The Next Big Idea
Episodes
Want a More Meaningful Life? Embrace Your Limitations.
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In his mega-bestseller “Four Thousand Weeks,” Oliver Burkeman showed that the shortness of life “isn’t a reason for unremitting despair, or fo...
THE WORK OF ART: How Something Comes From Nothing
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Making art is hard work, as Adam Moss, the revered former editor of New York magazine, reveals in his illuminating new book, "The Work of Art." The bo...
ANXIOUS GENERATION (Part 2): How to Raise Resilient Kids in the Digital Age
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this week, Jonathan Haidt joined us to discuss the crisis in youth mental health caused by smartphones and social media. Now he’s back to ta...
ANXIOUS GENERATION (Part 1): What Social Media Is Doing to Our Kids
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s rare these days for a book to go viral, but that’s exactly what happened with “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood ...
Life Is a Game. Here's How to Play It.
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“Life is a game. There’s no way to understand the human world without first understanding this. Everyone alive is playing a game whose hidden rule...
REVENGE OF THE TIPPING POINT: Malcolm Gladwell Revisits the Science of Social Contagion
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty-five years ago, Malcolm Gladwell was not Malcolm Gladwell. Well, sure, ontologically speaking he was, but he would not have registered on the C...
The Future of Storytelling, According to Malcolm Gladwell
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Next week, Malcolm Gladwell will be on the show to discuss his new book "Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of So...
NEXUS (Part 2): Yuval Noah Harari on How to Safeguard Humanity in the Age of AI
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is AI all bad, or could it be so good that we might one day want to merge with it? This is just one of the questions Rufus poses in part two of his co...
NEXUS (Part 1): Can Democracy Survive the AI Revolution? (with Yuval Noah Harari)
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Yuval Noah Harari published an essay in the New York Times the other day. “Large-scale democracies,” he wrote, “became feasible only after the r...
Can We End Poverty by Just Giving People Cash?
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $2.15 a day, has long been seen as an intractable problem. But what if the solution is simple? What if...
GOING INFINITE: Michael Lewis Wants to Change Your Mind About Sam Bankman-Fried
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In March, when Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX, was sentenced to 25 years behind bars for stealing $8 billion from customers, many peo...
SUPERCONVERGENCE: Biotechnology Is About to Transform the World. Are We Ready?
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sturgeon caviar harvested in a lab. Skyscrapers made out of living materials that grow from the ground up. Computers that run on DNA. These might soun...
ANXIOUS ACHIEVER: How You Can Turn Anxiety Into a Superpower
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What are some words you would use to describe a leader? Bold, driven, steadfast. How about … anxious? You may not equate leadership with anxiety, bu...
ON THE EDGE (Part 2): How to Get Ahead by Thinking Probabilistically
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, Nate Silver explains why most people should take bigger risks, reveals the big thing everyone misunderstands about Sam Bankman-Fried, and makes...
ON THE EDGE (Part 1): Nate Silver on Politics, Poker, and Risk-Taking
12 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You probably know Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, as the statistician with an uncanny knack for predicting election results. What you may...
The Case for Effective Altruism
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Effective altruism — the brand of philanthropy where you try to do the most good for the greatest number of people with the resources you have — h...
Laziness Does Not Exist
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, social psychologist Devon Price makes the intriguing and ultimately hopeful case that laziness is a myth, a lie, a pernicious trap with no othe...
ALCOHOL: The Good, the Bad, and the Bubbly
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Humans have been imbibing for thousands of years. What has drinking contributed to society? What is it doing to our health? Guests: Edward Slingerland...
Living for Pleasure
22 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over 2,000 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher, made a simple yet bold claim. The key to the good life, he said, is to pursue pleasure and avoid ...
PROBABILITY: How a 250-Year-Old Theorem Still Explains the World
18 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Back in the 1700s, in a spa town outside of London, Thomas Bayes, a Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician, invented a formula that lets you ...
GOOD ENERGY (Part 2): Casey Means on How to Supercharge Your Diet
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So you want to eat healthy. But how do you actually go about doing that? Today, Casey Means — Stanford-trained physician, founder of Levels, and aut...
GOOD ENERGY (Part 1): How to Feel Incredible, Avoid Disease, and Age Well
08 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bad news: 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Their bodies struggle to convert food into the energy their cells need. And this fuel shortage...
BEN FRANKLIN: A Founder's Formula for a Long and Useful Life
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Publisher, scientist, humorist, diplomat — Benjamin Franklin was America's first polymath. Today, with help from Eric Weiner, we revisit Franklin's ...
Bill Gates Says Superhuman AI May Be Closer Than You Think
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Where is AI headed, and how quickly will it get there? Should we be early adopters or keep our distance? Will it make our lives better or put us out o...
FRICTION: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier (with Adam Grant & Bob Sutton)
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, Adam Grant and Bob Sutton, two legends of organizational psychology, discuss Bob’s new book, “The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make ...
