and face an interview.
21:11Having a special skill like engineering or coding doesn't hurt,
21:15and you have to be willing to put in insanely long hours.
21:21I need that to work.
21:22With a month to go,
21:26they hit a string of successes.
21:29That stripe showed they could detect Lyme as early as two days after infection,
21:35far sooner than the two weeks with existing tests.
21:38Senior Claire Lee told us they also saw promising results in treating the disease.
21:44Doctors will be able to use this to identify Lyme disease
21:49and perhaps treat Lyme disease.
21:51That's the goal.
21:52What do you think of that?
21:53We're doing something in our high school lab that could potentially have a huge impact for millions of people.
22:00It's not like we're just saying,
22:01oh, I'm just doing this little thing that might help my grade.
22:04This thing could help save lives.
22:06What they found is just the first step.
22:09Much more testing will be needed.
22:11But they had more immediate concerns.
22:15They raced to finish before the international competition in Paris,
22:19pulling all-nighters to write results, code,
22:23and build a website explaining their project for the iGEM judges.
22:27It takes all that to be best in the world.
22:30The award Lambert won in 2022.
22:34Why do you do it?
22:36I like to win.
22:36And so a lot of this is a competition.
22:38So I like to win.
22:40You think you have a really good chance?
22:42I think it depends on what the other teams bring.
22:45Hopes were high as the Eiffel Tower when the students from Atlanta landed in Paris at the end of October.
22:51More than 400 teams, a third of them high schoolers, were competing in iGEM 2025,
22:59elite synthetic biology with a dash of nerd-proud culture.
23:04My first time coming here, I was so overwhelmed.
23:06This was Avani Karthik's third year at iGEM,
23:09and she was keeping an eye on the other teams.
23:13Is there a project here that has blown your mind?
23:16Almost every single one.
23:18One was just a few feet away from their booth, Great Bay in Shenzhen, China.
23:24Great Bay's project developed a new enzyme for treating indoor mold.
23:30Other high school projects included designing crops to grow on Mars and eye drops to treat cataracts.
23:38As iGEM teams filled the floor this year at the Paris Convention Center, one thing was easy to see.
23:45In the United States this year, we have 14 high school iGEM teams.
23:51Asia has 120.
23:55Janet Standevin runs iGEM's international high school division.
23:59Before this, she taught at Lambert, created its iGEM program, and helped it win the grand prize in 2022.
24:08Are you thinking to yourself, this needs to be in every school?
24:12Yes. Oh, that's been our goal since day one, is let's start with Georgia as a little test bid and
24:19see what we can do here.
24:21She left Lambert three years ago after securing federal funding to take synthetic biology to high schools all across Georgia.
24:29But the Trump administration cut the money, claiming it fell under DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
24:37A judge temporarily restored the funding, but Standevin told us she's not sure it will extend beyond 2026.
24:45What did you think when your funding got cut?
24:48I was devastated, absolutely devastated.
24:51I was angry, and again, I think anybody that's involved in this work at the high school level realizes this
25:02is necessary work.
25:04In Paris, Lambert presented its work on stage.
25:09Caused by the genus Borrelium, Lyme is transmitted through the bites of infected ticks.
25:13And behind closed doors, the team dressed up to meet a panel of judges, answering questions about their lab work
25:21and its real-world implications.
25:24Is this what you imagined it would be 20 years ago?
25:28Hard to imagine this.
25:30Stanford professor Drew Endy was one of iGEM's founders.
25:34Back in the early 2000s, Endy was at MIT teaching genetic engineering, and his students had a competitive streak.
25:42So we started iGEM because the people who wanted to work with us were the 18-year-olds.
25:48iGEM thrived as biotech boomed.
25:51But Endy warned Congress America's lead in the field is slipping, while China has made synthetic biology a national priority.
26:01How concerned are you that there are not more American participants in iGEM?
26:07I mean, it's a profound concern.
26:10It's urgent that leadership of the next generation of biotechnology has a strong presence in America and is represented by
26:18young American leaders.
26:19Endy was encouraged by the work done by the team from Georgia and wanted to know more.
26:25Like, how do you deliver it?
26:26Yeah, so we want to deliver it through lipid nanocarticles.
26:29Endy echoed what other scientists told us, that Lambert's project could be a major scientific breakthrough if further testing pans
26:39out.
26:39This year, they appear to have developed a better diagnostic for Lyme disease than anything I've seen before.
26:44It's not only applicable to Lyme disease, but anything you could find in your blood.
