In the new film Ex Machina , a reclusive billionaire invents a robotic artificial intelligence. To test whether his invention is indistinguishable from a human being, he helicopters-in a young engineer to see if he falls in love with the robot. Today, making machines and humans indistinguishable from each other is no longer science fiction, it’s good business. In fact, a wave of startups are part of a new trend that promises to radically simplify our lives by making it harder to determine whethe...
Oct 30, 2017•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast You walk into your first yoga class. You’re a little insecure about your weight and how your yoga clothes cling to your body revealing every flaw. You’re nervous about making a fool of yourself. Your eyes instantly zoom onto the fit model-esque people chatting in the corner. As you walk past them, your ears pick up the tinkle of laughter. My god, are they laughing at me? You pick a spot in the back of the classroom where no one can see you. The teacher asks everyone to get into crouching f...
Oct 23, 2017•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nir Eyal interviews author of Irresistible. Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/
Aug 21, 2017•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast To understand technology addiction (or any addiction for that matter) you need to understand the Q-tip. Perhaps you’ve never noticed there’s a scary warning on every box of cotton swabs that reads, “CAUTION: Do not enter ear canal…Entering the ear canal could cause injury.” How is it that the one thing most people do with Q-tips is the thing manufacturers explicitly warn them not to do? “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t see people come in with Q-tip-related injuries,” laments Jennifer ...
Aug 15, 2017•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: Here's How Alexa Hooks You https://www.nirandfar.com/2017/06/how-amazons-alexa-hooks-you.html Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/...
Aug 07, 2017•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Having a hard time focusing lately? You’re not alone. Research shows interruptions occur about every twelve minutes in the workplace , and every three minutes in university settings. In an age of constant digital interruptions, it is no wonder you’re having trouble ignoring distractions. In their new book, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World , Dr. Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist, and Dr. Larry Rosen, a psychologist, explain how our ability to pay attention works and what we ...
Jul 31, 2017•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Vanessa Van Edwards, lead investigator at the Science of People — a human behavior research lab. This exclusive book excerpt is from Vanessa’s new book, Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People , which was recently named as one of Apple’s Most Anticipated Books of 2017. We all want more conversions. More sign-ups, more sales, more clicks. And so we obsess over calls to action, user flow, and user-centric design. But there is one too...
Jul 24, 2017•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nir Eyal chats with author, Alexandra Watkins about her book, Hello, My Name is Awesome. Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/
Jul 17, 2017•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nir Eyal talks with Dan Olsen, author of The Lean Product Playbook. Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/
Jul 10, 2017•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Monica is a Research Scientist at the Stanford University Center for Compassion and Altruism and a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations. Their discussion touches on why empathetic teams make better business deals, details how more caring leaders can help prevent corporate scandals, and offers four steps for cultivating compassion. Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscrib...
Jul 03, 2017•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Not so long ago, my after work routine looked like this: After a particularly grueling day, I’d sit on the couch and veg for hours, doing my solo version of “ Netflix and chill ,” which meant keeping company with a cold pint of ice cream. I knew the ice cream, and the sitting, were probably a bad idea, but I told myself this was my well-deserved “reward” for working so hard. Psychological researchers have a name for this phenomenon: it’s called “ego depletion.” The theory is that willpower is co...
Jun 26, 2017•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Recently, I needed to book a lunch meeting. To help coordinate, I asked Amy to assist and cc’d her on the email. “Amy,” I wrote, “please help us find a time to meet. Let’s plan for sushi at Tokyo Express on Spear Street.” Amy looked at my calendar, found an open time suitable for everyone invited, and booked the meeting. Amy works just like a human assistant, except she’s not human. It’s an AI bot made by X.ai , a company specializing in scheduling assistants that respond to natural language. Am...
Jun 19, 2017•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast All products and services, everything we buy and use, have but one job—to modulate our mood. The fundamental reason we use technology of all sorts, from stone tools to the latest iPhone, is to make us feel better. To prove the point, consider how perception of relief is tantamount to actual relief. Consider the so-called placebo button. Take, for example, the lowly crosswalk button. When we find ourselves at an intersection, waiting for a light to change, we tap the button, sometimes more t...
Jun 12, 2017•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alison Levine, author of "On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme Environments" talks with Nir Eyal Get Alison's book here: http://amzn.to/2hHe6o6 Subscribe to Nir's blog and receive a free workbook: http://nirandfar.com/subscribe ...
Jun 05, 2017•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Around the election, in a desperate search for answers about our nation’s future, I found myself scrolling, reading, and watching everything I could. I was trapped in an endless pull-to-refresh cycle of consuming more news, tweets, posts, and videos than was good for me. I told myself that I was staying informed, that this was part of my civic duty—and that not staying up-to-date 24-7 would leave me politically ignorant and impotent. I’ve since changed my mind. In fact, I’ve decided to give up c...
May 29, 2017•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast DJ Khaled, the one-man internet meme, is known for warning his tens of millions of social media followers about a group of villains he calls “they.” “ They don’t want you motivated. They don’t want you inspired,” he blares on camera. “ They don’t want you to win,” he warns . On Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show, Khaled urged the host , “Please, Ellen, stay away from them !” You can read the Nir and Far blog post on How to Achieve Your Goals By Creating an...