INFERNAL MACHINE: Dynamite, Anarchy and the Future of Creativity
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Johnson returns! He's with us today to talk about his new book, "The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Mo...
UNCERTAINTY: The Surprising Power of Being Unsure
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Could embracing uncertainty be the key to thriving in our age of unpredictability? That's the premise of Maggie Jackson's new book, "Uncertain: The Wi...
SAL KHAN: How AI Will Revolutionize the Way We Learn
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
AI is coming for education. According to our guest today, Sal Khan, that's a good thing. Sal is the founder of Khan Academy, which has provided free e...
AFTERLIFE: Sebastian Junger’s Journey to the Edge and Back
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On a June night several years ago, Sebastian Junger, bestselling author of "The Perfect Storm" and co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary "Res...
FUNNER: How Language Evolves and Why It Matters
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You may think the English language is static, solid, set in its ways. But the language of Shakespeare has changed quite a bit since the Bard's day. So...
DEMON OF UNREST: Why the Civil War Matters Today (with Erik Larson)
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Erik Larson is probably the most successful popular historian working today. His books, which include “The Devil in the White City” and “The Spl...
ALGEBRA OF WEALTH: Scott Galloway’s Formula for Financial Success
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Galloway is a podcaster, bestselling author, and professor of marketing at NYU. He's irreverent, cocky, brutally honest, and surprisingly humble...
WHY WE REMEMBER: The New Science of Improving Your Memory
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The only things that are important in life," declared the French filmmaker Jean Renoir, "are the things you remember." But what do we remember and wh...
SLOW PRODUCTIVITY: Can We Get More Done by Doing Less?
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What if doing less is the secret to achieving more? That's the counterintuitive argument at the heart of productivity guru Cal Newport's new book, "Sl...
MAGICAL OVERTHINKING: Why Modern Life Is Making Us More Irrational
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Raise your hand if you've ever belittled a stranger online, made a decision based on astrology, or, heaven forbid, fallen for a conspiracy theory. No?...
Everything Paul Bloom Knows About Psychology
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In “Psych: The Story of the Human Mind,” Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, lays out, in his words, “basically ...
GET THE PICTURE: Why Bother With Art?
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For a long time, Bianca Bosker was not on speaking terms with art. “Going to galleries and museums,” she says on today’s show, “reliably made ...
LOOK AGAIN: How to See Your Life With Fresh Eyes
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you ever feel like your life has become a film loop of the familiar? Maybe you sympathize with the elegiac poet Logan Roy, who said, "Nothing taste...
GENEROSITY: How Simple Acts of Kindness Can Change the World
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lots of things go viral on the internet: dumb memes, cat videos, one-pan meals, and celebrity gossip. Why not kindness? That’s the delightful questi...
BURN BOOK: Kara Swisher Takes on Big Tech
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kara Swisher has been called “pioneering” (the New York Times), “Silicon Valley’s top pundit” (Wired), and “so shrill at this point that o...
SUPERCOMMUNICATORS: How to Connect With Anyone
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
According to Merriam-Webster, the word “conversation” has 36 synonyms, ranging from the alliterative (”confabulation”) to the arcane (”persi...
MIDLIFE: Once a Crisis, Now an Opportunity
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Growing old gets a bad rap, and it's not hard to see why. Your hair thins and your waist thickens. The shot clock ticks down on your career, and you r...
RADICAL CANDOR: Why Compassionate Honesty Is a Gift
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Honesty may be the best policy, but that doesn’t make giving honest feedback any easier. That’s why Kim Scott, a veteran of Google and Apple, wrot...
BLOCKCHAIN: Why Chris Dixon Still Thinks It Matters
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Seventy-two billion dollars. That, according to the Grifter Counter™, is the amount of money that's been swallowed up by crypto and blockchain scams...
BIG BETS: A Practical Guide to Changing the World
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Rajiv Shah was in his late 20s and didn’t know what to do with his life, he got a job at a fledgling nonprofit, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foun...
CLIMATE OPTIMISM: Can We Still Build a Sustainable World?
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago, USA Today ran a story with the headline "It's over: 2023 was Earth's hottest year, experts say." But is it really over? Hannah Ritchi...
FREE WILL: Are We Better Off Without It?
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do we have free will? Do we have a choice in what we do? Philosophers and theologians have debated these questions for centuries; Robert Sapolsky answ...
ATOMIC HABITS: James Clear’s Ultimate Guide to Building Good Habits (and Breaking Bad Ones)
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Forming a new habit is tough. Sticking with it is even tougher. That’s probably why someone buys a copy of James Clear’s 2018 book “Atomic Habit...
THE GOOD LIFE: Lessons From the World's Longest Study of Happiness
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What makes us happy? Researchers at Harvard have been trying to solve that riddle for 85 years. Now, they think they’ve found the answer. Marc Schul...
