Dr. Lonnie Johnson, engineer & Inventor Hall of Fame inductee, visits Google to discuss his past work with NASA, the US Air Force, and his efforts to help underrepresented communities enter STEM fields. He is the founder and President of Johnson Research and Development and the founder and President of the Johnson STEM Activity Center, a 501c(3) dedicated to educating disadvantaged and underserved children in STEM. A prolific inventor with over 150 patents, he is best known for his popular inven...
Feb 21, 2023•51 min•Ep 322•Transcript available on Metacast National Book Award winner, MacArthur fellow, and New York Times bestselling author Colson Whitehead visits Google to discuss his novel, "The Underground Railroad." The novel tells the story of Cora, a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood, where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and esca...
Feb 17, 2023•42 min•Ep 321•Transcript available on Metacast Brandon Kyle Goodman visits Google to discuss his book "You Gotta Be You: How to Embrace This Messy Life and Step Into Who You Really Are." From the time we’re born, a litany of do’s and don’ts are placed on us by our families, our communities, and society. We're required to fit into boxes based on our race, gender, and sexuality, and are told by others how we should behave, who we should date, and what we should be interested in. For so many of us, those boxes begin to feel like shackles when w...
Feb 14, 2023•47 min•Ep 320•Transcript available on Metacast In honor of Black History Month, Google is excited to welcome Dr. Clarence Jones - author, lawyer, personal counsel, advisor and friend to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1962, Martin Luther King wrote a letter recommending his lawyer and advisor, Clarence B. Jones, to the New York State Bar, stating: “Ever since I have known Mr. Jones, I have always seen him as a man of sound judgment, deep insights, and great dedication. I am also convinced that he is a man of great integrity.” Jones j...
Feb 10, 2023•1 hr•Ep 319•Transcript available on Metacast Noëlla Coursaris Musunka visits Google to discuss Malaika, a grassroots nonprofit that empowers girls and communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo through a school, a community center, and a clean water program. Malaika has grown into a fully-functioning ecosystem impacting thousands of lives each year, anchored by its accredited primary and secondary school for more than 400 girls. The Malaika School provides a comprehensive education for girls ages 5-18 with a STEM-focused curriculu...
Feb 07, 2023•56 min•Ep 318•Transcript available on Metacast In celebration of Black History Month, Google is excited to welcome life coach, spiritual teacher and African Healing Practitioner Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi as she unpacks the pre-colonial history of African Spirituality and how it intersects with global systemic issues in the 21st century. Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi is a pre-eminent and pioneering traditional healer who has successfully merged the sacredness of African Spirituality with modern thinking. She is a celebrated spiritual teacher, life coach, Afric...
Feb 03, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep 317•Transcript available on Metacast Judson Brewer visits Google to discuss his book "Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind." The book lays out a step-by-step plan that is clinically proven to break the cycles that drive anxiety and addictive habits. We are living through one of the most anxious periods any of us can remember. Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for a wine bottle every night, man...
Jan 31, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep 316•Transcript available on Metacast Author and political economist Mark Blyth visits Google to discuss his book “Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea.” Politicians in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that makes the economy worse. As a remedy, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the many financial crises of the early 21st century. Pro-austerity voices tell us that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tig...
Jan 27, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep 315•Transcript available on Metacast Susan Wilner Golden visits Google to discuss her book, “Stage (Not Age): How to Understand and Serve People Over 60 – the Fastest Growing, Most Dynamic Market in the World”. The book discusses the $22 trillion opportunity that can be unlocked if we rethink everything we think we know about people over 60. The book is the concise guide to helping companies understand and serve this market by focusing on life stage, not age, and identifying the deep diversity of needs within the demographic. In th...
Jan 24, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 314•Transcript available on Metacast Avi Goldfarb and Ajay Agrawal visit Google to discuss their book “Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of AI.” The idea of artificial intelligence--job-killing robots, self-driving cars, and self-managing organizations--captures the imagination, evoking a combination of wonder and dread for those of us who will have to deal with the consequences. But what if it’s not quite so complicated? The real job of artificial intelligence is to lower the cost of prediction. And once you start talking ...
