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

In April 2010, the Economist reported, ��One of the lessons from TV is to accept change and get ahead of it. Broadcasters� initial response to the appearance of programmes online was similar to the music industry�s reaction to file-sharing: call in the lawyers. But television firms soon banded together to…

 

Professor Ronald Arkin is one of the world’s leading roboticists.  In 2009, he published a book entitled “Governing Lethal Behaviour in Autonomous Robots” which (as one review quoted) is, “….the most serious attempt to date to set out how to build an ethical robot.” The review continues, “This timely book…

 

April 20 (Bloomberg) “Stranded flyers created a surge in demand for travel industry Web sites and remote conferencing services as a shutdown of many flights in Europe continued through a sixth day.” Nothing Broke… That’s Important. The eruption of Eyjafjallajokull really caught the world off-guard, and created the levels of…

 

In the fields of political science and economics, you will commonly see discussion of the “Principal-Agent Problem” (also known as agency dilemma) which deals with the outcomes of situations of conflicted interest, or asymmetric information, where (for example) an agent (such as an investment manager) acting for a principal (such…

 

On March 29th 2010, The Economist reported that, “When the trials of four Rio Tinto employees opened in Shanghai last week, their guilty pleas to the first of the charges, of bribe-taking, dampened hopes that the matter might be settled without any severe penalties. Even so, the harshness of sentences…

 

In a statement issued on March 22nd 2010, Human Rights Watch said, “Google’s decision to stop censoring its Chinese search engine is a strong step in favour of freedom of expression and information, and an indictment of the Chinese government’s insistence on censorship of the internet…” They continued, “China is…

 

In this interview, we speak to Sir Richard Feachem, who is Professor of Global Health at both the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Global Health Group. Sir Feachem was also the founding Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight…

 

Recent economic events have brought the concept of financial bubbles from academic texts to the forefront of economic and commercial thought.  Whereas economies used to be slow laborious creatures, the globalisation of capital markets, and growth of technology within them, has increased the ‘speed’ of economies to a pace never…

 

“Just two days after Haiti’s earthquake, Leonel Fernández, the president of the neighbouring Dominican Republic, ordered a helicopter to fly him over the border for an unannounced visit. He was worried that his Haitian counterpart and friend, René Préval, was still incommunicado. What made this neighbourly gesture remarkable was that…

 

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Businesses have a tremendous amount of power to have impact through practices and business models that operate ethically, create useful goods and services, create jobs with dignity, and create opportunities in communities that may not have existed before.

— Andrew Kassoy
Co-Founder of Bridgewater Associates & Pioneer in Radical Transparency

We don't accept basis risk we don't accept counterparty risk- we don't want any fuzziness around what our payout is going to be conditional on the realising of this systematic left tail 'black swan' event.

— Mark Spitznagel
Hedge Fund Manager & Author of "The Black Swan" Risk Management

Happiness is a measure that reflects the success with which people achieve their personal objectives of living levels, happy and healthy families and satisfying work.

— Richard A. Easterlin
Economist known for the Easterlin Paradox on income and happiness

My father taught me an important lesson; when you get something, when you receive something, it's important to give back. This lesson is something that has really stuck with me through my whole life, and I've always tried to do social good as much as I can.

— Renzo Rosso
Founder and Chairman of Diesel fashion brand and Only The Brave Group

An object must be useful before being beautiful.

— Philippe Starck
Renowned French Industrial Designer & Architect Known for Innovative Product Design

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


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