Carissa Véliz is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, a Fellow at Hertford College at the University of Oxford, and the author of multiple books, including, most recently, Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI . Greg and Carissa discuss Carissa’s newest work, where she links prediction to surveillance and argues that forecasts are speech acts that intervene in the world, often becoming self-fulfilling or self-defe...
Jun 04, 2026•50 min•Ep. 657
Eric Ries is an author, podcaster, and founder of The Lean Startup. He hosts The Eric Ries Show and his notable books Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great , The Lean Startup , Farther, Faster, and Far Less Drama , The Leader's Guide , and The Startup Way . Greg and Eric discuss why startups and corporations lose their mission through shifts from founder-to investor-control, changing from long-term focus to short-term focus, and purpose-driven to profit-d...
Jun 02, 2026•59 min•Ep. 656
How did a teenage video game designer from London become a Nobel Prize-winning scientist behind one of the most consequential technology efforts in history? Sebastian Mallaby is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the new book, The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence which provides an in-depth look into one of the greatest minds behind artificial general intelligence. In this episode, Sebastian and Greg discuss how Hassabi...
May 28, 2026•50 min•Ep. 655
Jo Marchant is a science journalist and podcast host, and also the author of several books. Her latest works include In Search of Now: The Science of the Present Moment and Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body . Greg and Jo discuss the shared threads across her work: a long view of the history of thought and the mind–body relationship. Jo explains how physics and neuroscience challenge a single objective “now,” describing perception as an active predictive process shaped by past ex...
May 25, 2026•1 hr•Ep. 654
Tom Rath is a researcher and #1 NYT bestselling author of 12 books. His latest works are How Full Is Your Bucket? And What's the Point? Turning Purpose Into Your Daily Superpower . Greg and Tom discuss the broader arc of Tom’s work, translating research on wellbeing, engagement, and strengths into practical tools. Tom describes shifting from self-improvement to “other-improvement,” using Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s question “What are you doing for others?” as a daily compass, and reframing purp...
May 21, 2026•57 min•Ep. 653
Joanna Stalnaker is a professor of French at Columbia University and also the author of the books The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death and The Unfinished Enlightenment: Description in the Age of the Encyclopedia . Greg and Joanna discuss how Enlightenment figures faced death amid disbelief or tempered religious belief. Joanna says scholars have emphasized 18th-century death rituals more than philosophers’ personal end-of-life writings, and she links her interest to growin...
May 19, 2026•52 min•Ep. 652
Dan Edelstein is a professor of French, history, and political science at Stanford University. He’s also the author of several books on revolution and the Enlightenment, including The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin , Let There Be Enlightenment: The Religious and Mystical Sources of Rationality , Scripting Revolution: A Historical Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions , and The Enlightenment: A Genealogy . Greg and Dan discuss the changing meaning of ...
May 14, 2026•53 min•Ep. 651
How much is on us, as individuals, to fix the world’s great problems? Do initiatives like encouraging homeowners to switch to green energy really move the needle in the battle against climate change? After decades of these types of strategies, it turns out that needle hasn’t moved much. Nick Chater is a professor of behavioral science at Warwick Business School and author. His latest book, co-authored with George Loewenstein, is It's on You: How Corporations and Behavioral Scientists Have Convin...
May 12, 2026•56 min•Ep. 650
N. Katherine Hayles is a professor of English at UCLA and Emeritus Professor of Literature at Duke University. She is also the author of a number of books on consciousness and AI. Her latest book is titled Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with Our Nonhuman Symbionts . Greg and Katherine discuss technics - recursive feedback loops in which humans and tools co-evolve. Katherine argues that cognitive technologies and AI intensify this process, so we design them while they also design us. She distingui...
May 08, 2026•1 hr•Ep. 649
Iain McGilchrist is a former fellow at Oxford University and the author of a few books, including Ways of Attending: How our Divided Brain Constructs the World , The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World , and The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World . Greg and Iain discuss Iain’s work on hemispheric differences in the brain, especially in The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things. Iain argues the left a...