May 22, 2017•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast The subject line read: “did you see this?” The message was from my editor Jen. “Nir, I saw the headline on this story and thought it might be written by you—but no!” she wrote. “Very weird.” I instantly clicked on the link she’d sent. It was uncanny! An article written by Christopher Mele at the New York Times , freakishly similar to a post I’d written but hadn’t yet published . You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: What Do You Do When Someone “Steals” Your Amazing Idea? https://www.nirandf...
May 15, 2017•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you’ve started a tech company to make a lot of money, chances are you’re bad at math—or simply delusional. Statistically speaking, your odds of a big-time payday are somewhere between zero and almost zero. Ninety-two percent of startups fail within three years . Only one percent of apps in the Apple App Store are financially successful. And even for the fortunate few companies that raise venture funding, seventy-five percent will fail to generate a return on investors’ capital. Yo...
May 08, 2017•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast There’s a saying that you should never trust a skinny chef. By that logic, you should never trust an out of shape behavioral designer . Over the past four years, I’ve discovered many incredible ways to hack my habits and improve my life. I have taught myself to love running, dramatically improved my diet and found the focus to write a bestselling book . Understanding how the mind works and using it to affect my daily behaviors has yielded tremendous dividends. Nir & Far, a podcas...
Apr 25, 2017•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet (the company formerly known as Google), has a quirky way of deciding which companies he likes. It’s called “The Toothbrush Test.” According to the New York Times , when Page looks at a potential company to acquire, he wants to know if the product is, like a toothbrush, “something you will use once or twice a day.” Page clearly understands habits. As I wrote in my book, “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products ,” frequently used products form sticky customer habits...
Apr 17, 2017•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast My taxi pulled up to the hotel. I got out my credit card and prepared to pay for the ride. The journey was pleasant enough but little did I know I was about to encounter a bit of psychological trickery designed to get me to pay more for the lift. Chances are you’re paying more, too. Digital payment systems use subtle tactics to increase tips, and while it’s certainly good for hard-working service workers, it may not be so good for your How Technology Tricks You Into Tipping More https...
Apr 11, 2017•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I’m endlessly loyal,” my wife said, staring straight into my eyes. But she wasn’t talking about our marriage — she was pledging her allegiance to a piece of software. “I’ll never quit Microsoft Office,” she told me. “It does too much for me to leave it.” For a moment I wondered if her husband had engendered the same reverence, but then I remembered things at Microsoft aren’t all wine and roses. In fact, the conversation with my wife was sparked by a debate over switching from Office to Google D...
Apr 03, 2017•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fitness apps are all the rage. An explosion of new companies and products want to track your steps and count your calories with the aim of melting that excess blubber. There’s just one problem — most of these apps don’t work. In fact, there is good reason to believe they make us fatter. One study called out “the dirty secret of wearables,” citing that “these devices fail to drive long-term sustained engagement for a majority of users.” Endeavour Partners’ research found “more than half of U.S. c...
Mar 27, 2017•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast I don’t usually write about personal and revealing matters, but recently I’ve noticed something I don’t like about myself–I check email too often. This confession doesn’t come easily, because, ironically, I am the author of a book titled Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products . It is a guidebook for designing technology people can’t put down. There’s just one problem–I can’t put my technology down. You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: Email Habits: How to Use Psychology to Regai...
Mar 20, 2017•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Four minutes into pitching the wonders of his invention to an influential reporter, Patrick Paul gets hit with the kind of snarky comment startup entrepreneurs dread. Paul is the founder of Hemingwrite , a “distraction free writing tool with modern technology like a mechanical keyboard, e-paper screen and cloud backups.” You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: Latest Tech Trends: Products to Eliminate Distractions and Increase Willpower https://www.nirandfar.com/2015/02/distraction-tech...
Mar 13, 2017•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast I had just finished giving a speech on building habits when a woman in the audience exclaimed, “You teach how to create habits, but that’s not my problem. I’m fat!” The frustration in her voice echoed throughout the room. “My problem is stopping bad habits. That’s why I’m fat. Where does that leave me?” I deeply sympathized with the woman. “I was once clinically obese,” I told her. She stared at my lanky frame and waited for me to explain. How did I hack my habits? You can read the Nir and Far b...
Mar 07, 2017•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you are among the 19 million people Apple predicts will buy an Apple Watch, I have some bad news for you — I’m betting there is an important feature missing from the watch that’s going to drive you nuts. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy one. In fact, I’m ordering one myself. However, this paradox illustrates an important lesson for the way companies design their products. You can read the Nir and Far blog post on Here’s Why You’ll Hate the Apple Watch (and the Important Business Lesson You...
Mar 07, 2017•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Let’s say you’ve built the next big thing. You’re ready to take on the world and make billions. Your product is amazing and you’re convinced you’ve bested the competition. As a point of fact, you know you offer the very best solution in your market. But here’s the rub. If your competition has established stronger customer habits than you have, you’re in trouble. The cold truth is that the better product does not necessarily win. However, there’s hope. The right strategy can crowbar the competiti...
Mar 07, 2017•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Feb 28, 2017•1 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
