Today

693. What’s Our Job as Humans Anymore?

It may just be being human. Stephen Dubner interviews A.I. performer Tilly Norwood to find out if we are as replaceable as we fear. (Part two of a two-part series.) SOURCES:Sean Astin, actor, president of SAG-AFTRA.Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired.Ethan Mollick, associate profess ... Show More

57m 32s

Oct 23

692. What Will A.I. Do to (and for) Human Creativity?

Writers, designers, actors, coders, musicians, thinkers — they’re all worried about being replaced by machines. But what if the A.I.s are actually here to help? (Part one of a two-part series.) SOURCES:Sean Astin, actor, president of SAG-AFTRA.Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired.Eth ... Show More

59m 9s

Oct 21

Are Private Equity Firms Plundering the U.S. Economy? (Update)

They say they make companies more efficient through savvy management. Critics say they bend the rules to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers and employees. Can they both be right? (Probably not.) SOURCES:Brendan Ballou, C.E.O. of the Public Integrity Project.Dan Glickbe ... Show More

48m 4s

Sep 2020

3. Kerwin Charles: “One Does Not Know Where an Insight Will Come From”

The dean of Yale’s School of Management grew up in a small village in Guyana. During his unlikely journey, he has researched video-gaming habits, communicable disease, and why so many African-Americans haven’t had the kind of success he’s had. Steve Levitt talks to Charles abo ... Show More

39m 29s

May 2022

Steven Bartlett

Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast tops the charts most weeks. But he rarely goes on other people’s podcasts. Making an exception for Tony he steps into the ring to chat all things anger. We hear about life growing up as the only black kid in a white area of Plymouth, racis ... Show More

56m 17s

Oct 2020

4. Ken Jennings: “Don’t Neglect the Thing That Makes You Weird”

It was only in his late twenties that America’s favorite brainiac began to seriously embrace his love of trivia. Now he holds the “Greatest of All Time” title on Jeopardy! Steve Levitt digs into how he trained for the show, what it means to have a "geographic memory," and why ... Show More

42m 18s

Oct 2020

You Used to Smile

The smart, opinionated, funny women who raised Saeed Jones—his mother and his grandmother—had a profound influence on his identity. But it was the things they couldn’t talk about that echoed the loudest with Saeed as he began to navigate adulthood, trying to figure out where he f ... Show More

45m 30s

Jan 2021

13. Yul Kwon: “Don't Try to Change Yourself All at Once.”

He has been a lawyer, an instructor at the F.B.I. Academy, the owner of a frozen-yogurt chain, and a winner of the TV show Survivor. Today, Kwon works at Google, where he helped build tools to track the spread of COVID-19. But things haven’t always come easily for him ... Show More

35m 13s

Jan 2021

Marcus Chambers: Olympian Hopeful and Motivational Speaker

“They thought because I was Black and fast that I enjoyed having low academic achievement”Marcus describes his initial successes, failures and what brought him back to success on the field, in academics and as a professional speaker. This interview is chalked full of great public ... Show More

35m 11s

Jul 2022

Black Sheep

We hear what it's like to grow up as the only person of colour in an English village from author and ultra marathon runner Sabrina Pace-Humphreys.

33m 8s

Nov 2022

Notes from America: 'Blackness (Un)interrupted'

So many of our perceptions of race have to do with color. How does that change if you've lived in both Black and white skin? Our Executive Producer Veralyn Williams, explores this question in conversation with her sister, Lovis. Lovis has vitiligo, a skin disease that causes loss ... Show More

29m 45s

Feb 2025

How little experiments can lead to big success | Emmanuel Acho and David Epstein

Are your goals and resolutions actually holding you back from becoming your best self? Emmanuel Acho — a former NFL player, now an author and TV sports analyst — sits down with investigative reporter David Epstein to explore why goal-setting often backfires. They dive into how le ... Show More

53m 45s

“One Does Not Know Where an Insight Will...