Conversations with Tyler

Conversations with Tyler 2022 Retrospective

28 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes talk about the past year on the show, including which guests he'd like to have ...

John Adams on Composing and Creative Freedom

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Is classical music dying? For John Adams the answer is an emphatic no. Considered by Tyler to be America's greatest living composer, he may well be on...

Jeremy Grantham on Investing in Green Tech

30 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to fighting climate change Jeremy Grantham is optimistic about technology – but worried about timing. Known widely for his acuity in i...

Ken Burns on the Complications of History

16 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to history—particularly American history—nothing is ever definitive, says documentarian Ken Burns. Much of his work has focused on c...

Mary Gaitskill on Subjects That Are Vexing Everybody

02 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mary Gaitskill's knack for writing about the social and physical world with unapologetic clarity has led to her style being described both as "cold an...

Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution

19 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Reza Aslan doesn't mind being called a pantheist. In his own "roundabout spiritual journey" and study of the world's religions, which has led him to w...

Walter Russell Mead on the Past and Future of American Foreign Policy

05 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A leading expert in foreign policy, Walter Russell Mead believes his lack of a PhD—and interest in actually going places—has helped him avoid acad...

Byron Auguste On Rewiring the U.S. Labor Market

21 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When looking at the U.S. labor market, Byron Auguste sees too many job seekers screened out based on shallow signals like a bachelor's degree, and too...

Vaughn Smith on Life as a Hyperpolyglot

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Vaughn Smith is fluent in eight languages but with a beginner's grasp of at least thirty-six (and counting). His talents are so remarkable that the Wa...

Shruti Rajagopalan talks to Daniel Gross and Tyler about Identifying and Predicting Talent

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How can one identify and predict talent? On a search to answer this question and others like it, Tyler Cowen joined venture capitalist and entrepreneu...

Cynthia L. Haven on René Girard, Czeslaw Milosz, and Joseph Brodsky

24 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As a little girl, Cynthia Haven loved reading classic works of literature. At sixteen, she began her career as a reporter. And years later, those two ...

William MacAskill on Effective Altruism, Moral Progress, and Cultural Innovation

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Tyler is reviewing grants for Emergent Ventures, he is struck by how the ideas of effective altruism have so clearly influenced many of the smar...

Leopoldo López on Activism Under Autocratic Regimes

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As an inquisitive reader, books were a cherished commodity for Leopoldo López when he was a political prisoner in his home country of Venezuela. His ...

Matthew Ball on the Metaverse and Gaming

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Fighting fires meant a lot of downtime for Matthew Ball. Stationed at a forward operating base in the woods for two weeks at a time, he spent long hou...

Barkha Dutt on the Nuances of Indian Life

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Growing up, Barkha Dutt was totally rootless. She spoke English, not her parent's Punjabi. She devoured Enid Blyton and studied English literature dur...

Marc Andreessen on Learning to Love the Humanities

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Like the frontier characters from Deadwood, his favorite TV show, Marc Andreessen has discovered that the real challenge to building in new territory ...

Jamal Greene on Reconceiving Rights

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to uphold disability rights, or the right to economic liberty? What framework should be used when rights appear to conflict? Constit...

Tyler and Daniel Gross Talk Talent

18 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If Tyler and Daniel's latest book can be boiled down into a single message, it would be that the world is currently failing at identifying talent, and...

Chris Blattman on War and Centralized Power

04 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What causes war? Many scholars have spent their careers attempting to study the psychology of leaders to understand what incentivizes them to undertak...

Thomas Piketty on the Politics of Equality

20 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to the enormous reduction of income inequality during the 20th century, Thomas Piketty sees politics everywhere. In his new book, A Bri...

Roy Foster on Ireland's Many Unmade Futures

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"The best history," says Roy Foster, "is written when we realize that people acted in expectation of a future that was never going to happen." While t...

Lydia Davis on Language and Literature

23 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A prolific translator, author, and former professor of creative writing, Lydia Davis's motivation for her life's work is jarringly simple: she just lo...

Sam Bankman-Fried on Arbitrage and Altruism

09 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Whether it's scaling an arbitrage opportunity or launching an ambitious philanthropic project, Sam Bankman-Fried has set himself apart. In just a few ...

Chuck Klosterman on Writing the Past and Relishing the Present

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How do you go about writing a book on an era that is, for many, recent history? When Chuck Klosterman set out to write his new book, The Nineties, he...

Sebastian Mallaby on Venture Capital

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Venture capital powered the tech revolution, but what powers venture capital? With his in-depth knowledge and coverage of the sector you'd be forgiven...