26:49As groundbreaking as their lab work was, Oveny Karthik knew Lambert was being judged on everything, from their website to
26:56their software.
26:58How do you think you're going to do?
26:59I'm hoping we finish top 10, but even that, I don't know. We'll see.
27:04That would be top 10 out of 140 teams.
27:08Fingers crossed, arms crossed, knock on wood, everything.
27:14We're here to celebrate each and every one of you for all of your hard work, creativity, and enthusiasm.
27:19On iGEM's final day, it was time to see what a year of work had earned Lambert High School.
27:26The nominees are?
27:27It was a nail-biter.
27:30They were nominated in five different categories and kept getting edged out.
27:37They didn't win the grand prize. That went to China's Great Bay.
27:42So the winners are...
27:48But there was joy. They got to storm the stage for best software tool.
27:54Congratulations. Great job. Great job.
27:56We thought our project was amazing.
27:58Hold on just a minute. Your project was amazing.
28:01We're very proud of it, but it's what the judges think at the end of the day.
28:05You're in the top 10.
28:06Yes.
28:07In the world.
28:09Lambert was the only American school to finish in the high school top 10, along with one team from South
28:16Korea, one from Taiwan, and seven from China.
28:29Want to see eyes pop and jaws drop?
28:31Ask your soccer-loving friends about Lamine Yamal, an 18-year-old sensation from Spain.
28:37Better yet, watch him play, ideally in person, which you can do next summer when the World Cup comes to
28:43North America for the first time in 32 years.
28:46The tournament draw will be held Friday in Washington, D.C.
28:50This World Cup likely will double as a valedictory for global soccer's GOAT, Lionel Messi of Argentina.
28:57But it will also be a debut showcase for the extravagant generational talent of the player who's been cast as
29:04Messi's heir.
29:05Lamine Yamal is not yet licensed to drive, not yet liberated from wearing braces.
29:10Already, though, the world, like the ball he dribbles, is at his feet.
29:16Summer of 24, Munich, Germany.
29:19Semi-finals of the European Soccer Championship.
29:22Remember what you were doing at age 16?
29:25Spanish soccer whiz kid Lamine Yamal was doing this.
29:29A bit of sorcery that helped Spain vault to victory over France, and eventually to the European title.
29:36And it vaulted Lamine out of adolescence and into global sports stardom.
29:41Turned out he was just limbering up.
29:46Now all of 18, he's a star winger for his pro club, FC Barcelona, a.k.a. Barca.
29:52He doesn't just score goals.
29:54He's a master of improv.
29:56Watch here.
29:57It's almost like slapstick comedy, as he eludes a gaggle of grown men from the other team.
30:04You're a teenager.
30:05Sometimes these guys are 10, 15 years older than you.
30:08They've got kids at home, and you're still clowning them.
30:11If I were a fullback, I wouldn't like it if a player who's much better than me were to keep
30:15getting away from me all the time.
30:17I'd ask them, please slow down a little.
30:19Otherwise, my friends would make memes about it.
30:22What do you see as your soccer superpower?
30:26I think that I would like to brighten people's day.
30:30For example, if someone is sad, they can come to a game, watch me, and feel better, so they go
30:36home happier than they were before.
30:38Lamin, this way!
30:39This way!
30:54Lamin!
30:54A former pro player, coach, and broadcaster who's covered Lamin's games.
31:00Astonishing!
31:00How good is this kid?
31:02He's extremely, extremely, extremely good.
31:07This is an absolute uncut damon.
31:11There's times I've been watching him where I could swear that he's thrown his shadow the wrong way.
31:17And the defenders are just bewitched by this shift of the way.
31:22He's a skitterbug.
31:23And, like, watching a dragonfly, you know, how when you see a dragonfly, you...
31:29Put yourself in the defender's shoes.
31:31How would you defend that?
31:34You have to ignore him, which is ridiculous.
31:39Because once Jamal sends you the wrong way with that wonderful fame that he has,
31:44the defender has to pay to get back into the stadium.
31:47You need the ticket to get back on the pitch.
31:48Exactly.
31:49Beautiful.
31:51Intoxicating to watch.
31:53Try averting your eyes from this.
31:55Note the touch and spin, enough to shame a pull hustler that Lamin Yamal puts on the ball.
32:01It's also the playmaking in vision, expressed in exquisite passes.
32:08The ball is more than a sphere he kicks.
32:11He calls it his first love.
32:13You ever talk to the soccer ball?
