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

In these exclusive interviews, we talk to five of the world's most successful international footballers: Giorgio Chiellini, Louis Saha, Philip Neville, Leighton Baines and Hope Solo along with Jürgen Griesbeck (Founder, Street Football World). We discuss life as a footballer, how the game has grown to become the world's most…

 

Slack launched in 2014 and has become the fastest growing business application in history- allowing millions of people in tens of thousands of organisations around the world to get work done. I caught up with Slack Co-Founder, Stewart Butterfield to learn more about his entrepreneurship journey, and the changing global…

 

My conversation with Alfred Lin, Partner at Sequoia Capital- who have partnered early and at every stage of growth with the founders of companies that now have an aggregate, public market value of over $3.3 trillion.  Some of the firm’s most successful investments have been Apple, Google, Oracle, PayPal, Stripe,…

 

Sheryl Sandberg is a remarkable person.  Alongside leading a $500 billion business, with 24,000 employees and 2 billion monthly active users, she has mobilised millions of women around the world to achieve their ambitions and fight for a more gender equal society.  Sheryl’s own story of resilience came to light…

 

In this exclusive interview series, we speak to some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs: Sir Richard Branson (Founder of Virgin Group), Robin Li (Founder of Baidu), Sir James Dyson (Founder of Dyson), Professor Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Founder of Grameen Bank), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Founder of Biocon), N. R. Narayana…

 

Since 2009, entrepreneurs have raised investment capital of over $70 million after entering the shark tank. Kevin O’Leary is a Canadian-Irish serial-entrepreneur and investor who has been a shark since series 1 first aired.  I caught up with him to learn about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

 

San Francisco stands out, not just for its economic and cultural success story; but for the way it is approaching resilience, sustainability and dealing with the challenges every modern, globalised region is feeling.  To learn more about the past, present and future of San Francisco I spoke to Edwin Lee,…

 

In these exclusive interviews, we talk to two Philippe Starck and Olafur Eliasson, two of the world’s most prominent artists, designers and innovators. We explore the very fundamentals of why we design, why we make art and explore the relationship of art and design to our culture, economy, society and…

 

Explore an archive of more than 3,000 quotes.

What I realised was, that in studying other manufacturing companies, in particular Toyota, I could see that their mechanism for distributing responsibility and pushing it far down the organisation turned them into a creative enterprise! This is the opposite of what most people think, which is that the purpose of manufacturing is to reliably produce the same thing over and over again.

— Ed Catmull
Co-Founder of Pixar & Pioneer in Computer Graphics

There is something about the female psyche which is intensely social, and the most trivial conversations become part of the process of bonding. This perhaps is what causes the difference in message in sms, facebook, etc. They may appear trivial (e.g. I'm here, doing this) but there will be a lot more un-stated below the surface (i.e. I'm here talking to YOU and I'm happy to be talking to you rather than someone else) A form of commitment.

— Robin Dunbar
Evolutionary Psychologist Known for Dunbar's Number Theory

Chosen suffering is part and parcel of a meaningful life. If you don't have any chosen suffering in your life, you're probably not living the best life you could. To put it primitively, we're the mammal that likes Tabasco sauce! We're the only creature that seeks out suffering and pain willingly.

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

Lack of sleep is like a broken water pipe in your home, it leaks water into every nook and cranny, and erodes the fabric of your DNA nucleic alphabet that spells out your daily health narrative.

— Matthew Walker
Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep

Fundamentally, it's really hard to work on intellectual and complex projects collaboratively. Complexity is underestimated, even by the people who are in the thick of it.

— Stewart Butterfield
Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

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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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