Attention is our worlds most endangered resource and whoever commands it, commands power. Thats the thesis of Chris Hayess new book, The Sirens Call, which chronicles the rise of attention capitalism and how its fundamentally disordering our politics, our media, and our brains. Its a book Hayes felt partly inspired to write after years covering President Trump, an unparalleled expert in manipulating this attention age. Well, unparalleled until Elon Musk. Kara and Chris discuss how big tech got u...
Jan 23, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast President Donald Trump has vowed to tackle immigration on day one, and that includes promising to close the southern border and begin mass deportations almost immediately. So who better to discuss the plausibility of those imminent plans than the man who led immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security for the past four years, former Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas? Kara sits down for an exit interview with Mayorkas to talk about the backlash he faced, from both sides of the aisle, dur...
Jan 20, 2025•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Theyre incredible pieces of technology, theyre unbelievably useful, and we feel lost without them. Nonetheless, smartphones have become the bane of our existence. So Graham Dugoni started Yondr with a surprisingly simple and analog solution to their ubiquity: locking pouches that force cell phone users to put away their device while still keeping their phones on them. Now, theyre used everywhere from comedy shows, to concerts, courtrooms, and weddings. After the success of Jonathan Haidts The An...
Jan 16, 2025•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Transgender kids and adults have become a political punching bag for conservatives but Laverne Cox is stepping into the ring. Kara talks with the transgender activist, Emmy award-winning producer and four-time Emmy-nominated actor, known for her groundbreaking role as Sophia Burset in Orange is The New Black, about the Trump campaigns $200+ million spend on anti-trans ads during the election (and the Harris campaigns lack of response); why Metas decision to no longer monitor hate speech could le...
Jan 13, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Senator Amy Klobuchar has been legislating on Capitol Hill for 18 years. She recently won reelection and is now the number three Democrat in the Senate. And even though Big Tech has blocked her attempts at reform, at every turn, she is determined to keep pushing forward bills on everything from antitrust to privacy, competition, kids' safety and revenge porn. Kara and Klobuchar talk about Trumps nominations, January 6th and the upcoming inauguration (Klocuchar was one of four members of Congress...
Jan 09, 2025•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast After MAGA rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, many people thought Donald Trump's days as a political force were over. A notable exception was Maggie Haberman senior political correspondent for the New York Times, political analyst for CNN, and author of Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Four years later, as the country prepares for President-elect Trump's second inauguration this month, Kara talks to Haberman about initial actions he'll ...
Jan 06, 2025•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Were kicking off the year with a deep-dive into AI ethics and safety with three AI experts: Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, the CEO and co-founder of Humane Intelligence and the first person to be appointed U.S. Science Envoy for Artificial Intelligence; Mark Dredze, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University whos done extensive research on bias in LLMs; and Gillian Hadfield, an economist and legal scholar turned-AI researcher at Johns Hopkins University. The panel answers questions like:...
Jan 02, 2025•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Samantha Bee is a comedian, author and former late-night host who hosts the podcast Choice Words with Samantha Bee and co-hosts The Daily Beast Podcast with Joanna Coles. Her weekly late-night comedy series, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee was nominated for over 70 awards and she has personally been nominated for 18 Emmy awards and won for both writing and executive producing. Full Frontal was explicitly, and hilariously, political and left-leaning so its a bit surprising that Bee has declared he...
Dec 30, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Happy Holidays! We have a special episode from our friend Adam Grant and the folks at the TED Audio Collective. Sarah Silverman is a comedian, actor, and writer who doesnt shy away from saying what she thinks. In this episode of ReThinking with Adam Grant, Sarah shares stories from her bold, distinctive career that has taken her from Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld to Broadway, late-night TV, plays and Disney animated movies. Adam and Sarah also discuss defusing anger, finding courage, and forg...
Dec 26, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Which subpar books actually warrant writing a bad review? Do best sellers usually live up to the hype? And how does our relationship with technology affect the publishing industry? Kara sits down with two of her favorite book critics, Dwight Garner of The New York Times and Becca Rothfeld of The Washington Post, to discuss the best and worst books of 2024. The trio debates standout books and notable disappointments, the craft of book reviewing, and the best way to experience a great book. They a...
