Brad DeLong, professor of economics at UC Berkley, OG econ blogger , and Tylers Harvard classmate, joins the show to discuss Slouching Towards Utopia , an economic history of the 20 th century thats been nearly thirty years in the making. Tyler and Brad discuss what can really be gleaned from the fragmentary economics statistics of the late 19th century, the remarkable changes that occurred from 1870-1920, the astonishing flourishing of German universities in the 19th century, why investment ban...
Feb 22, 2023•47 min•Ep 172•Transcript available on Metacast Economist and public intellectual Glenn Loury joined Tyler to discuss the soundtrack of Glenns life, Glenn's early career in theoretical economics, his favorite Thomas Schelling story, the best place to raise a family in the US, the seeming worsening mental health issues among undergraduates, what he learned about himself while writing his memoir, what his right-wing fans most misunderstand about race, the key difference he has with John McWhorter, his evolving relationship with Christianity, th...
Feb 08, 2023•48 min•Ep 171•Transcript available on Metacast Paul Salopek is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Geographic fellow who, at the age of 50, set out on foot to retrace the steps of the first human migrations out of Africa. The project, dubbed the Out of Eden Walk, began in Ethiopia in 2012 and will eventually take him to Tierra Del Fuego, a distance of some 24,000 miles. Calling in just as he was about to arrive in Xian, he and Tyler discussed his very localized supply chain, why women make for better walking partners, the key to...
Jan 25, 2023•46 min•Ep 170•Transcript available on Metacast Rick Rubin has been behind some of the most iconic and successful albums in music history, and his unique approach to production and artist development has made him one of the most respected figures in the industry. He joined Tyler to discuss how to listen (to music and people), which artistic movement has influenced him most, what Sherlock Holmes taught him about creativity, how streaming is affecting music, whether AI will write good songs, what he likes about satellite radio, whypro wrestling...
Jan 18, 2023•55 min•Ep 169•Transcript available on Metacast Katherine Rundell is, in a word, enthusiastic. Shes enthusiastic about John Donne. Shes enthusiastic about walking along rooftops. Shes enthusiastic about words, and stories, and food. She has often started her morning with a cartwheel and is currently learning to fly a small plane. A prolific writer, her many childrens books aim to instill the sense of discovery she still remembers from her own unruly childhood adventuresand remind adults of the astonishment that still awaits them. She joined T...
Jan 11, 2023•54 min•Ep 168•Transcript available on Metacast On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes talk about the past year on the show, including which guests hed like to have on in 2023, what stands out to him now about his conversation with Sam Bankman-Fried in light of the collapse of FTX, the most popular and most underrated episodes of the year, what makes a guest authentic, why he hasnt asked the production function question much this year, his essay on Marginal Revolution on the New Right, and what hes working on n...
Dec 28, 2022•53 min•Ep 167•Transcript available on Metacast Is classical music dying? For John Adams the answer is an emphatic no. Considered by Tyler to be Americas greatest living composer, he may well be one of the people responsible for keeping it alive. Johns contemporary classical music is some of the most regularly performed and he is well-known for his historically themed operas such as Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic, and most recently Antony and Cleopatra . He is also a conductor and author of, in Tylers words, a thoughtful and substantive autobi...
Dec 14, 2022•46 min•Ep 166•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to fighting climate change Jeremy Grantham is optimistic about technology but worried about timing. Known widely for his acuity in identifying bubbles, the British investor contends that the one created by our dependence on fossil fuels is about to pop. Hes on a mission to make green energy cheaper, faster and is well on his way. After a lifetime spent thinking about resources, hes using his to power the development of green technology. The Grantham Foundation has invested into 45 ...
Nov 30, 2022•40 min•Ep 165•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to historyparticularly American historynothing is ever definitive, says documentarian Ken Burns. Much of his work has focused on capturing that history in film, but in his new book, Our America: A Photographic History , his goal is to share the complexity of his country as well as honor those roots in still images. From the very first photograph, a self-portrait, to our modern inundation with selfies, he tells the story of us a story of darkness and light, just as in the photograph...
Nov 16, 2022•53 min•Ep 164•Transcript available on Metacast Mary Gaitskills knack for writing about the social and physical world with unapologetic clarity has led to her style being described both as " cold and brutal and tender and compassionate . Tyler considers her works The Mare , Veronica , and Lost Cat to be some of the best and most insightful American fiction in recent times. And lately shes taken to writing essays on Substack, where she frankly analyzes subjects that are vexing everybody , including incels, Depp v. Heard, and political fiction....
