161. How to Captivate an Audience

At 27— and without a college degree — she was named chief technology officer of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Today, Marina Nitze is trying to reform the foster care system. She tells Steve how she hacked the V.A.’s bureaucracy, opens up about her struggle with Type 1 diabe ... Show More

He’s one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, with a focus on the physiological effects of stress. (For years, he spent his summers in Kenya, alone except for the baboons he was observing.) Steve asks Robert why we value human life over animals, why he’s lost faith in the crim ... Show More

In addition to publishing best-selling books about pregnancy and child-rearing, Emily Oster is a respected economist at Brown University. Over the course of the pandemic, she’s become the primary collector of data about Covid-19 in schools. Steve and Emily discuss how she became ... Show More

<p>Giving up can be painful. That's why we need to talk about it. Today: stories about glitchy apps, leaky paint cans, broken sculptures — and a quest for the perfect bowl of ramen. (Part three of a <a href="https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/how-to-succeed-at-failing/">four-pa ... Show More

<p>Hit by Covid, runaway costs, and a zillion streams of competition, serious theater is in serious trouble. A new hit play called <i>Stereophonic — </i>the most Tony-nominated play in history — has something to say about that. We speak with the people who make it happen every ni ... Show More

<p>You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational decisions. But that’s what Richard Thaler has done. In an interview from 2018, the founder of behavioral economics describes his unlikely route to success; his reputation for being l ... Show More

<p>Arthur Brooks, an economist and former head of the American Enterprise Institute, believes that there is only one remedy for our political polarization: love. In this 2021 episode, we ask if Brooks is a fool for thinking this — and if perhaps you are his kind of fool?</p><p> < ... Show More

<p>In this episode we first published in 2021, the political scientist Yuen Yuen Ang argues that different forms of government create different styles of corruption — and that the U.S. and China have more in common than we’d like to admit.</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCES:</str ... Show More

<p>It’s a powerful biological response that has preserved our species for millennia. But now it may be keeping us from pursuing strategies that would improve the environment, the economy, even our own health. So is it time to dial down our disgust reflex?  You can help fix things ... Show More