32:15No, I'm not that crazy, but it could happen in the future.
32:20What do you think you might say to the ball?
32:22I'd probably ask it to marry me and to have lots of kids.
32:27Inasmuch as an 18-year-old can be said to have grown up, Lamin did so here, in Rocafonda,
32:33a struggling North African immigrant enclave a half hour northeast of Barcelona.
32:37He was born in Spain to a Moroccan father and Equatorial Ghanaian mother.
32:42He found his footing on this concrete slab, a short kick from the Mediterranean.
32:48A make-do soccer pitch, but also a promenade.
32:51The steps still double as bleachers.
32:53The graffiti reads,
33:03I think that without a doubt when I was in Rocafonda, because in the end,
33:13it was a neighborhood where no one knew what was going to happen in their lives.
33:16The truth is, no one knew whether they would become a soccer player, an architect, a painter,
33:22or whether they'd find a job.
33:23You see your parents working, they can't be with you all the time,
33:27and you feel, not nervous, but uncertain about what's going to happen to you.
33:32Today, after Lamin scores a goal, he acknowledges the old neighborhood.
33:37The 304, what does that symbolize? What does that represent?
33:41It's the symbol for our neighborhood's zip code,
33:43because in Barcelona, the zip code starts with 08, and ours is 08304.
33:50So what is it? It's right hand?
33:52This here.
33:53Okay.
33:54And yes, like that.
33:57Just blocks from the concrete pitch in Rocafonda,
34:01Lamin's Uncle Abdul runs the LY304 Cafe.
34:05Do you think, a few years ago, I was teaching this kid how to tie his shoe,
34:08and now he's scoring goals and bringing joy all over the world?
34:14Yes, Lamin was very savvy as a child, doing everything on his own.
34:20He has the maturity of a 25 or 30-year-old.
34:25Lamin's prodigious talent was such that he was spotted by Barcelona scouts at age six.
34:31Soon, he was taking the train to practice at La Masia, Barca's famed youth academy.
34:37From the start, he stood out.
34:41By 15, he was making his pro debut for Barca, the youngest player in the club's 126-year history.
34:48Two years and one die job later, he's lived up to his promise.
34:53One thing that struck us watching you play is that when the game tightens,
34:58you want to make something happen.
34:59You want to make magic.
35:00Where does that come from?
35:03Where I used to play, in my neighborhood.
35:07There were like walls where people would sit,
35:09and I think there was no better feeling than getting the people who were sitting there
35:12to stand up, to laugh at the opponents.
35:15I think it's the best feeling in the world,
35:17and something that reminds me of that a lot is when I'm playing on the field
35:20and the fans get up and are surprised by a play I've made.
35:24I get the feeling you don't mind being a star.
35:28No, honestly, I don't.
35:30In fact, I like it.
35:33Lamine's soccer sensibilities jibe with Barcelona.
35:36This is the city of Antony Gaudi,
35:39the architect whose distinct buildings define Barcelona, contorting possibility.
35:44Likewise, Lamine is not merely a creative talent, but a bender of convention.
35:49Still, he's most closely associated with another Barcelona icon,
35:54a player enshrined at the club's museum who played for Barca from 2004 to 2021
36:00and won eight Ballon d'Or.
36:02You ever made it this far in an interview and not had to answer a question about Messi?
36:07I was surprised, honestly.
36:10I was surprised because there were moments where you could have brought him up,
36:13but you didn't.
36:13So I knew the question was coming, but this topic has come up later than usual.
36:18Should we get your standard answer or should we try to put spin on the ball?
36:22You can.
36:23You ever hear the expression, game respects game?
36:28I think that I respect him in the end for what he's been, for what he is to soccer.
36:33And if we ever meet one day on a soccer field, there will be that mutual respect.
36:39He's the best in history.
36:40We both know I don't want to be Messi, and Messi knows I don't want to be him.
36:45I want to follow my own path, and that's it.
36:47The Messi-Lemine bracketing began way earlier than fans perhaps realize.
36:53We visited Joan Manfort in his photography studio in the middle of Barcelona.
36:58He showed us a series of images he took in October 2007.
37:03Then 20-year-old Lionel Messi posing with a three-month-old and his mother.
37:08The family had won a raffle to appear alongside a Barca player in a UNICEF calendar.
37:13That chubby-cheek baby?
37:16Impossibly, it's Laminya Mall.
37:18What are the odds that you have Lionel Messi on the verge of stardom with Laminya Mall now on the
37:25verge of stardom?
