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When Do Leaders Actually Matter? A Conversation with Jared Diamond on Discretion, Timing and the Hamlet Test

In this interview, I spoke to Professor Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, about when individual leaders genuinely change outcomes. We discussed discretion, timing, his Hamlet Test for irreplaceability, assassination as a…

Vikas Shah 24 min read

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Three thousand moments. Three picked at random.

“The key danger is that regulators try to remove all the risk from the marketplace- this cannot be the case. There has to be risk in all these products, and if they try to remove them too much, they'll create vanilla products that simply cannot deliver.”
— Julian Korek
“In the case of Brazil, one of the most important things is the huge ethnic and cultural mixture which makes us a country with dynamism, vibrancy, and the ability to understand the psychology of other nations.”
— Celso Amorim Brazilian Diplomat & Foreign Minister under Lula's Presidency
“[the impact of the internet on liberty and free speech has been] very positive indeed – not so much two steps forward and one step back, as ten steps forward for every step back. By breaking the oligopoly of the established press and letting everyone be a publisher, it has made information much harder for the powerful to control.”
— Professor Ross Anderson Cambridge computer scientist specializing in security engineering and cryptography

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  1. 01 Business & Economics A Conversation with Jesper Kouthoofd, Founder of Teenage Engineering, on Design, Play and Why Every Product Is an Illusion 363 interviews
  2. 02 Culture, Society, Sports & Arts A Conversation with Jesper Kouthoofd, Founder of Teenage Engineering, on Design, Play and Why Every Product Is an Illusion 237 interviews
  3. 03 Politics & Policy From the Minefields of Kuwait to Sandhurst: A Conversation with Major General Arthur Denaro on War, Leadership and Peace 170 interviews
  4. 04 Science & Technology We Are Not Alone: A Conversation with Jonathan Caplan KC on the Evidence for UAPs, Non-Human Intelligence and Why It Was Never Disclosed 136 interviews
  5. 05 Health & Medicine The Continuum of Mind: A Conversation with Professor Michael Levin on Cognition, Bioelectricity and the Future of Being 74 interviews
  6. 06 Nobel Laureates Markets, Morals and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Professor Alvin Roth 21 interviews

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