Nov 02, 2022•46 min•Ep 163•Transcript available on Metacast Reza Aslan doesnt mind being called a pantheist. In his own roundabout spiritual journey and study of the worlds religions, which has led him to write books on Islam , the life of Jesus Christ , God , and most recently an American martyr in Persia , he has come to believe the Sufi notion that religion is just a shell one must break through to truly understand Godand that if God is anything at all, then all is God. He joined Tyler to discuss Shia and Christian notions of martyrdom, the heroism of...
Oct 19, 2022•53 min•Ep 162•Transcript available on Metacast A leading expert in foreign policy, Walter Russell Mead believes his lack of a PhDand interest in actually going placeshas helped him avoid academic silos and institutional groupthink thats rendered the field ineffective for decades. Meads latest book , which explores the American-Israeli relationship, is characteristically wide-ranging and multidisciplinary, resulting in less a history of U.S.-Israel policy than a sweeping and masterfully told history of U.S. foreign policy in general, accordin...
Oct 05, 2022•52 min•Ep 161•Transcript available on Metacast When looking at the U.S. labor market, Byron Auguste sees too many job seekers screened out based on shallow signals like a bachelors degree, and too few screened in by directly demonstrating the skills needed for the job at hand. To close those opportunity gaps in the American workforce, Byron co-founded and runs Opportunity@Work, which played a key role in Marylands decision in early 2022 to drop four-year degree requirements for thousands of state jobs in favor of recruiting from those identi...
Sep 21, 2022•54 min•Ep 160•Transcript available on Metacast Vaughn Smith is fluent in eight languages but with a beginners grasp of at least thirty-six (and counting). His talents are so remarkable that the Washington Post did a feature story on him and neuroscientists at MIT requested he do a brain scan for them. But for Vaughn his language skills arent about attracting attention or monetary gain. Language is a key to someone's culture, to someone's world, he explains. Whether its watching a clients face light up when he speaks to them in their native t...
Sep 07, 2022•50 min•Ep 159•Transcript available on Metacast How can one identify and predict talent? On a search to answer this question and others like it, Tyler Cowen joined venture capitalist and entrepreneur Daniel Gross to explore the art and science of finding talent in their new book Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World . In a panel discussion hosted by Shruti Rajagopalan, Cowen and Gross discuss the applications of their new book, particularly how lifestyle characteristics can indicate an individual is capab...
Sep 01, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep 158•Transcript available on Metacast As a little girl, Cynthia Haven loved reading classic works of literature. At sixteen, she began her career as a reporter. And years later, those two interests converged as they led her to interview and write books about three writers and thinkers whom she also came to call mentors: Ren Girard, Czeslaw Milosz, and Joseph Brodsky. Cynthia joined Tyler to discuss what shes gleaned from each of the three, including what traits they have in common, why her biography of Girard had to come from outsid...
Aug 24, 2022•45 min•Ep 157•Transcript available on Metacast When Tyler is reviewing grants for Emergent Ventures, he is struck by how the ideas of effective altruism have so clearly influenced many of the smartest applicants, particularly the younger ones. And William MacAskill, whom Tyler considers one of the worlds most influential philosophers, is a leading light of the community. William joined Tyler to discuss why the movement has gained so much traction and more, including his favorite inefficient charity, what form of utilitarianism should apply t...
Aug 10, 2022•51 min•Ep 156•Transcript available on Metacast As an inquisitive reader, books were a cherished commodity for Leopoldo Lpez when he was a political prisoner in his home country of Venezuela. His prison guards eventually observed the strength and focus Lpez gained from reading. In an attempt to stifle his spirit, the guards confiscated his books and locked them in a neighboring cell where he could see but not access them. But Lpez didnt let this stop him from writing or discourage his resolve to fight for freedom. A Venezuelan opposition lead...
Jul 27, 2022•49 min•Ep 155•Transcript available on Metacast Fighting fires meant a lot of downtime for Matthew Ball. Stationed at a forward operating base in the woods for two weeks at a time, he spent long hours amongst fellow firefighters with whom he shared little in common except for their love of the outdoors. The skills he gained working towards mutual goals with those he had little else in common with has translated well to his career as a strategist and venture capitalist in the digital media and gaming industries. Ball is a managing partner of E...
Jul 13, 2022•56 min•Ep 154•Transcript available on Metacast Growing up, Barkha Dutt was totally rootless. She spoke English, not her parents Punjabi. She devoured Enid Blyton and studied English literature during college, but read few Indian novelists. She didnt even know her caste. This has opened her up to criticism as being a progressive elite who is out of touch with her heritage, and challenged her to be especially thoughtful in the way she examines the many overlapping values in Indian society. A successful broadcast journalist and columnist, she c...