How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization (2021)
28 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Do we have alcohol to thank for civilization? The answer, according to Edward Slingerland’s new book, “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled ...
Rory Stewart on Politics, Ambition, and Making a Difference
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rory Stewart may be the most interesting person you’ve never heard of. He’s an adventurer, writer, politician, and nonprofit leader. He walked acr...
PSYCHOLOGY OF MONEY: Timeless Lessons from Morgan Housel
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We may live in an ever-evolving world, but some things never change. The power of a good story. The miracle of compound interest. The cold, hard fact ...
EVE: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The female body has been neglected in anthropological narratives, minimized in the archeological record, and excluded from modern-day clinical trials....
THE FAMILY OUTING: Secrets, Memory, and Living Authentically
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This week, journalist and podcaster Jessi Hempel joins us to discuss her recent memoir, “The Family Outing,” which tells the remarkable story of h...
Mastering the Art of Difficult Conversations (with Anna Sale)
23 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A lot of us run away from tough conversations. Anna Sale runs toward them. For nearly a decade, as the host of the podcast “Death, Sex & Money,” s...
ACHIEVEMENT CULTURE: What It’s Doing to Our Kids—and to Us
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It's no secret that we live in a ferociously competitive world. But what is the drive to always be the best doing to our kids? That's what journalist ...
FAILURE: The Science of Learning From Your Mistakes
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Failure is inevitable. How we respond to it makes all the difference. Today, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson joins us to discuss the c...
HOW TO KNOW A PERSON: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply (with David Brooks)
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For the past four years, New York Times columnist and acclaimed author David Brooks has been trying to learn the skills that go into seeing others, un...
HIDDEN POTENTIAL: Adam Grant on the Science of Achieving Greater Things
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We live in a world that worships talent, a world that cheers natural athletes, exalts child prodigies, and venerates virtuosos. But admiring people wh...
FACIAL RECOGNITION: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When tech journalist Kashmir Hill got a tip about a mysterious app, Clearview AI, that claimed it could identify anyone based on just one photo, she w...
Daniel Pink and Brian Lowery Aren’t Sure That You Exist
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Pink is going through an existential crisis. The culprit? A new book by Stanford professor Brian Lowery. --- If you want to attend our November...
Susan Cain on the Power of the Bittersweet (2022)
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever been brought to tears by a TV commercial? Do you relish rainy days? Are your favorite songs sad ones? If you answered yes to any of thes...
HUMAN COMPATIBLE: Can We Control Artificial Intelligence?
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Stuart Russell wrote the book on artificial intelligence. Literally. Today, he sits down with Rufus to discuss the promise — and potential peril —...
UNREASONABLE HOSPITALITY: The Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When he was 26, Will Guidara took the helm of a middling brasserie in New York City called Eleven Madison Park. A decade later, it was named the best ...
ELON MUSK: Walter Isaacson on the World’s Most Polarizing Person
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Two years ago, Walter Isaacson, the legendary biographer who has written books about Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo da V...
CHANGE: How to Excel When Everything Is in Flux
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We go through at least thirty-six major changes in the course of our adulthoods. And yet adapting to those changes is really, really hard. Why is that...
DREAM TOWN: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1950s, Shaker Heights, Ohio, became a national model for housing integration. In the 1970s, it was known as a crown jewel in the national move ...
PERENNIALS: How to Thrive in a Post-Generational Society
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Increasing longevity and the explosion of technology are reshaping the world. What will it mean for your education, your career, and your life? • Ma...
ULTRA-PROCESSED: What Fake Food Is Doing to Our Health
17 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ultra-processed food makes up 60 percent of the American diet. Though to call it food is a stretch. Because it is not, strictly speaking, food at all....
How to Succeed by Quitting (2022)
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away,” cognitive scientist turned professional poker player turned bestselling author Annie Duke says ...
Why the Modern World Puts Us All at Risk for Addiction (2021)
03 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” Dr. Anna Lembke says today’s superabundance of pleasurable stimuli makes us all ...
WORK: Henry David Thoreau on Making a Meaningful Living
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Henry David Thoreau was a philosopher, poet, and pencil-maker. He was a great resigner and, above all, a superb writer whose masterpiece, "Walden," is...
RISE AND SHINE: How to Have the Perfect Morning
20 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Research has shown that how you spend your morning can have a significant impact on the rest of your day. If you start off feeling anxious and frazzle...
Artificial Intelligence Meets Virtual Worlds: The Future of Sentience
13 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The two hottest topics in tech right now are the rise of generative AI and, with Apple’s recent push into spatial computing, the mainstreaming of au...
You Should Have More Fun This Summer. Here’s Why.
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Are we all so busy doom-scrolling and binge-watching that we’ve forgotten how to have fun? Real fun. Tingly-all-over, natural-high, I-hope-this-neve...
