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The Daily Show: Ears Edition

TDS Time Machine | Conversations with Authors - Pt. 2

01 Feb 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What business software solutions does Odoo offer?

0.031 - 23.895 Unknown

This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up, and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way.

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23.875 - 64.176 Unknown

You can save money without missing out on features you need. Check out Odoo at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Luotonantaja, Resursspank AB, Suomen Sivuliike.

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79.411 - 117.004 Trevor Noah

A best-selling author, my guest tonight, his new book is called David and Goliath, Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. Please welcome to the program Malcolm Gladwell. The book is called David and Goliath. Basically, the premise being sometimes being David is a very positive thing, is that you can use those to your advantage. Is that the desirable adversity, I guess?

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117.125 - 120.15 Malcolm Gladwell

Desirable difficulties is the phrase that I use in the book.

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Chapter 2: What is the premise of Malcolm Gladwell's book 'David and Goliath'?

120.13 - 141.793 Malcolm Gladwell

Yeah, it's an examination of underdogs and their strategies, and also generally of the idea... The book really asks the question about whether we have an accurate understanding of what an advantage is. Right. Because lots of things that seem like disadvantages can be actually highly advantageous, and that's sort of the theme that runs through a lot of the chapters.

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141.893 - 146.998 Trevor Noah

In the book, things like dyslexia or having a crappy childhood.

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147.215 - 169.307 Malcolm Gladwell

Yes. I have a... You know, dyslexia is a great example of this, that many people with dyslexia suffer, and it's a real obstacle to getting ahead in life. But at the same time, there's a... If you look at groups of very successful entrepreneurs or professionals, you will find a much greater than expected number of dyslexics in their ranks. So the number of...

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169.287 - 180.34 Malcolm Gladwell

incredibly successful entrepreneurs over the last 25 or 30 years who are dyslexic. Richard Branson, Charles Schwab, the guy who runs Cisco, John Chambers. I mean, I could go on and on.

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180.82 - 184.965 Trevor Noah

And what you... What happens when you... Because if it was just four, that wouldn't be very good.

184.985 - 189.851 Malcolm Gladwell

There's significantly more. All right, good. And when you talk to them, it's really fascinating.

Chapter 3: How can disadvantages become advantages according to Gladwell?

189.871 - 206.152 Malcolm Gladwell

What they'll tell you is that they didn't succeed in spite of their dyslexia, but because of it. That being forced to cope with a highly problematic childhood where they couldn't do the thing they're required to do, which is read. forced them to learn all kinds of strategies that ended up being more important.

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206.272 - 226.439 Trevor Noah

But there must be some kind of, like, laugher curve with this, like with supply-side economics, where it gets to a certain point where a certain, if I may use a phrase I learned in a different book, tipping point of... of a tipping point of disadvantages that bury you, like bad childhood and dyslexia. And dyslexia. And no mouth.

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226.879 - 231.846 Trevor Noah

You know, or, like... Or you say, like, then you put Helen Keller up there. Like, but...

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231.826 - 252.654 Malcolm Gladwell

I use that phrase, desirable difficulty, which is a lovely phrase that these two psychologists at UCLA have come up with, to distinguish between the kinds of difficulties that can prove advantageous and undesirable difficulties, which are not the kind of thing that anyone should be expected to recover from or compensate for.

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252.674 - 272.261 Trevor Noah

Yet I'm sure some people do. The human spirit is incredibly adaptable and sometimes does that. But isn't in... Don't we all have, to some extent, disadvantages that shape our character as we go through? And it is sort of the tenacity with which you overcome them, no matter what that would be.

Chapter 4: What role does dyslexia play in the success of entrepreneurs?

272.562 - 289.265 Malcolm Gladwell

I mean, I got started on this book because in my last book, Outliers, when I was spending a lot of time talking to very successful people, and I was always struck by how often when they accounted for what they had achieved, they began with the difficulties, not with the... obvious advantages.

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289.866 - 316.028 Malcolm Gladwell

And so much of their sense of themselves was something that grew out of some... In some cases, it was some terrible blow that had happened to them that they had managed somehow to navigate. So there's a chapter here on parental loss. And on this striking fact that Very large numbers of American presidents and British prime ministers have lost a parent in childhood.

