Few can measure the impact of a blog post they wrote, in the millions of dollars a year, but Patrick McKenzie has the receipts. His 2012 post on salary negotiation is read hundreds of thousands of times each year, and he has a Gmail folder brimming with success stories. This achievement is just of his many contributions, which include starting several businesses, advising Stripe and other software companies, and spearheading the launch of VaccinateCA . Lately he's been writing Bits about Mone y ...
Jan 10, 2024•54 min•Ep 201•Transcript available on Metacast On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year in the show and more, including the most popular and underrated episodes, the origins of the show as an occasional event series, the most difficult guests to prep for, the story behind EconGOAT.AI , Tyler's favorite podcast appearance of the year, and his evolving LLM-powered production function. They also answer listener questions and conclude with an assessment of Tyler's top pop culture recommend...
Dec 27, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep 200•Transcript available on Metacast In her third appearance on the show, Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop joins Tyler and a group of special guests to celebrate the release of Invitation to a Banquet , her new book exploring the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. As with her previous appearance, this conversation was held over a banquet meal at Mama Chang and was hosted by Lydia Chang . As they dined, the group discussed why the diversity in Chinese cuisine is still only just being appreciated in th...
Dec 13, 2023•2 hr 42 min•Ep 199•Transcript available on Metacast John Gray is a philosopher and writer renowned for his critical examination of liberalism, atheism, and the human condition. His unique perspective is shaped over a decades-long career, during which he has authored influential books on topics ranging from political theory to what we can learn from cats about on how to live a good life. His latest book, The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism , delivers a provocative examination of the 2020s' political landscape, challenges liberal triumpha...
Nov 29, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 198•Transcript available on Metacast Jenn ifer Burns is a professor of history at Stanford who works at the intersection of intellectual, political, and cultural history. Shes written two biographies Tyler highly recommends: her 2009 book, G oddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and her latest, Milton Friedman: The Last Conservativ e, provides a nuanced look into the influential economist and public intellectual. Tyler and Jennifer start by discussing how her new portrait of Friedman caused her to reassess him, his ...
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr•Ep 197•Transcript available on Metacast Brian Koppelman is a writer, director, and producer known for his work on films like Rounders and Solitary Man, the hit TV show Billions , and his podcast The Moment , which explores pivotal moments in creative careers. Tyler and Brian sat down to discuss why TV wasnt good for so long, whether he wants viewers to binge his shows, how hed redesign movie theaters, why some smart people appreciate film and others dont, which Spielberg movie and Murakami book is under appreciated, a surprising fact ...
Nov 08, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 196•Transcript available on Metacast As a follow-up to the episode featuring Stephen Jennings , were releasing two bonus conversations showing the daily life, culture, and politics of Nairobi and Kenya at large. This second installment features Githae Githinji, a Kikuyu elder and businessman working in Tatu City, a massive mixed-used development spearheaded by Jennings . Born in 1958 and raised in a rural village, he relocated to seek opportunities in the Nairobi area where he built up a successful transportation company over decad...
Nov 02, 2023•45 min•Ep 195•Transcript available on Metacast As a follow-up to the episode featuring Stephen Jennings , were releasing two bonus conversations showing the daily life, culture, and politics of Nairobi and Kenya at large. This first installment features Harriet Muriithi. Harriet is a 22-year-old hospitality professional living and working in Tatu City, a massive mixed-used development spearheaded by Jennings. Harriet grew up in the picturesque foothills of Mount Kenya before moving to the capital city as a child to pursue better schooling. S...
Nov 02, 2023•43 min•Ep 194•Transcript available on Metacast Stephen and Tyler first met over thirty years ago while working on economic reforms in New Zealand. With a distinguished career that transitioned from the New Zealand Treasury to significant ventures in emerging economies, Stephen now focuses on developing new urban landscapes across Africa as the founder and CEO of Rendeavour. Tyler sat down with Stephen in Tatu City, one of his multi-use developments just north of Nairobi, where they discussed why hes optimistic about Kenya in particular, why ...
Nov 01, 2023•54 min•Ep 193•Transcript available on Metacast Jacob Mikanowski is the author of one of Tylers favorite books this year called Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land . Tyler and Jacob sat down to discuss all things Eastern Europe, including the differences between Eastern and Western European humor, whether Poles are smiling more nowadays, why the best Polish folk art is from the south, the equilibrium for Kaliningrad and the Suwaki Gap, how Romania and Bulgaria will handle depopulation, whether Moldova has an indepen...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr•Ep 192•Transcript available on Metacast Harvard professor Claudia Goldin has made a name for herself tackling difficult questions. What was the full economic cost of the American Civil War? Does education increase or lessen income inequality? What causes the gender pay gapand how do you even measure it? Her approach, which often involves the unearthing of new historical data, has yielded lasting insights in several distinct areas of economics. Claudia joined Tyler to discuss the rise of female billionaires in China, why the US gender ...
