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When Do Leaders Actually Matter? A Conversation with Jared Diamond on Discretion, Timing and the Hamlet Test

In this interview, I spoke to Professor Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, about when individual leaders genuinely change outcomes. We discussed discretion, timing, his Hamlet Test for irreplaceability, assassination as a…

Vikas Shah 24 min read

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Three thousand moments. Three picked at random.

“Nobody will fund innovation in perpetuity – you need to make money; you need to deliver value to your customers. When people ask me whether we want growth or profit, I say yes! Both!”
— Christopher Payne
“99.9% of the time, you are not in a burning building- and that is precisely the time to think about what you would do in that 0.1% of time when it is on fire. A lack of information and preparedness in an emergency or crisis can be the difference between carrying yourself through, and sometimes, catastrophic outcomes.”
— Chris Hadfield Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander
“Cryptocurrencies follow a 3–4-year cycle that seems to repeat. We have 'crypto winter' which is when media interest is generally low, then sudden price rises that bring attention and cascading hype. I don't think of cryptocurrencies on the whole as being a bubble, but rather that they are bubbly-terrain depending on where we are in the cycle.”
— Michel Rauchs

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  1. 01 Business & Economics A Conversation with Jesper Kouthoofd, Founder of Teenage Engineering, on Design, Play and Why Every Product Is an Illusion 363 interviews
  2. 02 Culture, Society, Sports & Arts A Conversation with Jesper Kouthoofd, Founder of Teenage Engineering, on Design, Play and Why Every Product Is an Illusion 237 interviews
  3. 03 Politics & Policy From the Minefields of Kuwait to Sandhurst: A Conversation with Major General Arthur Denaro on War, Leadership and Peace 170 interviews
  4. 04 Science & Technology We Are Not Alone: A Conversation with Jonathan Caplan KC on the Evidence for UAPs, Non-Human Intelligence and Why It Was Never Disclosed 136 interviews
  5. 05 Health & Medicine The Continuum of Mind: A Conversation with Professor Michael Levin on Cognition, Bioelectricity and the Future of Being 74 interviews
  6. 06 Nobel Laureates Markets, Morals and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Professor Alvin Roth 21 interviews

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