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316.048 - 326.06 Malcolm Gladwell

Way higher than would be expected from the normal population. Really? And that's, you know, that's something that... That's just about the worst thing that can happen to a human being. No kidding.

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326.14 - 340.606 Trevor Noah

So you're saying if my son wants to be president... Oh, boy. I mean, here's the thing. I shut the lights and I close my eyes around this kid.

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340.626 - 343.51 Malcolm Gladwell

But look, you know, Bill Clinton. Right.

Chapter 5: What is the significance of parental loss among leaders?

343.61 - 361.733 Malcolm Gladwell

Obama. These are two people who have... But the list is actually extraordinarily long. And what you understand is that these are... One of the things that distinguishes these people is that there's something about them that took that devastating experience and found a way to come out stronger.

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361.713 - 377.017 Trevor Noah

Is it a chicken and the egg? Is there some way of determining if there is an inherent personality type that is able to translate these types of devastating blows into a positive outcome? Or whether or not the blow influences the outcome?

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377.397 - 396.248 Malcolm Gladwell

I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? You wrote the book! There's so much I don't know. I mean, these books... always raise more questions than they resolve. And that's what they're supposed to do, right? They're supposed to kind of start... I mean, it would be really fascinating... I didn't do it now. I think I should have.

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Chapter 6: How does Gladwell define 'desirable difficulties'?

396.549 - 407.102 Malcolm Gladwell

To sit down next to... to Bill Clinton and ask him that question, right? I mean, here's a guy who had the furthest thing from a silver spoon in his mouth. Right, no question.

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407.743 - 421.144 Trevor Noah

I just don't know if he would share his story with you. I mean, he's very reticent about that. Yeah, he is, he's not someone who's not gonna open up easily. Very shy, you might get a couple of minutes. He would be like. Exactly, he'd be like, I don't care, the book's too big. Well, it's interesting stuff.

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421.164 - 432.56 Trevor Noah

It does raise tons of questions, and I think is a nice way to look at, you know, kind of that old adage, the lemons and the lemonade and all that sort of thing. David and Goliath. Be David. Why not?

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Chapter 7: What insights does Mary Roach provide about digestion in her book 'Gulp'?

432.821 - 448.403 Trevor Noah

Malcolm Gladwell, everybody, on the bookshelves now. Welcome back, my guests tonight, a best-selling author. Her new book is called Gulp, Adventures on the Elementary Canal. Please welcome back to the program Mary Roach.

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457.478 - 488.127 Trevor Noah

i like your books very funny thank you john this one's called this one's called uh gulp uh it answers all the questions of what happens when we we eat food and then obviously yeah the post food the whole shoot the whole shoot You answer many interesting questions. Why doesn't the stomach digest itself? Which brings up an interesting point that I would like to ask you.

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488.147 - 491.471 Trevor Noah

Why doesn't the stomach digest itself?

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491.491 - 499.623 Mary Roach

It's a very good question. Thank you. Because you can eat haggis, which is stomach. Yes. And your own stomach will go, oh, no problem. I can take that, pick the part, pass it on.

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Chapter 8: How does high-frequency trading affect the stock market?

499.843 - 502.687 Mary Roach

Right. But yet your own stomach. And the answer, are you ready?

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504.391 - 506.795 Mary Roach

Because it does. Trick. It does.

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506.975 - 508.377 Unknown

It does. It does. It digests itself.

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508.397 - 524.061 Mary Roach

It does. But it's also, your stomach is very good at rebuilding your stomach lining. So it does digest it, but then it builds it back up. And every, I love this, every three days you have a new stomach lining. Really? Yeah, and I do too.

525.003 - 535.757 Trevor Noah

No, no, no, no, no. I don't know about you. I have a new stomach lining. So it's a constant pitched battle. It's just exhausted people rebuilding stomach.

535.797 - 538.621 Mary Roach

Your poor stomach. It never stops working on your behalf.

539.042 - 546.513 Trevor Noah

Unbelievable. Talk to me about the beginning of the process, which would be the mastication, the saliva.

546.533 - 549.938 Mary Roach

Oral processing. Thank you. Yes. That's what you were looking for.

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