Conversations with Tyler
Episodes
Conversations with Tyler 2025 Retrospective
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate to Conversations with Tyler today. On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Je...
Alison Gopnik on Childhood Learning, AI as a Cultural Technology, and Rethinking Nature vs. Nurture
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate to Conversations with Tyler today. Alison Gopnik is both a psychologist and philosopher at Berke...
Gaurav Kapadia on New York City, Investing, and Contemporary Art
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate to Conversations with Tyler today. Gaurav Kapadia has deliberately avoided publicity throughout...
Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate to Conversations with Tyler today. Dan Wang argues that China is a nation of engineers while Ame...
Cass Sunstein on Liberalism and Rights in the Age of AI
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cass Sunstein is one of the most widely cited legal scholars of all time and among the most prolific writers working today. This year alone he has fi...
Blake Scholl on Supersonic Flight and Fixing Broken Infrastructure - Live at the Progress Conference
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Blake Scholl is one of the leading figures working to bring back civilian supersonic flight. As the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, he's building...
Donald S. Lopez Jr. on Buddhism
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Register for the Austin listener meetup Donald S. Lopez Jr. is among the foremost scholars of Buddhism, whose work consistently distinguishes Buddhis...
Sam Altman on Trust, Persuasion, and the Future of Intelligence - Live at the Progress Conference
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Register for the Austin listener meetup Sam Altman makes his second appearance on the show to discuss how he's managing OpenAI's explosive growth, wha...
Jonny Steinberg on South African Crime and Punishment, the Mandelas' Marriage, and the Post-Apartheid Era
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tyler considers Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage one of the best books of the last decade, and its author Jonny Steinberg one of the most un...
George Selgin on the New Deal, Regime Uncertainty, and What Really Ended the Great Depression
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
George Selgin has spent over four decades thinking about money, banking, and economic history, and Tyler has known him for nearly all of it. Selgin's...
John Amaechi on Leadership, the NBA, and Being Gay in Professional Sports
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John Amaechi is a former NBA forward/center who became a chartered scientist, professor of leadership at Exeter Business School, and New York Times ...
Steven Pinker on Coordination, Common Knowledge, and the Retreat of Liberal Enlightenment
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Pinker returns to Conversations with Tyler with an argument that common knowledge—those infinite loops of "I know that you know that I know...
David Commins on Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, and the Future of the Gulf States
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Commins, author of the new book Saudi Arabia: A Modern History, brings decades of scholarship and firsthand experience to explain the kingdom's...
Seamus Murphy on Photographing Patterns Across Cultures
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Seamus Murphy is an Irish photographer and filmmaker who has spent decades documenting life in some of the world's most challenging places—from Ta...
David Brooks on Audacity, AI, and the American Psyche (Live at 92NY)
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Brooks returns to the show with a stark diagnosis of American culture. Having evolved from a Democratic socialist to a neoconservative to what h...
Nate Silver on Life's Mixed Strategies
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In his third appearance on Conversations with Tyler, Nate Silver looks back at past predictions, weighs how academic ideas such as expected utility th...
Annie Jacobsen on Nuclear War, Intelligence Operations, and Conspiracy Realities
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Annie Jacobsen has a favorite word for America's nuclear doctrine: madness. It's madness that any single person has six minutes to decide the fate of ...
Helen Castor on Medieval Power and Personalities
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Castor is a British historian and BBC broadcaster who left Cambridge because she wanted to write narrative history focused on individuals rather...
David Robertson on Conducting, Pierre Boulez, and Musical Interpretation
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Robertson is a rare conductor who unites avant-garde complexity with accessibility. After serving as music director of the Ensemble Intercontemp...
Austan Goolsbee on Central Banking as a Data Dog
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Austan Goolsbee is one of Tyler Cowen's favorite economists—not because they always agree, but because Goolsbee embodies what it means to think lik...
Chris Arnade on Walking Cities
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most people who leave Wall Street after twenty years either retire or find another way to make a lot of money. Chris Arnade chose to walk through citi...
Any Austin on the Hermeneutics of Video Games
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Any Austin has carved a unique niche for himself on YouTube: analyzing seemingly mundane or otherwise overlooked details in video games with the serio...
John Arnold on Trading, Energy, and Evidence-Based Philanthropy
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John Arnold built his fortune in energy trading by surrounding himself with smart people, maintaining emotional detachment, sensing market imbalances ...
Theodore Schwartz on Neurosurgery, Consciousness, and Brain-Computer Interfaces
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Get tickets to the CWT live show at 92NY with David Brooks! Theodore Schwartz stands at the pinnacle of neurosurgical expertise. With over 500 publish...
Jack Clark on AI's Uneven Impact
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Few understand both the promise and limitations of artificial general intelligence better than Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic. With a background...
