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

A Conversation with will.i.am Global Music Artist, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist “Entrepreneurship is about taking risks, pushing boundaries, and not being afraid to fail,” Sir Richard Branson told me, adding that it’s “a combination of passion, vision, creativity and a sense of adventure,” that drives entrepreneurs to do what they do….

 

A Conversation Matthew W. Barzun Ambassador of the United States of America to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Originally published in British Airways Business Life, September 2016 We often hear policy-makers talk of the ‘special-relationship’ between the United States of America and the United Kingdom, and…

 

How we can fix our broken nations, economies, societies and cultures.  In these exclusive interviews we speak to Professor Theodore Zeldin (International Best-Selling Author and Scholar), Rutger Bregman (Author, ‘Utopia for Realists’), Paul Mason (Award Winning British Journalist, Broadcaster and Author), Andy Stern (President Emeritus, Service Employees International Union) and…

 

In these exclusive interviews we talk to Dr. Vint Cerf (Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet"), Professor Robert ‘Bob’ Metcalfe (Co-inventor of the Ethernet, founder 3COM), Dr. Jeff Jaffe (CEO, W3C – The World Wide Web Consortium), Kevin…

 

Steve Ballmer served over 20 years at Microsoft.  During his tenure, the company pioneered personal computing and democratized enterprise computing, growing from a small start-up to a company that today employs more than 110,000 people, with a market capitalisation approaching $100 billion.  After retiring from this role in 2014, he…

 

In these exclusive interviews, we speak to Dr. Christopher Wild (Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, IARC - an intergovernmental agency forming part of the World Health Organisation of the United Nations), Prof. Nic Jones (Director of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre and former Chief Scientist of…

 

In this exclusive series of interviews, we speak to four world experts on religion and science.  Fr. José G. Funes (Director of the Vatican Observatory), Prof. Alister McGrath (Director, Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford University), Dr. Deborah Haarsma (President of the BioLogos Foundation), Prof. Justin Barrett…

 

In this exclusive series of interviews, we speak to six world experts on theatre and performance. Sir Howard Panter (Founder of the Ambassador Theatre Group Ltd, Chairman of Rambert Dance Company), Gilles Ste-Croix (co-founder of Cirque du Soleil), Joanna Read (Principal of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art…

 

Explore an archive of more than 3,000 quotes.

I've described celebrities as being 'double agents of the patriarchy,' and whilst things are getting better- and language is changing, we are still not always calling out those who fat shame or age shame women.

— Jameela Jamil
Actress & Mental Health Advocate; Host of "The Good Place

In the advanced countries, it is a very challenging time for people in the middle-income and middle-education range. They are being subjected to greater competition from labour saving technology.

— Michael Spence
Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

I think Groupon was preposterously overpriced, and Zynga was moderately overpriced. The principal problem with Groupon, in my opinion, is that they have a bad business model. It basically eats by selling their customers crack cocaine- telling them to cut their prices 50% for a selected number of people. If you do that enough? You wont have a business.

Working for international organisations, I was caught up in the belief that we could fix broken systems simply by introducing the right resources, processes, and intentions. However, I've come to realize that good intentions alone are insufficient. The lack of access to essential services isn't a matter of moral failing but rather a systemic inability to assess risk and generate profit from these assessments.

After working with esteemed leaders across six continents, I've observed that the singular trait they all share is their imperfection. Recognizing and embracing one's imperfections, while acknowledging that you don't have all the answers, is the foundation of great leadership.

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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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