Danielle Wood is an Australian economist and the current chair of the Australian Productivity Commission. Had a lot of fun chatting with Dani about how she's making sense of AI and its implications for policy. We discuss: whether AI will be more like the internet or the Industrial Revolution, where in the AI stack the profits will ultimately flow (and why it might not be the model layer), why diffusion is the "main game" for Australian policymakers, whether there's a case for government support ...
Jun 03, 2026•1 hr 39 min•Season 10Ep. 182
Part 3 of a three-part immigration series this week . Martin Parkinson (economics) available here ; Mark Cully (history) available here . Mike Pezzullo ran the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (2013-2014), then the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (2014-2017), then the Department of Home Affairs (2017-2023). For more than a decade across those three roles, he was responsible for how Australia selects migrants, screens for risk, and thinks about social cohesion unde...
May 21, 2026•3 hr 23 min•Season 10Ep. 181
Part 2 of a three-part immigration series this week . Martin Parkinson (economics) available here ; Mike Pezzullo (acculturation, social cohesion, security) drops Friday. Mark Cully was the inaugural chief economist at the Australian Department of Immigration (2009-2012). His forthcoming book, Waves of Plenty (September 2026), is (to my knowledge) the first truly general history of immigration to Australia. It will fill a remarkable gap in our literature, given the centrality of immigration to t...
May 21, 2026•2 hr 28 min•Season 10Ep. 180
Part 1 of a three-part immigration series this week. Mark Cully (history) drops Thursday; Mike Pezzullo (acculturation, social cohesion, security) drops Friday. Martin Parkinson ran the Australian Treasury (2011-2014), then the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet (2015-2019). He's also thought deeply about the economics of migration policy, not just in those roles, but also in his past academic life and as chair of the Australian government's 2023 Migration Review (the most significant re...
May 19, 2026•2 hr 19 min•Season 10Ep. 179
In this special end-of-year episode, the tables are turned: I’m the guest, and I’m interviewed by Zac Gross — an Australian macroeconomist and long-time listener of the show. We reflect on what I learned on the podcast in 2025 and what I changed my mind about. We also discuss the behind-the-scenes work of running the show, and my plans for 2026. Sponsors Vanta: helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at vanta.com/joe. Use th...
Dec 31, 2025•1 hr 19 min•Season 9Ep. 178
Glyn Davis and Terry Moran are two of the very small number of Australians who have literally sat in the Cabinet Room, week after week, watching the machinery of government operate from the inside. Both served as Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) — the most senior public servant in Australia. Terry held the role from 2008 to 2011 (including during the Global Financial Crisis). Glyn held it from 2022 to 2025. Both have also held equivalent roles at the state...
Dec 22, 2025•2 hr 32 min•Season 9Ep. 177
2,500 years of strategic history, 11 books, one afternoon. Hugh White is Australia's foremost strategic thinker: former senior adviser to Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in Defence, inaugural Director of ASPI, and principal author of the 2000 Defence White Paper. He is now Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University. Before this conversation, I asked Hugh for the eleven books that most sha...
Nov 25, 2025•4 hr 32 min•Season 9Ep. 176
Peter Costello is the longest-serving Treasurer of Australia (1996–2007). He led the most complex overhaul of Australia's tax system in the postwar era: introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) — a value-added consumption tax — while abolishing a range of indirect taxes (notably wholesale sales tax) and cutting income-tax rates. I wanted to learn from Peter what it actually takes to achieve a reform at that scale — and why we haven’t managed anything like it since. In this conversation, we d...
Nov 02, 2025•1 hr 39 min•Season 9Ep. 175
One bacterium causes roughly 1 in 20 cancer cases worldwide. It’s the most cancer-causing pathogen we’ve found—and the main cause of peptic ulcers. Its discovery overturned an ironclad medical dogma that the stomach was sterile. Despite infecting about half of humanity, Helicobacter pylori wasn't discovered until 1979 and shown to cause gastritis and peptic ulcer disease in the early 1980s. Why did it evade detection for so long—and what finally broke through the consensus? I went to Perth, Aust...