Stewart Brand on Starting Things and Staying Curious

26 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From psychedelics to cyberculture, hippie communes to commercial startups, and the Whole Earth Catalog to the Long Now Foundation, Stewart Brand has n...

Russ Roberts on Israel and Life as an Immigrant

19 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this special crossover special with EconTalk, Tyler interviews Russ Roberts about his new life in Israel as president of Shalem College. They discu...

Ana Vidović on Prodigies, Performance, and Perseverance

12 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Is genius born or made? For Croatian-born classical guitarist Ana Vidović the answer is both. Born into a musical family, she began playing guitar at...

Conversations with Tyler 2021 Retrospective

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Want to support the show? Visit donate.mercatus.org/podcasts. On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes talk about the p...

Ray Dalio on Investing, Management, and the Changing World Order

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Want to support the show? Visit donate.mercatus.org/podcasts When Ray Dalio was 23, President Nixon announced that the United States would no longer ...

Ruth Scurr on the Art of Biography

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The most challenging part of being a biographer for Ruth Scurr is finding the best form to tell a life. "You can't go in there with a workmanlike atti...

David Rubenstein on Private Equity, Public Art, and Philanthropy

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Baltimore native David Rubenstein is a founding figure in private equity, a prolific philanthropist, and author. From leveraged buyouts to his patriot...

David Salle on the Experience of Art

03 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When the audience for visual art expanded from small circles of artists and collectors into broader culture, the way art was experienced shifted from ...

Stanley McChrystal on the Military, Leadership, and Risk

20 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Stan McChrystal has spent a long career considering questions of risk, leadership, and the role of America's military, having risen through the Army's...

Claudia Goldin on the Economics of Inequality

06 Oct 2021

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? ...

Amia Srinivasan on Utopian Feminism

22 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What is our right to be desired? How are our sexual desires shaped by the society around us? Is consent sufficient for a sexual relationship? In the w...

David Cutler and Ed Glaeser on the Health and Wealth of Cities

08 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

With remote work becoming more common and cities competing for businesses it's become easier than ever before for educated Americans to relocate, leav...

Zeynep Tufekci on the Sociology of The Moment (Live)

25 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Zeynep Tufekci penned a New York Times op-ed at the onset of the pandemic challenging the prevailing public health guidance that ordinary people...

Andrew Sullivan on Braving New Intellectual Journeys

11 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Upon learning he was HIV positive in 1993, Andrew Sullivan began writing more than he ever had before. Believing that he didn't have long to live, he ...

Niall Ferguson on Why We Study History

28 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

While the modern historical ethos can be obsessed with condescending to the past based on our current value system, Scottish-born historian Niall Ferg...

Alexander the Grate on Life as an NFA

14 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander the Grate has spent 40 years – more than half of his life – living on the streets (and heating grates) of Washington, DC. He prefers the...

Richard Prum on Birds, Beauty, and Finding Your Own Way

30 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Prum really cares about birds. Growing up in rural Vermont, he didn't know anyone else interested in birding his own age. The experience taugh...

Elijah Millgram on the Philosophical Life

16 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What can studying the lives of philosophers tell us about how to organize and interpret our own lives? Elijah Millgram is a professor of philosophy at...

David Deutsch on Multiple Worlds and Our Place in Them

02 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tyler describes Oxford professor and theoretical physicist David Deutsch as a "maximum philosopher of freedom" with no rival. A pioneer in the field o...

Mark Carney on Central Banking and Shared Values

26 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As a Canadian economist who once served as the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has had many occasions to reflect on the importance of val...

Pierpaolo Barbieri on Latin American FinTech

19 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Gifted young Argentines tend to leave home to "make it in America" and never look back, but after earning a degree from Harvard, writing a book about ...

Daniel Carpenter on Smart Regulation

05 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel Carpenter is one of the world's leading experts on regulation and the foremost expert on the US Food and Drug Administration. A professor of Go...

Shadi Bartsch on the Classics and China

21 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A self-professed nerd, the young Shadi Bartsch could be found awake late at night, reading Latin under the covers of her bed by flashlight. Now a prof...

Dana Gioia on Becoming an Information Billionaire

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Before he was California Poet Laureate or leading the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia marketed Jell-O. Possessing both a Stanford MBA and ...

Sarah Parcak on Archaeology from Space

24 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What can new technology tell us about our ancient past? Archaeologist and remote sensing expert Sarah Parcak has used satellite imagery to discover ov...

