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

The Arctic Circle is a remote, beautiful, and critical part of our planet. Covering one sixth of the Earth’s surface, and over twenty-four time zones, this region is home to more than four million people, and is critically important to keeping our world’s climate, weather, and oceans in balance. Like…

 

All of us face challenges, rough patches and struggles in life. During these times we are often our own worst enemy, experiencing unwelcome emotions, thinking and behaviours. Professor Steve Peters is author of the bestselling book, The Chimp Paradox, which has sold over 1.4 million copies since release in 2012.…

 

Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding – and appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that doubled its lifespan, sequenced its genome, and developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures, conspiracy theories, and “post-truth” rhetoric?…

 

We are living through the most prosperous age in human history, but we are hurtling toward destruction. People are more listless, divided, and miserable than ever, and our civilization faces numerous existential threats, any one of which could take us out – whether it’s climate change, a Carrington Event, a…

 

Digitisation is a massive and massively important trend – one accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. But despite fervent preaching from the Silicon Valley faithful, it’s not the only kind of competency that matters. Silicon Valley veteran and Stanford lecturer Robert E. Siegel argues that amid the incessant drumbeat of digital…

 

The challenges societies face today, from inequality to climate change to systemic racism, cannot be solved with yesterday’s toolkit. Solving Public Problems shows how readers can take advantage of digital technology, data, and the collective wisdom of our communities to design and deliver powerful solutions to contemporary problems. In Solving…

 

Anil Seth’s quest to understand the biological basis of conscious experience is one of the most exciting contributions to twenty-first-century science. What does it mean to “be you”—that is, to have a specific, conscious experience of the world around you and yourself within it? There may be no more elusive…

 

Dr. Robert Cialdini has spent his entire career conducting scientific research on what leads people to say “Yes” to requests. The results of his research, his ensuing articles, and New York Times bestselling books have earned him an acclaimed reputation as a respected scientist and engaging storyteller. His books, including…

 

In 2009, a St. Louis glassblowing artist and recovering computer scientist named Jim McKelvey lost a sale because he couldn’t accept American Express cards. Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a…

 

Abigail E. Disney advocates for real changes to the way capitalism operates in today's world. She has worked for thirty years with programs for low-income families, women's rights, and global poverty. She is an Emmy- Winning Documentary Filmmaker and co-founder of Fork Films, a nonfiction media production company, which produces…

 

Explore an archive of more than 3,000 quotes.

Here I am the fool looking to fail frequently. I want to either hit a homerun or walk or even strike out. This means I fail far more often than I succeed. But the important point is that what I lose when I fail is trivial, epsilon compared to what I make when I succeed.

— Mark Spitznagel
Hedge Fund Manager & Author of "The Black Swan" Risk Management

I believe the traditional perception, which posits that success is merely an accumulation of advantages while failure is an accumulation of disadvantages, is overly simplistic. It's the disadvantages that offer a more fertile ground for learning, albeit for a smaller cohort. The depth of learning and engagement derived from tackling difficulties is substantially richer compared to that gleaned from facing advantages.

— Malcolm Gladwell
Author of "The Tipping Point" & Popular Cultural Theorist

We've ended up with organizations that are less capable than the people inside them- which is a little ironic when you think about it. Research shows that 89% of people are happy with the actual tasks of their work yet are frustrated with the work-environment- they are bothered by how they're managed not what they do.

— Gary Hamel
Management theorist & author who revolutionized strategic thinking

The notion that the Google or Chrome app could become redundant on mobile devices isn't far-fetched. In a future where direct URL visits are less common, the convenience of an all-encompassing app could significantly alter how we interact with our devices.

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

We must stand up and say that a business model based on secretly tracking us in order to find, and exploit, weaknesses in our attention is not acceptable. It's immoral.

— Johann Hari
Journalist and author known for books on addiction and depression

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


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