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

Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and an internationally recognized leader on climate change. She was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2010 to 2016. During her tenure at the UNFCCC, Ms. Figueres brought together national and sub-national governments, corporations and activists,…

 

Jacqueline Gold CBE is Chief Executive of Ann Summers and Knickerbox and is renowned for managing a business run by women, for women. Jacqueline is an activist for women in business, championing female entrepreneurs and, through sharing her own experiences, aims to better the working environment for women. Her attitude…

 

In this exclusive interview, I speak to Professor Sir David Omand, one of Britain’s most senior ex-intelligence officers. He was the first UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, responsible to the Prime Minister for the professional health of the intelligence community, national counter-terrorism strategy and "homeland security". He served for seven…

 

Called the “closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience,” by The Atlantic magazine, Tristan Harris spent three years as a Google Design Ethicist developing a framework for how technology should “ethically” steer the thoughts and actions of billions of people from screens. He is now co-founder & president of…

 

Jaron Lanier is a renaissance man, and one of the most profoundly important thinkers of our age on the relationship of technology to humanity. He is a computer scientist, composer, artist, and author who writes on numerous topics, including high-technology business, the social impact of technology, the philosophy of consciousness…

 

Ally Brooke is an astonishing talent. Following her time in Fifth Harmony (described by Billboard as the biggest girl group of the 2010s’), the multiplatinum singer-songwriter kicked off her solo career with back-to-back Top 40 charting singles and an impressive resume of collaborations including “All Night” with Afrojack which marked…

 

Dr. Gad Saad is a remarkable public intellectual. Alongside hosting the Saad Truth (his hugely popular YouTube show) he is Professor of Marketing at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), and former holder of the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption. In addition to his scientific work,…

 

Over 3,500 businesses around the world, including household names such as Danone, Innocent and Patagonia, have taken the journey to become Certified B Corporations- committing to the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. B Corps are accelerating a…

 

David Miliband is President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where he oversees the agency’s humanitarian relief operations in more than 40 war-affected countries and its refugee resettlement and assistance programs in over 20 United States cities. In 2019 alone, the IRC provided 1,474,900 children with schooling and…

 

Explore an archive of more than 3,000 quotes.

The role of the architect is not just to create beautiful buildings, but to improve the quality of human life through the built environment.

— Richard Rogers
Renowned British Architect & Designer of Iconic Modern Buildings

Human beings seem like their default recreation is sedation. For some reason, getting drunk at a bar is the default in what people do for fun, which I find bizarre.

— Jeb Corliss
Professional BASE jumper and skydiver known for extreme cliff jumping

The crux of the matter is, the human journey is fraught with challenges. It's frequently marked by pain, confusion, and a feeling of helplessness. Herein lies the allure of fiction—it provides what reality often withholds. Fictions grant us a semblance of understanding, a hint of control, and a sense of community during times of solitude. This makes misinformation appealing, as it fulfils these basic human desires: comprehension, control, and community.

Fear depends on your context, and how much you think you have to lose. You may be young or broke and have nothing to lose. In that case? Either you figure out a way to get something, or you don't get it. Simple.

— Mark Cuban
Billionaire Investor, Shark Tank Investor & Dallas Mavericks Owner

The real scarcity today is attention to the importance of the question, to what end are we deploying this capital. The knowledge age economy is aspirational and that is where I believe we should aim for as we are clearly not there yet. We are in a limbo now, an interregnum phase and this is when everything is particularly unsettling.

— Albert Wenger
Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, early Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocate

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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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