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

600+
Interviews
3,000+
Quotes
1m+
Readers
15+
Years
Nobel
Laureates & World Leaders

I speak to Nobel Prize Winner, Professor Alvin Roth on 'Moral Economics', exploring repugnant transactions — exchanges willing parties want but others would ban. Drawing on kidney exchange, vaccine challenge trials, surrogacy, drugs and medical aid in dying, he argues most contested markets cannot be abolished, only relocated, and must…

 

In this interview, I speak to Professor Andrés Velasco — Dean of LSE’s School of Public Policy, Chile’s former Finance Minister, and co-editor of The London Consensus. He argues that ideas, not interests, drive policy and makes the case for principles over prescriptions, wellbeing beyond GDP, narrative as a tool…

 

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…

 

Explore an archive of more than 3,000 quotes.

With technology, we're creating a lot more hammers – and with more hammers, we're able to find more nails. The question is whether those hammers are being made for the right purposes, and whether they will serve the right purpose. I often worry that when we talk about health-tech – it almost seems that in certain areas the tech is taking over the health.

The greatest risk often lies in people's biased perceptions of risk itself. The challenge is: how do you debias risk when everyone's perception of it is inherently biased?

— Bent Flyvbjerg
Leading researcher on megaprojects, planning, and governance expert

We are the first generation that through its neglect could destroy the relationship between humans and the planet, and perhaps the last generation that can prevent dangerous climate change.

— Nicholas Stern
Economist Known for Stern Review on Climate Change Economics

The single best way to have a great idea is to produce lots of ideas. The number of new ideas your organization can produce is a metric for its ability to generate novel solutions to any given problem. Your ideaflow is the most crucial business metric that you've never considered.

— Jeremy Utley
Co-Author of "Ideaflow" & Design Thinking Expert at Stanford

Some of my greatest rewards have been when I jumped off the cliff and figured out how to fly on the way down.

— Matthew McConaughey
Academy Award-Winning Actor Known for Dallas Buyers Club Role

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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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