Dec 23, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kara sits down for a live interview with Yann LeCun, an early AI prophet and the brains behind the largest open-source large language model in the world. The two discuss the potential dangers that come with open-source models, the massive amounts of money pouring into AI research, and the pros and cons of AI regulation. They also dive into LeCuns surprisingly spicy social media feeds unlike a lot of tech employees who toe the HR line, Yann isnt afraid to say what he thinks of Elon Musk or Presid...
Dec 21, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast RFK Jr. was on the Hill, on Monday, working to persuade senators hes capable of running the Department of Health and Human Services and its almost $2 trillion budget. Ever since the news his lawyer has petitioned the federal government to revoke the approval of a polio vaccine broke, that job has gotten a little harder but it doesnt mean he wont get confirmed. And so could a number of other highly unorthodox candidates that Trump plans to nominate for key positions in the HHS. Kara talks to an e...
Dec 19, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Canadian chef Matty Matheson has been a force in the culinary world for over two decades, but the non-foodies of the world recognize him as Neil Fak, the goofy, handyman-come-waiter-in-training on the FX/Hulu hit series The Bear. Aside from being the shows much-needed comic relief, Matheson is an executive producer and a culinary consultant on set. Matheson first became chef de cuisine in his early 20s and now owns over a dozen restaurants. He also runs an incredibly popular YouTube channel with...
Dec 16, 2024•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Representative Ro Khanna represents the wealthiest congressional district in the country, but he wants to show Democrats how to speak to the working class. And perhaps surprisingly, hes pretty good at it. But although Khanna was one of Bernie Sanders co-chairs in 2020, the progressive capitalist from Silicon Valley (dont call him a democratic socialist) also hobnobs with tech titans. Because according to Khanna, the way to reindustrialize and revitalize the economy is by mobilizing both union le...
Dec 12, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast How will AI agents change the economy and the workforce and are Americans ready? Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has some thoughts. After a stellar quarter boosted by the customer resource management companys new AI autonomous agents, Agentforce, Benioff explains to Kara how employers and employees will be impacted by a new era of digital workers; why he thinks investing tens of billions in AI capital expenditures (like his competitor Microsoft) is a race to the bottom; and what he hopes will come f...
Dec 09, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast How does an ad-based streamer compete with subscription-based models like Netflix, Hulu, Max, and all the rest? By charging nothing. At least thats what Tubi is doing. And despite being seemingly less prestigious than premium streamers, Tubi is used by millions of Americans and outranks Peacock, Max, Paramount Plus, and Apple TV+ in total viewing time. For those who are fatigued by subscriptions fees and monoculture viewing, Tubi offers an enormous catalog of nostalgia and newstalgia movies, hou...
Dec 07, 2024•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast What if the worst fears around AI come true? For Megan Garcia, thats already happened. In February, after spending months interacting with chatbots created by Character.AI, her 14-year-old son Sewell took his own life. Garcia blames Character.AI, and she is suing them and Google, who she believes significantly contributed to Character.AIs alleged wrongdoing. Kara interviews Garcia and Meetali Jain, one of her lawyers and the founder of the Tech Justice Law Project, and they discuss the allegatio...
Dec 05, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nathan Myhrvold likes to challenge conventional wisdom. When the founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures (and former Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft) isnt running one of the worlds leading invention businesses, hes busy doing norm-defying research on topics like dinosaur bone density, asteroid sizing, and the proper way to knead dough. Kara and Nathan talk about everything from AI, politics, nuclear power, and global warming to splash shots photographs of colliding wine glasses. Questions...
Dec 02, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Happy Thanksgiving, On listeners today, were featuring a special episode of Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, one of our favorite podcasts!On Wiser Than Me, Julia shares funny, heartfelt conversations with iconic older women who bring the unapologetic wisdom and confidence that only comes with age. On this episode of Wiser Than Me, Julia chats with 80-year-old tennis pro, activist, and LGBTQ+ icon Billie Jean King. Billie Jean delves into the nature of leadership, visualization, and her lo...
Nov 28, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Elon Musks social media platform X lost more than 280,000 global users the day after the US presidential election. Meanwhile, sites like Threads from Meta and newcomer Bluesky have seen huge surges in signups. Kara talks to a team of social media experts about the X-odus; who is migrating to Threads and Bluesky and why; how those federated protocols (or fediverse) differ from Xs algorithmic platform; and if the social media town square giving way to a more fragmented communities is a good or bad...