Oct 09, 2023•50 min•Ep 133•Transcript available on Metacast Ada Palmer is a Renaissance historian at the University of Chicago who studies radical free thought and censorship, composes music, consults on anime and manga, and is the author of the acclaimed Terra Ignota sci-fi series, among many other things. Tyler sat down with Ada to discuss why living in the Renaissance was worse than living during the Middle Ages, how art protected Florence, why shes reluctant to travel back in time, which method of doing history is currently the most underrated, whose...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep 191•Transcript available on Metacast Lazarus Lake is a renowned ultramarathon runner and designer. His most famous creation (along with his friend Raw Dog) is the Barkley Marathons, an absurdly difficult 100-mile race through the Tennessee wilderness that only 17 people have ever finished in its nearly 30-year existence. Tyler and Laz discuss what running 100 miles tells you about yourself that running 26 miles does not, why so many STEM professionals do ultramarathons, which skill holds people back the most, why his entrance fee i...
Sep 20, 2023•52 min•Ep 190•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode, Tyler sat down with Jerusalem Demsas, staff writer at The Atlantic, to discuss three books: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, and Of Boys and Men by Richard V. Reeves. Spanning centuries and genres and yet provoking similar questions, these books prompted Tyler and Jerusalem to wrestle with enduring questions about human nature, gender dynamics, the purpose of travel, and moral progress, including debating whether Le Guin prefer...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep 189•Transcript available on Metacast A five-time World Chess Champion, Vishy became India's first grandmaster at age 18, spurring a chess revolution in the country. Now 53, he is still a world top ten player and has been India's number one ranked player for 37 years. As newer talents emerge and old ones retire, Anand's continued excellence showcases an endurance seldom seen. Tyler and Vishy sat down in Chennai to discuss his breakthrough 1991 tournament win in Reggio Emilia, his technique for defeating Kasparov in rapid play, how h...
Aug 30, 2023•55 min•Ep 188•Transcript available on Metacast When Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen launched Marginal Revolution in August of 2003, they saw attracting a few thousand academic-minded readers as a runaway success. To their astonishment, the blog soon eclipsed that goal, and within a decade had become one of the most widely read economics blogs in the world. Just as remarkably, the blog maintained its relevance in its second decade, bringing in a new generation of readers without a dip in the pace or quality of the posts. As Alex and Tyler jest,...
Aug 23, 2023•59 min•Ep 187•Transcript available on Metacast Tyler and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham sat down at his home in the English countryside to discuss what areas of talent judgment his co-founder and wife Jessica Livingston is better at, whether young founders have gotten rarer, whether he still takes a dim view of solo founders, how to 2x ambition in the developed world, on the minute past which a Y Combinator interviewer is unlikely to change their mind, what YC learned after rejecting companies, how he got over his fear of flying, Floren...
Aug 09, 2023•55 min•Ep 186•Transcript available on Metacast Tyler sat down at Comedy Cellar with owner Noam Dworman to talk about the ever-changing stand-up comedy scene, including the perfect room temperature for stand-up, whether comedy can still shock us, the effect on YouTube and TikTok, the transformation of jokes into bits, the importance of tight seating, why he doesnt charge higher prices for his shows, the differences between the LA and NYC scenes, whether good looks are an obstacle to success, the oldest comic act he still finds funny, how come...
Jul 26, 2023•59 min•Ep 185•Transcript available on Metacast David Bentley Hart is an American writer, philosopher, religious scholar, critic, and theologian who has authored over 1,000 essays and 19 books, including a very well-known translation of the New Testament and several volumes of fiction. In this conversation, Tyler and David discuss ways in which Orthodox Christianity is not so millenarian, how theological patience shapes the polities of Orthodox Christian nations, how Heidegger deepened his understanding of Christian Orthodoxy, who played left...
Jul 12, 2023•56 min•Ep 184•Transcript available on Metacast In his second appearance, Reid Hoffman joined Tyler to talk everything AI: the optimal liability regime for LLMs, whether therell be autonomous money-making bots, which agency should regulate AI, how AI will affect the media ecosystem and the communication of ideas, what percentage of the American population will eschew it, how gaming will evolve, whether AIs future will be open-source or proprietary, the binding constraint preventing the next big step in AI, which philosopher has risen in impor...