May 05, 2026•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 648
Susan Wise Bauer is a prolific author, former instructor at the College of William and Mary, and classical education expert. Her books include, The History of the World series, The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had , Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child's Education , and most recently, The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What We Do, Think, Believe, and Buy . Susan and Greg discuss the mismatches between institutional schooling and ...
May 01, 2026•51 min•Ep. 647
How can economic science help you decide which college to attend, or how many children to have, or even who to marry? Pablo A. Peña is an associate instructional professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the author of Human Capital for Humans: An Accessible Introduction to the Economic Science of People . In the book, he applies economist Gary Becker’s human capital theory to everyday things like parenting, housework, marriage, and aging. Pablo and Greg discuss why human capital ha...
Apr 29, 2026•58 min•Ep. 646
Steve H. Hanke is a Professor of Applied Economics and Founder and Co-Director of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University in the Whiting School of Engineering. He is also the author and co-author of several books on economics. His latest title is called Making Money Work: How to Rewrite the Rules of Our Financial System . Greg and Steve discuss why macroeconomics sidelines banks and money creation. Steve argues macro sh...
Apr 27, 2026•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 645
What if reducing screen time or eating less processed food didn’t feel like deprivation, but rather it was the key to unlocking more joy and excitement in our lives? Michaeleen Doucleff, PhD, is a correspondent for NPR’s Science Desk, where she reports on mental health, nutrition, psychology and neuroscience. She’s also the author of Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans and her latest, Dopamine Kids: A Science-Based P...
Apr 24, 2026•59 min•Ep. 644
How has the new understanding of broken-windows theory helped to reinforce the importance of community ownership? How do built environments also transmit cultural messages? What does good workplace design actually look like? Leidy Klotz is a professor of engineering, architecture, and a behavioral scientist. He’s also the author of three books: Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less , Sustainability through Soccer: An Unexpected Approach to Saving Our World , and the latest, In a Good Place: How...
Apr 22, 2026•54 min•Ep. 643
How did working with first-principles thinking allow SpaceX to maneuver nimbly past established aerospace giants? What are the limits of prediction and scenario models under “deep uncertainty,” and how can we apply them to AI’s potential effects on society? Roger Spitz is a futurist, the president of Techistential, and the author of several books. His latest titles are Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World and the four-volume series of The Definitive Guide to Th...
Apr 20, 2026•58 min•Ep. 642
Even though conflict is something we all instinctively want to avoid, it’s an essential part of a healthy culture. So what can organizations do to ensure they’re not only managing conflict productively but also leveraging it to make the organization stronger? Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review and author of the books HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict and Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People). Her research and consulting work focuses on how to ...
Apr 16, 2026•56 min•Ep. 641
How can you trace capitalism from long-distance merchant networks (including 12th-century Aden) to a modern-day world economy? What are alternative stories to the commonly held Eurocentric view of capitalism’s origins? Sven Beckert is the Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University and is also the author of several books. His most recent titles include Capitalism: A Global History , Empire of Cotton: A Global History , and Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Develo...
Apr 13, 2026•52 min•Ep. 640
Claude Steele is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the author of the landmark book, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do . His new book, Churn: The Tension That Divides Us and How to Overcome It , takes the theories from Whistling Vivaldi and examines the psychological stress that comes with navigating diversity. Claude joins Greg to discuss his decades' worth of research on the concept of identity, the impacts stereotypes have on our cognitive load,...
Apr 09, 2026•50 min•Ep. 639
How is governance dysfunction linked to declining ‘middle-ring’ community ties? Marc J. Dunkelman is a fellow at Brown University and a fellow at the Searchlight Institute in Washington, D.C. Marc is also the author of two books, Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back and The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community . Greg and Marc discuss how U.S. progressivism has long been split between a Jeffersonian impulse to decentralize power and curb “bigness...