Jan 20, 2023•57 min•Ep 313•Transcript available on Metacast The cast & creatives of Broadway’s "The Kite Runner" visit Google to discuss their critically acclaimed play, based on Khaled Hosseini’s internationally best-selling novel. Originally published in 2003, "The Kite Runner" became a bestseller across the globe and has since been published in 70 countries, selling 31.5 million copies in 60 languages. Now this powerful story has been adapted into a stunning stage production. One of the best-loved and most highly acclaimed novels of our time, "The Kit...
Jan 17, 2023•52 min•Ep 312•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. John P. Kotter is a New York Times best-selling author, award winning business and management thought leader, business entrepreneur, inspirational speaker and Harvard Professor. His ideas, books, speeches, and company, Kotter International, have helped mobilize people around the world to better lead organizations, and their own lives. Dr. Kotter visits Google to discuss his book "Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results In Uncertain and Volatile Times". In the 21st century, ...
Jan 13, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep 311•Transcript available on Metacast Neuroscientist and author Greg Gage visits Google to discuss his recent book "How Your Brain Works: Neuroscience Experiments for Everyone.” The book is detailed guide on how to discover the hidden electrical world inside your nervous system using DIY, hands-on experiments, for all ages, with no MD or PhD required! The workings of the brain are mysterious: What are neural signals? What do they mean? How do our senses really sense? How does our brain control our movements? What happens when we med...
Jan 10, 2023•58 min•Ep 310•Transcript available on Metacast Author Cate Flanders visits Google to discuss her book “The Year of Less”. In her late twenties, Cait found herself stuck in the consumerism cycle that grips so many of us: earn more, buy more, want more, rinse, repeat. Even after she worked her way out of nearly $30,000 of consumer debt, her old habits took hold again. When she realized that nothing she was doing or buying was making her happy, she decided to set herself a challenge: she would not shop for an entire year. "The Year of Less" doc...
Jan 06, 2023•45 min•Ep 309•Transcript available on Metacast Diego Perez visits Google to discuss his book "Lighter: Let Go of the Past, Connect with the Present, and Expand the Future.” The book demonstrates how we can all move forward in our healing, from learning self-compassion to letting go, to becoming emotionally mature. Diego Perez is a New York Times bestselling author who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name Yung Pueblo. His writing focuses on the power of self-healing, creating healthy relationship...
Jan 03, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 308•Transcript available on Metacast Anand Giridharadas visits Google to discuss his book "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World." Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can—except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. The book argues that elites rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; that they lavishly reward so-called thought leaders who redefine “change” in ways that preserve...
Dec 30, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep 307•Transcript available on Metacast Gerd Gigerenzer visits Google to discuss his latest book "How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms.” The book is a comprehensive guide on how to stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms that beat us in chess, try to find us romantic partners, and tell us to “turn right in 500 yards.” Doomsday prophets of technology predict that robots will take over the world, leaving humans behind in the dust. Tech industry boosters think that replacing people w...
Dec 27, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep 306•Transcript available on Metacast Author Michael Lent visits Google to discuss his book "Christmas Letters from Hell: All The News We Hate from the People We Love." Who doesn't love to open the mailbox during the holidays and find a newsletter? Whether it's a letter from an old college roommate inadvertently revealing her husband's wandering eye, a self-congratulatory account of a cousin's rise to power at the local fast-food joint, or a mind-numbingly detailed account of a year's medical ailments from a coworker, they're always...
Dec 23, 2022•19 min•Ep 305•Transcript available on Metacast Aliza Knox visits Google to discuss her book "Don't Quit Your Day Job: The 6 Mindshifts You Need to Rise and Thrive at Work." The book presents six empowering, essential mindshifts necessary to rise and thrive in your career – and to love your life at the same time. Driven by Aliza’s four decades working in and leading some of the world’s most celebrated firms, and featuring candid accounts of other people’s successes and missteps in industries such as global tech and consumer goods, this book i...
Dec 20, 2022•1 hr•Ep 304•Transcript available on Metacast Jake Dell and Evan Bloom visit Google to discuss what makes a Jewish Deli, the role delis play in American culture, and how Evan and Jake maintain the food traditions of their ancestors while operating modern businesses. Will Katz Deli ever give up their ticket system? Can there be more than one great Jewish Deli per city? Does the future of Jewish cuisine have room for vegan Rubens? These questions and many more are addressed in this talk. Many people know Katz’s deli as the setting for the fam...