PARKING: How It Explains the World
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, urban planners have blanketed our cities with the cheap and convenient car storage known as parking. They've swapped sidewalks for strip ...
OUTLIVE (Part 2): How to Optimize Your Diet, Sleep, and Emotional Health
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Peter Attia, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller "Outlive," is back to share cutting-edge tips for improving your sleep, nutrition, and emo...
OUTLIVE (Part 1): Peter Attia’s Guide to the Science of Longevity
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Attia had a problem. It was 2006. He'd recently graduated from Stanford's medical school and was completing a prestigious surgical residency at ...
THE WAGER: David Grann Tells a Tale of Shipwreck and Mutiny
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Grann is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the acclaimed author of "The Lost City of Z" and "Killers of the Flower Moon." In his new book, th...
THE REAL WORK: Adam Gopnik on the Mystery of Mastery
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A few years ago, Adam Gopnik, a longtime writer for The New Yorker and three-time winner of the National Magazine Award, started thinking about all th...
JOY OF MOVEMENT: How Exercise Can Help You Find Happiness and Connection
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Pay a visit to your local gym, observe the grimacing patrons as they pound the treadmill or march in place on the StairMaster, and you might conclude ...
BREAKTHROUGH: How to Get Unstuck and Achieve Anything
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"To be alive is to battle stuckness." So declares NYU professor Adam Alter in his new book, "Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Mat...
EXCELLENT ADVICE: Life Lessons From Wired Co-Founder Kevin Kelly
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Kelly has made a career out of looking to the future. He helped pioneer online social networking all the way back in the 1980s, and he co-founde...
SELFLESS: Why “You” Are a Social Creation
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
You are not autonomous. You are not an island unto yourself. You, my friend, are a social construct. The “self” you haul around — that yammering...
The Next Big Idea Club Presents — "Immortality: A User's Guide"
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if you could live forever? Okay, maybe not forever, but for a long, long time — like to 150. First of all, is that even possible? And second, w...
Steven Johnson & Michael Specter on the Future of Life
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, longtime New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter released a brand new audiobook with our friends at Pushkin. It’s called “Higher Anima...
You Need a Bedtime (from The Next Big Idea Daily)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if we told you that every day, in just a few minutes, you could get a master class in better, smarter living from the world's best writers? Sound...
SENSES: Gretchen Rubin’s Guide to Getting Out of Your Head and Into the World
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What do your five senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch — have to do with happiness? According to Gretchen Rubin, a great deal. The wor...
PSYCH: The Story of the Human Mind
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In his expansive new book, "Psych: The Story of the Human Mind," Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, lays out, in his ...
PREPPY: The Surprising Origins of American Style
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How did Oxford shirts, cashmere sweaters, and chinos become staples of American fashion? How did a style born on Ivy League campuses make its way into...
SUCCESSION: The True Story Behind the Hit Show
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
So "Succession" is back. The Emmy Award-winning series returned to HBO for its fourth and final season last Sunday. The show, if you haven't seen it, ...
ABOLISH POVERTY: Matthew Desmond on How We Can Do It
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
RUFUS GRISCOM: Could you share with us your broader mission and how your new book, “Poverty, by America,” supports that mission? MATTHEW DESMOND: ...
READING: Are We Forgetting How To Do It?
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Maryanne Wolf is a professor at UCLA and the renowned author of "Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain" and "Reader, Come H...
David Chalmers Thinks We May Be Living in a Simulation (and He’s OK With It)
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, Rufus sat down with philosopher David Chalmers to talk about the allure of virtual reality, whether robots will ever achieve consciousness,...
Is AI Moving Too Fast? A Conversation With Kevin Roose
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Kevin Roose, a tech columnist at the New York Times, demoed an AI-powered version of Microsoft's search engine last month, he was blown away. "I'...
LIFE IS SHORT: The Upside of Death
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Life without death, says philosopher Dean Rickles, is like playing tennis without a net. In his new book, “Life Is Short: An Appropriately Brief Gui...
MUSIC: What the Songs You Love Say About You
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Susan Rogers, a record producer turned cognitive neuroscientist, and Daniel Levitin, author of “This Is Your Brain on Music...
AI: The Origin Story
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine a world where AI is everywhere — where self-driving cars roam the streets and chatbots can do your homework. Oh, wait. That world already ex...
Not Finished Is Not Failure (from The Next Big Idea Daily)
06 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Doing is more important than being done. That’s the provocative argument at the heart of a new book by artist and entrepreneur Becky Blades, “Star...
CELLS: Siddhartha Mukherjee on the Breakthroughs That Are Revolutionizing Medicine
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Siddhartha Mukherjee is an oncologist, professor, researcher, and biotech entrepreneur. He’s also a writer, and a fine one at that. His first book, ...