Apr 07, 2026•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 638
When AI tells us what we want to hear, is it acting in a rogue way, or is it emulating behavior that society clearly values? How does our ability to sleep enable us to update faster than neural networks currently can, and what will be different when they can update themselves more frequently? Christopher Summerfield is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Oxford University, the Research Director at the UK’s AI Safety Institute, and the author of the book These Strange New Minds: How AI Learn...
Apr 03, 2026•59 min•Ep. 637
It’s one of the oldest debates in political philosophy: Do good laws make good men, or do good men make good laws? Minds have been wrestling with this question since the days of Petrarch and Machiavelli, but both sides may have insights that can inform modern political philosophy. James Hankins is a professor of history at Harvard University, a visiting professor of humanities at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School, and author of numerous books including Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and St...
Apr 01, 2026•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 636
Today's AI has been designed using insights from how humans learn and think about the world. Are there certain psychological lessons we can glean from these artificial minds to further our understanding of human ones? Tom Griffiths is a professor of information technology, consciousness, and culture at Princeton University. His books, The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind and Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions, explore how algorithms and...
Mar 30, 2026•52 min•Ep. 635
When the concept of ‘gamifying life’ comes up, scoring is transparent and portable but strips nuance, creating a gap between what’s measurable and what matters. When codifying everything through metrics, massive amounts of nuance is lost, so how can we utilize game theory without reducing everything to a high score? C. Thi Nguyen is a professor of philosophy at the University of Utah. He is also the author of the books The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, The Routledge Handbook o...
Mar 27, 2026•1 hr•Ep. 634
While philosophers have long wrestled with questions about technology’s impact on humanity, these questions have taken on a whole new level of urgency and significance with the rise of AI, smartphones, and the Internet. It’s more pressing than ever now to ask: What does it mean to be human? Christine Rosen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Her latest book, The Extinction of Experience , ...
Mar 25, 2026•53 min•Ep. 633
How is modern self-knowledge acquired? In what ways can ‘yoga of the mind’ help you find and explore new thoughts and thought processes, giving you ongoing courage to confront discomfort and realign consciousness beyond ego narratives? J. Eric Oliver is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and is also the author of several books. His latest titles are How To Know Your Self: The Art & Science of Discovering Who You Really Are, Democracy in Suburbia, and Enchanted Amer...
Mar 23, 2026•59 min•Ep. 632
What do particle physicists and Wall Street traders have in common? How did finance become more like physics, and how is physics now becoming more like finance? Emanuel Derman is an emeritus professor at Columbia in financial engineering and the author of several books, including My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance and Models. Behaving. Badly.: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life . His work examines the entanglement of physics a...
Mar 18, 2026•47 min•Ep. 631
Romantic relationships are something uniquely human — we form attachments and perceive compatibility in ways no other species does. So what explains the idiosyncratic preferences people have for one potential partner over another? And why have popular conceptions based on evolutionary psychology been wrong about when it comes to how humans choose their mates? Psychology professor Paul Eastwick is the head of UC Davis’ Social-Personality Psychology program and the director of the Attraction and R...
Mar 16, 2026•58 min•Ep. 630
What if the tale of Genesis were reframed as a story of humanity’s ascent into awareness of mortality and entropy? How are both connectedness and a “mattering project” key to flourishing as an individual? Rebecca Goldstein is the author of several fiction and non-fiction books, including The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, and The Mind-Body Proble...
Mar 12, 2026•53 min•Ep. 629
A key precondition for democracy is civic trust and commitment to common goods; polarization and party identity undermine this, worsened by modern communication technologies that enable separate realities. Josiah Ober is a professor of Political Science and Classics at Stanford University and also the author and co-author of several books about Athens, Civics, and Ancient Democracy. His latest title is The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives . Greg asks Josiah about his work linking ancient At...
Mar 10, 2026•55 min•Ep. 628