John Cochrane on Economic Puzzles and Habits of Mind

10 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What unites John Cochrane the finance economist and "grumpy" policy blogger with John Cochrane the accomplished glider pilot? For John, the answer is ...

Patricia Fara on Newton, Scientific Progress, and the Benefits of Unhistoric Acts

24 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Patricia Fara is a historian of science at Cambridge University and well-known for her writings on women in science. Her forthcoming book, Life After...

Brian Armstrong on the Crypto Economy

10 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Armstrong first recognized the potential of cryptocurrencies after witnessing firsthand the tragic consequences of hyperinflation in Argentina. ...

Benjamin Friedman on the Origins of Economic Belief

27 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Friedman has been a leading macroeconomist since the 1970s, whose accomplishments include writing 150 papers, producing more than dozen books...

Noubar Afeyan on the Permission to Leap

13 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

"The world of innovation is very much one of toggling between survival and then thriving," says Noubar Afeyan. Co-founder of Moderna and CEO of Flagsh...

Conversations with Tyler 2020 Retrospective

30 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Want to support the show? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate. On this special year-in-review episode, producer Jeff Holmes sat down with Tyler t...

John O. Brennan on Life in the CIA

16 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Want to support the show? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate. Growing up in a working-class city in New Jersey, John Brennan's father was an Iri...

Zach Carter on the Life and Legacy of John Maynard Keynes

02 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

After reading Zach Carter's intellectual biography of Keynes earlier this year, Tyler declared that the book would qualify "without reservation" as ...

Jimmy Wales on Systems and Incentives

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Jimmy Wales used to joke that choosing to build Wikipedia on a non-profit, non-advertising model was either the best or worst decision he ever made—...

Edwidge Danticat on Haitian Art and Literature

04 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Edwidge Danticat left Haiti when she was 12, she says, but Haiti never left her. At 14 she began writing stories about the people and culture she love...

Michael Kremer on Economists as Founders

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Kremer is best known for his academic work researching global poverty, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2019 along with Esther Dufl...

Audrey Tang on the Technology of Democracy

07 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Audrey Tang began reading classical works like the Shūjīng and Tao Te Ching at the age of 5 and learned the programming language Perl at the age of ...

Alex Ross on Music, Culture, and Criticism

22 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

To Alex Ross, good music critics must be well-rounded and have command of neighboring cultural areas. "When you're writing about opera, you're writing...

Matt Yglesias on Why the Population is Too Damn Low

09 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Yglesias joined Tyler for a wide-ranging conversation on his vision for a bigger, less politically polarized America outlined in his new book On...

Jason Furman on Productivity, Competition, and Growth

26 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Note: This conversation was recorded in January 2020. Tyler credits Jason Furman's intellectual breadth, real-world experience, and emphasis on policy...

Nicholas Bloom on Management, Productivity, and Scientific Progress

12 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What might the electrification of factories teach us about how quickly we'll adapt to remote work? What gives American companies an edge over their co...

Nathan Nunn on the Paths to Development

29 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Nathan Nunn's work history includes automotive stores, a freight company, a paint factory, a ski hill, photography, book publishing, private tutoring,...

Melissa Dell on the Significance of Persistence

15 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Explaining 10 percent of something is not usually cause for celebration. And yet when it comes to economic development, where so many factors are in p...

Annie Duke on Poker, Probabilities, and How We Make Decisions

01 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For Annie Duke, the poker table is a perfect laboratory to study human decision-making — including her own. "It really exposes you to the way th...

Rachel Harmon on Policing

17 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Long before becoming a legal scholar focused on police reform, Rachel Harmon studied engineering at MIT and graduate philosophy at LSE. "You could cal...

Ashley Mears on Status and Beauty

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Ashley Mears is a former fashion model turned academic sociologist, and her book Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit...

Paul Romer on a Culture of Science and Working Hard

20 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Romer makes his second appearance to discuss the failings of economics, how his mass testing plan for COVID-19 would work, what aspects of epidem...

Adam Tooze on our Financial Past and Future

06 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Tooze is best known for his highly-regarded books on the economic history of Nazi Germany, the remaking of the global economic and political orde...

Glen Weyl on Fighting COVID-19 and the Role of the Academic Expert

29 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Glen Weyl is an economist, researcher, and founder of RadicalXChange. He recently co-authored a paper that sets forth an ambitious strategy to respond...

Philip E. Tetlock on Forecasting and Foraging as a Fox

22 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Accuracy is only one of the things we want from forecasters, says Philip Tetlock, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and co-author of Supe...