Aug 26, 2025•2 hr 21 min•Season 9Ep. 174
Stagnation! The 2010s witnessed Australia’s weakest productivity growth in six decades. How much of the slowdown is homegrown? How much reflects the broader “great stagnation” plaguing the West? How much is simply an artefact of the way “productivity” is measured? And what would a credible new growth model for Australia—with its distinctive reliance on mining over manufacturing—actually look like? To answer these questions and more, I’m joined by two of Australia’s smartest economists. Greg Kapl...
Aug 14, 2025•2 hr 58 min•Season 9Ep. 173
Francis Fukuyama is a Stanford political scientist and the author of (among many other works) The End of History and the Last Man —arguably the most influential work in political science of the past half-century. If “History” is driven by technology, how does Fukuyama now view biotech and AI—and their potential to usher in a new, post-human history? These are difficult questions, but I wanted to ask Frank about topics that are both important and (at least for AI) on which he has spoken little un...
Jul 31, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Season 9Ep. 172
Laura Deming is a technologist and venture capitalist focused on anti-ageing and life extension. At 17, she founded The Longevity Fund (followed by age1), the first VC firm dedicated to longevity biotech, after being selected in the initial cohort of Thiel fellows (2011). Today she is also CEO and co-founder of Cradle, a startup pursuing human whole-body reversible cryopreservation. I speak with Laura at Cradle’s San Francisco office. We start with the philosophical question of personal identity...
May 20, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Season 9Ep. 171
I share the 8 biggest things I learned from my Australian policy series. The conversations totaled more than 12 hours of discussion. Grateful to my guests and to everyone who attended the live events. Was really fun to meet and hang out with you all! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 11, 2025•48 min•Season 9Ep. 170
This episode is the seventh instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on April 29, 2025. I speak with Ken Henry—former Treasury Secretary and chair of the landmark Henry Tax Review—about why Australia hasn’t achieved major economic reform since the GST, and what must change to restart it. We discuss how AGI could reshape the public service, intergenerational unfairness in the tax system, the collapse in business investment, how to build a new Australian city, and the roo...
May 01, 2025•2 hr 18 min•Season 9Ep. 169
This episode is the sixth instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on February 26, 2025. I speak with Sam Roggeveen—Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program, and a former senior analyst at the Office of National Assessments—about why the United States won’t fight China for dominance in Asia, and what that means for an Australia long reliant on American protection. We explore the limits of America’s resolve in Asia, why an alliance with Indonesia s...
Apr 02, 2025•1 hr 55 min•Season 9Ep. 168
This episode is the fifth instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on February 12, 2025. I speak with Peter Tulip—Chief Economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, and a former senior researcher at both the Reserve Bank of Australia and the US Federal Reserve. We go deep into what's driving Australia's housing crisis, the problems with heritage rules and height restrictions, critiques of both NIMBY and YIMBY thinking, the sobering 10–20-year timeframe that even an ...
Mar 25, 2025•1 hr 45 min•Season 9Ep. 167
Australia stands alone among English-speaking democracies with its compulsory, preferential voting system. But why? This episode is the fourth instalment of my Australian policy series. It was recorded in Melbourne on March 6, 2025. I speak with Judith Brett—Emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University and author of the canonical history of Australia's electoral system, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage —about how Australia became an electoral trailblazer. We trace the accidental ...
Mar 14, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Season 9Ep. 166
This episode is the third of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Sydney on February 5, 2025. We explore the concept of state capacity—the ability of governments to achieve their policy goals—and ask why Australia outperforms almost every other country in the world in this domain. For the conversation, I'm joined by two of Australia's great public policy economists. Richard Holden is professor of economics at UNSW Business School and president of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Austra...
Mar 04, 2025•1 hr 58 min•Season 9Ep. 165
This episode is the second of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Sydney on January 29, 2025. What is the relationship between economic equality and egalitarianism in the cultural sense? Where does Australia's egalitarian tradition come from? Are we too egalitarian? Is economic inequality increasing? What's been driving it? And does it even matter? We sit down with Andrew Leigh to discuss these questions and more. Dr. Andrew Leigh MP is Australia’s Assistant Minister for Competition, Chari...