37:28It's like winning the lottery.
37:30It's a one in ten million chance.
37:33And I don't know, can you imagine if I told you right now that there's a photo of Michael Jordan
37:38giving a bath to LeBron James?
37:40LeBron James?
37:42Monfort, of course, had no idea at the time that he was taking historic photos.
37:47Do you believe in the soccer gods?
37:51I didn't, but now I think I'm starting to believe in them a little bit.
37:56Fast forward not even 18 years.
37:59Lamin's whole family, including his Moroccan grandma, came together last July when he signed a contract with Barca,
38:06widely reported to pay him around $30 million a season.
38:09That day he was also conferred number 10, the same number Messi wore.
38:15Worried about the crushing weight of expectation?
38:18You got the wrong guy.
38:21There's some noise as well that, boy, life is coming at this kid so fast.
38:32Well, I would say that if, for example, you have a job and you get asked if you want to
38:37be the boss, what would you say?
38:39Yes or no? Am I going too fast? So that's my answer.
38:43One thing we keep hearing is, this kid's got it.
38:46Right.
38:47What is it?
38:47How do you describe moonlight? How do you describe candlelight?
38:51How do you count the bubbles in a glass of champagne? I don't know.
38:55I just know when I say it, it's bloody beautiful.
38:58Even Ray Hudson, for all his gushing, acknowledges there are plenty of blazing young soccer talents who fizzle out.
39:05What could go wrong?
39:07Any number of things.
39:09You know, injuries, personal disputes, his family life.
39:13We'll say it on the pitch because the green doesn't lie.
39:18Athletes have their fans and their support teams.
39:21Successful athletes have people in their circle, too, who can tell them no, who can call them on their nonsense.
39:26Who is that for you?
39:29The truth is that everyone says no.
39:32Everyone in my circle says no to everything.
39:35If I want to go out, no.
39:37If I say that I want to go out to eat, no.
39:40The question should be, who do you listen to?
39:42My mother.
39:44Can you be a normal 18-year-old at times?
39:51That's a difficult question because, in the end, an 18-year-old kid gets out of school and goes home.
39:56I go out to practice while four paparazzi are at my house asking me questions about my life.
40:02I turn on the TV, and I'm on TV.
40:04I walk down the street, and I see a kid wearing my jersey.
40:07I want to go out for a drink, and I can't because people will stop me.
40:11I always try to find the simplest things to do, like play video games or spend time with my brother.
40:17But yes, honestly, I do believe that I'll never be a normal 18-year-old, because people don't see me
40:22as normal, and I won't be able to act that way.
40:26Some athletes have signature tattoos.
40:28As you've no doubt noticed, Flamin has signature braces, loose brackets in Spanish, containing him in a way defenders cannot.
40:37Braces come on or off before World Cup?
40:41I wish it were up to me, but I don't know.
40:44I'll have to call my dentist and ask if I'll still have braces or not, but I think they suit
40:48me.
40:49I look good with brackets.
40:51Me? I look good, yes.
40:53I'll leave them on then.
40:55The goals and the assists are all well and good, but you've made braces cool.
40:58It doesn't get better than that.
41:02With or without braces, Lamin and his Spanish teammates will be on the shortlist of World Cup favorites next summer
41:09in North America.
41:10Just ask the star himself.
41:13Whether it's Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali or Joe Namath, these are all athletes way older than you.
41:19There is a history of guaranteeing victory.
41:21So I ask you, does Spain win the World Cup?
41:25In English?
41:26Yes.
41:35The last minute of 60 Minutes is sponsored by UnitedHealthcare.
41:40Coverage you can count on for your whole life ahead.
41:47Tonight, an update on last season's story from the mountains of Mexico, where we witnessed the mysterious migration of monarch
41:54butterflies.
41:56You can actually hear the sound of butterfly wings.
41:59Yeah.
42:00Let's just be quiet for a second.
42:16Look at that.
42:17Look at that up there.
42:18Oh, my gosh.
42:19It's still something of a mystery how these monarchs find their way thousands of miles from the U.S. to
42:25Mexico.
42:26But now scientists are using tiny solar-powered radio tags to track individual butterflies,
42:32unlocking clues about one of the most remarkable migrations in the natural world.
42:37I'm Anderson Cooper.
42:38We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.
42:45If you love 60 Minutes, see America's stories told every weeknight on the CBS Evening News.
42:52We'll be right back next week with another edition of 62 Minutes.
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