If great leaders are those willing to suffer for their beliefs, Leopoldo Lopez is certainly a great leader. After he led the massive 2014 Venezuelan protests that swept the nation, the regime of Nicolás Maduro sentenced Leopoldo to over a decade of political imprisonment. He suffered four years of solitary confinement and psychological torture before he esca ... Show More
Mar 24
AI Can Do Everything… Except This (Why Humans Still Win) With Restaurateur Will Guidara
As businesses race toward faster systems, smarter tools, and total automation, something critical is getting lost: human connection. And ironically, the rise of AI is making that gap impossible to ignore. In this episode, I sit down with returning guest and close friend Will Guid ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 17
Revisited: What Dying Teaches Us About Living with Death Doula Alua Arthur
Team Simon here! While A Bit of Optimism is on a short break, we’re revisiting a few episodes you helped make some of our favorites. We’ll be back with brand-new conversations next week, on March 24th, 2026. In the meantime, we’re bringing back an episode that explores a word mos ... Show More
45m 7s
Jan 2023
Leopoldo Lopez: Has Venezuela’s opposition been outmanoeuvred?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Leopoldo Lopez, a key leader of Venezuela’s opposition. Once a political prisoner, now in exile in Spain, his efforts to topple the socialist regime led by Nicolas Maduro have been thwarted. Has Venezuela’s pro-democracy movement been outmanoeuvred?
23m 46s
Mar 2020
Les paradoxes de Pinochet. Michel Faure. Partie
Ancien Grand reporter à L'Express, où il a couvert l'Amérique latine, Michel Faure est l'auteur de plusieurs ouvrages consacrés à cette zone et d'une biographie de Pinochet parue chez Perrin (2020).Il montre la complexité de cette personne, dictateur qui quitte le pouvoir aprè ... Show More
36m 4s
Nov 2022
Brazil’s Lula joins leftist leaders pushing for change in Latin America
<p>Brazil joins a group of Latin American countries that have elected leftwing leaders. What kind of change will they bring to the region and its relations with the rest of the world? Michael Stott, the FT’s Latin America editor, discusses these questions with Andrés Velasco, dea ... Show More
29m 47s