Kenneth Rogoff on Monetary Moves, Fiscal Gambits, and Classical Chess
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff approaches global finance with the same strategic foresight that made him a chess grandmaster. Author of the new boo...
Chris Dixon on Blockchains, AI, and the Future of the Internet
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Dixon believes we're at a pivotal inflection point in the internet's evolution. As a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author of Read W...
Ian Leslie on McCartney, Lennon, and the Greatest Creative Partnership of All Time
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's Beatles day! In this deep dive into one of music's most legendary partnerships, Ian Leslie and Tyler unpack the complex relationship between Jo...
Jennifer Pahlka on Reforming Government
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Pahlka believes America's bureaucratic dysfunction is deeply rooted in outdated processes and misaligned incentives. As the founder of Code f...
Sheilagh Ogilvie on Epidemics, Guilds, and the Persistence of Bad Institutions
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sheilagh Ogilvie has spent decades examining the institutional structures that shaped European economic history, challenging conventional wisdom about...
Ezra Klein on the Abundance Agenda
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a liberal thinker shifts his attention from polarization to economic abundance? Ezra Klein's new book with Derek Thompson, Abundanc...
Carl Zimmer on the Hidden Life in the Air We Breathe
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Zimmer is one of the finest science communicators of our time, having spent decades writing about biology, evolution, and heredity. His latest (a...
Gregory Clark on Social Mobility, Migration, and Assortative Mating (Live at Mercatus)
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How much of your life's trajectory was set in motion centuries ago? Gregory Clark has spent decades studying social mobility, and his findings sugges...
Ross Douthat on Why Religion Makes More Sense Than You Think
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sign Up for the Boston Listener Meet Up For Ross Douthat, phenomena like UFO sightings and the simulation hypothesis don't challenge religious belief...
Joe Boyd on the Birth of Rock, World Music, and Being There for Everything
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sign Up for the Boston Listener Meet Up Joe Boyd was there when Dylan went electric, when Pink Floyd was born, and when Paul Simon brought Graceland ...
Scott Sumner on Monetary Rules, Blooming Late, and the Death of Cinema
08 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Sumner didn't follow the typical path to economic influence. He nearly lost his teaching job before tenure, did his best research after most aca...
Conversations with Tyler 2024 Retrospective
25 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Donate to Conversations with Tyler Give Crypto Other Ways to Give On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look bac...
Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth
11 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Donate to Conversations with Tyler Give Crypto Other Ways to Give What can Thomas Hardy's tortured marriages teach us about love, obsession, and sec...
Stephen Kotkin on Stalin, Power, and the Art of Biography
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Donate to Conversations with Tyler Give Crypto Other Ways to Give In his landmark multi-volume biography of Stalin, Stephen Kotkin shows how totalit...
Russ Roberts on Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate
25 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this crossover episode with EconTalk, Tyler joins Russ Roberts for an in-depth exploration of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, a monumental novel o...
Neal Stephenson on History, Spycraft, and American-Soviet Parallels
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Neal Stephenson's ability to illuminate complex, future-focused ideas in ways that both provoke thought and spark wonder has established him as one of...
Christopher Kirchhoff on Military Innovation and the Future of War
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Christopher Kirchhoff is an expert in emerging technology who founded the Pentagon's Silicon Valley office. He's led teams for President Obama, the Ch...
Musa al-Gharbi on Elite Wokeness, Islam, and Social Movements
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe to Pluralist Points on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist and assistant professor at Stony Brook Universi...
Tom Tugendhat on Modernizing the UK and Political Reform
09 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Tugendhat has served as a Member of Parliament since 2015, holding roles such as Security Minister and chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committ...
Kyla Scanlon on Communicating Economic Ideas through Social Media
02 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kyla Scanlon has made it her personal mission to bring economics education to a larger audience through social media. She publishes daily content acro...
Tobi Lütke on Creating Shopify for Americans as a German in Canada
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tobi Lütke is the CEO and co-founder of Shopify. 20 years ago, he was just a German coder who emigrated to Canada to launch some ecommerce platform w...
Philip Ball on the Interplay of Science, Society, and the Quest for Understanding
04 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Register for our LA Listener Meetup Philip Ball is an award-winning science writer who has penned over 30 books on a dizzying variety of subjects. Ho...
Nate Silver on Risk-takers, Politicians, and Poker Players
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In his second appearance, Nate Silver joins the show to cover the intersections of predictions, politics, and poker with Tyler. They tackle how coin f...
Paul Bloom on the Psychology of Children, and the Morality of Empathy and Disgust
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Bloom is a renowned psychologist and writer specializing in moral psychology, particularly how moral thoughts and actions develop in children. Bu...