Nov 25, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lenard McKelvey is a best-selling author, entrepreneur and media mogul, but you probably know him as Charlamagne Tha God: host of The Breakfast Club. Its an insanely popular and influential radio program that reaches millions of listeners daily. Charlamagne has been behind the microphone for over a decade, and he's not one for playing by the rules of traditional media. In recent years hes gotten vocal about the state of politics in the US and interviewed a raft of powerful politicians at the hel...
Nov 21, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jon Chu grew up in Silicon Valley, in the shadow of Apple Park. His father, Chef Chu, still runs his eponymous restaurant there, and Jon worshiped Steve Jobs as a kid. As a teen, he used Apple products to learn how to make movies. Now he directs some of the biggest movies in Hollywood, but his relationship with the tech industry is much more complex. Kara and Jon discuss his new view trilogy: Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights, and his latest film, Wicked. They unpack his memoir Viewfinder, and C...
Nov 18, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast What role will writers play as we head into a second Trump term? Author, journalist and Howard University professor Ta-Nehisi Coates has some thoughts. The man who has been called one of the most important writers on the subject of America today came to the fore during the Obama era as one of the preeminent writers on race, among other things, for his 2014 essay The Case for Reparations and his book Between the World and Me, an open letter to his son about growing up as a Black man in America. K...
Nov 14, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does a second Trump presidency mean for America? Kara hosts a panel of experts and reporters to reflect on the results of the election and to find out what we can expect going forward. They discuss the issues that mattered most to voters; what Democrats got wrong; the parts of our democracy that are broken beyond repair; the apparent shift in our countrys sense of self; and the role of social media versus traditional media in the digital age. Guests: Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster, fou...
Nov 11, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast President-elect Donald J. Trump has won a resounding victory against Vice President Kamala Harris, and now, the man who promised political retribution and said he may use the military to go after the enemy within is headed back to the White House. Only this time, there will be no guardrails only enablers. In order to understand the threat Trump poses to our democracy, Kara talks to two historians who know a lot about the birth of American democracy and the last time we came close to losing it: D...
Nov 07, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, isnt on the ballot for the 2024 U.S. election, but he might as well be. Elon has become one of the Trump campaigns top surrogates, top donors (over $119 million through the America Pac), and controls a main megaphone for pro-Trump propaganda at X. Kara and three other Musk experts discuss Elons outsized impact on the election, why Trump has been referring to him as the Secretary of Cost-Cutting, and why Musk & his businesses (X, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink) s...
Nov 04, 2024•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lying has always been a part of politics, but in recent years, political lies have come to dominate our elections and their outcomes. Even the notion that facts and truths can be objective and shared across the political divide has been put into question. As we head into a fraught election, Kara speaks with Bill Adair, professor of journalism & public policy at Duke and author of Beyond the Big Lie, and Timothy Snyder, Yale history professor and author of On Freedom, about which party lies more;...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Reid Hoffman isnt just one of the most influential entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley hes also one of the most important mega-donors supporting the Democratic party. A member of the so-called PayPal Mafia, Hoffman is a VC partner at Greylock Ventures and Microsoft board member who co-founded LinkedIn and InflectionAI and was a founding investor in OpenAI. He is one of the leading voices in tech fighting against former President Donald Trump, and he puts his money where his mouth is wh...
Oct 28, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Has late-night TV passed its peak? Ticket sales for live comedy shows are booming and theres no shortage of streaming stand-up specials, but the same is hardly true for late-night television. Is it the business model or the divisive nature of political comedy thats driving viewership down? Either way, hosting a late-night show remains one of the most coveted jobs in comedy, and in this interview, Kara talks to one of the best. Seth Meyers, SNL veteran, host of Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC,...
Oct 24, 2024•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Digital machines are not just remaking stories, they're remaking us. So says Oscar-winning actor Robert Downey Jr. as the titular character in his Broadway debut, MCNEAL. Kara talks with Downey Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar and Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher about the play and the thorny questions it raises around truth, lies and power in the AI age. They also discuss who is responsible for creating a new social contract around AI. Plus: Kara and Robert get into the Mar...
Oct 21, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
