Editor’s pick All Interviews
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…
In this interview, I spoke to Major General Arthur Denaro, who led his regiment through sixteen kilometres of minefield to liberate Kuwait and was Chief of Staff of UN forces in Bosnia.…
In this interview, I spoke to Ian Proud, a former British diplomat and Foreign Office crisis expert, who drove nine hours into the 2004 tsunami zone on Boxing Day. We discussed what…
In this interview, I spoke to Professor Anthony Kaldellis, who argues the eastern Roman Empire was no absolutism but a polity governed by consent, where rulers who misread the public mood were…
In this interview, I spoke to Dr Tom McClelland, the Cambridge philosopher who argues we should be agnostic about AI consciousness. We discussed why language models have broken humanity's tools for detecting…
In this interview, I spoke to Professor Michael Levin, who argues that cognition came before life rather than after it. We discussed bioelectric "cognitive glue", xenobots and anthrobots, why six lines of…
In this interview, I spoke to Victor Vescovo, one of only two people to have stood at Earth's highest peak, descended to its deepest trench and looked back at the planet from…
In this interview, I spoke to Eric Ries, creator of the Lean Startup method and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, who argues that corporate corruption is structural rather than moral. We…
In this interview I speak to author Turi Munthe, who argues that climate, geography, genes, brain shape and ancestral agriculture quietly script our deepest beliefs. He explains why polarisation thrives on a…
Voices in the archive
From the archive
“When social distrust mounts- when people feel like the game is rigged against them- they are especially vulnerable to demagogues who come along and want them to channel their rage, anxiety and distrust toward scapegoats.”
“My work depends on knowing real India, not the 'exotic' stereotype.”
“Over 70% of the labour force in sub-Saharan Africa is involved in agriculture. This means the sector forms a lynch-pin of society.”
The Wisdom Series
Insights, themes and patterns from years of long-form interviews — organised around the questions that matter most.
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