The Dumbest Guy in the Room
Episodes
Episode 607: How American Eagle Became a Retail Record Breaker
30 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
➡️Answer questions from the episode hereIn this engaging interview, Craig Brommers, Chief Marketing Officer of American Eagle, shares insights int...
Episode 606: Decoding Economic Data: Trust, Revisions, and Real Insights with Ed Elson
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this insightful interview, John and Ed Elson discuss the reliability of economic data, the impact of AI on society, and the importance of critical ...
Episode 605: High Quality News Still Wins With Nick Thompson
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this conversation, John and Nick Thompson discuss the current state of media and publishing, focusing on the challenges and strategies that The Atl...
Episode 604: Why Regional Arts Organizations Need a Business Mindset to Survive with Chantell Ghosh
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this conversation, John Dick and Chantell Ghosh discuss the critical role of regional arts organizations in community infrastructure and economic s...
Episode 603: Reviving Local News: Insights from Perry Sook
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this conversation, Perry Sook discusses his journey in the media industry, the importance of local news, and the challenges posed by big tech. He e...
Episode 602: Navigating Health Trends with Michael Costello
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this insightful episode, John Dick and Michael Costello delve into the evolving landscape of health and wellness. They discuss the decline in obesi...
Episode 601: Mark Cuban's Prescription for Fixing Healthcare
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Greater transparency would go a long way to solve the deep institutional distrust people are feeling across most of government, media, and Corporate A...
Girl Power – Making Winning Bets on America's Most Influential Consumer
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Young women are changing entire categories of retail. Take cosmetics, for example. Gen Z women have decided that beauty is a gesture of self-care, and...
Too Big to Succeed: How to Make Government Work | Diego Piacentini
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Innovation gets harder the older, larger, and more complex an organization becomes. Government agencies that have been around and expanding for hundre...
Welcome to the Wellness Era | Dave Kimbell, CEO of Ulta Beauty
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It's no surprise that CivicScience data show that Americans' levels of stress are still running high after the coronavirus pandemic. So, people are ta...
Minding What Matters | Chris Cuomo of NewsNation
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How are we supposed to know what really matters anymore? That used to be what the news was for. Reporters would uncover the things we couldn't see, wo...
Politics and Tech: Why Can't We All Just Get Along | Congressman Mike Doyle
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our elected leaders used to set the tone of political discourse. Today, politicians take cues from their tribe, gleaning their talking points from wha...
Leading from the Bottom: How Systems Thinking Can Revitalize Everything From the Ground Up | Jeff Wilke, co-founder and chairman of Re:Build
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week on The Dumbest Guy in the Room, host John Dick welcomes Jeff Wilke, who played a major role in building Amazon into the company it is today....
Did COVID Save Retail? The Painful But Essential Lessons of the Pandemic | Shelley Bransten of Microsoft
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's no secret that the pandemic changed everything that businesses knew about their customers overnight. But old habits – and big systems – are h...
Remaking Media: How to Build Trust in an Ever-changing Landscape | John Battelle, co-founder of Wired and The Recount
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Like many things in our country, media is broken – badly. It's hard to know where to start to fix it. Media outlets who once prided themselves on ri...
Bringing Economics to the Masses: Finding Hope in Today's Economic Uncertainty | Michelle Meyer of Mastercard
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. economy is absolutely massive. It’s also extremely complex, and that makes it difficult from the political perspective. You can’t thoroug...
Failing on Purpose: Changing the Way We Think About the World's Biggest Problems | Astro Teller, CEO of X
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s almost impossible to keep up with all the crises in America today. There’s inflation, energy costs, drug prices, mental health, supply chains...
Return to Health: How Healthcare Needs to Change in the Post-COVID Era | Norman de Greve, CVS Health Chief Marketing Officer
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The health implications of the pandemic are staggering. Tens of millions of Americans got COVID, as many as 1 million may die from it, and countless o...
Divided We Watch: How Media and Entertainment Reflect Our Increasingly Tribal Culture | Sara Fischer of Axios and Rich Greenfield of LightShed Partners
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s hard to imagine TV shows or movies captivating our nation the way they used to, which is a shame, because we’ve never needed something to bri...
Delivering Time: How the Pandemic Permanently Altered Our Values | Claudine Cheever, VP of Global Marketing at Amazon
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Of all the questions we ask at CivicScience, the rising value of time over money has been evident in spades during the pandemic. Why? Because we final...
You Are What You Eat. And Wear. And Watch. | Morgan Flatley, Global CMO of McDonald's
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As political tribalism rages across America, supporting brands on social media has gotten more complicated. The brands we align with have to align wit...
It's Politics, Stupid: Why Economic Realities are Drowning Under the Flood of Political Tribalism | Tony Fratto of Hamilton Place Strategies
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Politics used to take a backseat to economics, but at some point that all changed. The average American today is better off financially than they were...
Renewing the American Dream: How Hispanic-Americans Can Save our Fractured Nation | Roberto Ruiz, executive vice president of Research, Insights and Analytics at Univision
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
CivicScience data tell us that Hispanics today are a mind-blowing one-and-a-half times more likely than non-Hispanics to believe they can achieve the ...
Banking, Breadwinning, and the Changing American Household: Part II | Andrea Brimmer, Chief Marketing Officer of Ally Financial
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Research tells us that the way math is taught in elementary schools is better suited for boys, while the majority of high school math and science teac...
Banking, Breadwinning, and the Changing American Household: Part I | Meredith Verdone, Chief Marketing Officer of Bank of America
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
To say the COVID crisis has been harder on women is an egregious understatement. The disproportionate mental, emotional, physical, and financial toll ...
The Future of Work | Bracken Darrell, CEO of Logitech
08 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
By now, everyone knows about how the pandemic sent millions of (former) office workers scrambling to outfit their homes with new tech for the onset of...
Shuffling Playlists: How Music is Reborn (Pt. 2): Matt Mangano, Bassist for the Zac Brown Band
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Live music has been, without a doubt, one of the industries hit hardest by the pandemic. According to the latest CivicScience data, just 37% of Americ...
Shuffling Playlists: How Music is Reborn (Pt. 1): Bob Lefsetz
25 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
CivicScience data show that Americans’ passion for music has been on a steady decline since 2016 — especially among Gen Z. In this episode of The ...
Polling Sucks But We Need It - John Anzalone
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Dumbest Guy in the Room, host John Dick explores the existential crisis facing the polling industry and why it needs to be save...
Mark Cuban: The Next Generation of Sports
11 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Cuban (the smart guy in the room this week) is a legendary entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. In this episode, Mark and CivicScience CEO...
Introduction
24 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to 'The Dumbest Guy in the Room' In Season 1, CivicScience founder and CEO John Dick will interview some of the most gifted visionaries in bus...