Alan Taylor on Revolutionary Ironies and the Continental Civil War
24 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor is Tyler's pick for one of the greatest living historians. His many books cover the early American Republi...
Brian Winter on Brazil, Argentina, and the Future of Latin America
10 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Register for the DC Listener Meetup It's not just the churrasco that made him fall in love with Brazil. Brian Winter has been studying and writing ab...
Joseph Stiglitz on Pioneering Economic Theories, Policy Challenges, and His Intellectual Legacy
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz joined Tyler for a discussion that weaves through Joe's career and key contributions, including what he ...
Velina Tchakarova on China, Russia, and the Future of Geopolitics
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Take our Listener Survey You could try playing out the four-dimensional chess game of how the global order will shift in the next 10-15 years for yo...
Michael Nielsen on Collaboration, Quantum Computing, and Civilization's Fragility
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Take our Listener Survey Michael Nielsen is a scientist who helped pioneer quantum computing and the modern open science movement. He's worked at Y ...
Benjamin Moser on the Dutch Masters, Brazil, and Cultural Icons
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Take our Listener Survey Benjamin Moser is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer celebrated for his in-depth studies of literary and cultural figures such...
Coleman Hughes on Colorblindness, Jazz, and Identity
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Coleman Hughes believes we should strive to ignore race both in public policy and in our private lives. But when it comes to personal identity and ex...
Peter Thiel on Political Theology
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this conversation recorded live in Miami, Tyler and Peter Thiel dive deep into the complexities of political theology, including why it's a concept...
Jonathan Haidt on Adjusting to Smartphones and Social Media
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt explores the simultaneous rise in teen mental illness across various countries, attributing it to a seismic...
Fareed Zakaria on the Age of Revolutions, the Power of Ideas, and the Rewards of Intellectual Curiosity
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Those who know Fareed Zakaria through his weekly column or CNN show may be surprised to learn he considers books the important way he can put new idea...
Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Interpretation, Calvinist Thought, and Religion in America
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Marilynne Robinson is one of America's best and best-known novelists and essayists, whose award-winning works like Housekeeping and Gilead explore th...
Marc Andreessen on AI and Dynamism
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this interview, recorded at a16z's 2024 American Dynamism Summit, Tyler and Marc Andreessen engage in a rapid-fire dialogue about the future of AI,...
Marc Rowan on Financial Market Evolution and University Governance
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Marc Rowan, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, joined Tyler to discuss why rising interest rates won't hurt Apollo's profitability, why ...
Masaaki Suzuki on Interpreting Bach
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A conductor, harpsichordist, and organist, Masaaki Suzuki stands as a towering figure in Baroque music, renowned for his comprehensive and top-tier r...
Ami Vitale on Photojournalism and Wildlife Conservation
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ami Vitale is a renowned National Geographic photographer and documentarian with a deep commitment to wildlife conservation and environmental educatio...
Rebecca F. Kuang on National Literatures, Book Publishing, and History in Fiction
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rebecca F. Kuang just might change the way you think about fantasy and science fiction. Known for her best-selling books Babel and The Poppy War tril...
Patrick McKenzie on Navigating Complex Systems
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Few can measure the impact of a blog post they wrote, in the millions of dollars a year, but Patrick McKenzie has the receipts. His 2012 post on sal...
Conversations with Tyler 2023 Retrospective
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year in the show and more, including the most popular and...
Fuchsia Dunlop on the Story of Chinese Food
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In her third appearance on the show, Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop joins Tyler and a group of special guests to celebrate the release of Invitat...
John Gray on Pessimism, Liberalism, and Theism
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
John Gray is a philosopher and writer renowned for his critical examination of liberalism, atheism, and the human condition. His unique perspective is...
Jennifer Burns on Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Burns is a professor of history at Stanford who works at the intersection of intellectual, political, and cultural history. She's written tw...
Brian Koppelman on TV, Movies, and Appreciating Art
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Koppelman is a writer, director, and producer known for his work on films like Rounders and Solitary Man, the hit TV show Billions, and his pod...
Githae Githinji on Life in Kenya
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As a follow-up to the episode featuring Stephen Jennings, we're releasing two bonus conversations showing the daily life, culture, and politics of Na...
Harriet Karimi Muriithi on Life in Kenya
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As a follow-up to the episode featuring Stephen Jennings, we're releasing two bonus conversations showing the daily life, culture, and politics of Nai...
Stephen Jennings on Building New Cities
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen and Tyler first met over thirty years ago while working on economic reforms in New Zealand. With a distinguished career that transitioned from...
Jacob Mikanowski on Eastern Europe
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jacob Mikanowski is the author of one of Tyler's favorite books this year called Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land. Tyle...