Emily St. John Mandel on Fact, Fiction, and the Familiar

08 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When Tyler requested an interview with novelist Emily St. John Mandel, he didn't expect that reality would have in some ways become an eerie mirror of...

Ross Douthat on Decadence and Dynamism

25 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For Ross Douthat, decadence isn't necessarily a moral judgement, but a technical label for a state that societies tend to enter—and one that is perh...

Russ Roberts and Tyler on COVID-19

19 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Tyler and Russ Roberts joined forces for a special livestreamed conversation on COVID-19, including how both are adjusting to social isolation, privat...

John McWhorter on Linguistics, Music, and Race (Live at Mason)

11 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Who can you ask about the Great American Songbook, the finer Jell-O flavors, and peculiar languages like Saramaccan all while expecting the same kind ...

Garett Jones on Democracy (More or Less)

26 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Why is Garett Jones willing to write books about risky topics like the case for reducing democratic accountability? Is it the iconoclastic Mason econ ...

Tim Harford on Persuasion and Popular Economics

12 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

To Tim Harford, mistakes are fascinating. "We often only understand how something works when it breaks," he says, explaining why there's such an empha...

Ezra Klein on Why We're Polarized

29 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, Ezra Klein argues that polarization in America has become centered on partisan political identities, which has subsumed virtually eve...

Reid Hoffman on Systems, Levers, and Quixotic Quests

15 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When Reid Hoffman creates a handle for some new network or system, his usual choice is "Quixotic." At an early age, his love of tabletop games inspir...

Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism

08 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This bonus episode features audio from the Holberg Debate in Bergen, Norway between Tyler and Slavoj Žižek held on December 7, 2019. They discuss ...

Abhijit Banerjee on Theory, Practice, and India

30 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Want to support future conversations? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate. Long before Abhijit Banerjee won the 2019 economics Nobel with Michael ...

Tyler Looks Back on 2019 (BONUS)

23 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Want to support future conversations? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate. For this special retrospective episode, producer Jeff Holmes sat down ...

Esther Duflo on Management, Growth, and Research in Action

18 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Want to support future conversations? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate. Esther Duflo's advice to students? Spend time in the field. "It's on...

Daron Acemoglu on the Struggle Between State and Society

04 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What determines the economic, social, and political trajectories of nations? Why were settlers in colonies like Jamestown and Australia able to escape...

Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen on the Nature and Causes of Progress (Bonus)

27 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past year Mark Zuckerberg has held a series of interviews themed around technology and society. This conversation with Tyler and Patrick is t...

Shaka Senghor on Incarceration, Identity, and the Gift of Literacy

20 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do you survive seven years in solitary confinement? The gift of literacy is what saved Shaka Senghor. Reading, journaling, academic study, and wri...

Lunch with Fuchsia Dunlop at Mama Chang (Bonus)

13 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Three years after her first appearance, Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop joins Tyler to celebrate the release of her latest cookbook and talk all th...

Ted Gioia on Music as Cultural Cloud Storage

06 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

To Ted Gioia, music is a form of cloud storage for preserving human culture. And the real cultural conflict, he insists, is not between "high brow" an...

Henry Farrell on Weaponized Interdependence, Big Tech, and Playing with Ideas

23 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The one concept most valuable for understanding the news today might be Henry Farrell's theory of weaponized interdependence. Whether it's China's inf...

Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap

09 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Westhoff has written some of Tyler's favorite books on everything from dive bars to the evolution of American rap music to how fentanyl is driving...

Alain Bertaud on Cities, Markets, and People

25 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Markets, Alain Bertaud likes to say, are like gravity: they exist everywhere. But while urban planners are quite good at taking gravity into account, ...

Samantha Power on Learning How to Make a Difference

11 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A former war correspondent and UN ambassador, Samantha Power has had her share of tough assignments. But writing a memoir about it all is also a daunt...

Hollis Robbins on 19th Century Life and Literature

28 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As a graduate student, Hollis Robbins helped Henry Louis Gates, Jr. unravel a mystery about the provenance of a mid-19th century book. Robbins helped ...

Masha Gessen on the Ins and Outs of Russia

14 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What sort of country would compel you to flee it, draw you back ten years later, then force you away yet again after two decades? Masha Gessen knows t...

Kwame Anthony Appiah on Pictures of the World

31 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Born to a Ghanaian father and British mother, Kwame Anthony Appiah grew up splitting time between both countries — and lecturing in many more ...

Neal Stephenson on Depictions of Reality

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you want to speculate on the development of tech, no one has a better brain to pick than Neal Stephenson. Across more than a dozen books, he's crea...