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

Francis Ngannou is a remarkable individual. He is currently the heavyweight champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and is ranked as having the hardest punch in the world. Francis Ngannou was born in the village of Batié (Cameroon), and grew up with very little: no home, no formal education, and…

 

Albert Wenger is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures (USV), a New York-based thesis-driven venture capital firm, where his investments have included Etsy, Twilio and MongoDB. Before joining USV, Albert was the President of del.icio.us from founding through the company’s sale to Yahoo. Albert graduated summa cum laude from…

 

Alibaba combines the economic might of Amazon, the penetration of Facebook, the ubiquity of Google and the cultural significance of YouTube. In China alone, Alibaba has over close to 1billion active customers and over 250,000 employees. At peak, the platform processed over 583,000 orders per second. Each year, Alibaba receives…

 

Jody Michael is one of the world’s top leadership coaches. She’s an internationally credentialed Master Certified Coach, Board Certified Coach, University of Chicago trained psychotherapist, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She has delivered over 40,000 hours of coaching over the last 25 years, including 15 years working in corporate leadership…

 

Dandapani is a Hindu priest, entrepreneur and a former monk of 10 years. After graduating university with a degree in Electrical Engineering he left it all behind to become a Hindu monk under the guidance of one of Hinduism’s foremost spiritual leaders of our time, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. For 10 years…

 

Mary Bekhait is one of the most powerful figureheads in the global entertainment industry. As Chief Executive of YMU Group, she leads an international business representing household name clients across music, sport, entertainment, literary, social, art and business management. In this interview, I speak to Mary Bekhait about the secrets…

 

Explore an archive of more than 3,000 quotes.

The cardinal rule in academic research is to base your assertions on citable evidence rather than conjecture. This principle sets Perplexity apart from ChatGPT, which has the freedom to generate content without such constraints. Perplexity, by design, is restricted to sourcing information directly from the web, eschewing any reliance on pre-existing knowledge within the model.

— Aravind Srinivas
CEO and Co-Founder of Anthropic, AI Safety Researcher

A lot of people think we're pleasure motivated hedonists, but it turns out we have many other goals. We want happiness, but that comes in many different forms. We want pleasure, we want to be good people, we want to make a difference in the world.

— Paul Bloom
Psychologist specializing in moral development and human nature research

To take the example to an extreme, consider how many real estate or private equity transactions are currently executed by a computer versus a human being. Being an 'alpha-less market maker' in such a market is not possible.

This is a sector that I have, in my book, projected to reach a net worth of $16 billion by 2022. Yet, in updating my figures for the book release, I found that the 2023 statistics have already surpassed that estimate, pegging the industry at an astounding $20 billion. The sheer size and influence of this industry are undeniably vast and potent.

Only relatively recently in our own culture, five hundred years or so ago, did a distinction arise that cut society in two, forming separate classes of music performers and music listeners.

— Hans Zimmer
Acclaimed film composer known for scores like The Lion King and Inception

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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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