Jun 28, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 183•Transcript available on Metacast Noam Chomsky joins Tyler to discuss why Noam and Wilhelm von Humboldt have similar views on language and liberty, good and bad evolutionary approaches to language, what he thinks Stephen Wolfram gets wrong about LLMs, whether hes optimistic about the future, what he thinks of Thomas Schelling, the legacy of the 1960s-era left libertarians, the development trajectories of Nicaragua and Cuba, why he still answers every email, what hes been most wrong about, and more. Read a full transcript enhance...
Jun 14, 2023•51 min•Ep 182•Transcript available on Metacast Peter Singer is one of the worlds most influential living philosophers, whose ideas have motivated millions of people to change how they eat, how they give, and how they interact with each other and the natural world. Peter joined Tyler to discuss whether utilitarianism is only tractable at the margin, how Peter thinks about the meat-eater problem, why he might side with aliens over humans, at what margins he would police nature, the utilitarian approach to secularism and abortion, what hes lear...
Jun 07, 2023•52 min•Ep 181•Transcript available on Metacast On good days, Seth Godin thinks about all the progress were making on climate change. On bad days, he thinks about the problem of racing bibs. Though pieces of paper safety-pinned to runners chests seem obviously outdated, the bibs persist, highlighting how difficult it can be to change a culture for the better. And yet Seth also persists to improve the culture around marketing and work, giving hundreds of talks, writing daily blog posts, and publishing 21 best-sellers. His latest, TheSongof Sig...
May 31, 2023•55 min•Ep 180•Transcript available on Metacast Whats more intense than leading the IMF during a financial crisis? For Simon Johnson, it was co-authoring a book with fellow economist (and past guest) Daron Acemoglu. Written in six months, their book Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, argues that widespread prosperity is not the natural consequence of technological progress, but instead only happens when there is a conscious effort to bend the direction and gains from technological advances away from...
May 17, 2023•53 min•Ep 179•Transcript available on Metacast As the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and the author of several acclaimed books on technology and culture, Kevin Kelly has long been known for his visionary ideas and insights. But his latest work, Excellent Advice for Living takes a different approach, drawing on his own experience and wisdom to offer practical tips and advice for navigating life's challenges. Naturally then, Kevin and Tyler start this conversation on advice: what kinds of advice Kevin was afraid to give, his worst...
May 03, 2023•52 min•Ep 178•Transcript available on Metacast Anna Keay is a historian who specializes in the cultural heritage of Great Britain. As the director of the Landmark Trust, she has overseen the restoration of numerous historical buildings and monuments, while also serving as a prolific author and commentator on the country's architectural and artistic traditions. Her book, The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown , was one of Tylers top picks for 2022. Tyler sat down with Anna to discuss the most plausible scenario where England couldve r...
Apr 19, 2023•50 min•Ep 177•Transcript available on Metacast Jessica Wade is a physicist at Imperial College London who, while spending her day working on special carbon-based materials that can be used as semiconductors, has spent her nights writing nearly 2,000 Wikipedia entries about underrepresented figures in science. That, along with numerous other forms of public engagementincluding writing a childrens book about nanotechnologyis all in an effort to actually do something productive to correct gender and racial biases in STEM. She joined Tyler to di...
Apr 05, 2023•56 min•Ep 176•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, Tyler uses ChatGPT to interview Jonathan Swift about his views on religion, politics, economics, and literature. GPT Swift discusses his support for the Church of Ireland, his shift from the Whigs to the Tories, and his opposition to William Wood's copper coinage in Ireland. He also talks about his works, including Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal , and his skepticism of moral and intellectual progress. Swift addresses rumors about his relationship with Esther Johns...
Mar 29, 2023•42 min•Ep 175•Transcript available on Metacast Historian Tom Holland joined Tyler to discuss in what ways his Christianity is influenced by Lord Byron, how the Book of Revelation precipitated a revolutionary tradition, which book of the Bible is most foundational for Western liberalism, the political differences between Paul and Jesus, why America is more pro-technology than Europe, why Herodotus is his favorite writer, why the Greeks and Persians didnt industrialize despite having advanced technology, how he feels about devolution in the Un...
Mar 22, 2023•53 min•Ep 174•Transcript available on Metacast Yasheng Huang has written two of Tylers favorite books on China: Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics , which contrasts an entrepreneurial rural China and a state-controlled urban China, and The Rise and Fall of the EAST , which argues that Keju Chinas civil service exam systemplayed a key role in the growth and expanding power of the Chinese state. Yasheng joined Tyler to discuss Chinas lackluster technological innovation, why declining foreign investment is more of a concern than a declinin...
Mar 08, 2023•54 min•Ep 173•Transcript available on Metacast 
