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

Money is a strange phenomenon. Our modern notion of it mean that (in essence) it is intrinsically useless apart from as a medium of exchange. Our government, regulators, law and communities agree that phenomena (whether a physical banknote or an electronic ledger such as a bank account) have certain value,…

 

  Many of recent history’s most significant market events have manifest in what was (previously) the extreme of the market.  These “bubbles” and “crashes” follow power laws, meaning that (in theory) they could reach any size and fundamentally threaten the functionality of the entire financial system. Typical central-bank and policy…

 

It’s quite conceivable that the grandparents (or even parents) of the future will be  made to feel even more archaic as the young of that generation look at them quizzically and state “…are you serious? You used to use bits of paper as money?!” Money is a cultural abstract.   It…

 

In these exclusive interviews, we speak to Dr. Julio Frenk (Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, and former Minister of Health of Mexico), Sir Richard Thompson (President of the Royal College of Physicians), Baron Peter Piot (Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and Dame…

 

To really understand how economies behave, we must therefore understand the psychology of entrepreneurs and other key market participants.  To learn more, I spoke with Professor Daniel Kahneman, who is widely regarded as being the world’s most influential living psychologist.  In 2002 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics…

 

In this exclusive interview, we speak with Prof. Jill Tarter (Co-Founder and Bernard M. Oliver Chair of the SETI Institute). We discuss her lifelong work with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute and look at mankind's quest to answer the fundamental question of whether we are alone in the…

 

“Behold, the lewd, pornographic embrace of two great American pathologies…” wrote David Simon,  “Race and guns, both of which have conspired not only to take the life of a teenager, but to make that killing entirely permissible.  I can’t look an African-American parent in the eye for thinking about what…

 

Originally Published in Entrepreneur Country, July 2013 “Throughout much of history… ” writes  Prof. Edward Barbier,  “a critical driving force behind global economic development has been the response of society to the scarcity of key natural resources, such as land, forests, fish, fossil fuels and minerals.  Increasing scarcity raises the cost of exploiting…

 

Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association Originally Published at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2013/06/17/the-truth-about-executive-pay/ There is little doubt that we are facing tough times for the economy.  Rising unemployment, austerity and many other factors have meant that the average person feels considerably worse off…

 

Originally published in Global ARC. Vikas Shah interviews Alan S. Blinder (the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University) who served as Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from June 1994 until January 1996. In this position, he represented…

 

An interview with Eileen Bartholemew, Vice President of Prize Development at the X Prize Foundation. “For most of history…” notes Rachael King, “the thrill of solving life’s thorny problems has provided ample incentive for inventors. Yet the promise of fortune and fame doesn’t hurt. Over the past few centuries, governments…

 

Explore an archive of more than 3,000 quotes.

We tend to remember the things in life that deliver the biggest emotional wallop. Music ties into memory in two ways. First, music itself can be tremendously impactful, so we remember it — and we also remember everything happening around us when we heard it. That makes them highly effective memory tags, because they're anchored to a very specific time and place.

— Daniel J. Levitin
Neuroscientist & author of "This Is Your Brain on Music

You have to step back and focus on the merits of the offer- not the person who brought the offer to you. That's how you defend yourself. You recognise that there's something that goes on first as important as the message itself inclining you towards purchase or agreement.

— Robert Cialdini
Influence & Persuasion Expert; Author of "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

I knew I could still fight, and some of the people close to me said, 'not with one eye you can't' so I continued anyway... I lied, I cheated and scammed the system... I did whatever I could. It was highly stressful, but I believed in myself.

— Michael Bisping
Former UFC Middleweight Champion & MMA fighter turned commentator

I give all of you permission whereby, if I change the way I behave, my beliefs, the way we are going, I give you permission to hit me in my face, you need to bring me back to reality.

— Hamdi Ulukaya
Founder and CEO of Chobani Greek Yogurt Company

What the verdict says, to the astonishment of tens of millions of us, is that you can go looking for trouble in Florida, with a gun and a great deal of racial bias, and you can find that trouble, and you can act upon that trouble in a way that leaves a young man dead, and none of it guarantees that you will be convicted of a crime.

— Andrew Cohen
Founder of Integral Institute & Author on Evolutionary Spirituality

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


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