Dr. Vikas Shah MBE DL Interviews the world's leading thinkers, and the people shaping the century.

600+
Interviews
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Quotes
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Readers
15+
Years
Nobel
Laureates & World Leaders

In this interview I speak to Dr Leanne ten Brinke - an award-winning psychologist and associate professor at the University of British Columbia, where she directs the Truth and Trust Lab. Drawing on more than two decades of research into the dark tetrad — psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism —…

 

In this interview I speak to Dr. Richard Socher — pioneer of neural NLP, inventor of widely used word vectors, and founder of You.com. He discusses his journey from contrarian Stanford researcher to building AI-powered search infrastructure, his vision for recursive self-improvement as the path to superintelligence, and his philosophy…

 

You know what to do. So why aren’t you doing it? In this interview, I speak to NYT bestselling author Nir Eyal — the man who wrote the book on habits, then the book on focus — argues the missing variable isn’t discipline or strategy. It’s belief. And belief, it…

 

Award-winning environmentalist Natalie Kyriacou OAM, author of Nature’s Last Dance, challenges our most fundamental assumptions about human intelligence, progress, and our relationship with nature — making a compelling case that wonder, storytelling, community, and active hope are our most powerful tools in the race against extinction.

 

World-renowned development economist Paul Collier has spent his life working in neglected communities. In this interview, we discuss his new book Left Behind, where he offers his candid diagnosis of why some regions and countries are falling further behind, and a new vision for how they can catch up. In…

 

In this interview I speak to Ben Lamm, the Co-Founder and CEO Of Colossal Biosciences (the world’s first de-extinction company) which he founded alongside world-renowned geneticist and serial biotech entrepreneur George Church, Ph.D. Colossal are the first business to apply CRISPR technology for the purposes of species de-extinction and work…

 

In this interview, I speak to Professor Paul Eastwick, Professor of Psychology at UC Davis, where he serves as head of the Social-Personality Psychology program and director of the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory. He has published over one hundred scientific articles and chapters, and his research has been featured…

 

Axiom is an AI company on a mission to build a self-improving, superintelligent reasoner, starting with an AI mathematician. The company launched out of stealth in 2024 with $64 million in seed funding at a $300 million valuation led by B Capital.  The Axiom team includes renowned AI and mathematics experts…

 

In this interview I speak to Rachel Botsman- author, designer, and lecturer renowned for her work on trust and societal change. A leading expert in the field, she has written three influential books—What’s Mine Is Yours, Who Can You Trust?, and How to Trust & Be Trusted—translated into 14 languages. As a…

 

Explore an archive of more than 3,000 quotes.

I think this goes into the history of psychology; for example, 100 years ago, we couldn't even measure what an emotion is. It's something in your head and in your brain, and we were always used to measuring behaviour, not people's psychological experiences. So just from that alone, it became less important because it wasn't observable behaviour, as if what people are thinking and feeling doesn't matter—which is obviously crazy; it does matter.

— Marc Brackett
Psychologist & Director of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

Mental wellness is an unwavering commitment to reality, regardless of the cost. Trauma, in this light, can be a powerful teacher, offering a stark glimpse of reality, a contrast to the daily bombardment of trivial concerns.

— Stef Reid
British Paralympic sprinter and long jumper; multiple Paralympic medals

I think that inequality within societies and between regions has become a key cause for conflict, exacerbated by rapid information dissemination, as people are now more aware of inequalities.

What feels similar is the pursuit — by artists and entrepreneurs — of the actualization of an idea borne in their minds; and then pursuing bringing this vision to reality. Especially at the beginning, it takes just the right amount of delusion to dedicate yourself to something ambitious. The reality is you're more likely to fail than succeed and so you need strong belief to commit your heart and soul to an idea; as well as a bit of over-optimism (delusion) to make the sacrifices they are often called for to bring anything to life.

— Perry Chen
Founder of Kickstarter, crowdfunding platform pioneer

There's a very strong relationship between depravation and drug use in many western cultures. It's not the sole reason- you do get the rich and mega-privileged using drugs... You can't go shouting from the rooftops that it's all about depravation... a lot of it is... but there are other social factors, personal factors, genetic factors and economic factors – all mixed into the pot.

— Griffith Edwards
Pioneering addiction medicine researcher and founder of addiction studies field

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Long-form Interviews with the World's Leading Thinkers — Thought Economics


The Wisdom Series

Ten in-depth articles distilling insights from over 550 interviews with the world's leading thinkers, creators, and changemakers.

The Wisdom of Leadership The Wisdom of Entrepreneurship The Wisdom of Creativity The Wisdom of Technology The Wisdom of Meaning The Wisdom of the Mind The Wisdom of Justice The Wisdom of Science The Wisdom of Geopolitics The Wisdom of Health
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