Feb 14, 2025•1 hr 29 min•Season 9Ep. 164
This episode is the first of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Melbourne on January 23, 2025. In this salon, we go deep into Australia's immigration policy with Abul Rizvi, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. Abul managed Australia’s migration program from 1995 to 2007 and played a crucial role in the 2001 policy changes that massively increased the intake of skilled migrants—most notably by expanding pathways for overseas students. If you’d like to attend an upcomi...
Jan 31, 2025•1 hr 42 min•Season 9Ep. 163
This episode is a little different: I’m the one being interviewed—and my interlocutor is Andy Matuschak , an independent applied researcher focused on "tools for thought" (ways to augment human intelligence). Andy founded and led Khan Academy’s Research and Development Lab, and prior to that, he was a senior engineer at Apple where he helped build iOS. I first discovered Andy’s work in 2021, and it was a game changer for me and the podcast. We spoke on the show in 2022 . In 2024, I recorded some...
Jan 25, 2025•1 hr 43 min•Season 9Ep. 162
Eugene Fama is a 2013 Nobel laureate in economic sciences, and is widely recognised as the "father of modern finance." He is currently the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago. Full transcript available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/eugene-fama-156/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dec 31, 2024•55 min•Season 8Ep. 161
Richard Butler AC is a retired Australian diplomat. He served as Australia's first Ambassador for Disarmament (1983-1988), Australian Ambassador to the United Nations (1992-1997), and Chair of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to inspect Iraq for weapons of mass destruction (1997-1999). He also served as Chair of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Earlier in his career, he was Chief of Staff to Leader of the Opposition, and former Prime Minister, Gough Wh...
Nov 29, 2024•2 hr 32 min•Season 8Ep. 160
Larry Summers is a former US Treasury Secretary (1999-2001), Chief Economist at the World Bank (1991-1993), and Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama (2009-2010). He also served as President of Harvard University (2001-2006). Currently, he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, and he sits on the board of directors at OpenAI, one of the fastest-growing companies in history. Full transcript and video available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com...
Oct 21, 2024•49 min•Season 8Ep. 159
Nassim Taleb is trader, researcher and essayist. He is the author of the Incerto , a multi-volume philosophical and practical meditation on uncertainty. Full transcript available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/nassim-taleb-158/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 19, 2024•2 hr 5 min•Season 8Ep. 158
Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson are anthropologists based in America. Their partnership was central to the development of Dual-Inheritance Theory , a framework that applies Darwinian evolution to culture and explains how genes and culture have intertwined to shape our species. This is their first ever joint interview. Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/boyd-and-richerson/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Aug 13, 2024•2 hr 24 min•Season 8Ep. 157
Lucy Turnbull is an urbanist, businesswoman and philanthropist. She was the first female Lord Mayor of Sydney, from 2003-4. From 2015-20, she was the inaugural Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission, tasked with delivering strategic planning for the whole of metropolitan Sydney. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 30, 2024•47 min•Season 8Ep. 156
Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University. A bestselling author, his books include The Case Against Education , Open Borders , and Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Deregulation . Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/bryan-caplan-155 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 13, 2024•1 hr 50 min•Season 8Ep. 155
In this special episode, the tables are turned as I'm interviewed by a listener of the show, DJ Thornton from Sydney. We reflect on the progress of the show in 2023, what I learned from this year's guests, and what's in store for 2024. Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dec 29, 2023•1 hr 48 min•Season 7Ep. 154
At a time when the Enlightenment is under attack from without and within, I bring together two of the most thoughtful defenders of progress and reason, for their first ever public dialogue. Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. I think of him as providing the strongest empirical defence of the Enlightenment (as seen in his book Enlightenment Now ). David Deutsch is a British physicist at the University of Oxford, and the father of quantum computing. I thin...
Dec 19, 2023•1 hr 56 min•Season 7Ep. 153