Dec 16, 2022•54 min•Ep 303•Transcript available on Metacast Kathy Rastle, a leading expert on skilled reading and learning to read, visits Google to discuss how her lab’s research has had a major influence on how children around the world are taught to read. Learning to read is the most important milestone of a child’s education. Yet, reading is not a universal part of the human experience. Writing is a recent cultural invention and reading is a learned skill whose mastery requires years of instruction, dedication, and practice. Kathy will walk us throug...
Dec 13, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep 302•Transcript available on Metacast Mary Bond is a former dancer, a Structural Integration practitioner and former Chair of the Rolf Movement® faculty of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. In addition to running movement workshops, she has authored many articles and two books: "The New Rules Of Posture" and "Your Body Mandala: Posture as a Path to Presence". Drawing on current anatomy research and neuroscience, Mary discusses how her work empowers people to change the way they inhabit their body. She shares foundational...
Dec 09, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep 301•Transcript available on Metacast From the bestselling authors and hosts of "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" podcast, Steven Novella, Jay Novella & Bob Novella visit Google to discuss their book "The Skeptics' Guide to the Future: What Yesterday's Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow." The book is a high-tech roadmap of the future, cracking open the follies of futurists' past and how technology will profoundly change our world, redefining what it means to be human. Our predictions of the future ar...
Dec 06, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep 300•Transcript available on Metacast In "How to Create a Mind, The Secret of Human Thought Revealed," futurist and author Ray Kurzweil explores the limitless potential of reverse engineering the human brain. Ray Kurzweil is arguably today's most influential—and often controversial—futurist. In "How to Create a Mind," Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization—reverse engineering the human brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even m...
Dec 02, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep 299•Transcript available on Metacast Astrophysicist and folklorist Dr. Moiya McTier visits Google to discuss her book "The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy." This approachable and fascinating autobiography of our galaxy details what humans have discovered about everything from its formation to its eventual death, and what more there is to learn about this galaxy we call home. After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching one hundred billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, and of hearing...
Nov 29, 2022•49 min•Ep 298•Transcript available on Metacast Weird Al Yankovic visits Google to discuss his new album "Mandatory Fun." He is best known for creating comedy songs that make light of pop culture and often parody specific songs by world-renown artists such as Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Queen, and many more. Since having a comedy song aired on The Dr. Demento Radio Show in 1976 at age 16, Yankovic has sold more than 12 million albums, recorded more than 150 parodies and original songs, and performed more than 1,000 live shows. His work has ea...
Nov 25, 2022•39 min•Ep 297•Transcript available on Metacast Dandapani visits Google to discuss his book "The Power of Unwavering Focus." Anxiety, stress, worry, and fear—these mental maladies are making us increasingly unhappy and unhealthy. Dandapani—argues that learning how to concentrate is the cure. "The Power of Unwavering Focus" distills his wisdom and learnings into a step-by-step guide to taking charge of your life by understanding the mind, harnessing awareness, and cultivating a concentration practice. Dandapani is a Hindu priest, entrepreneur,...
Nov 22, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep 296•Transcript available on Metacast Moriyasu Ito, a priest with the renowned Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo, visits Google to share the history of Shintoism and how it has become an important part of Japanese culture. He talks about how Shinto first started in Japan, the way of Shinto in life, and its numerous festivities and celebrations. According to Ito, Shinto can be difficult for many foreigners to understand because it is not organized in the same way as many Western religions; it does not have initiation rituals or even a spec...
Nov 18, 2022•25 min•Ep 295•Transcript available on Metacast Randall Munroe visits Google to discuss his book "What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions." The millions of people around the world who read the first "What If?" book still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone’s freezer door a...
Nov 15, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep 294•Transcript available on Metacast Richard Dawkins visits Google to discuss his book "The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True." Magic takes many forms. Supernatural magic is what our ancestors used in order to explain the world before they developed the scientific method. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting a goddess swallowed the sun. The Vikings believed a rainbow was the gods’ bridge to earth. The Japanese used to explain earthquakes by conjuring a gigantic catfish that carried the world on its...
Nov 11, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep 293•Transcript available on Metacast 