Jun 29, 2022•52 min•Ep 153•Transcript available on Metacast Like the frontier characters from Deadwood , his favorite TV show, Marc Andreessen has discovered that the real challenge to building in new territory is not in the practicalities of learning a trade, but in developing a savviness for what makes people tick. Without understanding the deep patterns of human behavior, how can you know what to build, or who should build it, or how? For Marc, that means reading deeply in the humanities: I spent the first 25 years of my life trying to understand how ...
Jun 15, 2022•51 min•Ep 152•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to uphold disability rights, or the right to economic liberty? What framework should be used when rights appear to conflict? Constitutional law expert Jamal Greene contends that the way Americans view rightsas fundamental, inflexible, and universalis at odds with how the rest of the world conceives of them, and even with how our own founders envisaged them. In his new book, How Rights Went Wrong , he lays out his vision for reimagining rights as the products of political negoti...
Jun 01, 2022•48 min•Ep 151•Transcript available on Metacast If Tyler and Daniel's latest book can be boiled down into a single message, it would be that the world is currently failing at identifying talent, and that getting better at it would have enormous benefits for organizations, individuals, and the world at large. In this special episode of Conversations with Tyler , Daniel joined Tyler to discuss the ideas in their book on how to spot talent better, including the best questions to ask in interviews, predicting creativity and ambition, and the diff...
May 18, 2022•49 min•Ep 150•Transcript available on Metacast What causes war? Many scholars have spent their careers attempting to study the psychology of leaders to understand what incentivizes them to undertake the human and financial costs of conflict, but economist and political scientist Chris Blattman takes a different approach to understanding interstate violence. He returns for his second appearance on Conversations with Tyler to discuss his research into the political and institutional causes of conflict, the topic of his new book Why We Fight: T...
May 04, 2022•48 min•Ep 149•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to the enormous reduction of income inequality during the 20th century, Thomas Piketty sees politics everywhere. In his new book, A Brief History of Equality , he argues the rising equality during the 19th and 20th centuries has its roots not in deterministic economic forces but in the movements to end aristocratic and colonial societies starting at the end of the 18th century. Drawing this line forward, Piketty also contendswe must rectify past injustices before attempting to crea...
Apr 20, 2022•53 min•Ep 148•Transcript available on Metacast The best history, says Roy Foster, is written when we realize that people acted in expectation of a future that was never going to happen. While this is the case for many countries, its especially true of Irelandthe land of The Troubles, of colonization, of revolution and reforms. This sympathy within his scholarship sets Fosters work apart. Not content to simply document the facts of what did happen, hes undertaken the role of reconstructing the motivations that animated the Irish people throug...
Apr 06, 2022•59 min•Ep 147•Transcript available on Metacast A prolific translator, author, and former professor of creative writing, Lydia Daviss motivation for her lifes work is jarringly simple: she just loves language. She loves short, sparkling sentences. She loves that in English we have Anglo-Saxon words like underground or Latinate alternatives like subterranean. She loves reading books in foreign languages, discovering not only their content but a different culture and a different history at the same time. Despite describing her creative process ...
Mar 23, 2022•41 min•Ep 146•Transcript available on Metacast Whether its scaling an arbitrage opportunity or launching an ambitious philanthropic project, Sam Bankman-Fried has set himself apart. In just a few years, hes not only made billions trading crypto, but also become a leading practitioner of effective altruism, with the specific aim of making lots of money in order to donate most of it to high-impact causes. He joined Tyler to discuss the Sam Bankman-Fried production function, the secret to his trading success, how games like Magic: The Gathering...
Mar 09, 2022•50 min•Ep 145•Transcript available on Metacast How do you go about writing a book on an era that is, for many, recent history? When Chuck Klosterman set out to write his new book, The Nineties , he wasnt interested in representing it as a misremembered era or forcing a retrospective view into modern ideology. Rather than finding overlooked signposts that signaled events to come, he says, he wanted to capture what it actually felt like to experience that time the anxiety and excitement around scientific and technological progress, what it was...
Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Ep 144•Transcript available on Metacast Venture capital powered the tech revolution, but what powers venture capital? With his in-depth knowledge and coverage of the sector youd be forgiven for thinking Sebastian Mallaby is a veteran of the Silicon Valley scene. The author of several books on finance and economics, Sebastian takes pride in understanding his subjects intimately (perhaps too intimately, if you ask his critics). His latest book, Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future , sheds light on the small but mi...
Feb 09, 2022•56 min•Ep 143•Transcript available on Metacast 