Re-release: Claudia Goldin on the Economics of Inequality
09 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Harvard professor Claudia Goldin has made a name for herself tackling difficult questions. What was the full economic cost of the American Civil War? ...
Ada Palmer on Viking Metaphysics, Contingent Moments, and Censorship
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ada Palmer is a Renaissance historian at the University of Chicago who studies radical free thought and censorship, composes music, consults on anime ...
Lazarus Lake on Endurance, Uncertainty, and Reaching One's Potential
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lazarus Lake is a renowned ultramarathon runner and designer. His most famous creation (along with his friend Raw Dog) is the Barkley Marathons, an ab...
Jerusalem Demsas on The Dispossessed, Gulliver's Travels, and Of Boys and Men
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Tyler sat down with Jerusalem Demsas, staff writer at The Atlantic, to discuss three books: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le ...
Vishy Anand on Staying in the Game
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A five-time World Chess Champion, Vishy became India's first grandmaster at age 18, spurring a chess revolution in the country. Now 53, he is still a ...
Celebrating Marginal Revolution's 20th Anniversary
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen launched Marginal Revolution in August of 2003, they saw attracting a few thousand academic-minded readers as a run...
Paul Graham on Ambition, Art, and Evaluating Talent
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tyler and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham sat down at his home in the English countryside to discuss what areas of talent judgment his co-founder ...
Noam Dworman on Stand-Up Comedy and Staying Open-Minded
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tyler sat down at Comedy Cellar with owner Noam Dworman to talk about the ever-changing stand-up comedy scene, including the perfect room temperature ...
David Bentley Hart on Reason, Faith, and Diversity in Religious Thought
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Bentley Hart is an American writer, philosopher, religious scholar, critic, and theologian who has authored over 1,000 essays and 19 books, incl...
Reid Hoffman on the Possibilities of AI
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In his second appearance, Reid Hoffman joined Tyler to talk everything AI: the optimal liability regime for LLMs, whether there'll be autonomous money...
Noam Chomsky on Language, Left Libertarianism, and Progress
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Noam Chomsky joins Tyler to discuss why Noam and Wilhelm von Humboldt have similar views on language and liberty, good and bad evolutionary approaches...
Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Singer is one of the world's most influential living philosophers, whose ideas have motivated millions of people to change how they eat, how the...
Seth Godin on Marketing, Meaning, and the Bibs We Wear
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On good days, Seth Godin thinks about all the progress we're making on climate change. On bad days, he thinks about the problem of racing bibs. Though...
Simon Johnson on Banking, Technology, and Prosperity
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What's more intense than leading the IMF during a financial crisis? For Simon Johnson, it was co-authoring a book with fellow economist (and past gues...
Kevin Kelly on Advice, Travel, and Tech
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and the author of several acclaimed books on technology and culture, Kevin Kelly has long been know...
Anna Keay on Historic Architecture, Monarchy, and 17th Century Britain
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Anna Keay is a historian who specializes in the cultural heritage of Great Britain. As the director of the Landmark Trust, she has overseen the resto...
Jessica Wade on Chiral Materials, Open Knowledge, and Representation in STEM
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Wade is a physicist at Imperial College London who, while spending her day working on special carbon-based materials that can be used as semic...
Jonathan GPT Swift on Jonathan Swift
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this conversation, Tyler uses ChatGPT to interview Jonathan Swift about his views on religion, politics, economics, and literature. GPT Swift discu...
Tom Holland on History, Christianity, and the Value of the Countryside
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Tom Holland joined Tyler to discuss in what ways his Christianity is influenced by Lord Byron, how the Book of Revelation precipitated a rev...
Yasheng Huang on the Development of the Chinese State
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yasheng Huang has written two of Tyler's favorite books on China: Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, which contrasts an entrepreneurial rural C...
Brad DeLong on Intellectual and Technical Progress
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brad DeLong, professor of economics at UC Berkley, OG econ blogger, and Tyler's Harvard classmate, joins the show to discuss Slouching Towards Utopia...
Glenn Loury on the Cover Story and the Real Story
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Economist and public intellectual Glenn Loury joined Tyler to discuss the soundtrack of Glenn's life, Glenn's early career in theoretical economics, h...
Paul Salopek on Walking the World
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Salopek is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Geographic fellow who, at the age of 50, set out on foot to retrace the steps of the ...
Rick Rubin on Listening, Taste, and the Act of Noticing
18 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rick Rubin has been behind some of the most iconic and successful albums in music history, and his unique approach to production and artist developmen...
Katherine Rundell on the Art of Words
11 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Katherine Rundell is, in a word, enthusiastic. She's enthusiastic about John Donne. She's enthusiastic about walking along rooftops. She's enthusiasti...